Thamyris, going to meet the Muses in rivalry, sings as he walks in the splendid morning the song of the rapture of the life of Earth, and is himself part of the rejoicing movement.
Thamuris, marching, laughed "Each flake of foam" (As sparklingly the ripple raced him by) "Mocks slower clouds adrift in the blue dome!" For Autumn was the season; red the sky Held morn's conclusive signet of the sun To break the mists up, bid them blaze and die.
Morn had the mastery as, one by one All pomps produced themselves along the tract From earth's far ending to near heaven begun.
Was there a ravaged tree?
it laughed compact With gold, a leaf-ball crisp, high brandished now, Tempting to onset frost which late attacked.
Was there a wizened shrub, a starveling bough, A fleecy thistle filched from by the wind, A weed, Pan's trampling hoof would disallow?
Each, with a glory and a rapture twined About it, joined the rush of air and light And force: the world was of one joyous mind.
Say not the birds flew! they forebore their right-- Swam, revelling onward in the roll of things.
Say not the beasts' mirth bounded! that was flight-- How could the creatures leap, no lift of wings?
Such earth's community of purpose, such The ease of earth's fulfilled imaginings,-- So did the near and far appear to touch I' the moment's transport,--that an interchange Of function, far with near, seemed scarce too much; And had the rooted plant aspired to range With the snake's licence, while the insect yearned To glow fixed as the flower, it were not strange-- No more than if the fluttery tree-top turned To actual music, sang itself aloft; Or if the wind, impassioned chantress, earned The right to soar embodied in some soft Fine form all fit for cloud companionship, And, blissful, once touch beauty chased so oft.
Thamuris, marching, let no fancy slip Born of the fiery transport; lyre and song Were his, to smite with hand and launch from lip-- The next thing to touch on is his drawing of landscape, not now of separate pieces of Nature, but of the whole view of a land seen under a certain aspect of the heavens.

All the poets ought to be able to do this well, and I drew attention to the brief, condensed, yet fan-opening fashion in which Tennyson has done it.

Sometimes the poets describe what they see before them, or have seen; drawing directly from Nature.
Sometimes they invent a wide or varied landscape as a background for a human subject, and arrange and tone it for that purpose.

Shelley did this with great stateliness and subtlety.

Browning does not do it, except, perhaps, in _Christmas-Eve_, when he prepares the night for the appearance of Christ.