The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1896-04-30
LITERARY SELECTIONS,
SOME "GEMS OF PUREST RAY SERENE"
CULLED
From Various Sources-Aids to Whole
some Reading as Given In DR.. Kings
bury's "Sunday ReflectiOns"-
Quotations From Different Authors
With Running Comments.
Wilmington MeSSenger.l

w -" ~VsathS"ASs
Wilmington Messenger.
Many poets of our time have written
very felicitOus lines and coined many
phrases that richly deserve Immortality.
Pope in the last century wrote more
verses that are quoted than any writer
since Shakespeare. but there is really
but little poetry in then. if much phil
osophy. Pope runs over with popular
sayings. He abouuds in lines or coup
lets like the following:
GOOD nature and good sense must join"
For fools rush in where angels fear to
tread
"A mighty maze, but witOut a plan"
Eye natures walks, shoot folly as it
hies.'
Hope springs eternal in the human
Zone truth is clear, whatever is. is right.
"Vice is a monster of so frightful mein,
AS, to be hated, needs but to be seen."
80 ''Whater is best administered is best
I'm faith and hope, the world will disa.
But ali mankinds concern is charity"
You can find such lines by the score
all through his works. Right OF wrong
the sentiment strikes, and is quotable,
but it is not poetry. In contrass we
could give thousond lines from Shakes
peare to show his wisdom, his splen-
did imaginings, his marvellous capacity
for expression, but we forbear, as it
would lead us too far away. Let us
now turn to Milton, after Shakespeare,
the greatest Of all poets in English.
He is a very great genius, much talked
of, but not much read. We are glad
that in boyhood we learned to love
Milton, and thanks to sensible teachers
were never repelled from him by being
made to learn to parse by using the
Sublimest of all poems, 'Paradise
Lost" Let us string together few
specimens of this most admirable and
noble genius whose minor poems, as
his more elaborate work, are the glo-
ries of our tongue:
Grinned horrible CHASTITY smile, to hear
His famine should be filled"
"Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her
In every gesture dignity and love-"
"Now came still evening Oh. and twilight
grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad"
"Warble his native wOod-notes Wild.
"Lap me in soft Lydian airs
Married to immortal verse;.
And Laughter holding both his Sides
"Of linked sweetness long drawn out"
"And storied windows rightly digit,
Casting dim religious light
"Flames In the forehead of the morning
sky"
"Did a sable cloud,
Turn forth her silver lining on the light"
But why go on multiplying gems
gathered from the rich, inexhaustible
Miltonian mine?
Shelley, a superb poet, one of the
five or six foremost of England, wrote
many lines ofrare beauty, highly poetic
inspiration and of perfect form. Take
such as these:
Like a glowworm golden
In dell of dew"
soft and purple mist,
Like vapOrOuS amethyst
"How wonderful is death!
Death and his brother sleep!"
We have not his poems by US, and
quoting the following from memory we
are not sure of its correctness. It is
a description of Night and it is Of flaw
less beauty and perfection:
"How beautiful is night!
Heavens ebOn vault studded with stars
Unalterably bright, seems like a canopy
Which love had spread to curtain sleep
ing world"
1t has been so long since we read
them we forget the arrangement even
OF lines. 1t may be unutterably bright
and not as given. But you have at
any rate that exquisite picture in the
words-''seems like canopy which
love had spread to curtain a sleeping
world" There is nothing more beau
tiful than that. Spencer description
of the firmanent-"Heaven wide
hollowness''-is wonderfully happy
and expressive. Keats, a poet OF
singular inspiration and promise, who
died at twenty-five, wrote much that
was very beautiful and delicate. We
give but one line:
IA thing Of beauty is Joy forever"
not having by US his works. We
could give hundreds of rarely beautiful
and highly poetical lines from Bryon if
we had the space and a copy of his
works with US. One of the great lines
in all poetry in the one which he de-
scribes ''Red-handed War STAN ping
his foot, etc." Take these:
"And ::young-eyed Lewdness walks her
midnight rounds"
1.-The hoarse dull drum would Sleep"
STARTLED morn peeps blushing."
It'll on some jOcund morn, ETC."
Music arose with its volupuous SWELL
"She walks the water like thing Of life. -
''She was his life,
The ocean to the river Of his thoughts"
If we were to draw upon Tennyson
for beautiful thoughts, the rarest charm
of melodious verse, the highest gift of
felicitous phrasing, we would fill col
umns. There is difference-wide as
an ocean-between philosophy and
common sense in verse, after the man.
ner of Benz. llranklin's ''Poor Rich
ards" wisdom, and the lofty bymnings,
high thinking, noble inspiration and
eternal truths, soul lifting, of the
great poets.