Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/110

90 Heard not the night wind's rush, Heard not an earthly sound, Saw but the fairy pageant, Heard but the heavenly strains That filled the lonely dwelling—

and thus described—

The Fairy's frame was slight; yon fibrous cloud That catches but the faintest tinge of even, And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight's shadow, Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn,

In these exquisite lines the Faculty of mere Comparison is but little exercised—that of Ideality in a wonderful degree. It is probable that in a similar case the poet we are now reviewing would have formed the face of the Fairy of the "fibrous cloud," her arms of the "pale tinge of even," her eyes of the "fair stars," and her body of the "twilight shadow." Having so done, his admirers would have congratulated him upon his imagination, not taking the trouble to think that they themselves could at any moment imagine a Fairy of materials equally as good, and conveying an equally distinct idea. Their mistake would be precisely analogous to that of many a schoolboy who admires the imagination displayed in "Jack the Giant-Killer," and is finally rejoiced at discovering his own imagination to surpass that of the author, since the monsters destroyed by Jack are only about forty feet in height, and he himself has no trouble in imagining some of one hundred and forty. It will be