Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?"

All the gravity, all the sweetness, one might fear, must be lost in
such a change as Pope makes -

"What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?"

Yet they are not lost. Pope's awe and ardour are authentic, and
they prevail; the succeeding couplet--inimitably modulated, and of
tragic dignity--proves, without delay, the quality of the poem.
The poverty and coldness of the passage (towards the end), in which
the roses and the angels are somewhat trivially sung, cannot mar so
veritable an utterance. The four final couplets are the very glory
of the English couplet.


LINE ON RECEIVING HIS MOTHER'S PICTURE


Cowper, again, by the very directness of human feeling makes his
narrowing English a means of absolutely direct communication. Of
all his works (and this is my own mere and unshared opinion) this
single one deserves immortality.


LIFE


This fragment (the only fragment, properly so called, in the