"And say, when summoned from the world and thee,
I lay my head beneath the willow-tree,
Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone appear,
And soothe my parting spirit lingering near?"—Campbell.
But the likeness is found everywhere—in phrase, in imagery, in topics, and in tone. When, after a lapse of twenty-seven years, Mr. Rogers produced his poem of Human Life, what a change of manner, what a transformation of style had taken place in him! No longer the grandiloquent invocations were found; no longer the sounding style, no longer the easy recurrence of the cadence, pausing on the cæsura and falling at the close of the line. Here the whole rhythm and construction were of a new school and a new generation. The style was more simple and more vigorous. The sentences marched on with a rare recurrence of the cæsura, the cadence did not fall with the end of the line, but oftener far in the middle of it, and the verse abounded with triplets.
"He reads thanksgiving in the eyes of all—
All met as at a holy festival!
—On the day destined for his funeral!
Lo! there the friend, who, entering where he lay,
Breathed in his drowsy ear—'Away, away!