Note 40 — PART TWO (continued 3)
Reading edition
Mr. Patmore has used the same sort of verse for narrative poetry, with unusual daring but also with unusual success. For an example see his Amelia, included in the Golden Treasury, Second Series. The following passage exhibits the metrical method of the poem at its best:
"And so we went alone By walls o'er which the lilac's numerous plume Shook down perfume; Trim plots close blown With daisies, in conspicuous myriads seen, Engross'd each one With single ardor for her spouse, the sun; Garths in their glad array Of white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay, With azure chill the maiden flower between; Meadows of fervid green, With sometime sudden prospect of untold Cowslips, like chance-found gold; And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze, Rending the air with praise, Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shout Of Jacob camp'd in Midian put to rout; Then through the Park, Where Spring to livelier gloom Quickened the cedars dark, And, 'gainst the clear sky cold, Which shone afar Crowded with sunny alps oracular, Great chestnuts raised themselves abroad like cliffs of bloom."