Are they good--or are they bad? I fear--not good. But I am dubious. The previous picture has been of one locality--a wide one--but within the visible horizon--enlarged somewhat by the imagination, which, as the schoolmen said, inflows into every act of the senses--and powerfully, no doubt, into the senses engaged in witnessing a thunder-storm. Many of the effects so faithfully, and some of them so tenderly painted, interest us by their picturesque particularity.
"Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look They wore alive, and ruminating still In fancy's eye; and there the frowning bull, And ox half-raised."
We are here in a confined world--close to us and near; and our sympathies with its inhabitants--human or brute--comprehend the very attitudes or postures in which the lightning found and left them; but the final verses waft us away from all that terror and pity--the geographical takes place of the pathetic--a visionary panorama of material objects supersedes the heart-throbbing region of the spiritual--for a mournful song instinct with the humanities, an ambitious bravura displaying the power and pride of the musician, now thinking not at all of us, and following the thunder only as affording him an opportunity for the display of his own art.
Are they good--or are they bad? I am dubious.
Thunder-storms travel fast and far--but here they seem simultaneous; Thule is more vociferous than the whole of Wales together--yet perhaps the sound itself of the verses is the loudest of all--and we cease to hear the thunder in the din that describes it.
Ha! Thou comest in such a questionable shape--
That I will speak to thee. How do you do, my dear sir? God bless you, how do you do?
Art thou a spirit of health or goblin damned?
It is--it is the voice of TALBOYS. Don't move an inch. Stand still for ten seconds--on the very same site, that I may have one steady look at you, to make assurance doubly sure--and then let us meet each other half-way in a Cornish hug.
Are we going to wrestle already, Mr North?
Stand still ten seconds more. He _is_ He--You _are_ You--gentlemen--H. G. Talboys--Seward, my crutch--Buller, your arm--
Wonderful feat of agility! Feet up to the ceiling--
Why not? ceiling--coelum. Feet up to heaven.
