"The whole round earth is everyway Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 14. His faith rises triumphant: "I am going a long way ... Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." _f. Beauty._ All the elements of poetic beauty join to make _The Passing of Arthur_ a masterpiece. Sublime sentiment thrills through the stanzas. A stately meter gives a solemn, rhythmic swing to the noble lines. Sonorous words add to the grandeur. Apt phrases and beautiful figures of speech seize the imagination and enchain the fancy. Rare and choice diction gives artistic finish to every sentence. Most beautiful are such phrases as the following: "The phantom circle of a moaning sea." "Some whisper of the seething sea." "Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful." "Let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day." "And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture." "Clothed with his breath." "A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars." Note how the following phrases give color to the poem: "that day when the great light of heaven Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year." "Among the mountains by the winter sea." "The winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud." Observe the pictorial power of these quotations: "Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight." "Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand." "One black dot against the verge of dawn." Most forceful are the following phrases: "And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds." "From the great deep to the great deep he goes." "Authority forgets a dying king." "An agony Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world." There never was a more beautiful comparison than the following: "Like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs." FOOTNOTES: [189-1] _Haec fabula docet_ means _This fable teaches_. It is with these words that the "Morals" of the old Latin fables begin. CHAPTER IX CLOSE READING OR STUDY