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Dear mother Ida! hearken ere I die!--p. 62.
After such reiterated assurances that she was about to die on the spot,
it appears that Oenone thought better of it, and the poem concludes
with her taking the wiser course of going to town to consult her swain's
sister, Cassandra--whose advice, we presume, prevailed upon her to live,
as we can, from other sources, assure our readers she did to a good old
age.
In the 'Hesperides' our author, with great judgment, rejects the common
fable, which attributes to Hercules the slaying of the dragon and the
plunder of the golden fruit. Nay, he supposes them to have existed to a
comparatively recent period--namely, the voyage of Hanno, on the coarse
canvas of whose log-book Mr. Tennyson has judiciously embroidered the
Hesperian romance. The poem opens with a geographical description of the
neighbourhood, which must be very clear and satisfactory to the English
reader; indeed, it leaves far behind in accuracy of topography and
melody of rhythm the heroics of Dionysius _Periegetes_.
'The north wind fall'n, in the new-starred night.
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