And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly
admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very
effective. Nothing can be better than --

------------- the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Down the corridors of Time.

The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the
whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance _of
its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments, and
especially for the _ease _of the general manner. This "ease" or
naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard
as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult attainment.
But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never
meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the
understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone, _in composition,
should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt--and must
perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the
fashion of "The North American Review," should be upon _all _occasions
merely "quiet," must necessarily upon _many _occasions be simply silly, or
stupid; and has no more right to be considered "easy" or "natural" than a
Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.