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English  lyrical  poetry  from  Us  origins 


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ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 


English 
Lyrical  Poetry 


FROM    ITS   ORIGINS   TO   THE 
PRESENT  TIME 


By 
EDWARD   BLISS   REED,  Ph.  D. 

Assistant  Professor  of  English  at  Yale  College 


New  Haven  :   Yale  University  Press 

London:    Henivy  Frowde 

Oxford  University  Press 

M  CM  XII 


Copyright,  1918 

BY 

Yale  University  Press 


First  printed  May,  1912.     1000  copies 


TO 
HENRY  A.  BEERS 


PREFACE 

There  is  at  present  no  history  of  English  Lyrical  Poetry ; 
it  is  with  the  idea  of  providing  one  that  this  volume  is  pub- 
lished. While  it  offers  a  survey  of  the  whole  field,  it  does  not 
include  every  English  writer  of  lyrics ;  especially  in  the  last 
three  chapters  have  the  exigencies  of  limited  space  compelled 
the  omission  of  several  important  authors.  It  has  been 
necessary  to  limit  further  the  scope  of  this  volume  by  reduc- 
ing to  a  minimum,  or  neglecting  entirely,  all  biographical 
details.  With  Burns,  Moore,  Blunt,  Stevenson,  and  David- 
son as  chief  exceptions,  Irish  and  Scottish  writers  of  lyrics 
have  not  been  considered. 

This  book  represents,  in  part  only,  a  series  of  sixty  lec- 
tures delivered  annually  since  1899  to  members  of  the  Senior 
Class  at  Yale  College.  The  writer  trusts  that  it  may  not 
only  prove  of  interest  to  lovers  of  poetry,  but  that  it  may 
be  of  use  in  college  courses. 

To  thank  my  pupils  and  friends  for  much  valuable  sug- 
gestion and  criticism  is  an  exceedingly  pleasant  obligation. 
I  am  especially  indebted  to  my  colleagues,  Professors  W.  L. 
Cross,  F.  M.  Warren,  F.  B.  Luquiens,  H.  N.  MacCracken, 
and  Mr.  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke  who  has  aided  me,  most  oppor- 
tunely, in  the  thankless  task  of  reading  final  proof  sheets 
and  in  preparing  the  index.  To  Professor  Henry  A.  Beers, 
who  proposed  this  work  and  who  has  assisted  me  in  countless 
ways,    I    wish    to    express    my    heartiest    appreciation    and 

gratitude. 

E.  B.  R. 

Connecticut  Hall,  Yale  College. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Chapter  One.         The   Lyric   defined.      The    Old    English 
Lyric    ..... 

Chapter  Two.  The  Middle  English  Lyric    . 

Chapter  Three.  The  Tudor  Lyric 

Chapter  Four.  The  Elizabethan  Lyric 

Chapter  Five.  The  Jacobean  and  Caroline  Lyric  . 

Chapter  Six.  The  Lyric  from  the  Restoration  to  the 

death  of  Pope 

Chapter  Seven.      The  Lyric  of  the  Transition 

Chapter  Eight.      The   Lyric   of  the   Nineteenth   Century 
Part   I  .  .  .  . 

Chapter  Nine.       The  Lyric   of   the   Nineteenth   Century 
Part  II  ...  . 

Chapter  Ten.         The  Lyric  of  To-day 

Bibliography       ....... 

Index  ........ 


1 

22 

99 

138 

223 

302 
347 

392 

447 
510 
555 
561 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 


CHAPTER  ONE 


The  Lyric  Defined 


In  Milton's  Utopian  scheme  of  education  expounded  in 
his  letter  to  Hartlib,  it  is  provided  that  pupils  be  taught 
"that  sublime  art  which  in  Aristotle's  poetics,  in  Horace, 
and  the  Italian  commentaries  of  Castelvetro,  Tasso,  Maz- 
zoni,  and  others,  teaches  what  the  laws  are  of  a  true  epic 
poem,  what  of  a  dramatic,  what  of  a  lyric."  It  will  be 
remembered  that  these  students,  not  yet  arrived  at  man- 
hood, were  no  common  spirits ;  in  addition  to  Greek, 
Latin,  and  Italian,  they  had  mastered  the  Hebrew  tongue 
"whereto  it  would  be  no  impossibility  to  add  the  Chaldee 
and  the  Syrian  dialect" ;  yet  even  such  disciplined  minds 
would  find  it  impossible  to  learn  from  these  critics  and 
commentators  the  "laws  of  a  true  lyric."  At  the  very 
beginning  of  our  study,  when  we  must  establish  at  least 
a  working  definition,  it  is  natural  to  turn  to  the  father 
of  literary  criticism.  We  find  that  Aristotle  does  not  con- 
cern himself  with  this  form  of  poetry,  for  with  the  excep- 
tion of  three  slight  references  to  the  writing  of  dithyrambs 
and  nomes  (hymns  and  chants  sung  to  musical  accompani- 
ment in  the  worship  of  Bacchus  and  Apollo)  he  leaves 
the  whole  subject  out  of  consideration: 

"  Nor  Aristotle,  with  all  his  lore. 
Ne'er  told  of  the  properties  of  thy  kind."'^ 

^Poetics,  I,  ii,  xiii;  II,  vi.  "Aristotle  passes  over  the  whole  of  lyric 
poetry  with  the  most  scanty  notice,  partly,  perhaps,  because  it  was  little 
composed  in  his  day,  but  still  more  because  its  marked  personal  bearing 
restricted  the  universal  element  which  he  considered  necessary  to  true 
poetry."  E.  S.  Bouchier,  Aristotle's  Poetics,  Oxford,  1908,  p.  1,  note. 
S.  H.  Butcher,  Harvard  Lectures  on  Oreek  Subjects,  Boston,  1904,  p. 
198,  remarks  that  Aristotle  "passed  over  with  deliberate  neglect   (for 


%  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

One  thing  at  least  we  may  gather  from  Aristotle  and  the 
critics  who  followed  him:  poetry  is  to  be  considered  under 
the  threefold  classification  of  the  epic,  the  drama,  and  the 
song  (whether  it  be  the  voice  of  a  lone  singer  or  of  a 
chorus)  and  song  is  designated  by  the  term  "lyric." 
Modern  criticism  has  accepted  this  classification,  for,  as 
Arnold  observed,  the  tact  of  the  Greeks  in  matters  of  this 
kind  was  infallible  and  their  categories  of  epic,  dramatic, 
and  lyric  have  a  natural  propriety.  Considering  these 
three  forms  of  poetry,  we  find  that  the  nature  of  the  epic 
and  of  the  drama  is  essentially  unchanged  since  Aristotle's 
day  and  it  is  a  simple  matter  to  distinguish  them  as  types 
in  a  few  phrases.  The  lyric  has  greatly  enlarged  its 
scope  so  that  we  can  not  define  it  concisely  and  at  the  same 
time  accurately.  In  the  classification  of  literary  types,  hard 
and  fast  lines  rarely  can  be  drawn,  for  the  different  genres 
tend  to  approach  and  join  each  other.  Not  only  is  the 
lyric  spirit  manifest  in  both  epic  and  drama — ^in  Milton's 
"Hail,  holy  Light,"  in  Juhet's  "Wilt  thou  be  gone.?  it  is 
not  yet  near  day :" — ^but  something  of  the  epic  and  of  the 
drama    may    enter    into    the    lyric ;    we    have    "narrative" 

such  it  would  seem  to  be)  the  great  lyrical  poetry  of  Greece — Simonides, 
Pindar,   Sappho,   Alcasus,  to  none   of  whom  does   he  make   even   faint 

allusion Was  it,  perhaps,  that  lyrical  poetry  interested  him  only 

as  a  rudimentary  art — uttering  itself  in  the  form  of  improvised  chants 
and  dithyrambic  hymns — which  marked  a  stage  in  the  development  of 
the  drama?  ....  May  it  not  also  be  that  in  the  personal  outbursts  of 
lyrical  song,  in  the  self-abandonment,  the  rush  of  feeling  of  Sappho  or 
Alcaeus,  he  missed  the  characteristic  Hellenic  self-restraint?" 

1  The  Greek  term  for  lyric  poetry  was  filXoi  or  lieXucij  iroi'ijiris.  "Les 
Grecs  rfeervaient  le  nom  de  po6sie  lyrique  k  la  chanson  d'une  part,  et  de 
I'autre  k  la  grande  po^sie  monodique  et  chorale,  c'est  k  dire,  k  des  formes 
de  pofeie  plus  complMement  et  plus  richement  musicale.  L'fil6gie  et 
riambe  6taient  d'une  structure  trop  simple  pour  admettre  une  m^lodie 
vari6e."  A.  and  M.  Croiset,  Histoire  de  la  literature  grecque,  Paris, 
1898,  t.  II,  p.  43;  see  also  "Melos"  in  Pauly's  Beal-Encyclopddie  der 
Class.  Alter.;  E.  Nageotte,  Histoire  de  la  poMe  lyrique  grecque,  Paris, 
1888. 


THE  LYRIC  DEFINED  3 

lyrics  and  what  Browning  has  called  "dramatic"  lyrics. 
Distinctions  are  still  more  confused  because  the  metrical 
differences  that  once  separated  these  three  kinds  of  poetry 
— in  Greek  literature,  for  example — have  largely  dis- 
appeared, and  we  frequently  use  the  same  verse  form  for  both 
narrative  and  lyric  poetry.  Philip  Ayres,  a  mediocre  poet 
and  translator,  and  one  of  the  first  to  entitle  his  poems 
lyrics,  thought  it  necessary  to  defend  his  use  of  the  iambic 
pentameter.  "I  have  herein  followed  the  modem  Italian, 
Spanish,  and  French  poets,  who  always  call  Lyrics  all  such 
Sonnets,  and  other  small  poems,  which  are  proper  to  be  set 
to  music,  without  restraining  themselves  to  any  particular 
length  of  verse.  And  our  grand  Master  of  Lyrics,  even 
Horace  himself,  has  sometimes  inserted  the  Heroic  amongst 
his."^  To-day  the  lyric  poet  may  employ  any  metre,  and 
in  the  Princess  Tennyson  uses  the  same  line  for  the  narra- 
tive and  the  song: 

"  Now  while  I  sang,  and  maiden-like  as  far 
As  I  could  ape  their  treble,  did  I  sing: 

'  Why  lingereth  she  to  clothe  her  heart  with  love. 
Delaying  as  the  tender  ash  delays 
To  clothe  herself,  when  all  the  woods  are  green?'  " 

It  is  then  no  easy  matter  to  arrive  at  an  adequate  descrip- 
tion of  the  lyric;  still  we  must  attempt  one,  and  for  its  first 
clause  we  follow  the  ancient  critics  in  the  simple  statement 
that  a  lyric  is  a  song.  Before  we  add  to  this,  it  is  impor- 
tant to  consider  for  a  moment  the  fascinating  subject  of 
song's  antiquity. 

As  we  become  more  civilized,  we  become  more  desirous  of 
discovering  the  beginnings  of  our  civilization.  The  man  of 
science,  the  historian,  and  the  poet  have  been  attracted  by 
this  subject,  and  aided  by  the  researches  of  ethnology  and 
psychology,  the  philosopher  and  the   student  of  hterature 

i  Lyric  Poems,  London,  1687. 


4  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

have  discussed  vigorously  the  question  of  the  earliest  mani- 
festation of  poetry/  On  such  a  theme  there  must  be  theory 
and  counter-theory,  yet  there  is  a  growing  disposition  to 
accept  the  statement  that  the  instinct  of  rhythm,  which  is 
at  the  basis  of  all  poetry,  is  as  closely  bound  up  with  man's 
intelligence  as  is  his  perception  of  light  and  darkness. 
Because  our  own  sense  of  rhythm  has  become  so  highly 
developed,  we  do  not  consider  it  a  primitive  instinct.  Apart 
from  the  conclusions  of  ethnology,  in  themselves  a  sufficient 
proof,  there  are  many  reasons  for  regarding  it  as  old  as  the 
mind  of  man.  All  passions — love,  anger,  grief — of  them- 
selves seek  rhythmic  utterance,  and  whatever  our  conception 
of  primitive  man,  we  admit  that  he  was  governed  by  the 
elemental  feelings.  From  another  viewpoint,  Biicher  has' 
clearly  proved  that  rhythm  is  bound  up  with  all  toil  and 
play,  which  is  merely  another  way  of  stating  that  a  sense 
of  rhythm  is  as  old  as  the  human  race.^ 

The  poetry  which  was  the  natural  product  of  this 
rhythmic  feeling  was  largely  communal — a  song  or  chant 
coming  from  the  dancing,  toiling,  fighting  throng  or  clan. 
With  our  intense  individualism,  the  result  of  centuries  of 
development,  we  are  prone  to  reconstruct  the  antique  world 
after  the  likeness  of  our  own.  Because  with  us  poetry  has 
become  the  art  of  a  chosen  few,  we  think  of  the  primitive 
poet  in  terms  of  Gray's  Bard;  we  picture  him  seated  on 
some  lofty  rock,  singing  to  the  awed  listeners  below: 

"  With  haggard  eyes  the  poet  stood ; 
(Loose  his  beard  and  hoary  hair 
Streamed,  like  a  meteor,  to  the  troubled  air) 
And  with  a  master's  hand  and  prophet's  fire. 
Struck  the  deep  sorrows  of  his  lyre," 

1  This  whole  matter  has  been  adequately  treated  by  Professor  F.  B. 
Gummere  in  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  N.  Y.,  1901.  The  footnotes  of 
this  volume  furnish  an  excellent  bibliography  of  the  entire  subject. 

2  K.  W.  Biicher,  Arbeit  und  Rhytkmus,  Leipzig,  1896. 


THE  LYRIC  DEFINED  5 

but  so  far  as  the  beginnings  of  poetry  are  concerned,  modern 
critics  have  allowed  this  singer 

"  Deep  in  the  roaring  tide  to  plunge  to  endless  night." 

The  first  poets  were  but  members  of  the  singing,  dancing 
throng,  emerging  for  a  moment  to  lead  or  improvise,  then 
sinking  back  into  the  clan.'  Aristotle,  remarks  Professor 
Gummere,  is  quite  in  agreement  with  the  conclusions  of 
psychology  and  sociology  when  he  derives  tragedy  and 
comedy  from  the  clan  song.  Thus  the  lyric,  the  chorus,  is 
the  oldest  of  all  poetic  forms;  as  old  as  self-consciousness, 
it  hes  at  the  very  heart  of  the  race  and  this  consideration 
lends  to  our  study  a  deeper  interest.  Our  delight  in  the 
music  of  an  orchestra  or  in  the  colors  of  stained  glass  is 
not  lessened  when  we  reflect  that  primitive  man  knew  noth- 
ing of  this,  yet  when  we  hear  or  read  a  song,  expressing 
simply  some  of  the  great  emotions  of  life,  there  comes  a  new 
significance  as  we  catch  in  it  the  echo  of  a  song  old  as 
humanity.^  A  man  may  wonder  at  the  stars  without  a 
thought  of  the  innumerable  years  through  which  they  have 
shone,  but  if  for  one  brief  moment  such  an  idea  has  never 
entered  his  mind,  he  has  never  wholly  seen  them. 

Returning  now  to  our  definition,  we  have  stated  that  to 
the  Greeks  a  lyric  was  a  song.     We  must  carefully  avoid 

1  H.  M.  Posnett,  Comparative  Literature,  London,  1886,  chap,  ii,  Early 
Choral  Song.  Cf.  Gummere,  op.  cit.,  p.  92.  "As  the  savage  laureate 
slips  from  the  singing,  dancing  crowd,  which  turns  audience  for  the 
nonce,  and  gives  his  short  improvisation,  only  to  yield  to  the  refrain  of 
the  chorus,  so  the  actual  habit  of  individual  composition  and  performance 
has  sprung  from  the  choral  composition  and  performance."  See  also 
Posnett,  pp.  152-4  for  a  destructive  criticism  of  Hugo's  theory  of  the 
origin  of  the  lyric  set  forth  in  the  preface  to  Cromwell. 

2  "Thus,  looking  on  choral  songs  of  war  or  peace  as  the  primary 
sources  from  which  literature  has  everywhere  developed,  we  may  accept 
the  vulgar  canon  that  aU  literature  begins  in  song;  but  it  is  song  widely 
differing  in  nature  and  in  impersonal  authorship  from  any  to  which 
modem  art  is  accustomed."    Posnett,  p.  127. 


6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

giving  to  that  word  its  modem,  restricted  meaning,  for 
with  us  a  song  generally  implies  a  short  poem,  limited  to 
a  small  number  of  simple  metres  and  depending  for  its 
efFectiveness  largely,  sometimes  entirely,  upon  the  value  of 
its  musical  accompaniment.  With  the  Greeks,  song  was 
an  all-embracing  term ;  it  included  the  crooning  of  the  nurse 
to  the  child,  the  half  sung  chant  of  the  mower  or  sailor 
(forms  of  the  lyric  which  did  not  enter  into  literature),  the 
formal  ode  sung  by  the  poet,  and  the  great  chorals,  highly 
wrought  in  rhythm  and  diction,  sung  by  the  dancing  chorus. 
The  elegy  was  not  considered  a  lyric,  though  modern  his- 
torians of  Greek  literature  class  it  as  such.  It  is  out  of  our 
province  to  characterize  further  the  Greek  lyric;  its 
extraordinary  richness  both  of  form  and  content  must 
always  be  borne  in  mind.  No  two  odes  of  Pindar  are  pre- 
cisely alike  in  their  construction;  in  general,  the  Greek 
lyric  poets  disdained  to  repeat  the  measures  of  their 
contemporaries  and  even  the  ones  they  themselves  had 
employed.^  We  must  therefore  modify  materially  our  con- 
ception of  a  song  and  in  the  study  of  the  English  lyric 
we  include  elegies,  epithalamia,  and  odes,  forms  which  we 
rarely  associate  with  music. 

The  modern  song  differs  from  the  Greek  lyric  in  its 
simpler  construction  and  in  its  greater  dependence  upon 
music.  When  our  music  is  married  to  immortal  verse,  it 
becomes  the  better  half.  It  is  true  that  the  most  gifted 
composers  seek  to  reflect  and  interpret  the  mood  of  a  poem, 
yet  we  are  prone  to  regard  the  musician's  rather  than  the 
writer's  inspiration  as  the  more  important  element  in  a  song. 
Too  often  the  musician  is  unwilling  to  subordinate  himself, 
and  in  many  a  song  the  words  are  to  be  considered  merely 
as  a  starting  point  and  we  may  neglect  them  entirely.  In 
all  Greek  lyrics,  even  in  the  choral  odes,  music  was  but  the 

1  A.  Croiset,  La  Poisie  de  Pindare  et  les  lois  du  lyrisme  grec,  Paris, 
1880,  p.  59. 


THE  LYRIC  DEFINED  7 

handmaid  of  verse,  for  it  was  the  poet  himself  who  composed 
the  accompaniment.  Euripides  was  censured  because 
lophon,  son  of  Sophocles,  had  assisted  him  in  the  musical 
setting  for  some  of  his  dramas.* 

The  very  nature  of  Greek  music  made  verse  all  important. 
The  flute  and  the  cithera,  the  poet's  instrument,  furnished 
a  monotonous,  colorless  background  for  the  words,  and  in 
the  song,  it  was  the  poet  rather  than  the  composer  who 
charmed.^  The  odes  of  Pindar,  the  lyrics  of  Sappho  and 
Alcasus  produced  their  effect  upon  Roman  literature  with- 
out their  musical  accompaniment,  and  we  may  appreciate 
the  Greek  lyric  in  utter  ignorance  of  Greek  music  precisely 
as  we  enjoy  reading  the  Irish  Melodies,  despite  Moore's 
protest  that  they  are  of  small  value  without  their  musical 
setting. 

"  When,  round  the  bowl  of  vanished  years 

We  talkj  with  joyous  seeming, — 
With  smiles  that  might  as  well  be  tears, 

So  faintj  so  sad  their  beaming; 
While  memory  brings  us  back  again 

Each  early  tie  that  twined  us," — 

Who  remembers  that  these  lines  were  set  to  the  Hvely  air  of 
"The  Girl  I  Left  behind  Me".? 

We  commenced  our  definition  with  the  statement  that  the 
lyric  is  a  song;  to  this  we  now  add,  "or  any  poem  written 
in  a  form  or  style  considered  lyrical  by  the  Greeks."  Thus 
Gray's  Progress  of  Poesy  is  a  lyric,  not  because  of  its  song 
quality,  but  because  it  imitates  a  Greek  lyric  form. 

We  have  dwelt  thus  far  with  the  Greek  conception  of  a 
lyric  because  we  have  inherited  it;  but  modem  feeling  seeks 
in  verse  new  methods  of  expression,  and  we  must  accord- 

1  Butcher,  Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Arts,  London,  1902, 
p.  140. 

2  Crolset,  Pindare,  pp.  73  ff. 


8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

ingly  enlarge  our  definition.  Even  in  Greece,  music,  once  the 
inseparable  companion  of  the  lyric,  became  divorced  from 
it.  The  musician  constantly  strove  for  freer  utterance; 
only  when  music  existed  for  its  own  sake  and  not  as  the  set- 
ting for  a  poem  could  it  develop  as  an  art.  Pratinas,  the 
rival  of  Aeschylus  in  the  satiric  drama,  found  it  necessary 
to  chide  the  flutes  because  they  were  no  longer  content  to  be 
subservient  to  the  verse:  "The  flute  must  follow;  it  is  but  a 
servant."  On  the  other  hand,  the  poet  found  that  music 
was  not  necessary  for  the  lyric  since  the  melody  of  his  words 
could  surpass  the  sound  of  the  flute  or  cithera.  Thus  the 
formal  musical  element  was  no  longer  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  the  lyric,  though  it  never  forgot  nor  can  forget  its 
origin  in  song.  The  undergraduate  may  sing  Integer  vitce 
scelerisque  purus;  it  is  doubtful  whether  Horace  did. 

Though  the  lyric  became  divorced  from  music,  its  inner 
nature  remained  unchanged.  It  was  not  in  the  epic  or  in 
the  drama  but  in  the  lyric  that  the  Greek  or  Latin  poet 
sang  of  his  own  thoughts  and  emotions,  for  the  lyric 
was  personal,  the  other  forms  impersonal.  The  epic  and 
dramatic  writers  disappeared  behind  their  heroes,  but  even 
in  the  greater  lyrics,  the  triumphal  odes,  it  is  Pindar  himself 
who  addresses  the  victor,  and  the  chorus  is  but  his  echo.^  In 
an  even  more  marked  degree,  subjectivity  is  a  determining 
characteristic,  though  not  the  only  one,  of  the  modern  lyric. 
"Lyric  poetry  is  the  expression  by  the  poet  of  his  own  feel- 
ings," is  Ruskin's  brief  statement,  while  the  historian  of 
Greek  literature,  after  remarking  that  the  term  lyric  has 
changed  its  meaning  since  classic  times,  continues :  "Pure 
emotion,  unfettered  imagination,  thought  freed  from  the 
care  of  action  or  of  drawing  conclusions,  this  is  the  real 
substance  of  the  lyric."^  Brunetiere,  who  emphasizes  the  sub- 
jective element,  defines  lyric  poetry  as  the  expression  of  the 

1  Croiset,  Pindare,  pp.  99-102. 

2  Croiset,  Histoire  de  la  littirnture  grecque,  t.  II,  p.  201. 


THE  LYRIC  DEFINED  9 

poet's  personal  feelings  in  rhythms  corresponding  to  his 
emotions.^  So  important  does  he  consider  the  revelation  of 
the  writer's  personality,  that  he  would  include  Rabelais  in 
a  study  of  French  lyrical  poetry  because  he  was  one  of  the 
first  writers  to  break  with  the  impersonal  manner  of  the 
Middle  Ages. . 

A  little  reflection  will  show  that  the  subjective  element 
alone  does  not  make  a  poem  a  lyric,  and  that  we  must  draw 
a  clear  distinction  between  lyrical  feeling  and  lyrical  form. 
Samson  Agonistes  is  profoundly  subjective;  few  of  Words- 
worth's poems  reveal  his  personality  more  plainly  than 
does  Tintern  Abbey,  yet  these  are  not  lyrics.  Palgrave 
made  a  necessary  distinction  when  he  pointed  out  that  to 
call  a  poem  lyrical  implies  essentially  that  it  turn  on  some 
single  thought,  feeling,  or  situation ;  in  other  words,  the 
modern  lyric  must  be  a  short,  musical  expression  of  sub- 
jective feeling.  The  sonnet — frequently  set  to  music  in 
Italy  of  the  Renaissance  and  Elizabethan  England — gen- 
erally fulfills  these  conditions ;  even  when  a  sonnet  is  descrip- 
tive or  impersonal  it  often  may  be  considered  a  lyric  because 
of  its  music. 

This  musical  element  of  the  modern  lyric  is  to  be  found  in 
the  melody  of  rhyme.  Certainly  the  unrhymed  lyric, 
CoUins's  Ode  to  Evening  is  a  good  instance,  may  possess  a 
rare  and  subtle  music,  yet  speaking  broadly,  rhyme  renders 
emphatic  the  music  of  verse.  Turning  to  the  other  part  of 
our  statement,  that  the  lyric  is  a  short  expression  of  subjec- 
tive feeling,  it  will  be  found  that  poems  of  considerable  length 
are  rarely  lyrical  throughout;  they  may  have  lyrical  mo- 
ments, but  they  tend  to  become  didactic,  descriptive,  or  nar- 
rative. As  a  critic  has  well  said,  "The  lyric  is  not  only 
marked  by  the  coloring  of  human  passion,  but  by  beauty  and 
rapidity  of  movement,"  and  this  arises  from  its  very  nature. 

1  F.  Brunetifere,  L'£volution  de  la  po^sie  lyrique  en  France  au  dix- 
neuvUme  siicle,  Paris,  1894,  t.  I,  p.  154. 


10  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Let  us  take  the  testimony  of  a  poet  whose  genius  was  lyrical. 
In  an  interesting  lecture  entitled  The  Poetic  Theory,  Poe 
contends  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  long  poem.  He  uses 
his  critical  terms  loosely  and  evidently  means  by  poetry, 
lyric  verse;  his  remarks,  accordingly,  are  most  pertinent. 
A  poem,  he  states,  deserves  its  title  only  insomuch  as  it 
excites  by  elevating  the  soul;  but  through  psychical  neces- 
sity, that  degree  of  excitement  which  is  necessary  to  con- 
stitute a  true  poem  cannot  be  sustained  throughout  in  a 
composition  of  any  length.  This  statement  is  too  dogmatic, 
yet  underlying  it  is  a  sound  principle. 

We  may  now  review  our  completed  definition.  All  songs ; 
all  poems  following  classic  lyric  forms ;  all  short  poems 
expressing  the  writer's  moods  and  feelings  in  a  rhythm  that 
suggests  music,  are  to  be  considered  lyrics.  This  threefold 
statement  is  not  free  from  ambiguity  and  does  not  remove 
all  the  difficulties  that  arise  in  determining  whether  or  not 
a  given  poem  is  to  be  considered  a  lyric.  For  centuries  the 
ballads  were  sung,  yet  as  a  class  they  are  riojLspngs  but 
narrative  poems,  little  epics. 

"  The  king  sits  in  Dumferling  toune. 
Drinking  the  blude-red  wine, 
■  O  whar  will  I  get  guid  sailor. 
To  sail  this  schip  of  mine?'  " 

is  not  a  lyric ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  modem  ballad  of 
Fair  Helen  is  of  the  very  essence  of  lyric  verse: 

"  I  wish  I  were  where  Helen  lies; 
Night  and  day  on  me  she  cries ; 
O  that  I  were  where  Helen  lies 
On  fair  Kirconnell  lea !" 

Despite  such  an  exception,  we  must  distinguish  with  Ritson 
between   "songs   of   sentiment,   expression   or   even   descrip- 


THE  LYRIC  DEFINED  11 

tion"  which  are  lyrics,  and  "mere  narrative  compositions, 
which  we  now  denominate  ballads."^  Again,  coming  to  the 
third  part  of  our  definition,  it  is  often  a  question  whether 
the  subjective  element  in  a  poem  predominates  sufficiently 
over  the  descriptive  or  didactic  element  to  clearly  establish 
it  a  lyric.  Palgrave  includes  in  his  Golden  Treasury  of 
Songs  and  Lyrics  Milton's  Penseroso  and  L'Allegro,  yet  does 
not  the  descriptive  element  in  them  outweigh  the  purely 
lyrical,  despite  the  fact  that  they  have  a  song  quality — 
Handel  has  given  to  them  a  characteristic  setting — and  that 
II  Penseroso  in  a  measure  is  a  picture  of  Milton  himself? 
There  wiU  always  be  poems  on  the  border  fine  of  the  lyric, 
yet  in  most  cases  our  definition  wiU  determine  what  poems 
may  properly  come  within  our  field  of  study. 

We  cannot  dwell  longer  on  critical  distinctions,  important 
as  they  may  be,  for  our  lyric  poetry  awaits  us.  There  is, 
however,  an  objection  sometimes  raised  against  lyric  verse 
which  it  is  well  to  meet  at  the  very  beginning  of  our  study. 
The  lyric  poet,  we  are  told,  enjoys  not  an  absolute  but  a 
relative  vision,  for  he  is  too  fascinated  by  his  own  thoughts 
and  feelings  to  have  a  deep  sympathy  with  the  life  about 
him.  Like  a  bird  whose  eyes  have  been  put  out,  he  sings 
because  he  is  blind.  The  writers  of  lyrics  are  a  lesser  clan, 
living  down  the  slopes  of  Parnassus ;  the  epic  and  dramatic 
poets  are  the  great  masters  of  verse.  In  answer  to  this  we 
may  urge  that  the  lyric  stiU  has  something  of  the  epic 
(witness  the  Miltonic  sweep  of  Meredith's  sonnet,  Lucifer  in 
Starlight)  and  of  the  drama,  for  it  may  possess  a  certain 
Odysseyan  greatness  in  its  portrayal  of  the  wanderings  of 
a  soul,  and  the  intensity  of  a  Greek  tragedy  in  its  picture 
of  a  man  struggling  alone  against  his  fate.  But  avoiding 
comparisons  with  other  forms  of  verse,  we  may  remind  the 

1  J.  Ritson,  A  Select  Collection  of  English  Songs,  2d  edition,  London, 
1813.  A  Historical  Essay  on  the  Origin  and  Progress  of  National  Song, 
p.  i,  note. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

reader  that  the  greatest  study  in  life,  and  in  literature, 
which  is  but  a  manifestation  of  life,  is  the  study  of  person- 
ality. Even  when  we  talk  of  race  problems  and  of  national 
movements,  our  eyes  are  unconsciously  fixed  on  the  man,  the 
leader.  The  lyric  poet,  whether  he  be  prince  or  peasant, 
reveals  himself  to  us ;  in  Browning's  phrase,  he  is  "unashamed 
of  soul,"  and  standing  closer  to  us  than  any  other  writer, 
we  know  him  at  once.  His  expression  of  emotion  is  all  the 
more  poignant  because  he  makes  us  his  confidants.  In  the 
epic  there  are  pages  of  description  or  narration  before  the 
crisis  is  reached ;  in  the  drama  the  characters  must  be  intro- 
duced and  delineated,  but  in  the  lyric  we  find  ourselves 
instantly  at  the  heart  of  the  whole  matter,  and  a  single 
phrase  can  reveal  the  poet's  world  as  a  sudden  flash  of 
lightning  illumines  the  landscape. 

There  is  in  the  finest  lyrics  that  highest  quality  of  art — a 
charm  that  defies  analysis.  We  may  put  our  finger  on  the 
great  scene  that  makes  a  tragedy  immortal,  but  many  a 
lyric  lives  not  for  what  it  says  but  for  what  it  suggests. 
There  are  certain  general  rules  which  the  epic  and  the  drama 
observe ;  the  lyric  is  above  any  formula  that  may  be  devised. 
Many  a  dramatist  has  explained  in  detail  how  he  wro'te  his 
play,  from  the  selection  of  the  theme  to  the  last  act ;  many 
a  lyric  poet  has  testified  that  he  cannot  tell  how  or  why  he 
wrote  a  certain  song — it  simply  "came  to  him."  The  lyric 
spirit  is  like  Blake's  spirit  of  love: 

"  the  gentle  wind  doth  move 
Silently,  invisibly." 

To  sing  with  the  infinite  harmonies  of  rhythm  and  the  melo- 
dies of  rhyme ;  to  move  by  dim  suggestion  or  to  appeal  with 
overpowering  passion  directly  to  the  feelings ;  to  present 
thoughts  suffused  with  emotion  or  ideas  that  concern  the 
reason  chiefly;  to  summon  before  the  reader's  mind  by  the 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  LYRIC  IS 

"magic  incantation  of  a  verse"  exquisite  colors  and  forms; 
to  touch  the  memory  and  stir  the  imagination — this  is  but 
a  faint  description  of  the  art  of  the  lyric  poet. 

As  we  began  this  discussion  of  the  lyric  by  pointing  out 
that  it  is  the  oldest  of  poetic  forms,  we  may  end  it  with  the 
assertion  that  it  is  the  most  enduring.  The  verse  epic,  sup- 
planted by  the  novel,  no  longer  exists ;  the  poetic  drama,  at 
least  in  English-speaking  countries,  has  but  little  vitality, 
for  it  is  written  under  the  shadow  of  the  Elizabethans  and 
gives  us  not  life  but  the  faint  echo  of  a  distant  age.  The 
lyric  springs  from  life  itself  and  so  long  as  man  thinks  and 
feels,  it  can  never  disappear. 


II 

The  Old  English  Lyric 

We  have  stated  that  the  lyric  is  the  oldest  of  all  poetic 
forms  and  accordingly  we  must  look  for  it  in  the  very  begin- 
nings of  our  literature.  The  Roman  historian,  noting  the 
traits  of  our  Germanic  forefathers,  did  not  fail  to  mention 
their  love  of  song.  Whether  or  not  Tacitus  idealized  the  Ger- 
mans to  shame  his  own  countrymen,  there  is  no  reason 
to  suspect  that  he  departed  from  strict  accuracy  when  he 
speaks  of  their  songs  in  praise  of  their  divinities,  or  of  what 
he  calls  "the  well  known  songs"  sung  to  inflame  the  warriors' 
courage  as  they  rush  into  battle.^  If  their  religious  songs 
were  chiefly  narrative  poems  relating  the  adventures  and 
exploits  of  their  gods,  certainly  we  may  assume  that  these 
battle  hymns  were  more  than  a  recital  of  old  heroic  deeds, 
and  that  they  were  essentially  lyrical,  for  the  chant  of  a 
tribe  may  be  as  true  a  lyric  as  the  measured  strophes  of  a 
Greek  chorus.     There  were  no  scribes  to  take  down  these 

1  Germania,  ii-iii. 


li  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

poems;  we  have  only  the  mention  of  Tacitus  to  recall  the 
Germanic  lays  of  Arminius/  only  a  brief  reference  in  the 
sixth  century  history  of  the  Goths  by  Jordanes  to  remind  us 
of  the  funeral  songs  composed  for  the  death  of  Attila.  Such 
passages,  tantalizing  in  the  extreme,  are  yet  sufficient  proof 
that  our  race,  before  conquering  Britain,  had  a  well- 
developed  lyric  tradition.  If  Tacitus  writes  of  the  battle 
choruses,  the  Northern  sagas  show  us  that  bards  and  min- 
strels were  familiar  figures,  and  that  kings  themselves,  in 
their  last  moments,  sang  defiance  to  their  enemies.  In  the 
Old  Lay  of  Atli  (Attila),  when  Gunnar,  king  of  the  Goths, 
is  taken  prisoner  and  cast  alive  into  a  pit  filled  with  deadly 
serpents,  he  meets  his  end  like  a  hero.  "But  Gunnar,  alone 
there,  in  his  wrath  smote  the  harp  with  his  hands  ;  the  strings 
rang  out."^ 

It  is  not  surprising  that  our  oldest  English  poem — so 
scholars  have  entitled  it — should  deal  with  a  scop  or  singer. 
The  poem  of  Widsith,  or  the  Far-Wanderer,  purports  to  be 
an  account  by  a  much  travelled  bard  of  the  many  peoples  he 
has  visited  and  of  the  rewards  he  has  received  from  their 
chieftains  and  kings.  A  single  glance  at  his  bare  catalogue 
of  princes  and  nations  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the  wander- 
ings of  this  Germanic  Odysseus  belong  to  the  realms  of 
fiction ;  originally  the  poem  may  have  recounted  the  travels 
of  a  famous  singer,  but  in  its  present  form,  with  its  numerous 
interpolations,  it  presents  to  us  but  a  purely  mythical  per- 
sonage. Critics  believe  that  certain  parts  of  Widsith  were 
written  before  the  Angles  and  Saxons  had  left  their  old  home, 
and  this  narrative  poem  offers  accordingly  one  more  proof 
that  our  love  of  song  is  an  ancient  heritage.  Widsith  tells 
us  that  he  was  received  by  the  most  famous  kings ;  they 
dehghted  in  him  and  gave  him  presents — rings  of  gold — 

1  Annales,  II,  88. 

2  F.  B.  Gummere,  Germanic  Origins,  N.  Y.,  1893,  pp.  331-232. 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  LYRIC  IS 

when   he   "with   clear    voice   raised    the   song,    loud   to    the 
harp.'" 

The  oldest  English  lyric,  and  the  only  poem  in  Old  English 
written  in  strophic  form  with  a  refrain,  is  Dear's  Lament. 
Like  Widsith,  Deor  is  a  scop,  but  he  has  had  nothing  of  Wid- 
sith's  good  fortune,  for  he  has  been  superseded  in  his  lord's 
favor  by  a  rival  singer — a  situation  which  finds  a  parallel 
in  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  Deor  laments  his  sad  fate  and  to 
comfort  himself  he  recalls  the  woes  that  others  have  suffered 
and  overcome.  The  song  has  but  forty-two  lines ;  the  con- 
cluding strophe,  in  the  Old  English,  is  as  follows : 

JJaet  ic  bi  me  sylfum  secgan  wille, 
paet  ic  hwile  waes  Heodeninga  scop, 
dryhtne  dyre :  me  waes  Deor  noma. 
Ahte  ic  fela  wlntra  folgaS  tilne, 
holdne  hlaford,  o]>  Jjset  Heorrenda  nu, 
leoScraeftig  monn  londryht  gepah, 
paet  me  eorla  hleo  aer  gesealde. 

fses  ofereode,  pisses  swa  maeg!" 

In  Professor  Gummere's  translation  this  strophe  runs: 

"  To  say  of  myself  the  story  now, 
I  was  singer  erewhile  to  sons-of-Heoden, 
dear  to  my  master,  Deor  was  my  name. 
Long  were  the  winters  my  lord  was  kind; 
I  was  happy  with  clansmen;  till  Heorrenda  now 
by  grace  of  his  lays  has  gained  the  land 
which  the  haven-of-heroes  erewhile  gave  me. 
That  he  surmounted:  so  this  may  I!"^ 

1  For  the  text  of  Widsith  and  the  old  English  lyrics  hereafter  men- 
tioned, see  R.  P.  Wiilcker-C.  W.  M.  Grein,  Bibliothek  der  angel- 
sdchsischen  Poesie,  Kassel,  1883,  Bd.  I.  For  translations,  see  Cook  and 
Tinker,  Select  Translations  from  Old  English  Poetry,  Boston,  1902.  See 
also  the  discussion  of  Widsith  in  F.  B.  Gummere's  The  Oldest  English 
Epic,  N.  Y.,  1909,  p.  188  ff. 

2  Wulcker-Grein,  Bd.  I,  p.  280. 

3  See  Professor  Gummere's  interesting  comments  on  this  poem,  The 
Oldest  English  Epic,  pp.  1T8  ff. 


16  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  in  Professor  Lewis's  free  adaptation : 

"  1,  Deor  of  the  Heodenings,  was  dear  to  my  good  lord^ 
And  did  long  minstrel  service,  nor  missed  my  due  reward ; 
Till  now  this  mightier  minstrel  thrusts  my  lord  and  me  apart, 
And  wins  my  lands  and  living  with  the  wiles  of  his  high  art. 
He  has  his  day ;  he  overcame ;  but  peace !  break  not,  my  heart  !"^ 

It  is  significant  that  our  first  lyric  should  be  the  song  of  a 
scop;  it  is  equally  significant  that  this  lyric  is  a  lament.  The 
tragedy  of  life  was  ever  present  in  the  thoughts  of  our  fore- 
fathers. They  had  been  reared  amid  the  forests  and  marshes 
that  were  so  repellent  to  the  mind  of  Tacitus :  "Quis  .... 
Germaniam  peteret,  informem  terris,  asperam  caslo,  tristem 
cultu  aspectuque,  nisi  si  patria  sit.'"'^  The  land  that  bred 
them  was  cold  and  gloomy,  and  in  their  verse  we  hear  the 
rush  of  the  storm.  Desperate  fighters,  they  saw  ever  the 
struggle  of  life.  For  such  men  poetry  must  have  not  charm 
but  strength,  not  j  oy  but  melancholy ;  the  few  poems  that 
approach  the  lyric  form  are  all  elegiac.  The  Seafarer,  the 
finest  of  the  shorter  Old  English  poems,  tells  of  weary  hours 
and  hard  days 

"  Mid  the  terrible  rolling  of  waves,  habitations  of  sorrow. 
Benumbed  by  the  cold,  oft  the  comfortless  night-watch  hath 

held  me 
At  the  prow  of  my  craft  as  it  tossed  about  under  the  cliffs." 

Yet  the  singer  is  impelled  by  the  wanderlust, 

"  he  has  always  a  longing,  a  sea-faring  passion 
For  what  the  Lord  God  shall  bestow,  be  it  honor  or  death. 
No  heart  for  the  harp  has  he,  nor  for  acceptance  of  treasure, 
No  pleasure  has  he  in  a  wife,  no  delight  in  the  world. 
Nor  in  aught  save  the  roll  of  the  billows;  but  always  a  longing, 
A  yearning  uneasiness,  hastens  him  on  to  the  sea."^ 

1  Cook  and  Tinker,  p.  60. 

2  Germania,  II. 

3  Cook  and  Tinker,  pp.  45-46. 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  LYRIC  17 

In  the  Wanderer,  the  singer,  far  from  his  home  and  kins- 
men, dreams  of  happier  days  in  the  banqueting  hall  of  his 
lord.  He  awakens,  and  the  contrast  between  his  old  life  and 
his  present  outcast  state  is  most  poignantly  drawn: 

"  But  the  friendless  man  awakeSj  and  he  sees  the  yellow  waves. 
And  the  sea-birds  dip  to  the  sea,  and  broaden  their  wings  to  the 

gale. 
And  he  sees  the  dreary  rime,  and  the  snow  commingled  with 

had. 
O,  then,  are  the  wounds  of  his  heart  the  sorer  much  for  this. 
The  grief  for  the  loved  and  lost  made  new  by  the  dream  of  old 

bliss." 

The  poem  ends  in  a  lament  for  the  world;  a  glory  has 
departed  from  the  earth ;  the  horse  and  rider  have  been  over- 
thrown ;  the  strength  of  princes  has  vanished ;  and  Wyrd,  or 
Fate,  has  brought  to  destruction  the  towers  and  banquet 
halls.i 

In  the  Banished  Wife's  Complaint  we  have  the  lyrical 
monologue  of  a  forsaken  woman  whose  husband  has  crossed 
the  sea,  leaving  her  to  be  imprisoned  in  a  cave.  In  her 
wretchedness  she  laments  her  lot,  for  to  be  banished  from  the 
family  or  clan  was  the  hardest  of  all  fates.  Desdemona 
cries,  "0,  banish  me,  my  lord,  but  kill  me  not,"  but  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  death  was  preferable  to  exile.^ 

Of  these  four  poems,  Deor  is  the  one  pure  lyric;  the 
descriptive,  narrative,  and  morahzing  passages  in  the  other 
three  bring  them  on  the  border  line  of  lyric  verse.  This  is 
indeed  but  a  small  group  to  represent  our  earliest  songs; 
undoubtedly  they  are  typical  of  a  large  body  of  lyric  poems 
that  have  completely  disappeared,  for  Old  English  poetry  is 
full  of  allusions  to  songs  and  singers.  In  Beowulf,  the  war- 
riors in  the  banqueting  hall  delight  in  the  songs  of  the  scop 

1  P.  S3. 

2  P.  64.    Cf.  Oermanic  Origins,  pp.  169  ff. 


18  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  down  to  the  Norman  conquest  harp  and  song  moved 
and  charmed  our  ancestors.  When  the  Angles  and  Saxons 
turned  to  Christianity,  when  from  "wolves  and  sea-dogs,"  as 
Gildas  called  them,  they  became  the  leaders  in  education, 
attracting  students  from  all  Europe  to  Northumbria,  they 
still  retained,  a  legacy  from  the  past,  the  lyric  mood.  In 
the  time  of  Casdmon  (d.  680)  it  was  stiU  the  custom  for  the 
guests  at  a  feast  to  sing  in  turn.  Because  he  could  not  sing, 
Csedmon  felt  so  disgraced  that  "he  would,  as  soon  as  he  saw 
the  harp  coming  anywhere  near  him,  jump  up  from  the  table 
in  the  midst  of  the  banqueting,  leave  the  place,  and  make  the 
best  of  his  way  home."'^  The  fragment  of  Csedmon's  hymn 
which  Bede  preserves  is  the  oldest  lyric  composed  in  Eng- 
land that  can  be  approximately  dated.^  Warriors,  we  are 
told  by  Cynewulf,  still  listened  to  minstrels  who  could  play 
loudly  upon  the  harp.'  Asser  informs  us  that  Alfred  (d. 
901)  "was  an  attentive  listener  to  Saxon  poems  which  he 
often  heard  recited  and  being  apt  at  learning,  kept  them 
in  his  memory."  As  a  boy,  he  learned  by  heart  a  whole  book 
of  Saxon  verse  which  his  mother  had  showed  to  him,  and  when 
king,  he  saw  to  it  that  his  sons  carefully  learned  Saxon  books, 
"especially  Saxon  poems."*  Surely  some  of  these  were  lyrics. 
We  could  well  have  spared  many  pages  of  Alfred's  transla- 
tions for  a  few  of  these  poems  which  so  stirred  him.  To  come 
within  a  century  of  the  Conquest,  Dunstan  (d.  988)  was  not 
only  an  accomplished  musician,  a  skillful  player  on  the  harp, 
but  in  his  youth  his  enemies  asserted  that  he  learned  with  the 
greatest  zeal  "Gentilitatis  vanissima  carmina" — the  vainest 
songs  of  the  heathen.^     King  Cnut  was  a  poet,  and  one  of 

1  Bede  relates  this.    See  Cook  and  Tinker,  p.  180. 

2  P.  76. 

3  A.  S.  Cook,  The  Christ  of  Cynewulf,  Boston,  1900,  11.  666-670. 

4  A.  S.  Cook,  Asser' s  Life  of  King  Alfred,  Boston,  1906,  chap.  22-23, 
75-76. 

5  William  Stubbs,  Memorials  of  St.  Dunstan,  London,  1874,  p.  11. 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  LYRIC  19 

his  songs  was  long  sung  by  the  people.    Only  the  first  stanza 
remains : 

"  Marie  sungen  the  muneches  binnen  Ely,  (monks) 
Tha  Cnut  ching  raw  thar  by. 

"  Roweth,  cnihtes,  noar  the  land, 
And  here  we  thes  muneches  sang."^ 

These  all  too  brief  indications  of  the  existence  of  the  Old 
English  lyric  give  us  no  hints  of  its  literary  value;  we  can 
build  no  theories  on  these  stray  lines.  Our  earliest  lyrics 
disappeared,  not  because  they  were  valueless  but  because 
the  clergy,  who  were  the  scribes,  considered  the  "vain  songs 
of  the  heathen"  unworthy  of  remembrance;  better  a  line  of 
a  sermon  or  a  word  of  scripture  than  pages  of  lyrics  of 
fight  and  feasting.  Bede  was  called  "learned  in  our  songs" 
yet  they  found  no  place  in  his  writings.  The  religious  poetry 
of  this  age  was  narrative  and  didactic  rather  than  lyrical; 
the  first  part  of  Cynewulf's  Christ  is  based  upon  a  series  of 
antiphons  and  is  accordingly  lyrical  in  its  feeling,  yet  the 
poem  is  not  lyrical  in  its  form  and  lies  outside  our  province, 
though  near  it.^  We  have  no  Old  English  hymns,  yet  it  is 
probable  that  with  the  Latin  songs  of  the  church  there 
existed  for  the  common  people  some  religious  or  festal  songs 
in  the  vernacular.  At  least  we  know  that  Bede  in  his  last 
hours  composed  a  death  song  in  the  English  tongue: 

"  Before  the  dread  j  ourney  which  needs  must  be  taken 
No  man  is  more  mindful  than  meet  is  and  right 
To  ponder,  are  hence  ha  departs,  what  his  spirit 
Shall,  after  the  death-day,  receive  as  its  portion 
Of  good  or  of  evil,  by  mandate  of  doom."' 

1  Cf.  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  p.  275. 

2  Cook,  The  Christ  of  Cynewulf,  p.  xcl. 

3  Cook  and  Tinker,  p.  78. 


£0  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  dirge,  the  lament  at  the  grave  or  funeral  pyre  is  one 
of  the  oldest  of  lyric  forms.  We  find  such  songs  mentioned 
in  Beowulf,  and  ^Ifric  instructs  priests  to  forbid  at  funerals 
"the  heathen  songs  of  the  laity."^  We  have  not  one  licsang, 
but  their  spirit  lives  on  in  the  Lyke-Wake  Dirge,  lines  filled 
with  the  shudder  and  mystery  of  death : 

"  This  ae  nighte,  this  ae  nighte, 
—Every  nighte  and  alle, 
Fire  and  sleet  and  candle-lighte,  (Fire  and  salt) 
And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

"  When  thou  from  hence  away  art  past, 
—Every  nighte  and  alle. 
To  Whinny-muir  thou  com'st  at  last^  (To  the  moor  of 
furze  or  gorse) 
And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

"  If  ever  thou  gavest  hosen  and  shoon, 
—Every  nighte  and  alle. 
Sit  thee  down  and  put  them  on ; 

And  Christe  receive  thy  saule. 

"If  hosen  and  shoon  thou  ne'er  gav'st  nane, 
—Every  nighte  and  alle, 
The  whinnes  sail  prick  thee  to  the  bare  bane ; 
And  Christe  receive  thy  saule."^ 

We  have  said  that  with  few  exceptions  the  scribes  dis- 
dained to  record  our  secular  poetry ;  we  owe  to  one  of  them 
the  Battle  of  Brunanburh,  found  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chron- 
icle. The  battle  was  fought  in  937  and  the  poem  is  accord- 
ingly one  of  the  last  of  the  Old  English  lyrics.  Unlike  the 
poem  on  the  battle  of  Maldon,  it  contains  little  direct  narra- 
tion; it  is  rather  a  cry  of  victory,  the  exultant  chant  of  a 

iCf.  Oermanic  Origins,  pp.  348  ff;  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  pp. 
316  ff. 

2  See  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse,  p.  443. 


THE  OLD  ENGLISH  LYRIC  21 

conquering    army,    and    Tennyson    in    his    paraphrase    has 
caught  the  spirit  of  the  forgotten  poet  who  made  the  lines: 

"  We  the  West-SaxonSj 

Long  as  the  daylight 

Lasted,  in  companies 
Troubled  the  track  of  the  host  that  we  hated ; 
Grimly  with  swords  that  were  sharp  from  the  grindstone, 
Fiercely  we  hack'd  at  the  flyers  before  us. 


Many  a  carcase  they  left  to  be  carrion. 
Many  a  livid  one,  many  a  sallow-skin — 
Left  for  the  white-tail'd  eagle  to  tear  it,  and 
Left  for  the  horny-nibb'd  raven  to  rend  it,  and 
Gave  to  the  garbaging  war-hawk  to  gorge  it,  and 
That  gray  beast,  the  wolf  of  the  weald." 

This  has  the  true  ring;  that  Germanic  ardor  for  battle  that 
so  impressed  Tacitus  burns  undiminished. 

We  leave  the  Old  English  Period,  not  empty-handed,  but 
with  scanty  gleanings.  We  have  found  enough  to  make  us 
understand  how  old  are  certain  dominant  characteristics  of 
modem  song.  The  love  of  adventure  and  combat ;  the 
delight  in  nature ;  the  sense  of  the  mystery  of  the  world  and 
of  the  tragic  aspects  of  life,  have  come  down  to  us  from  our 
forefathers.  Unconsciously  we  sing  the  same  strains  that 
fell  from  their  lips.  Even  their  manner  of  singing  is  still 
with  us ;  for  them  alliteration  gave  to  verse  the  same  beauty 
we  find  in  rhyme,  and  accordingly  we  still  ornament  our 
lyrics  in  their  fashion.  The  Norman  Conquest  revolutionized 
the  technique  and  the  content  of  English  song,  but  in  all  the 
changes  we  still  hear  echoes  of  the  earlier  lyric,  notes  that 
seem  to  come  from  some  forgotten  scop. 


