We shall never get on. Stanza the ninth assures us that the woods are deaf and will not be aroused, that the mountains are asleep and so forth—all which Mr. Mathews might have anticipated. But the rest he could not have foreseen. He could not have foreknown that “the rivers, housed beneath their banks in darksome stillness,” would “loiter like a calm-bound sea,” and still less could he have been aware, unless informed of the fact, that “cliff, wilderness and solitude would be spoused in anchored nuptials to dumb apathy!” Good Heavens—no!—nobody could have anticipated that! Now, Mr. Mathews, we put it to you as to a man of veracity—what does it all mean?
As when in times to startle and revere.
This line, of course, is an accident on the part of our author. At the time of writing it he could not have remembered
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
Here is another accident of imitation; for seriously, we do not mean to assert that it is anything more—
I urged the dark red hunter in his quest
Of pard or panther with a gloomy zest;
And while through darkling woods they swiftly fare
Two seeming creatures of the oak-shadowed air,
I sped the game and fired the follower’s breast.