and everywhere in Homer:—
"A thousand fires burned in the plain, and by the side of each sate fifty in the gleam of blazing fire."
"A deep sleep fell upon his eyelids, a sound sleep, very sweet, and most akin to death."
All genuine epics and ballads are charged with it, as in "The Children in the Wood:"—
"No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin-redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves."
In the heroic vein, Arnold's "Sohrab and Rustum" has a primitive directness:—
"So said he, and his voice released the heart
Of Rustum; and his tears broke forth; he cast
His arms around his son's neck, and wept aloud,
And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts
When they saw Rustum's grief."
The finest touch in Lady Barnard's ballad is the simplest,—that of the line,
"For auld Robin Gray is kind unto me."
But I need not multiply such examples of the beauty of direct statement of unsophisticated truth. It is too rare a grace among the analytic and decorative poets.
When we come to the reflective poetry of nature, the broad effects of Wordsworth and Bryant are