CHAPTER  TWO 

The  Middle  English  Lyeic 
I 

Wace  tells  us  that  at  the  battle  of  Hastings,  Taillefer 
advanced  from  the  Norman  ranks  against  the  Saxon  lines 
singing  of  Roland  and  the  peers: 

"  Taillefer^  qui  mult  bien  chantout, 
Sor  un  cheual  qui  tost  alout, 
Deuant  le  due  alout  chantant 
De  Karlemaigne  e  de  Reliant 
E  d'Oliuer  e  des  uassals^ 
Qui  morurent  en  Renceuals." 

"  Taillefer,  who  sang  exceedingly  well. 
Upon  a  swift  horse. 
Before  the  Duke  went  singing 
Of  Charlemagne  and  of  Roland 
And  of  Oliver  and  of  the  vassals 
Who  died  at  Roncevaux."^ 

If  we  accept  this  picture,  the  minstrel  knight  foretold 
unconsciously  the  conquest  of  French  song,  for  with  the 
advent  of  the  Normans  there  arose  in  England  a  new  lyric. 
To  understand  it,  we  must  first  examine  the  French  lyric 
which  transformed  Saxon  verse  by  giving  it  new  forms  of 
expression,  new  thoughts  and  emotions ;  for  French  song, 
instead  of  stifling  the  native  lyric  impulse,  deepened  and 
perfected  it. 

According  to  the  theory  of  Gaston  Paris,  the  French  lyric 
had  its  origins  in  Poitou  and  Limousin  at  the  yearly  dances 

iMaistre  Wace's  Roman  de  Bou,  11.  8035-8040,  ed.  by  H.  Andresen, 
Heilbi-onn,  1877-9. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  n 

held  at  Easter,  in  the  May  season.'  At  these  festivals,  sur- 
vivals of  the  old  pagan  Floralia,  women  were  the  chief  cele- 
brants ;  they  led  the  dances  and  the  songs  whose  themes  were 
love,  youth,  and  the  joy  of  life  when  spring,  with  its  birds 
and  flowers,  puts  winter  to  flight.  These  songs,  with  their 
strong  pagan  element,  were  a  scandal  to  the  early  church, 
and  the  measures  it  took  to  suppress  them  prove  that  they 
were  sung  far  and  wide.  At  the  council  of  Chalons,  held  in 
the  seventh  century,  the  priests  were  instructed  to  prohibit 
the  women  from  singing  profane  songs  as  they  gathered  at 
the  church  porches,  and  a  decree  of  the  following  century 
forbade  the  priests  to  copy  or  spread  love  songs.^  These 
lyrics,  whose  popularity  the  church  could  not  destroy,  were 
sung  and  probably  improAdsed  in  the  open  air,  in  the 
meadows.  They  were  called  caroles,  a  word  that  signifies 
a  dance  to  the  accompaniment  of  song.  The  participants 
(in  the  earliest  time,  women;  later,  both  men  and  women) 
holding  each  other's  hands,  danced  en  rond  while  the  leader 
sang  a  verse  or  couplet  to  which  the  dancers  added  a  refrain. 
In  the  English  poem  of  Arthour  and  Merlin,  written  about 
1300,  there  are  interpolated  some  charming  spring  songs, 
one  of  which  gives  us  the  whole  picture : 

"  Miri  time  it  is  in  May, 
Than  wexeth  along  the  day,  (Then) 
Floures  schewen  her  borioun,  (show  their  buds) 
Miri  it  is  in  feld  &  toun, 

Foules  miri  in  wode  gredeth,  (in  the  wood  call) 
Damisels  carols  ledeth."' 

The  parts  of  these  caroles  most  easily  remembered  were 
the  refrains;  they  were  recalled  and  quoted  long  after  the 

^Journal    des    Savants,    November,    December,    1891;    March,    July, 
1893. 

2  Cf.  C.  Voretzsch,  EinfiChrung  in  das  Studium  der  altfranzosischen 
Literatur,  Halle,  1905,  pp.  96-7. 

3  Arthour  and  Merlin,  ed.  E.  Kolbing,  Leipzig,  1890, 11.  1709  ff. 


H  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

songs  to  which  they  belonged  had  faded  from  the  memory. 
Several  are  cited  in  the  romances;  a  characteristic  one  is 
the  following,  sung  at  Mainz  on  May  day  by  two  young  girls 
who  lead  back  the  folk  from  the  woods  where  they  have  been 
gathering  flowers  and  branches: 

"  Tout  la  gieus  sor  rive  mar, 
Compaignon,  or  dou  chanter. 
Dames  i  ont  bauz  levez: 

Mout  en  ai  le  cuer  gai. 

Compaignon,  or  dou  chanter 

En  I'onor  de  mat." 

"  All  below  there  on  the  bank  of  the  stream^ 
Friends,  now  some  singing. 
The  women  have  begun  the  dances : 

I  have  a  heart  full  of  joy  for  this. 
Friends,  now  some  singing. 
In  honor  of  May."^ 

Another  typical  refrain  is  preserved  in  La  Cour  de 
Paradis,  where  the  Virgin  in  heaven  leads  a  dance,  singing 
an  old  May  song: 

"  Let  all  those  who  are  in  love 
Come  dance,  but  not  the  others."^ 

These  May  festivals,  with  their  songs,  were  originally 
celebrated  by  the  common  folk;  peasants  were  the  dancers 
and  singers,  but  as  an  aristocracy  arose,  it  too  desired  to 
celebrate  these  rites,  and  the  songs  were  thus  known  by  high 
and  low.  From  these  caroles,  then,  asserts  Paris,  there 
developed  in  the  South  the  Proven9al  lyric,  the  poetry  of  the 

iJDe  Roman  de  la  Rose  ou  de  Ouillaume  de  Dole,  ed.  G.  Servois, 
8ocUt4  des  anciens  textes  frangais,  Paris,  1893,  p.  125.  Cf.  the  article 
by  Paris  in  the  same  volume,  p.  xcix. 

2  E.  Wechssler,  Das  Kulturproblem  des  Minnesangs,  Halle,  1909,  p. 
446. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  25 

troubadours,  from  which  in  turn  sprang  in  the  North  the 
lyrics  of  the  trouveres.  To  all  this  verse  is  given  the  general 
designation  of  chanson  courtoise.  In  the  North,  again, 
transformed  to  aube,  pastourelle,  debat,  ballade,  these 
caroles  lived  on  in  what  we  shall  call  la  poesie  populaire,  not 
as  the  name  seems  to  imply,  folk  song,  but  poetry  that  is  far 
closer  to  the  folk  than  the  chanson  courtoise}  It  is  a  fair 
question  whether  Paris  has  proved  his  thesis.  Though  we 
admit  that  the  poesie  populaire  is  derived  from  these  caroles, 
it  is  difficult  to  find  in  them  the  origin  of  the  chanson  cour- 
toise. In  its  technique,  in  its  conception  of  love  this  is 
utterly  removed  from  all  folk  poesy;  its  only  resemblance 
to  these  dance  songs  is  to  be  found  in  nature  passages.  It 
is  quite  possible  that  the  chanson  courtoise  is  more  closely 
alhed  to  the  Latin  poetry,  secular  and  religious,  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  but  we  cannot  dwell  longer  on  this  question 
of  origins,  for  we  must  consider  the  subject-matter  of  the 
chanson  courtoise  and  la  poesie  popidaire,  since  both  genres 
influenced  the  English  lyric.^ 

So  much  has  been  published  on  the  fascinating  subject  of 
troubadour  and  trouvere  poetry  that  we  shall  attempt  merely 
to  summarize  in  the  briefest  fashion  its  most  striking  charac- 
teristics. Though  written  for  the  aristocracy,  for  the 
"amans  fins  et  vrais,"  though  composed  by  kings  and  princes, 
it  approached  the  caroles  (hence  it  descended  from  them, 
argues  Paris)  in  countless  allusions  to  the  coming  of  spring, 
the  budding  of  flower  and  leaf,  the  singing  of  the  birds. 
Whatever  the  theme,  joy  or  sorrow,  praise  or  satire,  love 
or  religion,  the  poet  should  begin: 

1  Cf.  L.  CHdat,  La  Poisie  lyrique  et  satirique  en  France  au  moyen 
dge,  Paris,  1893,  pp.  27  ff. 

2  See  the  article  by  J.  Bddier,  Bevue  de  Deux  Mondes,  1  Mai,  1896; 
"Voretzsch,  op.  cit.,  pp.  188-196;  F.  M.  Warren,  in  a  paper  read  before 
the  Yale  Romance  Club,  October,  1910,  argues  forcibly  for  the  Latin 
origin  of  the  chanson  courtoise. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Li  nouveauz  tans  et  mais  et  violete 
et  roussignols  me  semont  de  chanter." 

"  The  spring,  and  May,  and  the  violet 
And  the  nightingale  impel  me  to  sing."^ 

Such  lines  soon  became  purely  conventional  and  bore  Kttle 
or  no  relation  to  the  poem  that  followed.  After  the  cus- 
tomary opening  stanza  on  the  flowers  in  the  green  grass 
and  the  red  and  white  blossoms  upon  the  bushes,  the  most 
famous  sirvente  of  Bertrand  de  Born  changes  abruptly  to 
a  song  of  war,  filled  with  an  almost  savage  ardor.  As  the 
troubadours  sang  more  often  of  the  sorrows  than  of  the  joys 
of  love,  the  happiness  of  the  spring  time  is  merely  a  foil  for 
their  grief.  Bernart  de  Ventadorn  has  a  graceful  poem  in 
which  his  feelings  are  atune  with  the  May: 

"  Quant  I'erba  fresqu'  el  fuelha  par 

e  la  flors  botona  el  verian, 

e-1  rossinhols  antet  e  clar 

leva  sa  votz  e  mou  son  chan, 
icy  ai  de  luy  e  ioy  ai  de  la  flor 
e  ioy  de  me  e  de  midons  maior ; 
daus  totas  partz  suy  de  ioy  claus  e  sens, 
mas  sel  es  ioys  que  totz  autres  ioys  vens."^ 

"  When  the  fresh  grass  and  leaf  appears, 
And  the  flower  buds  on  the  branch. 
And  the  nightingale  loud  and  clear 
Raises  his  voice  and  sings, 
I  have  joy  in  him  and  joy  in  the  flower, 
Joy  in  myself,  but  more  in  my  lady; 
On  all  sides  I  am  surrounded  with  joy, 
But  she  is  joy  above  all  others." 

1  K.  Bartsch,  Chrestomathie   de  I'ancien  frangais,  Leipzig,  1884,  col. 
239. 

2C.  Appel,  Provenzalische  Chrestomathie,  Leipzig,  1902,  p.  68. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  B7 

Yet  even  Bernart  must  go  in  the  spring  time  "half  dead, 
weeping  while  others  laugh,"  and  the  Chatelain  de  Couci 
sings : 

"  Quant  li  estez  et  la  dolce  saisons 
Fait  fuelle  et  flor  et  les  prez  renverdir, 
Et  li  dolz  chans  des  menus  oisillons 
Fait  les  pluisors  de  joie  sovenir, 
Las !  chascuns  chantej  et  je  plor  et  sospir."^ 

"  When  the  summer  and  the  sweet  season 
Make  leaf  and  flower  and  the  meadows  grow  green  again 
And  the  sweet  song  of  the  little  birds 
Makes  most  persons  remember  their  happiness, 
Alas !  every  one  sings,  and  I  weep  and  sigh." 

We  have  stated  that  apart  from  these  nature  pictures,  the 
troubadour  lyric  has  practically  nothing  that  is  of  the  folk. 
Since  the  unmarried  girl  had  no  share  in  the  social  life  of  the 
times,  these  songs  were  written  for  the  wives  of  the  Provenfal 
nobles,  the  chatelaines 

"  whose  bright  eyes 
Reign  influence  and  award  the  prize." 

The  love  they  inspired  became  a  cult  and  almost  a  religion. 
It  was  not  the  frank  love  of  a  man  for  a  maid,  but  a  strange 
fascination  caused  by  a  single  glance  from  the  lady ;  there 
is  a  touch  of  mysticism  in  I'enamorament,  when  love  is  awak- 
ened by  a  subtle  power,  flowing  like  some  mysterious  fluid 
from  the  lady's  eyes  to  the  poet's  heart : 

"  d'un  dolz  regart,  por  voir. 
Fist  par  mes  eus  dedenz  mon  cuer  cheoir 
La  grant  amor,  qui  si  me  fraint  et  brise." 

1  J.  Brakelmann,  Les  plus  anciens  chans onniers  franqais,  Paris,  1891, 
p.  135;  cf.  p.  101. 


28  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  by  a  sweet  look,  truly 
She  made  through  my  eyes  into  my  heart  fall 
The  great  love  that  breaks  and  crushes  me."^ 

So,  in  Chaucer's  Knightes  Tale,  the  moment  Palamon  and 
Arcite  see  from  their  prison  Emily  walking  in  the  garden, 
they  become  her  devoted  slaves.  The  poet  is  always  the 
vassal  of  his  lady,  and  implicit  obedience  to  her  as  a  liege 
lord  is  his  first  duty. 

"  A  toz  les  jors  de  ma  vie 

La  servirai, 
Et  serai  en  sa  baillie 

Tant  com  vivrai, 
Ne  ja  de  sa  seignorie 

Ne  partirai;" 

"  All  the  days  of  my  life 

I  shall  serve  her. 
And  I  shall  be  in  her  power 

So  long  as  I  shall  live. 
Nor  ever  from  her  rule 

Shall  I  depart." 

His  life  is  in  her  hands : 

"  Bele  dame,  en  vos  mis  ai 
Cuer  et  cors  et  vie, 
Ne  ja  ne  m'en  partirai 
Nul  jor  de  ma  vie." 

"  Fair  lady,  in  your  keeping  I  have  placed 
Heart  and  body  and  life. 
And  I  shall  never  depart. 
Any  day  of  my  life."^ 

1  P.  31.    Cf.  J.  Anglade,  Lea  Troubadours,  Paris,  1908,  p.  84. 

2  Brakelmann,  pp.  53,  49. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  29 

sings  Chrestien  de  Troies,  and  no  suffering  which  she  may 
cause  him,  not  even  her  extreme  cruelty,  may  release  him 
from  his  allegiance  to  her  and  to  Love. 

The  poet's  service  is  a  long  one,  and  he  tells  us  that  his 
lady's  cruelty  often  brings  him  nigh  to  death,  yet  if  he  prove 
secret,  devoted,  unswerving,  his  "painful  patience  in  delays" 
may  be  rewarded  at  last — ^by  a  kiss.  This  is  his  great  hope, 
for  it  seals  him  her  lover.  Even  after  this  he  is  still  the 
vassal,  the  subject  of  love,  singing  for  one  whose  very  name 
he  must  not  mention  but  must  address  as  Belle- Vue,  or  Plus- 
que-Reine,  or  Beau-Miroir,  to  give  these  euphuistic  titles 
their  modem  form. 

As  this  love  was  almost  a  religion,  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  poets  turned  from  the  lady  of  the  castle  to  the  Lady  of 
Heaven,  and  they  sang  to  her  as  they  would  to  their  Beau- 
Miroir  or  their  Belle-Joie,  in  the  same  metres,  in  the  same 
phrases,  so  that  at  times  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  their 
love  poetry  from  their  hymns  to  the  Virgin.  She  was  the 
"fraiche  dame  gentis,"  the  "douce  damoiselle,"  "la  Vierge 
eourtoise  et  charmante,"  "la  gracieuse  dame  qui  est  belle  et 
blonde,"  and  she  inspired  a  love  that  expressed  itself  in  the 
conventional  language  of  the  chansons  d'amour.  In  a  word 
the  poet  was  not  the  worshipper  of  the  Virgin  but  her  amant} 

In  all  their  poetry  the  troubadours  sought  perfection  of 
form.  Their  art  was  never  concealed;  they  boasted  of  it, 
priding  themselves  that  they  knew  how  to  "batir"  or  "forger 
une  chanson."  Thus  technique  became  all  important  and 
the  poets  were  more  desirous  of  inventing  new  rhymes  than 
of  showing  originality  in  their  thought  or  sincerity  in  their 
emotion.  They  employed  a  marvellous  variety  of  metres ; 
eight  hundred  and  seventeen  have  been  classified,  ranging 
from  strophes  of  three  to  forty-two  lines,  and  certainly  no 
other  lyric  poetry  is  more  rich  in  its  modes  of  expression.^ 

iCf.  Anglade,  pp.  214  ff;  Wechssler,  op.  cit.,  chap,  xviii. 
2  Anglade,  pp.  10,  S3. 


so  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  troubadour  verse  is  wholly  con- 
ventional in  its  substance  and  elaborately  artificial  in  its 
form  (though  too  often  that  is  the  case),  for  there  were 
tragedies  in  the  careers  of  these  singers ;  life  was  not  always 
May  time  and  we  often  hear  in  their  verses  the  note  of  sin- 
cere and  deep  emotion.  They  could  write  in  a  simpler  man- 
ner; the  following  lines  from  a  song  by  Gautier  d'Espinal 
have  a  direct  and  passionate  utterance  that  we  shall  meet 
again  in  the  early  English  lyric : 

"  Sire  Deus,  car  la  tenoie 
Nuete  antra  mes  dous  bras, 
Sa  bouchata  baisaroie. 
Molt  m'ast  bon,  quant  que  li  fas. 
Na  rois  ne  cuans  nen  ast  mie 
Qui'n  eiist  tant  gent  solaz, 
De  tenir  sa  compaignie 
Jamais  na  saroie  laz  \"^ 

"  Lord  God,  would  I  might  hold  her 
Between  my  two  arms, 
I  would  kiss  her  little  mouth; 
It  pleases  me  right  wall,  whatever  I  do  to  her. 
There  was  never  king  nor  count 
Who  might  have  such  gentle  pleasure; 
Of  attending  bar 
Never  should  I  be  tired." 

The  first  troubadour  was  Guillaume,  count  of  Poitou,  duke 
of  Aquitaine,  who  ruled  from  1087  to  1127.  He  stands 
among  the  foremost  singers,  for  he  brought  the  lyric  to  a 
high  degree  of  art.  Among  other  metres,  he  employed  a 
strophe  which  found  its  way  into  the  poesie  populaire;  which 
was  brought  to  England  and  used  by  the  early  lyrists,  later 
by  writers  of  miracle  plays ;  and  which  finally  served  the  last 
of  the  Scottish  vernacular  poets — Robert  Bums  himself: 

1  Brakelmann,  p.  30. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  SI 

"  Pus  vezem  de  novelh  florir 
Pratz,  e  vergiers  reverdezir 
Rius  e  fontanas  esclarzir. 

Auras  e  vens, 
Ben  deu  quascus  lo  joy  jauzir 

Don  es  jauzens."^ 

"  When  verdant  meadows  reappear^ 
And  green  invades  the  garden  sere. 
And  river  and  spring  begin  to  clear, 

And  zephyrs  blow, 
The  joy  that  fills  our  heart  with  cheer 

Must  overflow."^ 

The  granddaughter  of  Guillaume,  Eleanor  of  Poitou, 
inherited  from  him  a  nature  disposed  to  gallantry  and  a  love 
for  poetry.  In  1152  she  married  Henry  II  of  England,  a 
scholar  and  connoisseur  of  literature  whose  court  at  London 
became  the  center  of  a  brilliant  galaxy  of  French  writers. 
"I  work  for  a  king,"  said  Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  "who  knows 
better  than  any  one  how  to  distinguish  and  appreciate  a  fine 
piece  of  writing."'  Eleanor  was  as  great  a  patron  of  letters 
as  was  her  husband.  Deeply  in  love  with  her,  Bernart  de 
Ventadorn,  considered  by  modern  critics  the  finest  of  all  the 
troubadours,  followed  her  to  the  English  capital  where  he 
sang  in  her  honor  the  lyrics  of  the  South.  Some  fifty  of  his 
songs  have  been  preserved;  the  larger  number  of  hi&  finest 
ones  are  addressed  to  her. 

In  France  and  Italy,  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  the  writings 
of  some  four  hundred  troubadours  are  known  to  us  (in  some 
cases  only  by  a  few  lines),  and  seventy  others,  whose  lyrics 

IC.  A.  F.  Mahn,  Die  Werke  der  Troubadours,  Berlin,  1846,  vol.  1, 
p.  8. 

2  J.  H.  Smith,  The  Troubadours  at  Home,  New  York,  1899,  vol.  II,  p. 
344. 

3  Cf.  Gaston  Paris,  La  po^sie  du  moyen  dge,  deuxUme  sirie,  Paris, 
1895,  pp.  33  ff. 


5f  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

have  completely  disappeared,  are  known  by  name;  yet  of 
this  great  number,  there  is  not  a  single  troubadour  who  wrote 
in  English.  The  reason  is  not  hard  to  discover ;  troubadour 
verse  was  composed  for  the  nobility  and  Enghsh  was  the 
language  of  the  peasant.  It  was  a  full  century  and  a  half 
after  the  conquest  that  the  writer  of  Arthour  and  Merlin 
declares : 

"  Of  Freynsch  ne  Latin  nil  y  tel  more, 
Ac  on  Inglisch  ichil  tell  therfore:  (But)  (I  will  tell) 
Right  is,  that  Inglische  understond. 
That  was  born  in  Inglond." 

When  Eleanor's  son,  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion,  a  poet  and 
patron  of  poets,  composed  the  verses  on  his  captivity,  he  did 
not  use  a  phrase  from  the  language  of  the  land  he  ruled; 
thus,  though  the  troubadour  lyric  was  heard  in  England,  it 
could  not  affect  directly  English  song.  Its  indirect  influence 
was  great.  Petrarch  knew  and  admired  the  writings  of  the 
troubadours,  though  he  was  born  after  their  day,  and  we 
do  not  need  his  praise  of  them  in  his  Trionfo  d'Amore  to  dis- 
cover that  their  ideal  of  love,  expressed  in  the  very  phrases 
they  used,  is  to  be  found  in  many  of  the  sonnets  to  Laura. 
The  last  of  the  troubadours,  Guiraut  Riquier,  died  in  the 
closing  years  of  the  thirteenth  century ;  but  in  Elizabethan 
England,  through  translations  and  imitations  of  Petrarch's 
sonnets,  their  songs  entered  into  English  verse.  Through 
another  medium  they  contributed  to  the  development  of  the 
English  lyric — through  their  influence  on  la  poesie  poptir 
laire. 

This  poetry,  we  remember,  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  old 
May  songs  and  accordingly  we  find  in  it  many  allusions  to 
May  and  to  the  delights  of  spring.  Though  often  charm- 
ing, these  little  introductions  tend  to  become  purely  con- 
ventional : 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC 

"  C'est  en  mai  au  mois  d'este 
que  florist  flor," 


or 


"  En  mai  au  douz  tens  nouvel, 
que  raverdissent  prael, 
oisoz  un  arbroisel 
chanter  le  rosignolet. 

saderla  don! 

tant  fet  bon 

dormir  lez  le  buissonet."^ 

"  It  is  in  May  in  the  summer  month 
That  the  flower  blooms." 

"  In  May  at  the  sweet  Spring  time. 
When  the  meadows  grow  green  again. 
I  heard  beneath  a  tree 
The  pretty  Nightingale  sing. 

Saderla  don! 

So  good  it  is 

To  sleep  beside  the  little  bushes." 

Certainly  la  poesie  popidaire  is  not  folk  song,  for  there  is 
too  much  conscious  art  in  it,  yet  it  is  nearer  than  the  chmison 
courtoise  to  the  folk  in  its  themes,  its  simpler  technique,  and 
in  its  personages,  often  shepherds  or  peasants.  Its  refrains, 
recalling  the  old  dance  songs,  were  easily  remembered  and 
sung: 

"  Chibera  la  chibele,  douz  amis, 
chibera  le  chibele,  soiez  jolis."  (be  loving) 

"  dorenlot  deus  or  haes,  (henceforth  hate) 
j  'amerai." 

1 K.  Bartsch,  Altfranzosische  Bomanzen  und  Paatourellen,  Leipzig, 
1870,  pp.  54,  22. 


34  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  J'ai  ameit  et  amerai 
he !  dorelot !  et  s'aimme  aincor, 
deus !  de  jolif  cuer  mignot."'  (the  sweetheart  of  fair  body) 

According  to  Jeanroy,  the  oldest  French  lyric  was  a  song, 
expressing  varied  shades  of  feeling,  put  in  the  mouth  of  a 
young  girl,  and  originally  the  poesie  popidaire  showed  us 
women  passionately  devoted  and  submissive  to  indifferent  and 
faithless  men.^  At  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  this  con- 
ception of  love  changed  and  men  were  shown  to  be  the  suitors ; 
still  many  of  these  poems  are  written  from  the  woman's  point 
of  view,  and  it  is  a  maid  we  hear  singing: 

"  Belle  Aliz  matin  leva, 
sun  cors  vesti  et  para; 
enz  un  verger  s'en  entra, 
cink  fluerettes  i  trouva: 
un  chapelet  fet  en  a 
de  rose  fleurie. 
■pur  deu,  trahez  vous  en  la 
vus  ki  ne  amez  mie.'  "' 

"  Fair  Alice  rose  in  the  morning, 
Clothed  and  adorned  herself; 
She  went  into  a  garden 
And  found  five  small  flowers  there: 
She  made  of  them  a  chaplet 
Of  roses  in  bloom. 
'  For  God's  sake,  go  hence 
You  who  do  not  love  at  all.'  " 

Though  the  chanson  courtoise  changed  the  conception  of 
love  in  these  poems,  it  by  no  means  introduced  its  own  ideal ; 
the  women  in  the  poesie  populaire  are  never  held  as  things 

1  Pp.  186,  271,  307. 

2  A.  Jeanroy,  Les  Origines  de  la  poesie  lyrique  en  France  au  moyen 
dge,  Paris,  1889,  pp.  225,  445  ff. 

SBartsch,  op.  cit.,  p.  209. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  S5 

enskyed  and  sainted,  while  the  men,  extremely  human,  are 
not  satisfied  with  ecstatic  adoration  or  with  contemplating 
and  analyzing  their  own  feelings. 

The  poesie  popidaire  developed  genres  that  are  clearly 
defined :  the  pastourelle,  in  which  a  rider,  generally  the  poet 
himself,  wandering  in  the  fields  or  woods,  meets  a  fair  maiden 
and  makes  love  to  her,  usually  with  success;  the  debat,  in 
which  the  singer  maintains  an  opinion  against  the  argu- 
ments of  a  second  person,  as  in  the  English  ballad  of  the 
Nutbrowne  Maide;  the  chanson  de  toile,  short  narrative 
poems  of  belle  Erembour  or  belle  Isabeau,  sung  by  women 
at  their  sewing  or  weaving;  the  aube,  or  song  of  lovers 
parted  at  dawn  by  the  cry  of  the  watch  or  the  notes  of  the 
lark.^  More  important  in  its  eiFect  on  EngHsh  verse  was 
the  dance  song,  the  chanson  de  carole,  the  rondet,  the  rondet 
de  carole;  these  forms  were  the  most  popular  ones  and 
entered  more  widely  into  the  life  of  the  people  than  the  other 
types  we  have  just  mentioned.  As  late  as  the  seventeenth 
century.  Burton,  in  his  Anatomt/  of  Melancholy,  tells  us  that 
in  France  nothing  was  more  common  than  to  see  in  the 
streets  women  and  girls  dance  en  rond  or  to  hear  them 
"make  good  music  of  their  own  voices  and  dance  after  it." 
In  these  songs,  the  refrain,  oft  repeated,  is  the  important 
element : 

"  Danses,  bale  Marion, 
ja  n'aim  je  riens  se  vos  non." 

and  from  the  refrains  developed  such  dance  songs  as  the 
balete,  the  rondel;  for  while  the  troubadours  wished  to  find 
for  every  poem  a  new  metre,  and  only  as  an  exception,  duly 
acknowledged,  wrote  songs  modelled  on  older  pieces,  folk 
song  loves  to  repeat  the  same  phrases  and  the  same  measures. 

1  See  the  interesting  remarks  of  Gaston  Paris  on  the  Aube  in  Shakes- 
peare's Romeo  and  Juliet,  Journal  des  Savants,  1893,  p.  163. 


36  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

These  dance  songs  fairly  sing  themselves,  as  this  rondel  by 
Guillaume  d' Amiens: 

"  C'est  la  finSj  koi  que  nus  die, 
j  'amerai ! 

c'est  la  jus  en  mi  le  pre, 
c'est  la  fins,  je  veul  amer, 
jus  et  baus  i  a  leves, 
bele  amie  ai, 

c'est  la  fins,  koi  que  nus  die, 
j 'amerai."^ 

"  There's  an  end,  whatever  any  one  may  say, 
I  shall  love ! 

It  is  down  there  in  the  midst  of  the  fields. 
There's  an  end  of  it,  that  I  wish  to  love. 
Games  and  dances  have  been  started  there, 
I  have  a  fair  friend. 

There's  an  end  of  it,  whatever  any  one  may  say, 
I  shall  love." 

Long  after  their  origin  was  forgotten,  English  poets 
inherited  from  the  poesie  populaire,  the  ballade,  rondel, 
rondeau,  and  triolet. 

There  is  yet  another  large  and  interesting  group  of 
French  songs  that  inspired  the  English  lyric — the  Noels, 
the  oldest  form  of  sacred  song  in  the  vernacular  tolerated 
by  the  church.     Latin  Christmas  songs  were  well  known : 

"  Dormi,  fill,  dormi !  mater 
Cantat  unigenito: 
Dormi  puer,  dormi !  pater 
Nato  clamat  parvulo. 
Millies  tibi  laudes  canimus 
Mille,  mille,  millies."^ 

1  Bartsch,  Chrestomathie,  col.  341. 

2  E.  P.  Du  M6nl,  Poisies  populaires  latines  antirieures  au  douziime 
sUcle,  Paris,  184,3,  p.  110  n. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  S7 

but  the  Noels,  though  they  have  often  a  Latin  refrain,  as  in 

"  Cat  enfant  tout  aimable. 
In  nocte  media, 
Est  ne  dans  una  etable, 
Da  casta  Maria,"^ 

were  in  French  and  were  sung  by  the  worshippers  in  the 
churches  as  they  waited  for  the  midnight  mass  on  Christmas 
eve.  They  date  from  the  eleventh  century,  and  in  1194 
Lambert,  bishop  of  Arras,  speaking  of  the  Christmas  fetes, 
writes : 

"  Lumine  multiplici  noctis  solatia  praestant 
Moraque  Gallorum  carmina  nocta  tenant."^ 

(They  overcome  the  darkness  of  night  by  many  lights, 
and  in  the  fashion  of  the  French,  sing  songs  in  the  night.) 

These  Noels,  songs  of  rejoicing  not  only  for  Christmas 
but  for  the  New  Year,  were  extraordinarily  popular;  indeed 
the  word  Noel  came  to  mean  "vivat,"  "hurrah,"  and  was 
shouted  in  the  streets  of  London  when  Henry  V  returned 
from  Agincourt  in  1415.  There  was  hardly  a  parish  in 
France  where  they  were  not  improvised  to  meet  the  demand, 
and  the  early  French  printers  furnished  Bibles  de  Noels  by 
the  score.  Hardly  a  city  with  a  press  failed  to  bring  out 
its  special  collection — Paris,  Tours,  Orleans,  Blois,  Angers, 
Nantes,  Vannes,  Rennes — the  list  is  a  long  one,  and  many 
Noels  survive  only  in  manuscripts. 

The  Noels  naturally  concern  themselves  with  the  annun- 
ciation ;  the  birth  of  Christ ;  the  slumber  songs  of  the  Virgin, 
and  the  visit  of  the  Shepherds  and  Magi.  It  is  the  literature 
of  high  spirits  and  rejoicing;  Adam  had  destroyed  the  race: 

1  Vieux  Noels,  Nantes,  18T6,  vol.  Ill,  p.  3. 

2J-B.  Weckerlin,  Chansons  populaires  du  pays  de  France,  Paris, 
1903,  vol.  I. 


38  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Adanij  premier  pere. 
Nous  mit  en  danger 
De  la  pomme  chere 
Qui'l  voulut  manger;"^ 

and  with  him,  Eve  is  held  up  to  scorn  that  the  Virgin,  saving 
the  race,  may  be  the  more  honored.  All  the  carols  of  the 
birth  of  Christ  are  written  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
peasant,  in  the  language  of  the  curious  folk  who  naively 
question  the  Virgin,  as  they  would  a  village  maiden,  on  the 
great  event  of  which  they  have  just  heard,  taking  a  shrewd 
satisfaction  that  "les  bourgeois  de  la  ville"  and  "les  gros 
marchands"  have  done  nothing,  while  the  shepherds  have 
brought  their  gifts  to  the  child. 

"  L'ung  lui  a  porte  son  manteau, 
Ung  autre  a  porte  son  bourdon, 
Et  I'autre  a  done  son  costeau, 
Ung  autre  sa  bourse  en  purdon; 

Et  a  la  mere 

Fesaient  grand  chere, 
Demenans  soulas  et  deduyct 
Pour  ce  mignon  venu  de  nuyct."^ 

The  refrains  are  a  most  important  part  of  the  Noels. 
Rarely  are  they  written  without  them;  often  the  refrain 
occurs  after  every  couplet,  at  times  after  every  line,  such 
refrains  as : 

"  Chantons  Nolet,  Nolet,  Nolet, 
Chantons  nolet  encore,"' 

which  certainly  hardly  needs  the  music,  it  so  trips  along. 
One  old  Poitevin  Noel  preserves  an  interesting  chorus : 

1  Vieux  Noels,  vol.  I,  p.  25. 

•i  Noels  de  Lucas  LeMoigne,  Paris,  1520,  in  Vieux  Noels,  I,  p.  4. 

3  P.  57. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  S9 

"  Au  sainct  Nau^ 
Chanteray  sans  poinct  m'y  feindre. 
Y  n'en  daigneray  ren  craindre, 
Car  le  jour  est  feriau. 

NaUj  nau,  nau. 
Car  le  jour  est  feriau."^ 

Le  jour  feriau  inspired  many  lyrics  in  which  the  religious 
signification  of  the  day  is  quite  forgotten  in  the  feasting 
and  rejoicing;  and  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  jongleurs 
personified  Noel,  treating  him  as  a  sort  of  lord  of  misrule: 

"Le  Sire  Noel 
Nous  envoie  a  ses  amis." 

The  Noels  have  sometimes  been  lightly  spoken  of  as  lack- 
ing art,  as  being  monotonous,  but  they  have  found  an 
eloquent  admirer  in  Nodier,  who  dehghted  in  their  grace 
and  simplicity  of  expression,  and  indeed  many  of  them 
possess  a  charm,  a  directness  of  utterance  that  the  lyrics 
of  higher  art  rarely  reach.^  The  following  thirteenth  cen- 
tury Noel,  with  its  single  Hne  for  the  leader  of  the  song  and 
its  tenderly  written  chorus,  possesses  a  beauty  that  is 
enhanced  by  the  haunting  melody  that  accompanies  it.  Both 
from  the  literary  and  the  musical  point  of  view,  it  is  one  of 
the  gems  of  mediasval  song : 

"  Entre  le  bcEuf  at  I'ane  gris^ 
Dors,  dors,  dors  le  petit  fils : 

Mille  anges  divins, 

Mille  serapliins 
Volent  a  I'entour  de  ce  grand  Dieu  d'amour. 

Dors,  dors,  Roi  des  anges,  dors ! 

1 II,  p.  87. 

2  There  is  an  interesting  article  on  Noels  by  E.  Fournier  in  I'Encyclo- 
pidie  du  dix-neuviime  siicle. 


W  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Entre  les  roses  et  les  lys. 
Dors,  dors,  dors  le  petit  fils : 

Mille  anges  divins, 

Mille  seraphins 
Volant  a  I'entour  de  ce  grand  Dieu  d'amour. 

Dors,  dors,  Roi  des  anges,  dors  ! 

"  Entre  les  pastoureaux  jolis 
Dors,  dors,  dors  le  petit  fils."^ 

These  lyrics  which  we  have  attempted  to  characterize 
needed  no  scribes  to  write  them  down,  no  manuscripts  to 
preserve  them,  for  like  Vergil's  Fame,  they  flew  from  mouth 
to  mouth.  They  were  carried  by  sailor,  by  soldier,  by  trader, 
wherever  the  French  or  Normans  pushed  their  way.  They 
were  brought  to  Germany,  to  Italy,  to  Portugal,  and  even 
had  there  been  no  Norman  king  at  London,  they  would  have 
been  sung  in  England.  Not  only  did  the  French  bring 
them,  but  English  clerks  returning  from  Paris  had  learned, 
with  their  mediaeval  logic,  these  French  songs.  Paris  had 
become  the  intellectual  center  of  Europe,  "the  Paradise  of 
the  world,"  Richard  of  Bury  called  it,  and  English  students, 
in  large  numbers,  flocked  to  its  University: 

"  Urbs  beata  Parisius 

*         *         »         * 

Studio  locus  proprius 
Civis  clero  propitius, 

Ad  quam  redire  cogitur, 
Quisque  ab  ea  fugerit."^ 

IF.  A.  Gevaert:  Collection  de  chceurs  sans  accom'pagnement  pour 
servir  d,  I'itude  du  chant  d'ensemble,  7e  Fascicule,  Paris,  N.  D.  This 
Noel  appears  in  seventeentii  century  collections.  Cf.  Weckerlin,  Chan- 
sons populaires,  vol.  I,  p.  54. 

2G.  M.  Dreves,  Analecta  Hymnica  Medii  Aevi,  vol.  XXI,  p.  1833. 
See  O.  Hubatsch,  Die  lateinischen  Vagantenlieder  des  Mittelalters, 
GorUtz,  1870;  J.  A.  Schmeller,  Carmina  Burana,  Breslau,  1894. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  ^1 

There  they  heard  the  poesie  populaire  and  echoes  of  the 
chanson  courtoise;  there  they  learned  the  Noels;  and  in  the 
vast  cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  the  noblest  in  Christendom, 
they  saw  the  home  of  the  worship  of  Mary  and  heard  the 
songs  and  hymns  in  her  praise.  The  poesie  populaire  as  the 
chanson  courtoise  sang  of  the  Virgin  as  of  an  earthly 
maiden;  if  "Je  suis  a  vous  comme  amant  a  sa  mie"  could 
be  addressed  to  Christ,  the  lyrics  to  the  Virgin  more  openly 
employed  the  very  phrases  of  the  love  poems.  Moreover, 
these  scholares  vagantes,  sometimes  defrocked  clerks,  stu- 
dents drifting  from  University  to  University,  turning  min- 
strel to  gain  their  bread,  had  a  body  of  Latin  songs  of  their 
own,  generally  of  wine  and  women.  The  church  regarded 
them  with  abhorrence ;  they  were  clerici  ribaudi  maxime,  qui 
dicuntur  de  familia  Golice,  but  the  common  people  heard 
them  and  they  became  the  intermediaries  between  the  folk 
song  and  the  verses  of  the  poets.  This  Latin  verse,  which 
gave  more  than  phrases  to  the  English  lyric,  is  a  most  inter- 
esting study.     We  can  give  but  one  example : 

"  Tempus  adest  floridum, 
surgunt  namque  floras, 
vernales  mox  in  omnibus 
jam  mutantur  mores. 
Hoc  quod  frigus  leserat, 
reparant  calores, 
cernimus  hoc  fieri 
per  multos  colores 

"  Stant  prata  plena  floribus, 
in  quibus  nos  ludamus. 
Virgines  cum  clericis 
simul  procedamus, 
per  amorem  Veneris 
ludum  faciamus, 
ceteris  virginibus 
ut  hoc  referamus. 


i^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  O  dilecta  domina, 
cur  sic  alienaris? 
An  nescis,  o  carissima 
quod  sic  adamaris? 
Si  tu  esses  Helena, 
vellem  esse  Paris: 
tamen  potest  fieri 
noster  amor  talis."^ 

It  need  hardly  be  stated  that  "Heu  quam  felix  ist  j  am  vita 
potatoris"  is  the  burden  of  many  of  the  poems.  These  Latin 
drinking  songs  antedate  any  that  exist  in  French ;  Rabelais 
cites  many  old  songs,  but  not  a  drinking  song,  and  in  his 
Propos  des  buveurs,  where  one  would  have  been  highly  appro- 
priate, he  writes,  "Chantons,  beuvons :  un  motet — enton- 
nons !'" 

We  have  now  reviewed  the  lyric  forms  that  left  their 
impress  on  English  song — the  troubadour  verse  and  the 
trouvere  imitations  of  it,  the  poesie  popidaire,  the  Noels,  the 
songs  of  the  wandering  scholars,  and  to  these  we  should  add 
the  Latin  hymns,  especially  the  large  number  that  dealt  with 
the  lamentations  of  Mary  at  the  foot  of  the  cross — the 
planctus  Marice.  The  influence  of  these  writings  did  not 
overpower  and  crush  into  weak  imitation  the  English  lyrical 
spirit ;  it  awakened  it,  enlarged  its  scope,  and  enriched  its 
utterance,  for  despite  its  French  element,  the  new  lyric  that 
arose  was  unmistakably  English  in  thought  and  feeling. 

1  Carmina  Burana,  p.  183.  "Now  comes  the  time  of  flowers,  and  the 
blossoms  appear;  now  in  all  things  comes  the  transformation  of  Spring. 
What  the  cold  harmed,  the  warmth  repairs,  as  we  see  by  all  these 
colors.  The  fields  in  which  we  play  are  full  of  flowers.  Maidens  and 
clerks,  let  us  go  out  together,  let  us  play  for  the  love  of  Venus,  that  we 
may  teach  the  other  maidens.  O  my  chosen  one,  why  dost  thou  shun 
me?  Dost  thou  not  know,  dearest,  how  much  thou  art  loved?  If  thou 
wert  Helen,  I  would  be  Paris.  So  great  is  our  love  that  it  can  be  so." 
Cf.  J.  A.  Symonds,  Wine,  Women  and  Song,  London,  1884. 

2  J.  Tiersot,  Histoire  de  la  chanson  populaire  en  France,  Paris,  1889, 
p.  318. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  43 

II 

Although  the  earliest  lyrics  were  songs,  no  Old  English 
lyric  with  musical  setting  has  been  preserved.  A  graceful 
French  love  song,  dating  from  about  1175,  is  our  oldest  lyric 
with  musical  accompaniment  written  in  England.  It  was 
set  down  in  the  outside  page  of  a  Latin  rejoinder  to  an 
epistle  of  St.  Bernard  which  attacked  the  luxury  of  the 
Cluniac  monks : 

"  De  ma  dame  vuU  chanter, 
Ke  tant  est  bale  e  bloie:  (Qui) 
Se  mi  peusse  aseurer, 
Trestut  sen  seroie:"  (Trestot) 

it  begins,  and  the  first  stanza  ends  with  a  Hne  that  re-echoes 
through  many  a  later  song, 

"  Aura  ele  ja  merci  de  mei?"^ 

No  doubt  there  were  English  translations  or  adaptations  of 
such  songs,  but  we  have  no  traces  of  them ;  and  there  is  no 
Middle  English  lyric  to  which  we  may  ascribe  so  early  a 
date.  One  of  the  first  poems  written  after  the  Norman 
Conquest  is  the  so-caUed  Poema  Morale  or  Moral  Ode,  a 
translation  from  the  Latin.  It  was  a  most  popular  compo- 
sition; it  exists  in  seven  manuscripts,  of  which  the  oldest 
dates  from  the  late  twelfth  or  the  early  years  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  and  there  is  reason  for  believing  that  this 
oldest  version  is  based  on  a  still  earlier  manuscript  that  has 
been  lost.     The  poem  begins  in  the  elegiac  mood: 

"  Ich  em  nu  alder  thane  ich  was  awintre  and  a  lare. 
Ich  welde  mara  thane  ich  dade  mi  wit  ahta  bon  mare. 
Wei  longe  ich  habbe  child  ibon  a  worde  and  a  dade, 
Thah  ich  bo  a  wintra  aid  to  yung  ich  am  on  rada." 

^  Early  Bodleian  Music,  ed.  by  Sir  John  Stainer,  London,  1901,  vol. 
II,  pp.  1-3. 


}^l^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  I  am  now  older  than  I  was  in  years  and  in  lore, 
I  wield  more  than  I  did,  my  wit  ought  to  be  more, 
Well  long  have  I  been  a  child  in  words  and  in  deeds. 
Though  I  be  old  in  years,  too  young  am  I  in  wisdom."^ 

But  after  a  few  verses  telling  us  that  old  age  has  stolen 
upon  the  writer  unaware,  the  personal  element  fades  away; 
the  confessions  of  the  opening  lines  are  forgotten  in  the 
admonitions  of  the  preacher ;  and  the  poem  becomes  prac- 
tically a  sermon,  with  descriptions  of  dooms-day,  the  pains 
of  Hell,  the  joys  of  Paradise.  Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  the 
lyric  than  didacticism ;  unfortunately  for  the  history  of 
English  song,  our  earliest  writers  failed  to  perceive  that  a 
man  cannot  preach  and  sing  at  the  same  time. 

Almost  contemporaneous  with  this  homily  is  the  far  more 
interesting  on  God  Ureisun  of  lire  Lefdi,  A  Good  Orison  of 
our  Lady,  which  dates  from  about  1210.^  It  is  a  love  poem 
addressed  to  the  Virgin ;  the  troubadours  might  have  written 
it,  if  we  regard  merely  the  thought.  It  depicts  Heaven 
as  a  place  where  the  friends  of  Mary,  adorned  with  royal 
robes,  bracelets  and  gold  rings  which  she  has  bestowed, 
enjoy 

"  Mirths  manifold,  without  trouble  or  annoy; 
Music   and  games,  abundance   of   life's   pleasure,   and   eternal 
play;" 

indeed  we  have  what  well  may  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  old 
May  dances : 

"  Merry  sing  the   angels   before  thy   face. 
Playing,   carolling,   and  singing.'' 

1  Early  English  Text  Society,  vol.  XXXIV,  p.  159.    Cf.  Anglia,  XXX, 

p.  317. 

2  W.  Marufke,  Der  Aelteste  Englische  Marienhymnus,  Breslauer 
Beitrage,  Leipzig,  1907,  p.  16. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  ^5 

This,  too,  is  a  homily,  yet  it  has  its  lyrics : 

"  Mi  leoue  lif^  urom  thine  luue  ne  schal  me  no  thing  to-dealen. 
Vor  othe  is  al  ilong  mi  lif  and  eke  min  heale. 
Vor  thine  luue  i  swinke  and  sike  wel  ilome. 
Vor  thine  luue  ieh  ham  ibrouht  in  to  theoudome. 
Vor  thine  luue  ich  uorsoe  al  that  me  leof  was. 
And  yef  the  al  mi  suluen:  looue  lif,  ithefich  thu  thes."^ 

"  My  dear  life,  from  thy  love  shall  nothing  separate  me. 
For  on  thee  depends  my  life  and  also  my  salvation. 
For  thy  love  I  toil  and  sigh  very  often. 
For  thy  love  I  am  brought  into  bondage, 
For  thy  love  I  forsook  all  that  was  dear  to  me. 
And  gave  thee  all  myself.     Dear  life,  think  thou  of  that." 


This  is  a  new  theme  for  English  verse ;  there  are  no  such 
poems  to  the  Virgin  in  Old  English.  The  prayers  and 
hymns  to  Mary  are  a  study  in  themselves,  far  too  great  for 
the  limits  of  a  single  chapter,  and  we  must  content  ourselves 
with  mentioning  later  some  typical  songs  to  the 

"  Levedi,  flour  of  alle  thing,  (Lady) 
Rosa  sine  spina." 

It  must  not  be  thought,  because  these  early  poems  are  reli- 
gious, that  the  secular  lyric  did  not  flourish.  We  have  lost 
many  a  love  song,  many  a  dance  lyric,  because  they  were 
deemed  unworthy  of  preservation.  Even  if  a  scribe  felt  the 
charm  of  worldly  song,  he  must  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  it.  There 
is  an  interesting  stanza  by  Hoccleve,  written  some  two 
centuries  after  the  God  Ureisun: 

IE.  E.  T.  a.,  vol.  XXXIV,  p.  191,  U.  95-100. 


^.6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Thise  artificers,  se  I  day  be  day,  (These  workmen) 
In  the  hotteste  of  al  her  bysynesse,  (their) 
Talken  and  synge,  and  make  game  and  play 

And  forth  hir  labour  passith  with  gladnesse; 
But  we  laboure  in  traueillous  stilnesse; 

We  stowpe  and  stare  vpon  the  shepes  skyn. 
And  keepe  muste  our  song  and  wordes  in."' 

The  scribes  may  not  sing  at  their  work,  yet  they  must  have 
known  the  songs  of  the  folk ;  the  lyrics  of  the  people  must 
have  floated  through  the  very  windows  of  the  scriptorium, 
and  some  of  them  could  not  be  "kept  in."  When  the  first  secu- 
lar lyrics  appear  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  them  stealing 
in  furtively  on  an  empty  page  in  a  book  of  prayers,  on  the 
margins  of  a  Psalter,  or  on  the  blank  spaces  of  a  legal 
document. 

It  is  often  asserted  that  Sumer  is  icumen  in  is  the  first 
English  lyric  with  music,  but  on  an  empty  leaf  of  a  Psalter 
in  the  Bodleian  is  a  song  whose  notation  is  certainly  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  older;  we  may  date  it  about  1225.  It  is 
a  complaint,  very  probably  a  lover's  sadness,  simpler  and 
fresher  in  its  expression  than  the  French  song  we  have  cited. 
It  has  the  mediaeval  dread  of  winter,  for  it  was  written  cen- 
turies before  the  leafless  trees  and  the  snow-covered  hills 
seemed  beautiful  to  any  one: 

"  Mirie  it  is  while  sumer  ilast 
With  fugheles  song;   (birds) 
Oc  nu  neeheth  windes  blast  (But  now  neareth) 

And  weder  strong,  (storm) 
Ei,  ei  what  this  night  [is]  long! 
And  ich  with  wel  michel  wrong 
Soregh  and  murne  and  fast."^  (Sorrow) 

1 E.  E.  T.  8.,  Extra  Series,  vol.  LXI,  p.  xvii. 

2  Early  Bodleian  Music,  London,  1901,  vol.  II,  p.  xvil;  Chambers  and 
Sidgwick,  Early  English  Lyrics,  London,  1907,  p.  3. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  47 

If  we  place  beside  this  winter  piece  that  spring  song  of 
pure,  unreflecting  joy,  the  joy  of  a  child  in  the  open  air  and 
sunlight : 

"  Sumer  is  icumen  in, 

Lhude  sing  cuccu;   (loud) 
Groweth  sad  and  bloweth  med 

And  springeth  the  wde  nu,"  (wood  now) 

(fortunately  it  is  so  well  known  that  we  need  not  quote  it) 
we  shall  see  that  in  its  beginnings  the  EngUsh  lyric  drew 
much  of  its  inspiration  from  the  outer  world.  We  have 
explained  that  in  the  French  lyric  the  descriptions  of  nature 
became  conventional  ornaments,  often  having  not  the 
slightest  connection  with  the  spirit  of  the  poem ;  in  the  Eng- 
lish lyrics  the  outer  life  of  nature  and  the  inner  life  of  man 
are  joined  in  sympathy — "Man  is  one  world  and  hath 
another  to  attend  him" — and  spring  and  winter,  birds  and 
flowers,  share  in  the  moods  of  the  poets  and  reveal  them  to 
us.  Viewed  as  a  whole,  the  English  lyric  is  unequalled  in  its 
descriptions  of  nature.  As  we  trace  its  development,  we 
shall  frequently  illustrate  this  statement. 

Thus  far  we  have  seen  nothing  of  folk  song.  The  lyrics 
set  to  carefully  written  music  are  certainly  not  of  the 
people ;  the  harmony  of  Sumer  is  icumen  in  possesses  "inge- 
nuity and  beauty,  in  a  degree  still  difficult  to  realize  as 
possible  to  a  thirteenth  century  composer."  An  anecdote  in 
the  Gemma  Ecclesiastica  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis  tells  of  the 
folk  singing  their  songs  about  the  church.  The  priest  had 
listened  to  them  for  when  he  should  have  intoned  at  the  altar 
"Dominus  vobiscum,"  he  sang,  in  the  English  tongue,  in  a 
loud  voice  before  all  the  people,  "Swete  lamman  dhin  are" 
(sweet  love,  thine  aid),  to  the  great  scandal  of  his  bishop. 
This  story  belongs  to  the  closing  years  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury. We  catch  no  gUmpse  of  folk  song  until  the  first  half 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  then  only  in  a  few  lines  pre- 


J^S  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

served  on  the  leaf  of  a  manuscript  in  the  Bodleian,  the  open- 
ing verses  of  some  eleven  songs — only  two  are  French — 
jotted  down  by  a  minstrel  to  aid  his  memory.  In  some  cases 
only  a  single  line  is  left : 

"  Ichaue  a  mantel  i-maket  of  cloth," 

and  we  have  but  three  lines  of  one  which  begins  charmingly 

"  Al  gold  Jonet  is  thin  her."  (thine  hair) 

There  is  a  delicious  bit  of  romance  in  the  song  of  the  maiden 
that  "in  the  moor  lay  sevenights  full" 

"Wat  was  hire  mete?   (her  meat) 
the  primerole  ant  the  violet. 
Welle  wat  was  hire  dryng.''  (her  drink) 

the  chelde  water  of  (the)  welle  spring." 

