Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/122

102 Take the wings Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon.

But these are trivial faults indeed and the poem embodies a great degree of the most elevated beauty. Two of its passages, passages of the purest ideality, would alone render it worthy of the general commendation it has received.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join

Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

"Oh, fairest of the Rural Maids!" is a gem, of which we cannot sufficiently express our admiration. We quote in full. 

Thy sports, thy wanderings when a child Were ever in the sylvan wild;