377 'THE EARTHLY PARADISE: Slow changing, were to us but curtains fair, This tinge of fatalism has a saddening effect upon A One of his critics has age of the world, who Morris's verse, and thus far shadow falls across the feast. well said that "A poet, in this would be immortal, must write as if he himself believed in immortality." His personages, moreover, are phantasmal, and really seem as if they issued from the ivory gate. Again, while his latest work is a marvel of prolonged strength and industry, its length gives it somewhat of an encyclopedic character. The last volume was not received so eagerly as the first. I Metrical facility. would not quote against the author that saying of Callimachus, 66 a great book is a great evil"; nevertheless we feel that he has a too facile power, a story once given him, of putting it into rippling verse as rapidly as another man can write it in prose. Still, "The Earthly Paradise" is a library of itself, and in yielding to its spell we experience anew the delights which the "Arabian Nights" afforded to our childhood. What more tempting than to loll in such orchard-close as the poet is wont to paint for us, and with clover blooming everywhere, and the robins singing about their nests—to think it a portion of that fairy-land "East of the Sun and West of the Moon"; or to read the fay-legends of "The Watching of the Falcon" and "Ogier the Dane," or that history of "The Lovers of Gudrun," which possibly is the finest, as it is the most extended, of all our author's romantic poems? What more potent spell to banish care and pain? And let there be some one near to sing: an “ Sweet, but unimpassioned, measures. Relative positions of the NeoRomantic poets. In the white-flowered hawthorn brake, We have seen that the poetry of William Morris is thoroughly sweet and wholesome, fair with the beauty of green fields and summer skies, and pervaded by a restful charm. Yet it is but the choicest fashion of romantic narrative-verse. The poet's imagination is clear, but never lofty; he never will rouse the soul to elevated thoughts and deeds. His low, continuous music reminds us of those Moorish melodies whose delicacy and pathos come from the gentle hearts of an expiring race, and seem the murmurous echo of strains that had an epic glory in the far-away past. Readers who look for passion, faith, and high imaginings, will find his measures cloying in the end. Rossetti's work has been confined to Pre-Chaucerian minstrelsy, and to the spiritualism of the early Italian school. Morris advances to a revival of the narrative art of Chaucer. The next effort, to complete the cyclic movement, should renew the fire and lyric outburst of the dramatic poets. Let us estimate the promise of what already has been essayed in that direction; but to do this we must listen to the voice of the youngest and most impassioned of the group that stand with feet planted upon the outer circuit of the Victorian choir, and with faces looking eagerly toward the future. CHAPTER XI. LATTER-DAY SINGERS. TER ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Charles born in Lon EN years have passed since this poet took the Algernon critical outposts by storm, and with a single Swinburne: effort gained a laurel-crown, of which no public envy, don, April nor any lesser action of his own, thenceforth could 5, 1837. dispossess him. The time has been so crowded with his successive productions his career, with all its strength and imprudence, has been so thoroughly that of a poet as to heighten the interest which only a spirit of most unusual quality can excite and long maintain. We have just observed the somewhat limited range of William Morris's vocabulary. It is composed mainly of plain Saxon words, chosen with great taste and musically put together. No barrenness, however, is perceptible, since to enrich that writer's language from learned or modern sources would disturb the tone of his pure English feeling. The nature of His diction. Swinburne's diction is precisely opposite. His faculty of expression is so brilliant as to obscure the other elements which are to be found in his verse, and constantly to lead him beyond the wisdom of art. Nevertheless, reflecting upon his genius and the chances of his future, it is difficult for any one to write with cold restraint who has an eye to see, an ear to hear, and the practice which forces an artist to wonder at the lustre, the melody, the unstinted fire and movement, of his imperious song. His surprising command of rhythm. I. I WISH, then, to speak at some length upon the one faculty in which Swinburne excels any living English poet; in which I doubt if his equal has existed. among recent poets of any tongue, unless Shelley be excepted, or, possibly, some lyrist of the modern French school. This is his miraculous gift of rhythm, his command over the unsuspected resources of a language. That Shelley had a like power is, I think, shown in passages like the choruses of "Prometheus Unbound," but he flourished half a century ago, and did not have (as Swinburne has) Shelley for a predecessor ! A new generation, refining upon the lessons given by himself and Keats, has carried the art of rhythm to extreme variety and finish. Were Shelley to have a second career, his work, if no finer in single passages, would have, all in all, a range of musical variations such as we discover in Swinburne's. So close is the resemblance in quality of these two voices, however great the difference in development, as almost to justify a belief in metempsychosis. A master is needed to awake the spirit slumbering in any musical instrument. Before the advent of Swinburne we did not realize the full scope of English verse. In his hands it is like the violin of Paganini. The range of his fantasias, roulades, arias, new effects of measure and sound, is incomparable with anything hitherto known. The first emotion of one who studies even his immature work is that of wonder at the HIS COMMAND OF RHYTHM. 381 dented mel freedom and richness of his diction, the susurrus of Unprecehis rhythm, his unconscious alliterations, the endless dy and change of his syllabic harmonies, resulting in the freedom. alternate softness and strength, height and fall, riotous or chastened music, of his affluent verse. How does he produce it? Who taught him all the hidden springs of melody? He was born a tamer of words: a subduer of this most stubborn, yet most copious of the literary tongues. In his poetry we discover qualities we did not know were in the language, a softness that seemed Italian, a rugged strength we thought was German, a blithe and debonair lightness we despaired of capturing from the French. He has added a score of new stops and pedals to the instrument. He has introduced, partly from other tongues, stanzaic forms, measures and effects untried before; and has brought out the swiftness and force of metres like the anapestic, carrying each to perfection at a single trial. Words in his hands are like the ivory balls of a juggler, and all words seem to be in his hands. His fellow-craftsmen, who alone can understand what has been done in their art, will not term this statement extravagance. Speaking only of his command. over language and metre, I have a right to reaffirm, and to show by many illustrations, that he is the most sovereign of rhythmists. He compels the inflexible elements to his use. Chaucer is more limpid, The most Shakespeare more kingly, Milton loftier at times, dithyrambic Byron has an unaffected power, but neither Shelley nor the greatest of his predecessors is so dithyrambic, and no one has been in all moods so absolute an autocrat of verse. With equal gifts, I say, none could have been, for Swinburne comes after and profits by the art of all. Poets often win distinction by of poets. |