Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/154

 visible possible by means of accurate detail, and by his power of definite sight which compels our eyes to follow his. This is the gift that the work of all true visionary poets has possessed, both that of the greater and of the less —from Dante's Divine Comedy to Henry Vaughan's

All these poets, whether mystic or not, when they describe Nature are capable of minutest natural detail. As for Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, it is impossible to quote from them, because almost each one of their pages is rich in passages that, were they not the work of poets, might well have been written by naturalists: lines about the note and flight of birds—the flowers, the stars and the seasons—about landscapes in sun and in shower. They have loved too much to be vague; they have had what an artist once called ' the passion to possess the earth'.

It is impossible to find bad poets of sufficient standing to contrast with these, since vagueness remains the characteristic of insignificant pens, in descriptions of Nature as of all else. They love to deal in large generalities needing no particular knowledge—they feel safe with the sunset and the sunrise. The spring makes them revel in a kind of slush of sentiment which can retain no solid footprints. They like remote shores and ruins and peasants kneeling at the vesper-bell. Their heroines weep beneath tamarind trees, or sit and brood in the shade of banyans; and Byron's Caïque, which bore anybody anywhere, had a great deal to answer for. Mrs. Hemans is among the best, and here is one of her detailed descriptions, an Evening among the Alps:

Soft skies of Italy! how richly drest, Smile these wild scenes in your purpureal glow! What glorious hues, reflected from the west, Float o'er the dwellings of eternal snow!