In the dear bower of delight
My husband slept in joy;
His shield and spear
Suspended near,
Secure he slept: that sailor band
Full sure he deem'd no more should stand
Beneath the walls of Troy.
And I too, by the taper's light,
Which in the golden mirror's haze
Flash'd its interminable rays,
Bound up the tresses of my hair,
That I Love's peaceful sleep might share.
I slept; but, hark! that war-shout dread,
Which rolling through the city spread;
And this the cry,--"When, Sons of Greece,
When shall the lingering leaguer cease;
When will ye spoil Troy's watch-tower high,
And home return?"--I heard the cry,
And, starting from the genial bed,
Veiled, as a Doric maid, I fled,
And knelt, Diana, at thy holy fane,
A trembling suppliant--all in vain.]
JULY 3. 1833.
STYLE.--CAVALIER SLANG.--JUNTOS.--PROSE AND VERSE.--IMITATION AND COPY.
The collocation of words is so artificial in Shakspeare and Milton, that
you may as well think of pushing a[1] brick out of a wall with your
forefinger, as attempt to remove a word out of any of their finished
passages.[2]
A good lecture upon style might he composed, by taking on the one hand the
slang of L'Estrange, and perhaps, even of Roger North,[3] which became so
fashionable after the Restoration as a mark of loyalty; and on the other,
the Johnsonian magniloquence or the balanced metre of Junius; and then
showing how each extreme is faulty, upon different grounds.
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