The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet “piping time of peace,” he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in beauty’s siren lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady’s brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword, nor through the livelong summer’s day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute, doffs from his brawny back the robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O’er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, where wanton roses breathed enervate love, he rears the beaming casque and nodding plume; grasps the bright shield and ponderous lance, or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed, and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry. In D’Israeli’s _Wondrous Tale of Alroy_, are remarkable specimens of prose poetry. For example:— Why am I here? are you not here? and need I urge a stronger plea? Oh, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival! Our walls are hung with flowers you love; I culled them by the fountain’s side; the holy lamps are trimmed and set, and you must raise their earliest flame. Without the gate my maidens wait to offer you a robe of state. Then, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival. NELLY’S FUNERAL. In Horne’s _New Spirit of the Age_,—a series of criticisms on eminent living authors,—we find an admirable example of prose poetry thus noticed:— A curious circumstance is observable in a great portion of the scenes of tragic power, pathos, and tenderness contained in various parts of Mr. Dickens’s works, which it is possible may have been the result of harmonious accident, and the author not even subsequently conscious of it. It is that they are written in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, and Shelley, and some other poets, have occasionally adopted. Witness the following description from _The Old Curiosity Shop_. And now the bell—the bell She had so often heard by night and day And listened to with solid pleasure, E’en as a living voice— Rung its remorseless toll for her, So young, so beautiful, so good.