Therefore it must represent one thought to which all other thoughts that it contains must be related and subordinated. More than this, too, it must manifest progress. Therefore it must represent this one thought as moving in one direction, as having one end toward the attainment of which all the movements of all the related and subordinated thoughts of the entire poem tend.

A production in which these requirements are fulfilled, and, for reasons given on the last page, such a production only, will have a form that will appear to be definite and complete.

Now let us examine some poems, and find out, if we can, how far they fulfil these requirements. Notice, first, the following representation of a very common thought that comes to all of us when gazing on something that we are not to see again. The unity of the poem is embodied in the idea expressed in the word forever, and its progress in the amplification of this idea, by extending it successively to the river as it flows near the speaker (first stanza), away from him (second stanza), and with other surroundings in space (third stanza), and in time (fourth stanza).

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,

Thy tribute wave deliver :

No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,

A rivulet then a river:

Nowhere by thee my steps shall be.
Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver ;
And here by thee will hum the bee
Forever and forever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,

A thousand moons will quiver ;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

-A Farewell: Tennyson.

Better examples of the direct representation of complete phases of action are the following, because in all of them the unity and progress are more apparent. All bring out distinctly a single idea, and this is unfolded progressively without a word at the beginning or end or in the middle not necessary to complete the picture.

Home they brought her warrior dead;
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry:

All her maidens, watching, said,

'She must weep or she will die."

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,

Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face:
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her knee

Like summer tempest came her tears-
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."

-The Princess: Tennyson.

As through the land at eve we went,
And plucked the ripened ears,

We fell out, my wife and I,
O, we fell out, I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.

For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,

There above the little grave,
O, there above the little grave,

We kiss'd again with tears.

-The Princess: Tennyson.

As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping,

With a pitcher of milk from the fair of Coleraine,
When she saw me, she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled,
And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain.

"O what shall I do now? 't was looking at you now!
Sure, sure, such a pitcher I 'll n'er meet again !
'T was the pride of my dairy; O' Barney M'Cleary!
You 're sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine !"

I sat down beside her,—and gently did chide her,
That such a misfortune should give her such pain,
A kiss then I gave her,—before I did leave her,

She vowed for such pleasure she'd break it again.
'T was hay-making season—I can't tell the reason—
Misfortunes will never come singly 't is plain;
For, very soon after poor Kitty's disaster,

The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine.

-Kitty of Coleraine : C. D. Shanly.

The two following lyrics are still more effective, for the reason that they reveal still more clearly the characteristics which we are now considering. Think what either of them would be aside from the form in which the facts in them are represented. And what in the form makes it so effective? What but its concreteness, revealed through the consistency and continuity, the unity and progress that characterize the representation?

"O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands o' Dee!"

The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam,

And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,

And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see;

The blinding mist came down and hid the land:

And never home came she.

"O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair

A tress o' golden hair,

A drowned maiden's hair

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam

The cruel, crawling foam,

The cruel, hungry foam

To her grave beside the sea ;

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home

Across the sands o' Dee.

-O Mary, Go and Call the Cattle Home: Kingsley.

Three fishers went sailing out into the West,

Out into the West as the sun went down ;

Each thought of the woman who loved him the best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town ;

For men must work and women must weep;
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And trimmed their lamps as the sun went down ;

And they looked at the squall and they looked at the shower,
And the night rack came rolling up, rugged and brown;
But men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
And the harbor bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are watching and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town;

For men must work and women must weep-
And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep—
And good-by to the bar and its moaning.

-The Fishermen: Idem.

These poems, in which, as must have been noticed, the representation in each case is also definite and complete, have unity, because they unfold only one prominent idea; and progress, because the particulars leading up to the clearest expression of this idea are unfolded successively and logically-unfolded in most of them, in fact, according to the method of the climax.

Now notice how the same principles apply to poems in which illustrative representation is used. This, as we have found, either pictures the movements of the mind through the operations of external nature, or pictures the latter through other operations of external nature analogous to them. Direct representation is developed from the methods according to which plain language is formed; illustrative representation from those according to which distinctively figurative language is formed. In the latter some one process or order of events is represented in words that image another. This image is thoroughly intelligible and enjoyable in the degree in which its outlines are definite and complete, causing the form to appear single and unbroken, in which, therefore, the analogy between the two things, compared, of course, in the brief, suggestive way that appeals best to the imagination—is carried out with consistency and continuity from beginning to end. In fact, the fundamental reason why similes and metaphors, when far-fetched or mixed, are not artistic, is because, on account of too much or too little of the illustrative element in them, their analogies are not carried out successfully. For a good illustration of how they can