Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/105

Rh Fancy or the powers of combination. A thousand such lines may be composed without exercising in the least degree the Poetic Sentiment, which is Ideality, Imagination, or the creative ability. And, as we have before said, the greater portion of the "Culprit Fay" is occupied with these, or similar things, and upon such, depends very nearly, if not altogether, its reputation. We select another example from page 25.

But oh! how fair the shape that lay Beneath a rainbow bending bright, She seem'd to the entranced Fay The loveliest of the forms of light; Her mantle was the purple rolled At twilight in the west afar; 'Twas tied with threads of dawning gold. And button'd with a sparkling star. Her face was like the lily roon That veils the vestal planet's hue; Her eyes, two beamlets from the moon Set floating in the welkin blue. Her hair is like the sunny beam, And the diamond gems which round it gleam Are the pure drops of dewy even, That ne'er have left their native heaven.

Here again the faculty of Comparison is alone exercised, and no mind possessing the faculty in any ordinary degree would find a difficulty in substituting for the materials employed by the poet other materials equally as good. But viewed as mere efforts of the Fancy and without reference to Ideality, the lines just quoted are much worse than those which were taken from page 20. A congruity was observed in the accoutrements of the Ouphe, and we had no trouble in forming a distinct conception of his appearance when so accoutred. But the most vivid powers of Comparison can attach no definite idea to even "the loveliest form of light," when habited in a mantle of "rolled