The
      versification although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the
      fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is
      the thesis of the poem. Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received from
      the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:—

     Though the day of my destiny’s over,
         And the star of my fate bath declined
     Thy soft heart refused to discover
         The faults which so many could find;
     Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
         It shrunk not to share it with me,
     And the love which my spirit bath painted
         It never bath found but in _thee._
     Then when nature around me is smiling,
         The last smile which answers to mine,
     I do not believe it beguiling,
         Because it reminds me of shine;
     And when winds are at war with the ocean,
         As the breasts I believed in with me,
     If their billows excite an emotion,
         It is that they bear me from _thee._
     Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
         And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
     Though I feel that my soul is delivered
         To pain—it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me:
         They may crush, but they shall not contemn—
     They may torture, but shall not subdue me—
         ’Tis of _thee _that I think—not of them. Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
         Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
     Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
         Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,—
     Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
         Though parted, it was not to fly,
     Though watchful, ’twas not to defame me,
         Nor mute, that the world might belie. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
         Nor the war of the many with one—
     If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
         ’Twas folly not sooner to shun:
     And if dearly that error bath cost me,
         And more than I once could foresee,
     I have found that whatever it lost me,
         It could not deprive me of _thee._
     From the wreck of the past, which bath perished,
         Thus much I at least may recall,
     It bath taught me that which I most cherished
         Deserved to be dearest of all:
     In the desert a fountain is springing,
         In the wide waste there still is a tree,
     And a bird in the solitude singing,
        Which speaks to my spirit of _thee._

      Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification
      could scarcely be improved. No nobler _theme _ever engaged the pen of
      poet. It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself
      entitled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still retains the
      unwavering love of woman. From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the
      noblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a very
      brief specimen. I call him, and _think _him the noblest of poets, _not
      _because the impressions he produces are at _all _times the most
      profound—_not _because the poetical excitement which he induces
      is at _all _times the most intense—but because it is at all
      times the most ethereal—in other words, the most elevating and most
      pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read
      is from his last long poem, “The Princess”:—

         Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
     Tears from the depth of some divine despair
     Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
     In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
     And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
     That brings our friends up from the underworld,
     Sad as the last which reddens over one
     That sinks with all we love below the verge;
     So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
     The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
     To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
     The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
     So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
     And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
     On lips that are for others; deep as love,
     Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
     O Death in Life, the days that are no more. Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored
      to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my
      purpose to suggest that, while this principle itself is strictly and
      simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the
      Principle is always found in _an elevating excitement of the soul, _quite
      independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart, or of
      that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For in regard to
      passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary—Love—the true, the divine Eros—the
      Uranian as distinguished from the Diona an Venus—is unquestionably
      the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth, if,
      to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a
      harmony where none was apparent before, we experience at once the true
      poetical effect; but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and
      not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the
      harmony manifest. We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what
      the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements
      which induce in the Poet himself the poetical effect He recognizes the
      ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that shine in Heaven—in
      the volutes of the flower—in the clustering of low shrubberies—in
      the waving of the grain-fields—in the slanting of tall eastern trees—in
      the blue distance of mountains—in the grouping of clouds—in
      the twinkling of half-hidden brooks—in the gleaming of silver rivers—in
      the repose of sequestered lakes—in the star-mirroring depths of
      lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds—in the harp of
      Bolos—in the sighing of the night-wind—in the repining voice
      of the forest—in the surf that complains to the shore—in the
      fresh breath of the woods—in the scent of the violet—in the
      voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth—in the suggestive odour that
      comes to him at eventide from far distant undiscovered islands, over dim
      oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts—in
      all unworldly motives—in all holy impulses—in all chivalrous,
      generous, and self-sacrificing deeds.