Her needles, as she laid them down, But in an instant Rossetti has invested the whole scene with glamour when he writes: Without, there was a cold moon up, Through the small room, with subtle sound I had been sitting up some nights, And my tired mind felt weak and blank: The stillness and the broken lights. Twelve struck, that sound, by dwindling years All this is exquisitely simple, and exquisitely realistic. Yet there is a subtlety, a magic, a charm of imagination investing it all, which rivets the attention and fascinates the fancy. It affects us like some pungent and pervasive perfume. We may analyse the verses as we will; the essence is too volatile to be captured by any such means as these. And there is the same indefinable charm in all Rossetti's poetry; a quality original and bewitching, which is all his own, and is like nothing else in modern poetry. "Glamour" best describes it: something beautiful and unearthly, that lays its restraint upon us, and cannot be shaken off. It is a rare gift, one of the very rarest in English poetry, but it is unquestionably the special note of Rossetti's poetry, and the real secret of his influence. There can be no doubt that Rossetti has exercised a wide influence over modern poetry, and an influence that does not seem likely to decline. He set a new fashion, but he did more than this: he struck a new note. He has had many imitators; many have followed the fashion, but scarcely any has struck the note. William Morris comes nearest in his early ballads; then perhaps Bell Scott; lastly Mr. Swinburne. But neither has the same intensity of vision and terseness of diction. If Rossetti had only set a fashion of poetry, if he had invented only an æsthetic craze for medievalism, we might doubt the permanence of his influence. All mere fashions pass away, and are forgotten. But he has done much more than this. He is an original poetic artist, who has produced original work. He has a message, an idea, a mission to communicate. He opens the closed doors of the past, and leads us into fresh fields of romance. He has furnished poets with a new set of artistic impulses and motives. And he has exercised a wide influence on the forms of poetry, in giving back to us forgotten rhythmic movements, and setting an example of the most careful literary workmanship. When we have made all possible deductions for defects of taste and diction, we have still left in Rossetti that rare combination of genius and originality which alone can constitute the true poet, and claim prolonged fame. CHAPTER XXXIV. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. [Born in London, April 5th, 1837. His first productions, the “Queen Mother" and "Rosamond," were published in 1861.] HERE can be no doubt that Swinburne is a fine TH poet; there can be as little that he is an extremely unequal poet, who has not wholly fulfilled the promise of his youth. His earliest poems aroused intense interest and enthusiasm, and from the first his unique powers received the most ample recognition. This chorus of praise, however, did not last. It was succeeded by a fierce critical warfare, which split the literary world into two camps, and liberated the most violent passions. It was natural that the world should recognise the greatness and nobility of such a poem as "Atalanta in Calydon." No reproduction from the antique since the "Prometheus Unbound" of Shelley, had been cast in so large a mould, had struck so full and lofty a note, had given such ample evidence of power and skill. As an embodiment of the antique spirit, in some ways it was superior even to the masterpiece of Shelley. It had more of classic gravity and restraint, and it was almost equal in its superb power of musical utterance. Nothing grander than the choruses in "Atalanta" has been given us by the genius of any living poet. They have fire and stateliness, dignity and passion, tragic depth and intensity, and a certain overwhelming music of their own, which the greatest masters of poetical expression might covet. It was this grandeur of musical utterance which took the world by storm, and roused something like amazement in readers who had listened to the sweet flute-notes of Tennyson, and had given up hope of any further development in the art of verbal music. Swinburne's music was like the full sweep of a great wind, or the organ-clamour of the sea. It overwhelmed and it exhilarated; it came like a resistless force, before which criticism was bowed and futile, and it conveyed also a sense of immense power and resource in the poet. He seemed to produce the most magnificent effects of diction without effort, and to be able to go on producing them without weariness or exhaustion. The poem was, indeed, the first full utterance of a poet in the first freshness and glory of his genius. On the day which followed the completion of "Chastelard," "Atalanta" was commenced. His genius was in full flow, and it seemed to his readers of a quarter of a century ago that there was no point of achievement or crown of fame that might not well be his. Two years after the publication of "Atalanta in Calydon" Swinburne published his "Poems and Ballads." For the moment there was a shock of pained surprise, and then the storm of anger and disappointment broke. The "Poems and Ballads' was not really a new work; it was a collection of poems, most of which had been written at an earlier date. They represented the "storm and stress" period of the poet's development, the passionate fermenting and clearing of his genius. The themes were perilous, the spirit sensuous. The entire atmosphere of the book was morbid, if not immoral. The poet in the madness of his turbid thoughts seemed to have no respect for the decencies of life; he even took a violent and savage pleasure in defying them. Sensuous passion was treated with a frankness unknown in modern poetry, and the reticence of natural modesty was flung to the winds. The outcry that arose reproduced the passionate vituperation of the attacks made on Byron. Just as Southey wrote his famous article on the "Satanic School of Poetry," so another second-rate poet, of about equal calibre, attacked Swinburne in an anonymous article on the Fleshly School of Poetry." It can serve no useful purpose to fight these battles over again. Foolish and regrettable things were said on both sides. There, however, the book stands, and its influence has been widespread. The damage it inflicted on Swinburne's reputation has been irreparable. Its effects are seen in the productions of a swarm of minor poets, who have seemed to imagine that the purveying of moral poison was the highest duty of the poet, and that the nearer a poet came to sheer indecency the truer was his gift. Critics also arose who made it the first article of a sound poetic faith that for the poet Nature had no reticencies, and that in art moral considerations had no weight, and were of no account. It is possible that the wisdom of maturer life has often led Mr. Swinburne himself to wish that he had burned some of these erotic verses of his youth. The very charm and music of them constitutes a perennial peril. They have a secret and subtle sweetness as of forbidden fruit which begets in us unspoken covetings. To read them is like) sitting at some enchanted feast, where lamps glitter, and voluptuous music trembles on the ear, where the air is heavy with odour, and the senses gradually are ८ |