Most  interesting  is  the  fragment  of  a  dance  song,  an  English 
Carole: 

"  Icham  of  Irlaunde, 
ant  of  the  holy  londe 

of  irlande. 
gode  sir,  pray  ich  the, 
for  of  saynte  charite 
come  ant  daunce  wyt  me 
in  irlaunde." 

and  the  oldest  EngUsh  drinking  song  is  found  in  the  few 
lines : 

"  dronken,  dronken,  y-dronken, 
(  )  is  tabart  atte  wyne. 

hay  (  )   suster,  waiter,  peter ! 

ye  dronke  al  depe, 

a(nt)  ichulle  eke." 

Such  fragments  but  remind  us  how  much  of  English  folk 
song  we  have  lost.^ 

T-Anglia,  XXX,  p.  1T3. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  49 

We  have  now  reached  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
and  come  to  three  hymns  to  the  Virgin  and  God.  These 
poems,  with  their  music,  are  found  in  a  manuscript  in  Corpus 
Christi  College,  Oxford.  Written  in  a  much-used  verse  form, 
they  show  a  decided  advance  in  metrical  facility  over  the  reli- 
gious songs  we  have  cited : 

"  Edi  beo  thu  heuene  quene^  (Blessed  be  thou) 
foUtes  froure  &  angles  Wis ;  (comfort) 
moder  unwemmed  &  maiden  clene,  (Mother  unspotted) 
swich  in  world  non  other  nis. 
on  the  hit  is  well  eth  sene  (easily  seen) 
of  alle  wimmen  thu  hauest  thet  pris. 
mi  swete  leuedi  her  min  bene  (lady  hear  my  prayer) 
&  reu  of  me  yif  thi  wille  is." 

The  second,  in  the  same  metre,  is  much  more  graceful: 

"  Moder  milde,  flur  of  alle^  (flower) 
thu  ert  leuedi  swuthe  treowe.  (sweet  and  true) 
bricht  in  bure  &  eke  in  halle,  (bright  in  bower) 
thi  loue  is  euer  iliche  neowe: 
on  the  hit  is  best  to  calle ; 
swete  leudi,  of  me  thu  reowcj  (thou  rue) 
ne  let  me  neure  in  sunnes  falle  (never  in  sins) 
the  me  yarked  bale  to  breowe."^ 

We  may  observe  that  these  hymns  do  not  seem  so  plainly 
written  for  music  as  do  the  secular  lyrics.  A  contempora- 
neous song  for  two  voices — once  more  a  love  lament — will 
show  the  difference: 

"  Foweles  in  the  frith. 

The  fisses  in  the  flod: 

And  I  men  waxe  wod,  (must  become  mad) 
Mulch  sorwe  I  walke  with  (sorrow) 
For  beste  of  bon  and  blod."^ 

^E.  E.  T.  8.,  vol.  LIII,  pp.  255  ff. 

^  Early  Bodleian  Music,  vol.  II,  p.  10;  Early  English  Lyrics,  p.  5. 


50  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Here  is  the  thought  and  mood  at  once  expressed ;  but  the 
hymns  are  long  drawn  out  and  we  cannot  quote  them  in  their 
entirety.  There  is  a  very  interesting  poem  written  by  a 
certain  Thomas  de  Hales  for  a  maiden  dedicated  to  God, 
showing  her  that  Christ  is  her  lover.  As  Mr.  Chambers  has 
pointed  out  in  his  essay  on  the  medieval  lyric — at  once  the 
most  informing  and  the  most  appreciative  essay  on  the  early 
English  lyric  that  has  yet  appeared — it  is  the  best  example 
of  the  tendency  to  adapt  deliberately  "the  structure  and 
conventions  of  amorous  poetry  to  pious  uses  in  songs  of 
spiritual  love-longing."^  It  is  equally  interesting  to  notice 
that  this  long  poem  of  twenty-six  stanzas  was  intended  to 
be  sung.  Here  is  a  typical  passage  showing  that  the  great 
ones  of  the  earth  pass  away,  a  common  theme  in  mediaeval 
poetry : 

"  Hwer  is  paris  and  heleyne^ 

that  weren  so  bryht  and  feyre  on  bleo.  (fair  in  hue) 
Amadas,  tristram^  and  dideyne, 

Yseude  and  alle  theo^  (those) 
Ector  with  his  scharpe  meyne,  (strength) 

And  cesar  riche  of  worldes  feo,  (world's  wealth) 
Heo  beoth  iglyden  ut  of  the  reyne,  (They  are)  (out  of  the 
kingdom) 
so  the  scheft  is  of  the  cleo."^  (as  the  shaft  out  of  the 
bowstring) 

As  we  read  this  we  do  not  think  instinctively  of  a  musical 
accompaniment,  yet  in  the  last  verse  we  hear  the  poet  admon- 
ishing the  maiden : 

"  Hwenne  thu  sittest  in  longynge^  (When) 

drauh  the  fortli  this  ilka  wryt;  (draw) 
Mid  swete  stephne  thu  hit  singe,  (sweet  voice) 
And  do  al  so  hit  the  byt."  (as  it  bids  thee) 

1  Early  English  Lyrics,  p.  287. 

2  E.  E.  T.  S.,  vol.  XLIX,  pp.  95  ff. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  61 

It  was  because  the  world  was  very  evil,  because  earthly  love 
and  beauty  passes  away,  that  the  poets  fixed  their  love  on 
the  Virgin : 

"  Mon,  wi  seestu  loue  ant  herte  (Man,  why  settest  thou 
love  and  heart) 
on  worldesblisse  that  nout  ne  last  ?  (will  not  last) 
wy  tholestu  that  te  so  ofte  smerte,  (why  sufFerest  thou) 
for  loue  that  is  so  unstedefast? 
thu  likest  huni  of  thorn  iwis,  (honey) 
that  seest  thi  loue  on  worldesblis, 
for  ful  of  bitternis  hit  is,"^ 

runs  a  song,  jotted  down,  about  1265,  in  a  Psalter,  but 
Mary,  "flour  of  all,"  can  give  joy  that  endures: 

"  On  hire  is  al  my  hf  ilong, 
Of  hwam  ich  wille  synge,  (Of  whom) 
And  heryen  hire  ther-a-mong  (praise  her) 
Heo  gon  us  bote  brynge  (She  brought  us  salvation) 
Of  helle  pyne  that  is  strong. 
Heo  brouhte  us  blysse  that  is  long, 
Al  thureh  hire  childthinge.  (through  her  childbearing) 
Ich  bidde  hire  on  my  song."^ 

Generally  these  poems  are  songs  of  praise  or  devotion,  pro- 
testations of  love,  but  we  hear  also  the  personal  note  of 
confession : 

"  If  urn  ich  habbe  isunehed  mid  worke  and  mid  worde,  (Long 
ago)    (sinned) 
hwile  in  mine  bedde  and  hwile  atte  horde, 
Ofte  win  idrunke  and  selde  of  the  forde,   (seldom  of  the 

stream) 
muchel  ich  habbe  ispended:  to  litel  ich  habbe  an  horde."' 

1  Early  Bodleian  Music,  vol.  II,  p.  7. 

2  E.  E.  T.  8.,  vol.  XLIX,  p.  159.    Cf.  p.  196. 

3  P.  193. 


52  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

runs  one  prayer  to  the  Virgin,  and  though  Christ  is  besought 
to  aid  the  sinner,  more  hymns  are  addressed  to  the  one 

"  that  is  so  fayr  and  bright 

velud  maris  stella. 
Brighter  than  the  day  is  light, 

parens  et  puellaj 
Ic  crie  to  the,  thou  se  to  me; 
Leuedy,  preye  thi  sone  for  me, 

Tam  pia. 
Than  ic  mote  come  to  the, 

Maria!"^ 

Of  all  the  songs  to  the  Virgin  none  were  more  popular 
than  those  that  described  her  sorrow  at  the  foot  of  the 
cross — the  Plane  tus  Mariw,  the  Complaint  of  Mary,  to  give 
the  Latin  title  which  indicates  the  churchly  origin  of  these 
poems.  Her  own  sufferings  gave  her  sympathy  for  man  in 
his  distress : 

"  Ladi  seinte  Marie:  Corteis,  feir  &  swete! 
iFor  loue  of  the  teres :  that  for  thi  sone  thou  lete 
When  thou  seye  him  hongen:  Nayled  honden  and  fete,  (thou 

saw) 
Thou  sende  me  grace  in  eorthe:  Mi  sunnes  forte  bete."^ 

and  accordingly  the  poets  loved  to  dwell  on  her  sorrows. 
Often,  however,  hearing  the  Virgin's  lamentations,  they 
sang  only  of  her  anguish  and  forgot  their  own  fears.  These 
are  among  the  most  pathetic  lyrics  in  Middle  English;  con- 
ventional as  a  class,  their  theme  admitted  of  variations. 
At  times  it  is  Mary  at  the  cross  we  see ;  at  others,  it  is  Mary 
singing  her  child  to  sleep  and  weeping  as  she  foresees  his 
death.  The  popularity  of  these  songs  is  strikingly  shown  by 
the  large  number  that  have  been  preserved  in  various  manu- 

1  P.  194. 

ilbid.,  vol.  XCVIII,  p.  31. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  63 

scripts,  the  oldest  dating  from  1260.  Priests,  clerks,  writers 
of  miracle  plays  composed  them  and  very  few  of  these  poems 
fail  to  touch  our  feelings. 

Ill 

The  Harleian  MS.  No.  2253,  beautifully  written  and 
splendidly  preserved,  is  one  of  the  most  valued  possessions 
of  the  British  Museum.  It  is  an  anthology,  our  finest  col- 
lection of  Middle  English  lyrics,  dating  from  about  1310, 
for  it  contains  an  elegy  on  Edward  I  who  died  in  1307.  On 
the  other  hand,  some  of  the  poems  were  composed  long  before 
this,  for  example,  the  song  on  the  battle  of  Lewes  (1264)  ; 
thus  the  lyrics  extend  over  a  period  of  fifty  years.  It  has 
been  conjectured  that  the  scribe — the  anthologist,  we  might 
call  him — ^lived  at  Leominster  Abbey  in  Herefordshire,  but 
we  know  nothing  concerning  him.^  Surely  we  may  infer  that 
he  had  hved  the  life  of  a  student. 

"  Scripsi  hcec  carmina  in  tabulis! 
Mon  ostel  est  en  mi  la  vile  de  Paris: 
May  y  sugge  namore,  so  wel  me  is;  (I  may  say  no  more) 
Yef  hi  deye  for  love  of  hire,  duel  hit  ys."^  (grief  it  is) 

runs  one  of  the  poems,  and  from  his  predilection  for  French 
verse,  it  is  probable  that  as  a  clerk  he  had  spent  much  of  his 
time  en  mi  la  vile;  it  seems,  however,  too  strong  an  inference 
to  speak  of  his  wild  student  days  for  which  he  atoned  in  the 
cloister,  as  does  the  best  editor  of  the  MS.'  At  aU  events,  we 
know  that  he  loved  nature;  that  he  had  been  stirred  by 
patriotism;  and  that  he  had  felt  the  charm  of  youth  and 
romance.     Whether  or  not  he  composed  any  of  these  poems 

IT.  Wright,  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry,  Percy  Society  Publications, 
vol.  IV,  London,  1842,  Preface  vi-viii. 

2  P.  65. 

3K.  Boddeker,  Altenglische  Dichtungen  des  MS.  Harl.  SS5S.  Berlin, 
1878. 


54  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

(their  dialects  show  different  hands),  his  tastes  reveal  a 
poetic  temperament,  for  the  MS.  is  nothing  more  or  less  than 
a  book  in  which  the  writer  has  copied  whatever  interested 
him.  There  is  no  attempt  at  arrangement;  Latin,  English, 
Anglo-Norman — prose  and  verse,  hymn,  love  song,  patriotic 
ballad — follow  each  other  at  haphazard.  Though  there  is 
no  music  in  these  pages,  the  musical  setting  is  clearly  indi- 
cated, not  so  much  by  such  lines  as 

"  Y  wole  mone  my  song." 

"  AUe  that  beoth  of  huerte  trewe, 

a  stounde  herkneth  to  my  song." 

"  Lystnethj  Lordynges,  a  newe  song  ichuUe  bigynne."^ 

but  rather  by  the  lilt  of  the  poems,  and  most  of  all,  by  their 
refrains : 

"  Richard,  thah  thou  be  euer  trichard,   (traitor) 
tricchen  shalt  thou  neuer  more."   (betray) 

"  Euer  and  oo  for  my  leof  icham  in  grata  thohte,  (Always) 
(great  cara) 
y  thenche  on  hire  that  y  ne  seo  nout  ofte."   (I  think)   (I 
do  not  sea  oft) 

"  An  handy  hap  ichabba  yhant,  (A  gracious  fortune  I 
have  grasped) 
ichot,  from  heuene  it  is  me  sent,  (I  wot) 
from  alia  wymmen  mi  loua  is  lent  (is  turned) 
Ant  lyht  on  Alysoun." 

or  in  what  was  surely  the  chorus  of  a  folk  song: 

"  Blow,  northerne  wynd, 
sent  thou  me  my  suetyng !  (sweetheart) 
blow,  northerne  wynd, 
blou,  blou,  blou."^ 

1  Pp.  174,  140,  136. 

2  Pp.  98,  179,  147,  168. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  65 

The  political  songs,  vivid  and  forceful  in  style,  are  not  the 
best.  They  are  interesting,  as  Ritson  observed  of  the  grue- 
somely  realistic  poem  on  the  execution  of  Fraser,  chiefly 
because  they  contain  "a  variety  of  little  incidents  not  noticed 
by  historians."  Of  this  group  of  lyrics,  the  Husbandman's 
Complaint  has  the  most  f eehng ;  we  hear  in  it  the  bitter  cry 
of  the  poor,  ground  down  by  taxes  and  levies.  In  modem 
dress,  it  begins  as  follows: 

"  I  heard  men  upon  the  mould  make  much  moan. 

How  they  were  harassed  in  their  tilling. 
Good  ears  and  corn,  both  are  gone. 

We  tell  no  tales,  no  songs  we  sing. 
Now  must  we  work,  other  way  there  is  none, 

I  may  no  longer  live  from  my  gleaning. 
But  there  is  a  bitterer  bite  to  the  bone, 

For  ever  the  fourth  penny  goes  to  the  king." 

Thus  the  song  runs  on, 

"  It  is  hard  to  lose  where  there  little  is. 

And  we  have  many  who  look  to  us," 

a  complaint  of  the  oppressed,  hunted  like  hares,  deprived  of 
their  scanty  earnings. "^ 

Of  the  one  hundred  and  seventeen  pieces  that  compose  the 
collection,  the  English  lyrics,  some  forty  in  number,  alone 
concern  us.  Of  these  the  love  lyrics  are  by  far  the  best,  and 
it  is  a  misfortune  that  their  somewhat  difficult  dialect  has 
kept  them  from  being  generally  appreciated,  though 
Alysoun,  the  finest  of  the  series,  is  familiar  to  readers  of 
anthologies.  We  discover  at  once  in  these  poems  the 
influence  of  the  French  lyric  curiously  blended  with  purely 
English  qualities.  We  hear  an  echo  of  troubadour  verse 
when  we  read  of  a  maiden  who  dwells  in  a  tower  guarded  by 

ip.  109. 


66  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

knights  and  attendants,  or  of  another  adorned  in  a  girdle  of 
beaten  gold  set  with  a  stone  that  turns  water  to  wine,  and 
who  has 

"  lefly  rede  lippes  lele  (leal^  true) 

romaunz  forte  rede."  (romances  for  to  read) 

We  hear  it,  too,  when  a  poet  mourns  that  he  has  broken  the 
rules  of  the  "book  of  ladies  love."'^  Such  heroines,  one  would 
say,  are  not  English  maidens,  but  Chatelaines  who  must  be 
approached  with  reverence : 

"  Adoun  y  fel  to  hire  anon 
ant  crie :  'Ledy,  thyn  ore ! 
ledy,  ha  mercy  of  thy  mon !'  "^ 

This  note  recurs  again  and  again : 

"  Leuedy  of  alle  londe, 
Les  me  out  of  bonde,  (Loose  me  from  the  bonds) 

broht  icham  in  wo; 
haue  resting  on  honde, 
ant  sent  thou  me  thi  sonde  (message) 

sone,  er  thou  me  slo; 

my  reste  is  with  the  ro."'  (roe) 

The  disfavor  of  these  heroines  is  fatal: 

"  To  dethe  thou  hauest  me  diht, 
y  deye  longe  er  my  day," 

yet  the  sad  plight  of  these  true  lovers  does  not  always  move 
their  compassion : 

"  Nys  no  fur  so  hot  in  helle  (There  is  no  fire) 
al  to  mon,  (compared  to  the  man) 
that  loueth  derne  ant  darnout  telle  (loveth  secretly) 
whet  him  ys  on." 

1  Pp.  179,  157,  156,  152. 

2  P.  179. 

3  P.  149. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  57 

or 

"  Ich  vnne  hire  wel,  ant  heo  me  wo;  (I  wish)  (she  me  woe) 
ycham  hire  frend,  ant  heo  my  fo;  (and  she  my  foe) 
me  thuncheth  min  herte  wol  breke  a  two  (me  thinketh) 
for  sorewe  and  syke  !"^ 

This  is  indeed  la  grands  passion,  and  there  is  but  one 
poem  in  the  MS.  that  is  plainly  satirical  in  its  treatment  of 
women.^  The  derivation  of  these  love  plaints  is  not  hard  to 
find,  for  such  learned  comparisons  as : 

"  Ichot  a  burde  in  a  hour  ase  beryl  so  bryht,  (I  know  a  maid) 
ase  saphyr  in  seluer  semly  on  syht,  (silver) 
ase  jaspe  the  gentil^  that  lemeth  with  lyht,  (gleameth) 
ase  garnet  in  golde^  and  ruby  wel  ryht." 

and  the  personifications  are  a  direct  inheritance  from  the 
French.^  The  metres  too  come  from  across  the  channel.  We 
have  the  Old  English  alliteration  in  line  after  line 

"  weary  as  water  in  a  weir," 

"  as  saphyr  in  seluer  semly  on  syht," 

but  the  varied  rhyme  forms  are  echoes  from  the  troubadours, 
and  we  find  among  them  that  strophe  we  have  quoted  from 
GuiUaume  de  Poitiers.  One  point  is  particularly  notice- 
able— the  frequent  use  of  the  monorhymed  stanza.  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion  had  employed  it;  Walter  Mapes  used  it  in 
his  Mihi  est  propositum;  it  will  be  seen  in  the  early  hymns 
we  have  cited.     To-day  it  is  rarely  found,  as  in  the  song: 

"  My  love's  an  arbutus  by  the  borders  of  Lene, 
So  slender  and  shapely  in  her  girdle  of  green. 
And  I  measure  the  pleasure  of  her  eye's  saphire  sheen 
By  the  blue  skies  that  sparkle  through  the   soft  branching 


iPp.  150,  163,  163. 

2  P.  151. 

3  P.  145,  cf.  p.  170. 


58  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Even  in  the  more  complicated  verse  forms,  the  constant 
recurrence  of  the  same  rhyme  is  a  favorite  device.  Though 
we  read  these  songs  in  our  modern  pronunciation,  we  find 
in  them  a  delightful  and  varied  music,  the  promise  of  the 
melodic  richness  which  was  to  characterize  the  later  lyric. 
Despite  these  strongly  marked  French  traits  both  in  sub- 
ject-matter and  rhythm,  the  songs  are  thoroughly  Eng- 
lish— new  wine  has  been  poured  into  old  bottles.  These 
maidens  are,  after  all,  women  who  may  be  won,  and  since 
doughty  deeds  are  not  for  wandering  students,  love  plaints 
may  move  them.     As  one  poet  observes  philosophically : 

"  Betere  is  tholien  whyle  sore,  (to  suffer) 
then  mournen  euermore," 

and  they  are  not  so  hopeless  as  they  would  appear  to  be : 

"  with  thy  loue,  my  suete  leof,  mi  blis  thou  mihtes  eche, 
a  suete  cos  of  thy  mouth  mihte  be  my  leche."    (kiss)    (my 
healing) 

They  see  a  happiness  in  store  for  them  as  it  is  pictured  in 
the  close  of  this  charming  duet : 

"  'Whil  y  wes  a  clerc  in  scole,  wel  muchel  y  couthe  of  lore, 
ych   haue   tholed    for   thy  loue   woundes    fele   sore,   (suffered) 

(many) 
fer    from    [hom]    ant    eke    from   men   vnder    the   wode   gore; 

(wood's  edge) 
suete  ledy,  thou  rewe  of  me,  nou  may  y  no  more !' 

"  'thou  semest  wel  to  ben  a  clerc,  for  thou  spekest  so  stille, 

shalt   thou   neuer    for   mi   loue  woundes   thole    grylle;    (suffer 

fierce  wounds) 
fader,  moder,  and  al  mjr  kun  ne  shal  me  holde  so  stille, 
that  y  nam  thyn,  and  thou  art  myn,  to  don  al  thi  wille.'  "' 

1  P.  173. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  69 

When  the  background  of  personification  or  long-drawn- 
out  similes  is  strictly  conventional,  we  have  fresh  and 
delightful  portraits  of  English  maidens,  dwelHng  "by  west" : 

"  Hire  bed  when  ich  biholde  apon, 
the  sonnebeem  aboute  noon 
me  thohte  that  y  seye."^ 


"  Hyre  heye  haueth  wounded  me  ywisse^  (eye) 
hire  bende  browen,  that  bringeth  blisse, 
hire  comely  mouth  that  mihte  cusse,  (he  that  might  kiss) 

in  muche  murthe  he  were. 
y  wolde  chaunge  myn  for  his  (my  lot  for  his) 
that  is  here  fere."  (her  mate) 

"  Ich  wolde  ich  were  a  threstelcok, 
a  bountyng  other  a  lauerok,  (lark) 

swete  bryd ! 
bituene  hire  curtel  ant  hire  smok 

y  wolde  ben  hyd."^ 

It  is  the  hope,  seen  even  in  the  saddest  plaints,  expressing 
itself  in  naive  asides 

"  Hire  swyre  is  whittore  then  the  swon  (neck) 
Ant  feyerest  may  in  toune."  (fairest  maid  in  the  district) 
or 

"  gret  hire  wel,  that  swete  thing 
with  eynen  gray," 

that  gives  to  these  poems  their  freshness. 

One  of  the  most  engaging  characteristics  of  these  songs 
is  the  frequent  reference  to  nature.  We  remember  that  in 
the  poesie  courtoise  it  was  a  convention  to  begin  a  song  with 
some  allusion  to  nature,  no  matter  what  the  subject.  A 
broadly  satiric  description  of  Henry  III  and  his  desire  to 

ip.  155. 

2  Pp.  163,  163. 


60  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

invade  France  commences:  "Now  comes  the  time  of  May, 
when  the  rose  will  open,  when  the  weather  is  fair  and  the 
nightingale  sings;  when  the  meadows  become  green  and  the 
gardens  bloom.  I  have  found  something  that  I  shall  relate." 
These  English  songs,  too,  begin  with  a  picture  of  a  country 
roadside  in  May ;  or  of  a  garden  of  flowers,  when  the  "lef  is 
lyht  on  lynde,"  as  in  the  well-known  opening  lines  of  Alysown: 

"  Bytuene  marsh  ant  aueril, 

when  spray  biginneth  to  springe, 
The  lutel  foul  hath  hire  wyl 

on  hyre  lud  to  synge.  (with  her  voice) 
Ich  libbe  in  loue  longinge 
for  semlokest  of  alia  thinga;  (seemliest) 
He  may  me  blisse  bringe."^  (she  may) 

or  in  this  bit  of  melody : 

"  Lenten  ys  come  with  loue  to  toune,  (Spring) 
with  blosmen  ant  with  briddes  roune,  (birds'  song) 

that  al  this  blisse  bryngeth ; 
dayes-eyes  in  this  dales, 
notes  suate  of  nyhtagales, 

vch  foul  song  singeth."^  (each) 

but  such  passages  are  no  arbitrary  introductions,  for  the 
love  of  nature,  in  which  Ten  Brink  sees  the  folk  song  assert- 
ing itself,  runs  all  through  these  lyrics,  in  similes  and 
descriptions.  Here  the  English  poet  surpasses  his  French 
masters  for  he  has  "more  varied  and  richer  details  at  his 
disposal,  and  is  not  wont  to  form  an  analogy  of  his  personal 
sentiments  with  a  certain  phase  of  the  life  of  nature,  but 
rather  lets  his  feelings  appear  as  part  of  that  life."' 

ip.  147. 

2  P.  164. 

3  G.    Ten    Brink,    Early    English    Literature    to    Wiclif,    trans,   by 
Kennedy,  N.  Y.,  1889,  p.  305. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  61 

We  can  merely  call  attention  to  the  "Man  in  the  Moon," 
a  pure  bit  of  fun  and  probably  our  oldest  humorous  song 
unmixed  with  satire,^  for  we  must  turn  to  the  religious  lyrics 
in  this  manuscript.  They  are  remarkable  for  their  sincerity. 
We  find  in  them  no  long-drawn-out  moral  platitudes,  but 
rather  ardent  expressions  of  love  for  Christ  and  the  Virgin ; 
vivid,  pathetic  pictures  of  the  crucifixion  and  Mary's  grief; 
touching  lamentations  for  sins  committed;  and  the  char- 
acteristic mediaeval  scorn  of  the  world  as  an  evil  abode.  We 
can  illustrate  these  points  only  by  brief  quotations.  The 
following  lines  written  in  the  favorite  monorhymed  stanza 
are  a  good  example  of  the  hymn  to  Christ : 

"  Suete  iesu,  myn  huerte  gleem, 
bryhtore  then  the  sonne  beenij 
ybore  thou  were  in  Bedleheem, 
thou  make  me  here  thi  suete  dreem.  (song) 

"  Suete  iesu,  louerd  myn,  (lord  mine) 
my  lyf,  myn  huerte,  al  is  thin, 
vndo  myn  herte^  ant  liht  ther  yn, 

and  wite  me  from  fendes  engyn."^   (shield)    (the  fiend's 
artifices) 

The  songs  to  Mary  closely  resemble  the  songs  to  Alysoun ; 
though  the  poet  writes  of  the  Virgin,  the  following  intro- 
duction might  well  serve  for  a  love  poem : 

"  Ase  y  me  rod  this  ender  day  (other  day) 
by  grene  wode  to  seche  play, 

mid  herte  y  thohte  al  on  a  may,  (with  my  heart)    (on  a 
maiden) 
Suetest  of  alle  thinge; 
Lythe,  ant  ich  ou  telle  may  (Listen)   (I  may  tell  you) 
al  of  that  suete  thinge."^ 

1  Bbddeker,  p.  176. 

2  Pp.  191,  192. 

3  P.  218. 


6B  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  adaptation  of  secular  verse  for  religious  purposes 
long  persisted,  and  to-day  the  church  has  not  disdained  to 
borrow  from  the  opera  music  for  its  hymns.  None  of  Bach's 
chorales  has  a  deeper  religious  significance  than  "O  sacred 
head  now  wounded,"  yet  he  took  the  melody  from  an  old 
German  love  song  composed  by  Hans  Leo  Hassler.  The 
Latin  hymns  of  the  church  were  frequently  parodied  for 
political  and  satirical  purposes.  In  this  manuscript  we  find 
side  by  side,  written  by  the  same  hand,  an  amorous  poem, 

"  Lutel  wot  hit  anymon,  (Little)   (any  man) 
Hou  derne  loue  may  stonde^   (secret) 
bote  hit  were  a  fre  wymmon,  (unless  it) 
that  muche  of  loue  had  fonde," 

with  a  refrain  taken  possibly  from  a  folk  song : 

"  Euer  ant  oo  for  my  leof  icham  in  grete  thohte,  (and  always) 
(care) 
y  thenche  on  hire  that  y  ne  sec  nout  ofte;''  (I  do  not  often 
see) 

and  a  religious  poem  that  is  its  exact  counterpart : 

"  Lutel  wot  hit  anymon, 

hou  loue  hym  haueth  ybounde, 
that  for  vs  othe  rode  ron,  (on  the  rood) 
ant  bohte  vs  with  is  wounde 
Euer  ant  oo,  nyht  ant  day,  he  haueth  vs  in  thohte. 
He   nul   nout   leose   that  he   so   deore  bohte."^    (will  not  lose 
that  which) 

The  pictures  of  the  crucifixion  are  vivid  and  realistic  as 
an  altar  piece  by  one  of  the  old  masters : 

iPp.  178,  231. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  63 

"  Heye  vpon  a  doune, 

ther  al  folk  hit  se  may,   (where) 
a  mile  from  the  toune, 

aboute  the  midday, 
the  rode  is  vp  arered;   (cross) 
his  frendes  aren  afered, 

ant  clyngeth  so  the  clay; 
the  rode  stond  in  stone, 
marie  stont  hire  one,  (stands  alone) 

ant  seith  'weylaway !'  "^ 

The  contemptus  mimdi  furnishes  the  pessimism  in  these 
songs : 

"  Wei  ichot,  ant  soth  hit  ys, 
that  in  this  world  nys  no  blys,  (there  is  no  bliss) 
bote  care,  serewe,  ant  pyne."^  (sorrow) 

and  this  behef  finds  expression  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
poems  in  English  literature.  Its  metre  is  perfectly  adapted 
to  the  thought  and  the  long,  slow  line  that  closes  each  stanza 
has  a  "dying  fall,"  a  melancholy  echo,  like  the  last  chords 
of  a  dirge : 

"  Wynter  wakeneth  al  my  care, 
nou  this  leues  waxeth  bare;  (these  branches) 
ofte  y  sike  ant  mourne  sare,  (sigh) 
when  hit  cometh  in  my  thoht, 
of  this  worldes  ioie,  hou  hit  geth  al  to  noht. 

"  Nou  hit  is,  ant  nou  hit  nys,  (Now  it  is  not) 
also  hit  ner  nere  ywys;  (as  though  it  had  never  been) 
that  moni  mon  seith,  soth  hit  ys :  (what  many) 

al  goth  bote  godes  wille,  (except  God's  will) 
alle  we  shule  deye,  thah  vs  like  ylle. 

iP.  211. 
2  P.  194. 


e^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  al  that  gren  me  greueth  grene, 
nou  hit  faleweth  al  bydene;  (fadeth  all  suddenly) 
iesu,  help  that  hit  be  sene, 

ant  shild  vs  from  helle, 
for  y  not  whider  y  shal^  ne  hou  longe  her  duelle."'^  (For  I 
know  not)   (I  shall  go) 


If  we  compare  the  English  and  Anglo-Norman  poems  in 
this  manuscript,  we  shall  find  that  the  English  songs  are  not 
only  more  sincere  in  their  feeling,  but,  what  is  rather  sur- 
prising, more  musical  and  artistic  in  their  form.  There  is 
a  curiously  realistic  Anglo-Norman  poem  on  winter,  or 
rather,  on  what  winter  means  to  the  writer,  which  we  may 
contrast  with  Winter  wakeneth  all  my  care.  It  is  somewhat 
like  comparing  a  Skeltonic  outburst  with  a  sonnet  by  Shake- 
speare, and  indeed  there  is  much  of  Skelton's  spirit  in  these 
lines  : 


■  When  I  see  winter  return 
(Which  troubles  me 
Because  the  season  changes) 
Then  I  love  a  split  log. 
Charred  wood  sputtering 
Embers  flaring. 
Fire  of  twigs,  for  joy  I  sing 
For  I  love  it  so  much."^ 


After  continuing  in  this  strain,  the  writer  proceeds  to  an 
enumeration,  three  pages  in  length,  of  what  he  likes  to  eat! 
The  Anglo-Norman  love  poems  are  certainly  less  sponta- 
neous, following  established  custom  in  laying  down  the  laws 

ip.  195. 

2  T.  Wright,  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry,  p.  13. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  66 

for  true  lovers,  reading  lessons  in  "fyn  amour,"  or  going  to 
the  other  extreme  and  satirizing  the  follies  of  womankind: 

"  La  pie  de  costume  (The  magpie) 
Porte  penne  e  plume 

de  divers  colours; 
E  femme  se  delite 
En  estraunge  habite, 
de  divers  atours." 

"La  pie  est  jangleresse"  but  woman  "d'assez  jangle  plus."^ 
Without  citing  other  examples,  we  may  safely  assert  that 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  English  song 
had  not  only  learned  a  new  melody  and  grace  of  expression 
from  the  French  lyric,  but  rivalled  and,  in  certain  charac- 
teristics, surpassed  it. 

We  have  spent  much  time  on  MS.  Harleian  2253  because 
it  is  the  first  collection  of  lyrics  in  the  English  language, 
and  because  it  represents  practically  all  the  moods  of  the 
lyrical  spirit  of  the  late  thirteenth  and  early  fourteenth 
centuries.  It  is  a  misfortune  that  our  early  lyrics  are 
neglected  and  that  they  are  regarded  as  the  province  of  the 
philologist  or  of  the  student  of  the  history  of  our  literature. 
The  difficulties  of  their  language,  supposedly  great,  are 
slight  indeed,  and  their  thoughts,  quaintly  expressed,  are 
not  utterly  alien  to  our  own,  for  we  find  many  times  that 
the  strangeness  lies  in  the  form  of  expression.  We  do  not 
need  a  special  training  to  admire  the  early  masters  of  paint- 
ing though  their  technique  and  their  methods  are  far  removed 
from  ours ;  we  appreciate  mediaeval  carving ;  we  are  thrilled 

1  P.  107.  On  page  163  of  this  volume  is  a  very  graceful  Anglo- 
Norman  love  song,  with  a  refrain  in  the  metre  used  in  Alysoun: 

"  Je  pri  k  Dieu  e  Seint  Thomas, 
Qe  il  la  pardoigne  le  trespas ! 
E  je  se  verroiement  le  fas 
Si  ele  merci  me  crye." 


66  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

by  the  beauty  of  the  churches  and  cathedrals  that  arose  at 
the  very  time  these  songs  were  in  the  making.  Surely  no 
one,  though  utterly  unskilled  in  mediaeval  literature,  can  fail 
to  admire  the  feeling  and  the  art  of  these  early  poets  even 
when  they  see  another  world  than  ours.  These  lyrics  are  but 
miniatures  when  we  compare  them  with  the  superb  frescoes 
of  later  poets,  yet  "in  small  proportions  we  just  beauties 
see,"  and  they  should  be  known  to  all  who  enjoy  the  art  of 
the  Middle  Ages.^ 

These  lyrics  we  have  discussed  were  written  by  clerks ; 
consequently  they  show  the  marks  of  a  certain  degree  of 
learning  and  culture.  The  folk  lyric  of  this  period,  simpler 
and  less  sophisticated,  has  disappeared.  We  saw  traces  of 
it  in  some  of  the  refrains,  and  we  get  a  glimpse  of  it  in  a 
poem  written  about  1303  in  a  law  treatise  preserved  at 
Lincoln's  Inn.  The  poet,  riding  in  the  woods,  hears  a  "litel 
mai"  singing: 

"  Now  springes  the  sprai ! — 
Al  for  loue  I  am  so  sake   (sick) 
That  slepen  I  ne  mai." 

"  Sone  i  herde  that  mirie  note;  (Soon) 
Thider  I  drogh;    (I  drew) 
I  fond  hire  [in]  an  herber  swote  (arbor  sweet) 
Under  a  bogh. 
With  ioie  inogh. 
Sone  I  asked  'Thou  mirie  mai, 

Hwi  singestou  ai' .''  (Why  singest  thou  ay) 
Now  springes  the  sprai. 

1  Chambers  and  Sidgwick's  Early  English  Lyrics  should  win  for  our 
early  songs  the  popular  recognition  they  so  richly  deserve.  This  collec- 
tion, indispensable  for  the  study  of  the  lyric,  can  hardly  be  praised  too 
highly;  it  appeals  with  equal  force  to  the  scholar  and  to  the  general 
reader. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  67 

"  Than  answerde  that  maiden  swote 
Mid  wordes  fewe — 
'Mi  lemman  me  haues  bi-hot  (my  love)  (promised) 
Of  loue  trewe; 
He  chaunges  a-newe. 
Yif  I  mai,  it  shall  him  rewe  (it  shall  repent  him) 
Bi  this  day'  "^  (Concerning  this  day) 

Here   we  have   the  woman's   song,  the  oldest   form   of   the 
Carole. 

In  Arthour  and  Merlin,  a  translation  of  a  French  romance 
made  shortly  after  1300,  we  find  a  number  of  nature  songs; 
they  are  not  in  the  French,  and  they  have  no  connection  with 
the  plot.  It  seems  quite  probable  that  they  are  snatches  of 
folk  song : 

"  Mirie  time  is  Auerille, 
than  scheweth  michel  of  our  wille; 
In  feld  &  mede  floures  springeth, 
In  grene  wode  foules  singeth; 
Yong  man  wereth  jolif,  (becomes) 
&  than  proudeth  man  &  wiif."^ 


IV 


We  have  now  reached  the  fourteenth  century,  and  for  the 
first  time  we  meet  the  poets  themselves.  One  of  the  earliest 
writers  is  Lawrence  Minot,  of  whose  career  we  know  abso- 
lutely nothing  except  that  the  twelve  war  songs  from  his 
pen,  preserved  in  a  single  manuscript,  were  evidently  written 

i  Modern  Language  Review,  vol.  IV,  p.  236;  vol.  V,  p.  104.  It  was 
written  as  prose. 

2E.  Kolbing,  Arthour  and  Merlin,  11.  259-264;  cf.  11.  4675-4680,  739T- 
7400. 


68  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

at  the  time  of  the  events  they  describe,  between  1333  and 
1352.  They  have  little  grace  either  of  metre  or  diction;  but 
they  are  filled  with  life  and  action,  and  express  with  straight- 
forward, vigorous  utterance  a  nation's  pride  in  battles  won. 
As  the  editor  of  Minot  has  well  said,  "His  predecessors  in  the 
political  poem  had  attacked  abuses,  exposed  grievances,  or 
written  in  the  service  of  a  faction.  He  is  the  first  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  the  English  nation  just  awakened  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  its  unity  and  strength."^  The  poems  are 
directed  against  the  archenemies  of  England — the  Scotch 
and  the  French — and  ring  with  the  exultation  of  victory, 
even  when  in  reality  the  English  had  the  worst  of  the 
argument. 

"  Whare  er  ye,  Skottes  of  Saint  lohnes  toune? 
The  boste  of  yowre  baner  es  betin  all  doune; 
When  ye  besting  will  bede  sir  Edward  es  boune  (will  oiFer)  (is 

ready) 
For  to  kindel  yow  care  and  crak  yowre  crowne: 

He  has  crakked  yowre  croiine,  wele  worth  the  while; 
Schame  bityde  the  Skottes  for  thai  er  full  of  gile."^ 

Whatever  Minot's  career  may  have  been,  he  certainly  trailed 
a  pike  in  a  conquering  army  for  he  has  the  unmistakable 
gaudia  certaminis.  Though  the  comparison  is  by  no  means 
a  fair  one,  yet  if  we  place  beside  Minot's  roughhewn  lines 
the  polished  couplets  of  Addison's  Campaign,  we  instantly 
perceive  the  difference  that  exists  between  the  war  songs  of 
a  soldier  and  the  compliments  of  a  courtier.  Minot  has  his 
heroes,  and  his  poems  give  the  honor  roll  of  English  valor, 
as  in  his  song  on  the  defeat  of  the  French  at  the  sea  fight  at 
Sluys,  1340: 

1  J.  Hall,  Poems  of  Laurence  Minot,  Oxford,  1887,  p.  xiii. 

2  P.  6. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  69 

"  The  gude  Erie  of  Glowceter,  God  mot  him  glade, 
Broght  many  bold  men  with  bowes  ful  brade; 
To  biker  with  the  Normandes  baldely  thai  bade  (to  fight) 
And  in  middes  the  flode  did  tham  to  wade ; 

To  wade  war  tho  wretches  casten  in  the  brim;  (in  the  sea) 
The  kaitefs  come  out  of  France  at  lere  tham  to  swim,   (to 
learn) 

"  I  prays  lohn  Badding  als  one  of  the  best; 
Faire  come  he  sayland  out  of  the  suthwest. 
To  proue  of  tha  Normandes  was  he  ful  prest,  (full  ready) 
Till  he  had  foghten  his  fill  he  had  neuer  rest."' 

Minot  well  understood  how  to  use  proper  names  effectively, 
and  in  this  respect  he  may  be  named  with  Scott: 

"  Day  set  on  Norham's  castled  steep, 
And  Tweed's  fair  river,  broad  and  deep. 
And  Cheviot's  mountains  lone." 

We  leave  his  poems  with  this  cry  of  triumph  over  Crecy 
(1346): 

"  Oway  es  all  thi  wele,  i-wis, 

Franche  man,  with  all  thi  fare ; 
Of  murning  may  thou  neuer  mys. 

For  thou  ert  cumberd  all  in  care: 
With  speche  ne  moght  thou  neuer  spare 
To  speke  of  Ingliss  men  despite; 

Now  haue  thai  made  thi  biging  bare,  (thy  house) 
Of  all  thi  catell  ertou  quite."^   (thy  goods  art  thou  de- 
prived) 

We  approach  the  first  commanding  personality  in  Eng- 
hsh  literature — Geoffrey  Chaucer  (1340P-1400) — and  find 
to  our  surprise  that  his  lyrics  show  but  faint  marks  of  his 

1  P.  16.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  Minot's  work  with  that  of  mod- 
ern writers,  in  Christopher  Stone's  War  Songs,  Oxford,  1908. 

2  P.  25. 


10  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

genius.  It  is  a  commonplace  to  observe  that  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  Shakespeare,  and  Milton  are  the  four  greatest 
English  poets — who  shall  stand  beside  them  is  the  subject 
for  debate — but  it  is  not  always  remembered  that  of  these 
four  writers,  Chaucer  alone  has  left  us  no  lyrics  entirely 
worthy  of  his  fame.  Had  Spenser  written  nothing  but  the 
Prothalamion  and  the  Epithalamion,  Shakespeare  nothing 
beyond  his  songs  and  sonnets,  Milton  but  his  odes  and  son- 
nets, they  would  have  been  always  honored  as  great  poets 
who  had  given  us 

"  soul-animating  strains — alas,  too  few!" 

If  Chaucer's  reputation  depended  on  his  lyrics,  he  would  be 
little  more  than  a  half-forgotten  name. 

It  was  in  1372-1373,  twenty-four  years  after  the  death  of 
Laura,  that  Chaucer  made  his  j  ourney  into  Italy ;  it  is  possi- 
ble that  he  had  gone  to  Rlilan  in  1368  for  the  marriage  of 
Lionel  Duke  of  Clarence.  Whether  or  not  he  actually  met 
Petrarch  (and  it  seems  probable)  he  must  have  heard  his 
sonnets  for  they  had  won  instant  admiration ;  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  in  Troilus  and  Criseyde  Chaucer  has  translated,  not 
following  the  form,  Petrarch's  quatorzain  which  begins 
"S'amor  non  e,  che  dunque  e  quel  ch'io  sento.''"'^  In  the 
Monk's  Tale,  Chaucer  speaks  of  "my  master  Petrarch," 
"the  only  place,"  Professor  Lounsbury  observes,  "in  which 
he  seriously  gives  this  designation  to  any  author  whatever"  ;^ 
yet  Chaucer  is  not  sufficiently  impressed  by  the  beauty  of  the 
Cavzonicre  either  to  introduce  the  sonnet  form  into  English 
literature,  or  to  imitate  the  Italian  poet's  lyrical  treatment 
of  love.  On  the  other  hand,  Chaucer  knew  the  English  songs 
of  his  time,  and  it  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  nearly  all 
the  Canterbury  pilgrims  are  musical,  from  the  squire  who 
sang  such  love  plaints  as  the  Italians  wrote,  to  the  pardoner 

1  Lines  400-420. 

2  T.  R.  Lounsbury,  Ptudhs  in  Chmicer,  New  York,  1893,  II,  p.  224. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  71 

■who  well  understood  the  attracting  power  of  simple  English 
ditties : 

"  Full  loude  he  song:  Come  hider  love  to  me," 

yet  if  we  wish  to  hear  the  songs  of  Chaucer's  England,  we 
must  turn  from  the  Canterbury  Tales  to  the  manuscript  col- 
lections of  lyrics  by  unknown  writers.  Shakespeare  incor- 
porates in  his  plays  the  popular  lyrics  of  the  day;  Chaucer 
gives  them  a  passing  reference  in  a  line  or  two. 

The  reason  for  this  is  sufficiently  obvious.  Chaucer  had 
the  temperament  of  the  dramatist,  of  the  story  teller.  When 
he  studies  the  heart  with  its  impulses  and  waverings ;  when 
he  observes  the  passions  and  thoughts  of  men  and  women, 
he  thinks  of  a  tale  and  not  of  a  song.  The  lyric  poet  asks 
nothing  more  than  to  express  a  single  mood  or  emotion, 
detached,  and  sufficient  unto  itself;  but  in  Chaucer  the  social 
instinct  was  strong  and  what  he  wished  to  study  and  to 
depict  was  the  interplay  of  character.  The  humorous  side 
of  life,  which  appealed  so  strongly  to  him,  can  be  expressed 
but  very  inadequately  in  lyric  verse.  In  the  House  of  FaTne 
we  are  told  that  Chaucer  had  set  his  wit 

"  to  make  bokes,  songes,  dytees. 
In  ryme,  or  elles  in  cadence," 

but  the  songs  and  ditties  are  not  many.^  The  lyric  seemed 
to  him  too  small  a  province. 

When  Chaucer  sought  models  for  his  lyrics,  he  turned  to 
the  writings  of  his  French  predecessors  and  contemporaries. 
"The  note,  I  trowe,  maked  was  in  Fraunce,"  he  says  of  the 
rondel  sung  by  the  birds  in  the  Parlement  of  Foules,  but  this 
applies  to  his  other  lyrics.  His  A.  B.  C.  to  the  Virgin  is  not 
a  hymn  inspired  by  his  own  religious  sentiment,  but  a  trans- 
lation from  De  Deguilleville's  Pelerinage  de  VAme.    He  bases 

ILI.  622-623. 


7B  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  three  ballades  that  form  the  Compleynt  of  Venus  on  three 
ballades  of  Granson: 

"  And  eek  to  me  hit  is  a  greet  penauncCj 
Sith  rym  in  English  hath  swich  scarsitee. 
To  folowe  word  by  word  the  curiositee 

Of  Graunson,  flour  of  hem  that  make  in  Fraunce." 

There  are  undeniable  strains  of  English  song  in  his  verse. 
We  hear  the  earlier  lyric  in  the  following  Hnes  from  the 
Bohe  of  the  Duchesse: 

"  Lord,  hit  maketh  myn  herte  light. 
Whan  I  thenke  on  that  swete  wight 

That  is  so  semely  on  to  see; 

And  wisshe  to  god  hit  might  so  be. 
That  she  wolde  holde  me  for  her  knight. 
My  lady,  that  is  so  fair  and  bright."^ 

and  in  these  verses  from  his  Compleint  to  his  Lady: 

"  My  dere  herte,  and  best  beloved  fo. 
Why  lyketh  yow  to  do  me  al  this  wo. 

What  have  I  doon  that  greveth  yow,  or  sayd. 
But  for  I  serve  and  love  yow  and  no  mo? 
And  whylst  I  live,  I  wol  do  ever  so ; 

And  therfor,  swete,  ne  beth  nat  evil  apayd. 
For  so  good  and  so  fair  as   [that]   ye  be. 

Hit  were  [a]   right  gret  wonder  but  ye  hadde 

Of  alle  servants,  bothe  goode  and  badde; 
And  leest  worthy  of  alle  hem,  I  am  he."^ 

These  passages  are  not  so  characteristic  of  Chaucer's 
lyrics  as  are  his  ballades,  written  not  in  the  eight  line  stanza, 
but  in  the  seven  line  rhyme  royal.  The  best  of  them  are 
marked  by  a  dignified,  earnest,  eloquent  utterance: 

ILL  1175-1180. 
2  LI.  64.-73. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  73 

"  That  thee  is  sent,  receyve  in  buxumnessCj  (submission) 
The  wrastling  for  this  worlde  axeth  a  fal. 
Her  nis  non  hoom,  her  nis  but  wildernesse : 
Forth,  pilgrim,  forth !    Forth,  beste,  out  of  thy  stal ! 
Know  thy  contree,  look  up,  thank  God  of  al ; 
Hold  the  hye  wey,  and  lat  thy  gost  thee  lede : 
And  trouthe  shal  delivere,  hit  is  no  drede."^ 

Among  the  best  is  Lah  of  Stedfastnesse,  in  which  the  poet 
laments  that 

"  Trouthe  is  put  doun,  resoun  is  holden  fable; 
Vertu  hath  now  no  dominacioun, 
Pitee  exyled,  no  man  is  merciable. 
Through  covetyse  is  blent  discrecioun; 
The  world  hath  mad  a  permutacioun 
Fro  right  to  wrong,  fro  trouthe  to  fikelnesse. 
That  al  is  lost,  for  lak  of  stedfastnesse." 

The  love  ballades  are  not  as  successful. 

"  Hyd,  Absolon,  thy  gilte  tresses  clere ; 
Ester,  ley  thou  thy  meknesse  al  a-doun," 

from  the  Legend  of  Good  Women^  has  melody  but  cata- 
logues too  much,  giving  us  a  list  of  names  rather  than  a 
series  of  brief  but  vivid  pictures,  such  as  we  find  in  Villon's 
incomparable  Ballade  of  Dead  Ladies.  The  Triple  Roundel 
of  Merciles  Beaute  is  too  obviously  an  imitation  to  possess 
much  life ;  but  there  is  one  rondel  of  Chaucer's  so  graceful 
and  musical  that  it  deserves  to  be  quoted  and  with  it  we 
leave  his  lyrics : 

"  Now  welcom  somer,  with  thy  sonne  softe. 
That  hast  this  wintres  weders  over-shake, 
And  driven  awey  the  longe  nightes  blake ! 

1  Truth. 

2  Prologue,  Text  B,  11.  249-269. 


74  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Seynt  Valentyn,  that  art  f ul  hy  on-lof te ; — 
Thus  singen  smale  foules  for  thy  sake — 
Now  melcom  somer,  with  thy  sonne  softe. 
That  hast  this  wintres  weders  over-shake. 

"  Wei  han  they  cause  for  to  gladen  ofte, 
Sith  ech  of  hem  recovered  hath  his  make; 
Ful  blisful  may  they  singen  whan  they  wake; 
'Now  welcom  somer,  with  thy  sonne  softe. 
That  hast  this  wintres  weders  over-shake. 
And  driven  awey  the  longe  nightes  blake.'  "^ 

If  we  compare  this  with  the  songs  of  the  previous  century, 
we  see  that  the  touch  is  firmer,  the  art  is  more  sure,  for  it 
comes  from  the  hand  of  a  master. 

We  cannot  leave  the  fourteenth  century  without  a  men- 
tion of  two  contemporaries  of  Chaucer — Richard  RoUe  and 
the  unknown  author  of  The  Pearl.  Rolle  (d.  1349)  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  characters  of  Mediaeval  England. 
Had  he  but  founded  an  order,  his  name  would  have  been 
known  throughout  the  world,  for  he  had  the  qualities  of  a 
great  rehgious  leader — ^intense  convictions,  an  enthusiasm 
that  bordered  upon  fanaticism,  and  the  power  to  express 
his  thoughts  simply  and  vividly.  He  was  both  a  dreamer 
and  a  man  of  action ;  he  divided  his  life  between  mystic 
contemplation  and  preaching  a  practical,  everyday  morality 
to  the  peasants  of  Yorkshire.  His  poems  have  little  grace 
or  art ;  they  are  filled  with  emotion,  for  his  rehgious  fervor 
expresses  itself  directly,  without  reflection.  Two  stanzas 
are  sufficient  to  show  his  style  and  his  feehng : 

"  My  sang  es  in  syghyng,  whil  I  dwel  in  this  way; 
My  lyfe  es  in  langyng,  that  byndes  me  nyglit  &  day, 
Til  I  com  til  my  kyng,  that  I  won  with  hym  may,  (dwell) 
And  se  his  fayre  schynyng,  &  lyfe  that  lastes  ay.'' 

