Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the utter most sea? "The Secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?" It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens began, How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once was man. I had thought, "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell, They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the unknown main"— Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break? Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone? Is there nought in the heaven above, whence the hail and the levin are hurled, But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world? The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and voices of women who weep. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS [BORN at Bristol, 1840, of a family which had been distinguished in medicine for five generations. After a brilliant career at Oxford, he developed lung delicacy, which compelled him to live much in Italy and Switzerland, especially (after 1878) at Davos, in the company of R. L. Stevenson and other invalids of mark. For years he devoted his main studies to Italian history, and produced not only The Renaissance of Italy in many volumes but a number of shorter books and essays in prose. On these his reputation will chiefly rest; but in and after 1878 he also published, in addition to translations of Latin students' songs and Michael Angelo's sonnets, four books of original verse: Many Moods, 1878; New and Old, 1880; Animi Figura, 1882; and Vagabunduli Libellus, 1884. He died in Rome on April 19, 1893.] To read much of Symonds's verse at a sitting is to be oppressed by a luxuriance that often runs to seed. His very facility, indeed, while it always gives his verse remarkable accomplishment, frequently leads him astray from the fine purposes of poetry, when he is content to describe the externalities of things, without exploring their sources. His work then, dazzling as it often is, becomes hard and slippery on the surface, and barren of the intimacy and precision which are the blood of poetry. In these moods-and they were not rare in his experience—he was the prey and not the master of words, and the seductiveness of a merely gorgeous verbal array confused his perception of the real nature of an image; as, for example Upon the pictured walls amid the blaze Of diamonds, pearl engirt, shot fiery rays: Swan's down beneath, with parrot plumage, glosses In bloom of asphodel and meadow mosses. Here languid men with pleasure tired may sleep: Here revellers may banquet in the sheen Of silver cressets: gourds and peaches heap The citron tables; and a leafy screen, This way and that with blossoms interlaced, This is striking virtuosity, but it is not the disciplined manner of poetry; it produces not an image in the mind, but a glittering confusion. It is, perhaps, in the shorter lyric, that searching test of a poet's quality, that Symonds most suffered from his lack of strict poetic control; in this manner the large and impressive if florid gesture of his more elaborate work is of little use to him, and he finds himself untutored to stricter economy of the imagination, and the result is that his short lyrics, with very few exceptions, lack all the sudden and glowing presentation of words that means distinction. His really imposing accomplishment, too, was subject to startling lapses, such as Splits the throat Of maenad multitudes with shrill sharp shrieks, and his literary scholarship should have saved him from such an indiscretion as Pestilence-smitten multitudes, sere leaves Driven by the dull remorseless autumn breath. And yet, in spite of his verbal ceremoniousness, and a habit of mind that too often led him from simple and stirring imaginative thought into every deft kind of fancy, he is justly allowed the honor of representation among his country's poets. Not only had he great richness in description, which could be arresting when it was not unbridled, but there were moments when he wrote simply and with his eye on his object, as in Harvest, and the result gives him a place that we can only wish he had earned by a greater body of work of his best quality. There were other times when his very virtuosity reached such a pitch as to force something more than astonishment, as in Le Jeune Homme caressant sa Chimère, where he achieves a brilliance equalled by very few of his contemporaries. Yet better, he could now and again subject himself to real emotional truth, and express it with sustained if unequal directness, as in Stella Maris. This sonnet sequence is, I think, his best achievement as a poet. The pyschology may be a little uncertain, and the lover's attitude is sometimes (e. g. Sonnets 52 and 53) intolerable, but the sequence as a whole does give real and often beautiful expression to a profound and passionate experience. There is here a spiritual intensity which Symonds generally missed, but by virtue of his having achieved it here and in one or two other places, he claims his place in the company of genuine poets. JOHN DRINKWATER. THE SHEPHERD TO THE EVENING STAR Star of my soul, arise; Show forth thy silver shining! For thee the sunset skies With love and light are pining: The tents of evening spread for thee All day the tender lemon trees Above the pathway bending Drooped their still boughs in odorous ease, But now the little winds that blow The dim mysterious avenues Respire again, and drink the dews; My sheep and goats are housed: their bells With her aërial shadow; I scarce can hear a sound, or see A single thing to hinder thee. Come, star! Come, lover! Let me feel The wonder of thy kisses: Breathe in my brain the thoughts that steal But when the maiden moon is free, Leave me to sleep and dream of thee! LE JEUNE HOMME CARESSANT SA CHIMÈRE (FOR AN INTAGLIO) A boy of eighteen years 'mid myrtle-boughs A woman lay beside him, so it seemed; Thick silken tresses; her white woman's wrist, Upheld a dainty chin; and there beneath, Her twin breasts shone like pinks that lilies wreathe. What color were her eyes I cannot tell; For as he gazed thereon, at times they darted Dun rays like water in a dusky well; Then turned to topaz: then like rubies smarted With smouldering flames of passion tiger-hearted; Then 'neath blue-veined lids swam soft and tender With pleadings and shy timorous surrender. Thus far a woman: but the breath that lifted Her panting breast with long melodious sighs, Stirred o'er her neck and hair broad wings that sifted The perfumes of meridian Paradise; Dusk were they, furred like velvet, gemmed with eyes Of such dull lustre as in isles afar Night-flying moths spread to the summer star. Music these pinions made a sound and surge |