One must go to Shakespeare's Sonnets for poetry as false as this. Among writers with the true poetic feeling, such as Byron truly had, I know not the like of this except these. Of these twelve lines only the first two of the last stanza are true, are felt; the rest are made. How are we, not Arabs but English-talking folk, to know the springs which in deserts found seem (do they?) sweet, brackish though they be? And Byron was a poet! But even a Byron cannot make a shivered sail or a coldness of a soul which is mortal, or a chill that freezes over a fountain of tears anything but mere verbiage, and verbiage moreover which instead of the intended sadness is dangerously nigh raising laughter.…
26. Again, take Longfellow's "Hymn to Night:"—
"I heard the trailing garments of the night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls.
········
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air,
My spirit drank repose."
For the like of this one can no longer go even to Shakespeare's Sonnets. For Shakespeare was still a poet. One must now go to Mrs. Deland, who is not even that. For observe:
