"In vain the fickle demon sports
With fetid remnants of decay."
[Illustration]
He quite failed to discover what particular--or rather anything _but_
particular--demon is referred to, or why he should amuse himself in so
eccentric and unpleasant a manner.
Nor, my Baronite says, was his conception of contentment greatly
assisted by this somewhat complicated comparison:--
"Contentment is a love-commissioned barque
Sailing a self-less sea--a sea whose flood
Is ordered alway by the laughing guns
Of Virtue's fortalice, whose armament,
Primed with rose-petal powder, doth discharge
In generous rounds of sympathy with all,
Scattering happiness, whose smile betrays
The pangless hurt."
But that, he is quite willing to admit, may be rather the fault of his
own imagination than the poet's. Again, in a poem entitled "Love's
Messengers," the author writes:--
"Flit thou along on softly feathered feet,
Noiseless, thou shadowy-pinioned minister,
And gently fan, _with midnight gale_, my sweet,
Lest thou awaken her."
Which, to my Baronite, suggests the difficulty that, if the minister
fans the lady with his shadowy pinions "gently," he will fail to
produce anything resembling a "midnight gale"; on the other hand, if he
performs the part of invisible punkah so energetically as to suggest
a gale, he can hardly help awakening her unless she is a very heavy
sleeper indeed--and _might_ give her a cold in the head. Surely this is
rather an unfair dilemma on which to place a feathered minister of any
denomination.
But after all, poetry, as my Baronite fully recognises, is not meant to
be judged by so literal a standard, and it may be cheerfully conceded
that there are many people who make a less profitable use of their
"Leisure Time" than Mr. MAVOR has done. In which opinion
concurs