^Parlement  of  Foules,  11.  680-692. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  75 

"  Sygh  &  sob,  bath  day  and  nyght,  for  ane  sa  fayre  of  hew. 
Thar  es  na  thyng  my  hert  mai  light,  bot  lufe,  that  es  ay  new. 
Wha  sa  had  hym  in  his  syght,  or  in  his  hert  hym  knew. 
His  mournyng  turned  til  joy  ful  bryght,  his  sang  in  til  glew."^ 
(glee) 

Whether  or  not  we  accept  The  Pearl  as  the  actual  record 
of  a  personal  bereavement,  the  lyric  element  in  the  poem  is 
lost  in  description,  allegory,  and  even  didacticism.  The 
poem,  certainly  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  our  language, 
is  not  a  series  of  moods  treated  lyrically,  for  its  author  con- 
siders not  so  much  his  own  feelings  as  the  visions  he  has 
invoked.  The  lyric  poet  uses  the  world  of  nature  and  the 
world  of  dreams  to  interpret  his  own  feehngs ;  the  writer  of 
The  Pearl  reverses  this  process  and  his  feehngs  of  grief  or 
joy  measure  the  power  of  his  dreams.  Despite  certain  lyri- 
cal stanzas.  The  Pearl  lies  outside  our  province. 


If  the  fifteenth  century  showed,  so  far  as  the  lyric  is  con- 
cerned, 

"  No  master  spirit,  no  determined  road," 

it  cannot  be  taunted  with  a  "want  of  books  and  men." 
Hoccleve  (1368?-14<4<8)  and  Lydgate  (1375-14.4.9)  fol- 
lowed Chaucer  as  best  they  could,  and  while  in  their  verse 
schemes  they  showed  a  certain  technical  achievement,  they 
lacked  both  his  art  and  his  inspiration.  When  Hoccleve 
writes  a  poem  lamenting  his  ill-spent  Hfe,  he  gives  us  a 
rambling    confession    in    fifty-six    eight-line    stanzas.      His 

1 C.  Horstmann,  Richard  Bolle  of  Hampole,  London,  1895,  vol.  I,  pp. 
75,  78. 


76  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

poetry  is  often  personal ;  his  Complaint  narrates  his  sickness, 
his  loss  of  reason,  the  desertion  of  his  friends,  but  there  is 
no  lyric  cry  in  it.  At  times  he  employs  well-known  lyric 
themes,  but  he  cannot  treat  them  lyrically: 

"  How  fair  thyng  or  how  precious  it  be 
That  in  the  world  is,  it  is  lyk  a  flour^ 
To  whom  nature  yeuen  hath  beautee  (given) 
Of  fressh  heewe  and  of  ful  pleasant  colour; 
With  soote  smellynge  also,  and  odour;   (sweet) 
But  as  soone  as  it  is  bicomen  drye, 
Ffarwel  colour  and  the  smel  gynneth  dye."^ 

This  is  pretty  crude,  especially  when  we  consider  that  we 
are  approaching  the  sixteenth  century.  Much  better  is  his 
Modir  of  god,  long  considered  above  his  style  and  accord- 
ingly attributed  to  Chaucer.^ 

Lydgate  is  a  more  important  figure,  but  a  poor  writer  of 
lyrics.  Like  Hoccleve  he  is  exasperatingly  prolix,  and 
though  we  find  in  his  religious  poetry  lines  and  stanzas  that 
have  decided  merit,  the  next  page  invariably  destroys  the 
effect.  A  recently  discovered  lyric.  The  Child  Jesus  to  Mary, 
the  Rose,  has  both  sincerity  of  feeling  and  graceful  expres- 
sion, and  exhibits  the  best  traits  of  his  work.^ 

This  age  produced  a  third  poet  whose  work  is  contained 
in  MS.  682  Harleian.  It  consists  of  a  series  of  most  inter- 
esting lyrics  that  are  English  translations  of  poems  by 
Charles  d'Orleans.  For  a  considerable  number  of  them  no 
French  originals  have  as  yet  been  found,  but  in  all  proba- 
bility they  are  merely  English  versions  of  work  by  Charles 
that  has  disappeared.  This  English  translator  (Professor 
MacCracken    believes    him    to    be    Suffolk,    the    friend    of 

IB.  B.  T.  8.,  Extra  Series,  LXI,  p.  119. 

2  P.  52. 

3B.  E.  T.  S.,  Extra  Series,  vol.  CVII,  p.  78. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  77 

Charles)  was  a  skillful  writer,  for  many  of  these  lyrics  have 
all  the  lightness  and  charm  of  the  French.^  What  could  be 
more  delightful  than  the  following  rondel? 

"  My  gostly  fadir,  y  me  confesse, 
First  to  god  and  then  to  yow, 
That  at  a  wyndow,  wot  ye  how, 
I  stale  a  cosse  of  gret  swetnes ;  (kiss) 
Which  don  was  out  avisynes, 
But  hit  is  doon  not  undoon  now. 

My  gostly  fadir,  I  me  confesse. 
First  to  God  and  then  to  yow. 

"  But  y  restore  it  shall  dowtles 
Ageyn  if  so  be  that  y  mow. 
And  that  [to]  God  y  make  a  vow. 
And  ellis  y  axe  foryefnes.  (else  I  ask) 
My  gostly  fadir,  I  me  confesse, 
First  to  God  and  then  to  yow." 


If  we  believe  this  gay  song  to  be  modelled  on  some  undis- 
covered French  lyric,  the  following  seems  thoroughly  Eng- 
lish in  both  its  theme  and  its  expression : 

"  This  time  when  lovers  althermost  defie  (most  of  all) 

Eche  hevy  thought  as  ferforth  as  thai  may,  (as  utterly) 
And  rise  or  phebus  in  the  morow  gray,  (rise  before) 
Leiyng  aside  all  slouthe  and  slogardy, 
To  here  the  birdis  synge  so  lustily, 

Ovyr  the  spryngyng  bodies  on  the  spray. 

This  tyme  when  lovers  althermost  defie 
Eche  hevy  thought  as  ferforth  as  thei  may. 

ISee  Publications  of  M.  L.  Association,  vol.  XXVI,  No.  I,  pp.  143- 
180. 


78  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Thyn  waylyng  on  my  pilow  thus  y  ly, 

For  that  as  was  and  now  is  goon  for  ay, 
Wisshyng  no  more  but  deth  eche  howre  of  day, 
Saiyng  'my  hert,  alias  whi  nelt  thou  day'  ?  (why  wilt  thou 
not  die) 
This   tyme  when  lovers   althermost  defie 
Eche  hevy  thought  as  ferforth  as  thei  may."^ 

As  we  leave  these  three  writers — Hoccleve,  Lydgate,  and 
the  translator  of  Charles  d'Orleans — it  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  the  French  metres  they  so  assiduously  cultivated,  fol- 
lowing Chaucer's  example,  did  not  become  a  part  and  parcel 
of  English  verse.  Despite  Wyatt's  rondeaux,  the  Tudor 
lyrists  and,  above  all,  the  Ehzabethans  cared  nothing  for  the 
ballade  or  rondel.  It  was  left  for  the  poets  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  domesticate  them. 

More  interesting  than  the  works  of  these  courtly  makers 
are  the  more  popular  forms  of  the  lyrics — the  songs  in  the 
Miracle  plays,  the  carols,  and  the  large  body  of  anonymous 
verse,  secular  and  rehgious. 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  many  of  the  lyrics  in  the 
Mystery  plays  and  in  the  Moralities  are  much  older  than 
the  fifteenth  century.  The  York  cycle  was  composed  about 
1350,  and  the  references  in  Chaucer  to  "pleyes  of  miracles" 
and  to  such  stock  characters  as  Noah  and  Herod  prove  con- 
clusively that  these  dramatic  entertainments  were  widely 
known  in  his  day.  Yet  the  Mysteries  flourished  particularly 
from  1400  to  1500;  they  have  come  down  to  us  in  manu- 
scripts that  date  from  that  period;  and  it  is  quite  probable 
that  their  lyrics,  however  old  they  may  be,  are  preserved  in 
fifteenth  century  form.  For  convenienoe  we  shall  consider 
with  the  Mystery  plays  the  Moralities  also,  though  they  were 
at  their  height  in  the  first  decades  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

^  Poems  written  in  English  by  Charles  Duke  of  Orleans,  ed.  by  G.  W. 
Taylor,  Roxburghe  Club,  London,  1827,  pp.  174,  177. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  79 

In  reading  these  early  dramas  we  are  at  once  struck  by 
their  lyrical  quaUty.  They  contain  not  only  many  songs 
but  a  large  number  of  short  poems,  not  written  for  music, 
yet  expressing  musically  a  deep  personal  emotion.  Songs 
written  for  a  single  voice,  for  three  parts,  or  for  a  chorus 
are  introduced  with  such  frequency  that  the  scribes  did  not 
trouble  to  copy  them,  but  merely  indicated  where  they 
occurred.     Evidently  they  could  be  easily  suppKed. 

Presbyter:  "  now,  boy,  I  pray  thee  lett  vs  have  a  song! 

Boy:     I  home  and  I  hast,  I  do  that  I  may, 

With  mery  tune  the  trebyll  to  syng."^ 
(Synge  both.) 

We  find  the  three  part  song  in  the  Morality  of  Wisdom: 

Mynde :  "  A  tenor  to  you  both  I  brynge. 
Vnderstondyng :     And  I  a  mene  for  ony  kynge. 

Wyll:     And  but  a  trebyll  I  out-wrynge, 

the  deuyU  hym  spede  that  myrth  exyled, 
(Cantent.) 

Thus   the   shepherds   in   the   Nativity  plays    arrange  their 
parts : 

primus  pastor:  "  lett  me  syng  the  tenory. 
iius  pastor :     And  I  the  tryble  so  hye. 
iiius  pastor:     Then  the  meyne  fallys  to  me; 
lett  se  how  ye  chauntt.' 


"2 


"3 


It  will  be  noticed  that  in  none  of  these  passages  are  the 
songs  given.  More  often  we  find  no  such  introduction  for  the 
lyrics  but  instead  a  stage  direction,  "Here  shall  enter  a  ship 
with   a  merry   song,"   "Et   tunc   cantant,"   "Tunc   cantant 


1 E.  E.  T.  S.,  Extra  Series,  LXX,  p.  101. 

2  P.  160. 

3  Vol.  LXXI,  p.  122. 


80  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

angeli  Te  Deum."  The  songs  that  are  actually  included  in 
the  text  make  us  regret  that  so  many  have  been  lost.  One 
of  the  best  is  sung  by  the  "gossipes"  who,  with  Noah's  wife, 
refuse  to  enter  the  ark: 

The  Good  Gossipes  Songe. 

"  The  flude  comes  fleeting  in  full  faste. 

One  every  syde  that  spreades  full  fere; 
For  feare  of  drowninge  I  am  agaste; 

Good  gossippes,  lett  us  drawe  nere 
And  lett  us  drinke  or  we  departe. 

For  ofte  tymes  we  have  done  soe; 
For  att  a  draughte  thou  drinkes  a  quarte, 

And  soe  will  I  do  or  I  goe. 
Heare  is  a  pottill  full  of  Malmsine,  good  and  stronge; 
It  will  rejoyce  bouth  liarte  and  tonge; 
Though  Noye  thinke  us  never  so  longe, 
Heare  we  will  drinke  alike."^ 

As  Noah's  wife  sings  with  these  roisterers,  it  is  fair  to 
assume  that  intemperance  was  not  a  vice  peculiar  to  the 
Patriarch,  but  rather  a  family  weakness  and  that  quite  pos- 
sibly it  was  once  more  a  woman  who  started  the  man  on  the 
downward  path.  From  the  very  first  line  with  its  splendid 
alliteration,  such  a  lyric  is  an  excellent  example  of  the  popu- 
lar drinking  songs.  Surely  the  unknown  poet  who  wrote  it 
caught  the  rollicking  swing  from  some  tavern  catch. 

While  this  song  is  adequate  to  the  situation,  many  are  not. 
Although  David,  for  example,  asserts: 

"  As  god  of  heuen  has  gyiFyn  me  wit. 
Shall  I  now  syng  you  a  fytt,   (a  song) 
With  my  mynstrelsy;" 

1  A.  W.  Pollard,  English  Miracle  Plays,  Moralities  and  Interludes, 
fifth  ed.,  Oxford,  1909,  p.  15.  Cf.  E.  E.  T.  S.,  Extra  Series,  vol.  LXII, 
p.  57. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  81 

his  song  does  not  justify  his  reputation : 

"  Myrth  I  make  till  all  men, 
With  my  harp  and  fyngers  ten. 

And  warn  theym  that  they  glad; 
ffor  god  will  that  his  son  down  send. 
That  wroght  adam  with  his  hend. 
And  heuen  and  erthe  mayde."^ 

Turning  from  actual  songs,  to  short  poems  lyrical  in  their 
subjective  spirit,  we  find  that  none  are  more  beautiful  than 
the  verses  spoken  by  the  shepherds  at  Bethlehem: 

"  Hayll,  full  of  favoure. 

That  made  all  of  noght ! 
Hayll!  I  kneyll  and  I  cowre. 
A  byrd  haue  I  broght 
To  my  barne. 
Hayll,  lytyll  tyne  mop  ! 
Of  cure  crede  thou  art  crop: 
I  wold  drynk  on  thy  cop, 
Lytyll  day  starne. 


"  Hayll !  swete  is  thy  chere ! 
My  hart  wold  blede 
To  se  the  sytt  here 

In  so  poore  wede. 
With  no  penny s. 
Hayll !  put  furth  thy  dall !  (thy  hand) 
I  bryng  the  bot  a  ball : 
Haue  and  play  the  with  all, 

And  go  to  the  tenys."^ 

Surely  Herrick  must  have  remembered  these  lines  when  he 
wrote  To  his  Saviour,  a  Child. 

1 E.  E.  T.  S.,  vol.  LXXI,  p.  59. 
2  P.  139. 


82  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

There  are  so  many  lyrics  in  these  plays  that  the  choice  is 
difficult;  we  have  them  from  the  lament  of  Adam,  written  in 
the  metre  employed  by  Guillaume  de  Poitiers, 

"  Gone  ar  my  games  with-owten  glee, 
Alias !  in  blisse  kouthe  we  noht  bee. 
For  putte  we  were  to  gret  plente 

at  prime  of  the  day, 
By  tyme  of  none  alle  lost  had  wee,  (of  noon) 
sa  welawaye." 

to  the  praise  of  Christ,  sung  by  eight  burgesses  as  he  enters 
Jerusalem : 

"  Hayll !  dyamaunde  with  drewry  dight,  (jewel  adorned) 
Hayll !  j  asper   gentill  of  Jewry, 
Hayll !  lylly  lufsome  lemyd  with  lyght."^ 

It  is  evident  that  the  secular  lyric  has  been  adapted  in  this 
passage,  as  in  many  others.  Conversely,  it  would  be  easy  to 
cite  places  where  many  of  the  Latin  hymns  of  the  church 
and  religious  lyrics  in  the  vernacular  were  "taken  over  bodily 
by  the  play-writers  and  adapted  to  dramatic  purposes," 
especially  the  prayers  to  Christ  and  the  Virgin  and  the 
lamentations  of  Mary  at  the  cross,  for  the  connection  between 
the  popular  lyric  and  the  Miracle  plays  was  an  extremely 
close  one.  As  a  whole  these  dramatic  lyrics  suffer  from  the 
chief  fault  of  the  plays  of  which  they  form  a  part — prolixity 
and  lack  of  variety — yet  many  of  them  are  extremely  beau- 
tiful in  their  simple,  naive  expression  of  great  emotions,  and 
all  of  them  are  deserving  of  study,  for  they  are  the  stock 
from  which  sprung  the  flower  of  song  in  the  Elizabethan 


1  L.  T.  Smith,  York  Mystery  Plays,  Oxford,  1885,  pp.  32,  217. 

2  Despite  Bell's  Songs  from  the  Dramatists  and  BuUen's  Songs  from, 
the  Elizabethan  Dramatists,  there  is  needed  a  more  comprehensive 
anthology  of  the  songs  in  the  English  drama,  and  the  writer  has  one  in 
preparation. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  83 

From  1400  to  1500  is  the  carol  period  par  excellence. 
Though  the  tradition  continued  through  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  carol  collections  were  printed  during  the  seven- 
teenth century,  yet  the  Reformation  began  that  suppression 
of  Christmas  festivity  and  song  which  the  Puritan  revolu- 
tion accomplished;  as  it  pulled  down  the  shrines  of  the  Vir- 
gin, so  it  destroyed  the  fabric  of  song  which  the  carol  makers 
had  raised  in  her  honor.  The  carols  were  the  work  of  many 
hands ;  we  know  the  names  of  but  a  few  of  the  makers — John 
Audelay,  a  blind  priest  of  Haughmond  Abbey,  Shropshire, 
who  wrote  about  the  year  1426,  is  one  of  the  earliest.^  It  is 
easy  to  recognize  the  authorship  of  priest  and  clerk  in  the 
macaronic  verse  of  many  of  the  songs,  or  in  such  choruses  as : 

"  Mater,  ora  filium,  vt  post  hoc  exilium 
Nobis  donet  gaudium  beatorum  omnium,"^ 

and  in  the  numerous  carols  of  wassailing,  which  beseech  in 
the  most  open  way  a  bountiful  largess,  we  certainly  see  the 
hand  of  wandering  singers. 

Though  many  carols  are  preserved  for  us  in  the  blank 
pages  of  MSS.  containing  more  serious  matter,  six  MSS.  are 
especially  rich  in  the  collections  of  Christmas  songs  they 
contain ;  none  of  these  go  back  as  early  as  the  first  reference 
to  Noels  in  France.  What  is  believed  to  be  the  oldest  carol 
written  in  England  is  an  Anglo-Norman  wassail  song  that 
contains  no  reference  whatever  to  the  Nativity,  but  considers 
the  season  as  a  time  for  "li  vins  Engleis,  e  li  Gascoin,  e  li 
Franceys"  or  for  "joie  d'amours."  It  closes  with  the  follow- 
ing stanzas : 

1  See  Chambers  and  Sidgwick,  Fifteenth  Century  Carols  by  John 
Audelay,  Modern  Language  Review,  vol.  V,  No.  IV;  VI,  No.  I.  Cf. 
Anglia,  vol.  XVIII,  p.  ITS. 

2  E.  E.  T.  8.,  Extra  Series,  CI,  p.  21. 


84.  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Seignors,  jo  vus  di  par  Noel,  (je  vous  dis) 
E  par  li  sires  de  cest  hostel, 

Car  bevez  ben:  (buvez  bien) 
E  jo  primes  beverai  le  men,  (je  boirai  le  mien  le  premier) 
E  pois  apres  chescon  le  soen,  (cbacun  le  sien) 
Par  mon  conseil; 

Si  jo  vus  di  trestoz  'Wesseyl' !  (Si  je  vous  dis) 
Dehaiz  eit  qui  ne  dirra,  'Drincheyl !'  "^  (Honi  soit 
qui) 

"Wesseyl"  and  "Drincheyll"  are  Saxon  words,  and  undoubt- 
edly they  formed  part  of  the  pagan  songs  sung  at  the  mid- 
winter feasts,  songs  which  the  church  was  unable  to  suppress 
and  wisely  turned  to  the  pious  uses  of  Christmas  joy.  There 
is  probably,  then,  an  element  of  old  English  poetry  in  some 
of  the  carols,  but  the  influence  of  the  French  Noels  is  much 
more  apparent.  Naturally  there  are  a  certain  number  of 
themes  which  must  be  treated  in  aU  Christmas  songs,  and  the 
carols  of  every  nation  must  resemble  each  other,  but  the 
carols  on  "My  lord,  sire  Christmas,"  whom  the  early  French 
jongleurs  impersonated,  and  the  very  many  choruses  "Noel, 
Noel,  Noel,"  clearly  show  the  French  provenance.  The 
fact  that  these  songs  are  called  as  a  class  "carols,"  and  not 
"noels,"  indicates  that  they  were  sung  and  danced,  as  were 
the  old  May  songs,  and  were  thus  in  the  popular  mind  classed 
with  the  spring  dance  songs.  The  sti^cture  of  many  of  the 
carols,  two,  three,  or  four  hues  on  one  rhyme,  with  a  chorus, 
shows  that  they  were  well  adapted  for  the  dancing  singers.^ 
The  carols  may  be  roughly  divided  into  songs  of  mirth 
and  revelry,  and  songs  on  subjects  connected,  however 
remotely,  with  the  nativity.  The  first  group  is  interesting 
chiefly  for  its  exuberance  of  good  spirits.  Hitherto  the  lyric 
has  been  chiefly  amorous,  contented  to  describe  a  lover's  woes ; 
here  we  have  heart-easing  mirth,  whole-souled  epicureanism, 

IT.  Wright,  Specimens  of  Old  Christmas  Carols,  Percy  Society  Publi- 
cations, vol.  IV,  p.  2. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  85 

boisterous  feasting,  when  the  halls  are  decked  with  ivy  and 
holly,  when  the  boar's  head  is  placed  on  the  table,  and  the 
wassail  bowl  "spiced  to  the  brim,"  is  passed  around : 


Beuvex  bien  par  tutte  la  company. 
Make  gode  chare  and  be  ryght  merry. 
And  syng  with  us  now  joyfuUy, 
nowell."^ 


How  long  these  customs  prevailed  is  shown  by  the  echo  of 
these  carols  in  the  more  refined  songs  of  Robert  Herrick. 
From  the  literary  standpoint,  the  best  carols  are  written  on 
the  annunciation  and  the  nativity.  They  sing  the  slumber 
songs  of  the  Virgin ;  they  show  us  the  adoration  of  the  shep- 
herds, "joly  Wat"  and  his  companions;  and  they  treat  all 
these  themes  either  with  a  childlike  idealism  which  our 
sophisticated  age  cannot  imitate,  or  with  a  realism  equally 
remote  from  us  because  of  its  utter  simplicity.  Especially 
charming  are  the  carols  in  praise  of  Mary,  the  Rose  among 
maidens : 


"  There  is  no  rose  of  swich  vertu 
As  is  the  rose  that  bare  Jhesu. 
Alleluia. 

"  For  in  this  rose  conteined  was 
Hevene  and  erthe  in  litel  space. 
Res  miranda." 


"  Of  a  rose,  a  lovely  rose. 
Of  a  rose  is  all  mine  song. 

ip.  51. 


86  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  flour  sprong  in  heye  Bedlem, 
That  is  bothe  bright  and  schene.  (fair) 
The  rose  is  Mary,  hevene  quene; 

Out  of  her  bosum  the  blosme  sprong."^ 

It  will  be  noticed  that  sentimentality,  that  blight  of  the 
modern  religious  song,  is  not  found  here. 

The  most  beautiful  of  the  carols  made  in  honor  of  the 
Virgin,  we  might  even  say  of  all  the  carols,  is  "I  sing  of  a 
maiden." 

"  He  cam  also  stille 

Ther  his  moder  was. 
As  dew  in  Aprille 

That  falleth  on  the  grass. 
He  cam  also  stille 

To  his  moderes  hour. 
As  dew  in  Aprille 

That  falleth  on  the  flour. 
He  cam  also  stille 

There  his  moder  lay, 
As  dew  in  Aprille 

That  falleth  on  the  spray."^ 

Such  refinement  of  melody  is  rare  in  any  poetry.  In  the 
thought  of  the  song  we  have  strangeness  added  to  beauty, 
mysticism  expressed  in  the  language  of  a  child.  But  slightly 
inferior  to  this  are  some  of  the  Virgin's  slumber  songs  :^ 

"  This  endris  night  I  saw  a  sight, 
A  stare  as  bright  as  day; 
And  ever  among  a  maiden  song, 
'Lullay,  by  by,  lullay.' 

iPp.  105,  103. 

2  P.  107.  For  the  genesis  of  this  carol  see  Modern  Philology,  vol.  VII, 
p.  165. 

3  See  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  vol.  II,  chapter  xvi, 
N.  Y.,  1908. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  87 

"  'My  dere  moder,  whan  time  it  be. 

Thou  take  me  up  on  loft. 
And  sette  me  upon  thy  knee^ 

And  handell  me  full  soft; 
And  in  thy  arme  thou  hill  me  warme, 

And  kepe  night  and  day; 
If  that  I  wepe,  and  may  not  slepe^ 

Thou  sing.  By  by,  luUay.'  "' 

but  the  tenderness  changes  to  pathos  when  the  child  foretells 
what  it  must  suffer: 

"  A  babe  is  born,  our  blysse  to  brynge, 
A  maide  ther  was  dyd  luUy  and  synge; 
She  saide  'dere  sone,  leve  thy  wepynge. 
Thy  fFader  ys  the  kyng  of  blis.' 

Synge  we  [with  angelis,  gloria  in  excelsis.] 

"  'Lullay,'  she  sange  and  saide  also, 
'My  nowne  dere  sone,  why  artow  wo? 
Haue  I  not  do  that  I  sholde  do? 

Thy  grevaunce,  telle  me  what  it  is !' 

'Nay,  modir,  for  this  wepe  I  nought. 
But  for  the  wo  that  shal  be  wrought 
To  me,  er  I  mankynde  haue  bought: 

Was  neuer  no  sorwe  so  lyk,  I  wys.'  "^ 

If  we  turn  from  such  songs  to  the  shepherds : 

"  Terly  terlow,  terly  terlow. 
So  merily  the  shepardes  began  to  blow !" 

we  see  that  the  range  of  the  carols  is  no  small  one. 

We  have  treated  of  the  carols  at  some  length  because  of 
all  the  early  English  songs  they  are  the  surest  to  survive; 
for  if  their  words  appeal  to  us,  their  setting  is  equally 
attractive.     As  a  musical  critic  has  pointed  out :  "Tunes  of 

1  Early  English  Lyrics,  p.  121. 

^Modern  Language  Notes,  vol.  XXIV,  No.  7,  p.  225. 


88  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

three  centuries  ago  do  not  always  seem  very  closely  con- 
nected with  individual  subjects,  and  the  constant  resetting 
to  other  words  which  went  on  shows  that  they  were  not 
considered  so  by  musicians  of  the  time.  'Greensleeves,'  as 
secular  a  song  as  ever  was  written,  was  sung  to  carol  words 

while   Cavaliers   shouted   it   as   a   party   watchword 

But  the  carols  appeal  to  modern  ears  as  perfect  expres- 
sions of  their  subject The  truth  seems  to  be  that  at 

this  early  time  musicians  had  arrived  at  just  the  right 
technique  for  the  expression  of  the  carol  theme.  Their 
church  training  had  cultivated  the  instinct  for  pure  melodic 
movement ;  their  system  of  rhythmic  modes,  complicated 
as  it  seems  to  students  who  try  to  master  it  at  the 
present  day,  taught  them  to  reflect  the  metre  of  the  poetry 
with  extraordinary  closeness,  and  at  the  same  time,  con- 
trasted with  the  stiffness  of  the  modem  bar  line,  the  musical 
effect  of  their  work  is  wonderfuUy  buoyant  and  free."'^  And 
apart  from  the  beauty  of  their  music,  the  carols  possess  a 
deep  interest  in  the  fact  that  they  represent  a  lost  art.  We 
can  never  reproduce  their  simpHcity — which  is  their  greatest 
charm.  In  our  carols  that  seem  infused  with  the  old  time 
spirit,  we  see  the  modern  touch  in  the  too  finely  wrought 
antithesis,  or  in  the  adjective,  too  vivid  and  too  descriptive, 
as  in  Christina  Rossetti's : 

"  In  the  bleak  mid-winter 

Frosty  wind  made  moan, 
Earth  stood  hard  as  iron. 
Water  like  a  stone ; 
***** 

"  Enough  for  Him  whom  cherubim 
Worship  night  and  day, 
A  breastful  of  milk 

And  a  mangerful  of  hay."^ 

1  London  Times,  Dec.  25,  1909. 

2  From  A  Christmas  Carol. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  89 

We  have  but  short  space  left  for  the  large  number  of 
anonymous  lyrics  found  in  fifteenth  century  manuscripts ; 
many  have  not  been  printed  and  there  is  an  interesting 
field  of  work  here  for  the  student  of  our  early  poetry.  It 
was  in  this  age,  above  all  other  periods,  that  the  ballads 
were  composed.  We  shall  not  consider  them,  for,  as  we 
pointed  out  in  our  first  chapter,  they  are  dramatic  narra- 
tives, little  epics,  rather  than  lyrics.  Many  of  the  ballads 
have  purely  lyrical  stanzas,  especially  at  their  opening  or 
close : 

"  In  somer  when  the  shawes  be  sheyne,  (groves)  (fair) 
And  leves  be  large  and  long, 
It  is  full  mery  in  feyre  foreste 
To  here  the  foulys  song;" 

yet  as  a  class,  these  poems  do  not  belong  to  our  subject. 

The  anonymous  songs  differ  widely  from  the  earlier  ones 
we  have  described.  In  general,  the  old  alliteration  has 
largely,  though  not  entirely,  disappeared;  the  metres  have 
been  simplified;  and,  the  one  inheritance  remaining  from 
the  French  courtly  lyric,  the  lover  is  shown  in  a  submissive 
attitude.  Two  groups  of  lyrics  are  quite  sharply  defined — 
the  humorous  and  convivial  songs  and  the  love  lyrics.  In 
-the  manuscripts  they  jostle  each  other,  and  we  find  beside 
the  eminently  decorous  and  mournful  love  plaint,  "My 
wofuU  heart  of  all  gladness  barren,"  the  coarse  but  vigorous 
•"Be  pes,  ye  make  me  spiU  my  ale."  There  are  many  such 
drinking  songs,  "Tapster,  drynker,  fille  another  ale,"  or 

"  Jentill  butler,  bellamy. 
Fill  the  boll  by  the  eye;'' 

to  cite  merely  the  opening  lines  is  to  describe  them.  The 
humorous  songs  are  much  closer  to  life  than  was  the  Man 
in  the  Moon: 


90  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  How  hey  !  it  is  none  lese, 
I  dare  not  seyn,  whan  sche  seith  'Pes !' 

"  Ying  men,  I  warne  you  everichone, 
Elde  wives  tak  ye  none. 
For  I  myself  have  one  at  home. 

I  dare  not  seyn,  whan  sche  seith  'Pes !' 

"  If  I  aske  our  dame  fleich,  (meat) 
Sche  breketh  mine  hed  with  a  dich; 
'  Boy,  thou  art  not  worth  a  reich'  (rush) 

I  dare  not  seyn,  whan  sche  seith  'Pes !'  "^ 

But  even  in  these  uncourtly  songs,  woman  was  not  always 
slandered.  At  the  end  of  a  long  MS.  of  curious  questions 
and  answers,  such  as 

"  Miht  any  man,  on  dry  lande  well. 

Go  aboute  ye  worlde  everydele,"  (every  part) 

are  a  few  blank  pages ;  one  contains  the  following  defense 
of  womankind: 

"  I  am  as  lighte  as  any  roe 
To  praise  womene  where  that  I  go." 

"  To  onpreise  womene  it  were  a  shame. 
For  a  woman  was  thy  dame. 
Our  blessed  lady  bereth  the  name 
Of  all  womene  where  that  they  go. 

"  A  woman  is  a  worthy  thing; 
They  do  the  washe  and  do  the  wringe; 
'  Lullay,  luUay !'  she  dothe  thee  singe ; 
And  yet  she  hath  but  care  and  wo. 

"  A  woman  is  a  worthy  wight ; 
She  serveth  a  man  bothe  daye  and  night; 
Thereto  she  putteth  alle  her  might; 

And  yet  she  hath  but  care  and  wo."^ 

1  Early  English  Lyrics,  p.  207. 

2  P.  197. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  91 

The  love  songs  have  gained  a  grace,  not  only  in  their 
expression  but  in  their  sentiments,  as  in  this  madrigal  of  the 
middle  of  the  fifteenth  century : 

"  Go  hertj  hurt  with  adversite. 
And  let  my  lady  thi  woundes  see. 
And  sey  hire  this  as  I  say  the: 
'  Farewel  my  joy  and  welcome  peyne 
Til  I  se  my  lady  agayne.'  " 

or  in  this,  from  the  same  MS. : 

"  Thus  I  compleyne  my  grevous  hevynesse 
To  you,  that  knowith  this  of  myne  entent. 
Alas,  why  shuld  ye  be  so  merselese. 
So  moche  beute  as  God  hatha  you  sent. 

Ye  maj'  my  peyne  relese. 
Do  as  ye  list — I  hold  me  content."^ 

We  pass  by  the  famous  patriotic  song  on  Agincourt, 

"  Owre  kynge  went  forth  to  Normandy, 
With  grace  and  myght  of  chyualry," 

and  the  popular  Song  of  the  Plow, 

"  The  plowe  gothe  mony  a  gate, 
Bothe  erly  and  eke  late. 

In  winter  in  the  clay, 
Aboute  barly  and  whete. 
That  makethe  men  to  swete. 

God  spede  the  plowe  all  day!"^ 

to  come  to  two  important  MSS.  The  first,  of  one  hundred 
and  forty-five  pages,  contains  the  words  and  music  of  fifty- 
one  two,  three,  and  four  part  songs,  and  is  considered  the 

IMS.  Ashmolean  191.    Printed  in  Early  Bodleian  Music,  vol.  II,  pp. 

68,  70. 

2  Vol.  II,  pp.  129,  132.     The  Song  of  the  Plow  is  printed  in  Early 

English  Lyrics,  p.  241. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

oldest  English  collection  of  secular  songs  written  for  several 
voices.  It  is  called  the  Fairfax  MS.  because  it  was  once  in 
the  possession  of  Robert  Fairfax,  a  musician  and  composer 
of  such  fame  that  he  was  given  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Music  by  Cambridge  in  1504  and  by  Oxford  in  1511 ;  indeed 
it  is  quite  possible  that  he  copied  it  himself,  for  he  eked  out 
his  income  by  writing  such  music  books.  Fairfax,  who  is 
named  as  the  composer  of  eight  of  these  songs,  died  in  1529, 
yet  many  of  the  songs  undoubtedly  belong  to  the  fifteenth 
century,  for  some  were  written  by  Turges  and  Tudor,  two 
musicians  of  the  time  of  Henry  VI,  and  another  composer 
was  Gilbert  Bannistre,  who  died  about  14!90.  The  songs 
are  political,  religious,  amatory;  we  select  two  of  the  last 
class,  the  first  one,  in  its  simplicity,  retaining  something  of 
the  folk  song: 

"  My  Margarit 
I  can  not  mete 
In  feeld  ne  strata. 
Wofull  am  I,  woffull  am  I ! 
Lave  loua  this  chaunce, 
Yor  chere  avaunce. 
And  let  vs  daunce. 
Hark  my  lady,  hark  my  lady, 
So  manarly,  so  manerly,  so  manerly  \"^ 

The  second  song,  absolutely  different  in  its  style,  reads 
as  though  it  were  an  attempt  to  translate  an  Italian  love 
sonnet,  the  form  imperfectly  apprehended: 

"  That  was  my  Joy,  is  now  my  woo  and  payne, 
That  was  my  bliss,  is  now  my  displesaunce. 
That  was  my  trust,  is  now  my  wanhope  playne,  (despair) 
That  was  my  wala,  is  now  my  most  gravaunce. 
What  causyth  this  but  only  yowre  plasaunce, 
Onryghtfully  shewyng  me  unkyndness, 

1  E.  Fliigel,  Neuenglisches  Lesebuch,  Bd.  I,  Halle,  1895,  p.  143. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  9S 

That  hath  byn  your,  fayre  lady  and  mastress, 
Nor  nought  cowde  haue — wolde  I  neuyr  so  fayne. 
My  hart  is  yours  with  gret  assuraunce, 
Wherfore  of  rygt  ye  shuld  my  greffe  complaynej 
And  with  pite  haue  me  In  remembraunce. 
Wolde  In  no  wise,  for  Joy  nor  heuvyness, 
Haue  but  yourselfe,  fayre  lady  and  mastress."^ 

The  second  MS.  contains  ninety-eight  part  songs,  written 
from  the  time  of  Edward  IV  to  Henry  VIII.  Many  of  them 
are  composed  in  a  high  and  courtly  mood, 

"  Absense  of  yeu  causeth  me  to  sygh  and  complayne, 
Ffor  of  my  hert  ye  haue  the  gouvernavnce, 
And  thogh  I  wolde,  I  kovde  me  not  refrayne," 

but  we  have  carols,  drinking  songs,  and  moral  ditties.  The 
future  course  of  the  lyric  is  better  indicated  by  this  fresh 
and  simple  love  song: 

"  Fayr  and  discrete,  fresche  wommanly  figure. 
That  with  youre  beute  and  fresche  pleasaunee  pure, 
Arested  hathe  my  hert  in  sodeyn  wise, 
I  recommende  my  symple  seruice  sure. 
My  lyues  ladi  and  my  hertis  cure, 
Vnly  to  youre  swete  grace,  a  thousand  sythe.  (times) 
Besechyng  yeure  excuse  there  I  surprise ; 
Sum  loue  commaunds  me  this  auenture, 
Thorffe  (  ?)  with  yeur  bevty  that  I  most  loue  and  prise."^ 

The  songs  of  the  fifteenth  century  have  not  yet  come  to  their 
own ;  many  are  lying  undiscovered  on  the  margins  or  on  the 

1  British  Museum,  MS.,  Add.  5465,  printed  by  B.  Fehr  in  Archiv,  CVI, 
p.  57.  A  line  seems  to  be  omitted  after  verse  seven.  Early  English 
Lyrics  prints  six  other  songs  from  this  MS. 

2  MS.  Add.  5665,  printed  by  Fehr  in  Archiv,  CVI,  pp.  279,  380. 


H  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

last  pages  of  forgotten  manuscripts,  but  they  deserve  recog- 
nition, and  -without  them  we  can  not  adequately  estimate  the 
work  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey. 


VI 


We  now  approach  the  last  conspicuous  writer  before  the 
Renaissance  of  the  English  lyric.  John  Skelton  (1460- 
1529)  studied  at  Cambridge  and  was  given  a  degree  for 
achievement  in  letters — it  was  called  the  laureateship — by 
both  his  Alma  Mater  and  by  Oxford.  His  honors  did  not 
end  there,  for  his  widely  recognized  scholarship  caused 
Henry  VII  to  select  him  as  the  tutor  of  his  son,  the  future 
Henry  VIII,  and  to  bestow  on  him  in  recognition  of  his  poetic 
ability  a  white  and  green  robe  with  "Calliope"  embroidered 
on  it.  Surely  here  is  the  English  Petrarch.  Despite  these 
dignities,  Skelton's  life  was  a  stormy  one ;  after  many 
quarrels  at  court,  duly  and  dully  chronicled  in  verse,  he 
retired  to  a  country  parsonage  from  whose  shelter  he 
courageously  attacked  the  luxury  and  arrogance  of  Wolsey. 
Finding  his  life  endangered  by  his  biting  satire  of  the 
prelate,  he  fled  for  refuge  to  a  monastery  at  Westminster, 
where  he  died.  His  fame  was  great.  Caxton  praised  his 
translations  from  the  Latin  because  they  were  written  "not 
in  rude  and  old  language,  but  in  polished  and  ornate  terms, 
craftily" ;  Erasmus,  ever  a  keen  critic,  described  him  as  "the 
sole  light  and  glory  of  English  letters" ;  in  Italy,  Pico  da 
Mirandola  sang  his  praises. 

We  open  his  works  to  find  Mediaevalism ;  they  contain 
hardly  a  touch  of  Renaissance  art  and  grace,  of  the  dolce 
stil  nuovo.  Skelton  possessed  a  keen,  alert,  and  vigorous 
mind,  yet  he  could  not  comprehend  the  new  spirit.  One  of 
the  greatest  egoists  in  our  literature  (there  are  some  thou- 
sand lines  of  self-adulation  in  his  Garland  of  Laurel)  he  is 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  95 

content  with  himself;  he  has  nothing  to  learn  from  the  new 
lyric  verse  of  Italy  or  France  which  he  must  have  known,  at 
least  in  part.  At  a  time  when  men  were  feeling  the  charm 
of  a  new  manner  of  poetic  expression,  Skelton  is  content  to 
write : 

"  For  though  my  ryme  be  ragged, 
Tattered  and  jagged, 
Rudely  rayne  beaten, 
Rusty  and  moughte  eaten. 
If  ye  take  well  therwith. 
It  hath  in  it  some  pyth."^ 

A  few  lines  are  sufficient  to  show  his  position  so  far  as  the 
art  of  poetry  is  concerned;  it  is  significant  that  the  chief 
field  for  study  in  his  works  is  his  language,  extravagant, 
grotesque,  and  often  drawn  from  the  slang  of  the  day. 
Could  he  have  understood  the  significance  of  Petrarch  (whom 
he  calls  a  "famous  dark"  in  the  Garland  of  Laurel), 
Skelton's  strong  personality  would  have  made  him  at  once 
a  leader ;  the  honor  of  ushering  in  the  modern  English  lyric 
would  have  been  his.  English  song  lacked  art  and  higher 
themes,  but  Skelton  ofi'ers  us  burlesques,  personal  contro- 
versy of  the  rough  and  tumble  sort,  and  a  coarse,  realistic 
humor.  Pope,  with  his  love  of  finish,  stigmatized  the  poet 
as  "beastly  Skelton,"  an  undeserved  taunt,  for  he  possessed 
a  genuine  lyric  gift ;  Taine,  in  his  too  unfavorable  criticism, 
does  not  hesitate  to  call  him  a  "genie  manque." 

Skelton's  formal  lyric  is  lifeless ;  we  derive  no  pleasure 
from  his  elegies  on  Edward  IV  or  the  Duke  of  Northumber- 
land, or  from  such  a  love  poem  as  Go,  piteous  sighs.  To 
see  him  in  a  thoroughly  characteristic  mood  we  must  read 
Mannerly  Margery: 

1  A.  Dyce,  The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Skelton,  London,  1843,  vol. 
I,  p.  313. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Ay,  besherewe  yow,  be  my  fay. 
This  wanton  clarkes  be  nyse  all  way; 
Avent,  event,  my  popagay ! 
What,  will  ye  do  no  thyng  but  play? 
Tully,  valy,  strawe,  let  be,  I  say ! 
Gup,  Cristian  Clowte,  gup,  Jak  of  the  vale ! 
With,  Manerly  Margery  Mylk  and  Ale."-' 

It  is  small  wonder  that  this  spirited  piece  was  set  to  music 
in  song  collections  of  the  period.  Another  piece  of  realism, 
My  darlyng  dere,  is  a  veritable  chanson  des  Gueux,  resem- 
bling a  tavern  scene  by  Jan  Steen,  in  which  we  see  the 
reveller  in  his  drunken  sleep,  robbed  by  his  paramour : 

"  'My  darlyng  dere,  my  daysy  floure. 
Let  me,'  quod  he,  'ly  in  your  lap.' 

'Ly  styll,'  quod  she,  'my  paramoure, 
Ly  styll  hardely,  and  take  a  nap.' 
Hys  hed  was  heuy,  such  was  his  hap. 

All  drowsy  dremyng,  dround  in  slepe, 

That  of  hys  loue  he  toke  no  kepe, 

With,  Hey,  lullay,  lullay,  lyke  a  chylde, 
Thou  slepyst  to  long,  thou  art  begylde."^ 

Yet  Skelton  could  write  with  grace  and  delicacy: 

"  Enuwyd  your  colowre   (renewed) 
Is  lyke  the  dasy  flowre 
After  the  Aprill  showre. 

"  Sterre  of  the  morow  gray,  (star) 
The  blossom  on  the  spray. 
The  fresshest  flowre  of  May," 

is  his  lyric  description  of  Mistress  Isabel  Pennell,  while  a 
greeting  to  Mistress  Margaret  Hussey  ends  with  this  tune- 
ful compliment: 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  28. 

2  P.  22. 


THE  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  LYRIC  97 

"  Stedfast  of  thought, 
Wele  made,  wele  wrought; 
Far  may  be  sought 
Erst  that  ye  can  fynde 
So  corteise,  so  kynde 
As  mirry  Magarete, 
This  midsomer  flowre, 
Jentyll  as  fawcoun 
Or  hawke  of  the  towre." 

His  touch  can  be  light  and  delicate : 

"With  margerain  jentyll,    (marjoram) 

The  flowre  of  goodlyhede, 
Embrowdred  the  mantill 

Is  of  your  maydenhede. 
Plainly  I  can  not  glose; 

Ye  be,  as  I  deuyne. 
The  praty  primerose. 

The  goodly  columbyne."^ 

Unfortunately  such  moments  are  rare.  Skelton  had  no  part 
in  the  development  of  the  lyric  for  he  could  not  read  the 
signs  of  the  times,  and  though  we  remember  him  for  a  few 
lyrics,  he  serves  chiefly  to  show  how  great  were  the  poetic 
reforms  introduced  by  Wyatt  and  Surrey.  There  is  a  signifi- 
cant passage  concerning  him  in  a  letter  of  James  Howell's : 
"Touching  your  Poet-Laureat  Skelton,  I  found  him  at  last 
(as  I  told  you  before)  skulking  in  Duck-lane  pitifully  tat- 
tered and  torn ;  and,  as  the  times  are,  I  do  not  think  it  worth 
the  labour  and  cost  to  put  him  in  better  clothes,  for  the 
Genius  of  the  Age  is  quite  another  thing."^ 

We  have  now  reached  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance  in  Eng- 
land.    We  pause  for  a  moment  to  look  back  upon  the  early 

1  Pp.  401,  403,  398. 

2  J.  Jacobs,   The  Familiar  Letters  of  James  Howell,  London,  1892, 
vol.  II,  p.  605. 


9S  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

love  songs,  the  hymns  and  carols,  the  lyrics  of  the  guild 
plays  and  of  the  Court.  Interesting  and  beautiful  many  of 
them  are,  yet  added  to  their  intrinsic  worth  is  their  promise 
of  greater  things.  The  Renaissance  spirit  had  not  yet 
awakened  England.  Italy  had  already  produced  the  lyrics 
of  Guido  Cavalcanti,  of  Dante,  of  Petrarch,  to  mention  but 
three  great  names.  A  single  glance  in  Eugenia  Levi's 
Lirica  Italiana  at  the  long  list  of  poets  who  flourished  from 
1250  to  1500,  the  very  period  we  have  been  studying,  will 
show  by  comparison  how  retarded  was  the  lyric  impulse  in 
England.  Across  the  channel,  France  with  troubadours  and 
trouveres,  with  the  great  body  of  popular  verse,  with  Villon 
and  Charles  d'Orleans,  had  a  memorable  lyric  poetry. 
Turning  to  England  we  are  tempted  to  exclaim 

"  Alas !  what  poverty  my  Muse  brings  forth," 

but  the  impulse,  the  genius  for  song  was  there  awaiting  a  new 
spirit  to  transform  it.  The  Middle  Ages  had  produced  in 
England  poems  of  a  rare  and  simple  pathos ;  exquisite  pic- 
tures of  the  Virgin  mother ;  songs  of  pure  joy  that  once 
known  are  never  forgotten.  Judged  by  no  historical  or 
antiquarian  standards  but  simply  as  works  of  art,  as  an 
expression  of  life,  they  deserve  a  wider  recognition,  not  as 
a  field  for  scholarly  investigation  but  as  a  source  of  enjoy- 
ment for  the  plain  lover  of  poetry.  From  another  viewpoint 
they  are  valuable :  they  enable  us  to  appreciate  the  lyrics  of 
our  own  day.  To  turn  from  the  modern  lyric  with  its  ever 
varying  moods,  its  pessimism,  its  aspiration,  its  subtle 
analysis  of  feeling,  its  delicate  coloring,  its  elusive  music, 
to  these  simple,  straightforward  songs,  redolent  of  spring, 
suffused  with  a  sincere  and  childlike  devotion  for  the 
"maiden  moder  milde"  and  for  Alysoun,  is  to  realize  in  the 
most  striking  manner  the  endless  complexity  and  the 
unfathomed  depths  of  our  modem  thought  and  feeling. 


CHAPTER  THREE 

The  TuDoa  Lyuic 


All  his  life  Petrarch  (1304-1374<)  ardently  desired  fame. 
Though  genius  is  generally  neglected  and  often  persecuted, 
he  attained,  in  realization  of  his  wishes,  honors  which  few 
men  have  ever  reached.  The  nobles  of  Italy  vied  in  praising 
this  scholar  poet;  they  prepared  for  him  sumptuous  apart- 
ments hung  with  purple ;  they  placed  him  at  their  tables  at 
high  feasts ;  they  entrusted  to  him  princely  embassies ;  and 
when  in  1341,  amid  the  clangor  of  trumpets  and  the 
applause  of  Rome,  the  laurel  crown  was  placed  on  his  head, 
it  was  but  a  more  public  manifestation  of  the  honors  con- 
tinually bestowed  upon  him.  It  would  seem  glory  enough 
for  one  man  to  have  overthrown  the  scholasticism  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  to  have  led  in  the  revival  of  learning,  to  have 
changed  the  intellectual  attitude  of  Europe,  but  there  was 
yet  another  triumph  in  store  for  him — to  give  to  the  world 
a  new  lyric  poetry. 

A  note  in  Petrarch's  own  hand  on  the  margin  of  his  Virgil 
tells  us  that  on  Good  Friday,  1327  he  first  saw  Laura  in  the 
church  of  Santa  Chiara  at  Avignon.  From  that  moment, 
she  ruled  his  life : 

"  Dice  che,  perch'  io  miri 
Mille  cose  diverse  attento  e  fiso, 
Sol  una  donna  veggio  e'l  suo  bel  viso." 

"  I  say  that  though  I  regard 
A  thousand  diflPerent  things,  attentively  and  fixedly, 
I  see  only  a  woman  and  her  lovely  face."^ 

1  From  the  canzone  "In  quella  parte.'' 


100  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Who  Laura  was,  we  cannot  tell  with  certainty,  and  since 
Petrarch  himself  wished  to  hide  her  identity,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  she  was  a  woman  whose  beauty  inspired  in  this 
youth  of  twenty-three  a  love,  or  rather  a  cult,  which  her 
death  in  1348  but  intensified  and  to  which  he  consecrated 
not  "a  night  of  memories  and  of  sighs"  but  a  whole  life- 
time. The  poetry  that  sprang  from  this  love  was  based 
not  on  outward  events  but  on  inward  experiences ;  it  was  a 
lyric  that  sang  not  of  action  but  of  contemplation.  As  a 
wit  once  compressed  into  a  dozen  couplets  the  events  of 
Richardson's  long-drawn-out  romance.  Sir  Charles  Grandi- 
son,  so  (but  in  no  spirit  of  irreverence)  the  actual  happen- 
ings of  the  Canzoniere  may  be  told  in  a  few  quatrains.  The 
sonnets  offer  us  but  detached  incidents — ^Laura  wears  a 
veil,  she  smiles,  she  weeps,  she  sees  the  poet,  she  gathers 
flowers,  she  bathes  in  a  stream — and  it  is  extremely  doubt- 
ful whether  we  should  interpret  literally  the  few  references 
to  what  are  apparently  actual  events.  There  is  no  develop- 
ment in  such  a  passion;  the  poet's  love  has  undergone  no 
essential  change  from  the  moment  he  first  saw  Laura  until 
the  day  of  her  death,  for,  as  De  Sanctis  observes,  Petrarch 
has  written  but  the  first  page  of  a  romance — the  plot  is 
lacking.  Never  was  such  splendid  lyric  poetry  based  on 
so  slender  a  foundation  of  actual  occurrences.'  The  most 
subjective  lyric  may  be  closely  connected  with  the  manifes- 
tations of  the  outer  world,  springing  directly  from  the 
poet's  thoughts  on  the  life  that  passes  before  him.  In 
Browning's  Last  Ride  Together  how  much  of  the  world  we 
see ;  but  the  greater  number  of  Petrarch's  love  lyrics  spring 
from  introspection,  for  he  fed 

"  on  thoughts  that  voluntary  move 
Harmonious  numbers." 

iCf.  G.  Finze,  Petrarca,  Firenze,  1900,  pp.  97  ff. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  101 

It  is  accordingly  a  just  criticism  that  compares  the  lyrics 
of  Petrarch  to  a  diary  in  which  he  has  written,  for  fifty 
years,  his  thoughts  on  love  precisely  as  they  came  to  him. 
Hence  to  seek  in  his  sonnets  for  a  sequence  of  events,  or  to 
attempt  to  arrange  them  in  a  definite,  logical  order  except 
in  such  broad  divisions  as  sonnets  on  the  beauty  of  Laura, 
on  the  power  of  his  love  for  her,  on  his  unhappiness,  on  her 
death,  is  to  misunderstand  totally  the  spirit  in  which  these 
verses  were  composed. 

