Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/209

Rh finest sensibilities indicates, first, that the music of speech is more advanced, because more subtly varying, than that of song; or, secondly, that a more advanced music, such as the German and French melodists now wed to words, is required for the interpretation of the most poetic and qualitative lyric. A profound philosophy of sound and speech is here involved,—not yet fully understood, and into which we need not enter.

But you know that rare poetic types, whether of the chiselled classic verse, or of the song its subtile quality. and lyric, have a grace that is intangible. There is a rare bit of nature in "The Reapers" of Theocritus. Battus compares the feet of his mistress to carven ivory, her voice is drowsy sweet, "but her air,"—he says,—"I cannot express it!" And thus the gems of Greek and Latin verse, the cameos of Landor and Hunt and Gautier, the English songs from Shakespeare to Procter and Tennyson and Stoddard, the love-songs of Goethe and his successors, the ethereal witching lyrics of Shelley and Swinburne and Robert Bridges,—all these have one impalpable attribute, light as thistle-down, potent as the breath of a spirit, a divine gift unattainable by will or study, and this is, in one word, Charm. Charis, Grace herself, bestows Charm. it, blending perfect though inexplicable beauty of thought with perfect though often suggested beauty of feeling. To these her airy sprites minister with melody and fragrance, with unexpectedness and