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RICHARD HENRY HORNE

[BORN January 1, 1803, in London. In middle life he changed his name of Henry for that of Hengist. Literature shared his devotion with a life of adventure; he served in the Mexican navy and he dug for gold in · Australia. He published four poetic plays, the most widely known of which is probably The Death of Marlowe (1837), and his other poetical works were Orion (1843) and Ballad Romances (1846). His prose writings included A New Spirit of the Age (1844). He lived until 1884, dying on March 13 of that year.]

For his verse dramas Horne was extravagantly praised in his own day as an Elizabethan born out of due time. Of the tumultuous and passionate poetry that was at the call of nearly all the Elizabethan playwrights Horne had nothing, and what his plays had of poetical merit was derived, in spite of the critics who so strongly asserted that here was nothing of imitation, partly from his own polished sense of verse but chiefly from sympathetic recollection. They had, however, one striking quality which he owed to no man; they moved with a real interest of action, and the action was related with honourable art to the development of character or idea and was not used for any merely vulgar sensationalism. It is this quality that gives its value to Horne's Orion, the epic that by reason of its original price of one farthing obtained notoriety before it secured a very just measure of fame. The poet in a preface claimed serious consideration for the philosophical theme, looking to this for his justification. The philosophical passages, however, make unprofitable reading, and the abstractions of the poem, such as Akinetos, the Great Unmoved, are almost comic in their solemnity. The epic would, moreover, be a fruitful ground for the anthologist of the flattest lines in poetry,—

"Giddy with happiness Orion's spirit
Now danced in air."

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and

"His friends Orion left

His further preparations to complete."

and

and

"Gainst Merope

Some spake aloud; against Orion, all,―

Save the bald sage, who said ''twas natural.'

'Natural!' they cried: 'O wretch!' The sage was stoned."

"Hence, never moved by hands unskilled

But moved as best may be. Be warned; sit still."

-and others which readers will discover for themselves embedded in the fine passage here given. But when all this is said, Orion remains an extremely interesting and in some respects an excellent poem. The loves of Orion for Artemis, Merope, and Eos, and his activities in the kingdom of Oinopion, are told with great force and conviction, and with many charming turns of description. Troublesome as the philosophy may be, it does not overload the poem unduly, and the reader's attention is carried through by the sheer human interest of the story in a manner which is as refreshing as it is rare. There are very few poems of its rank and length that are so little open to the charge of dullness, and Horne on this account if on no other deserves a much wider public than he has retained. His ambition, no doubt, was to justify anew the ways of God to man, and he had not the intellectual power to translate so cosmic a plan into poetry. But he passionately realized the human nature of his hero, and in consequence he made a poem of some three thousand lines emotionally exciting, which is no mean achievement for any poet. Orion has tedious patches, but it is anything but a tedious poem, and once a poor opening has been passed it gives, for all its flaws, a great deal of pleasure of a high order.

The Ballad Romances have the same forthright qualities, telling very readable tales in good homespun verse, and keeping always in touch with emotional sanity. There is much delicacy of invention in The Three Knights of Camelott, and the story of Bedd Gelert is admirably and poignantly told, whilst in The Noble Heart and Delora 1 there are many passages of close imaginative perception. The book emphasizes Horne's claim to no mean poetic honour. JOHN DRINKWATER.

1 Though it contains a line that must be a record, even for Horne: the tyrant exclaiming at the hero's persistence

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'Blight him! and blast him! What, again!"

(From Orion. Book I, Canto II)

One day, at noontide, when the chase was done,
Which with unresting speed since dawn had held,
The woods were all with golden.fires alive,
And heavy limbs tingled with glowing heat.
Sylvans and Fauns at full length cast them down,
And cooled their flame-red faces in the grass,
Or o'er a streamlet bent, and dipped their heads
Deep as the top hair of their pointed ears;
While Nymphs and Oceanides retired

To grots and sacred groves, with loitering steps,
And bosoms swelled and throbbing, like a bird's
Held between human hands. The hounds with tongues
Crimson, and lolling hot upon the green,

And outstretched noses, flatly crouched; their skins
Clouded or spotted, like the field-bean's flower,

Or tiger-lily, painted the wide lawns.

