’Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
[Imagination.

The tufted crowtoe and pale jessamine,
[Nugatory.

The white pink and the pansy streaked with jet,
[Fancy.

The glowing violet,
[Imagination.

The musk rose and the well attired woodbine,
[Fancy, vulgar.

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
[Imagination.

And every flower that sad embroidery wears.
[Mixed.

MILTON.

                    ’Oh, Proserpina,

For the flowers now that frighted thou lett’st fall
From Dis’s wagon.  Daffodils
That come before the swallow dare, and take
The winds of March with beauty.  Violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids.’

Here the Imagination goes into the inmost soul of every flower, after having touched them all with that heavenly timidness, the shadow of Proserpine’s; and, gilding them all with celestial gathering, never stops on their spots or their bodily shape; while Milton sticks in the stains upon them, and puts us off with that unhappy streak of jet in the very flower that without this bit of paper staining would have been the most precious to us of all.

  ‘There is pansies—­that’s for thoughts.’

Can the tender insight of the Imagination be more fully manifested than in the grief of Constance?

  ’And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
  That we shall see and know our friends in heaven: 
  If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
  For, since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
  To him that did but yesterday suspire,
  There was not such a gracious creature born. 
  But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
  And chase the native beauty from his cheek;
  And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
  As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit;
  And so he’ll die; and, rising so again,
  When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
  I shall not know him:  therefore, never—­never—­
  Shall I behold my pretty Arthur more.

* * * * *

  Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
  Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
  Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
  Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
  Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
  Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

* * * * *

  O lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! 
  My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! 
  My widow-comfort and my sorrow’s cure.’

This is the impassioned but simple eloquence of Nature, and Nature’s child:  Shakspeare.

In these examples the reader will not fail to remark that the Imagination seems to gain much of its power from its love for and sympathy with the objects described.  Not only are the objects with which it presents us truthfully rendered, but always lovingly treated.