A DAY IN THE SOUTH.

Far from the windows of dear, grey home,
Southward, for health and change, we roam,
And make awhile our life a poem.

With solitude and summer; where
We bathe in light flooding a fair
Island, and all that's new and rare
To me in sweet Sicilian air.

Last morn we left an inland town,
Passing by many a hamlet brown,
O'erlooked, remote, by Etna's crown;

And journeyed on by sultry road,
Dry torrent bed and silent wood,
Till afternoon's refreshing mood—
Toward evening, and the cool sea flood.

And the smell of the orange groves after the heat
Of the hours we went through the fields of wheat,
Was like the scent of a sunset sweet:

As out of a valley we wound our way
With twilight down to an island bay,
And clouds, like distant dreams of day,
One serene star, and the bright fresh

There, on the sands, with the lovely lone
Night, and the far sea's music moan—
While a rivulet rippled in undertone,

Simple and clear and faintly heard.

spray.

At times, as the voice of some small sea bird,
On the rise and fall of the waves unstirred-
We pitched our tent, with scarce a word ;

Lighted our lamp; and with maize bread.
And water feasted, resting our head,
Reclined on a gathered heap of red

Salt-frosted, fragrant, dry seaweed;-
Perusing a worn old tome, indeed,
Of songs Sicilian, our sole need,
Rural and sweet as wind and reed.

The simple ocean waters hoar

Washed level up to the tent's wide door,
As if to listen to more and more

Of each liquid, long Hellenic line,
Which, albeit singing of flock and vine,
Seemed to image the long, divine
Ridges and pulses of the brine;

The great deep innocent brine that knows
Not how 'tis moved, but lives and flows
Through dark as under morning's rose,
Like some wild, simple creature of
A desert strange; not without love,
And commune with its waves which move
Child-playful, happy-as one may trove.

In the sea-night's calm the bud of flame
Shone on the little waves that came
Up to the tent's door, ever the same,

Cold sporting on the sands beneath,
Like infants without words but breath,
Each with its little, cold foam wreath,
And laughing, tiny, sprayey teeth.

Sometimes a larger billow would dash
Close to my weedy pillow, and wash
Away those frolic flotes, whose plash

Next minute under my ear would ring,
Singing, or wishing with me to sing;
While calm sea ghosts stood listening
Perchance at the tent's dark opening,

To catch some echo of each sweet song
Of the old green world, composed among
Their fellows in years vanished long-

Until the wide sea without moon,

Which seemed to have hearkened as a boon
To each wave-long, sweet, Greek music rune,
Slept; and beside her I slept soon.

T. C. IRWIN.

POETIC WORD-PAINTING.

WORD-PAINTING, both in its picturesque and musical aspects, constitutes one of the greatest charms of poetry, whether it takes the form of colour, or by the use of metaphorical diction, and the choice of associative words or phrases, realizes to the eye or the car the subject, object, fancy, feeling or scene described. There are onomatopoeic words in all languages; and they seem to be most numerous in such as are still in a primitive state, many of them representing in sound the varied impressions, scenes, intuitions, and so on, naturally and strongly. Indeed such attempts to imitate particular impressions by sounds are more numerously recognised in the languages of some savages than of civilized nations, and of those which offer examples of the growth of specch, before the original force of the vocabulary became deteriorated by "phonetic decay." Thus, par example, we find in the New Zealand tongue, the term for "small"- -a diminutive used in an endearing sense-to be itte-ettee; that for "spitting" is ooh-urra, significant of expulsion from the mouth, like the Sanscrit hut-hu; that for "whistling," righee-oo. Then, in Spanish, a cock is called quiquerique-imitative of its crow; as in Chinese the name for a cat is of its mew-moa-ou. In the old. English fliss, a fly, we hear its buzz; in German, a corkscrew, pfropfzieher, is expressive of the pop on drawing out a cork, as the Italian tinturacciolo is of inserting the screw; the last-named language also, like some others, occasionally turns a noun into a verb for a picturesque expression-as in the word applied to a proud or vain person, pavoneggiar-to peacock one's self. These, however, are merely instances of natural onomatopoeic words: not such as the poet selects from his vocabulary to paint and tone his verses— such choice depending on taste, sensitive appreciation of effects of all sorts, derived from impressions of the senses, or the suggestiveness of those emotive words which Euripides calls yuxñs aveμos, "winds of the soul." The painter with words selects them for their visible, and sonorous, or other associative effect. Sometimes a single word colours or gives life to a description. Examining some fine poetic lines, the musical charm depends on the number and alternations of the vowel sounds in the words of which they are composed. A well-known line in one of Virgil's Eclogues contains all the vowels sounds, exquisitely modulated with aspirates. In a less musical language, the effect of a similar arrangement will be inferior. Thus, all the vowels occur in the

first of the following lines, descriptive of the leafy murmur of the winds from the woods passing over a grove of olive trees :—

