We change our drossy dust for gold,
       From death to life we fly: 
     We let go shadows, and take hold
       Of immortality.”

This whole poem has in it not merely the bright march of a very vigorous mind, but also a great many of the elements which long before had built up the ancient romances.  In it, and in much else that he wrote, he finds a congenial escape from the mere middle-class respectability of his time, and ranges himself with the splendid chivalry both of the past and of the present.  There is an elfin element in him as there was in Chaucer, which now and again twinkles forth in a quaint touch of humour, or escapes from the merely spiritual into an extremely interesting human region.

In Grace Abounding he very pleasantly tells us that he could have written in a much higher style if he had chosen to do so, but that for our sakes he has refrained.  He does, however, sometimes “step into” his finer style.  There is some exquisite pre-Raphaelite work that comes unexpectedly upon the reader, in which he is not only a poet, but a writer capable of seeing and of describing the most highly coloured and minute detail:  “Besides, on the banks of this river on either side were green trees, that bore all manner of fruit....”  “On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies; and it was green the year long.”  At other times he affrights us with a sudden outburst of the most terrifying imagination, as in the close of the poem of The Fly at the Candle—­

     “At last the Gospel doth become their snare,
     Doth them with burning hands in pieces tear.”

His imagination was sometimes as quaint and sweet as at other times it could be lurid and powerful. Upon a Snail is not a very promising subject for a poem, but its first lines justify the experiment—­

     “She goes but softly, but she goeth sure;
     She stumbles not, as stronger creatures do.”

He can adopt the methods of the stately poets of nature, and break into splendid descriptions of natural phenomena—­

     “Look, look, brave Sol doth peep up from beneath,
     Shews us his golden face, doth on us breathe;
     Yea, he doth compass us around with glories,
     Whilst he ascends up to his highest stories,
     Where he his banner over us displays,
     And gives us light to see our works and ways.”

Again in the art of childlike interest and simplicity he can write such lines as these—­

     OF THE CHILD WITH THE BIRD ON THE BUSH

     “My little bird, how canst thou sit
       And sing amidst so many thorns? 
     Let me but hold upon thee get,
       My love with honour thee adorns.

     ’Tis true it is sunshine to-day,
       To-morrow birds will have a storm;
     My pretty one, come thou away,
       My bosom then shall keep thee warm.