In  his  subtle  yet  eminently  sane  analysis  of  the  Canzoniere, 
De  Sanctis  admits  that  Petrarch,  with  all  his  exquisite  sensi- 
bility, with  his  clear  and  penetrating  mind,  lacked  origi- 
nality, profundity,  and  productive  force;  accordingly  we 
find  in  this  modern  poet  much  of  the  old  school.  The  start- 
ing point  of  the  Canzoniere  is  in  the  poetry  of  the  trouba- 
dours which  Petrarch  knew  thoroughly  and  from  which  he 
borrowed  not  only  ideas,  but  at  times  the  very  phrases  in 
which  they  were  expressed;  hence  all  we  have  written  con- 
cerning these  early  singers  applies  to  a  certain  part  of  Pe- 
trarch's lyrics.  Thus  Love,  a  mystic  power  springing  from 
a  single  glance  from  Laura's  eyes,  entered  the  poet's  heart 
"Con  la  vertu  d'un  subito  splendore,"  as  he  expressed  it  in 
a  noble  Hne.  Henceforth  the  poet  is  the  servant  of  Laura 
and  the  vassal  of  the  cruel  tyrant.  Love,  who  appears  in  so 
many  debates  that  we  may  say  there  are  three  characters  in 
the  tragedy  of  the  Canzoniere — Laura,  Petrarch,  and  Amor. 

Leaving  the  inheritance  from  the  past,  we  discover  in  the 
sonnets  much  that  is  new.  We  must  content  ourselves  with 
alluding  to  but  three  great  characteristics  of  Petrarch's 
lyrics:  his  analysis  of  feeling,  his  love  of  beauty,  and  the 
music  of  his  verse. 

Petrarch  by  nature  was  given  to  melancholy : 

"  Ed  io  son  un  di  quei  che'l  pianger  giova  " 
he  wrote  and  in  many  passages  he  praises  sorrow : 


102  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Pasco'l  cor  di  sospir',  ch'altro  non  chiede; 
E  di  lagrime  vivo,  a  pianger  nato : 
Ne  di  cio  duolmi ;  perche  in  tale  state 
E  dolce  il  pianto  piu  ch'altri  non  crede."^ 

"  I  feed  with  sighs  my  heart  that  asks  nothing  more; 
And  I  live  on  tears,  born  to  weep ; 
Nor  do  I  grieve  at  this  for  in  such  a  state 
Weeping  is  sweeter  than  any  one  believes.'' 

He  delighted  to  dream  in  solitude  on  his  unhappy  state  and 
this  native  melancholy,  this  disposition  of  his  mind  to  retire 
within  itself,  was  intensified  by  a  love  placed  on  a  woman 
forever  beyond  him.  The  more  he  thinks  of  Laura,  the  more 
he  ideahzes  her  until  she  becomes  the  epitome  of  all  virtues, 
an  angel  but  new  descended  from  the  skies.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  in  1336  Giacomo  Colonna  wrote  to  the  poet 
suggesting  that  such  a  love  was  a  fiction,  an  allegory,  and 
that  Petrarch  was  enamoured  of  the  poetic  Laurel,  not 
Laura.  We  do  not  need  Petrarch's  reply  to  convince  us 
that  however  much  of  Platonic  idealization  entered  into  his 
picture  of  Laura,  she  was  a  woman  of  flesh  and  blood  who 
inspired  not  intellectual  admiration  but  love.  From  Pe- 
trarch's character,  this  love  does  not  burst  forth  in  the 
simple,  moving  accents  that  invariably  mark  the  speech  of 
a  man  stirred  by  a  great  passion ;  there  is  more  of  the  lyric 
cry  in  the  songs  of  many  a  lesser  poet.  Certain  passages 
in  the  Canzoniere  contradict  this  statement ;  we  must  except, 
for  example,  that  masterpiece,  the  sonnet  which  describes 
Laura  meeting  the  poet  in  the  third  heaven,  the  sphere  of 
Venus,  or  those  famous  Hues  in  the  sestina  which  begins 
"A  qualunque  animale  alberga  in  terra" : 

■'  Con  lei  foss'  io  da  che  si  parte  il  sole, 

E  non  ci  vedess'  altri  che  le  stelle, 

Sol  una  notte  !  e  mai  non  fosse  I'alba." 

1  From  the  sonnet  beginning  "Poichfe  '1  cammin  m'fe  chiuso  di  mer- 
cede." 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  lOS 

"  With  her  would  I  be^  when  the  sun  sets. 
And  would  that  no  one  save  the  stars  saw  us, 
One  night  alone !  and  would  it  were  never  dawn !" 

but  such  moments  are  rare,  and  in  the  very  next  line  of  the 
sestina  the  poet  descends  to  the  trivialities  of  allegory  and 
mythology  and  plays  upon  the  words  Laura  and  lauro. 
Petrarch  is  swayed  by  emotions  rather  than  by  passions; 
the  sonnets  are  the  anatomy  of  a  lover's  melancholy,  and 
De  Sanctis  rightly  points  out  the  resemblance  between  Pe- 
trarch and  Hamlet.  Both  show  the  same  hesitation,  the 
same  love  of  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event,  the  same 
enjoyment  in  a  self-analysis  that  ends  in  melancholy.  The 
strong  nature,  swayed  by  great  affections,  finds  relief  in 
action,  while  the  more  sensitive  spirit  gains  satisfaction  in 
the  contemplation  of  its  own  sorrows.^  Emotion,  incapable 
of  action,  becomes  melancholy  and  in  Petrarch,  even  before 
the  death  of  Laura,  the  prevailing  note  is  one  of  sadness ; 
the  poet  writes  more  beautifully  of  Laura  when  he  sees  her 
with  the  eyes  of  memory  or  of  the  spirit  than  when  he 
actually  beholds  her. 

This  sadness,  then,  is  caused  as  much  by  the  poet's  irreso- 
lution as  by  his  unhappy  love.  He  will  neither  shun  nor 
accept  his  fate;  like  Hamlet,  he  meditates  self-slaughter 
but  fears  the  Almighty's  canon  against  it.  We  see  a  soul 
tossed  hither  and  thither  by  conflicting  emotion;  he  curses 
the  time  he  first  saw  Laura,  and  in  another  mood  he  blesses 
the  place,  the  day,  the  moment  that  brought  him  this  love. 
He  tells  us  that  this  love  has  ennobled  him  and  that  it  leads 
him  to  heaven ;  he  protests  that  it  has  ruined  him  by  causing 
him  to  consume  his  days  in  vanity.  It  would  be  a  simple 
matter  to  accumulate  any  number  of  such  inconsistencies — - 
and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  sonnets  cover  a  long 

1  F.  De  Sanctis,  Saggio  critico  sul  Petrarca,  nuova  edizone  a  cura  di 
B.  Croce,  NapoU,  1907,  p.  138. 


104  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

period — for  the  mind  of  Petrarch  is  constantly  wavering. 
Throughout  the  sonnets  there  is  but  one  consistent  note — 
his  love  for  Laura.  In  vain  he  struggles  to  forget  and  even 
to  despise  it.  His  irresolution  is  as  tragic  as  the  death  of 
Laura ;  he  can  show  others  the  way  to  happiness  but  he  can 
not  follow  it  himself.  "Father  in  Heaven,"  he  cries,  "after 
so  many  days  and  nights  spent  in  vain  pursuits,  let  me  turn 
to  a  higher  life  and  to  nobler  undertakings,"  but  the  prayer 
is  never  answered.  When,  far  from  Laura,  he  resolves  to 
banish  her  from  his  mind  and  take  refuge  in  a  religious  life, 
the  single  thought  that  he  has  tarried  too  long  sends  him 
back  to  her.^  The  motto  of  the  Canzoniere  might  well  be 
Daniel's  verse,  "Love  is  a  sickness  full  of  woes." 

To  this  self-analysis,  astonishingly  modern  in  its  com- 
plexity and  in  its  suggestiveness,  Petrarch  added  the  charm 
of  artistic  expression,  for  he  sought  to  picture  the  beauty  of 
the  world,  the  charm  and  loveliness  of  womanhood.  A  thor- 
ough Platonist,  he  considered  beauty  to  be  an  expression 
of  divinity,  another  form  of  virtue,  and  therefore  to  be 
sought  out  and  worshipped.  Laura  embodies  every  per- 
fection and  in  contemplating  her,  the  mind  rises  to  heaven 
and  beholds  the  Creator.  Writing  in  such  a  spirit,  Petrarch 
is  everywhere  the  artist.  All  through  the  Canzoniere  he  has 
scattered  pictures,  often  as  small  as  the  miniatures  of  a 
missal,  full  of  color,  drawn  to  the  life,  whether  he  brings 
before  us  in  a  few  phrases  the  woods  and  the  song  of  the 
birds  at  evening,  or  an  aged  pilgrim,  worn  and  bent,  jour- 
neying painfully  to  the  distant  shrine.  He  realized  that  in 
the  short  sonnet  form  every  word,  each  syllable,  must  count 
for  its  effect  and  therefore  every  line  is  carefully  wrought ; 
yet  in  the  finished  expression  we  do  not  feel  the  labor  of  the 
artist  and  many  of  the  quatorzains  read  as  though  they 
were  improvisations.     If  we  turn  to  the  masterpiece  of  the 

1  See  the  sonnet  "L'aspetto  sacro." 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  105 

Canzoniere,  "Chiare,  fresche  e  dolci  acque,"  we  find  all  the 
traits  we  have  been  discussing.  We  have  the  poet's  melan- 
choly as  he  thinks  of  Laura  and  dreams  that  some  day  she 
may  sigh  and  weep  above  his  grave ;  we  have  that  wonderful 
memory  picture,  worthy  of  the  highest  art  of  Botticelli — 
Laura  seated  on  the  grass,  the  Queen  of  Love,  while  around 
her  and  upon  her  the  trees  shower  their  blossoms. 

This  psychological  analysis,  this  descriptive  art  is  ex- 
pressed with  a  verbal  music  in  itself  sufficient  to  make  the 
sonnets  immortal.     As  De  Musset  wrote: 

"  Lui  seul  eut  le  secret  de  saisir  au  passage 
Les  battements  du  coeur  qui  durent  un  moment; 
Et,  riche  d'un  sourire,  il  en  gravait  I'image 
Du  bout  d'un  stylet  d'or  sur  un  pur  diamant."^ 

It  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  we  can  ever  grasp  the  full 
content  of  poetry  written  in  a  foreign  tongue ;  while  we  may 
understand  the  essential  meaning,  we  miss  the  fine  shadings, 
the  subtle  associations  of  words  that  are  not  our  own.  What 
Italian  can  appreciate  the  immeasurable  loss  had  Cole- 
ridge written  not  "The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,"  but 
"The  Poem  of  the  Old  Sailor" ;  yet  the  melody,  the  harmony, 
the  enchantment  of  Petrarch's  verse  must  appeal  to  every 
one.  The  sonnets  were  actually  songs ;  some  were  composed 
to  the  lute  ("Perche,  cantando,  il  duol  si  disacerba"),  and 
in  his  own  day  his  contemporaries  set  them  to  music.  In  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  greater  part  of  the  Canzoniere — 
ballate,  sestine,  canzoni — were  given  a  musical  accompani- 
ment by  the  most  famous  composers.  When  Serafino 
deU'  Aquila  went  through  Italy  chanting  Petrarch's  verses, 
we  may  easily  believe  the  statement  that  "to  hear  him 
sing  them  to  the  lute,  was  to  hear  every  other  harmony 
surpassed."^ 

lie  Pila  du  Titien. 

2  F.  Flamini,  Varia,  Livorno,  1906,  p.  179. 


106  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Petrarch  frequently  expressed  the  hope  that  death  would 
not  destroy  his  fame,  that  for  centuries  his  sorrows  would 
still  bring  tears  to  the  eyes,  and  even  his  ambition  would 
have  been  satisfied,  possibly  dismayed,  could  he  have  fore- 
seen the  effect  the  Canzoniere  was  to  produce.  To  the  lyrists 
who  came  after  his  day,  there  was  but  one  poet;  in  the  six- 
teenth century  but  thirty  editions  of  Dante  were  published 
in  Italy,  while  in  this  same  period  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven  editions  of  the  Canzoniere  appeared.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  no  poet  in  the  world  was  ever  so  widely, 
so  slavishly  imitated.  For  more  than  two  centuries,  Pe- 
trarch ruled  the  lyric  of  the  Renaissance  as  Aristotle  had 
swayed  the  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  same  super- 
stitious veneration  was  paid  to  him.  The  house  at  Arqua 
in  which  he  died  became  a  shrine  and  the  relics  of  the  poet 
preserved  there  were  gazed  upon  with  a  reverence  that,  to 
modern  eyes,  appears  ridiculous.^ 

In  one  of  the  sonnets  to  his  friend,  Shakespeare  asserts  in 
a  splendid  phrase,  "My  spirit  is  thine,  the  better  part  of  me" ; 
unfortunately  the  spirit  of  Petrarch  did  not  descend  upon 
his  followers.  His  love  for  Laura  had  lasted  half  a  century 
and  there  were  of  necessity  many  times  when  he  wrote,  not 
because  he  was  a  lover,  but  because  he  loved  to  write.  In 
such  uninspired  moments  he  delighted  in  personifications,  in 
allegories  that  seemed  subtle  to  his  followers  but  which  to  us 
are  the  essence  of  false  wit ;  he  took  pleasure  in  stringing 
together  what  seemed  to  him  ingenious  antitheses  and  para- 
doxes ;  and  he  even  descended  to  play  upon  words,  to  puns  on 
Laura,  lauro,  I'aura !  If  it  is  true  that  Homer  cccasionaUy 
nods,  it  is  equally  certain  that  Petrarch  at  times  falls  into 
a  sound  slumber.  This  essentially  false  style  arises  from  an 
attempt  to  elevate  by  sheer  force  of  ingenuity  situations 
that  do  not  deserve  poetic  treatment,  or  thoughts  that  are 

1  A.  Graf.,  Attraverso  il  Cinquecento,  Torino,  1888,  pp.  39-44. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  107 

so  trivial  that  there  is  no  reason  for  expressing  them. 
Petrarch  tells  us  in  the  sonnet  beginning  "Del  mar  Tirreno 
alia  sinistra  riva,"  that  while  walking  alone  he  fell  into  a 
brook  which  the  tall  grass  had  hidden.  If  such  an  episode 
is  to  be  treated  at  all  in  verse,  it  should  be  in  the  spirit  of 
comedy ;  Petrarch  approaches  it  with  high  seriousness.  "At 
last,"  he  observes,  "I  have  changed  my  style.  Formerly  my 
eyes  were  bathed  in  tears  for  Laura — now  my  feet  are  wet." 
There  is  so  much  of  this  essentially  insincere  work  in  the 
Canzoniere  that  there  is  need  of  separating  the  good  from 
the  banal,  as  Matthew  Arnold  did  with  Wordsworth's 
poetry.  This  discrimination  the  followers  of  Petrarch 
could  not  exercise;  they  could  not  take  the  gold  and  leave 
the  alloy,  and  as  nothing  is  easier  than  to  collect  antitheses, 
or  to  invent  allegories,  or  to  talk  vaguely  of  ideal  beauty, 
they  chose  to  imitate  the  poorer  part  of  his  work.  Genius  is 
inimitable  but  unfortunately  the  mannerisms  and  the  weak- 
nesses of  genius  may  be  copied;  hence  it  is  that  for  two 
centuries  the  Italian  lyrists,  feigning  a  hopeless  love,  a  lofty 
Platonic  adoration  of  beauty,  repeated  in  borrowed  accents 
Petrarch's  praise  of  Laura,  his  lamentations  over  her  cruelty, 
his  longing  for  death.  The  virtue  of  the  Petrarchists  was  a 
certain  grace  of  expression,  for  even  the  feeblest  imitator 
had  his  musical  moments;  their  vice  was  the  deadliest  of  all 
poetic  vices — insincerity.  They  produced  literally  hundreds 
of  sonnets  crying  out  on  the  woes  of  life  and  invoking  death, 
but  the  sixteen  lines  of  Leopardi's  A  se  stesso  have  more 
truth  than  all  their  quatorzains  put  together. 

The  followers  of  Petrarch  were  a  mighty  legion.  No  one 
has  ever  presumed  to  read  and  appraise  their  interminable 
sonnet  sequences ;  Vaganay's  compendious  survey  of  the  field 
is  not  a  complete  one.^  The  smallest  towns  had  their 
sonneteers.      Apparently    in    the    sixteenth    century    every 

1 H.  Vaganay,  Le  Sonnet  en  Italie  et  en  France  an  XVIme  sUcle, 
Lyon,  1903.    Cf.  Flamini,  //  Cinquecento,  Milano,  p.  203. 


108  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Italian  pretending  to  culture  composed  sonnets,  even  though 
he  did  not  publish  them,  and  unfortunately  to  do  this  was 
no  more  an  indication  of  poetic  ability  than  a  college  degree 
to-day  is  a  proof  of  refinement.  In  154i6  and  1547  Domen- 
ichi  brought  out  two  volumes  of  Ritne  Diverse  di  molti 
eccelentissimi  auttori,  a  collection  completed  in  nine  volumes 
in  1560;  in  these  first  two,  there  were  represented  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-seven  authors  who  contributed  some  nine 
hundred  and  fifty  sonnets,  and  this  was  but  one  of  many 
anthologies.  The  ease  with  which  sixteenth  century  sonnet 
collections  may  be  purchased  in  Italy  strikingly  indicates 
in  what  vast  quantities  they  were  issued  from  the  press. 

Side  by  side  with  the  sonnets  there  were  pubhshed  a  large 
number  of  essays  and  dialogues  on  the  nature  of  love. 
Bembo's  Asolani  (1505),  reprinted  again  and  again,  inspired 
a  whole  hterature  and  we  have  Plato's  conception  of  love, 
as  expounded  in  the  Phcedrus  and  the  Symposium  and  modi- 
fied by  the  teaching  of  the  early  Church  fathers,  repeated  in 
essays,  dialogues,  lectures,  commentaries  on  poems,  familiar 
letters,  until  we  wonder  how  readers  could  be  found  for  them. 
The  one  idea  on  which  they  ring  the  changes  is  that  the  con- 
templation of  earthly  beauty  raises  us  to  a  vision  of  heavenly 
perfection,  hence  love  is  the  golden  stair  from  the  earth  to 
the  skies.  This  doctrine,  unfolded  at  times  with  real  learn- 
ing but  more  often  with  ofBcious  pedantry,  supported  by 
copious  citations  from  the  classics  and  from  the  writings  of 
the  Church,  sanctioned  with  the  utmost  gravity  that  delight 
which  the  age  took  in  Petrarch's  sonnets.  Frequently  these 
treatises  cite  Petrarch  as  the  past  master  of  love  and,  without 
the  slightest  doubt,  they  increased  the  vogue  of  his  school. 
But  this  lofty  conception  of  love  as  a  veritable  means  of 
grace,  this  high  conception  of  the  mission  of  beauty,  was  m 
reality  as  insincere  and  as  remote  from  the  real  beliefs  of 
the  age  as  were  the  lamentations  of  the  Petrarchists.  A 
single  illustration  of  this  must  suffice,  though  many  could 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  109 

be  given.  Tullia  of  Aragon,  famous  for  her  amours,  pub- 
lished her  dialogue  Dell'  infinita  d'Amore  in  154<7,  the  very 
year  the  authorities  of  Florence  took  action  against  her  for 
not  wearing  the  head-dress  prescribed  by  law  for  courtesans. 
The  more  the  love  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century,  both 
prose  and  verse,  is  studied,  the  greater  appears  its  con- 
ventionality. 

The  Petrarchian  school  of  poetry  was  not  confined  to  its 
own  home.  Fran9ois  I,  a  lover  of  art  and  poetry,  had  been 
captivated  by  the  beauty  and  the  splendor  of  the  South. 
His  victory  at  Marignano  is  more  important  for  the  history 
of  culture  than  for  its  political  consequences;  and  under 
this  king,  "the  father  of  letters,"  France  became  an  artistic 
and  literary  province  of  Italy.  He  brought  to  his  own 
country  the  art  and  poetry  he  had  enjoyed  under  Italian 
skies ;  and  a  veritable  band  of  Tuscan  artists  and  poets  came 
to  Fontainebleau  and  Paris  where  they  found  in  the  king 
the  most  generous  of  patrons.  Fontainebleau  became  a 
magnificent  Italian  palace  for  which,  in  the  words  of  Varchi, 
Batista  della  Palla  had  "robbed  Florence  of  as  many  statues 
and  paintings  as  he  could,"  and  it  is  not  surprising 
that  a  king  who  had  brought  to  France  Benvenuto  Cellini 
and  Andrea  del  Sarto,  "delighted  marvelously  in  them." 
Italian  became  the  court  language,  and  the  king  and  his 
sister,  who  knew  it  perfectly,  wished  to  place  it  on  an  equality 
with  their  own  tongue;  in  his  memoirs  Cellini  frequently 
notes  that  this  or  that  French  nobleman  spoke  Italian 
"benissimo."^ 

In  this  atmosphere  the  verses  of  Petrarch  and  his  fol- 
lowers were  read  and  imitated;  in  literary  circles  at  least, 
the  lamentations  over  Laura  were  as  well  known  on  the 
banks  of  the  Seine  as  on  the  Arno.  Nor  did  this  predilection 
for  Italian  literature  content  itself  with  reading  the  works 

1  See  F.  Flamini,  8tudi  di  Storia  Letteraria  Italiana  e  Straniera, 
Livorno,  1895,  pp.  199-337;  Varia,  pp.  193-317. 


no  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

of  former  poets;  for  Luigi  Alamanni  and  other  Italian 
writers  composed  and  published  their  sonnets  and  canzoni 
on  French  soil.  Naturally  this  admiration  for  Italian  verse 
is  reflected  in  the  writings  of  the  French  poets ;  to  take  two 
such  different  natures  as  Clement  Marot  and  Melin  de  Saint- 
Gelais,  we  find  them  both  imitating  or  translating  the  most 
famous  of  the  Italians,  Petrarch  and  Serafino,  Tebaldeo  and 
Sannazzaro.  To  come  under  the  spell  of  Italian  culture,  to 
be  inspired  by  its  art  and  poetry.  Englishmen  needed  to 
cross  not  the  Alps  but  the  Channel. 

II 

We  have  dwelt  on  the  Italian  school  because  of  its  influence 
on  the  English  lyric,  both  directly  and  through  the  medium 
of  the  French.  This  subject  deserves  the  most  extended 
treatment,  for  it  off'ers  the  student  of  comparative  literature 
a  fascinating  field  only  partially  surveyed;  but  before  we 
consider  the  foreign  element  in  EngHsh  song,  we  must 
glance  for  a  moment  at  the  continuation  of  the  native  lyric 
tradition. 

The  reign  of  Henry  VIII  opened  so  auspiciously  that 
Erasmus  believed  the  Golden  Age  had  returned.  In  the 
universities  the  new  learning  flourished;  at  the  court  several 
poets  and  a  small  band  of  composers  enjoyed  the  king's 
favor  (for  he  was  himself  a  writer  and  a  musician),  and 
aroused  the  artistic  consciousness  of  the  higher  classes. 
Erasmus,  a  keen  judge,  notes  that  the  English  were  the 
most  musical  nation,  a  testimony  confirmed  by  other  for- 
eigners. Particularly  in  courtly  circles  was  musical  accom- 
plishment prized ;  the  choir  of  the  royal  chapel  was  renowned 
far  and  wide.  The  king's  musical  efi'orts  are  not  highly 
regarded  to-day ;  of  his  poetry  we  can  at  least  say  that  he 
was  never  destined  for  the  laurel,  and  in  all  his  many 
alliances,  never  wedded  to  the  Muse. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  111 

"  Pastime  with  good  company 

I  love  and  shall,  until  I  die. 
Grudge  who  lust,  but  none  deny. 
So  God  be  pleased,  thus  live  will  I. 
For  my  pastance. 
Hunt,  sing  and  dance. 
My  heart  is  set. 

All  goodly  sport 
For  my  comfort 
Who  shall  me  let?"i 

he  writes,  or  in  a  more  sentimental  strain  in  which  he  should 
be  a  master 

"  Do  way,  dear  heart,  not  so ! 

Let  no  thought  you  dismay. 
Though  ye  now  part  me  fro. 

We  shall  meet  when  we  may. 

"  When  I  remember  me 

Of  your  most  gentle  mind, 
It  may  in  no  wise  agree 

That  I  should  be  unkind. 

"  The  daisy  delectable. 

The  violet  wan  and  bio,  (pale) 
Ye  are  not  variable. 

I  love  you  and  no  moe."^ 

It  must  have  been  diiScult,  even  for  a  courtier,  to  discover 
inspiration  in  these  lines,  but  they  are  interesting  because 
they  show  the  king  setting  a  fashion  in  lyrical  composition 
and  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  the  manuscript  collections 
of  lyrics  becoming  more  and  more  numerous. 

^  Early  English  Lyrics,  p.  213.  Cf.  E.  Flugel,  Neuenglisches  Lese- 
buch,  p.  146.  This  book  contains  an  excellent  selection  of  lyrics  of  this 
period.  This,  and  the  following  song,  are  printed  in  modern  notation  in 
Vincent  Jackson's  English  Melodies  from  the  13th  to  the  18th  Century, 
London,  1910,  pp.  17,  18. 

^  Early  English  Lyrics,  p.  55. 


112  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

In  general  the  language  of  these  lyrics  is  more  refined 
than  that  of  the  songs  of  the  previous  century,  yet  we  have 
the  same  simplicity  of  thought  and  emotion  and  we  find  the 
same  ideas  constantly  repeated.  A  few  examples  must 
sufBce : 

"  'Come  over  the  woodes  fair  and  green. 

Thou  goodly  maid,  thou  lusty  wench. 
To  shadow  you  from  the  sunne  sheen. 

Under  the  wood  there  is  a  bench.' 

'Sir,  I  pray  you,  do  none  offence 
To  me,  a  maid,  this  I  make  my  moan. 

But  as  I  came  let  me  go  hence. 
For  I  am  here  myself  alone.' 

"  'The  custom  and  the  manner  here 

Of  maidens  is,  and  ever  was. 
That  gather  the  flowers  without  a  fere,  (companion) 

To  pay  a  trepitt,  or  they  pass.'  (fine) 

'Then  of  my  mouth  come  take  a  bass;  (kiss) 
For  other  goodes  have  I  none 

But  flowers  fair  among  the  grass 
Which  I  have  gathered  all  alone.'  " 

Here  we  have  a  duo  between  the  lover  and  his  lass  as  in  the 
early  Harleian  MS.  2253.  The  songs  in  praise  of  May  and 
the  spring  are  as  popular  as  ever: 

"  Awake  therefore,  young  men. 

All  ye  that  lovers  be,  hey  ho ! 

This  month  of  May, 

So  fresh,  so  gay. 

So  fair  be  fields  on  fen; 

Hath  flourish  ilk  again. 

Great  joy  it  is  to  see,  hey  ho! 
Then  dyry  come  dawn,  dyry  come  dyry,  come  dyry! 
Come  dyry,  come  dyry,  come  dawn,  hey  ho  !"^ 

iPp.  64,  71. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  113 

Many  of  the  early  sixteenth  century  love  songs  are  abso- 
lutely charming: 

"  My  hearty  my  mind,  and  my  whole  power, 
My  service  true  with  all  my  might. 
On  land  or  sea,  in  storm  or  shower, 
I  give  to  you  be  day  and  night. 
And  eke  my  body  for  to  fight. 
My  goods  also  be  at  your  pleasure. 
Take  me  and  mine  as  your  own  treasure."^ 

The  following  ditty  is  a  typical  one,  well  fitted  for  music : 

"  My  heart  is  yours,  now  keep  it  fast. 
Without  your  favour,  my  joy  is  past; 
I  will  not  change  while  my  life  do  last, 
I  promise  you,  I  promise  you. 

"  I  joy  in  that  I  have  your  grace, 
I  moan  when  pity  lacks  his  place. 
Thus  resteth  all  in  your  sweet  face, 
I  promise  you. 

"  You  are  my  wealth,  I  am  your  woe, 
I  think  on  you  where  ever  I  go, 
I  love  you  heartily  and  no  mo, 
I  promise  you." 

The  songs  in  praise  of  beauty  are  innumerable  and  not  all 
of  them  portray  a  hopeless  love : 

"  To  laugh,  to  smile,  to  sport,  to  play, 
I  will  not  let  the  truth  to  say. 
And  be  as  jocund  as  the  jay. 
For  aye,  for  aye. 

1  From  Bassua,  a,  book  of  twenty  songs,  printed  in  1530  by  Wynkyn 
de  Worde.  As  the  name  indicates,  it  contains  merely  the  music  for  the 
bass.    It  has  been  reprinted  in  Anglia,  XII,  pp.  589  ff. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  My  heart  is  locked  within  a  chest, 
In  keeping  with  her  whom  I  love  best. 
It  may  be  glad  to  have  such  rest, 
And  there  to  lie,  to  lie. 

"  Her  face  so  sweet  for  to  behold. 
Her  hair  as  bright  as  the  wire  gold. 
Another  thing  there  should  be  told. 
Her  yee,  her  yee. 

"  Which  twinkleth  clear  as  the  diamond  pure. 
And  hath  welcomed  me  to  the  lure. 
To  serve  her  still  while  life  doth  endure. 
Will  I,  will  I." 

The  lilt  of  the  following  song  is  irresistible : 

"  My  little  pretty  one,  my  pretty  bonnie  one. 
She  is  a  joyous  one,  and  as  gentle  as  can  be; 

With  a  beck  she  comes  anon. 

With  a  wink  she  will  be  gone. 
No  doubt  she  is  a  love  of  all  that  ever  I  see." 

The  refrain  becomes  more  and  more  a  feature : 

"  Of  beauty  yet  she  passeth  all. 
Which  hath  mine  heart  and  ever  shall. 
To  live  or  die  what  so  befall, 

What  would  she  more,  what  would  she  more. 

"  She  is  so  fixed  in  my  heart 
That  for  her  sake  I  bide  great  smart. 
Yet  can  not  I  my  love  depart. 

What  would  she  more,  what  would  she  more. 

"  Long  have  I  lived  in  great  distress, 
Long  have  I  sought  to  have  redress. 
Long  hath  she  been  mine  own  mistress. 

What  would  she  more,  what  would  she  more."^ 

1  From  Additional  MS.  18753.      I  have  reprinted  the  songs  in  this  MS. 
in  Anglia  XXXIII,  pp.  344-367. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  115 

It  is  indeed  difficult  to  make  selections  from  the  anony- 
mous lyrics  of  the  early  sixteenth  century  because  there  is 
such  a  large  body  of  them,  and  an  interesting  anthology 
could  be  made  of  the  songs  of  this  period  alone.  Without 
the  slightest  doubt  much  remains  to  be  discovered  and  pub- 
lished; but  whatever  new  manuscripts  may  be  brought  to 
light,  it  seems  safe  to  predict  that  the  poems  they  contain 
will  be  composed  in  a  few  simple  metres,  with  no  attempt 
at  a  heightened  or  even  polished  diction,  expressing  in  a 
direct  and  simple  manner  the  joys  of  Spring,  the  praise  of 
beauty,  or  the  complaints  of  despised  love. 

The  lyrical  element  in  the  Moralities  and  Interludes  of  the 
age  is  prominent,  as  it  was  in  the  Mysteries.  As  we  find  in 
the  love  songs  the  earlier  traditions  of  simple  emotions 
untouched  by  imagination,  so  in  the  dramatic  entertain- 
ments the  songs  continue  the  themes  of  the  former  age. 
Unfortunately  many  of  them  are  not  included  in  the  printed 
texts  which  contain,  however,  frequent  references  to  the 
lyrics,  written  for  one  voice  or  for  several.  Thus  in  The 
Four  P's,  printed  about  154<0,  the  Pothecary  asks  the  Pedlar 
"I  pray  you  tell  me,  can  you  sing.'"'  to  which  he  replies,  "Sir, 
I  have  some  sight  in  singing,"  and  after  some  further  con- 
versation with  the  Palmer  and  Pardoner  on  the  subject  of 
their  musical  ability,  the  Pothecary  exclaims,  "Who  that 
hst,  sing  after  me,"  but  the  song  is  not  given.^  The  ones 
that  have  been  preserved  do  not  compare  with  the  songs  in 
the  manuscript  collections,  for  the  dramatic  lyric  developed 
more  slowly,  as  we  may  easily  see  by  examining  the  songs  in 
Dodsley's  Old  English  Plays,  for  example ;  nevertheless  they 
are  deserving  of  study  because  they  lead  directly  to  the  songs 
of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists. 

The  most  popular  song  in  these  early  plays  appears  to  be 

IW.  C.  Hazlitt-R.  Dodsley,  A  Select  Collection  of  Old  English 
Plays,  4,th  ed,  London,  1874,  vol.  I,  p.  353. 


116  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  drinking  song.  Sensual  Appetite  sings  one  in  the  inter- 
lude of  the  Four  Elements  (cir.  1518)  : 

"  Make  rome,  syrs,  and  let  us  be  mery. 
With  hufFa  galandj  synge  tyrU  on  the  bery, 

And  let  the  wyde  worlde  wynde ! 
Synge  fryska  joly,  with  hey  troly  loly. 
For  I  se  wel  it  is  but  a  foly 

For  to  have  a  sad  mynd:"'^ 

Dissimulation,  in  Bale's  King  John  (1550?),  has  this  boister- 
ous tavern  ditty : 

"  Wassayle,  wassayle^  out  of  the  mylke  payle, 
Wassayle^  wassayle,  as  whyte  as  my  nayle, 
Wassalye,  wassayle,  in  snowe  froste  and  hayle, 
Wassayle,  wassayle,  with    partriche    and   rayle, 
Wassayle,  wassayle,  that  muche  doth  avale, 
Wassayle,  wassayle,  that  never  wyll  fale."^ 

We  come  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  in  Fulwell's  Like  will  to 
Like  (printed  1563),  which  has  seven  songs,  of  which  "Good 
hostess,  lay  a  crab  in  the  fire"  is  the  continuation  of  the 
roistering  theme : 

"  And  I  will  pledge  Tom  Toss-pot, 
Till  I  be  drunk  as  a  mouse-a: 
Whoso  will  drink  to  me  all  day, 

I  will  pledge  them  all  carouse-a."' 

In  Elizabeth's  reign  these  songs  culminate  in  the  famous 
toper's  song  in  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  (1575),  which  is 

1  Pollard,  op.  cit.,  p.  101. 

2  P.  ISO. 

3  Hazlitt-Dodsley,  vol.  Ill,  p.  339. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  117 

perhaps  the  finest  example  of  these  roistering  ditties ;  cer- 
tainly no  other  song  has  a  more  rollicking  swing : 

"  Back  and  side  go  bare,  go  bare, 
Both  foot  and  hand  go  cold: 
But,  belly,  God  send  thee  good  ale  enough. 
Whether  it  be  new  or  old. 

"  I  love  no  roast  but  a  nut-brown  toast. 

And  a  crab  laid  in  the  fire. 
A  little  bread  shall  do  me  stead. 

Much  bread  I  not  desire. 
No  frost  nor  snow,  no  wind,  I  trow. 

Can  hurt  me  if  I  would; 
I  am  so  wrapt,  and  thoroughly  lapt. 

Of  jolly  good  ale  and  old."'^ 

Lusty  Jwventus  (cir.  1550)  contains  two  songs,  in  a 
simple  metre ;  they  are  the  most  poetical  ones  to  be  found 
in  all  these  early  interludes.    The  first  is  sung  by  Youth : 

"  In  a  herber  green,  asleep  where  as  I  lay. 
The  birds  sang  sweet  in  the  middes  of  the  day; 
I  dreamed  fast  of  mirth  and  play: 

In  youth  is  pleasure,  in  youth  is  pleasure." 

The  other  is  sung  by  Hypocrisy  and  Abominable  Living: 

"  Do  not  the  flowers  spring  fresh  and  gay. 
Pleasant  and  sweet  in  the  month  of  May? 
And  when  their  time  cometh  they  fade  away. 
Report  me  to  you,  report  me  to  you."^ 

These  are  not  masterpieces.    The  dramatic  lyric  had  not  felb 
the  breath  of  the  new  poetry,   and   it  awaited  the   Eliza- 

iP.  189. 

2  Vol.  II,  pp.  46,  89. 


118  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

bethans  to  make  it  one  of  the  crowning  beauties  of  our  litera- 
ture. 

Ill 

The  new  impulse  in  the  English  lyric  came  from  the  songs 
of  Wyatt  and  Surrey.  In  his  Arte  of  English  Poesie  (1589), 
George  Puttenham  wrote:  "In  the  latter  end  of  the  same 
King's  [Henry  the  Eighth]  raigne  sprong  up  a  new  com- 
pany of  courtly  makers,  of  whom  Sir  Thomas  Wyat  th'elder 
and  Henry  Earle  of  Surrey  were  the  two  chieftanes,  who 
having  travailed  into  Italie,  and  there  tasted  the  swete  and 
stately  measures  and  stile  of  the  Italian  Poesie  as  novices 
newly  crept  out  of  the  schools  of  Dante,  Arioste  and 
Petrarch,  they  greatly  poUished  our  rude  and  homely  maner 
of  vulgar  Poesie,  from  that  it  had  been  before,  and  for  that 
cause  may  justly  be  sayd  the  first  reformers  of  our  English 
meetre  and  stile."  This  statement  of  the  EHzabethan  critic 
modern  scholarship  confirms  and  even  emphasizes  more 
strongly. 

Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  (1503-1542)  was  a  graduate  of  Cam- 
bridge, an  excellent  linguist  well  versed  in  French,  Itahan, 
and  Spanish,  and  a  skilled  musician.  Not  only  was  he  repre- 
sentative of  all  that  was  best  in  the  culture  of  the  age,  but 
he  was  a  man  of  force  and  action,  as  we  may  see  from  the 
vigorous  speech  by  which  he  freed  himself  from  the  generally 
fatal  charge  of  treason.  It  is  small  wonder  that  he  was 
selected  by  the  king  for  important  diplomatic  missions  and 
that  his  career  was  a  political  one.  Poetry  was  his  recreation 
and  solace,  for  he  was  not  in  our  modern  sense  a  man  of 
letters ;  and  in  estimating  his  achievement  we  must  remember 
as  well  that  his  life  was  cut  short  when  he  was  but  thirty- 
nine.  In  1526  he  was  a  member  of  a  diplomatic  mission  to 
Paris  and  it  is  possible  that  he  met  at  this  time  Luigi 
Alamanni,  one  of  whose  satires  he  imitated  in  the  last  years 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  119 

of  his  life.  Wyatt  was  attracted  by  French  poetry ;  several 
of  his  poems  show  unmistakably  French  influence,  and  it  is 
probable  that  he  learned  from  Marot,  whose  works  he  knew, 
the  rondeau  form.  The  following  year  he  was  sent  to  Rome 
and  in  the  course  of  his  travels  he  visited  Venice,  Ferrara, 
Bologna,  and  Florence,  all  literary  centers.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  assert  that  this  journey,  undertaken  for  matters 
of  state,  changed  the  history  of  the  English  lyric.  Wyatt's 
tastes  were  literary;  he  was  gifted  with  a  strong  poetical 
temperament;  he  was  devoted  to  music.  When  he  heard 
sung  under  the  warm  skies  of  Italy  the  sonnets  of  Petrarch 
and  his  followers,  the  strambotti  of  that  brilliant  musician 
and  improvisatore,  Serafino  dell'  Aquila,  the  idol  of  his  time, 
he  discovered  a  world  of  music  and  poetry  that  differed  from 
his  native  songs  as  a  Venetian  sunrise  from  the  fogs  and 
mists  of  London.^  It  takes  but  little  imagination  to  perceive 
the  enthusiasm  that  the  Italian  lyric  awakened  in  him  and  it 
was  inevitable  that  he  should  find  in  its  songs  the  inspiration 
for  his  own  verse.  What  Italy  has  given  to  the  world  would 
be  a  subject  as  inexhaustible  as  the  long-drawn-out  lamenta- 
tions of  the  Petrarchists,  but  what  she  gave  to  Wyatt  can 
be  expressed  in  a  sentence  or  two.  The  wonderful  Italian 
landscapes,  the  glories  of  the  Renaissance  sculpture,  paint- 
ing, and  architecture  he  does  not  allude  to,  for  he  sought  but 
one  thing- — the  gift  of  song.  He  knew  that  the  English  lyric 
was  crude  and  halting  in  its  diction;  the  Muse  stammered 
when  she  should  sing;  and  he  turned  to  those  verse  forms  in 
which  the  Italians  had  attained  such  harmonies — the  terza 
and  ottava  rima,  and  above  all  the  sonnet. 

The  sonnet  is  the  most  important,  as  it  is  the  most  perfect, 
of  all  modern  lyric  forms  and  had  Italy  done  nothing  more 
than  to  give  it  to  the  world,  she  would  have  been  held  in 
perpetual  remembrance.     Without   attempting  to  be  over- 

1  Flamini,  Varia,  pp.  169-190,  has  given  a  brief  but  vivid  account  of 
Seraflno. 


no  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

subtle,  we  may  believe  that  through  some  law  of  sound  and 
harmony  the  sonnet  form  exactly  satisfies  the  ear  as  it  does 
the  mind,  for  it  has  become  almost  a  universal  metre;  cer- 
tainly every  nation  in  Western  Europe  has  employed  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  our  Enghsh  blank  verse  is  not  poetry  to  the 
French  ear  and  the  present-day  writers  who  have  tried  to 
bring  it  across  the  channel  have  met  with  no  success.  To 
take  another  example,  the  Spenserian  stanza  is  distinctly 
an  English  metre;  but  the  sonnet  is  a  world  form. 

The  Italians  divided  its  fourteen  lines  into  octave  and 
sestet.  In  the  first  eight  lines  a  thought,  an  emotion,  a 
picture  is  completely  presented  and  the  verse  sentence,  so  to 
speak,  comes  to  an  end ;  while  in  the  last  six  lines,  the  expla- 
nation, the  comment,  the  summing  up  of  the  whole  matter 
is  given.  As  Watts-Dunton  has  well  expressed  it,  the  sonnet 
is  a  wave  of  melody  rising  in  the  octave  to  sink  in  the  sestet, 
or  receding  in  the  octave,  to  rise  and  fall  with  a  crash  in  the 
sestet.  The  wonderful  variety,  the  almost  endless  effects  that 
have  been  obtained  from  the  sonnet's  fourteen  lines  are  as 
marvelous,  though  in  a  lesser  degree,  as  the  music  that  has 
sprung  from  the  simple  tones  of  the  scale.^ 

In  literary  history,  then,  Wyatt  is  famous  as  the  first 
Englishman  to  write  in  the  sonnet  form,  but  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  not  one  of  his  thirty-two  sonnets  follows  strictly 
the  usual  Italian  rhyme  scheme ;  his  octaves  may  be  correctly 
written  but  he  ends  his  sestet  with  a  couplet.  Not  one  of 
them  would  be  included  in  a  collection  of  representative  Eng- 
lish sonnets  except  to  illustrate  the  history  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  form.  Though  much  work  yet  remains  to  be 
done  on  the  sources  of  his  verse,  nearly  one  half  of  his  son- 
nets have  been  shown  to  be  adaptations  or  translations.  As 
a  translator  he  showed  little  skill,  for  his  versions  of  Pet- 
rarch are  both  clumsy  and  crude  and  the  English  language 

1  Cf.  G.  Saintsbury,  A  History  of  English  Prosody,  London,  1906, 
vol.  I,  pp.  303  ff. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  121 

seems  to  him  to  be  a  difficult  and  unflexible  medium  of 
expression.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  Petrarch  than 
the  following  rendering  of  "Amor,  che  nel  penser  mio  vive 
e  regna": 

"  The  long  love  that  in  my  thought  I  harbour. 
And  in  my  heart  doth  keep  his  residence. 
Into  my  face  presseth  with  bold  pretence. 
And  there  campeth  displaying  his  banner. 
She  that  me  learns  to  love  and  to  suffer. 
And  wills  that  my  trust,  and  lust's  negligence 
Be  reined  by  reason,  shame,  and  reverence. 
With  his  hardiness  takes  displeasure. 
Wherewith  Love  to  the  heart's  forest  he  fleeth. 
Leaving  his  enterprise  with  pain  and  cry, 
And  there  him  hideth,  and  not  appeareth. 
What  may  I  do,  when  my  master  feareth. 

But  in  the  field  with  him  to  live  and  die? 

For  good  is  the  life,  ending  faithfully."^ 

This  is  not  Wyatt  at  his  best ;  such  lines  are  plainly  an 
early  attempt  at  composition,  for  both  the  rhythm  and  the 
rhyme  are  strangely  defective,  yet  hardly  one  of  Wyatt's 
sonnets  can  be  read  with  much  pleasure.^  His  translations 
of  Petrarch's  canzoni  are  equally  unsatisfactory.  The  one 
commencing  "Quel  antiquo  mio  dolce  empio  signore"  was  not 
composed  in  Petrarch's  inspired  moments,  but  it  has  his 
style,  and  rises  and  falls  melodiously.  Wyatt  is  utterly 
unable  to  reproduce  this  free  movement  and  forces  the  poem 

1  The  Poetical  Works  of  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  London,  Aldlne  edition, 
p.  1. 

2  A  much  better  sonnet  is: 

"  Ye  that  in  love  find  luck  and  sweet  abundance. 
And  live  in  lust  of  joyful  joUlty, 
Arise  for  shame,  do  way  your  sluggardy: 
Arise,  I  say,  do  May  some  observance."    p.  5. 


122  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

into  a  new  mould,  his  favorite  rhyme  royal.     The  canzone 
beginning  "Si  e  debile  il  filo"  has  this  graceful  envoy: 

"  Canzon,  s'al  dolce  loco 

La  donna  nostra  vedi. 

Credo  ben  che  tu  credi 

Ch'ella  ti  porgera  la  bella  mano 

Ond'  io  son  si  lontano: 

Non  la  toccar;  ma  reverente  ai  piedi 

Le  di'  ch'  io  saro  la  tosto  ch'io  possa, 

O  spirto  ignudo  od  uom  di  carne  e  d'ossa." 

This  becomes,  under  Wyatt's  pen: 

"  My  song !  thou  shalt  attain  to  find  that  pleasant  place, 
Where  she  doth  live  by  whom  I  live;  may  chance  to  have  this 

grace. 
When  she  hath  read,  and  seen  the  grief  wherein  I  serve, 
Between  her  breasts  she  shall  thee  put,  there  shall  she  thee 

reserve : 
Then  tell  her  that  I  come,  she  shall  me  shortly  see. 
And  if  for  weight  the  body  fail,  the  soul  shall  to  her  flee."' 

which  is  not  only  poor  poetry,  but  a  very  poor  translation. 
Wyatt  clearly  felt  the  lack  of  style  and  finish  in  the  Enghsh 
lyric,  for  all  through  his  poetry  he  seems  to  be  experimenting 
in  metres,  of  which  he  employs  a  large  number.  He  has  left 
one  hundred  and  eighty-two  lyrics  and  he  has  used  in  them 
fifteen  distinct  types  of  the  single  line,  such  as  the  pentam- 
eter, the  trimeter,  the  dimeter,  and  by  various  combinations 
of  these  lines  he  has  obtained  great  variety  of  stanza  forms. 
These  essays  in  metre  we  may  regard  as  the  result  of  his 
study  of  the  Italian  and  the  French  lyric,  for  whereas 
hitherto  English  song  had  been  satisfied  with  a  few  simple 
stanzas  Wyatt  wishes  a  richer  mode  of  expression. 

Wyatt's  translations  are  not  happy  in  their  subject 
matter.     His  admiration  for  Petrarch  is  unquestioned ;  when 

1  See  Wyatt's  poem  beginning  "So  feeble  is  the  thread,"  p.  154. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  123 

he  mourns  the  death  of  his  friend  Cromwell  nothing  seems 
to  him  so  fitting  as  to  adapt  for  the  occasion  Petrarch's 
sonnet  on  the  death  of  Colonna,  yet  he  selects  for  para- 
phrase or  imitation  the  poorer  part  of  the  Canzoniere.  The 
veriest  tyro  would  recognize  to-day  that  in  "Chiare,  fresche 
e  dolci  acque"  we  have  the  flower  of  Petrarch's  song,  but  as 
we  have  seen,  he  passes  over  this  for  two  much  inferior  can- 
zoni.  The  sonnet  we  have  quoted  is  in  Petrarch's  worst  style, 
as  are  two  others  that  Wyatt  turned  into  EngHsh,  "My 
galley  charged  with  forgetfulness,"  a  string  of  conceits,  and 
"I  find  no  peace,"  a  collection  of  antitheses.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  he  has  selected  the  best  work  of  Tebaldeo,  Giusto 
de'  Conti,  Serafino,  Sannazzaro;  and  his  subject-matter  is 
most  satisfactory  when  he  continues  the  traditions  of 
English  song,  employing  a  surer,  a  more  straightforward 
style  than  the  elder  writers  used. 

On  the  whole,  Wyatt  chose  to  write  of  unhappy  love. 
"Sonnets  be  not  bound  'prentice  to  Annoy,"  wrote  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  sententiously,  but  the  Petrarchists  thought  otherwise 
and  Wyatt  followed  them,  not  alone  in  direct  translation, 
but  in  the  general  tone  of  his  verse.  His  lyrics,  almost 
exclusively  on  the  theme  of  love,  lack  what  Donne  has  called 
"Love's  sweetest  part — variety."  Wyatt  himself  remarked 
that  his  verse  had  "plenty  of  plaint,  woe  and  mourning," 
and  the  reader  tires  of  "The  Lover  complaineth,"  "The 
Lover  lamenteth,"  "The  Lover  bemoaneth."  Any  classifi- 
cation of  his  poems  by  their  contents  is  difficult  because  the 
same  song  may  express  both  joy  and  despair,  but  from  their 
general  tenor,  fourteen  poems  describe  his  renunciation  of 
love,  twenty-one  picture  the  fickleness  of  womankind,  and 
forty-nine  express  the  pains  of  love.  For  the  most  part  we 
may  believe  these  songs  to  be  mere  imitations,  conventional 
expressions,  for  so  many  of  them  lack  the  ring  of  sincerity ; 
they  do  not  read  as  though  they  came  from  the  poet's  hfe, 
and  therefore  Wyatt's  poetry,  as  a  whole,  fails  to  impress 


12^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

itself  deeply  on  the  reader's  mind.  With  the  exception  of 
certain  poems  which  we  shall  mention,  few  of  his  songs,  or 
even  phrases,  linger  in  the  memory  and  he  is  not  one  of  those 
writers  to  whom  we  return  again  and  again.  So  far  as  their 
aesthetic  worth  is  concerned,  it  would  make  no  difference 
whether  the  best  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  were  composed  in 
the  sixteenth  or  the  nineteenth  century  for  they  are  absolute 
works  of  art,  independent  of  considerations  of  age  and 
country ;  we  feel  in  reading  Wyatt  that  much  of  his  verse 
is  valuable  chiefly  as  illustrating  the  beginnings  of  the 
modern  English  lyric. 

When  he  is  not  openly  translating  or  imitating  foreign 
verse,  his  style  is  plain  and  unadorned.  He  uses  few  similes, 
few  adjectives  of  color;  there  is  little  pictorial  quahty  in  his 
work,  for  he  did  not  have  the  power  to  bring  before  the 
reader  in  a  vivid  line,  a  garden,  or  a  sunset,  or  to  show  us, 
in  a  single  phrase,  a  whole  landscape.  The  picture  in  the 
following  stanza  is  so  unusual  in  his  writings  that  I  suspect 
it  to  be  a  translation: 

"  Thanked  be  Fortmie,  it  hath  been  otherwise 
Twenty  times  better;  but  once  especial. 
In  thin  array,  after  a  pleasant  guise, 

When  her  loose  gown  did  from  her  shoulders  fall, 
And  she  me  caught  in  her  arms  long  and  small. 
And  therewithal  so  sweetly  did  me  kiss. 
And  softly  said  'Dear  heart,  how  like  you  this  ?'  " 

especially  so  if  we  compare  it  with  the  following  description 
from  a  poem  which  seems  to  be  original : 

"  She  wept  and  wrung  her  hands  withal. 
The  tears  fell  in  my  neck: 
She  turned  her  face,  and  let  it  fall; 
And  scarce  therewith  could  speak: 
Alas  !  the  while  !"^ 

1  See  "They  flee  from  me"  and  "There  was  never  nothing,"  pp.  33,  57. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  126 

Wyatt  has  left  a  small  group  of  poems  worthy  of  the 
highest  praise.  His  "My  lute,  awake"  has  a  grace  which  he 
may  have  learned  from  the  Petrarchists,  but  a  dignity  which 
removes  it  from  their  complaints: 

"  May  chance  thee  lie  withered  and  old 
The  winter  nights^  that  are  so  cold. 

