Letters to Dead Authors Part 9

In Byron, Arnold finds the greatest force, Poetic, in this later age of ours His song, a torrent from a mountain source, Clear as the crystal, singing with the showers, Sweeps to the sea in unrestricted course Through banks o'erhung with rocks and sweet with flowers; None of your brooks that modestly meander, But swift as Awe along the Pa.s.s of Brander.

And when our century has clomb its crest, And backward gazes o'er the plains of Time, And counts its harvest, yours is still the best, The richest garner in the field of rhyme (The metaphoric mixture, 't is confest, Is all my own, and is not quite sublime).

But fame's not yours alone; you must divide all The plums and pudding with the Bard of Rydal!

WORDSWORTH and BYRON, these the lordly names And these the G.o.ds to whom most incense burns.

'Absurd!' cries Swinburne, and in anger flames, And in an AEschylean fury spurns With impious foot your altar, and exclaims And wreathes his laurels on the golden urns Where Coleridge's and Sh.e.l.ley's ashes lie, Deaf to the din and heedless of the cry.

For Byron (Swinburne shouts) has never woven One honest thread of life within his song; As Offenbach is to divine Beethoven So Byron is to Sh.e.l.ley (_This_ is strong!), And on Parna.s.sus' peak, divinely cloven, He may not stand, or stands by cruel wrong; For Byron's rank (the Examiner has reckoned) Is in the third cla.s.s or a feeble second.

'A Bernesque poet' at the very most, And never earnest save in politics-- The Pegasus that he was wont to boast A blundering, floundering hackney, full of tricks, A beast that must be driven to the post By whips and spurs and oaths and kicks and sticks, A gasping, ranting, broken-winded brute, That any judge of Pegasi would shoot;

In sooth, a half-bred Pegasus, and far gone In spavin, curb, and half a hundred woes.

And Byron's style is 'jolter-headed jargon;'

His verse is 'only bearable in prose.'

So living poets write of those that are gone, And o'er the Eagle thus the Bantam crows; And Swinburne ends where Verisopht began, By owning you 'a very clever man.'

Or rather does not end: he still must utter A quant.i.ty of the unkindest things.

Ah! were you here, I marvel, would you flutter O'er such a foe the tempest of your wings?

'T is 'rant and cant and glare and splash and splutter'

That rend the modest air when Byron sings.

There Swinburne stops: a critic rather fiery.

_Animis caelestibus tantaene irae_?

But whether he or Arnold in the right is, Long is the argument, the quarrel long; _Non n.o.bis est to settle tantas lites_; No poet I, to judge of right or wrong: But of all things I always think a fight is The most unpleasant in the lists of song; When Marsyas of old was flayed, Apollo Set an example which we need not follow.

The fas.h.i.+on changes! Maidens do not wear, As once they wore, in necklaces and lockets A curl ambrosial of Lord Byron's hair; 'Don Juan' is not always in our pockets Nay, a NEW WRITER's readers do not care Much for your verse, but are inclined to mock its Manners and morals. Ay, and most young ladies To yours prefer the 'Epic' called 'of Hades'!

I do not blame them; I'm inclined to think That with the reigning taste 't is vain to quarrel, And Burns might teach his votaries to drink, And Byron never meant to make them moral.

You yet have lovers true, who will not shrink From lauding you and giving you the laurel; The Germans too, those men of blood and iron, Of all our poets chiefly swear by Byron.

Farewell, thou t.i.tan fairer than the G.o.ds!

Farewell, farewell, thou swift and lovely spirit, Thou splendid warrior with the world at odds, Unpraised, unpraisable, beyond thy merit; Chased, like Oresres, by the furies' rods, Like him at length thy peace dost thou inherit; Beholding whom, men think how fairer far Than all the steadfast stars the wandering star!

_Note_ Mr. Swlnburne's and Mr. Arnold's diverse views of Byron will be found in the _Selections_ by Mr. Arnold and in the _Nineteenth Century_.

XXI. To Omar Kha'yya'm.

Wise Omar, do the Southern Breezes fling Above your Grave, at ending of the Spring, The Snowdrift of the petals of the Rose, The wild white Roses you were wont to sing?

Far in the South I know a Land divine, (1) And there is many a Saint and many a Shrine, And over all the shrines the Blossom blows Of Roses that were dear to you as wine.

(1) The hills above San Remo, where rose-bushes are planted by the shrines. Omar desired that his grave might be where the wind would scatter rose-leaves over it.

You were a Saint of unbelieving days, Liking your Life and happy in men's Praise; Enough for you the Shade beneath the Bough, Enough to watch the wild World go its Ways.

Dreadless and hopeless thou of Heaven or h.e.l.l, Careless of Words thou hadst not Skill to spell, Content to know not all thou knowest now, What's Death? Doth any Pitcher dread the Well?

The Pitchers we, whose Maker makes them ill, Shall He torment them if they chance to spill?

Nay, like the broken potsherds are we cast Forth and forgotten,--and what will be will!

So still were we, before the Months began That rounded us and shaped us into Man.

So still we shall be, surely, at the last, Dreamless, untouched of Blessing or of Ban!

Ah, strange it seems that this thy common thought How all things have been, ay, and shall be nought Was ancient Wisdom in thine ancient East, In those old Days when Senlac fight was fought,

Which gave our England for a captive Land To pious Chiefs of a believing Band, A gift to the Believer from the Priest, Tossed from the holy to the blood-red Hand! (1)

(1) Omar was contemporary with the battle of Hastings.

Yea, thou wert singing when that Arrow clave Through helm and brain of him who could not save His England, even of Harold G.o.dwin's son; The high tide murmurs by the Hero's grave! (1)

(1) Per mandata Ducis, Rex hic, Heralde, quiescis, Ut custos maneas littoris et pelagi.

And _thou_ wert wreathing Roses--who can tell?-- Or chanting for some girl that pleased thee well, Or satst at wine in Nasha'pu'r, when dun The twilight veiled the field where Harold fell!

The salt Sea-waves above him rage and roam!

Along the white Walls of his guarded Home No Zephyr stirs the Rose, but o'er the wave The wild Wind beats the Breakers into Foam!

And dear to him, as Roses were to thee, Rings long the Roar of Onset of the Sea; The _Swan's Path_ of his Fathers is his grave: His sleep, methinks, is sound as thine can be.

His was the Age of Faith, when all the West Looked to the Priest for torment or for rest; And thou wert living then, and didst not heed The Saint who banned thee or the Saint who blessed!

Ages of Progress! These eight hundred years Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears, And now!--she listens in the wilderness To thee, and half believeth what she hears!

Hadst _thou_ THE SECRET? Ah, and who may tell?

'An hour we have,' thou saidst. 'Ah, waste it well!'

An hour we have, and yet Eternity Looms o'er us, and the thought of Heaven or h.e.l.l!

Nay, we can never be as wise as thou, O idle singer 'neath the blossomed bough.

Nay, and we cannot be content to die.

_We_ cannot s.h.i.+rk the questions 'Where?' and 'How?'

Ah, not from learned Peace and gay Content Shall we of England go the way he went The Singer of the Red Wine and the Rose Nay, otherwise than his our Day is spent!

Serene he dwelt in fragrant Nasha'pu'r, But we must wander while the Stars endure.

_He_ knew THE SECRET: we have none that knows, No Man so sure as Omar once was sure!

XXII. To Q. Horatius Flaccus.