Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/294

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How fast has brother followed brother

From sunshine to the sunless land!"

include also his elevated religious and patriotic moods, and we have Wordsworth's none too frequent episodes of intense expression.

All passion obtains relief by rhythmic utterance The quality of Feeling. in music or speech; it is soothed like Saul in his frenzy by the minstrel harp of David: But the emotion which most usually gives life to poetry is not that of fits of passion, but, as in the verses just quoted, of the universal moods embraced in the word "feeling." Out of natural feeling, one touch of which "makes the whole world kin," come the lyrics and popular verse of all nations; it is the fountain of spontaneous song. Take the poetry of this class from Southern literatures, such as the Italian and Spanish, and you leave only their masterpieces. At first thought, it seems more passionate than our own, and certainly it is more sonorous. But Anglo-Saxon words are deep and strong, although there is a good deal of insularity in the song from "The Princess":—

If this be so, they should wed indissolubly, for each Voices of the heart. must be the other's complement. Scottish verse is full of sentiment, often with the added force of pathos. For pure feeling we all