Erewhile the eastern regions have I seen At daybreak glow with roseate colours, and The expanse beside all beauteous and serene: And the sun's face so shrouded at its rise, And temper'd by the mists which overhung, That I could gaze on it with stedfast eyes.--WRIGHT.] [Footnote 139: On every side the sun shot forth the day, And had already with his arrows bright From the mid-heaven chased Capricorn away.--IBID.] But _light_ in general is his special and chosen source of poetic beauty. No poet that we know has shown such singular sensibility to its varied appearances--has shown that he felt it in itself the cause of a distinct and peculiar pleasure, delighting the eye apart from form, as music delights the ear apart from words, and capable, like music, of definite character, of endless variety, and infinite meanings. He must have studied and dwelt upon it like music. His mind is charged with its effects and combinations, and they are rendered with a force, a brevity, a precision, a heedlessness and unconsciousness of ornament, an indifference to circumstance and detail; they flash out with a spontaneous readiness, a suitableness and felicity, which show the familiarity and grasp given only by daily observation, daily thought, daily pleasure. Light everywhere--in the sky and earth and sea--in the star, the flame, the lamp, the gem--broken in the water, reflected from the mirror, transmitted pure through the glass, or coloured through the edge of the fractured emerald--dimmed in the mist, the halo, the deep water--streaming through the rent cloud, glowing in the coal, quivering in the lightning, flashing in the topaz and the ruby, veiled behind the pure alabaster, mellowed and clouding itself in the pearl--light contrasted with shadow--shading off and copying itself in the double rainbow, like voice and echo--light seen within light, as voice discerned within voice, "_quando una è ferma, e l'altra va e riede_"--the brighter "nestling" itself in the fainter--the purer set off on the less clear, "_come perla in bianca fronte_"--light in the human eye and face, displaying, figuring, and confounded with its expressions--light blended with joy in the eye: luce Come letizia in pupilla viva; and in the smile: Vincendo me col lume d'un sorriso; joy lending its expression to light: Quivi la donna mia vid'io sì lieta-- Che più lucente se ne fè il pianeta. E se la _stella si cambiò, e rise_, Qual mi fec'io;--_Parad._ 5.