“To peer about upon variety.”[160]
“Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves
Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.”[161]
“The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses.”[162]
“... you just now are stooping
To pick up the keepsake intended for me.”[163]
“Of this fair world, and all its gentle livers.”[164]
“The evening weather was so bright, and clear,
That men of health were of unusual cheer.”[165]
“Linger awhile upon some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet’s rushy banks,
And watch intently Nature’s gentle doings:
They will be found softer than the ring-dove’s cooings.”[166]
“The lamps that from the high roof’d wall were pendant
And gave the steel a shining quite transcendent.”[167]
“Or on the wavy grass outstretch’d supinely,
Pry ’mong the stars, to strive to think divinely.”[168]
The following are infelicitous passages reflecting Leigh Hunt’s bad taste, especially in the description of physical appearance, or of situations involving emotion:
“... what amorous and fondling nips
They gave each other’s cheeks.”[169]
“... some lady sweet
Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet.”[170]
“Rein in the swelling of his ample might.”[171]
“Nor will a bee buzz round two swelling peaches.”[172]
“... What a kiss,
What gentle squeeze he gave each lady’s hand!
How tremblingly their delicate ankles spann’d!
Into how sweet a trance his soul was gone,
While whisperings of affection
Made him delay to let their tender feet
Come to the earth; with an incline so sweet
From their low palfreys o’er his neck they bent:
And whether there were tears of languishment,
Or that the evening dew had pearl’d their tresses,
He felt a moisture on his cheek and blesses
With lips that tremble, and with glistening eye,
All the soft luxury
That nestled in his arms.”[173]
“... Add too, the sweetness
Of thy honey’d voice; the neatness
Of thine ankle, lightly turned:
With those beauties, scarce discern’d
Kept with such sweet privacy,
That they seldom meet the eye
Of the little loves that fly
Round about with eager pry.”[174]
Descriptive passages in the Huntian style are not infrequent: the opening lines from the Imitation of Spenser[175] are much nearer to Hunt than to Spenser.
“Now morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touched a verdant hill,
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv’ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distil
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.”[176]
These lines of Calidore show a like resemblance:
“He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky,
And smiles at the far clearness all around,
Until his heart is well nigh over wound,
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean
So elegantly o’er the waters’ brim
And show their blossoms trim.”[177]
A third is:
“Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water.”