Chapter D: G. ROSSETTI (Love’s Lovers)

* * * * *

A SONNET

Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times—good Lord! I’d rather be
Quite unacquainted with the A.B.C.
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.

JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN (1859-1893).

“Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,” is Wordsworth’s fine
sonnet on the subjugation of Switzerland.

It is certainly extraordinary how the great poet at times
dropped into the most prosaic language and commonplace verse.
This, however, was only in his earlier poems and only in a
few of those poems. His theory at that time was that poetic
language should be natural, such as used by ordinary men, and
not essentially different from prose. Actually, however, at the
root of the matter was his want of any sense of humour. Only
so can we account for his beginning a poem “Spade! with which
Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,” or writing absurdly babyish
verses. The one instance on record in which he did apparently
exhibit a grotesque kind of humour was in a verse of _Peter
Bell_:—

Is it a party in a parlour?
Cramm’d just as they on earth were cramm’d—
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damn’d.

But this he no doubt wrote quite seriously and without any idea
that the verse was humorous. Shelley placed this verse at the
head of his parody of _Peter Bell_, and Wordsworth omitted it
from the poem after 1819.

* * * * *

And, were I not, as a man may say, cautious
How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,
I could favour you with sundry touches
Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess
Heightened the mellowness of her cheek’s yellowness
(To get on faster) until at last her
Cheek grew to be one master-plaster
Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse;
In short, she grew from scalp to udder
Just the object to make you shudder.

R. BROWNING (_The Flight of the Duchess_).

* * * * *

Day is dying! Float, O Song,
Down the westward river,
Requiem chanting to the Day—
Day, the mighty Giver.

Pierced by shafts of Time he bleeds,
Melted rubies sending
Through the river and the sky,
Earth and heaven blending;

All the long-drawn earthy banks
Up to cloud-land lifting:
Slow between them drifts the swan,
’Twixt two heavens drifting.

Wings half open, like a flow’r
Inly deeper flushing,
Neck and breast as virgin’s pure—
Virgin proudly blushing.

Day is dying! Float, O swan,
Down the ruby river;
Follow, song, in requiem
To the mighty Giver.

GEORGE ELIOT (_The Spanish Gypsy_).

* * * * *

Nature, and nature’s laws, lay hid in night:
God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light.

POPE

* * * * *

Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death.

’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh, life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that we want.

TENNYSON (_The Two Voices_).

It is, perhaps, true that no one at any time longs for death;
and that our desire is for “more life _and fuller_.” But men
have for various reasons longed _to die_, though they may
not have longed for _death_. There are those to whom the
remainder of life will be one torment of pain to themselves
and a continuous mental distress to their friends; and there
have been men of firm religious belief who desired to pass
into a nobler _life_ beyond the grave. Again, Richard Hodgson
definitely assured me in 1897 that he _wished to die_. He was
absolutely satisfied with the evidence of survival after death,
which he had had in connection with the Society for Psychical
Research; and his desire was to “pass over” and be with the
friends with whom for years he had been in communication.
Hodgson was incapable of saying anything insincere.

* * * * *

Remember what Simonides said—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.

PLUTARCH (_Morals_).

* * * * *

Not the truth of which a man is or believes himself to be possessed, but the earnest efforts which he has made to attain truth, make the worth of the man. For it is not through the possession of, but through the search for truth, that he develops those powers in which alone consists his ever-growing perfection. Possession makes the mind stagnant, indolent, proud.

If God held in His right hand all truth, and in His left the ever-living desire for truth—although with the condition that I should remain in error for ever—and if He said to me “Choose,” I should humbly bow before His left hand, and say “Father, give; pure truth is for Thee alone.”

LESSING (1729-1781) _Wolfenbüttel Fragments_

When Lessing wrote this famous passage he was contending that
criticism should be absolutely free in regard to religious,
as to all other, subjects. “The argument on which he chiefly
relies is that the Bible cannot be considered necessary to a
belief in Christianity, since Christianity was a living and
conquering power before the New Testament in its present form
was recognised by the church. The true evidence for what is
essential in Christianity, he contends, is its adaptation
to the wants of human nature; hence the religious spirit is
undisturbed by the speculations of the boldest thinkers.”
(_Encyclopaedia Britannica_).

* * * * *

The light of every soul burns upward. Let us allow for atmospheric disturbance.

G. MEREDITH (_Diana of the Crossways_).

* * * * *

Human life may be painted according to two methods. There is the stage method. According to that, each character is duly marshalled at first, and ticketed; we know with an immutable certainty that, at the right crises, each one will reappear and act his part, and, when the curtain falls, all will stand before it bowing. There is a sense of satisfaction in this—and of completeness. But there is another method—the method of the life we all lead. Here nothing can be prophesied. There is a strange coming and going of feet. Men appear, act and re-act upon each other, and pass away. When the crisis comes, the man who would fit it does not return. When the curtain falls, no one is ready. When the footlights are brightest they are blown out; and what the name of the play is no one knows. If there sits a spectator who knows, he sits so high that the players in the gaslight cannot hear his breathing.