Orion wandered deep into a vale

Alone; from all the rest his steps he bent,
Thoughtful, yet with no object in his mind;
Languid, yet restless. Near a hazel copse,
Whose ripe nuts hung in clusters twined with grapes,
He paused, down gazing, till upon his sense
A fragrance stole, as of ambrosia wafted
Through the warm shades by some divinity
Amid the woods. With gradual step he moved
Onward, and soon the poppied entrance found
Of a secluded bower. He entered straight,
Unconsciously attracted, and beheld

His Goddess love, who slept-her robe cast off,
Her sandals, bow and quiver, thrown aside,
Yet with her hair still braided, and her brow
Decked with her crescent light. Awed and alarmed
By loving reverence-which dreads offence

E'en though the wrong were never known, and feels
Its heart's religion for religion's self,

Besides its object's claim-swift he retired.

The entrance gain'd, what thoughts, what visions his! What danger had he 'scaped, what innocent crime, Which Artemis might yet have felt so deep!

He blest the God of Sleep who thus had held
Her senses! Yet, what loveliness had glanced
Before his mind-scarce seen! Might it not be
Illusion?-some bright shadow of a hope

First dawning? Would not sleep's God still exert
Safe influence, if he once more stole back
And gazed an instant? 'Twere not well to do,
And would o'erstain with doubt the accident
Which first had led him there. He dare not risk
The chance 'twere not illusion-oh, if true!
While thus he murmured hesitating, slow,
As slow and hesitating he returned
Instinctively, and on the Goddess gazed!

With adoration and delicious fear,
Lingering he stood; then pace by pace retired,
Till in the hazel copse sighing he paused,
And with most earnest face, and vacant eye,

And brow perplexed, stared at a tree. His hands
Were clenched; his burning feet pressed down the soil,
And changed their place. Suddenly he turned round,
And made his way direct into the bower.

There was a slumb'rous silence in the air,
By noon-tide's sultry murmurs from without
Made more oblivious. Not a pipe was heard
From field or wood; but the grave beetle's drone
Passed near the entrance; once the cuckoo called
O'er distant meads, and once a horn began
Melodious plaint, then died away. A sound
Of murmurous music yet was in the breeze,
For silver gnats that harp on glassy strings,
And rise and fall in sparkling clouds, sustained
Their dizzy dances o'er the seething meads.
With brain as dizzy stood Orion now

I' the quivering bower. There rapturous he beheld,
As in a trance, not conscious of himself,

The perfect sculpture of that naked form,
Whose Parian whiteness and clear outline gleamed
In its own hue, nor from the foliage took
One tint, nor from his ample frame one shade.
Her lovely hair hung drooping, half unbound,—
Fair silken braids, fawn-tinted delicately,
That on one shoulder lodge their opening coil.
Her large round arms of dazzling beauty lay
In matchless symmetry and inviolate grace,
Along the mossy floor. At length he dropped
Softly upon his knees, his clasped hands raised
Above his head, till by resistless impulse
His arms descending, were expanded wide—
Swift as a flash, erect the Goddess rose!

Her eyes shot through Orion, and he felt
Within his breast an icy dart. Confronted,
Mutely they stood, but all the bower was filled
With rising mist that chilled him to the bone,
Colder, as more obscure the space became;
And ere the last collected shape he saw
Of Artemis, dispersing fast amid

Dense vapoury clouds, the aching wintriness
Had risen to his teeth, and fixed his eyes,
Like glistening stones in the congealing air.

THE PLOUGH 1

Above yon sombre swell of land

Thou see'st the dawn's grave orange hue,
With one pale streak like yellow sand,
And over that a vein of blue.

The air is cold above the woods;
All silent is the earth and sky,
Except with his own lonely moods
The blackbird holds a colloquy.

1 Published only in the 1875 reprint of Cosmo de' Medici.

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