[13.] Morris’s Style.—Clearness, strength, music, picturesqueness, and easy flow, are the chief characteristics of Morris’s style. Of the month of April he says:—
“O fair midspring, besung so oft and oft,
How can I praise thy loveliness enow?
Thy sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft
That o’er the blossoms of the orchard blow,
The thousand things that ’neath the young leaves grow
The hopes and chances of the growing year,
Winter forgotten long, and summer near.”
His pictorial power—the power of bringing a person or a scene fully and adequately before one’s eyes by the aid of words alone—is as great as that of Chaucer. The following is his picture of Edward III. in middle age:—
“Broad-browed he was, hook-nosed, with wide grey eyes