They have all the sensuous charm of Keats, but
the prose of Hume could not have presented the truths which they are
designed to convey with more lucidity and precision.
the prose of Hume could not have presented the truths which they are
designed to convey with more lucidity and precision.
Tennyson
POLITICAL GROUP
'"You ask me. "'
'"Of old sat Freedom. "'
'"Love thou thy Land. "'
'The Goose. '
In surveying these poems two things must strike every one--their very
wide range and their very fragmentary character. There is scarcely any
side of life on which they do not touch, scarcely any phase of passion
and emotion to which they do not give exquisite expression. Take the
love poems: compare 'Fatima' with 'Isabel', 'The Miller's Daughter' with
'Locksley Hall', 'The Gardener's Daughter' with 'Madeline', or 'Mariana'
with Cleopatra in the 'Dream of Fair Women'. When did love find purer
and nobler expression than in 'Love and Duty? ' When has sorrow found
utterance more perfect than in the verses 'To J. S '. , or the passion for
the past than in 'Break, Break, Break', or revenge and jealousy than in
'The Sisters? ' In 'The Two Voices', 'The Palace of Art' and 'The Vision
of Sin' we are in another sphere. They are appeals to the soul of man on
subjects of momentous concern to him. And each is a masterpiece. What is
proper to philosophy and what is proper to poetry have never perhaps
been so happily blended.
They have all the sensuous charm of Keats, but
the prose of Hume could not have presented the truths which they are
designed to convey with more lucidity and precision. In that superb
fragment the 'Morte d'Arthur' we have many of the noblest attributes of
Epic poetry. '? none' is the perfection of the classical idyll, 'The
Gardener's Daughter' and the idylls that follow it of the romantic. 'Sir
Galahad' and 'St. Agnes' are in the vein of Keats and Coleridge, but
Keats and Coleridge have produced nothing more exquisite and nothing so
ethereal. 'The Lotos* Eaters' is perhaps the most purely delicious poem
ever written, the 'ne plus ultra' of sensuous loveliness, and yet the
poet who gave us that has given us also the political poems, poems as
trenchant and austerely dignified in style as they are pregnant with
practical wisdom. There is the same versatility displayed in the
trifles.
But all is fragmentary. No thread strings these jewels. They form a
collection of gems unset and unarranged. Without any system or any
definite scope they have nothing of that unity in diversity which is so
perceptible in the lyrics and minor poems of Goethe and Wordsworth.
Capricious as the gyrations of a sea-gull seem the poet's moods and
movements. We have now the reveries of a love-sick maiden, now the
picture of a soul wrestling with despair and death; here a study from
rural life, or a study in character, there a sermon on politics, or a
descent into the depths of psychological truth, or a sketch from nature.
But nothing could be more concentrated than the power employed to shape
each fragment into form. What Pope says of the 'Aeneid' may be applied
with very literal truth to these poems:--
Finish'd the whole, and laboured every part
With patient touches of unwearied art.
'"You ask me. "'
'"Of old sat Freedom. "'
'"Love thou thy Land. "'
'The Goose. '
In surveying these poems two things must strike every one--their very
wide range and their very fragmentary character. There is scarcely any
side of life on which they do not touch, scarcely any phase of passion
and emotion to which they do not give exquisite expression. Take the
love poems: compare 'Fatima' with 'Isabel', 'The Miller's Daughter' with
'Locksley Hall', 'The Gardener's Daughter' with 'Madeline', or 'Mariana'
with Cleopatra in the 'Dream of Fair Women'. When did love find purer
and nobler expression than in 'Love and Duty? ' When has sorrow found
utterance more perfect than in the verses 'To J. S '. , or the passion for
the past than in 'Break, Break, Break', or revenge and jealousy than in
'The Sisters? ' In 'The Two Voices', 'The Palace of Art' and 'The Vision
of Sin' we are in another sphere. They are appeals to the soul of man on
subjects of momentous concern to him. And each is a masterpiece. What is
proper to philosophy and what is proper to poetry have never perhaps
been so happily blended.
They have all the sensuous charm of Keats, but
the prose of Hume could not have presented the truths which they are
designed to convey with more lucidity and precision. In that superb
fragment the 'Morte d'Arthur' we have many of the noblest attributes of
Epic poetry. '? none' is the perfection of the classical idyll, 'The
Gardener's Daughter' and the idylls that follow it of the romantic. 'Sir
Galahad' and 'St. Agnes' are in the vein of Keats and Coleridge, but
Keats and Coleridge have produced nothing more exquisite and nothing so
ethereal. 'The Lotos* Eaters' is perhaps the most purely delicious poem
ever written, the 'ne plus ultra' of sensuous loveliness, and yet the
poet who gave us that has given us also the political poems, poems as
trenchant and austerely dignified in style as they are pregnant with
practical wisdom. There is the same versatility displayed in the
trifles.
But all is fragmentary. No thread strings these jewels. They form a
collection of gems unset and unarranged. Without any system or any
definite scope they have nothing of that unity in diversity which is so
perceptible in the lyrics and minor poems of Goethe and Wordsworth.
Capricious as the gyrations of a sea-gull seem the poet's moods and
movements. We have now the reveries of a love-sick maiden, now the
picture of a soul wrestling with despair and death; here a study from
rural life, or a study in character, there a sermon on politics, or a
descent into the depths of psychological truth, or a sketch from nature.
But nothing could be more concentrated than the power employed to shape
each fragment into form. What Pope says of the 'Aeneid' may be applied
with very literal truth to these poems:--
Finish'd the whole, and laboured every part
With patient touches of unwearied art.
