individual. He is neither singer nor prophet; but he is a poet in virtue of the depth and sincerity with which he felt certain great emotions, and the absolute veracity with which he expressed them. 'His mind seems habitually to have been swayed by large, slow, deep-sea currents,' says one of the best of his critics1—currents partly general in their operation on his time, partly special to himself; and his utterances when so swayed are intensely real. But he never was driven by them into a want of sympathy with other natures; and it was this extraordinary union of sincerity and sympathy, of depth and breadth, that so endeared him to his friends, and that make it difficult even now for the critic of his poetry not to be moved by the 'personal estimate.' We find in his poems all sorts of drawbacks; we find a prevailing indecision that injures their moral effect in most cases; we find fragmentariness, inequality, looseness of construction, occasional difficulty of rhythm. Yet what of this? one is tempted to ask. In the presence of that sincerity, that delight in all that is best in the physical and moral world, that humour at once bold and delicate, that moral ardour, often baffled, never extinguished, we feel that the deductions of criticism are unwelcome: we are more than content to take Thyrsis as we find him, though the music of his rustic flute Kept not for long its happy country tone; Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, Which tasked his pipe too sore, and tired his throat.' 1 Westminster Review. October 1869 EDITOR. QUA CURSUM VENTUS. As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay Are scarce long leagues apart descried; Of those, whom year by year unchanged, Astounded, soul from soul estranged? Or wist, what first with dawn appeared! QUI LABORAT, ORAT. O only Source of all our light and life, Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, But whom the hours of mortal moral strife Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold In thought's abstractest forms to seem to see, O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive, Shalt make that work be prayer. Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies, But, as thou willest, give or e'en forbear So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer THE HIDDEN LOVE. O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown; Beholding, unbeheld of all; And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart, Within the closest veil of mine most inmost heart. What is it then to me If others are inquisitive to see? Why should I quit my place to go and ask If other men are working at their task? Leave my own buried roots to go And see that brother plants shall grow; And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light, To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright, Around their proper sun, Deserting Thee, and being undone. O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown; As but man can or ought, Within the abstracted'st shrine of my least breathed-on thought. Better it were, thou sayest, to consent; Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent ; Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure, In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll, And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul. Nay, better far to mark off thus much air, And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there: And say, what is not, will be by-and-by. 'WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.' It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. 'PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S'INVECCHIA.' To spend uncounted years of pain, In working out in heart and brain The problem of our being here; And purpose of our being here? THE SHADOW1. I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied, A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade, As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old Came, the Greek poet told, To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made- 'I am the Resurrection of the Dead. The night is past, the morning is at hand, And I must in my proper semblance stand, Appear brief space and vanish,-listen, this is true, I am that Jesus whom they slew.' And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came, And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame Sorrow for their great loss, and shame For what they did in that vain name. And in long ranges far behind there seemed Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept Strange watch; the women also stood beside and wept. 1 The MS. of this poem is incomplete. |