XV

ROSSETTI, SWINBURNE, MORRIS

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ANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (18281882), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-), and William Morris (1834-1896) were intimate personal friends, and closely associated in the aims of their literary art. Standing head and shoulders above any other poets belonging distinctively to the last half of the nineteenth century, they represent a school clearly in contrast with that which had just preceded, the school of Tennyson, Browning, and Matthew Arnold. This school has been called variously and vaguely the "Pre-Raphaelite," mediæval,” and “stained-glass window" school. The fact is, the distinguishing peculiarity of the poems of these three writers, and of the poets who have followed them down even to our own time, is that they are inspired primarily by books and by the past, not by the present, or by their own immediate passions or emotions. All three were splendid translators, and have gained fame for their translations almost as much as for their original work. Rossetti was the worshiper of Dante, Swinburne of Greek poetry, Morris of the Icelandic sagas. All three ranged over a vast field, and tried many different styles; but they measure their greatness by comparison of themselves with their masters. And

when they are not dealing distinctly with the past, they seem to be projecting themselves into the future: there is extremely little sympathy with the present.

Rossetti, the first of the group to attain influence (not so much with the public as with his own little circle in London), was not only poet, but even more prominently a painter. Painting was indeed his principal business, and the volume of work he produced as a writer is very much smaller and less ambitious than that of either Swinburne or Morris. Rossetti is more widely accepted by the public, however, than either of his friends.

Swinburne, who was to outlive both his companions, has been a veritable virtuoso in verse. There is hardly any metre under the sun that he has not studied and imitated, or used for his own purposes with rare facility. He even surpasses Tennyson in this respect. And the amount of his work is immense, running into many volumes; though he has been a most prolific literary critic as well as poet. His early volume of Poems and Ballads at once became notorious because of some half-dozen pieces dealing with passional subjects, and in the mind of the general public he has remained the erotic poet. As a matter of fact, he is even more spiritual and intellectual than either of his two friends, and in one of his volumes he has handled the subject of childhood with all the charm of sweet innocence.

Morris is known to the general public more widely for his revival of beautiful printing at the Kelmscott press, and for his decorative de

signing and socialistic theories. But as time goes by his greatness as a poet is likely to stand out above his other accomplishments. In him was the true spirit of medieval romance and taletelling after the manner of Chaucer, though he lacks Chaucer's plain common sense and dramatic qualities.

We are yet too near the work of these men, their influence is too potent in the critical atmosphere all about us, for us to judge them as we do the great men of the past, or even those like Tennyson and Browning, matured under influences that are now completely though but recently passed away.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

THE PROPHECY

From "The King's Tragedy"

THAT eve was clench'd for a boding storm,
'Neath a toilsome moon half seen;

The cloud stoop'd low and the surf rose high;
And where there was a line of the sky,

Wild wings loom'd dark between.

And on a rock of the black beach-side,
By the veil'd moon dimly lit,

There was something seem'd to heave with life
As the King drew nigh to it.

And was it only the tossing furze

Or brake of the waste sea-wold?

Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?

When near we came, we knew it at last
For a woman tatter'd and old.

But it seem'd as though by a fire within
Her writhen limbs were wrung;

And as soon as the King was close to her,
She stood up gaunt and strong.

'T was then the moon sail'd clear of the rack On high in her hollow dome;

And still as aloft with hoary crest

Each clamorous wave rang home,

Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed
Amid the champing foam.

And the woman held his eyes with her eyes: "O King, thou art come at last ;

But thy wraith has haunted the Scottish Sea To my sight for four years past.

"Four years it is since first I met,

'Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu,

A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,
And that shape for thine I knew.

"A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle
I saw thee pass in the breeze,
With the cerecloth risen above thy feet
And wound about thy knees.

“And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,

As a wanderer without rest,

Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud

That clung high up thy breast.

"And in this hour I find thee here,

And well mine eyes may note

That the winding-sheet hath pass'd thy breast

And risen around thy throat.

"And when I meet thee again, O King,
That of death hast such sore drouth,
Except thou turn again on this shore,
The winding-sheet shall have moved once more
And cover'd thine eyes and mouth.

-

"O King, whom poor men bless for their King,
Of thy fate be not so fain;

But these my words for God's message take,
And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake
Who rides beside thy rein!"

While the woman spoke, the King's horse rear'd

As if it would breast the sea,

And the Queen turn'd pale as she heard on the gale
The voice die dolorously.

When the woman ceased, the steed was still,
But the King gazed on her yet,

And in silence save for the wail of the sea

His eyes and her eyes met.

"God's ways are His own;

Man is but shadow and dust.

Last night I pray'd by His altar-stone;
To-night I wend to the Feast of His Son;
And in Him I set my trust.

"I have held my people in sacred charge,
And have not fear'd the sting

Of proud men's hate, to His will resign'd
Who has but one same death for a hind
And one same death for a King.

"And if God in His wisdom have brought close

The day when I must die,

That day by water or fire or air

My feet shall fall in the destined snare

Wherever my road may lie.

"What man can say but the Fiend hath set

Thy sorcery on my path,

My heart with the fear of death to fill,
And turn me against God's very will
To sink in His burning wrath?"

The woman stood as the train rode past,
And moved nor limb nor eye;

And when we were shipp'd, we saw her there
Still standing against the sky.