The only thing that personally I regret in these verses is their author's tendency to be too careless in his rhymes. Many of them grate upon one's ear, and such as _sun_ and _stone_ vex one's sense of melody, indeed, are not rhymes: whilst some words used, such as for instance _Revenue_, accord ill with verse at all. He deems himself quit of obligation to observe these delicacies of metrical beauty, because he says peevishly that he is no poet. But he is a poet; and is so strongly one in feeling that there is no excuse for him not to be more observant of style. For style is the reed-pipe through which the singer's breath blows music, and he should take heed that his syrinx be well chosen, and well cut, so that each air played on it be clear as the throstle's note. But rough though many of his compositions are--rough and unstudied--yet, when read in fitting atmosphere, they will be beloved, and in the mind of the reader they will linger like the lilt of a moorland song heard on an autumn eve. There is the _vox humana_ in their melody. They come from the heart of a man who has suffered. They are unequal, extremely unequal; the poet has gone through the woods and gathered together grass and orchis, and gorse, and the sceptered meadow sweet and the bearded barley, all together, just as they happened to come in his path; common things sometimes, or such as seem so to those who do not see the sun shine through and the dew tremble on them. They are not put together with great care. I should not think that they were turned, and returned, and pondered over, and doubted about. They are too spontaneous, or seem so, to be the subject of great meditation. They are the natural children of a forest-lover. As you read them you receive the irresistible impression that they were written involuntarily as a full heart sighs, as a glad heart sings, but the sigh is more frequent than the song. He has a great love of rural things. He says:-- 'You cannot know, In your bald cities where no cowslips blow, How dear life is to us. The tramp of feet Brushes all other footsteps from the street And you see nothing of the graves you tread. With us they are still present, the poor dead. Being so near the places where they sleep Who sowed these fields, we in their absence reap.' Again:-- 'This ridge Is only thirty miles from London Bridge, And when the wind blows north, the London smoke Comes down upon us, and the grey crows croak, For the great city seems to reach about With its dark arms, and grip them by the throat. Time may yet prove them right. The wilderness May be disforested, and Nature's face Stamped out of beauty by the heel of man Who has no room for beauty in his plan.' Again:--