Or again, it acts by so carrying on the eye of the reader as to make him
almost lose the consciousness of words,--to make him see every thing
flashed, as Wordsworth has grandly and appropriately said,-


_Flashed_ upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude;-


and this without exciting any painful or laborious attention, without
any anatomy of description, (a fault not uncommon in descriptive
poetry)-but with the sweetness and easy movement of nature. This energy
is an absolute essential of poetry, and of itself would constitute a
poet, though not one of the highest class;--it is, however, a most
hopeful symptom, and the Venus and Adonis is one continued specimen of
it.

In this beautiful poem there is an endless activity of thought in all
the possible associations of thought with thought, thought with feeling,
or with words, of feelings with feelings, and of words with words.


Even as the sun, with purple-colour'd face,
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase:
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him.