Plaining  in  vain  unto  the  moon; 
Thy  wishes  then  dare  not  be  told: 

Care  then  who  list,  for  I  have  done. 

"  Now  cease,  my  lute !  this  is  the  last 
Labour,  that  thou  and  I  shall  waste; 

And  ended  is  that  we  begun : 
Now  is  this  song  both  sung  and  past; 

My  lute !  be  still,  for  I  have  done."^ 

Equally  effective,   and  perfectly  adapted  for  music,  is  his 
song: 

"  And  wilt  thou  leave  me  thus  ? 
Say  nay !  say  nay !  for  shame 
To  save  thee  from  the  blame 
Of  all  my  grief  and  grame.  (sorrow) 
And  wilt  thou  leave  me  thus? 
Say  nay  !  say  nay  !"^ 

His  masterpiece,  "Forget  not  yet,"  is  one  of  the  finest 
lyrics  in  our  language,  the  simple  and  direct  expression  of 
a  great  passion.  The  reader  accustomed  to  the  more  highly 
colored  style  of  modern  romantic  verse  must  not  be  misled 
by  the  monosyllabic  diction,  for  it  is  the  language  of  an 
overpowering  emotion: 

"  Forget  not  yet  the  tried  intent 
Of  such  a  truth  as  I  have  meant; 
My  great  travail  so  gladly  spent, 
Forget  not  yet ! 

iP.  30. 

2  P.  108. 


im  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Forget  not  yet  the  great  assays, 
The  cruel  wrong,  the  scornful  ways. 
The  painful  patience  in  delays. 
Forget  not  yet  !"^ 

Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey  (1518-1547),  a  grandson 
of  Edward  IV,  was  a  courtier  and  a  soldier.  He  was  finely 
educated;  he  had  passed  a  year  at  the  French  court;  and 
though  he  never  saw  Italy,  he  knew  the  poetry  of  the  Pe- 
trarchian  school.  Haughty,  impetuous,  daring,  he  was  one 
of  the  last  victims  of  Henry  VIII  and  was  executed  on  a 
false  charge  of  treason.  The  tragedy  of  his  early  death 
excited  the  pity  of  the  age  and  he  became  in  Nashe's  tale  of 
Jach  Wilton  (1594)  a  purely  legendary  hero,  breaking 
lances  in  Italy  and  seeing  in  a  magic  stone  the  image  of  his 
mistress  in  England,  a  myth  which  Scott  used  in  the  Lay  of 
the  Last  Minstrel. 

In  discussing  the  writings  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  Putten- 
ham  states  that  their  "conceits  were  loftie,  their  stiles  stately, 
their  conveyance  cleanely,  their  terms  proper,  their  meetre 
sweete  and  well  proportioned,  in  all  imitating  very  naturally 
and  studiously  their  Maistre  Francis  Petrarcha,"  and  that 
he  can  find  very  little  difference  between  them.^  The  differ- 
ence in  their  natures,  however,  is  not  hard  to  detect  and  it 
is  clearly  suggested  if  we  place  their  portraits  side  by  side, 
though  remembering  the  Droeshout  Shakespeare,  we  must  not 
rely  too  confidently  on  such  a  comparison.  Wyatt,  unos- 
tentatiously dressed,  gazes  at  us  with  a  straightforward, 
vigorous,  yet  sad  expression ;  Surrey,  in  court  costume,  with 

ip.  123. 

Apart  from  the  poems  we  have  cited,  the  reader  will  find  the  following 
well  worthy  of  study:  "Help  me  to  seek"  (his  best  rondeau);  "Disdain 
me  not";  "Since  love  will  needs";  "Blame  not  my  lute";  "What  should 
I  say";  "A  face  that  should  content  me";  "Tagus,  farewell." 

2  ToUel's  Miscellany,  Arber's  reprint,  p.  xiii. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  127 

more  delicate,  aristocratic  features,  betrays  in  his  look  and 
carriage  a  certain  haughty  consciousness  of  rank.  This 
difference  of  temperament  is  reflected  in  their  poetry,  for  if 
Wyatt's  verse  has  more  fervor,  Surrey's  is  more  refined, 
more  polished.  In  a  word,  Wyatt  has  the  stronger  poetic 
nature  while  Surrey  is  the  better  artist.  This  distinction 
must  be  explained  at  more  length. 

Surrey  has  left  a  much  smaller  body  of  verse  than  did 
Wyatt,  for  he  was  a  more  fastidious  writer.  He  admired 
his  contemporary;  there  was  no  rivalry  between  them;  and 
in  a  poem  written  on  Wyatt's  death  he  praises  him  in  these 
terms : 

"  A  hand,  that  taught  what  might  be  said  in  rhyme ! 
That  reft  Chaucer  the  glory  of  his  wit: 
A  mark,  the  which  (unparfited,  for  time) 
Some  may  approach,  but  never  none  shall  hit,"^ 

yet  in  the  matter  of  style  and  finish  Wyatt  is  inferior  to 
Surrey,  who  employed  fewer  metres  and  used  them  to  much 
better  advantage.  It  will  be  noticed  that  in  the  sonnet  of 
Wyatt's  which  we  have  quoted  the  accent  is  constantly 
wrenched,  that  is,  the  common  prose  accentuation  of  a  word 
is  changed  for  the  sake  of  the  metrical  stress.  A  good 
example  of  this  is 

"  And  there  campeth  displaying  his  banner." 

Surrey  avoids  this  fault  in  his  translation  of  the  same  sonnet : 

"  Love,  that  doth  reign  and  live  within  my  thought, 
And  built  his  seat  within  my  captive  breast, 
Clad  in  the  arms  wherein  with  me  he  fought, 
Oft  in  my  face  he  doth  his  banner  rest. 

1  P.  29.  In  addition  to  this  poem  on  Wyatt's  death,  Surrey  wrote  two 
sonnets  in  praise  of  him. 


128  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  But  she  that  taught  me  love  and  suffer  pain^ 
My  doubtful  hope  and  eke  my  hot  desire 
With  shamefaced  look  to  shadow  and  refrain. 
Her  smiling  grace  converteth  straight  to  ire. 

"  And  coward  Love,  then,  to  the  heart  apace 
Taketh  his  flight,  where  he  doth  lurk  and  plain 
His  purpose  lost,  and  dare  not  show  his  face. 
For  my  lord's  guilt  thus  faultless  bide  I  pain."^ 

Metrically  this  is  a  great  advance,  not  only  in  the  manner 
of  accentuation  but  also  in  the  careful  avoidance  of  asson- 
ance, for  Surrey,  unlike  Wyatt,  refuses  to  consider  "fleeth" 
and  "appeareth,"  "banner"  and  "suffer,"  as  rhymes.  It  is 
then  as  a  refiner  of  English  poetry  that  Surrey  made  his 
great  reputation  and  for  those  times  he  seemed  a  perfect 
master  of  style.  The  sixteenth  century  poets  delighted  in 
recommending  as  a  rule  of  conduct  the  golden  mean — 
probably  because  they  so  rarely  observed  it — and  they  have 
left  a  whole  group  of  poems  on  this  subject,  to  which  belongs 
Surrey's  translation  of  Martial's  Ad  Seipsum.  The  con- 
cluding lines  of  one  of  its  stanzas  show  the  balanced  sen- 
tence, reminding  us  of  the  more  polished  work  of  the  age  of 
Pope: 

"  Martial,  the  things  that  do  attain 

The  happy  life,  be  these  I  find: 
The  riches  left,  not  got  with  pain. 

The  fruitful  ground,  the  quiet  mind."^ 

The  judgment  of  a  man's  contemporaries  is  not  always 
a  safe  verdict  to  follow,  yet  Turberville,  in  the  succeeding 

1  This  is  not  the  version  ordinarily  printed  in  editions  of  Surrey. 
See  F.  M.  Padelford,  Early  Sixteenth  Century  Lyrics,  Boston,  1907,  p.  L. 

2  The  Poems  of  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey,  London,  Aldine 
edition,  p.  56. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  129 

generation,  well  summed  up  the  opinion  of  the  time  in  regard 
to  Surrey : 

"  Each  word  in  place  with  such  a  sleight  is  couched^ 
Each  thing  whereof  he  treats,  so  firmly  touched, 
As  Pallas  seemed  within  his  noble  breast 
To  have  sojourned,  and  been  a  daily  guest. 
Our  mother  tongue  by  him  hath  got  such  light. 
As  ruder  speech  thereby  is  banished  quite."^ 

There  is  another  important  consideration  in  regard  to 
his  style.  It  will  be  noticed  that  in  Surrey's  translation  of 
Petrarch's  sonnet,  he  does  not  employ  the  Italian  sonnet 
form  but  a  new  one,  which  he  devised — three  quatrains  and 
a  concluding  couplet — a  form  which  was  so  splendidly  used 
by  Shakespeare  that  it  bears  his  name,  though  it  should  of 
right  be  called,  not  the  Shakespearean  but  the  Surreyan  son- 
net. There  have  been  many  interesting  discussions  as  to  the 
comparative  artistic  values  of  the  ItaKan  rhyme  scheme  and 
the  form  used  by  Surrey.^  Not  only  is  the  musical  effect  of 
these  two  forms  entirely  different,  but  in  the  English  sonnet 
there  is  not  of  necessity  that  marked  division  of  the  octave 
and  the  sestet,  and  this  implies  a  difference  in  the  treatment 
of  the  subject-matter.'  We  may  be  sure  that  no  deep, 
artistic  considerations  led  the  sixteenth  century  poets  to 
prefer  the  Surreyan  to  the  Italian  form;  they  adopted  it 
because,  as  one  may  see  by  simple  experiment,  it  is  a  much 
easier  and  more  fluent  means  of  expression,  and  fluency  the 
Elizabethans  prized  most  highly.     That  Shakespeare  never 

1  Verse  in  Praise  of  Lord  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey,  Chalmers, 
The  Works  of  the  English  Poets,  vol.  II,  p.  588. 

2 See  W.  Sharp,  Sonnets  of  this  Century,  London,  N.  D.,  introduction; 
also  Century  Magazine,  vol.  LXXVI,  p.  503. 

3  It  is  of  course  possible  to  observe  the  octave  and  sestet  in  the 
Shakespearean  sonnet,  as  may  be  seen  in  When  in  disgrace  with  fortune 
and  men's  eyes. 


ISO  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

blotted  a  line  is  his  greatest  praise.  Ben  Jonson,  taunted 
that  he  took  fifteen  weeks  to  compose  his  play  The  Poetaster, 
replies  that  he  composed  Volpone,  an  acknowledged  master- 
piece, in  five.  The  Elizabethans  wrote  rapidly  because  their 
manner  of  living  demanded  it.  They  could  not  spend  days 
in  searching  for  le  mot  precis,  in  putting  together  some 
highly  wrought  word  mosaic,  for  their  hours  were  too 
crowded ;  they  lived  intensely,  and  their  designs  and  ambi- 
tions were  large.  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene  is  but  a  small 
fragment  of  the  projected  work.  The  age,  then,  found 
Surrey's  sonnet  form,  because  of  its  more  simple  rhyme 
scheme,  a  readier  instrument  of  song  than  Petrarch's.  If 
Wyatt  brought  the  sonnet  to  England,  Surrey  equalled 
his  achievement  by  giving  to  it  a  new  form,  surely  as  great 
a  claim  to  remembrance  as  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first 
Englishman  to  write  blank  verse. 

In  the  subject-matter  of  his  verse,  Surrey  shows  the  all- 
powerful  influence  of  Petrarch.  In  his  translations  and 
adaptations  from  the  Canzoniere  he  chose,  on  the  whole, 
much  better  poems  than  did  Wyatt.  We  may  refer  also  to 
the  influence  of  the  Italian  school  Surrey's  sonnets  to  the 
Lady  Geraldine,  courtly  compliments  to  a  child  that  are  no 
more  to  be  considered  serious  expressions  of  feeling  than  are 
the  effusions  of  Petrarch's  followers.^  His  debt  to  the  ItaHan 
poets  is  a  considerable  one ;  if  he  has  not  translated  as  freely 
from  them  as  did  Wyatt,  in  his  style  and  in  the  general 
spirit  of  his  verse  we  feel  their  influence.  In  spite  of  this 
fact,  the  subject-matter  of  his  finest  poem  is  all  his  own.  His 
most  sustained  piece  of  writing  is  the  poem  describing  his 
imprisonment  at  Windsor  and  lamenting  the  death  of  his 
brother-in-law,  the  Earl  of  Richmond.  It  is  an  elegy  filled 
with  picturesque  details  of  their  happy  life  together,  in 

1  Only  two  sonnets,  "From  Tuscan  came"  and  "The  golden  gift,"  can 
with  any  certainty  be  said  to  refer  to  her. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  131 

The  large  green  courts^  where  we  were  wont  to  hove,  (hover) 

With  eyes  cast  up  into  the  Maiden's  tower, 

And  easy  sighs,  such  as  folk  draw  in  love. 

The  stately  seats,  the  ladies  bright  of  hue. 

The  dances  short,  long  tales  of  great  delight; 

With  words  and  looks  that  tigers  could  but  rew ; 

Where  each  of  us  did  plead  the  other's  right. 


The  secret  groves,  which  oft  we  made  resound 
Of  pleasant  plaint,  and  of  our  ladies'  praise; 
Recording  oft  what  grace  each  one  had  found, 
What  hope  of  speed,  what  dread  of  long  delays. 
The  wild  forest,  the  clothed  holts  with  green; 
With  reins  availed,  the  swift  y-breathed  horse. 
With  cry  of  hounds,  and  merry  blasts  between. 
Where  we  did  chase  the  fearful  hart  of  force."^ 

This  is  no  conventional  list  of  passed  pleasures ;  every  line 
is  the  actual  living  over  again  of  happier  days  and  the  poem 
is  one  of  the  first  elegies  in  our  language  in  which  a  man 
recites  his  grief,  using  not  allegory  or  biblical  phrase,  but  the 
remembrance  of  definite  events  and  of  petty  details  to  accen- 
tuate his  sorrow. 

The  technique  of  this  verse  is  good  and  Surrey  is  equally 
master  of  a  lighter  style;  the  tripping  movement  of  the  fol- 
lowing lines  clearly  foretells  the  measures  of  the  Elizabethan 
song  writers : 

"  Give  place,  ye  lovers,  here  before 

That  spent  your  boasts  and  brags  in  vain; 

My  lady's  beauty  passeth  more 

The  best  of  yours,  I  dare  well  sayen. 

Than  doth  the  sun  the  candle  light. 

Or  brightest  day  the  darkest  night."^ 

1  From  So  cruel  prison  how  could  betide,  alas,  Aldine  edition,  p.  19. 

2  P.  31.    Equally  good  is  "When  raging  love,''  p.  31. 


132  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Even  in  his  elegy  Surrey  does  not  reach  that  intensity  of 
feeUng  that  gives  such  power  to  Wyatt's  "Forget  not  yet," 
but  his  part  in  the  development  of  the  lyric  is  greater  than 
Wyatt's  because  his  style  was  a  better  one.  In  leaving  these 
two  poets  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  quote  the  pithy  couplet 
of  the  EHzabethan  publisher,  Richard  Smith : 

"  Sweet  Surrey  sucked  Parnassus  springs. 
And  Wyatt  wrote  of  wondrous  things. "'^ 

IV 

Although  the  poems  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey  were  widely 
circulated  in  manuscripts  and  imitated  during  their  hfe 
time,  they  were  not  actually  published  until  after  their  death. 
In  1557  Richard  Tottel  brought  out  his  famous  Songes  and 
Sonnettes  written  by  the  ryght  honorable  Lorde  Henry 
Haward  late  Earle  of  Surrey,  and  other,  the  first  printed 
anthology  of  English  lyrics,  generally  called  by  the  simpler 
title  of  TotteVs  Miscellany.  In  the  history  of  the  lyric  the 
publication  of  this  book  marks  as  distinct  an  epoch  as  did 
the  appearance  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  in  1798.  The  effect 
it  produced  may  be  measured  by  its  reception ;  within  two 
months  it  ran  through  two  editions  while  in  thirty  years, 
eight  editions  were  published,  a  remarkable  record  for  those 
days.  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  brought  out  half  a  century 
later  when  the  reading  public  had  gro;vn  in  numbers,  were 
a  hundred  years  in  reaching  their  third  edition. 

The  second  reprint  of  the  Miscellany  added  thirty-nine 
poems  by  undesignated  authors ;  taking  the  first  and  second 
editions  together,  Tottel  printed  forty  poems  by  Surrey, 
ninety-six  by  Wyatt  (somewhat  more  than  half  his  verse), 
forty  by  Nicholas  Grimald,  together  with  one  hundred  and 
thirty  anonymous  poems.  In  Arber's  reprint  of  Tottel, 
the  poems  of  Wyatt,  Surrey,  and  Grimald  occupy  but  one 
hundred  and  twenty-three  pages ;  those  by  uncertain  authors 

1  Verses  prefixed  to  the  poems  of  George  Gascoigne. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  ISS 

cover  one  hundred  and  forty-four  and  form  what  we  may 
call  the  school  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  for  these  unknown 
writers  follow  them  in  nearly  every  phase  of  their  work. 

Of  all  the  poems  printed  by  Tottel,  only  those  by  Wyatt 
and  Surrey  have  any  great  hterary  value.  Grimald  has  a 
few  naively  pathetic  phrases  in  the  poem  on  the  death  of  his 
mother,  but  in  general  his  work  is  tiresome  and  often  ludi- 
crous.   At  his  best  he  writes : 

"  What  sweet  relief  the  showers  to  thirsty  plants  we  see. 
What  dear  delight  the  blooms  to  bees,  my  true  love  is  to  me. 
As  fresh  and  lusty  vere  foul  winter  doth  exceed,  (spring) 
As  morning  bright  with  scarlet  sky  doth  pass  the  evening's 

weed. 
As  mellow  pears  above  the  crabs  esteemed  be. 
So  doth  my  love  surmount  them  all,  whom  yet  I  hap  to  see;" 

but  this  is  beyond  his  accustomed  style.  If  it  is  hardly  fair 
to  quote  from  the  Death  of  Zoroas  and  Ciceroes  Death,  terri- 
fying bits  of  doggerel  in  which  not  only  those  worthies  but 
all  poetry  expired,  at  least  the  close  of  his  Garden  is  charac- 
teristic : 

"  O,  what  delights  to  us  the  garden  ground  doth  bring. 
Seed,  leaf,  flower,  fruit,  herb,  bee  and  tree,  and  more  than  I 
may  sing."'^ 

The  poems  by  uncertain  authors  are  equally  disappointing. 
The  sonnet  is  not  yet  a  popular  form,  for  Grimald  con- 
tributes but  three — none  of  them  are  translations — while  the 
anonymous  writers  give  us  but  nine  in  all.  Of  these  twelve 
sonnets,  one  follows  the  strict  Italian  rhyme  scheme  ;^  three 

1  Arber's  Tottel,  pp.  96,  112. 

2  P.  197.  I  believe  this  is  the  first  English  sonnet  that  observes  the 
Italian  rhyme  scheme,  though  there  is  no  pause  between  the  octave  and 
sestet.    It  is  evidently  a  translation;  it  commences: 

"  For  love  Apollo   (his  godhead  set  aside) 
Was  servant  to  the  king  of  Thessaly." 


ISi.  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

are  written  in  an  irregular  form  resembling  Wyatt's ;  and 
eight  adopt  Surrey's  arrangement  of  three  quatrains  and  a 
concluding  couplet,  showing  plainly  what  was  to  be  the 
structure  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnet.  Though  two  of  the 
sonnets  praise  "Petrarch  head  and  prince  of  poets  all,"  on 
the  whole  there  is  but  little  direct  imitation  of  the  Canzoniere 
and  very  much  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey  -^  repeating  their 
themes,  twenty-one  poems  depict  in  utterly  conventional 
language  the  griefs  of  love.  We  look  for  an  advance  over 
Wyatt  and  Surrey,  but  though  at  times  there  is  a  sign  of 
progress  in  an  easier  rhythm,  on  the  whole  the  poems  fall 
far  below  their  level.  There  are  some  exceptions  such  as 
Heywood's  Give  place  you  ladies  and  begone: 

"  If  all  the  world  were  sought  so  far. 
Who  could  find  such  a  wight ! 
Her  beauty  twinkleth  like  a  star 
Within  the  frosty  night. 

"  Her  rosial  colour  comes  and  goes 
With  such  a  comely  grace; 
Much  ruddier,  too,  than  doth  the  rose 
Within  her  lively  face." 

Equally  graceful  is: 

"  Such  green  to  me  as  you  have  sent. 

Such  green  to  you  I  send  again; 

A  flowering  heart  that  will  not  faint. 
For  dread  of  hope  or  loss  of  gain; 

A  steadfast  thought  all  wholly  bent 

So  that  he  may  your  grace  obtain: 

As  you  by  proof  have  always  seen. 

To  live  your  own  and  always  green."^ 

1  P.  178.  On  p.  230  is  »  translation,  not  in  sonnet  form,  of  Petrarch's 
sonnet,  Era  il  giorno.  The  poem  on  p.  14<l  has  many  Petrarchian  pas- 
sages, Imitating  "Nel  dolce  tempo." 

2  Pp.  163,  187. 


THE  TUDOB  LYRIC  135 

The  aged  lover  renotmceth  love,,  by  Lord  Vaux,  attained 
great  popularity;  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  grave- 
digger  in  Hamlet,  in  attempting  to  sing  it,  badly  muddles 
the  words.  A  Shakespearean  audience  quite  familiar  with 
the  song  would  appreciate  the  humor  of  his  travesty;  the 
modern  play-goer  misses  it  entirely. 

Tottel's  Miscellany  appeared  in  the  last  years  of  Mary's 
reign,  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  Elizabethan  era.  Before 
we  pass  to  this  flowering  time  of  the  lyric  we  pause  to  con- 
sider what  English  poets  had  hitherto  accomplished.  To  a 
certain  extent  the  language  had  been  refined;  a  model  for 
verse  had  been  found  in  the  writings  of  the  ItaUan  and 
French  poets;  a  small  number  of  good  English  lyrics  had 
been  produced;  but  the  English  lyric  was  still  undeveloped. 
It  lacked  a  glowing  style;  it  needed  a  more  musical  expres- 
sion; and  in  its  content  it  had  merely  grazed  the  surface  of 
life.  Certain  poems  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey  contradict  this 
statement,  but  they  are  few  in  number,  rare  exceptions. 
Strangely  enough  there  existed  side  by  side  with  the  trans- 
lations and  imitations  of  "Petrarch's  long  deceased  woes," 
as  Sidney  called  them,  another  body  of  poetry  that  con- 
tained the  very  qualities  the  English  lyric  lacked.  The  old 
EngKsh  ballads  were  simple  in  their  diction,  swift  in  their 
movement,  and  strong  in  their  portrayal  of  the  great  crises 
of  human  existence.  They  seized  upon  the  impassioned 
moments  of  life ;  they  depicted  men  and  women  swayed  by 
the  greatest  emotions ;  and  they  stirred  the  hearts  of  those 
who  heard  them  like  a  trumpet  call.  The  English  lyric  had 
not  done  this.  It  is  not  a  rule  of  lyric  verse  that  it  must 
always  display  the  deeper  feelings  of  humanity ;  many  a  fine 
song  has  been  written  upon  a  simple,  even  a  trivial  fancy, 
but  in  that  case  the  form,  the  art  of  the  expression  gave  to 
the  lyric  its  value.  This  art  of  adorning  a  slight  theme,  the 
English  poets  lacked.     To  bring  to  the  lyric  color  and  form 


136  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  beauty,  to  breathe  into  it  the  breath  of  life  was  to  be 
the  work  and  the  glory  of  the  Elizabethan  age. 

We  began  our  chapter  with  a  discussion  of  the  Italian 
lyric;  we  close  it  with  a  brief  reference  to  the  poetry  of 
France  which  directed  and  inspired  so  much  of  Elizabethan 
verse.  The  influence  of  the  Italian  writers  lasted  through- 
out the  sixteenth  century.  Not  only  did  the  lesser  French 
poets,  Melin  de  Saint-Gelais,  Maurice  Sceve,  Pontus  de 
Tyard,  De  Baif ,  OUvier  de  Magny,  pilfer  the  popular  Itahan 
anthologies,  but  even  Du  Bellay  and  Ronsard  did  not  disdain 
to  copy  line  for  line  from  the  lesser  sonneteers.  Every 
French  schoolboy  knows  Du  Bellay's  sonnet,  "Si  notre  vie 
est  moins  qu'une  journee" — it  is  as  current  as  Gray's  Elegy 
with  us.  The  poem  is  an  almost  literal  translation  of  a 
sonnet  by  Bernardino  Daniello  commencing,  "Se'l  viver 
nostro  e  breve  oscuro  giorno."^  This  instance  is  a  typical 
one.  The  Elizabethans  were  great  admirers  of  Desportes  and 
plagiarized  from  him  shamelessly.  His  works,  first  published 
in  1573,  pay  ample  tribute  to  the  poetic  supremacy  of  Italy; 
one  hundred  out  of  the  four  hundred  and  thirty-two  sonnets 
in  the  eighth  edition  of  his  poems  (1583)  derive  their 
inspiration  from  the  other  side  of  the  Alps.^ 

But  French  verse,  inspired  by  Italy,  had  its  own  triumphs 
and  the  Pleiade  produced  a  large  collection  of  lyrics,  thor- 
oughly original,  that  three  centuries  have  not  faded.  Con- 
trasted with  the  best  sonnets  of  Ronsard,  the  quatorzains  of 
Wyatt  and  Surrey  have  little  poetic  significance ;  with  all 
their  experiments  in  metre,  with  all  their  seeking  after  refine- 
ment, these  fathers  of  our  lyric  verse  never  approached  either 
the  grace  or  the  music  of  Du  Bellay's  Chanson  du  Vanneur, 
to  take  a  typical  poem.     The  lover  of  poetry  returns  again 

1  See  J.  Vianey,  Le  Pitrarquisme  en  trance  au  XVIme  siicle, 
Montpellier,  1909,  p.  116.  This  book  is  indispensable  for  a  study  of 
Elizabethan  verse. 

2  P.  24.0. 


THE  TUDOR  LYRIC  137 

and  again  to  these  French  writers;  he  reads  them  for  their 
sentiment  and  their  charm  of  expression,  but  the  Elizabethans 
regarded  them  as  models  of  style,  the  ideal  to  which  the 
EngHsh  lyric  must  attain. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

The  Elizabethan  Lyeic 

I 

The  reign  of  Elizabeth  is  also  the  reign  of  song,  for 
though  we  first  think  of  that  age  as  the  blossoming  time  of 
the  drama,  rarely  if  ever  in  the  history  of  literature  has  there 
been  a  period  in  which  the  lyric  was  so  widely  composed  or 
when  it  entered  so  deeply  into  the  life  of  the  times.  The 
Queen  herself  felt  the  lyric  impulse  and  tried  her  hand  at 
verse  making  (her  great  rival,  Mary  of  Scotland,  wrote 
French  sonnets)  and  though  Puttenham,  as  a  faithful  sub- 
ject, pronounces  her  most  characteristic  ditty  to  be  "passing 
sweet  and  harmonical,"  it  certainly  is  neither.  There  is  no 
womanly  grace  in  these  lines  aiming  at  Mary  Stuart;  but 
we  see  in  them  the  strong  mind  and  hand  that  ruled  England : 

"  The  daughter  of  debate 
That  eke  discord  doth  sow. 
Shall  reap  no  gain  where  former  rule 
Hath  taught  still  peace  to  grow. 

"  No  foreign  banished  wight 
Shall  anchor  in  this  port, 
Our  realm  it  brooks  no  strangers'  force; 
Let  them  elsewhere  resort."'^ 

The  lyric,  then,  became  the  fashion.  Men  courted  their 
mistresses  in  sonnets,  and  if  they  could  not  compose  them, 
employed  others  to  write  them.  A  well-turned  copy  of  verses 
could  secure  the  patronage  of  some  powerful  noble  and  make 

1  See  George  Puttenham,  The  Art  of  English  Poesy,  reprinted  by 
Arber,  London,  1869,  p.  354.  Cf.  E.  Fliigel,  Oedichte  der  Konigin  Eliza- 
beth, Anglia,  XIV,  p.  346. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  139 

one's  fortune ;  a  flattering  song  might  rescue  a  courtier 
from  disgrace  and  ruin.  Friends  addressed  one  another  in 
rhyme  and  imitated  each  other's  lyrics ;  precisely  as  an  open 
letter  in  a  modern  newspaper  draws  out  replies,  so  Eliza- 
bethan lyrics  had  their  answers.  "Were  I  a  king,  I  could 
command  content,"  writes  Edward  Vere,  Earl  of  Oxford, 
and  Sidney  answers  him  "Wert  thou  a  king,  yet  not  command 
content,"  and  another  writer  reminds  him  "The  greatest 
kings  do  least  command  content."  Dyer's  long  and  unin- 
spired Fancy  is  transposed  by  Southwell  to  a  Sinner's  Com- 
plaint, while  Fulke  Greville  plays  another  variation  on  it.^ 
Every  mood  had  its  song;  if  men  were  happy,  they  sang  for 
sheer  joy;  in  dejection  they  turned  to  verse  making.  The 
unfortunate  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  hardly  pos- 
sessed the  poetic  temperament.  A  rash,  impulsive  soldier, 
lacking  depth  and  balance,  rushing  headlong  into  danger, 
verse  would  seem  too  fragile  a  weapon  for  his  hand,  yet 
Wotton,  once  his  secretary,  informs  us  that  "to  evaporate 
his  thoughts  in  a  sonnet  was  his  common  way."  There  is  a 
tradition  that  his  moving  lyric 

"  Happy  were  he  could  finish  forth  his  fate 

In  some  unhaunted  desert,  most  obscure," 

was  sent  to  EHzabeth  from  Ireland  in  1599,  where,  his  army 
deserting  and  his  fame  shattered,  disgrace  and  ruin  stared 
him  in  the  face.^ 

We  think  of  the  Elizabethan  lyric  as  a  Hght  and  careless 
song  of  happiness,  but  men  turned  to  it  in  the  deepest 
moments  of  life.  In  the  reign  of  James  I — but  this  incident 
is  perfectly  typical  of  the  spirit  of  Ehzabeth's  day — John 

ij.   Hannah,  Poems    of    Wotton,    Raleigh,   etc.,   London,    187S,   pp. 
14T-148;  154-173. 
2  P.  177. 


no  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Hoskins  lay  in  the  tower,  charged  with  treason,  which  almost 
invariably  implied  a  death  sentence.  His  wife  petitioned  for 
his  release  with  the  following  curious  document: 

"  The  worst  is  told;  the  best  is  hid: 
Kings  know  not  all ;  I  would  they  did : 
What  though  my  husband  once  have  erred? 
Men  more  to  blame  have  been  preferred. 
Who  hath  not  erred,  he  doth  not  live; 
He  erred  but  once ;  once,  King,  forgive  !"^ 

This  obtained  the  prisoner's  pardon.  Possibly  the  king 
feared  another  petition.  In  the  tower,  under  the  shadow  of 
the  block,  men  spent  their  last  moments  composing  elegies 
and  laments.  "My  prime  of  youth  is  but  a  frost  of  cares," 
writes  Tichborne,  facing  execution,  and  Southwell,  racked 
and  tortured,  awaiting  death,  writes  his  tenderest  rehgious 
lyrics.  On  the  deathbed  itself,  men  wrote  their  songs,  and 
Sidney,  in  contempt  of  pain,  sang  one  which  he  had  made 
about  his  fatal  wound,  La  cuisse  cassee.  From  a  contem- 
porary account  of  the  last  hours  of  Walter  Devereux 
(d.  1576)  we  read:  "The  night  following,  the  Friday  night, 
which  was  the  night  before  he  died,  he  called  William  Hewes, 
which  was  his  musician,  to  play  upon  the  virginal  and  to  sing. 
'Play,'  said  he,  'my  song.  Will  Hewes,  and  I  will  sing  it  my- 
self.' So  he  did  it  most  joyfully,  not  as  a  howling  swan, 
which  still  looking  down  waiteth  her  end,  but  as  a  sweet 
lark."^  And  when  a  man  died,  his  friends,  not  all  poets  by 
profession,  felt  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  compose  and  pub- 
lish elegies  for  him.  To-day,  this  would  be  the  saddest  injury 
one's  memory  could  suffer.  For  every  emotion,  for  every 
circumstance    of    life,    men    of    all    classes — courtiers    and 

ip.  131. 

2  A.  B.  Grosart,  Miscellanies  of  the  Fuller  Worthies'  Library,  Poems 
of  Vau.v,  Oxford,  etc.  [London],  1872,  Introduction,  p.  13. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  Ul 

scholars,  priests  and  soldiers,  adventurers  and  statesmen — 
have  written  their  songs.  With  us  the  lyric  is  sung  by  a  few 
choice  spirits  to  a  small  group  of  listeners;  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth,  it  was  the  voice  of  the  nation. 

Within  the  compass  of  a  single  chapter  it  is  difficult  to 
deal  with  this  wealth  of  lyric  verse,  or  even  to  characterize 
it.  The  lyric  spirit  was  aU-pervasive,  often  eluding  defini- 
tion or  analysis.  The  drama  is  full  of  lyrics,  not  the  formal 
songs  which  we  shall  consider  but  song  overflowing  into 
dialogue,  soliloquy  and  description ;  the  epic  and  narrative 
verse  has  its  lyric  moments  not  in  the  songs  introduced,  but 
woven  into  the  very  fabric  of  the  poems.  The  song  of  the 
rose  in  the  second  book  of  the  Faerie  Queene  is  not  more 
lyrical  than  many  another  passage.  We  find,  however,  that 
the  lyrics  fall  roughly  into  four  general  groups — the  son- 
nets; the  miscellaneous  lyrics;  the  lyrics  of  the  drama;  and 
the  lyrics  in  the  song  books.  We  shall  consider  them  in  this 
order. 


II 

The  beginnings  of  the  EUzabethan  lyric  were  far  from 
brilliant.  One  of  the  first  writers  to  meet  us  is  George 
Gascoigne  (1525P-1577),  whom  an  Italian  admirer  called 
"un'  immitatore  di  Petrarcha,  amico  d'Ariosto,  e  parangon 
di  Bocaccio,  Aretino  ed  ogni  altro  poeta  quanto  sia  piii 
famoso  ed  eccellente  dell'  eta  nostra"!^  He  is  the  most 
voluminous  writer  of  verse  since  Skelton,  but  he  has  left 
few  lyrics  of  value,  for  while  at  times  he  shows  good  metrical 
facility,  he  generally  has  little  to  say.  His  Arraignment  of 
a  Lover,  one  of  his  best  lyrics,  moves  with  a  light  step ;  we 
may  call  it  an  early  example  of  society  verse  : 

IJ.  W.  Cunliffe,  The  Posies  of  George  Oascoigne,  Cambridge,  1907, 
p.  29. 


IJfZ  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  At  Beauty's  bar  as  I  did  stand. 

When  false  suspect  accused  me, 
'George,'  quoth  the  judge,  'hold  up  thy  hand. 
Thou  art  arraigned  of  Flattery: 

Tell  therefore  how  thou  wilt  be  tried? 
Whose  judgment  here  wilt  thou  abide?' "^ 

His  Lullaby  of  a  lover  treats  originally,  gracefully,  and 
with  a  genuine  pathos,  the  old  theme  of  approaching  age; 
while  his  Good  morrow  opens  with  lines  that  foretell  the 
future  charm  of  the  lyric.  Unfortunately  after  such  musical 
and  unaffected  writing  as  : 

"  You  that  have  spent  the  silent  night 

In  sleep  and  quiet  rest. 
And  joy  to  see  the  cheerful  light 

That  riseth  in  the  East; 
Now  clear  your  voice,  now  cheer  your  heart. 

Come  help  me  now  to  sing; 
Each  willing  wight  come  bear  a  part. 

To  praise  the  heavenly  king." 

we  come  to  the  statement  that  "the  carrion  crow" 

"  The  devil  resembleth-  plain. 
And  as  with  guns  we  kill  the  crow 

For  spoiling  our  relief, 
The  devil  so  must  we  overthrow 

With  gunshot  of  belief."^ 

He  has  little  sustained  work  and  writes  well  as  if  by  accident. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  he  continues  the  Surreyan 
sonnet,  but  he  has  not  written  a  single  one  of  real  poetic 
worth. 

Gascoigne  is  the  author  of  our  first  essay  on  verse  com- 
position, one  paragraph  of  which  is  most  illuminating.  After 
some  very  sensible  remarks  upon  the  necessity  of  using  in 

1  P.  38. 

2  P.  55. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  1^3 

verse  the  prose  accentuation  of  words,  and  after  recom- 
mending a  monosyllabic  diction  ("the  more  monosyllables 
you  use,  the  truer  Englishman  you  are,"  he  exclaims,  and 
Addison  repeats  this  thought  in  the  Spectator),  Gascoigne 
makes  the  following  frank  statement: 

"  To  help  you  a  little  with  rhyme  (which  is  also  a  plain  young 
scholar's  lesson)  work  thus:  when  you  have  set  down  your  first 
verse,  take  the  last  word  thereof  and  count  over  all  the  words 
of  the  self  same  sound  by  order  of  the  alphabet :  As  for  example, 
the  last  word  of  your  first  line  is  care;  to  rhyme  therewith  you 
have  bare,  dare,  dare,  fare,  gare,  hare,  and  share,  mare,  snare, 
rare,  stare,  and  mare,  etc.  Of  all  these,  take  that  which  best 
may  serve  your  purpose  carrying  reason  with  rhyme ;  and  if  none 
of  them  will  serve  so,  then  alter  the  last  word  of  your  former 
verse,  but  yet  do  not  willingly  alter  the  meaning  of  your 
invention."^ 

We  have  quoted  this  because  most  of  the  earliest  Eliza- 
bethan lyrics  seem  to  have  been  written  on  this  principle  of 
composition.  This  will  be  seen  in  glancing  over  the  lyrics 
of  George  Turberville  (1540.?-1610?),  who  enjoyed  a  high 
contemporary  reputation,  for  Harrington  wrote  of  him 

"  When  times  were  yet  but  rude,  thy  pen  endeavoured 
To  polish  barbarism  with  purer  style:" 

but  he  is  a  mere  rhymester;  he  has  no  metrical  skill;  and 
nearly  every  page  shows  some  evidence  of  a  deplorable  lack 
of  taste,  to  say  nothing  of  inspiration.  He  has  left  one  good 
quatrain,  a  translation  of  a  passage  in  Plato  that  has 
attracted  many  poets,  among  others,  Shelley: 

"  My  girl,  thou  gazest  much 
Upon  the  golden  skies. 
Would  I  were  Heaven,  I  would  behold 
Thee  then  with  all  mine  eyes."^ 

1  P.  4.69. 

2  A.  Chalmers'  The  Works  of  the  English  Poets,  vol.  II,  p.  635. 


lU  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

We  shall  mention  but  one  more  of  the  early  EKzabethans, 
Barnaby  Googe  ( 1540-1594)  whose  Eglogs,  Epytaphes,  and 
Sonnettes  were  published  in  a  single  volume  in  1563,  the  year 
before  Shakespeare's  birth.  The  section  of  the  book  marked 
"sonnettes"  does  not  contain  an  example  of  that  form,  for 
in  general  the  EKzabethans  used  the  term  loosely,  often 
calling  any  short  poem,  even  a  quatrain,  a  "sonnet."  In 
Turberville's  poems  we  find  Master  George  his  Sonnet  of  the 
Pains  of  Love : 

"  Two  lines  shall  tell  the  grief. 
That  I  by  love  sustain: 
I  burn,  I  flame,  I  faint,  I  freeze, 
Of  HeU  I  feel  the  pain.''^ 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  so-called  "sonnet"  contains  all  that 
we  find  in  many  later  quatorzains.  We  discover  in  Googe 
the  influence  of  TotteVs  Miscellany,  but  except  for  a  httle 
more  smoothness  in  his  metres,  he  falls  far  below  the  level  of 
that  book.  Only  two  of  his  "sonnets"  deserve  citation: 
"When  I  do  hear  thy  name,"  retains  the  simpKcity  of  the 
early  songs : 

"  Thy  voice  when  I  do  hear. 

Then  colour  comes  and  goes. 
Some  time  as  pale  as  earth  I  look. 
Some  time  as  red  as  rose." 

while  his  best  lyric,  "The  rushing  rivers  that  do  run,"  con- 
tains these  verses,  "to  the  tune  of  Apelles" : 

"  O  Nature,  thou  that  first  did  frame 

My  lady's  hair  of  purest  gold. 
Her  face  of  crystal  to  the  same. 

Her  lips  of  precious  rubies  mold. 
Her  neck  of  alabaster  white, 
Surmounting  far  each  other  wight. 

IP.  587. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  1^5 

"  Why  didst  thou  not  that  time  devise. 

Why  didst  thou  not  foresee  before. 

The  mischief  that  thereof  doth  rise. 

And  grief  on  grief  doth  heap  with  store. 

To  make  her  heart  of  wax  alone. 

And  not  of  flint  and  marble  stone  ?"^ 

But  these  are  scanty  gleanings,  and  it  was  not  until  1579 
that  the  new  poetry  was  ushered  in  with  Spenser's  Shep- 
herd's Calendar,  of  which  we  shall  speak  later,  for  we  are 
now  at  the  commencement  of  the  sonnet  cycles.^ 

Thomas  Watson  ( 1557  ?-l  592)  spent  his  time  when  a  stu- 
dent at  Oxford  "in  the  smooth  and  pleasant  studies  of  poetry 
and  romance"  and  certainly  obtained  a  thorough  acquaint- 
ance not  only  with  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  but  with  the 
chief  Italian  lyrists  from  Petrarch  down,  and  with  Ronsard 
and  his  school.  Beginning  his  literary  career  in  1589  with 
a  Latin  translation  of  the  Antigone,  he  entered  the  field  of 
the  lyric  the  following  year  with  his  Hekatompathia  or  Pas- 
sionate Centurie  of  Love,  a  hundred  poems  ("century"),  by 
far  the  greater  part  translations  or  adaptations  from  the 
classics,  the  Italian,  and  the  French.  To  each  of  these 
"Passions"  or  "sonnets"  as  he  called  them,  Watson  prefixed 
an  explanation  of  its  contents  and  a  reference  to  its  source 
or  sources  and  it  is  thus  a  simple  matter  to  follow  him  in  his 
renderings  of  Theocritus  and  Horace,  Petrarch,  Serafino, 
and  Ronsard.  Though  but  eight  of  the  poems  are  taken  from 
Petrarch,  Watson  has  much  of  his  spirit  (he  tells  us  he  had 
made  a  Latin  translation  of  the  sonnets  of  the  Canzoniere) 
and  indeed  he  was  regarded  as  his  English  counterpart. 
George  Bucke,  in  a  copy  of  commendatory  vers'es,  informs 
him  that 

iGooge  in  Arber's  English  Reprints,  London,  1871,  pp.  95,  106. 

2  Strictly  speaking  the  new  movement  in  the  Elizabethan  lyric  may  be 
first  discerned  in  Spenser's  boyish  translations  from  Petrarch  and  Du 
Bellay  published  in  the  Theatre  for  Worldlings,  1569. 


H6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  The  stars,  which  did  at  Petrarch's  birthday  reign. 
Were  fixed  again  at  thy  nativity," 

and  that  compared  with  Petrarch  and  Laura 

"  Thou  and  thy  dame  be  equal,  save  percase 
Thou  pass  the  one,  and  she  excells  the  other."^ 

Watson  did  not  imitate  the  Petrarchian  sonnet  form,  but 
employed  instead  a  combination  of  three  six  line  stanzas  of 
the  type  later  made  famous  by  Shakespeare's  Venus  and 
Adonis.  The  poems  are  free  translations  and  at  times 
mosaics,  for  in  one,  the  first  twelve  lines  are  each  taken  from 
a  different  author.  Lacking  in  inspiration,  Watson  fre- 
quently descended  to  what  Addison  called  false  wit.  He 
possesses  little  imagination  or  feeling ;  there  is  no  force  in 
his  writing ;  and  it  was  hardly  necessary  for  him  to  inform 
us  that  his  pains  are  "but  supposed."  The  best  that  can 
be  said  of  him  is  that  he  shows,  at  times,  an  easy,  graceful 
style  and  that  he  has  a  plaintive  note,  not  without  a  certain 
charm,  as  in  his  ninth  Passion  : 

"  The  marigold  so  likes  the  lovely  sun 

That  when  he  sets,  the  other  hides  her  face, 
And  when  he  gins  his  morning  course  to  run. 

She  spreads  abroad,  and  shows  her  greatest  grace; 
So  shuts  or  sprouts  my  joy,  as  doth  this  flower, 
When  my  sunshine  doth  either  laugh  or  lower."^ 

There  is  a  deHcacy  of  expression  in  such  a  line  as 
"  Each  thought  I  think  is  friend  to  her  I  love, 

and  the  two  Passions  beginning  '"My  gentle  bird,  which  sung 
so  sweet  of  late,"  and  "When  May  is  in  his  prime,"  are  good 
examples  of  his  best  qualities.^ 

1  Thomas  Watson,  in  Arber's  English  Reprints,  London,  1870,  p.  33. 

2  P.  45. 

3  Pp.  52,  62. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  H7 

In  1593,  the  year  after  Watson's  death,  appeared  his 
Tears  of  Fancie,  a  series  of  sixty  sonnets  in  the  Surreyan 
form.  They  are  much  better  reading,  though  they  bear  the 
marks  of  foreign  imitation.  A  single  quotation  shows  their 
style : 

"  Behold,  dear  mistress,  how  each  pleasant  green 
Will  now  renew  his  summer's  livery: 
The  fragrant  flowers  which  have  not  long  been  seen, 
Will  flourish  now  ere  long  in  bravery. 
But  I,  alas,  within  whose  mourning  mind 
The  grafts  of  grief  are  only  given  to  grow. 
Can  not  enjoy  the  Spring  which  others  find. 
But  still  my  will  must  wither  all  in  woe."^ 

Watson  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  in  his  own  day,  but  he 
deserves  the  oblivion  into  which  he  has  fallen  and  from  which 
Professor  Arber  gallantly  tried  to  rescue  him,  for  he  has 
left  us  no  poem  of  the  first  order  and  we  remember  him  only 
as  the  author  of  our  earliest  love  sequence  and  as  one  of  our 
first  writers  of  madrigals.^ 

The  first  Elizabethan  sonnet  sequence  worthy  to  be  com-; 
pared  with  the  Italian  or  French  cycles  is  Sir  Philip  Sidney's 
Astrophel  and  Stella.  Sidney  (1554-1586)  was  a  scholar,! 
courtier,  and  soldier ;  a  critic,  novelist,  and  poet,  yet  for  all 
his  varied  interests  and  his  recognized  brilliancy,  he  had 
neither  a  fortunate  nor  a  happy  career.  A  member  of  a 
distinguished  family,  nephew  to  Elizabeth's  favorite,  the 
Earl  of  Leicester,  he  naturally  looked  forward  to  a  position 
of  influence  in  state  affairs,  but  he  displeased  the  queen,  who 
gave  him  the  trifle  of  three  million  acres  in  Virginia  but  no 
share  in  the  government.  Once  in  despair,  for  he  was 
actually  poor,  he  contemplated  emigrating  to  this  domain. 

1  P.  202. 

^Italian  Madrigals  Englished,  1590,  reprinted  in  the  Journal  of 
Oermanic  Philology,  vol.  II,  No.  iii,  p.  337. 


H8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

An  American  can  not  forbear  conjecturing  what  the  early 
history  of  the  Virginia  colony  would  have  been  had  Sidney 
and  a  group  of  his  friends  inaugurated  it.  Unfortunate  in 
his  public  life,  he  found  his  greatest  pleasure  in  his  writings 
and  in  the  friendship  of  a  group  of  poets  of  whom  Spenser 
was  the  chief.  His  nature  was  a  serious  one ;  melancholy 
had  marked  him  for  her  own ;  and  his  Huguenot  friend  and 
counsellor  Languet,  a  man  whose  character  was  anything 
but  frivolous,  protested  that  Sidney  was  of  a  too  sober 
disposition.  In  his  miniature  painted  by  Oliver  we  see  him 
seated  beneath  a  tree,  in  a  doublet  slashed  with  black, 
pensive,  mournful,  one  arm  across  his  breast,  the  other  hold- 
ing his  sword — a  Lover's  Melancholy  or  II  Penseroso,  we 
might  call  it.  Could  any  one  be  better  fitted  to  continue  the 
Petrarchian  tradition  of  unhappy  love? 

Astrophel  and  Stella  was  printed  surreptitiously  in  1591, 
five  years  after  Sidney's  death.  So  far  from  desiring  it  to 
be  published,  on  his  deathbed  he  begged  his  friends  to  burn 
his  writings ;  an  injunction  which  certainly  included  the 
sonnets  as  well  as  the  unfinished  Arcadia.  Ostensibly  this 
sonnet  cycle  portrays  Sidney's  love  for  Penelope  Devereux 
(1562P-1607).  The  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  she  had 
been  destined  by  her  father  to  marry  Sidney,  who  showed 
no  interest  in  her  until  after  her  unhappy  match  with  Lord 
Rich  in  1581.  Some  time  between  that  date  and  Sidney's 
marriage  to  Frances  Walsingham  in  1683  these  sonnets  were 
written.  Their  interpretation  is  still  a  matter  of  dispute.^ 
Read  Kterally  they  portray  Sidney's  devotion  for  a  married 
woman  who  loves  him  in  return.  Restrained  by  a  sense  of 
honor,  she  makes  of  Sidney  a  Platonic  lover.  To  us  the  situa- 
tion seems  an  impossible  one,  but  the  Renaissance  treated  it 
as  seriously  as  we  would  a  genuine  passion  swaying  a  man 
and  a  maid.    Tasso  could  write  to  a  bride  on  her  marriage, 

1  J.  B.  Fletcher,  The  Eeligioti  of  Beauty  in  Woman,  N.  Y.,  1911,  pp. 
147-165,  "Did  Astrophel  love  SteUa?' 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  U9 

urging  her,  in  the  inevitable  sonnet,  to  reserve  for  him  the 
best  part  of  her  love.  Evidently  to  interpret  Elizabethan 
sonnet  cycles  in  terms  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  madness, 
yet  Symonds,  disregarding  the  exotic  as  well  as  the  conven- 
tional element  in  Astrophel  and  Stella,  has  constructed  from 
it  a  whole  romance,  with  each  step  in  the  growth  of  Sidney's 
passion  clearly  marked — imaginative  but  scarcely  reason- 
able criticism.  On  the  other  hand,  Sidney  Lee  goes  so  far 
as  to  deny  that  these  sonnets  possess  "any  serious  auto- 
biographic significance."^  The  truth  probably  lies  midway 
between  these  two  opinions,  in  the  "golden  mean"  which  the 
Elizabethans  praised.  To  draw  an  analogy  from  a  sister 
art,  the  painters  of  the  Renaissance  often  placed  amid  a 
group  of  figures,  purely  imaginary,  their  own  portraits. 
It  is  very  probable  that  at  times,  amid  the  translations  and 
evident  imitations  of  the  sonnets,  we  may  discover  Sidney 
himself.  It  is  this  fact,  as  well  as  the  inherent  poetic  worth 
of  the  sequence,  that  makes  it  a  landmark  in  the  history  of 
the  Enghsh  lyric. 

After  leaving  Oxford  in  1572,  Sidney  passed  nearly  three 
years  on  the  continent.  In  the  course  of  his  journeys,  he 
visited  Venice,  a  home  of  the  Petrarchian  school.  A  tablet 
still  marks  the  house  on  the  Riva  degli  Schiavoni  which  the 
"liberality  of  the  senate"  offered  to  Petrarch,  and  thanks 
to  Bembo  and  his  followers,  the  influence  of  his  song  still 
lingered  there.  As  in  the  case  of  Wyatt,  this  glimpse  of 
Italy  determined  in  a  large  measure  Sidney's  poetic  career. 
That  he  entered  with  zest  into  Venetian  life  can  not  be 
doubted;  he  had  his  portrait  painted  by  Veronese  and  he 
must  have  turned  to  that  art  which  interested  him  more 
than  painting.  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  he  did  not  read 
the  poetry  of  Petrarch  and  of  his  lesser  clan.     Though  he 

IJ.  A.  Symonds,  Sidney,  in  English  Men  of  Letters;  Sidney  Lee, 
Introduction  to  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  vol.  I,  in  the  re-issue  of  Arber's 
English  Garner. 


