Poems [9]
wounded foot of the queen of love--blushing crimson to the very heart; yet there is not, to my knowledge, in the whole range of English literature, so large a collection of amatory songs in which sensualism and voluptuousness find no voice. These lays can bring to the cheek of purity no blush, save that of pleasure--the mother may sing them to her child, the bride to her young husband.
"'Festus' has an eloquent reply to such as hold love a theme unworthy the true bard:--
'Poets are all who love--who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is LOVE.'
"The muse of Morris was Poesy's own 'summer child.' Hope, love, and happiness, sunny-winged fancies and golden-hued imaginings, have nested in his heart like birds.
"His verse does not cause one to tremble and turn pale--it charms and refreshes. It does not 'posses us like a passion'--it steals upon us like a spell. It does not storm the heart like an armed host--it is like the visitation of gentle spirits,
'Coming and going with a musical lightness.'
It is not a turbulent mountain-torrent, hurling itself down rocky places--it is a silver stream, gliding through quiet valleys, in whose waves the sweet stars are mirrored, on whose bosom the water-lilies sleep.
"Now and then there steals in a strain of sadness, like the plaint of a bereaved bird in a garden of roses; but it is a tender, not an OPPRESIVE sadness, and we know that the rainbow beauty of the verse could only be born in the wedlock of smiles and tears. In a word, his lays are not 'night and storm and darkness'--they are morning and music and sunshine.
"It were idle at this time to quote or comment upon all those songs of Morris best known and oftenest sung. It would be introducing to my readers old friends who took lodgings in their memories 'long time ago.' In reference to them, I would only remark their peculiar adaptedness to popular taste, the keen discrimination, the nice tact, or, to use one of Sir James Mackintosh's happy expressions, the 'FEELosophy' with which the poet has interlaced them with the heart-strings of a nation.
"'A Rock in the Wilderness' is an ode that any poet might be proud to own. It is much in the style of Campbell--chaste, devotional, 'beautiful exceedingly.' I know nothing of the kind more musically sweet than the serenade ''Tis now the promised hour'--the first line in especial--
'The fountains serenade the flowers, Upon their silver lute-- And nestled in their leafy bowers, The forest birds are mute.'
"Many an absent lover must have blessed our lyrist for giving voice to his own yearning affection, half sad with that delicate jealousy which is no wrong to the loved one, in the song 'When other friends are round thee.'
"'The Bacchanal'--if our language boasts a lovelier ballad than this, it has never met my eye. The story of the winning, the betraying and the breaking of a woman's heart, was never told more touchingly. 'The Dismissed' is in a peculiar vein of rich and quiet humor. I would commend it to the entire class of rejected lovers as containing the truest philosophy. 'Lines after the manner of the olden time' remind one of Sir John Suckling. They are 'sunned o'er with love'--their subject, by the way. 'I never have been false to thee' was an emanation from the FEMININE nature of the minstrel alone. Who does not believe the poet gifted with duality of soul? 'Think of me, my own beloved,' and 'Rosabel,' are the throbbings of a lover's breast, set to music; and 'One balmy summer night, Mary,' 'The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,' and 'When I was in my teens,' the distillation of the subtlest sweets lodged in the innermost cells of all flowers dedicated to love.
"I come now to my favorite, 'Where Hudson's wave;' a poem which I never read but that it glows upon my lip and heart, and leaves the air of my thoughts tremulous with musical vibrations. What a delicious gush of parental feeling! How daintily and delicately move the 'fitly chose words,' tripping along like silver sandaled fairies.
"'Land-Ho!'
"'Festus' has an eloquent reply to such as hold love a theme unworthy the true bard:--
'Poets are all who love--who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is LOVE.'
"The muse of Morris was Poesy's own 'summer child.' Hope, love, and happiness, sunny-winged fancies and golden-hued imaginings, have nested in his heart like birds.
"His verse does not cause one to tremble and turn pale--it charms and refreshes. It does not 'posses us like a passion'--it steals upon us like a spell. It does not storm the heart like an armed host--it is like the visitation of gentle spirits,
'Coming and going with a musical lightness.'
It is not a turbulent mountain-torrent, hurling itself down rocky places--it is a silver stream, gliding through quiet valleys, in whose waves the sweet stars are mirrored, on whose bosom the water-lilies sleep.
"Now and then there steals in a strain of sadness, like the plaint of a bereaved bird in a garden of roses; but it is a tender, not an OPPRESIVE sadness, and we know that the rainbow beauty of the verse could only be born in the wedlock of smiles and tears. In a word, his lays are not 'night and storm and darkness'--they are morning and music and sunshine.
"It were idle at this time to quote or comment upon all those songs of Morris best known and oftenest sung. It would be introducing to my readers old friends who took lodgings in their memories 'long time ago.' In reference to them, I would only remark their peculiar adaptedness to popular taste, the keen discrimination, the nice tact, or, to use one of Sir James Mackintosh's happy expressions, the 'FEELosophy' with which the poet has interlaced them with the heart-strings of a nation.
"'A Rock in the Wilderness' is an ode that any poet might be proud to own. It is much in the style of Campbell--chaste, devotional, 'beautiful exceedingly.' I know nothing of the kind more musically sweet than the serenade ''Tis now the promised hour'--the first line in especial--
'The fountains serenade the flowers, Upon their silver lute-- And nestled in their leafy bowers, The forest birds are mute.'
"Many an absent lover must have blessed our lyrist for giving voice to his own yearning affection, half sad with that delicate jealousy which is no wrong to the loved one, in the song 'When other friends are round thee.'
"'The Bacchanal'--if our language boasts a lovelier ballad than this, it has never met my eye. The story of the winning, the betraying and the breaking of a woman's heart, was never told more touchingly. 'The Dismissed' is in a peculiar vein of rich and quiet humor. I would commend it to the entire class of rejected lovers as containing the truest philosophy. 'Lines after the manner of the olden time' remind one of Sir John Suckling. They are 'sunned o'er with love'--their subject, by the way. 'I never have been false to thee' was an emanation from the FEMININE nature of the minstrel alone. Who does not believe the poet gifted with duality of soul? 'Think of me, my own beloved,' and 'Rosabel,' are the throbbings of a lover's breast, set to music; and 'One balmy summer night, Mary,' 'The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,' and 'When I was in my teens,' the distillation of the subtlest sweets lodged in the innermost cells of all flowers dedicated to love.
"I come now to my favorite, 'Where Hudson's wave;' a poem which I never read but that it glows upon my lip and heart, and leaves the air of my thoughts tremulous with musical vibrations. What a delicious gush of parental feeling! How daintily and delicately move the 'fitly chose words,' tripping along like silver sandaled fairies.
"'Land-Ho!'