Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/72

52 Then follows an extract from Ward's Worth of Beauty with characteristic comment:

"Can we venture to present our readers with a specimen?

Now roses blush, and violets' eyes, And seas reflect the glance of skies; And now that frolic pencil streaks With quaintest tints the tulips' cheeks; Now jewels bloom in secret worth Like blossoms of the inner earth; Now painted birds are pouring round The beauty and the wealth of sound; Now sea-shells glance with quivering ray, Too rare to seize, too fleet to stay, And hues outdazzling all the rest Are dashed profusely on the west, While rainbows seem to palettes changed, Whereon the motley tints are ranged. But soft the moon that pencil tipped, As though, in liquid radiance dipped, A likeness of the sun it drew, But flattered him with pearlier hue; Which haply spilling runs astray, And blots with light the milky way; While stars besprinkle all the air Like spatterings of that pencil there.

"All this by the way of exalting the subject. The moon is made a painter and the rainbow a palette. And the moon has a pencil (that pencil!) which she dips, by way of a brush, in the liquid radiance, (the colors on a palette are not liquid,) and then draws (not paints) a likeness of the sun; but, in the attempt, plasters him too 'pearly,' puts it on too thick; the consequence of which is that some of the paint is spilt, and 'runs astray' and besmears the milky way, and 'spatters' the rest of the sky with stars! We can only say that a very singular picture was spoilt in the making."