150  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

imitated  the  French  sonneteers,  I  believe  he  derived  much  of 
his  inspiration  directly  from  Italy,  rather  than  through  the 
medium  of  French  verse.  Several  of  his  songs  were  written 
to  Italian  music,  and  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that 
the  situation  in  Astrophel  and  Stella  is  precisely  that  of 
Petrarch's  Canzoniere,  indeed  the  very  title  "Stella"  is 
derived  from  the  Petrarchians.^  Accordingly  much  of  our 
analysis  and  criticism  of  the  Canzoniere  may  be  applied  to 
Sidney's  sequence.  Coming  from  a  reading  of  the  Petrarch- 
ists,  we  hear  their  music  re-echoing  in  many  a  line  of  Sid- 
ney's laments  even  when  we  can  not  detect  formal  imitation. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  despite  Sidney's  great  reputation, 
Astrophel  and  Stella  is  little  known  to-day;  for  the  most 
persistent  reader  of  EngHsh  verse  would  probably  have 
difficulty  in  citing  a  dozen  lines  from  his  sonnets.  Charles 
Lamb  devoted  an  essay  to  them,  quoting  with  a  few  com- 
ments the  ones  he  most  admired,  yet  he  failed  to  awaken  an 
interest  in  the  poet ;  at  the  present  time  Sidney  is  known 
only  by  those  poems  that  attract  compilers  of  anthologies. 
The  reason  for  this  neglect  is  the  inequality  of  his  work. 

1  L.  Dolce  begins  a  sonnet : 

"  Stella ;  che  degna  ben  vi  dimostrate 
Del  nome,  che  si  dolce  e  altero  suona;" 

while  Rinieri  has  two  beginning,  "Celeste  forma,  anzi  lucente  stella;''and 
"Questa  nuova  del  ciel  felice  Stella."  Marco  Cavallo,  a  well-known 
Venetian,  secretary  to  the  Cardinal  Marco  Conaro,  is  fond  of  addressing 
his  mistress  under  this  name: 

"  Si  come  I'amorosa,  e  vaga  Stella, 
Ch'a  I'alba  inanzi  sempre  apparir  sole. 
Con  suoi  fulgentirai  fa  scorte  Sole, 


Tal  la  mia  Donna;  che  dal  quella  luce 
Prese  il  bel  nome,  e  i  bei  celeste  rai." 

I  take  these  quotations  from  Rime  Diverse,  vols.  I  and  II. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  161 

Although  he  asserted  that  he  was  "no  pick  purse  of  another's 
wit,"  he  admitted  that  he  had  spent  his  time 

"  Oft  turning  others'  leaves^  to  see  if  thence  would  flow 
Some  fresh  and  fruitful  showers  upon  my  sunburnt  brain,"^ 

and  unfortunately  in  this  process  he  absorbed  too  many 
ideas  from  the  Petrarchists.  A  considerable  number  of  son- 
nets, which  the  age  considered  witty  and  ingenious,  we  find 
insipid,  tedious,  and  even  ridiculous,  for  literary  fashions 
soon  change  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  succeeding  genera- 
tions will  yawn  as  wearily  over  our  twentieth  century  epi- 
grams and  paradoxes  as  we  do  over  Sidney's  sonnet  that 
describes  Stella's  face  as  a  house  (an  old  device)  with  her 
mouth  the  door,  her  hair  the  golden  roof,  and  her  eyes  the 
windows.^  Equally  uninspired  are  those  sonnets  in  which 
Cupid  appears ;  in  a  typical  one,  Stella's  eyebrows  form  his 
bow.^  As  a  rule,  Cupid  is  the  evil  genius  of  the  Elizabethan 
lyric ;  there  are  rare  exceptions  such  as  Lyly's  song  Cupid 
and  my  Campaspe  played,  which  employs  this  conceit  of 
Sidney's.  We  must  admit  that  many  of  the  sonnets  have 
neither  personal  nor  poetical  significance. 

Discarding  the  poorer  element,  we  turn  to  the  best,  by 
which  a  writer  must  always  be  judged.  It  is  impossible  to 
avoid  seeing  in  a  small  group  of  sonnets  a  presentation  of 
Sidney's  own  life,  for  he  did  follow  the  Muse's  injunction  to 
"look  in  thy  heart,  and  write" ;  he  has  left  many  lines  which 
"bewray  an  inward  touch."  We  believe  this  because  many 
of  the  sonnets  square  exactly  with  the  course  of  Sidney's 
career.  With  Petrarch  and  his  followers  the  enamorement 
comes  at  the  first  glance  of  beauty ;  with  Sidney  it  was  not 
love  at  first  sight: 

1  See  Lee's  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  vol.  I,  Astrophel  and  Stella,  sonnet  i. 

2  No.  ix. 

3  No.  xvii. 


162  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Not  at  the  first  sight,  nor  with  a  dribbed  shot. 
Love  gave  the  wound,  which  while  I  breathe,  will  bleed: 
But  known  worth  did  in   mine  of  time  proceed,    (by  slow 

undermining) 
Till,  by  degrees,  it  had  full  conquest  got," 

and  again  he  cries : 

"  'I  might — unhappy  word,  O  me ! — I  might, 
And  then  would  not,  or  could  not  see  my  bliss." 

The  Petrarchians  insist  that  their  love  incites  the  soul  to 
virtuous  deeds,  and  Sidney  often  follows  them;  in  a  sonnet 
speaking  of  Stella's  goodness  and  beauty  he  writes : 

"  And  not  content  to  be  perfection's  heir. 
Thyself  dost  strive  all  minds  that  way  to  move; 
Who  mark  in  thee,  what  is  in  thee  most  fair: 
So  while  thy  beauty  draws  the  heart  to  love. 
As  fast  thy  virtue  bends  that  love  to  good. 
But  ah !  Desire  still  cries,  'Give  me  some  food !'  "^ 

This  last  line  is  the  significant  one ;  Sidney  wears  his  rue 
with  a  difference,  for  Platonic  idealism  does  not  satisfy  him. 
Moreover  while  the  Petrarchists  weary  us  with  assertions 
that  their  love  ennobles  them,  Sidney  is  aware  that  his 
passion  can  lead  only  to  a  dishonorable  conclusion: 

"  Alas  !  have  I  not  pain  enough  ?  my  friend ! 


But  with  your  rhubarb  words  ye  must  contend 
To  grieve  me  worse  in  saying  'That  Desire 
Doth  plunge  my  well-formed  soul  even  in  the  mire 
Of  sinful  thoughts,  which  do  in  ruin  end.'  "^ 

After  Sidney's  death,  Stella  deserted  her  husband  who  had 
been  forced  upon  her  and  who  treated  her  with  neglect  and 

1  Nos.  ii,  xxxiii,  Ixxi. 

2  No.  xiv. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  153 

even  with  brutality.  In  itself  this  is  not  a  sufficient  argu- 
ment to  discredit  Sidney's  statement  that  her  firmness  and 
her  affection  for  him  prevented  a  catastrophe  which  would 
have  involved  them  both.  The  two  sonnets  in  which  Sidney 
plays  upon  the  name  of  Stella's  husband,  Lord  Rich,  are 
quite  different  from  the  sonnets  in  which  Petrarch  puns  on 
Laura's  name;  Sidney  writes  in  scorn  and  anger  of 

"  that  rich  fool,  who  by  blind  Fortune's  lot, 
The  richest  gem  of  love  and  Ufa  enjoys; 
And  can  with  foul  abuse  such  beauties  blot."^ 

Hitherto  the  lyrical  poets  had  not  put  into  verse  the 
trivial  yet  important  happenings  of  their  lives,  and  Sidney 
marks  a  progress  when  he  does  this.  Many  of  his  poems 
refer  to  definite  events.  He  meets  Stella  riding  uncovered 
when  other  ladies  fear  the  sun ;  he  sees  her  moved  to  tears  by 
the  reading  of  a  love  tragedy;  he  hears  her  read  his  own 
verses ;  Stella 

"  Who,  hard  by,  made  a  window  send  forth  light :" 

(a  splendid  phrase)  sees  him  win  in  a  tourney.^  These  are 
indeed  slight  occurrences  but  it  is  the  weaving  into  verse  of 
all  a  man's  moods  and  impressions  as  well  as  his  greater 
emotions  that  makes  the  lyric  the  real  voice  of  the  human 
spirit.  From  another  point  of  view,  on  such  slender  happen- 
ings have  depended  the  greatest  artistic  results.  The  song 
of  a  lark  in  the  fields,  of  a  nightingale  in  a  covert,  of  a 
peasant  girl  in  the  Scottish  highlands,  have  enriched  English 
literature  with  three  priceless  lyrics. 

The  sonnets  certainly  reveal  Sidney's  nature.  He  is  an 
aristocrat,  moving  in  courtly  circles,  proud  of  his  birth  and 

1  No.  xxlv;  cf.  xxxvii,  a  sonnet  suppressed  in  the  first  edition  of 
Astrophel  and  Stella  and  not  printed  until  1598. 

2  Nos.  xxii,  xlv,  Mil,  liii. 


15^.  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

rank ;  he  remembers  the  achievements  of  his  family  and  asks 
how 

"  Ulster  likes  of  that  same  golden  bit. 
Wherewith  my  father  once  made  it  half  tame  ?" 

He  is  proud  of  his  horsemanship,  his  strength,  his  skill  in  the 
jousts  which  even  the  French,  past  masters  in  such  pursuits, 
cover  with  applause : 

"  Youth,  luck  and  praise  even  filled  my  veins  with  pride." 

He  has  all  the  culture  of  his  day ;  we  see  him  reading  Plato, 

"  The  wisest  scholar  of  the  wight  most  wise," 

while  "Aristotle's  wit"  he  values  as  highly  as  Cffisar's  fame. 
What  a  contrast  between  the  sonnets  of  this  young  noble- 
man and  those  of  that  "unlettered  clerk"  who  went  here  and 
there  "a  motley  to  the  view."  Yet  many  of  Sidney's  Hnes 
foretell  Shakespeare. 

"  With  what  sharp  checks  I  in  myself  am  shent, 
When  into  Reason's  audit  I  do  go; 
And  by  just  coimts,  myself  a  bankrupt  know 
Of  all  those  goods  which  heaven  to  me  hath  lent," 

might  have  come  from  the  greatest  of  all  Elizabethan  son- 
neteers.^ 

Judging  the  sonnets  from  the  purely  artistic  standpoint, 
not  many  are  well  written  throughout ;  they  are  frequently 
marred  by  roughness  of  phrase  and  by  obscurity  of  con- 
struction and  expression.  In  general  they  lack  that  sweet- 
ness of  cadence  which  we  associate  with  the  sonnet  form,  for 
though  Sidney  employs  the  Petrarchian  rhyme  scheme,  he 
ends  his  sestet,  with  disconcerting  effect,  in  a  couplet.  If 
the  verse  is  at  times  halting,  it  has  vigor  and  movement: 

1  Nos.  XXX,  liii,  xxv  (cf.  xxi),  xvlil. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  155 

"  Highway !  since  you  my  chief  Parnassus  be ; 
And  that  my  Muse  to  some  ears  not  unsweet, 
Tempers  her  words  to  trampling  horses'  feet 
More  oft  than  to  a  chamber  melody."^ 

In  such  an  apostrophe  we  first  see  an  individual  style  in  the 
English  sonnet.  Even  in  his  purely  imitative  verse,  Sidney 
can  be  at  his  best.  The  Petrarchian  school  has  left  us  many 
sonnets  on  sleep.  Giovanni  della  Casa's  masterpiece  is  a 
typical  one: 

"  O  SonnOj  o  della  queta^  umida,  ombrosa 
Notte  placido  figlio;  o  de'  mortali 
Egri  conforto,  oblio  dolce  de'  mall 

Si  gravij  ond'e  la  vita  aspra  e  noiosa; 

Soccorri  al  core  omai,  che  langue,  e  posa 

Non  have;  e  queste  membra  stanche  e  frali 
SoUeva :'  a  me  te  n'  vola,  O  Sonno,  e  I'ali 

Tue  brune  sovra  me  distendi  e  posa." 

(O  Sleep,  peaceful  son  of  the  quiet,  dewy,  shadowy  night;  com- 
fort of  weary  mortals,  sweet  oblivion  of  heavy  ills,  whence  life 
is  rough  and  wearisome;  aid  now  the  heart  that  languishes  nor 
has  repose;  lift  up  these  limbs,  weary  and  frail;  fly  to  me, 
O  Sleep,  and  thy  brown  wings  spread  over  me.) 

Shakespeare,  in  his  great  speech  of  Macbeth,  shows  the 
influence  of  such  lines  and  Sidney  has  as  fine  an  imagery,  as 
musical  an  appeal  in  his 

"  Come  Sleep !  O  Sleep !  the  certain  knot  of  peace ; 
The  baiting  place  of  wit,  the  balm  of  woe. 
The  poor  man's  wealth,  the  prisoner's  release, 
Th'  indifferent  judge  between  the  high  and  low."^ 

1  No.  Ixxxiv. 

2  No.  xxxix.  E.  Koeppel,  Bomanische  Forschungen,  V,  p.  97,  after 
having  pointed  out  passages  in  which  Sidney  imitates  the  Italian  lyric, 
observes  justly:  "Sidney  could  not  escape  the  powerful  influence  of 
Petrarch,  he  has  paid  him  rich  tribute,  but  he  has  poured  so  much  new 
wine  in  the  old  bottles  that  no  one  can  contest  his  right  to  say,  'I  am 
no  pick-purse  of  another's  wit.' " 


156  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

In  the  midst  of  the  most  ineffective  sonnets  there  is  gen- 
erally some  spark  of  the  divine  fire,  some  noble  line  such  as 

"  Those  lips !  which  make  death's  pay,  a  mean  price  for  a  kiss." 

His  best  known  sonnet  is  certainly  his  finest  one;  it  is  thor- 
oughly characteristic — unevenly  written,  obscurely  ex- 
pressed in  the  concluding  line,  but  infused  with  fine  emotion: 

"  With  how  sad  steps,  O  INIoon,  thou  climb'st  the  skies ! 
How  silently,  and  with  how  wan  a  face!"^ 

Shelley  might  have  written  this.  Here  for  the  first  time  in 
the  English  lyric  we  have  a  deep  sorrow  illumined  by  the 
light  of  the  poet's  imagination. 

In  1593  Barnaby  Barnes  (1569-1609)  published  his 
Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe.  Sonnets,  Madrigals,  Elegies 
and  Odes,  a  wearisome  collection  of  verse — there  are  over 
one  hundred  sonnets  alone- — which  may  be  characterized  as 
containing  much  matter  but  little  art.  At  times  he  links 
his  sonnets  together.  The  first  nine  treat  of  the  imprison- 
ment and  release  of  his  heart;  sonnets  xxxii-xUii  describe  a 
zodiac  of  love ;  but  on  the  whole  the  book  is  a  series  of  dis- 
connected love  poems,  imitations  or  adaptations  of  Petrarch, 
Sannazzaro,  Ronsard,  and  the  French  school,  while  the 
classics  are  represented  by  the  Lost  Cupid  of  Moschus. 
Although  the  greater  part  of  the  book  has  not  been  traced 
directly  to  its  foreign  sources,  there  are  many  reminiscences 
of  the  Petrarchian  school.     Barnes  wishes  his  love  to  be 

1  No.  xxxi.    Cf.  Shelley's 

"  Art  thou  pale  for  weariness 
Of  climbing  heaven  and  gazing  on  the  earth." 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  Sidney  is  the  one  Elizabethan  poet 
who  enjoyed  a  reputation  in  France.  See  the  reference  in  Noe  of  Du 
Bartas  to  "milor  Cydn6,"  "Cygne  doux  chantant,"  and  contrast  it  with 
the  slighting  allusion  to  Ben  Jonson  in  Saint  Amant's  Albion. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  157 

" 'bove  Stella  placed; 
'Bove  Lauraj" 

and  employs  the  usual  themes — death,  sleep,  a  lover's  suffer- 
ings— the  old  similes,  the  old  phraseology.  Of  the  writer 
himself,  we  see  nothing. 

There  is  one  interesting  trait  in  his  style;  his  penchant 
for  legal  terms,  which  he  tortures  and  twists  to  meet  a  lover's 
woes.  As  Mr.  Lee  suggests,  it  is  highly  interesting  to  com- 
pare the  similar  phrases  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets. 

"  But  when  the  mortgage  should  have  cured  the  sore, 
She  passed  it  off,  by  deed  of  gift  before," 

he  writes,  or 

"  And  when,  through  thy  default,  I  thee  did  summon 
Into  the  Court  of  Steadfast  Love,  then  cried, 
'As  it  was  promised,  here  stands  his  heart's  bail! 
And  if  in  bonds  to  thee,  my  love  be  tied. 
Then  by  those  bonds,  take  forfeit  of  the  sale.'  "' 

How  far  is  all  this  from : 

"  When  to  the  sessions  of  sweet  silent  thought 
I  summon  up  remembrance  of  things  past," 

or 

"  Farewell !  thou  art  too  dear  for  my  possessing. 
And  like  enough  thou  know'st  thy  estimate: 
The  charter  of  thy  worth  gives  thee  releasing ; 
My  bonds  in  thee  are  all  determinate." 

Shakespeare  repeats  in  his  sonnets  the  situations,  the  ideas, 
the  emotions  of  his  predecessors,  but  he  has  so  refined  and 
transformed  them  that  we  forget,  as  we  do  in  reading  the 
poems  of  Bums,  how  much  has  been  suggested  by  unre- 
membered  singers. 

'^  ParthenopMl,  sonnets,  nos.  viii,  xi;  in  Lee's  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  vol. 


158  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Barnes  has  one  sure  claim  to  remembrance.     Like  Arvers, 
the  author  of 

"  Mon  ame  a  son  secret,  ma  vie  a  son  mystere," 

he  is  the  poet  of  one  sonnet.  We  read  on  through  allegories 
and  the  commonplaces  of  mythology,  until  we  reach  sonnet 
Ixv  which  closes  as  follows : 

"  Oh  that  I  never  had  been  born  at  all. 
Or  being,  had  been  born  of  shepherds'  brood! 
Then  should  I  not  in  such  mischances  fall. 
Quiet,  my  water ;  and  Content,  my  food. 
But  now  disquieted,  and  still  tormented. 
With  adverse  fate,  perforce,  must  rest  contented." 

There  is  nothing  remarkable  in  all  this,  but  these  few  hnes 
gave  Barnes  the  suggestion,  the  impulse  for  the  sonnet  that 
immediately  follows.  It  is  marked  by  a  pensive  sweetness, 
a  gentle  melancholy  (for  Barnes  had  no  deep  feeling).  To 
borrow  a  figure  from  music,  when  he  bears  hard  on  the 
strings,  they  scrape  and  grate.  Here  for  once  he  found 
himself : 

"  Ah,  sweet  Content!  where  is  thy  mild  abode? 
Is  it  with  shepherds,  and  light-hearted  swains, 
Which  sing  upon  the  downs,  and  pipe  abroad. 
Tending  their  flocks  and  cattle  on  the  plains.'' 
Ah,  sweet  Content !  where  dost  thou  safely  rest  ? 
In  heaven,  with  angels  ?  which  the  praises  sing 
Of  Him  that  made,  and  rules  at  his  behest. 
The  minds  and  hearts  of  every  living  thing. 
Ah,  sweet  Content!  where  dost  thine  harbour  hold.' 
Is  it  in  churches,  with  religious  men. 
Which  please  the  gods  with  prayers  manifold ; 
And  in  their  studies  meditate  it  then.'' 
Whether  thou  dost  in  heaven,  or  earth  appear; 
Be  where  thou  wilt !   Thou  wilt  not  harbour  here !"' 
1  Nos.  Ixv,  Ixvi. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  169 

Two  other  sonnet  series  appeared  in  1593.  Thomas 
Lodge's  Phillis  consists  of  forty  sonnets,  gracefully  written 
but  for  the  most  part  boldly  plagarized  from  Ronsard  and 
Desportes,  from  Ariosto  and  other  Italian  writers.  His 
collection  is  interesting  chiefly  as  exhibiting  in  the  most 
striking  manner  the  dependence  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnet- 
eers on  foreign  models ;  it  contains  hardly  a  sonnet  worthy 
to  be  treasured  in  the  reader's  memory,  although  Lodge  else- 
where shows  lyric  gifts  of  a  high  order. 

As  for  Giles  Fletcher's  Licia,  the  author  tells  us  in  his 
preface  that  he  wrote  it  "only  to  try  my  humour,"  but  its 
fifty-two  sonnets  are  much  more  trying  to  the  reader's 
patience ;  we  weary  of  the  incessant  appearance  of  Cupid, 
even  though  at  times  he  is  presented  with  some  grace. 
Fletcher  is  unoriginal  and  has  left  little  to  be  remembered. 
One  of  the  best  sonnets  in  Licia  reminds  us  of  Shakespeare 
as  did  the  legal  phraseology  of  Barnes : 

"  In  time  the  strong  and  stately  turrets  fall. 

In  time  the  rose,  and  silver  lilies  die. 

In  time  the  monarchs  captives  are  and  thrall. 

In  time  the  sea  and  rivers  are  made  dry. 

****** 

Thus  all,  sweet  Fair,  in  time  must  have  an  end: 
Except  thy  beauty,  virtues,  and  thy  friend."^ 

The  following  year,  1594,  saw  the  publication  of  five 
sonnet  cycles,  the  anonymous  Zepheria,  Percy's  Caelia,  Con- 
stable's Diana,  Daniel's  Delia,  and  Drayton's  Idea.'     The 

1  No.  xxviii  In  Lee's  reprint  of  Licia,  in  op.  cit.,  vol.  II.  For 
Fletcher's  borrowings  see  A.  B.  Grosart's  edition  of  Licia  in  Occasional 
Isanes,  II. 

2  Reprinted  by  Lee,  op.  cit.,  vol.  II.  Diana  was  first  issued  1592; 
re-issued,  enlarged,  1S94.  At  the  end  of  Astrophel  and  Stella,  38  of 
Daniel's  sonnets  were  printed  unauthorizedly.  The  following  year  he 
published  55  sonnets  and  in  1594  revised  and  enlarged  this  collection. 
See  Lee,  op.  cit..  Introduction. 


160  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

most  that  can  be  said  of  the  twenty  sonnets  in  Ccelia,  and 
the  forty  canzons  in  Zepheria  is  that  their  publication  bears 
witness  to  the  interest  in  sonnet  hterature  to  which  they  add 
nothing.  Constable's  Diana  is  written  with  much  more  skill, 
and  the  following  sonnet  is  interesting  because  it  brings  to 
a  trite  subject  a  new  air: 

"  If  ever  Sorrow  spoke  from  soul  that  loves, 
As  speaks  a  spirit  in  a  man  possest. 
In  me,  her  spirit  speaks.     My  soul  it  moves. 
Whose  sigh-swoll'n  words  breed  whirlwinds  in  my  breast: 
Or  like  the  echo  of  a  passing  bell. 
Which  sounding  on  the  water,  seems  to  howl; 
So  rings  my  heart  a  fearful  heavy  knell, 
7\jid  keeps  all  night  in  consort  with  the  owl."^ 

These  are  not  the  customary  similes  of  the  Ehzabethan  son- 
net, and  we  seem  to  hear  in  them  anticipatory  strains  of  the 
lyric  of  melancholy,  of  Fletcher's 

"  A  midnight  bell,  a  parting  groan — 
These  are  the  sounds  we  feed  upon:" 

or  Milton's  far-oflf  curfew,  sounding 

"  Over  some  wide  watered  shore, 
Swinging  slow  with  sullen  roar." 

The  collections  of  Daniel  and  Drayton  well  repay  the 
reader.  Samuel  Daniel  (1562-1619)  was  educated  at 
Oxford,  had  travelled  in  Italy,  and  enjoyed  the  friendship 
of  the  great.  He  was  a  careful  writer ;  his  style  was  his  best 
quality,  for  though  many  of  his  sonnets  are  taken  from  the 
Italian  and  the  French  (he  certainly  deserves  the  harsh  title 
of  plagiarist),  they  avoid  that  awkwardness  of  expression 
which  often  accompanies  translation  in  a  fixed  poetic  form. 
His  lines  have  such  grace  and  smoothness  that  they  may  be 

1  Sonnet  iii  of  the  "Fifth  Decade"  in  Lee's  reprint. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  161 

regarded  as  something  more  than  an  echo  of  another's 
thought : 

"  Rendez  a  Tor  cette  couleur  qui  dore 
Ces  blonds  cheveux," 

writes  Du  Bellay  in  his  Olive  (sonnet  xci)  : 

"  Restore  thy  treasure  to  the  golden  ore. 
Yield  Cytherea's  son  those  arks  of  love !" 

is  Daniel's  version.  Coleridge,  commenting  on  his  style, 
points  out  that  in  his  phraseology  Daniel  is  distinctly  a  man 
of  our  own  day,  and  his  vocabulary  does  indeed  sound  modern 
when  contrasted  with  that  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  The 
father  was  a  musician  and  the  son  certainly  inherited  the 
musician's  ear,  for  his  phrases  have  a  dying  fall ;  their 
melody  is  tender,  soft,  and  grave,  but  the  deeper  notes  are 
never  struck,  and  the  stronger  feelings  are  untouched. 

"  Reign  in  my  thoughts,  fair  hand,  sweet  eye,  rare  voice," 

is  a  typical  line  in  its  even  modulation. 

As  we  have  stated,  the  sonnets  are  a  series  of  graceful 
translations,  and  we  must  not  expect  self-revelation  here. 
The  love  he  describes  is  a  Platonic  one: 

"  My  spotless  love  hovers,  with  purest  wings. 
About  the  temple  of  the  proudest  frame ; 
Where  blaze  those  lights,  fairest  of  earthly  things, 
Which  clear  our  clouded  world  with  brightest  flame." 

and  it  is  dedicated  to 

"  A  modest  maid,  decked  with  a  blush  of  honour. 
Whose  feet  do  tread  green  paths  of  youth  and  love; 
The  wonder  of  all  eyes  that  look  upon  her: 
Sacred  on  earth,  designed  a  saint  above." 

His  subjects  are  the  conventional  ones.  In  contradistinction 
to  the  immortality  which  he  can  confer  by  his  verses,  he  sings 


162  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  fading  of  beauty — it  is  "Mignonne,  allons  voir  si  la  rose" 
of  Ronsard. 


or 


"  Look  Delia,  how  we  'steem  the  half-blown  rose," 

"  Beauty,  sweet  love,  is  like  the  morning  dew ; 
Whose  short  refresh  upon  the  tender  green, 
Cheers  for  a  time,  but  till  the  sun  doth  show : 
And  straight  'tis  gone,  as  it  had  never  been." 

His  best  known  sonnet  sums  up  his  qualities,  for  it  is  gentle, 
musical,  and  above  all — reminiscent  of  Cariteo,  deUa  Casa, 
and  Desportes. 

■■  Care-charmer  Sleep !  son  of  the  sable  Night, 
Brother  to  death !     In  silent  darkness  born ! 
Relieve  my  anguish  and  restore  the  light. 
With  dark  forgetting  of  my  cares,  return."^ 

Michael  Drayton  (1563-1631)  is  frank  enough  in  an 
introductory  sonnet  prefixed  to  his  Idea  in  1599  to  warn  the 
reader  not  to  look  for  passion  in  his  verses ;  yet  we  must  not 
conclude  that  he  regarded  his  sonnets  as  a  poetic  pastime  of 
small  value,  for  he  constantly  reissued  them,  with  revisions, 
suppressions  and  additions,  until  the  original  fifty-one  had 
grown  to  a  hundred  by  the  last  edition,  1619.  Whether  or 
not  Anne  Goodere  is  to  be  considered  as  the  subject  of  these 
poems,  it  is  evident  that  he  is  a  frankly  imitative  writer, 
offering  us  the  thoughts  common  to  all  the  sonneteers. 
Realizing  the  conventionality  of  his  themes  and  remembering 
his  own  frank  statement,  we  can  not  but  smile  when  he  bids  us 

"  read  at  last  the  story  of  my  woe, 
The  dreary  abstracts  of  my  endless  cares, 
With  my  life's  sorrow  interlined  so. 
Smoked  with  my  sighs,  and  blotted  with  my  tears. 
The  sad  memorials  of  my  miseries." 

1  Nos.  xii,  vi,  xxxiv,  xlv,  xllx  in  Lee's  reprint  of  Delia. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  IBS 

Yet  Drayton  writes  with  such  vivacity  that  even  when  he 
is  artificial,  indulging  in  conceits,  he  interests  us.  His  note 
is  not  so  grave  or  tender  as  Daniel's;  he  has  an  easier, 
simpler,  and  at  times,  an  almost  conversational  style. 

"  How  many  paltry,  foolish  painted  things. 
That  now  in  coaches  trouble  every  street. 
Shall  be  forgotten  (whom  no  poet  sings) 
Ere  they  be  well  wrapped  in  their  winding  sheet !" 

Without  the  long,  slow  movement  of  Daniel,  his  verse  is 
musical : 

"  Dear,  why  should  you  command  me  to  my  rest. 
When  now  the  world  doth  summon  all  to  sleep  ? 
Methinks,  this  time  becometh  lovers  best. 
Night  was  ordained  together  friends  to  keep.'' 

Here  we  have  the  familiar  sonnet  on  night,  yet  with  a  new 
motive.  He  strikes  the  old  Platonic  note  in  one  of  his  best 
sonnets : 

"  Clear  Ankor,  on  whose  silver-sanded  shore 
My  soul  shrined  Saint,  my  fair  Idea  lives; 
O  blessed  brook !  whose  milk-white  swans  adore 
Thy  crystal  stream,  refined  by  her  eyes," 

but  no  counterpart  has  been  found  for  the  one  on  which  his 
fame  will  rest. 

In  the  1599  edition  of  his  sonnets  there  is  one  To  Humour 
which  begins: 

"  You  cannot  love,  my  pretty  Heart!  and  why? 
There  was  a  time  you  told  me  that  you  would." 

Here  we  have  a  brisk  dialogue;  the  lines  move  trippingly  as 
the  poet  smiles  at  the  contradictions  of  woman,  knowing 

"  Your  love  and  hate  is  this,  I  now  do  prove  you. 
You  love  in  hate,  by  hate  to  make  me  love  you."'^ 

1  Nos.  liv,  vi,  xxxvii,  liil,  xix  in  Lee's  reprint  of  the  Idea. 


16^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

It  is  not  always  that  a  poet's  last  word  is  his  best,  but  in  the 
final  edition  of  the  Idea,  1619,  there  appeared  for  the  first 
time  a  sonnet  in  this  same  genre,  "Since  there's  no  help, 
come,  let  us  kiss  and  part."  Though  we  may  well  hesitate 
to  call  it,  as  did  Rossetti,  the  finest  sonnet  in  the  language, 
it  is  certainly  a  masterpiece.  Fortunately  it  is  so  well  known 
that  it  needs  little  comment,  though  we  may  point  out  that 
the  personification  is  perfectly  employed,  one  of  the  rare 
instances  in  Elizabethan  sonnet  Hterature: 

"  Now,  at  the  last  gasp  of  Love's  latest  breath, 
When  his  pulse  failing.  Passion  speechless  lies ; 
When  Faith  is  kneeling  by  his  bed  of  death. 
And  Innocence  is  closing  up  his  eyes:" 

and  that  the  concluding  couplet  is  an  epitome  of  the  whole 
tragi-comedy  of  love: 

"  Now,  if  thou  wouldst,  when  all  have  given  him  over. 
From  death  to  life,  thou  might'st  him  yet  recover.'' 

The  twenty  sonnets  by  Richard  Bamfield,  published  with 
his  Cynthia  in  1595,  are  interesting  only  in  the  fact  that 
contrary  to  the  established  custom  they  picture  not  a  maiden 
but  a  youth,  Ganymede.^  This  same  year  appeared  a  most 
important  collection,  Spenser's  Amoretti.  These  sonnets 
are  considered  by  critics  as  second  only  to  Shakespeare's. 
This  undoubtedly  is  a  just  estimate,  for  they  maintain 
throughout  a  higher  poetic  level  than  the  sequences  we  have 
considered,  though  there  are  many  times  when  Sidney  writes 
with  more  energy  and  poignancy ;  no  lines  in  the  Amoretti 
have  the  imaginative  force  of  his  apostrophe  to  the  moon. 
It  is  a  sufficient  criticism  of  the  aesthetic  worth  of  these 
poems  to  say  that  we  clearly  recognize  in  them  the  writer 
of   the   Faerie   Queene   and    though  in   one    of   his    sonnets 

1  Cynthia  is  reprinted  in  A.  H.  BuUen's  Longer  Elizabethan  Poems, 
re-issue  of  Arber's  English  Garner. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  165 

Spenser  declares  that  he  is  worn  out  with  his  arduous  work 
on  the  epic  of  Faeryland,  his  style  shows  little  trace  of 
exhaustion/  As  he  had  invented  his  own  metre  for  his 
greatest  work,  so  here  he  devises  a  new  sonnet  form,  linking 
the  three  quatrains  together  by  rhyming  the  last  line  of  one ; 
to  the  first  line  of  the  next.  The  verses  have  a  slow,  tender 
cadence;  the  music  is  delicate  and  gentle;  there  are  few 
discords,  rarely  a  harsh  tone. 

"  Fresh  Spring,  the  herald  of  love's  mighty  king, 
In  whose  coat-armour  richly  are  displayed 
All  sorts  of  flowers,  the  which  on  earth  do  spring, 
In  goodly  colours  gloriously  arrayed; 
Go  to  my  love,  where  she  is  careless  laid. 
Yet  in  her  winter's  bower  not  well  awake ; 
Tell  her  the  joyous  time  will  not  be  stayed. 
Unless  she  do  him  by  the  forelock  take ; 
Bid  her  therefore  herself  soon  ready  make, 
To  wait  on  Love  amongst  his  lovely  crew; 
Where  every  one,  that  misseth  then  her  make. 
Shall  be  by  him  amerced  with  penance  due. 

Make  haste,  therefore,  sweet  love,  while  it  is  prime ; 
For  none  can  call  again  the  passed  time."^ 

No  Elizabethan  sequence  gives  the  English  reader  so  good 
an  idea  of  the  music  of  the  Petrarchians  as  does  the  Amor- 
etti,  even  though  Spenser  abandons  their  rhyme  scheme. 

Turning  to  the  content  of  the  poems,  we  observe  that 
Spenser,  like  Prometheus  so  dear  to  the  sonneteers,  has 
"filched  his  fire"  on  many  occasions.  Ronsard  and  Desportes 
furnished  him  with  numerous  passages  and  there  are  many 
traces  of  the  Petrarchists  in  his  account  of  the  truces  and 
ambushes,  the  sieges  and  assaults  of  his  heart ;  or  in  such 
conceits  as  "My  love  is  like  to  ice  and  I  to  fire."     His  mis- 

1  No.  Ixxx.    Cf.  xxxiil,  Lee's  reprint,  op.  cit. 

2  No.  Ixx. 


166  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

tress,  now  a  "sweet"  or  "cruel"  warrior,  now  his  "saint," 
resembles  the  heroines  of  whom  we  have  read.     She  is 

"  The  glorious  image  of  the  Maker's  beauty. 
My  sovereign  saint,  the  idol  of  my  thought, 

******* 

And  of  the  brood  of  angels  heavenly  born ; 
And  with  the  crew  of  blessed  saints  upbrought. 
Each  of  which  did  her  with  their  gifts  adorn."^ 

With  every  allowance,  however,  for  the  spirit  of  imitation 
which  affected  Spenser  as  it  did  in  various  degrees  every 
sonneteer  of  the  period,  this  collection  was  written  for  a 
creature  of  flesh  and  blood — the  Elizabeth  who  became  his 
wife  and  for  whom  he  composed  the  Epithalamion,  first 
printed  with  these  sonnets.^  If  Spenser  frequently  uses  the 
popular  imagery  of  the  day,  he  is  none  the  less  sincere. 
The  idealism  that  pervades  these  sonnets,  the  Platonic  con- 
ceptions of  love  and  beauty,  were  no  empty  phrases  for  the 
greatest  Platonist  in  our  poetry,  and  his  worship  of  beauty 
and  his  belief  that  it  is  but  a  manifestation  of  a  rarer  beauty 
of  soul  re-echoes  the  splendid  enthusiasm  of  his  hymns : 

"  Men  call  you  fair,  and  you  do  credit  it, 
For  that  yourself  ye  daily  such  do  see: 
But  the  true  fair,  that  is  the  gentle  wit, 
And  virtuous  mind,  is  much  more  praised  of  me: 

****** 

That  is  true  beauty;  that  doth  argue  you 
To  be  divine,  and  born  of  heavenly  seed; — 
Derived  from  that  fair  Spirit  from  whom  all  true 
And  perfect  beauty  did  at  first  proceed."' 

1  No.  Ixi ;  of.  xl-xiv,  xxx,  Ivii,  xlix. 

2  1  cannot  accept  P.  W.  Long's  contention  that  the  Amoretti  were 
composed  in  honor  of  Lady  Elizabeth  Carey.  See  M.  L.  Review,  vol.  Ill, 
p.  257;  cf.  vol.  V,  p.  273. 

3  No.  Ixxix ;  for  other  sonnets  expressing  the  Platonic  conception  of 
love,  see  Ixxii,  Ixxxvii. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  167 

Love  with  him  is  a  pure  religion  and  changing  Milton's  hne : 

"  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 
To  scorn  delights,  and  live  laborious  days." 

There  is  no  darker  side  to  the  picture,  as  in  Shakespeare's 
sonnets;  no  storm,  not  even  a  cloud  disturbs  the  lovehness 
of  the  spring  day,  for  we  are  in  a  fragrant  meadow  where 

"  The  merry  cuckoo,  messenger  of  spring, 
His  trumpet  shrill  hath  thrice  already  sounded. 
That  warns  all  lovers  wait  upon  their  king. 
Who  now  is  coming  forth  with  garland  crowned. 


'1 


Though  every  sonneteer  professes  the  conviction  that  his 
verses  must  live  forever  in  the  minds  of  men,  when  Spenser 
in  his  splendid  sonnet  "One  day  I  wrote  her  name  upon  the 
strand"  exclaims: 

"  let  baser  thing  devise 

To  die  in  dust,  but  you  shall  live  by  fame: 

My  verse  your  virtues  rare  shall  eternize. 

And  in  the  heavens  write  your  glorious  name. 

Where,  when  as  death  shall  all  the  world  subdue. 
Our  love  shall  live,  and  later  life  renew,"^ 

we  feel  the  ring  of  sincerity,  for  he  believes  that  such  a  love 
as  his  must  be  eternal. 

The  sonnet  collections  that  followed  the  Amoretti  are  un- 
important. In  1596  appeared  Griffin's  Fidessa,  Linche's 
Diella,  and  Smith's  Chloris?  The  writers  have  nothing  to 
tell  us ;  they  plagiarize  and  imitate,  and  by  this  time  the 
most  energetic  reader  has  become  wearied  of  sonnets  de- 
scribing the  theft  of  Prometheus,  the   storm-tossed   sailor, 

1  No.  xix. 

2  No.  Ixxv. 

3  Reprinted  by  Lee,  O'p.  cit.,  vol.  II. 


168  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  siege  of  a  heart,  the  bird  caught  in  the  fowler's  snare; 
he  hstens  unmoved  to  "sighs  of  most  heart-breaking  might" 
and  to  the  portrayal  of  a  lover's  torments ;  and  he  has 
I  become  impatient  of  the  endless  invocations  to  sleep,  to 
Inight,  and  to  death.  Of  the  large  number  of  sonnets  which 
we  have  described,  very  few  satisfy  us,  for  we  read  them  not 
to  understand  the  literary  fashions  of  the  age,  but  to  feel 
the  thrill,  the  inspiration  that  inspired  song  awakens  in  us. 
The  Elizabethan  lyric,  unequalled  in  certain  of  its  aspects, 
jis  not  pre-eminent  here,  for  the  age  that  expressed  itself  so 
frankly  and  fearlessly  in  the  drama,  seemed  to  lose  its  per- 
sonality in  the  narrow  form  of  the  sonnet.  The  hand  of 
Petrarch  weighed  too  heavily  on  the  sonneteer's  shoulder 
and  he  wrote 

"  As  if  his  whole  vocation 
Were  endless  imitation." 

Aside  from  the  influence  of  Petrarch,  it  may  not  be  altogether 
fanciful  to  ascribe  in  some  measure  to  the  character  of 
Elizabeth  herself  that  excessive,  surfeiting  flattery  of  woman- 
kind which  is  the  most  persistent  note  in  the  sonnets.  The 
queen  lived  on  adulation  and  her  whole  life  was  one  courtship. 
Suitor  followed  suitor — Thomas  Earl  of  Seymour,  Eric  of 
j  Sweden,  the  Earl  of  Arundel,  Sir  William  Pickering  (whose 
I  friends,  we  are  told,  wagered  four  to  one  that  he  would 
marry  the  queen),  Philip  of  Spain,  Don  Carlos,  the  Due 
d'Anjou,  the  Due  d'Alen9on,  the  Earl  of  Leicester — the  list 
is  by  no  means  exhausted,  and  something  of  the  court  the 
world  paid  to  the  queen  the  sonneteers  paid  their  real  or 
imaginary  mistresses.^  Be  this  as  it  may,  if  the  reader  will 
open  William  Sharp's  Sonnets  of  this  Century  and  select  at 
haphazard  not  from  the  greatest  names,  but  from  the  lesser 
poets,  he  will  see  that  in  the  variety  of  its  emotions  and  in  its 

1  See    Martin    A.    S.    Hume's    The    Courtships   of    Queen    Elizabeth, 
London,  1896. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  169 

technique  the  modern  sonnet  bears  comparison  with  the  best 
sonnets  of  the  Elizabethan  age. 

But  we  have  reckoned  without  Shakespeare,  to  whom, 
supreme  in  everything  he  touched,  it  was  reserved  to  bring 
to  its  perfection  the  Elizabethan  sonnet,  and  vindicate  its 
place  in  our  lyric  verse.  In  1609  was  issued  Shakespeare's 
sonnets,  never  before  imprinted.  The  book  met  with  no  such 
reception  as  the  published  plays,  of  which  the  most  popular, 
such  as  Hamlet  and  Richard  the  Third,  went  through  several 
impressions  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime.  The  second  edition  of 
the  sonnets  did  not  appear  until  1640,  the  third  until  1709 — 
three  editions  in  a  century.  Daniel's  sonnets  were  reprinted 
three  times  in  two  years ;  Drayton  himself  brought  out  four 
editions  of  his  sonnets  and  they  were  also  reprinted  eight 
times  with  his  other  works  during  his  lifetime.  One  would  sup- 
pose that  Hamlet  and  Othello  would  have  saved  the  sonnets 
from  obscurity,  but  as  late  as  1793  Steevens  wrote  in  his  edi- 
tion of  Shakespeare:  "We  have  not  reprinted  the  sonnets  of 
Shakespeare  because  the  strongest  act  of  Parliament  that 
could  be  framed  would  fail  to  compel  readers  into  their  ser- 
vice  Had  Shakespeare  produced  no  other  works  than 

these,  his  name  would  have  reached  us  with  as  little  celebrity 
as  time  has  conferred  on  that  of  Thomas  Watson,  an  older 
and  much  more  elegant  sonneteer."^  He  elsewhere  informs  us 
that  the  sonnets  are  composed  in  the  "highest  strain  of  affec- 
tation, pedantry,  circumlocution  and  nonsense,"  they  are 
"purblind  and  obscure  stuff" — and  this  from  an  admirer  of 
the  bard!  As  late  as  1815  Wordsworth  wrote  that  Steevens 
ventured  his  condemnation  of  the  sonnets  simply  "because 
the  people  of  England  were  ignorant  of  the  treasures  con- 
tained in  them."^  This  seems  incredible.  During  the  last 
decade  the  sonnets  have  offered  a  chief  point  of  discussion 
in  Shakespearean  study. 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  vii. 

2  Essay,  supplementary  to  the  Preface  of  Lyrical  Ballads. 


110  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Into  the  much-debated  questions  of  their  date  of  compo- 
sition, the  identity  of  W.  H.  to  whom  they  are  dedicated, 
or  of  the  rival  poet  or  the  dark  lady,  we  have  not  space  to 
enter.  It  seems  reasonable  to  assume  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  sonnets  were  composed  when  the  other  sequences  were 
appearing,  that  is,  before  1598,  the  year  in  which  Francis 
Meres  mentioned  Shakespeare's  "sugared  sonnets  among  his 
private  friends."  Whatever  their  date,  we  must  judge  this 
sonnet  collection  in  the  light  of  the  ones  we  have  already 
discussed. 

[  We  have  seen  that  the  sonnet  sequences  consist  largely  of 
imitations  and  translations ;  that  the  poets  followed  each 
other,  contented  to  sing  the  same  theme  with  but  slight 
variation.  In  the  case  of  Shakespeare  we  can  not  point  to 
such  open  borrowings  from  the  Italian  or  the  French  as  we 
find  in  Lodge,  or  Daniel,  or  Spenser,  yet  it  has  been  main- 
tained that  he  conformed  to  the  fashion  of  the  times  and 
though  many  sonnets  have  such  intensity  of  expression  that 
they  apparently  show  us  the  writer,  they  are  no  more  a  self- 
revelation  than  is  Browning's  Dramatis  Persona.  Beyond 
dispute  there  is  a  purely  conventional  element  in  the  sonnets. 
We  have  sonnets  on  sleep,  on  night,  on  absence  from  the 
loved  one,  on  beauty  and  its  power,  on  lust ;  we  have  the 
customary  promise  of  immortality  in  the  poet's  verses ;  we 
descend  to  the  most  insipid  and  uninspired  conceits — the 
dullest  Petrarchian  has  never  written  poorer  ones — in  the 
debates  between  the  heart  and  the  eyes.^  Though  the  son- 
nets end  with  two  translations  of  a  Greek  epigram,  their 
debt  to  the  classics  is  a  remarkably  small  one ;  we  have  no 
gods  and  goddesses  and  we  escape  the  inevitable  Prome- 
theus. When  all  is  said  and  done,  when  we  have  made  every 
allowance  for  the  poetic  tendencies  of  the  day  which  must 
have  impressed   Shakespeare   who   lived   so   intensely   in  his 

1  Sonnets,  Nos.  xxiv,  xlvl,  xlvii.  Debates  between  the  eye  and  the 
heart  go  back  to  the  troubadours. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  171 

age,  these  poems  have  a  tone  that  absolutely  differentiates 
them  from  the  other  collections.  It  is  not  alone  their  style 
or  their  thought,  it  is  a  certain  personal  touch.  We  can  not 
but  believe  that  the  unscholarly  reader  who  thinks  he  dis- 
cerns in  the  sonnets  something  of  the  writer  is  nearer  the 
truth  than  the  critic  who  regards  them  as  purely  objective 
works  of  art. 

Coming  to  the  sonnets  after  a  long  reading  of  Italian  and 
French  sequences,  we  notice  that  Shakespeare  employs  new 
themes.  From  the  time  of  Dante,  sonneteers  addressed  their 
friends  in  praise,  in  counsel,  in  reproof,  but  there  is  nothing 
imitative  in  Shakespeare's  first  seventeen  sonnets.  Written 
to  a  young  man,  they  all  have  the  same  theme :  he  must 
marry  that  his  beauty  may  live  on  in  a  child.  With  an 
artist's  instinct,  Shakespeare  praises  his  patron's  beauty 
until  we  see  before  us  some  young  nobleman,  painted  by 
Van  Dyck  with  such  delicacy  that  we  take  the  portrait  to 
be  that  of  a  girl.  No  other  sequences  offer  parallels  for  the 
episode  of  the  rival  poet  or  for  that  series  depicting  the 
darker  side  of  life,  the  theft  of  the  poet's  mistress  by  his 
friend.  Such  unconventional  poems  are  not  mere  imitative 
exercises  in  the  sonnet  form.  It  is  harder  to  believe  that  the 
sonnets  against  the  "black  lady"  are  vituperative,  inserted 
as  a  foil  to  the  "sugared"  writing,  than  that  they  shadow 
some  actual  experience.  If  we  discover  in  other  collections 
sonnets  that  express,  as  do  Shakespeare's,  doubt  and  dis- 
couragement or  gratitude  for  friendship  and  help,  we  must 
remember  that  a  writer  may  speak  sincerely  in  conventional 
phrase.  In  the  tragic  climax  of  her  life,  when  Eloisa  took 
the  veil,  she  turned  to  bid  Abelard  farewell.  Her  last  word 
was  not  a  simple,  heart-moving  phrase  in  her  mother  tongue ; 
it  was  a  quotation  from  Lucan's  Pharsalia!  In  Shakes- 
peare's own  day,  Tichbome,  facing  death  at  the  block  for 
his  conspiracy  against  Elizabeth,  laments  his  end  in  a  string 
of  conceits : 


112  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  My  prime  of  youth  is  but  a  frost  of  cares; 
My  feast  of  joy  is  but  a  dish  of  pain; 
My  crop  of  corn  is  but  a  field  of  tares; 

And  all  my  good  is  but  vain  hope  of  gain; 
The  day  is  fled,  and  yet  I  saw  no  sun, 
And  now  I  live,  and  now  my  life  is  done."'^ 

In  the  sonnets  of  Ronsard  there  is  much  that  is  purely  imita- 
tive of  the  Italians,  yet  his  latest  and  best  biographer  finds 
in  these  very  poems  unmistakable  accents  of  personal  emo- 
tion and  believes  that  many  of  them  have  their  roots  deep  in 
the  poet's  hfe.  We  must  not  rule  Shakespeare's  sonnets  out 
of  court  because  we  can  match  phrases  in  them  with  similar 
ones  in  other  writers.  As  Faguet  has  expressed  it :  "Un 
humaniste  pleure  sincerement  un  etre  cher  avec  une  remi- 
niscence classique,  comme  un  devot  le  pleure  profondement 
avec  une  citation  des  livres  saints."" 

Though  we  admit  that  Shakespeare's  sonnets  do  not  un- 
lock his  heart,  they  disclose  certain  aspects  of  his  mind, 
certain  traits  of  character.  We  know  that  he  was  deeply 
devoted  to  a  youth  whose  patronage  and  friendship  rescued 
him  from  dejection;  we  learn  that  for  a  time  he  considered 
himself  surpassed  and  supplanted  in  this  patron's  favor  by  a 
better  writer :  we  hear  him  mourning  his  loss  of  caste,  for 
while  Sidney  is  proud  of  his  birth  and  accomplishments, 
Shakespeare,  the  actor,  feels  that  his  name  has  received  a 
brand  and  that  he  had  made  himself  a  motley  to  the  view. 
He  believes  that  the  inheritor  of  heaven's  graces  is  the  man 
"unmoved,  cold,  and  to  temptation  slow,"  and  yet  (the 
tragedy  of  the  sonnets)  he  can  not  follow  his  own  doctrine. 
]\Iost  significant  of  all  is  the  fact  that  the  supreme  artist 

1  Hannah,  p.  114.  These  verses  were  set  to  music  by  Mundy,  Este, 
and  Allison. 

2  Paul  Laumonier,  Ronsard  PoHe  Li/rique,  Paris,  1909,  pp.  467-477. 
This  is  a  most  important  passage  for  the  interpretation  of  Ronsard's 
sonnets,  and  I  believe  it  sheds  light  on  Shakespeare's  worlf. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  173 

in  English  verse  felt  the  same  bitter  discouragement  that 
overtakes  the  poorest  craftsman.  We  think  of  a  great 
genius  as  a  man  self-reliant  and  confident,  conscious  of  his 
power  and  cheered  by  his  work;  yet  there  were  times  when 
Shakespeare  felt  that  the  world  was  bent  to  cross  his  deeds; 
he  had  no  hope,  no  friends;  he  descended  to  such  depths  of 
discouragement  that  he  felt  shamed  by  his  writings  and 
actually  longed  for  "this  man's  art,  and  that  man's  scope." 
It  will  be  objected  that  these  are  but  moods  which  give  us  no 
clue  to  the  poet's  philosophy  of  life;  that  we  know  more  of 
Shelley  from  a  single  sonnet,  Ozymandias,  or  of  Wordsworth 
from  "The  world  is  too  much  with  us."  It  is  true  that  these 
glimpses  are  tantalizingly  brief,  but  where  else  in  all  Shakes- 
peare's works  do  we  see  him  more  clearly? 

