gallop as of horses who

'dance as 'twere to the music
Their own hoofs make.'

I would not seem over curious in search of an apt or inapt quotation:
but nothing can be fitter than a verse of Shakespeare's to praise at
once and to describe the most typical verse of Aristophanes.




_THE BIRDS._

(685-723.)


Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the leaves'
generations,
That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and
shadowlike nations,
Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of creatures
fast fleeing,
Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date of
our being:
Us, children of heaven, us, ageless for aye, us, all of whose thoughts
are eternal;
That ye may from henceforth, having heard of us all things aright as to
matters supernal,
Of the being of birds and beginning of gods, and of streams, and the