"All her thoughts as fair within her eyes,
As bottom agates seen to wave and float
In crystal currents of clear morning seas."


The lyric, "Tears, idle tears," is far beyond praise: once read it
seems like a thing that has always existed in the world of poetic
archetypes, and has now been not so much composed as discovered and
revealed. The many pictures and similitudes in The Princess have a
magical gorgeousness:-


"From the illumined hall
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,
And rainbow robes, and gems and gem-like eyes,
And gold and golden heads; they to and fro
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale."


The "small sweet Idyll" from


"A volume of the poets of her land"


pure Theocritus. It has been admirably rendered into Greek by Mr
Gilbert Murray. The exquisite beauties of style are not less