“Make thy two eyes like stars dart from their spheres;”
also—
“Like quills upon a fretful porcupine.”
These two lines are the only exceptions. They are mighty, and at the very summit of human art, but in this respect do not actually reveal more than may be set forth in a pure simplicity of diction.
This great truth of truths was known to David and Solomon. It came to them as the only means through which the interests of a pure humanity could be enlarged on, and made to reach the heart.
Moses enjoyed the art, as shown in his account of the creation; so likewise did the authors of Esther, Ruth, and Job. It came to them because their poetry was so human, and consisted not, as it did with the Greeks, in exalting heroes and conquerors.
It is easy enough to use simple language in descriptive poetry or in prose; not so easy to attain to sublimity by its means. To do this demands genius of the first order. Shakespeare, the most gifted of men, was not too great to employ it in his highest achievements. He was a perfect master of simplicity; he knew that there was but one simple thing, and that was truth.
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,”
and the lines that follow, are entirely free from metaphor, yet no purer and nobler description ever found utterance. The more a writer deviates from simplicity, the less sincere he appears. Let every man of genius mark my words, that He who delivered the parables to the multitude was Sincerity itself; that His teachings were allegories, but that metaphor never crossed His lips. Take as examples those exquisite poems—for such they are, unfettered by artificial metre—the parables of the Prodigal Son, and of the Ten Virgins: a critical reading of them will readily reveal that not a single metaphor exists in either, and yet what an elevated poetry pervades them! After perusing them, turn at once to Milton and read his account of Satan’s exaltation in hell—
“High on a throne of royal state which far