tum is a somewhat deliberate imitation of Homeric narrative; and however far short of its model it may fall in point of spontaneity, it must be granted that it possesses no small degree of classical beauty. The passages in this poem which move one most and cling to the memory longest are not the crises of the action, the duel of the heroes or the dramatic scene of recognition, for Arnold's temperament was not such as to be really awakened by these things; but the occasional pictures of quiet beauty occurring, often in similes, throughout the poem, and especially exemplified by the landscape at the close:

But the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon; - he flow'd
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,
Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles -
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had,
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foil'd circuitous wanderer - till at last
The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

These lines with their exquisite and appropriate movement suffer no disturbance to their form from the feeling which they convey, yet to the poet, as to the sympathic reader, one is sure that they brought a quickening of the pulse that indicated a more intense realization of his creation than the clash of arms in the formal climax of the action.

So much for intensity in poetry of the classical type. We have examined enough to assure us that here, though less readily and less palpably than in romantic poetry, it reaches the point of producing the fine ecstasy according as it possesses intensity. These illustrations have not been drawn from the neo-classic period; but the passage on Atticus already quoted from Pope will serve to remind us that in him also intensity was by no means lacking. In fact intensity, especially in the satire of Pope, is more common than poetry, because of a scarcity of certain qualities which has been already remarked; for spite, however intense, will hardly give us poetry if it is accompanied merely by brilliant technical skill. Yet the Augustans sometimes put soul into their very technic: clearness and polish were themselves in some sort an ideal, and they, like stylists in other days, contended " for the shade of a word" with a zeal which went far to lift from them the reproach of being mere laborers with the file. No one has appreciated what they accomplished in this way better than Mr. Austin Dobson, and this part of the discussion may well close with some lines from his Dialogue to the Memory of Mr. Alexander Pope, which themselves exemplify what they praise:

Suppose you say your Worst of Pope, declare
His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre,
His Art but Artifice - I ask once more
Where have you seen such Artifice before?
Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd,
Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste?
Where can you show, among your Names of Note,
So much to copy and so much to quote?
And where, in fine, in all our English Verse,
A Style more trenchant and a Sense more terse?

So I, that love the old Augustan Days
Of formal Courtesies and formal Phrase;
That like along the finish'd Line to feel
The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel;
That like my Couplet as compact as clear;
That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe,
Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by Trope,
I fling my Cap for Polish - and for Pope!

Here the modern imitator rises from parody to poetry - because his theme mattered to him so much.

IV

In the domain of realistic poetry we might again illustrate the presence of intensity by the examples of successful realism quoted in a previous chapter. Others are easily called to mind. In the field of satire, which I have just touched, one can see that the intensity of antipathy often serves to raise what would otherwise be a prosaic expression of dislike or disgust to a point where the warmth becomes contagious, and the reader also is fired by indignation. In descriptive poetry, the intensity seems to spring from the incisiveness and profundity of the impression made on the poet's senses; and, on the reader's side, to depend on the transference to him, through vivid expression, of an image characterized by the same qualities. Note these two stanzas from Wordsworth:

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops; - on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist; that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

With the exception of one line these stanzas are a series of almost literal observations of natural phenomena. They combine to give a general impression of the atmosphere of freshness and clarity on a bright morning after rain; but this general impression also is the outcome of faithful observation. Yet the passage is far from a mere list: it moves us as no mere list of facts could possibly do, because it contains, in addition to its literal truth, the element of intensity.

A different aspect of nature is no less vividly presented to us in the opening lines of The Eve of St. Agnes:

St. Agnes' Eve - Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold :
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith.
The attack upon our senses in these lines is
so violent that it is hard to read them without