OLIVE SCHREINER (_The Story of an African Farm_).

This is from the preface to the second edition. This book must
be unique, for surely no other girl in her teens has written a
book so brilliant in itself and indicating such originality and
genius. It is a great loss to literature that the writer became
entirely absorbed in South African politics and controversy.

* * * * *

I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another’s misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

ALEXANDER POPE.

* * * * *

NIGHT AND DEATH

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And lo! creation widened in man’s view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind!
Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

J. BLANCO WHITE (1775-1841).

(See preface.) This sonnet, apart from its great excellence,
is a remarkable literary curiosity. By this one poem alone
Blanco White achieved a lasting reputation as a poet. The point
is that this is _his only poem_. He certainly had previously
written a sonnet of little merit on survival after death, but
“_Night and Death_” was apparently an inspired transfiguration
of his earlier effort. It is a startling instance of
inspiration coming to a man once only in his life—and then
coming in its very highest form. There are other poets, whose
work is generally of poor quality, but who have each produced
one surprisingly good poem which alone keeps their memory
alive. An instance of this is Christopher Smart (1722-1771),
who wrote several volumes of verse but only one fine poem, the
“Song of David.” Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) is also known only
by his “Burial of Sir John Moore,” but his other poems, though
forgotten, are said to have had some merit.

The sonnet is also interesting for another reason. White’s
family had settled in Spain for two generations, his
grandfather having changed his name to Blanco. His mother
was Spanish, he was educated in Spain, and became a Spanish
priest, and he did not leave for England until 1810, when
thirty-five years of age. Yet White’s beautiful thought could
hardly be expressed in finer language. There is, however, one
defect in the words “fly and leaf and insect.” (William Sharp
courageously altered “fly” into “flower.”)

Coleridge thought this “the finest and most grandly conceived
sonnet in our language.” Leigh Hunt said that in point of
thought it “stands supreme, perhaps, above all in any language:
nor can we ponder it too deeply, or with too hopeful a
reverence.”

* * * * *

I sleep, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I walk in my neighbour’s pleasant fields and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights—that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God Himself. And he, that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

* * * * *

In my Progress travelling Northward,
Taking farewell of the Southward,
To Banbury came I, O prophane-One!
Where I saw a Puritane-One
Hanging of his Cat on Monday,
For killing of a Mouse on Sunday.

R. BRATHWAITE (1638) (_Drunken Barnaby_).

* * * * *

O the Spring will come,
And once again the wind be in the West,
Breathing the odour of the sea; and life,
Life that was ugly, and work that grew a curse,
Be God’s best gifts again, and in your heart
You’ll find once more the dreams you thought were dead.

H. D. LOWRY (_In Covent Garden_).

* * * * *

Of such as he was, there be few on Earth;
Of such as he is, there are many in Heaven;
And Life is all the sweeter that he lived,
And all he loved more sacred for his sake:
And Death is all the brighter that he died,
And Heaven is all the happier that he’s there.

GERALD MASSEY (_In Memoriam_).

* * * * *

ONLY SEVEN

(_A Pastoral Story, after Wordsworth._)

I marvelled why a simple child
That lightly draws its breath
Should utter groans so very wild,
And look as pale as Death.

Adopting a parental tone,
I asked her why she cried;
The damsel answered, with a groan,
“I’ve got a pain inside.

“I thought it would have sent me mad
Last night about eleven.”
Said I, “What is it makes you bad?
How many apples have you had?”
She answered, “Only seven!”

“And are you sure you took no more,
My little maid?” quoth I.
“Oh! please sir, mother gave me four,
But _they_ were in a pie!”

“If that’s the case,” I stammered out,
“Of course you’ve had eleven.”
The maiden answered, with a pout,
“I ain’t had more nor seven!”

I wondered hugely what she meant,
And said, “I’m bad at riddles,
But I know where little girls are sent
For telling tarrididdles.

“Now, if you don’t reform,” said I,
“You’ll never go to heaven.”
But all in vain; each time I try,
That little idiot makes reply,
“I ain’t had more nor seven”!

POSTSCRIPT.

To borrow Wordsworth’s name was wrong,
Or slightly misapplied;
And so I’d better call my song,
“Lines after _Ache-inside_.”

HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH.

It seems wicked to travesty Wordsworth’s tender little poem,
but Leigh’s verses amused us greatly when they appeared. Mark
Akenside (1721-1770) is a poet now almost forgotten.

* * * * *

The hour, which might have been, yet might not be,
Which man’s and woman’s heart conceived and bore
Yet whereof life was barren,—on what shore
Bides it the breaking of Time’s weary sea?