Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/167

Rh gusto of Burns in the verse-epistles. The lines in which he describes how poetry

"doth tell me where to borrow                       Comfort in the midst of sorrow,                        Makes the desolatest place                        To her presence be a grace:                         .     .     .       .                        By the murmur of a spring,                         Or a least bough's rusteling,                         .     .     .       .                        She could more infuse in me                         Than all nature's beauties can                         In some other wiser man,"

are quite in the spirit of Burns's

"The Muse! nae poet ever fand her                   Till by himself he learned to wander                    Adown some trotting burn's meander,                           And no' think lang,"

and many another passage where the Scotch poet's joie de vivre is most pure and delightful. Wither's Fair Virtue is an extraordinary rhapsody, but the strangest thing about it is the skill with which the clear high note is sustained without wearying or growing wearied. The Fidelia belongs to an artificial kind, and is far too long, but even in it there are balanced, pointed lines, which were certainly known to Pope when he wrote Eloisa to Abelard—

"Banish those thoughts and turn thee to my heart!        Come once again and be what once thou wert!         Revive me by those wonted joys repairing         That am nigh dead with sorrow and despairing!         So shall the memory of this annoy         But add more sweetness to my future joy!"