There is
little peculiar in the story or its narration. We quote a rough verse-
The mighty columns with which earth props heaven.
The use of the epithet old preceded by some other adjective, is
found so frequently in this poem and elsewhere in the writings of
Mr. Bryant, as to excite a smile upon each recurrence of the
expression.
In all that proud old world beyond the deep-
There is a tale about these gray old rocks-
The wide old woods resounded with her song-
And the gray old men that passed-
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven.
We dislike too the antique use of the word affect in such
sentences as
They deemed
Like worshippers of the elder time that
God Doth walk in the high places and affect
The earth- o'erlooking mountains.
Milton, it is true, uses it- we remember it especially in Comus-
'T is most true
That musing meditation most affects
The pensive secrecy of desert cell-
but then Milton would not use it were he writing Comus today.
In the Summer Wind, our author has several successful attempts at
making "the sound an echo to the sense." For example-
For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun
Retains some freshness.
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