had the power above most poets of acting as a kind of tongue to Nature.
His descriptions are on everybody's lips, and it is superfluous to quote
them. He represented things not as if they were aloof from him, but as
if they were the concrete embodiment of his soul. The woods, the wilds,
the waters of Nature are to him -


"the intense
Reply of HERS to our intelligence."


His success is equally marked when he portrays men or women whose
character attracts him. Take, for example, the girl in "The Island":-


"The sunborn blood suffused her neck, and threw
O'er her clear nutbrown skin a lucid hue,
Like coral reddening through the darken'd wave,
Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.
Such was this daughter of the southern seas,
HERSELF A BILLOW IN HER ENERGIES.

* * * * *

Her smiles and tears had pass'd, as light winds pass
O'er lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass,
WHOSE DEPTHS UNSEARCH'D, AND FOUNTAINS FROM THE HILL,
RESTORE THEIR SURFACE, IN ITSELF SO STILL."