I do not call these plagiarisms, I call them reflections of wide and retentive reading.
William Watson has thus formed a style which is almost perfect. I say "almost," not quite. There are some few mannerisms which we might wish away. He speaks of "greatly inert," "greatly lost in thee," "greatly slain," "doomed splendidly to die," "loudly weak," "immutably prevail," and "vainly great," till we are forced to recognize what looks very much like a trick. He has occasional moments of tautology, which may possibly be deliberate, but is none the better for that, as when he says:—
Not mine the rich and showering hand, that strews
The facile largess of a stintless muse.
And
The retrospect in Time's reverted eyes.
And worst of all—
"Fair clouds of gulls that wheel and swerve
In unanimity divine,
With undulation serpentine,
And wondrous consentaneous curve."
He sometimes falls into lines which ring of the mint of Pope—
No guile may capture and no force surprise.
Or—