Life is not as idle ore;
But iron, dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipped in baths of hissing tears, And battered with the shocks of doom To shape and use.
Tennyson-In Memoriam.
Author.-Tennyson (see "The Bugle Song ").
General Notes.-The author had evidently been watching the village blacksmith. Note his fine use of a sustained metaphor. Find in the poets various views of life- "A tale told by an idiot " (Shakespeare); "Life is real, life is earnest " (Longfellow); etc.