I rot upon the waters when my prowShouldgratethe golden isles,
I rot upon the waters when my prowShouldgratethe golden isles,
I rot upon the waters when my prowShouldgratethe golden isles,
I rot upon the waters when my prow
Shouldgratethe golden isles,
may be a very Elizabethan, but is certainly rather a vicious expression. Force and condensation are good, but it is possible to combine them with purity of phrase. One of the most successful delineations in the whole poem is contained in the following passage, which introduces Scene VII.:—
[A balcony overlooking the sea.]The lark is singing in the blinding sky,—Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom seaIs toying with the shore, his wedded bride,And in the fulness of his marriage joy,He decorates her tawny front with shells—Retires a space to see how fair she looks,Then proud, runs up to kiss her. All is fair,—All glad, from grass to sun. Yet more I loveThan this, the shrinking day that sometimes comesIn winter’s front, so fair ’mongst its dark peers,It seems a straggler from the files of June,Which in its wanderings had lost its wits,And half its beauty, and when it returned,Finding its old companions gone away,It joined November’s troop, then marching past;And so the frail thing comes, and greets the worldWith a thin crazy smile, then bursts in tears—And all the while it holds within its handA few half-withered flowers;—I love and pity it.
[A balcony overlooking the sea.]The lark is singing in the blinding sky,—Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom seaIs toying with the shore, his wedded bride,And in the fulness of his marriage joy,He decorates her tawny front with shells—Retires a space to see how fair she looks,Then proud, runs up to kiss her. All is fair,—All glad, from grass to sun. Yet more I loveThan this, the shrinking day that sometimes comesIn winter’s front, so fair ’mongst its dark peers,It seems a straggler from the files of June,Which in its wanderings had lost its wits,And half its beauty, and when it returned,Finding its old companions gone away,It joined November’s troop, then marching past;And so the frail thing comes, and greets the worldWith a thin crazy smile, then bursts in tears—And all the while it holds within its handA few half-withered flowers;—I love and pity it.
[A balcony overlooking the sea.]
The lark is singing in the blinding sky,—Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom seaIs toying with the shore, his wedded bride,And in the fulness of his marriage joy,He decorates her tawny front with shells—Retires a space to see how fair she looks,Then proud, runs up to kiss her. All is fair,—All glad, from grass to sun. Yet more I loveThan this, the shrinking day that sometimes comesIn winter’s front, so fair ’mongst its dark peers,It seems a straggler from the files of June,Which in its wanderings had lost its wits,And half its beauty, and when it returned,Finding its old companions gone away,It joined November’s troop, then marching past;And so the frail thing comes, and greets the worldWith a thin crazy smile, then bursts in tears—And all the while it holds within its handA few half-withered flowers;—I love and pity it.
The lark is singing in the blinding sky,—
Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom sea
Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride,
And in the fulness of his marriage joy,
He decorates her tawny front with shells—
Retires a space to see how fair she looks,
Then proud, runs up to kiss her. All is fair,—
All glad, from grass to sun. Yet more I love
Than this, the shrinking day that sometimes comes
In winter’s front, so fair ’mongst its dark peers,
It seems a straggler from the files of June,
Which in its wanderings had lost its wits,
And half its beauty, and when it returned,
Finding its old companions gone away,
It joined November’s troop, then marching past;
And so the frail thing comes, and greets the world
With a thin crazy smile, then bursts in tears—
And all the while it holds within its hand
A few half-withered flowers;—I love and pity it.
It may be the fault of our point of view; but certainly we do not find even here that happy, unimpeded sequence which is the charm of really good writers. Is there not something incongruous in the effect of the immediate juxtaposition of these two images? We have lost, it may be, that impetuosity, thatélan, which lifts the young reader over hedge and ditch at flying leaps, across country, or we should not perhaps entertain any offence, or even surprise, at being transferredper saltumfrom the one field to the other. But we could almost ask, was the passage, so beautiful, though perhaps a little prolonged, about the June day in November, written consecutively, and in one flow with the previous, and also beautiful, one about ocean and his bride? We dare say it was: but it does not read, somehow, in the same straight line with it—
Tantum series juncturaque pollet.
Tantum series juncturaque pollet.
Tantum series juncturaque pollet.
Tantum series juncturaque pollet.
We venture, too, to record a perhaps hypercritical objection to ‘theblindingsky’ in this particular collocation. Perhaps in the first line of a scene, while the reader has not yet warmed to his duty, simplicity should be especially observed—a single image, without any repeated reflection, so to speak, in a second mirror, should suffice. The following, which open Scene XI., are better:—
Summer hath murmured with her leafy lipsAround my home, and I have heard her not;I’ve missed the process of three several yearsFrom shaking wind flowers to the tarnished goldThat rustles sere on Autumn’s aged limbs.
Summer hath murmured with her leafy lipsAround my home, and I have heard her not;I’ve missed the process of three several yearsFrom shaking wind flowers to the tarnished goldThat rustles sere on Autumn’s aged limbs.
Summer hath murmured with her leafy lipsAround my home, and I have heard her not;I’ve missed the process of three several yearsFrom shaking wind flowers to the tarnished goldThat rustles sere on Autumn’s aged limbs.
Summer hath murmured with her leafy lips
Around my home, and I have heard her not;
I’ve missed the process of three several years
From shaking wind flowers to the tarnished gold
That rustles sere on Autumn’s aged limbs.
Except the two last lines. Our author will not keep his eye steady upon the thing before him; he goes off, and distracts us, and breaks the impression he had begun to succeed in giving, by bidding us look now at something else. Some simpler epithets thanshaking, and some plainer language thantarnished goldoraged limbs, would have done the workbetter. We are quite prepared to believe that these faults and thesedisagreeableshave personally been necessities to the writer, are awkwardnesses of growth, of which the full stature may show no trace. He should be assured, however, that though the rude vigour of the style of his Life-Drama may attract upon the first reading, yet in any case, it is not the sort of writing which people recur to with pleasure and fall back upon with satisfaction. It may be a groundless fancy, yet we do fancy, that there is a whole hemisphere, so to say, of the English language which he has left unvisited. His diction feels to us as if between Milton and Burns he had not read, and between Shakspeare and Keats had seldom admired. Certainly there is but little inspiration in the compositions of the last century; yet English was really best and most naturally written when there was, perhaps, least to write about. To obtain a real command of the language, some familiarity with the prose writers, at any rate, of that period, is almost essential; and to write out, as a mere daily task, passages, for example, of Goldsmith, would do a verse-composer of the nineteenth century as much good, we believe, as the study of Beaumont and Fletcher.