Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/214

184, of Villon's "Ballade of Dead Ladies"—"Where The ecstasy of pathos. are the snows of yester-year?" And are any lyrics more captivating than our English dirges,—the song dirges of the dramatists: "Come away, come away, Death," "Call for the robin redbreast and the wren," "Full fathom five thy father lies," and the like? Collins' "Dirge for Fidele," a mere piece of studied art, acquires its beauty from a flawless treatment of the master-theme. Add to such art the force of a profound emotion, and you have Wordsworth in his more impassioned lyrical strains: "She dwelt among the untrodden ways," "A slumber did my spirit steal [sic];" and the stanzas on Ettrick's "poet dead." Lander's "Rose Aylmer" owes its spell to a consummate union of nature and art in recognition of the unavailability of all that is rarest and most lustrous:—

—Of memories and of sighs, yet not of pain, for such vigils have a rapture of their own. The perished have at least the gift of immortal love, remembrance, tears; and at our festivals the unseen guests are most apparent. Thus the tuneful plaint of sorrow, the tears "wild with all regret," the touch that