SEVENTH STEP IN RENDERING. IDEAL PICTURES. Ideal pictures, or unreal, poetic, fanciful creations of the imagination should be living in the mind vividly, even as the real, substantial pictures. They should be rendered with a touch of delicacy and artistic finesse and poetic suggestiveness, avoiding too much realism. From the fact that ideal, unreal pictures are not so common as the actual and the real, some minds fail to grasp them so readily. Some of Moore's poems: Lalla Rookh," "The Sylph's Ball," and Tennyson's Merman," and " Mermaid" present unreal pictures. Real objects, small and delicate, should be pictured as close at hand and should be portrayed with fitting expression. THE SEA FAIRIES. Slow sail'd the weary mariners and saw, Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea. Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no more. Whither away from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore? Day and night to the billow the fountain calls: Down shower the gambolling waterfalls Out of the live-green heart of the dells They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells O hither, come hither and furl your sails, Come hither to me and to me: Hither, come hither and frolic and play; And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand; Hither, come hither and see; And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave, And sweet is the colour of cove and cave, And sweet shall your welcome be: O hither, come hither, and be our lords, For merry brides are we: We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words: Oh listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten With pleasure and love and jubilee : When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords Runs up the ridged sea. Who can light on as happy a shore All the world o'er, all the world o'er? Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner, fly no more. TENNYSON. PARADISE AND THE PERI. One morn a Peri at the gate "How happy," exclaimed this child of air, 66 Are the holy spirits who wander there, 'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall! Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, One blossom of heaven outblooms them all! " The glorious angel who was keeping Nymph of a fair but erring line! " 'Tis written in the book of fate, Rapidly as comets run To the embraces of the sun, Down the blue vault the Peri flies, And, lighted earthward by a glance Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse. Over the vale of Baalbec winging, The Peri sees a child at play, Among the rosy wild-flowers singing, As rosy and as wild as they; That fluttered round the jasmine stems, Then swift his haggard brow he turned Yet tranquil now that man of crime Met that unclouded, joyous gaze, But hark! the vesper call to prayer, From Syria's thousand minarets! Kneels, with his forehead to the south, From purity's own cherub mouth; And how felt he, the wretched man Nor brought him back one branch of grace?- And hope and feeling which had slept Fresh o'er him, and he wept- he wept! And now! behold him kneeling there, |