Instances of the mechanical type so much in favour are, however, not lacking, as in this stanza from the “Verses” written about bride-cake:
Ambiguous looks that scorn and yet relent,
Denial mild and firm unaltered truth,
Reluctant pride and amorous faint consent
And melting ardours and exulting youth.[223]
The majority of Collins’s personified abstractions are, however, vague in outline, that is to say, they suggest, but do not define, and are therefore the more effective in that the resulting images are almost evanescent in their delicacy. Thus in the “Ode to Pity” the subject is presented to us in magic words:
Long pity, let the nations view
Thy sky-worn robes of tender blue
And eyes of dewy light,
whilst still another imaginative conception is that of “Mercy”: