How doth she chant her wonted tale
In that her lonely hermitage?
Even there her charming melody doth prove,
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.’”
Roger L’Estrange.
Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it is irrepressible, unconfinable; and that, when the real world is shut out, it can create a world for itself, and with a necromantic power can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and pageant that lived ’round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem; and we may consider The King’s Quair, composed by James of Scotland during his captivity at Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and gloom of the prison-house.”
[411] “In my literary pursuits,” wrote Mrs Hemans at this time to a friend, “I fear I shall be obliged to look out for an amanuensis. I sometimes retain a piece of poetry several weeks in my memory, from actual dread of writing it down.... I was so glad you liked my little summer breathing strain, (‘The Summer’s Call.’) I assure you it quite consoled me for the want of natural objects of beauty around, to heap up their remembered images in one wild strain.”
OH! SKYLARK, FOR THY WING.
Oh! Skylark, for thy wing!
Thou bird of joy and light,