he mind in its activity, for its own
gratification, contemplates them as hanging.

As when far off at sea a fleet descried
_Hangs_ in the clouds, by equinoctial wind;
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles
Of Ternate or Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply, stemming nightly toward the Pole; so seemed
Far off the flying Fiend.

Here is the full strength of the imagination involved in the word
_hangs_, and exerted upon the whole image: First, the fleet, an
aggregate of many ships, is represented as one mighty person, whose
track, we know and feel, is upon the waters; but, taking advantage of
its appearance to the senses, the Poet dares to represent it as _hanging
in the clouds_, both for the gratification of the mind in contemplating
the image itself, and in reference to the motion and appearance of the
sublime objects to which it is compared.

From impressions of sight we will pass to those of sound; which, as they
must necessarily be of a less definite character, shall be selected from
these volumes:

Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove _broods_;

of the same bird,

His voice was _buried_ among trees.
Yet to be come at by the breeze;

O, Cuckoo! shall I call thee _Bird_,
Or but a wandering _Voice_?

The stock-dove is said to _coo_, a sound well imitating the note of the
bird; but, by the intervention of the metaphor _broods_, the affections
are called in by the imagination to assist in marking the manner in
which the bird reiterates and prolongs her soft note, as if herself
delighting to listen to it, and participating of a still and quiet
satisfaction, like that which may be supposed inseparable from the
continuous process of incubation. 'His voice was buried among the
trees,' a metaphor expressing the love of _seclusion_ by which this Bird
is marked; and characterising its note as not partaking of the shrill
and the piercing, and therefore more easily deadened by the intervening
shade; yet a note so peculiar and withal so pleasing, that the breeze,
gifted with that love of the sound which the Poet feels, penetrates the
shades in which it is entombed, and conveys it to the ear of the
listener.

Shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

This concise interrogation characterises the seeming ubiquity of the
voice of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the c