"And o'er them aged sithurismal melodies,

Vaguely and faint, swoon from the kindly, sombre
Woods, yellow with autumn.'

Let us proceed to offer a few specimens of the simple, graphic and picturesque word-painting, which brings objects, scenes, feelings, imaginations or images vividly before the mind. In poetry the value of the idea, which is the soul, is, of course, primary; but it is only when such passages are finely painted, that we store them among the choice and precious things of the cabinet of memory.

Some of the finest similes and illustrations in poetry are themselves pictures; and one of the loveliest ever conceived is that in Dante's "Purgatorio," where the poet and his guide up the mountain, suddenly, at a turning, encounter a group of gentle, timid spirits, who are compared to a flock of sheep, thus:

"Come le pecorelle escon de chiusa
Ad una, a due, a tre, e altro stanno
Timidette atterando l'occhio il muso,
E cio che fa la prima el altro fanno,

Addossadosi a la s'illa s'aresta,

Simplice e quieto, e lo 'imperche non sanno.”

As sheep issue from the yold by one, and two and three, and the others stand timidly bending their eyes and muzzles; and what the first does the others do, pressing one on another, when one stops, simple and quiet, and know not why."

Nothing can surpass the beauty and simplicity of the wording of this description, except the picturesque appropriateness of its application. Fontaine speaks of

"L'innocent beauté des jardins et la jour;"

and it is the same “innocent beauty" which charms us here. Of this rare and exquisite quality-pure simplicity-we have also examples in Wordsworth's "Pet Lamb," and elsewhere in his poetry; and in the following lines from Casimir Delavigne's "La Morte de Jeane d'Arc”—a passage which elicited the admiration, sparsely bestowed on modern verse, of P. L. Courier, whose taste was fine as that of the finest of the Greeks, as indeed was Delavigne's sense of form :

"Du Christ avec ardeur Jean baisait l'image,
Au pied de l'echafaud vents,

Sans change de visage

Elle s'avance a pas lents.

"Tranquille elle monta, quand debout sur le faite
Elle vit ce bucher quel allait devorer,
Les borreaux en suspens, la flamme deja prete,
Sentant son cœur faillir, elle baissa la tete,

Et se prit a pleurer."

How delicately marked are the changes of feeling described in this passage! Having kissed the cross, strong in faith, she comes to the foot of the pyre; with face unchanged advances, with gentle and slow step, and tranquilly ascends. When she sees the pile of wood ready to consume her, the executioner pausing, the flame already prepared-feeling her heart fail her, she bows her head and betakes herself to weeping. Nothing more simply and profoundly pathetic was ever penned than the picture in the concluding stanza.

To return to word-painting. At rare intervals fine examples of this artistic power may be found in Wordsworth's poetry. What can be more vigorously worded than his description of a group of old yew trees!—

"Each particular trunk a growth

Of intertwisted fibres serpentine,

Up coiling and inveterately involved;
Not uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane."

The last lines, which heighten the objective effect by a spiritual and imaginative association, remind us of the similar stroke which completes the description of Milton's "Satan," when, alarmed, he stands,

"Like Teneriffe, or Atlas, unremoved : His stature reached the sky, and on his crest Sate Horror plumed."

In Wordsworth's sketch of Alpine scenery, he rises from his ordinary meditative mood into one which paints objects once and for ever to the eye and imagination :

"The immeasurable height

Of woods decaying, never to be decayed;
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,

And in the narrow rent at every turn

Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky.
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside,
As if a voice were in them; the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream;
The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great Apocalypse-

The types and symbols of eternity,

The first, and last, and midst, and without end."

Penetration, evolution of introspective conception, and rough dramatic contrasts are the chief characteristics of Browning's poetry, in which there are sometimes capital instances of graphic word-painting. Thus, in his little poem entitled "Meeting at Night," we see all he describes-the half-moon rising, and little