Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/50

 "Her feet beneath her petticoat Like little mice stole in and out."

Cowley begins his Hymn to Night,—

"First-born of chaos, who so fair didst come From the old negro's darksome womb,"

and we have to deny poetic freedom to this aboriginal contraband.

How charmingly, however, did the poor woman reply to the gentleman who found her watering her webs of linen cloth. She could not tell him even the text of the last sermon. "And what good can the preaching do you, if you forget it all?" "Ah, sir, if you will look at this web on the grass, you will see that as fast as ever I put the water on it the sun dries it all up, and yet, sir, I see it gets whiter and whiter." This is pure wit from the well of imagination, and the smile is as deep in it as truth.

It would be hazardous to liken a poet to a spider, we might think; but when Mr. Browning undertakes it, this dodger of brooms spins a web all dripping with the splendor of fancy. Mr. Browning speaks of young Sordello, the poet, as he dreams in the old castle and connects the events around him by absorbing surmises of his own:—

"Thus thrall reached thrall; He o'erfestooning every interval, As the adventurous spider, making light Of distance, sports her threads from depth to height, From barbican to battlement; so flung Fantasies forth and in their centre swung Our architect,—the breezy morning fresh Above, and merry,—all his waving mesh