Ghosts in the court and the gateway are gathered, Hell opens her
lips,
And the sun in his splendour is shrouded, and sickens in spasm of
eclipse."


The next is longer and slower: the poet has a difficulty in telling
his story:


"Wretches," he cried, "what doom is this? what night
Clings like a face-cloth to the face of each, -
Sweeps like a shroud o'er knees and head? for lo!
The windy wail of death is up, and tears
On every cheek are wet; each shining wall
And beauteous interspace of beam and beam
Weeps tears of blood, and shadows in the door
Flicker, and fill the portals and the court -
Shadows of men that hellwards yearn--and now
The sun himself hath perished out of heaven,
And all the land is darkened with a mist."


That could never be mistaken for a version by the Laureate, as
perhaps any contemporary hack's works might have been taken for
Pope's. The difficulty, perhaps, lies here: any one knows where to
have Pope, any one knows that he will evade the mot propre, though
the precise evasion he may select is hard to guess. But the
Laureate would keep close to his text, and yet would write like
himself, very beautifully, but not with an Homeric swiftness and