ce
throughout his poems, begins with a conjunction affirmative or negative,
_and_, or _nor_; and this last line is often so weak, that it breaks
down under the rest. Thus in this very pretty impression, as it may
almost be called, of an ancient gem;

So playful Love on Ida's flowery sides
With ribbon-rein the indignant lion guides;
Pleased on his brindled back the lyre he rings,
And shakes delirious rapture from the strings;
Slow as the pausing monarch stalks along,
Sheathes his retractile claws, and drinks the song.
Soft nymphs on timid step the triumph view,
And listening fauns with beating hoofs pursue;
With pointed ears the alarmed forest starts,
And love and music soften savage hearts.

_Botanic Garden_, c. 4. 252.

And in an exceedingly happy description of what is termed the
picturesque:

The rush-thatch'd cottage on the purple moor,
Where ruddy children frolic round the door,
The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak,
The shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke,
The bearded goat with nimble eyes, that glare
Through the long tissue of his hoary hair,
As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall,
And crops the ivy which prevents its fall,
With rural charms the tranquil mind delight,
And form a picture to the admiring sight.

_Temple of Nature_, c. 3, 248.

And in his lines on the Eagle, from another gem:

So when with bristling plumes the bird of Jove,
Vindictive leaves the argent fields above,
Borne on broad wings the guilty world he awes,
And grasps the lightning in his shining claws.

_Botanic Garden_, p. I, c. I, 205.

where I cannot but observe the peculiar beauty of the epithet applied to
the plumes of the eagle. It is the right translation of the word by
which Pindar has described the ruffling of the wings on the back of
Zetes and Calais.

[Greek:--pteroisin naeta pephrikontas ampho porphyreois.]

Pyth. 4, 326.

which an Italian translator has entirely mistaken;

Uomin' ambi, ch'orrore a' risguardanti
Facean coi rosseggianti
Vanni del tergo.

But Darwin could have known nothing of Pindar; and the word may perhaps
he found with a similar application in one of our own poets.

As the singularity of his poems caused them to be too much admired at
first, so are they now more neglected than they deserve. There is about
as much variety in them as in a bed of tulips, of which the shape is the
same in all, except that some a