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 horizon the likeness of a blood-red sword let fall from the hand of a god after some battle with a giant of equal stature.

For all this, notwithstanding, the watchword of the poem is hope, and not despair. "All this horror has hope in it; the ice-cold morning chills the sky-line as with fear; at times the day begins with such a shudder that the rising sun seems a masked attack.—The coming wave of the unknown has but a dull and livid transparence, into which the light comes but by degrees; what it shows us, seems to float and drift in folds immeasurable. The expansion of form and number appals us, and it is horrible to see to-day in the darkness what ought only to be seen to-morrow." By the parable of the robin's nest found in the hollow of the brazen mouth of the Waterloo lion, we are bidden see and hear the future in the womb of the present, hope in the jaws of despair, the song of peace in the very throat of war. Thus it is but natural that the poet should hearken rather to the higher voice than to the voice of expediency, to the counsellor whose name is Reason, whose forename is Interest; to the friendly admonition which reminds him that truth which is over true is all but falsehood; that in seeking the ideal you find the visionary, and become a dreamer through being too much a thinker; that the wise man does not wish to be unjust, but fears on the other hand to be too just, and seeks a middle course between falsehood, which is the first danger, and truth, which is the second; that Right in the rough is merely the ore from which in its crude state we have to extract the pure gold of Law; that too much light is as sure to blind you