Having thus suggested the mood of oppression through images of the blind frustration of man by the heavens and the earth, the lyric contrasts the first, joyous contemplation of nature “under the open sky,” advances to the inevitable later pondering upon the causes of movements so stupendous, and returns to the unyielding inertia of environment, still sharply imaged, but now carried from mood to conviction. The essentially poetic composition of his lyrics saves them from what would otherwise seem too intellectual solutions. _Stolidam cernere terram_ is, indeed, as some other closes of his, a logical conclusion; but it is not reached by a logical process, nor is it mere epigram. It is the final satisfying image of a composition intensely and progressively imaginative. The immense medieval vogue of the _Consolatio_ must often have reminded apt spirits of the true method of poetry. In detail also Boethius set a chastening example. The spiritual elevation of this very lyric may have suggested for hymns[7] a measure that otherwise would hardly have seemed available. Analysis reveals a fondness for cæsural effects of syncope, for rime, and for subtler recurrences. The next lines are: Hic quondam cæl_o_ liber apert_o_ Suetus in ætheri_os_ ire meat_us_ Cernebat rosei lumina solis, Visebat gelid_æ_ sidera lun_æ_ Et qu_æ_cumque uag_os_ stella recurs_us_ Exercet uari_os_ flexa per _or_bes, Comprensam numeris uict_or_ habebat. Quin etiam causas unde son_or_a.... But the italics exaggerate recurrences which to the ear are not exaggerated. Boethius does not remind us of literary devices. He never descends to word-play. His rime[8] is neither insistent nor inclined to the later art of stanzas. It is merged in the other suggestions of a various harmony. The third measure of the third book, echoed now and then in hymns, slows its pace not only by the cæsural pause, but by the predominance of spondees at the onset. Quamuis fluente diues auri gurgite Non expleturas cogat auarus opes Oneretque bacis colla rubri litoris Ruraque centeno scindat opima boue, Nec cura mordax deseret superstitem, Defunctumque leues non comitantur opes. Such reflective lyrics were so readily assimilated to medieval thought that their grave and restrained form must have been instructive in the centuries of poetic transition. B. PRUDENTIUS, SEDULIUS, FORTUNATUS