"To his cold clammy lips Joining her balmy twins, she from them sips So much of death's oppressing dews, that, by That touch revived, his soul, though winged to fly Her ruined seat, takes time to breathe These sad notes forth: "farewell, my dear, beneath My fainting spirits sink."[71]
Occasionally Hunt's choice of colloquial words fitted the subject, as in the _Feast of the Poets_, where humor and satire permit such expressions as "bards of Old England had all been rung in," "twiddling a sunbeam," "bloated his wits," "tricksy tenuity" or such words as "smack," "pop-in" and "sing-song." His poetical epistles suffer without injury such departures from dignified diction, but in other cases, of which the _Story of Rimini_ is a notable example, a grave subject in the garb of everyday language is degraded into the incongruous and prosaic. It is in physical descriptions that this undignified diction most strikingly violates good taste. Examples are:
"And both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree, Leaned with a touch together, thrillingly."
"So lightsomely dropped in, his lordly back, His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance."
Sometimes the prosaic quality of Hunt's diction is due to its being pitched upon a merely "society" level:
"May I come in? said he:--it made her start,-- That smiling voice;--she coloured, pressed her heart A moment, as for breath and then with free And usual tone said, 'O Yes,--certainly.'"
Such a treatment of the meeting of Paolo and Francesca in the bower is wholly inadequate to the situation and the emotion of the moment. Additional illustrations of his colloquialisms from the _Story of Rimini_ and from other poems of the same period are: "to bless his shabby eyes," "that to the stander near looks awfully," "banquet small, and cheerful, and considerate," "clipsome waist," "jauntiness behind and strength before" (description of a horse), "lend their streaming tails to the fond air," "sweepy shape," "cored in our complacencies," "lumps of flowers," "smooth, down-arching thigh," "tapering with tremulous mass internally."
Hunt's second principle to be considered is the excessive use of vague and passionless words. Instances of such words to be found very frequently in his poetry are: fond, amiable, fair, rural, cordial, cheerful, gentle, calm, smooth, serene, earnest, lovely, balmy, dainty, mild, meek, tender, kind, elegant, quiet, sweet, fresh, pleasant, warm, social, and many others of like character.
