Two of the most perfect examples of imitative harmony in our literature are Wordsworth’s couplet,
“And see the children shouting on the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore,”
and Byron’s vivid description of a storm among the mountains:
“Far along
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder!”
The numerous adaptations of sound to sense in Dryden’s “Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day” are familiar to all. The following verse, from a song in his “King Arthur,” is less hackneyed:
“Come, if you dare, our trumpets sound;
Come, if you dare, our foes rebound;