and the verse[126] in which Dubartas endeavours to recall the manner in which the lark “shoots up and shrills in flickering gyres,” has met with numberless admirers.
The greatest of our modern poets, Mr. Tennyson, has perhaps been more unsparing and more successful in his use of this figure than any of his predecessors, and a few passages will show that onomatopœia judiciously used is capable of the noblest application. Take, for instance, the leap of a cataract, in—
Where the river sloped
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks
Its breadth of thunder;
or the shock of a mélée, in—
The storm
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears
And riders front to front, until they closed
In conflict with the crash of shivering points