Flush’d faintly upon lids that droop’d like thine,
And made me weak,
By thy delusive likeness doubly drawn,
And Nature’s long-suspended breath of flame,
Persuading soft, and whispering Duty’s name,
Awhile to smile and speak
With this thy Sister sweet, and therefore mine...”
But this is not so much the humanity to which we referred. We think that three characteristics will strike the readers of these odes: 1, the high spiritual nature of many; 2, the deep pathos and human love of others; 3, the lofty scorn and fierce sarcasm displayed, mistakenly sometimes, in certain of the odes.
The poet is an Englishman of Englishmen, and, only for his Catholic faith, it seems to us that he would be one among the prophets of despair, whose name is legion and whose day is the present.
“O, season strange for song!”