'Like the lightning of a hope about to DIE
For ever from the furrow'd brows of Hell's Eternity.'

Dante's smile may rather be compared to the RISING of a false and self-
detected hope upon the lost brows where it is never to come to dawn, and
where, nevertheless, it remains for ever, like a smile carved upon
a sepulchre. Dunbar has a more joyous disposition than his Italian
prototype and master, and he indulges himself to the top of his bent,
but in a style (particularly in his 'Twa Married Women and the Widow,'
and in 'The Friars of Berwick,' which is not, however, quite certainly
his) too coarse and prurient for the taste of this age.

'The Merle and the Nightingale' is one of the finest of Moelibean poems.
Beautiful is the contest between the two sweet singers as to whether the
love of man or the love of God be the nobler, and more beautiful still
their reconciliation, when

'Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,
The Merle sang, "Man, love God that has thee wrought."
The Nightingale sang, "Man, love the Lord most dear,
That thee and all this world made of nought."
The Merle said, "Love him that thy love has sought
From heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone."
The Nightingale sang. "And with his death thee bought:
All love is lost, but upon him alone."

_'Then flew these birds over the boughis sheen,
Singing of love among the leaves small.'_