But these modes are many; I will mention four of them
now: there is the conventional way of handling nature, there is the
faithful way of handling nature, there is the Greek way of handling
nature, there is the magical way of handling nature. In all these
three last the eye is on the object, but with a difference; in the
faithful way of handling nature, the eye is on the object, and that
is all you can say; in the Greek, the eye is on the object, but
lightness and brightness are added; in the magical, the eye is on the
object, but charm and magic are added. In the conventional way of
handling nature, the eye is not on the object; what that means we all
know, we have only to think of our eighteenth-century poetry:-
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night -
to call up any number of instances. Latin poetry supplies plenty of
instances too; if we put this from Propertius's Hylas:-
. . . manus heroum . . .
Mollia composita litora fronde togit -
side by side with the line of Theocritus by which it was suggested:-
[Greek verse] -
we get at the same moment a good specimen both of the conventional
and of the Greek way of handling nature. But from our own poetry we
may get specimens of the Greek way of handling nature, as well as of
the conventional: for instance, Keats's:-
What little town by river or seashore,
Or mountain-built with quiet citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is
composed with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness
being added.
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