There  is  danger  of  missing  the  artistic  import  of  the  son- 
nets in  discussions  of  their  autobiographic  value,  as  if  we 
should  spend  our  time  endeavoring  to  identify  the  portraits 
in  a  group  by  Franz  Hals  instead  of  admiring  the  artist's 
technique.  Looking  at  the  workmanship  of  these  poems  we 
are  at  once  struck  by  that  gift  of  language  and  that  phrasal 
power  which  is  as  marvellous  as  the  delineation  of  character 
in  the  plays,  if  we  may  compare  small  things  with  great.  In 
a  deprecatory  mood,  Shakespeare  declared  that 

"  every  word  doth  almost  tell  my  name. 
Showing  their  birth  and  where  they  did  proceed."^ 

This  is  true,  for  if  the  sonnets  had  been  published  anony- 
mously, their  language  alone  would  have  proved  Shakes- 
peare's authorship.  His  phrases  are  not  curiously  wrought 
out,  as  are  the  similes  of  the  metaphysical  poets,  but  the 
"thought  seems  of  itself  to  find  perfect  utterance.  Many  a 
sonneteer  has  written  "When  you  are  old,"  or  "When  your 
beauty  fades,"  but  Shakespeare  writes 

1  No.  Ixxvi. 


17^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  When  forty  winters  shall  besiege  thy  brow. 
And  dig  deep  trenches  in  thy  beauty's  field." 

It  was  a  common  regret  that  winter  destroys  the  joy  of 
summer,  but  the  commonplace  is  transformed  in  Shakes- 
peare's 

"  O,  how  shall  summer's  honey  breath  hold  out 
Against  the  wreckful  siege  of  battering  days." 

Many  a  Petrarchist  had  declared  that  glory  passes,  but  the 
thought  becomes  new  in 

"  The  painful  warrior,  famoused  for  fight. 
After  a  thousand  victories  once  foiled, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honour  razed  quite. 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toiled."' 

His  creative  power  seems  inexhaustible.  He  writes  a  sonnet 
urging  his  friend  to  marry  and  then  repeats  the  same  thought 
with  variations  for  sixteen  sonnets,  and  we  feel  that  he  could 
have  continued  indefinitely.  Even  when  a  sonnet  as  a  whole 
reveals  some  imperfection,  some  weak  line,  it  is  usually  re- 
deemed by  a  splendid  phrase ;  and  if  we  take  individual 
verses,  we  find  here  many  of  the  treasures  of  the  language, 
as  when  he  speaks  of  the  sun  as 

"  Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy," 
or 

"  Rough  winds  do  shake  the  darling  buds  of  May," 
or 

"  Ah,  yet  doth  beauty,  like  a  dial-hand. 
Steal  from  his  figure,  and  no  pace  perceived;" 
or 

"  How  with  this  rage  shall  beauty  hold  a  plea 
Whose  action  is  no  stronger  than  a  flower.''"^ 

1  Nos.  11,  Ixv,  XXV. 

2  Nos.  xxxlil,  xviii,  civ,  Ixv. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  175 

The  range  of  the  sonnets  is  equally  wonderful.  Keats 
was  nourished  on  them,  as  not  only  his  letters  but  his  own 
sonnets  show.  There  are  many  of  Shakespeare's  lines  which 
anticipate  the  sweetness,  the  sensuousness  that  we  associate 
with  the  work  of  the  poet  of  Endymion  •} 

"  Our  love  was  new,  and  then  but  in  the  Spring, 
When  I  was  wont  to  greet  it  with  my  lays ; 
As  Philomel  in  Summer's  front  doth  sing. 
And  stops  her  pipe  in  growth  of  riper  days. 
Not  that  the  Summer  is  less  pleasant  now 
Than  when  her  mournful  hymns  did  hush  the  night. 
But  that  wild  music  burthens  every  bough. 
And  sweets  grown  common  lose  their  dear  delight." 

From  this  passage  we  turn  to  the  sonnet 

"  When  I  have  seen  by  Time's  fell  hand  defaced 
The  rich-proud  cost  of  outworn  buried  age;" 

or  to 

"  Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds 
Admit  impediments," 

and  we  have  a  largeness  of  style,  a  firmness  of  expression 
that  show  us  how  broad  an  effect  may  be  gained  by  fourteen 
lines.^  The  more  we  examine  the  sonnets,  the  more  we  are 
astonished  at  their  variety,  a  quaHty  not  to  be  found  in  the 
other  sequences  of  the  day.  We  have  the  feeble  quibbles  on 
"Will"  and  "will,"  and  the  perfection  of  a  simile  in 

"  Like  as  the  waves  make  towards  the  pebbled  shore. 
So  do  our  minutes  hasten  to  their  end.'' 

1  See  his  letter  to  Reynolds,  November  22,  1817.  Finch  wrote  Gis- 
borne,  "the  poetical  volume,  which  was  the  inseparable  companion  of 
Keats,  and  which  he  took  for  his  most  darling  model  in  composition,  was 
the  Minor  Poems  of  Shakespeare.'' 

2  Nos.  cii,  Ixiv,  cxvi. 


lie  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

When  we  read 

"  Mine  eye  and  heart  are  at  a  mortal  war, 
How  to  divide  the  conquest  of  thy  sight; 
Mine  eye  my  heart  thy  picture's  sight  would  bar, 
My  heart  mine  eye  the  freedom  of  that  right." 

we  seem  by  the  awkward,  ambiguous,  unmusical  expression, 
as  well  as  by  the  triviality  of  the  conceit  to  be  reading  some 
poetaster  of  the  Cinquecento.    We  turn  to 

"  That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  those  boughs  which  shake  against  the  cold. 
Bare  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang," 

and  we  have  the  mood,  the  subdued  coloring  that  appeals  so 
strongly  to  us  to-day,  the  grays  and  the  blacks,  the  quiet 
tones  of  a  modern  etching ;  few  sonnets  have  more  completely 
expressed  this  phase  of  our  modem  thought.^  Antique  and 
modern;  sublime  and  absurd;  idealistic  and  sensual  (Hallam 
wished  that  certain  of  the  sonnets  had  never  seen  the  light)  ; 
confident  and  weary  of  the  world ;  from  the  very  lack  of 
uniformity  in  their  contrasted  moods,  in  their  emotional 
inconsistency,  these  poems  have  the  infinite  variety  of  human 
character.     In  one  of  his  finest  moments  Shakespeare  wrote 

"  The  earth  can  have  but  earth,  which  is  his  due; 
My  spirit  is  thine,  the  better  part  of  me:" 

and  it  is  that  spirit,  as  well  as  the  hand  of  the  artist,  that 
we  feel  in  these  writings.  Wordsworth  undoubtedly  over- 
stated the  case  when  he  asserted 

"  With  this  same  key  Shakespeare  unlocked  his  heart  " 

but  he  was  strictly  within  the  truth  when  he  declared  that 
"in  no  part  of  the  writings  of  this  poet  is  found,  in  equal 
compass,  a  greater  number  of  exquisite  feelings  felicitously 
expressed." 

1  Nos.  Ix,  xlvi,  Ixxiii. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  177 

III 

We  shall  now  retrace  our  steps  and  consider  the  miscella- 
neous lyrics  of  the  sonneteers.  Sidney  has  left  a  large  num- 
ber of  lyrics,  but  unfortunately  many  of  them  are  so  plainly 
uninspired,  so  thoroughly  artificial,  that  they  detract  from 
his  reputation  as  a  poet.  This  is  the  result  of  his  Quixotic 
attempt  to  regenerate  English  poetry  by  inducing  his  con- 
temporaries to  abandon  completely  English  metres  for 
classical  verse  forms,  a  plan  as  impossible  as  the  one  he 
advocated  for  the  English  stage — the  rigid  observance  of  the 
three  unities.  Desperate  diseases  need  desperate  remedies, 
and  when  we  consider  the  condition  of  English  poetry  as 
shown  by  such  writers  as  Googe  and  Turberville  we  can  par- 
tially understand  Sidney's  attitude.  For  a  time  at  least 
this  classic  imitation  attracted  even  Spenser.  Gabriel  Har- 
vey of  Cambridge,  conceited,  pedantic,  without  a  touch  of 
poetic  ability,  was  the  most  enthusiastic  member  of  this 
group;  he  desired  it  to  be  stated  on  his  tombstone  that  he 
had  composed  hexameters  in  English!  To  write  in  classical 
metres  has  been  an  interesting  pastime  with  our  poets  from 
Milton  to  Tennyson,  but  this  was  a  serious  undertaking,  an 
attempt  to  change  the  whole  genius  of  our  verse.  In  1579 
Spenser  writes  to  Harvey:  "[Master  Sidney  and  Master 
Dyer]  have  proclaimed  in  their  Areopagus  a  general  sur- 
ceasing and  silence  of  bald  rhymers Instead  whereof 

they  have  by  authority  of  their  whole  senate  prescribed 
certain  laws  and  rules  of  quantities  of  English  syllables  for 

English  verse  ....  and  drawn  me  to  their  faction I 

am,  of  late,  more  in  love  with  my  English  versifying  than 
with  rhyming."  He  enclosed  in  this  letter  an  example  of 
iambic  trimeter,  of  which  the  following  is  a  fair  specimen : 

"  If  in  bed,  tell  her  that  my  eyes  can  take  no  rest; 
If  at  hoaxA,  tell  her  that  my  mouth  can  eat  no  meat; 
If  at  her  virginals,  tell  her  I  can  hear  no  mirth. 


178  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Asked  why?  say:  waking  love  suffereth  no  sleep; 
Say  that  raging  love  doth  appal  the  weak  stomach; 
Say  that  lamenting  love  marreth  the  musical."^ 

These  impossible  lines  (it  is  hard  to  believe  that  Spenser 
wrote  them  in  all  seriousness)  Harvey  gravely  criticises, 
finding  fault  with  the  length  of  certain  syllables,  for  Sidney 
had  helped  to  frame  some  "rules  and  precepts  of  English 
verse."  Spenser  soon  saw  the  futility  of  all  this  and  the 
next  year  he  is  calling  the  English  hexameter  "a  lame  gosling 
that  draweth  one  leg  after  her" ;  but  Sidney  was  quite  com- 
mitted to  this  reform  and  carried  it  further  than  any  of  his 
friends.  In  the  Arcadia  he  has  given  us  a  number  of  experi- 
ments in  classical  measures — and  all  are  poor.  The  hexa- 
meter alone  has  met  with  some  degree  of  success,  partly 
because  its  rhythm  is  so  strongly  accentuated,  partly  because 
it  bears  a  certain  resemblance  to  our  blank  verse,  yet  neither 
Longfellow's  Evangeline  nor  Clough's  Bothie  of  Tober-Na- 
Vuolich  has  succeeded  in  popularizing  it.  In  all  these  metri- 
cal experiments  of  Sidney's  we  do  not  find  one  good  poem, 
anything,  for  example,  to  compare  with  Campion's 

"  Rose-cheeked  Laura,  come; 
Sing  thou  smoothly  with  thy  beauty's 
Silent  music,  either  other 
Sweetly  gracing," 

though  even  this  is  not  a  masterpiece.     Sidney's  best  known 
and  simplest  song, 

"  My  true  love  hath  my  heart,  and  I  have  his," 

is  worth  all  his  "reformed  verse." 

Published  with  Astrophel  and  Stella  are  a  number  of  songs, 
of  which  two  seem  to  throw  light  on  the  situation  depicted 
in  certain  of  the  sonnets,  for  they  show  Lady  Rich  as  much 

1  R.  Morris,  The  Complete  Works  of  Edmund  Spenser,  London,  1886, 
pp.  706-707. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  179 

in  love  as  Sidney,  but  restrained  by  a  fear  of  the  ruin  that 
would  overwhelm  them  both  did  she  yield/  His  best  two 
lyrics  appeared  in  the  1598  edition  of  his  works.  The  first 
is  written  to  "the  tune  of  Non  credo  gia  che  piu  infehce 
amante,"  for  which  he  also  composed  another  unmusical 
song,  filled  with  trivial  conceits.  Here  he  employs  his  irreg- 
ular metre  with  skill,  though  the  effect  is  a  Uttle  too  much 
that  of  three  superimposed  stanzas,  rather  than  of  an 
organic  whole : 

"  The  Nightingale — as  soon  as  April  bringeth 
Unto  her  rested  sense,  a  perfect  waking; 
While  late  bare  earth,  proud  of  new  clothing,  springeth — 
Sings  out  her  woes,  a  thorn  her  song  book  making. 
And  mournfully  bewailing. 
Her  throat  in  tunes  expresseth 
What  grief  her  breast  oppresseth 
For  Tereus'  force,  on  her  chaste  will  prevailing. 
O  Philomela  fair !     O  take  some  gladness 
That  here  is  juster  cause  of  plaintful  sadness. 
Thine  earth  now  springs,  mine  fadeth; 
Thy  thorn  without,  my  thorn  my  heart  invadeth." 

The  second  opens  with  a  strain  of  pessimism  that  reminds  us 
of  Raleigh's  Lie,  though  not  so  vigorous : 

"  Ring  out  your  bells !  let  mourning  shows  be  spread. 
For  love  is  dead. 

All  love  is  dead,  infected 
With  the  plague  of  deep  disdain; 
Worth  as  nought  worth  rejected. 
And  fair,  fair  scorn  doth  gain. 

From  so  ungrateful  fancy. 

From  such  a  female  frenzy. 

From  them  that  use  men  thus. 

Good  Lord  deliver  us!" 


1  Lee,  op.  cit.,  vol.  I,  pp.  70,  79. 


180  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

It  is  a  misfortune  that  the  other  stanzas  in  the  poem  are 
marred  by  such  trivial  conceits  as : 

"  For  Love  is  dead. 

Sir  Wrong  his  tomb  ordaineth, 
My  mistress'  marble  heart; 
Which  epitaph  containeth 
'Her  eyes  were  once  his  dart.'  "^ 

The  sonnets  are  Sidney's  best  lyrics. 

The  pubKcation  of  Spenser's  Shepherd's  Calendar  in  1579 
marked  a  new  era  in  English  poetry.  The  little  book  is  a 
series  of  pastorals,  frankly  artificial  as  nearly  all  pastorals 
are ;  it  shows  the  influence  of  the  classics,  of  Italian  and 
French  verse,  and  of  Chaucer.  It  possessed  the  very  quah- 
ties  that  English  poetry  lacked — spirit  and  feeling,  a  love 
of  color  and  music,  a  sense  of  form.  Here  was  the  long 
expected  "new  poet" ;  in  the  midst  of  description  or  dialogue, 
a  fresh  lyric  note  is  heard: 

"  See,  where  she  sits  upon  the  grassy  green, 

(O  seemly  sight!) 
Yclad  in  scarlet^  like  a  maiden  Queen, 

And  ermines  white: 
Upon  her  head  a  crimson  coronet 
With  damask  roses  and  daff adillies  set : 

Bay  leaves  between. 

And  primroses  green. 
Embellish  the  sweet  violet."^ 

This  is  written  "in  praise  of  Eliza,  Queen  of  the  Shepherds," 
but  we  might  almost  take  this  "fourth  Grace,"  crowned  with 
flowers,  dancing  "deifly"  and  singing  "soote,"  to  be  the  Muse 
of  the  new  lyric. 

Spenser  at  once  declares  himself  a  musician  and  above  all 
an  artist.    We  wonder  not  only  at  the  great  beauty  of  Tus- 

iPp.  Ill,  133. 

2  The  Shepherd's  Calendar,  April. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  181 

can  art  of  the  Renaissance,  but  at  the  incredible  number  of 
masterpieces  produced  in  that  httle  duchy.  After  all  that 
has  been  lost  by  fire  and  by  plunder,  in  addition  to  the  treas- 
ures preserved  at  Florence,  we  find  the  works  of  Tuscan 
artists  in  every  gallery  of  the  world.  Compared  with  such 
achievement,  modern  art  appears  weak  and  even  sterile.  At 
this  period,  when  all  Europe  felt  the  influence  of  the  new  art, 
England  did  not  produce  a  single  masterpiece  of  painting 
or  of  sculpture;  the  artistic  genius  of  the  nation  found  its 
expression  in  poetry.  Carpaccio  paints  on  the  walls  of  San 
Georgio  degli  Schiavoni  at  Venice  the  story  of  St.  George 
and  the  dragon ;  Spenser  paints  it  in  the  Faerie  Queene.  He 
had  the  artist's  love  for  form  and  shading ;  leaving  to  others 
to  depict  in  the  lyric  the  conflicts  of  passion,  he  brought  to 
English  song  the  desire  for  beauty. 

Spenser's  Epithalamion  was  published  in  1595  with  the 
Amoretti;  the  Prothalamion  and  the  four  Hymns  appeared 
the  following  year.  The  latter  poems  explain  so  much  of  his 
spirit  that  we  shall  consider  them  first. 

Spenser  had  become  a  thorough-going  Platonist  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  his  Hymns  are  the  best  exposition  in  English 
verse  of  the  Platonic  conception  of  Love  and  Beauty.  To 
understand  them  we  must  read  Plato's  Phadrus  and  Sym- 
posium; the  Latin  commentary  on  the  Symposium  written 
by  Marsilio  Ficino,  head  of  the  Platonist  academy  at  Flor- 
ence and  "the  chief  exponent  of  Platonism  for  the  whole 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance";  and  Bruno's  treatise  De  gV 
heroici  furori,  written  in  England  and  published  with  a 
dedication  to  Sidney  in  1585.^  A  study  of  these  works  will 
show  that  the  first  two  hymns,  on  Love  and  on  Beauty,  have 
practically   no    originality   of   thought.      Following   Plato, 

iSee  Introduction  to  L.  Winstanley's  Edmund  Spenser:  The  Fowre 
Hymnes,  Cambridge,  1907.  Cf.  J.  S.  Harrison,  Platonism  in  English 
Poetry  of  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries,  N.  Y.,  1903;  J.  B. 
Fletcher,  op.  cit.,  p.  116,  also  Publ.  Mod.  Lang.  Assoc,  September,  1911. 


182  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Spenser  sings  of  a  love  that  all  "sordid  baseness  doth  expell" 
for  it  is  "gentle,  loyal,  true" — an  emanation  from  God  him- 
self: 

"  For  love  is  lord  of  truth  and  loyalty^ 
Lifting  himself  out  of  the  lowly  dust 
On  golden  plumes  up  to  the  purest  sky. 
Above  the  reach  of  loathly  sinful  lust."^ 

Our  souls  lived  in  heaven  before  they  descended  to  this  earth. 
They  can  remember  but  faintly  their  first  abode  because  the 
"shades  of  the  prison  house  begin  to  close"  too  soon  around 
us ;  nevertheless  they  have  shadovcy  memories  of  it  and  the 
thrill,  the  awe  which  we  feel  in  the  presence  of  beauty  is  our 
soul's  recognition  of  the  heavenly  in  the  earthly  type. 
Beauty,  then,  is  a  manifestation  of  the  divine ;  it  presents 
itself  to  our  keenest  sense,  sight;  it  is  the  one  thing  on  this 
earth  that  approaches  the  heavenly  nature ;  and  the  rapture 
of  love  it  inspires  is  simply  the  recognition  of  the  divinity  in 
man: 

"  Hath  white  and  red  in  it  such  wondrous  power, 
That  it  can  pierce  through  the  eyes  unto  the  heart," 

he  asks,  and  bursts  forth  in  the  most  famous  passage  in  the 
Hymns  : 

"  So  every  spirit,  as  it  is  most  pure. 
And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  light. 
So  it  the  fairer  body  doth  procure 
To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairly  dight 
With  cheerful  grace  and  amiable  sight; 
For  of  the  soul  the  body  form  doth  take. 
For  soul  is  form,  and  both  the  body  make."^ 

Our  quotations  have  shown  that  the  idealism  of  this 
beauty  worship  is  expressed  with  a  lyric  intensity ;  the  poems 
are  indeed  "Hymns."     How  far  removed  they  are  from  the 

1  Hymn  in  honour  of  Love,  11.  176-179. 

2  Hymn  in  honour  of  Beauty,  11.  71-73,  127-133. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  183 

verse  essays  of  the  eighteenth  century !  One  can  imagine  how 
Pope  would  have  treated  the  following  passage  in  an  Essay 
on  Love  and  Beauty : 

"  Sometimes  upon  her  forehead  they  behold 
A  thousand  Graces  masking  in  delight; 
Sometimes  within  her  eye-lids  they  unfold 
Ten  thousand  sweet  belgards,  which  to  their  sight 
Do  seem  like  twinkling  stars  in  frosty  night.""^ 

That  Spenser's  conscience  should  have  been  troubled  by 
his  first  two  hymns  is  rather  surprising,  for  nothing  could 
be  further  removed  from 

"  Lust  in  the  robes  of  Love, 

The  idle  talk  of  feverish  souls," 

than  these  poems ;  his  Puritan  conscience  saved  him  from  the 
paganism  that  pervaded  so  much  of  the  Renaissance  writ- 
ings. However,  to  make  amends  for  what  he  considered  to 
be  a  fault,  his  last  two  hymns  sing  of  heavenly  love,  Christ's 
sacrifice  and  death.  Here,  in  this  more  exalted  form,  we  meet 
again  the  early  religious  lyric: 

"  Begin  from  first,  where  he  encradled  was, 
In  simple  cratch,  wrapt  in  a  wad  of  hay. 
Between  the  toilful  ox  and  humble  ass. 
And  in  what  rags,  and  in  how  base  array. 
The  glory  of  our  heavenly  riches  lay, 
When  him  the  silly  shepherds  came  to  see, 
Whom  greatest  princes  sought  on  lowest  knee."^ 

The  four  hymns,  interesting  as  they  are,  do  not  rise  to  the 
level  of  the  marriage  odes.  Of  these,  the  Prothalamion  is 
the  better  known,  for  the  modern  reader,  who  shows  himself 
impatient  of  lengthy  descriptions  in  the  novel  or  play,  is 
wearied  with  the  wealth  of  detail  in  the  Epithalamion.  Both 
poems  are  among  the  most  musical  pieces  of  writing  in  our 

ILI.  253-359. 

2  Hymn  m  honour  of  Heavenly  Love,  11.  325-231. 


18^.  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

literature  and  Spenser  has  not  only  caught  the  rhythm,  the 
flow  of  the  Italian  canzone,  but  he  has  equalled  its  verbal 
melody.  Lowell  says  that  the  chief  originality  of  Gray's 
Elegy  is  in  the  skilful  use  of  the  vowel  sounds : 

"  The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day, 

The  lowing  herd  winds  slowly  o'er  the  lea," 

but  Spenser  surely  knew  this  secret: 

"  Calm  was  the  day,  and  through  the  trembling  air 
Sweet-breathing  Zephyrus  did  softly  play." 

Each  line,  exquisite  in  itself,  seems  to  rise  or  fall  with  the 
poet's  thought  like  a  wave  advancing  and  retreating,  while 
to  this  highly  wrought  art  form  is  added  the  refrain,  the 
device  of  the  earHer  popular  song: 

"  Sweet  Thames,  run  softly  till  I  end  my  song." 

If  we  admire  the  technique  of  the  verse,  the  substance  equally 
claims  our  attention.  We  have  a  picture  such  as  Botticelli 
might  have  painted:  the  silver  swans  floating  down  the 
crystal  Thames ;  the  nymphs,  "all  lovely  daughters  of  the 
flood,"  each  with  her 

"  little  wicker  basket 
Made  of  fine  twigs,  entrayled  curiously," 

scattering  flowers  through  which  the  birds  pass  along.  If 
hitherto  there  had  been  no  such  music  in  the  English  lyric, 
there  had  been  no  such  description  of  pure  beauty.  As  the 
Florentines  painted  their  own  portraits  among  the  kneeling 
saints  or  in  the  train  of  some  prince,  so  Spenser  draws  himself 
unostentatiously  in  a  few  strokes.  We  see  him,  wearied  with 
his 

"  long  fruitless  stay 
In  princes'  court," 

walking  along  the  shore  to  ease  his  pain. 

Despite  popular  opinion,  the  Epithalamion  is  the  greater 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  185 

achievement.  Written  for  his  own  wedding,  the  poem  glows 
with  the  poet's  happiness;  its  enthusiasm  as  much  as  its 
inherent  poetic  value  instantly  separates  it  from  the  formal 
and  flattering  epithalamia  of  the  period.  The  descriptions 
are  not  over  ornate  for  their  purpose,  and  they  are  a  part 
of  the  very  life  of  the  poem.  All  that  Spenser  loved  is  here — 
music  from  the  birds,  from  the  minstrels,  from  the  damsels 
who 

"dance  and  carol  sweet"; 

flowers  in  profusion;  and  the  highest  beauty  in  the  bride, 
whose  soul,  he  tells  us,  is  still  more  fair.  In  his  Envoi,  Spen- 
ser regrets  that  he  must  send  this  song  to  her  "in  lieu  of  many 
ornaments,"  but  no  bride  ever  received  a  gift  as  enduring 
as  this  "endless  monument." 

Before  leaving  these  poems  it  is  well  to  notice  how  far 
removed  their  spirit  is  from  our  own.  Our  eyes  have  been 
trained  to  see  the  shadows;  Nature  no  longer  sings  a  song 
of  pure  joy,  for  with  Shelley  we  hear  the  winds 

"  Moan  for  the  world's  wrong." 

What  a  contrast  between  Spenser's  London  with  its  clear 
river  and  its  flower  gardens,  and  the  city  seen  by  a  modem 
poet: 

"  I  see  the  loafer-burnished  wall ; 

I  hear  the  rotting  match-girl  whine ; 

I  see  the  unslept  switchman  fall; 

I  hear  the  explosion  in  the  mine; 

I  see  along  the  heedless  street 

The  sandwichmen  trudge  through  the  mire; 

I  hear  the  tired,  quick  tripping  feet 

Of  sad,  gay  girls  who  ply  for  hire."^ 

The  beauty  we  see  or  dream  eludes  us ;  we  never  reach  it, 

for  our  aim  exceeds  our  grasp.     We  feel  in  its  presence  not 

iJohn  Davidson,  St.  George's  Day  in  Fleet  Street  Eclogues,  second 


186  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  joy  of  Spenser,  but  a  certain  discouragement,  a  certain 
pathos,  for  to  us  beauty  is  brief  lived;  it  fades  and  passes, 
but  for  Spenser  beauty  was  something  to  be  seized  as  one 
might  gather  flowers  by  the  handfuls.  It  was  near  him 
everywhere ;  he  had  only  to  stretch  forth  his  hand.  So  with 
spiritual  beauty,  for  the  Platonists  believed  that  the  soul 
may  be  disciplined  until  it  actually  beholds  before  it  Wisdom 
and  Truth  embodied.  The  art  of  these  wedding  odes  is  all 
the  more  admirable  because  it  is  a  lost  one. 

Apart  from  his  sonnets  Drayton  has  left  a  considerable 
number  of  odes,  but  they  form  a  very  small  portion  of  his 
work  compared  with  his  Heroical  Epistles,  Barons'  Wars,  and 
Polyolbion  (Mr.  Bullen  estimates  that  he  has  written  sixty 
thousand  lines  of  poetry).  The  lyric  impulse  was  not  strong 
in  him,  and  he  preferred  narrative  or  descriptive  verse.  He 
published,  in  1606,  Poems  Lyric  and  Pastoral,  in  which  are 
found  his  Odes.     He  asks  himself  why  he  may  not 

"  Th'  old  lyric  kind  revive," 

but  his  odes  are  not  the  larger  type  of  the  lyric  which  we 
generally  associate  with  that  title.  They  have  nothing  of  the 
ampler  music  of  Spenser's  Hymns,  but  are  rather  Horatian 
in  spirit,  if  not  in  style.  Drayton  tells  us  that  in  writing 
them  a  poet  must  have  a  quick  invention,  and  a  nimble  rhyme ; 
we  see  his  conception  of  an  ode  in  liis  Virginian  Voyage 
which  tells  of  a  marvellous  land  that  produces 

"  Without  your  toil. 
Three  harvests  more, 
All  greater  than  your  wish." 

where  grows 

"  The  cedar  reaching  high 
To  kiss  the  sky. 


The  cypress,  pine 
And  useful  sassafras." 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  187 

He  does  not  forget  that  the  laurel  is  found  there  : 

"  Apollo's  sacred  tree^ 
You  may  it  see, 
A  poet's  brows 
To  crown,  that  may  sing  there."'' 

Unfortunately  for  his  prophecy,  the  poetic  laurel  is  not  con- 
spicuously worn  in  America. 

Of  the  other  lyrics,  To  His  Coy  Love  has  that  easy,  degage 
air  which  we  noted  in  some  of  his  sonnets,  while  the  Shep- 
herd's Sirena,  though  too  long,  has  an  unusually  attractive 
Hit  and  is  worth  whole  books  of  the  Polyolbion.  Apart  from 
his  finest  sonnet,  Drayton's  greatest  lyrical  achievement  is 
his  ballad  of  Agincourt.  He  composed  this  with  the  utmost 
care,  making  many  revisions  to  good  advantage,  for  cer- 
tainly it  is  the  most  stirring  war  song  written  in  that  martial 
age: 

"  Fair  stood  the  wind  for  France, 
When  we  our  sails  advance. 
Nor  now  to  prove  our  chance, 

Longer  will  tarry; 
But  putting  to  the  main. 
At  Caux,  the  mouth  of  Seine, 
With  all  his  martial  train 

Landed  King  Harry." 

It  has  all  the  swiftness  of  the  old  ballads  and  we  have  nothing 
to  equal  its  gaudia  certaminis  until  we  come  to  Scott.  The 
spirit  never  flags  from  the  opening  lines  to  the  closing  appeal 
of  the  last  stanza: 

"  O  when  shall  English  men 
With  such  acts  fill  a  pen. 
Or  England  breed  again 

Such  a  King  Harry  ?"^ 

1  C.  Brett,  Minor  Poems  of  Michael  Drayton,  Oxford,  1907,  pp.  71-73. 

2  P.  81. 


188  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

It  is  curious  that  Drayton,  who  never  trailed  a  pike  in  the 
army  and  whose  Muse  was  as  gentle  as  his  own  nature,  should 
have  caught,  better  than  any  of  his  contemporaries  in  the 
lyric,  the  martial  fervor. 

There  is  less  of  the  song  element  in  Daniel  than  in  Dray- 
ton. His  lyrics  have  the  smoothness  and  melody  which  we 
found  in  his  sonnets,  but  there  is  no  personaUty  or  force  in 
them.  He  uses  irregular  metres  skillfully  and  his  lines  on 
the  "happy  golden  age"  have  something  of  Spenser's  style.^ 
In  his  plays  and  masques  he  has  introduced  a  few  choruses 
and  songs,  but  they  are  uninteresting ;  they  lack  quaHty ; 
the  lyrics  do  not  overflow  naturally  as  they  do  in  the  masques 
of  the  period.  Only  one  song  (strangely  entitled  a  chorus) 
in  Hymen's  Triumph  is  worthy  of  the  EHzabethan  lyric,  and 
unfortunately  Daniel  nowhere  else  repeats  this  note: 

"  Love  is  a  sickness  full  of  woes^ 
All  remedies  refusing: 
A  plant  that  with  most  cutting  grows, 
Most  barren  with  best  using. 
Why  so? 
More  we  enjoy  it,  more  it  dies; 
If  not  enjoyedj  it  sighing  cries. 
Hey  ho !"' 

Thomas  Lodge,  in  his  prose  romances,  Rosalynde,  1590, 
and  Margarite  of  America,  1596,  introduces,  as  was  the 
custom  of  the  age,  a  number  of  lyrics.  Two  of  these,  both 
in  Rosalynde,  are  among  the  best  of  the  period,  and  are 
Lodge's  chief  claim  for  remembrance  as  a  poet.  In  Rosalynde 
we  have  the  beauty  worship,  the  sensuousness  of  Renaissance 
art,  expressed  in  the  most  musical  verse  that  Lodge  has 
written : 

1  See  A.  B.  Grosart,  The  Complete  Works  of  Samuel  Daniel,  London, 
1885-1896,  vol.  I,  p.  260. 

2  Vol.  Ill,  p.  349. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  189 

"  Like  to  the  clear  in  highest  sphere 
Where  all  imperial  glory  shines. 
Of  selfsame  colour  is  her  hair 
Whether  unfolded  or  in  twines : 

Heigh  ho,  fair  Rosalynde! 
Her  eyes  are  sapphires  set  in  snow. 
Refining  heaven  by  every  wink; 
The  gods  do  fear  whenas  they  glow. 
And  I  do  tremble  when  I  think: 

Heigh  ho,  would  she  were  mine !" 

Here  is  a  canvas  glowing  with  light.     The  other  song  is 
more  restrained  in  its  description  but  is  equally  melodic: 

"  Love  in  my  bosom  like  a  bee 

Doth  suck  his  sweet: 
Now  with  his  wings  he  plays  with  me, 

Now  with  his  feet. 
Within  mine  eyes  he  makes  his  nest. 
His  bed  amidst  my  tender  breast. 
My  kisses  are  his  daily  feast; 
And  yet  he  robs  me  of  my  rest: 

Ah !  wanton,  will  ye  !"^ 

Many  of  Lodge's  songs  have  been  traced  to  foreign 
sources ;  he  tells  us  himself  that  some  of  the  lyrics  in  the 
Margarite  of  America  are  taken  from  Pascale,  Dolce,  Mar- 
telli,  Desportes,  and  it  is  quite  possible  these  songs  may  not 
be  entirely  his  own  composition. 

With  the  exception  of  Shakespeare,  whose  lyrics  we  shall 
consider  with  those  of  the  dramatists,  we  have  examined  the 
lyrics  of  the  sonneteers.  We  have  by  no  means  exhausted 
the  list  of  lyric  writers,  but  before  coming  to  the  lyrics  of 
the  drama  and  the  song  books,  we  have  space  to  consider  but 

1  Complete  Works  of  Thomas  Lodge,  Bunterian  Club,  Glasgow,  1883, 
vol.  I,  pp.  64,  11.  The  best  of  Lodge's  lyrics  have  been  reprinted  in  A.  H. 
BuUen's  Lyrics  from  the  Elizabethan  Romances,  London,  1890. 


190  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

three  more  poets — Breton,  Southwell  and  Raleigh,  and  we 
could  hardly  choose  three  men  more  radically  different  in 
their  characters.  Nicholas  Breton  (1545?;1626?),  the  step- 
son of  Gascoigne,  lived  by  his  pen.  He  was  a  fluent,  grace- 
ful writer,  both  of  verse  and  prose,  but  he  was  diffuse. 
He  wrote  too  much,  for  while  he  has  "a  pretty  flowery  and 
pastoral  gale  of  fancy,"  to  quote  Phillips's  unsympathetic 
criticism  of  Herrick,  there  is  little  thought  or  deep  feeling 
in  his  poetry.  He  is  a  skillful  metrist,  using  the  octosyllabic 
couplet  well,  and  parts  of  his  Passionate  Shepherd  (1604) 
remind  us  of  the  nature  descriptions  in  L' Allegro.  A  typical 
song  is  his  madrigal  which  won  the  favor  of  Elizabeth.  It 
begins 

"  In  the  merry  month  of  May, 
In  a  morn  by  break  of  day. 
Forth  I  walked  by  the  wood  side, 
Whenas  May  was  in  his  pride: 
There  I  spyed  all  alone, 
Phillida  and  Cory  don. 
Much  ado  there  was,  God  wot ! 
He  would  love,  and  she  would  not."' 

"On  Wednesday  morning  about  nine  o'clock,  as  her  Majesty 
opened  the  casement  of  her  gallery  window,  there  were  three 
excellent  musicians,  who  being  disguised  in  ancient  country 
attire,  did  greet  her  with  a  pleasant  song  of  Corydon  and 
Phillida,  made  in  three  parts  of  purpose.  The  song,  as  well 
for  the  worth  of  the  ditty  as  the  aptness  of  the  note  thereto 
applied,  it  pleased  Her  Highness  after  it  had  been  once  sung 
to  command  again,  and  highly  to  grace  it  with  her  cheerful 
acceptance  and  commendation.  It  was  entitled  The  Plow- 
man's Song  'in  the  merry  month  of  May.'  "^    Breton's  fame 

1  See  A.  B.  Grosart,  Works  of  Nicholas  Breton,  London,  1879,  vol. 
I,  t.  p.  7.    Bullen,  op.  cit.,  reprints  a  number  of  Breton's  lyrics. 

2  T.  Oliphant,  La  Musa  Madrigalesca,  London,  1837,  p.  204. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  191 

may  rest  on  the  lullaby  in  his  Arbour  of  Amorous  Devices 
(1597),  a  song  of  a  deserted  mother  quieting  the 

"  Poor  soul  that  thinks  no  creature  harm." 

The  pathos  is   sincere  and  not  overemphasized;  the  whole 
poem  is  worthy  of  Blake  at  his  best : 

"  And  dost  thou  smile  ?     O,  thy  sweet  face ! 
Would  God  himself  he  might  thee  see ! 
No  doubt  thou  wouldst  soon  purchase  grace, 
I  know  right  well,  for  thee  and  me: 

But  come  to  mother,  babe,  and  play. 

For  father  false  is  fled  away." 

One  of  the  most  affecting  touches  is  the  mother's  pride  in  the 
man  who  has  left  her: 

"  Thy  father  is  no  rascal  lad, 
A  noble  youth  of  blood  and  bone: 

His  glancing  looks,  if  he  once  smile. 
Right  honest  women  may  beguile."'^ 

The  poems  of  Robert  Southwell  (1561  .''-1595),  the  Jesuit 
martyr,  were  published  posthumously  the  year  of  his  execu- 
tion at  Tyburn.  That  he  had  intended  to  print  them  is 
shown  by  his  preface  and  they  were  undoubtedly  put  in  order 
and  partly  composed  during  his  three  years'  imprisonment.^ 
They  thus  possess  a  melancholy  interest  and  it  is  hardly 
surprising  that  critics  have  allowed  their  sympathy  for  the 
man  to  bias  their  judgment  of  his  poetry. 

Southwell  is  the  one  religious  poet  of  the  age.  Nearly 
all  the  lyrists  (Breton,  for  example,  whom  we  have  just  con- 
sidered) wrote  religious  songs  or  paraphrases,  but  South- 
well's whole  body  of  verse  is  religious,  written  partly  in  pro- 
test against  the  love  poems  of  the  day.     In  his  preface  he 

1  Grosart,  Breton,  vol.  I,  d.  p.  7. 

2  A.  B.  Grosart,  Complete  Poems  of  Robert  Southwell,  London,  1872, 
Introduction. 


192  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

regrets  that  poetry  has  been  degraded  by  the  amorists,  and 
appearing  at  the  time  of  the  sonnet  sequences,  these  lines 
sound  strangely: 

"  O  women!  woe  to  men;  traps  for  their  falls; 

Still  actors  in  all  tragical  mischances ; 
Earth's  necessary  evils,  captivating  thralls. 

Now  murdering  with  your  tongues,  now  with  your  glances ; 
Parents  of  life  and  love,  spoilers  of  both; 
The  thieves  of  hearts ;  false,  do  you  love  or  loathe."^ 

Thus,  in  Love's  servile  lot,  he  writes  of  Love's  mistress : 

"  A  honey  shower  rains  from  her  lips. 
Sweet  lights  shine  in  her  face; 
She  hath  the  blush  of  virgin  mind. 
The  mind  of  viper's  race. 

"  May  never  was  the  month  of  love. 
For  May  is  full  of  flowers; 
But  rather  April,  wet  by  kind,  (nature) 
For  love  is  full  of  showers. 

"  Plow  not  the  seas,  sow  not  the  sands. 

Leave  oiF  your  idle  pain; 

Seek  other  mistress  for  your  minds. 

Love's  service  is  in  vain."^ 

Though  he  dislikes  the  substance  of  the  sonneteers,  he 
imitates  their  manner,  and  no  Petrarchist  has  ever  given  us 
more  extravagant  conceits  that  has  Southwell  in  describing 
the  eyes  of  Christ.  He  compares  them  to  sweet  volumes, 
nectared  ambrys  (larders  for  alms)  of  soul-feeding  meats, 
quivers  of  love  darts,  blazing  comets,  living  mirrors,  pools 
of  Hesebon,  turtle-twins,  and  Bethlehem-cisterns.'    Crashaw, 

1  P.  24. 

2  Pp.  78-81. 

3  From  St.  Peter's  Complaint,  as  is  the  following  stanza  (cxxi). 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  193 

in  his  descriptions  of  the  Magdalene's  eyes,  could  not  outdo 
this.     His  lines  on  sleep  have  a  familiar  ring: 

'  Sleep,  death's  ally,  oblivion  of  tears. 

Silence  of  passions,  balm  of  angry  sore, 
Suspense  of  loves,  security  of  fears. 

Wrath's  lenitive,  heart's  ease,  storm's  calmest  shore ; 
Senses'  and  souls'  reprieval  from  all  cumbers. 
Benumbing  sense  of  ill,  with  quiet  slumbers." 

The  best  poems  of  Southwell  are  the  songs  on  the  Nativity 
and  those  which  describe  his  own  feelings — his  longing  for 
death.  Jonson,  not  an  easy  critic  to  please,  was  delighted 
with  Southwell's  Burning  Babe,  and  A  Child  my  choice  or 
New  Prince,  new  Pomp  is  nearly  as  good.  In  his  personal 
poems  we  at  last  hear  a  man's  own  voice.  The  homely 
objects,  the  simple  style  of  the  following  stanza  are  extremely 
effective  and  form  a  sharp  contrast  to  his  conceits : 

"  The  gown  which  I  do  use  to  wear. 

The  knife  wherewith  I  cut  my  meat, 

And  eke  that  old  and  ancient  chair 
Which  is  my  only  usual  seat: 

All  these  do  tell  me  I  must  die, 

And  yet  my  life  amend  not  I."^ 

His  poem  /  die  alive  is  not  a  masterpiece  of  poetic  ex- 
pression but  it  possesses  what  so  much  of  the  smooth  writing 
of  the  age  lacked — sincerity,  for  it  is  the  cry  of  a  man,  worn 
out  by  imprisonment  and  torture : 

"  O  life !  what  lets  thee  from  a  quick  decease  ? 

O  death !  what  draws  thee  from  a  present  prey  ? 
My  feast  is  done,  my  soul  would  be  at  ease. 

My  grace  is  said;  O  death,  come  take  away."^ 

1  P.  156,  U'pon  the  image  of  Death. 

2  P.  84. 


19i  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  poems  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  (1552P-1618)  contain 
some  of  the  strongest  writing  of  the  age.  As  befitted  his 
nature,  he  is  at  his  best  in  the  short,  vigorous  expression  of 
stirring  emotion.  His  most  characteristic  work  is  rough- 
hewn  and  lacks  grace,  but  it  possesses  individuality  and 
character.  He  could  write  in  the  flowing  song  style  of  the 
day 

"  Conceit  begotten  by  the  eyes. 
Is  quickly  born  and  quickly  dies;" 

he  composed  the  best  commendatory  sonnet  for  the  Faerie 
Queene,  which  critic  after  critic  believes  inspired  Milton's 

"  Methought  I  saw  my  late  espoused  saint  " 

merely  because  the  first  three  words  in  each  sonnet  are  the 
same ;  and  he  could  write  love  songs  in  which  an  engaging 
directness  of  diction  takes  the  place  of  sonneteering  compH- 
ment: 

"  Silence  in  love  bewrays  more  woe 

Than  words,  though  ne'er  so  witty: 
A  beggar  that  is  dumb,  you  know. 
May  challenge  double  pity.""^ 

Two  of  his  lyrics  are  remarkable ;  they  are  as  distinctly 
original  as  Donne's,  though  different  in  quality.  In  the  Lie, 
the  most  pessimistic  lyric  of  the  age,  Raleigh  bitterly 
arraigns  the  times ;  all  about  him  is  rotten  to  the  core ; 
church  and  state,  court  and  college,  high  and  low,  all  is 
corruption.  It  is  the  mood  of  Hamlet  expressed  with  the 
intensity  of  Hotspur : 

"  Say  to  the  court,  it  glows 

And  shines  like  rotten  wood; 
Say  to  the  church,  it  shows 

What's  good  and  doth  no  good: 
If  church  and  court  reply. 
Then  give  them  both  the  lie. 
1  Hannah,  op.  cit.,  pp.  22,  8,  21. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  195 

"  Tell  fortune  of  her  blindness ; 
Tell  nature  of  decay; 
Tell  friendship  of  unkindness; 

Tell  justice  of  delay; 
And  if  they  will  reply, 
Then  give  them  all  the  lie  !"^ 


It  is  small  wonder  that  such  a  poem  called  forth  numerous 
rejoinders  and  imitations.  Raleigh  returns  to  the  charge 
in  his  Give  me  my  scallop-shell  of  quiet,  where  he  writes  of 

"  heaven's  bribeless  hall. 
Where  no  corrupted  voices  brawl; 
No  conscience  molten  into  gold. 
No  forged  accuser  bought  or  sold. 
No  cause  deferred,  no  vain-spent  journey, 
For  there  Christ  is  the  king's  attorney. 
Who  pleads  for  all  without  degrees. 
And  he  hath  angels,  but  no  fees."^ 

Whether  or  not  his  dirge  of  eight  lines, 

"  Even  such  is  Time,  that  takes  in  trust 
Our  youth,  our  joys,  our  all  we  have," 

was  composed,  as  a  tradition  runs,  the  night  before  his  execu- 
tion, he  wrote  it  when  he  knew  that  the  end  of  his  imprison- 
ment was  "the  dark  and  silent  grave,"  and  for  pure  pathos, 
it  has  few  equals. 

Many  of  the  lyrics  which  we  have  quoted  appeared  in  the 
various  Miscellanies  of  the  period  and  we  must  briefly  review 
these  successors  to  TotteVs  Miscellany.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  Tottel  published  his  book  in  1557 ;  and  it  was  not 
until  1576  that  a  new  anthology  appeared,  the  Paradise  of 
Dainty  Devices.  In  the  dedication  of  this  collection  of  songs, 
we  are  informed  that  the  "ditties"  are  "both  pithy  and  pleas- 

1  P.  24.    The  poem  first  appears  in  MS.  Harl.  6910,  circ.  1596. 

2  P.  38. 


196  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

ant,  as  well  for  the  invention  as  metre,  and  will  yield  a  far 
greater  delight,  being  as  they  are  so  aptly  made  to  be  set  to 
any  song  in  five  parts,  or  sung  to  instrument."  The  title 
rightly  declares  that  the  book  contains  "pithy  precepts, 
learned  counsels,"  for  of  the  ninety-eight  poems  it  offers, 
forty-three  may  be  classed  as  admonitory  verse.  There  is 
Kttle  to  be  said  for  these  poems,  except  that  the  age  evidently 
took  as  much  delight  in  them  as  Georgian  readers  did  in  the 
epigrams  of  Pope.  Polonius'  speech  of  advice  to  Laertes  in 
the  first  act  of  Hamlet  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  his  char- 
acter, but  it  contained  precisely  the  precepts  that  this  gen- 
eration enjoyed.  It  is  curious  to  see  these  moral  effusions 
masquerading  as  songs.  The  following  excerpt  is  from  "a 
worthy  ditty  sung  before  the  Queen's  Majesty  at  Bristowe": 

"  Mistrust  not  troth,  that  truly  means,  for  every  jealous  freak; 
Instead   of   wrong,    condemn   not   right,   no   hidden   wrath  to 

wreak : 
Look  on  the  light  of  faultless  life,  how  bright  her  virtues 

shine. 
And  measure  out  her  steps  each  one,  by  level  and  by  line."^ 

Of  this  whole  collection  only  two  songs,  both  by  Richard 
Edwards,  have  survived.  The  first,  "Where  griping  grief 
the  heart  would  wound,"  is  remembered  because  it  is 
quoted  by  Peter  in  Romeo  and  Juliet;  the  second,  Amantiwm 
Ira, 

"  In  going  to  my  naked  bed  as  one  that  would  have  slept, 
I  heard  a  wife  sing  to  her  child,  that  long  before  had  wept;" 

has  a  naivete  of  expression,  not  without  charm,  that  has  won 
for  it  a  place  in  many  modern  anthologies.^ 

Of  the  ninety  poems  that  compose  the  Gorgeous  Gallery 
of  Gallant  Inventions  (1578),  the  greater  part  are  anony- 

1  See  J.  P.  Collier's  reprint,  London,  1866,  p.  44. 

2  Pp.  89,  73. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  197 

mous.  Fully  one  third  of  the  poems  are  moral  admonitions 
and  many  of  the  titles,  such  as  "The  Lover  describeth  his 
painful  plight,"  or  "The  Lover  in  great  distress  comforteth 
himself  with  hope,"  are  reminiscent  of  Tottel.  The  Paradise 
of  Dainty  Devices  contained  no  sonnets,  but  there  are  three 
here,  all  mediocre.  The  collection  is  dreary  reading;  but 
one  song  from  it — ^the  Willow  song  of  Desdemona — has  sur- 
vived, and  it  is  only  occasionally  that  we  come  across  such 
a  lyric  outburst  as  A  proper  Ditty.  To  the  time  of  Lusty 
Gallant  : 

"  The  glittering  shows  of  Flora's  dames 

Delights  not  so  my  careful!  mind, 
Ne  gathering  of  the  fragrant  flames. 

That  oft  in  Flora's  nymphs  I  find. 
Ne  all  the  notes  of  birds  so  shrill. 

Melodiously  in  woods  that  sing. 
Whose  solemn  quires  the  skies  doth  fill. 

With  note  on  note  that  heavenly  ring."'- 

The  songs  in  the  Handful  of  Pleasant  Delights  (1584)  are 
mostly  anonymous  and  when  they  are  ascribed  to  authors, 
the  names  are  not  those  that  suggest  immortal  verse — 
"P.  Picks,"  "L.  Gibson,"  or  "a  student  in  Cambridge." 
The  songs  are  written  for  certain  tunes — "Green  Sleeves," 
"All  in  a  garden  fair,"  "The  merchant's  daughter  went  over 
the  fields,"  or  "To  any  pleasant  tune,"  and  while  they  have 
an  easy  flowing  metre,  their  poetic  worth  is  small.  It  is 
probable  that  Shakespeare  had  one  song  in  mind,  A  Nose- 
gay, with  its  "Lavender  is  for  lovers  true,  Rosemary  is  for 
remembrance,  Violet  is  for  faithfulness,"  when  he  wrote 
Ophelia's  flower  scene  in  Hamlet.^ 

The  Phoenix  Nest    (1593)    included  poems   by   Raleigh, 
Breton,  and  Lodge,  the  last  named  contributing  fifteen  writ- 

1  Corner's  Reprint,  London,  1866,  p.  36. 

2  See  Arber's  reprint  in  the  English  Scholar's  Library,  No.  3,  Lon- 
don, 1878,  p.  3. 


198  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

ten  in  fourteen  different  metres.  There  are  fourteen  sonnets, 
all  but  five  on  the  pains  of  love,  of  which  the  best.  Those  eyes 
that  set  my  fancy  on  a  fire,  is  written  with  much  spirit  and 
fervor : 

"  O  eyes  that  pierce  our  hearts  without  remorse, 
O  hairs  of  right  that  wear  a  royal  crown, 
O  hands  that  conquer  more  than  Caesar's  force, 
O  wit  that  turns  huge  kingdoms  upside  down  I" 

but  as  a  whole  the  lyrics  in  this  collection  lack  life.  At  their 
best  they  have  artistic  touches  in  phrasing  or  description, 
and  their  metrical  charm  is  much  more  evident  than  any 
sincerity  of  thought  or  feeling.  There  is  a  night  piece  which 
is  strikingly  modern  in  its  tone : 

"  Let  sailors  gaze  on  stars  and  moon  so  freshly  shining. 
Let  them  that  miss  the  way  be  guided  by  the  light, 
I  know  my  lady's  bower,  there  needs  no  more  divining, 
AiFection  sees  in  dark,  and  Love  hath  eyes  by  night," 

while  the  following  well  deserves  to  be  remembered : 

"  Sweet  violets.  Love's  paradise,  that  spread 

Your  gracious  odours  which  you  couched  bear 
Within  your  paley  faces. 
Upon  the  gentle  wing  of  some  calm  breathing  wind. 
That  plays  amidst  the  plain. 
If  by  the  favour  of  propitious  stars  you  gain 
Such  grace,  as  in  my  lady's  bosom  place  to  find. 
Be  proud  to  touch  those  places; 
And  when  her  warmth  your  moisture  forth  doth  wear. 
Whereby  your  dainty  parts  are  sweetly  fed. 

Your  honours  of  the  flowery  meads  I  pray. 
You  pretty  daughters  of  the  earth  and  sun, 
With  mild  and  seemly  breathing  straight  display 
My  bitter  sighs  that  have  my  heart  undone."'^ 

1  See  Collier's  reprint,  London,  1866,  pp.  89,  120,  121.    "Sweet  violets" 
appears  again  in  England's  Helicon. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  199 

Of  all  the  miscellanies,  England's  Helicon  (1600)  contains 
the  finest  poetry.^  It  is  a  collection  of  pastorals  and  lyrics 
by  the  best  writers  of  the  day,  W'atson,  Sidney,  Spenser, 
Drayton,  Lodge,  and  Breton,  but  it  contains  little  new 
material  and  the  book  calls  for  no  further  comment.  The 
selections  have  been  made  with  discrimination,  though  for  our 
modern  taste  there  is  too  much  of  the  pastoral  and  we  tire  of 
listening  to  the  complaints  of  Tityrus  and  Thestilis,  Corydon 
and  Corin. 

The  last  of  the  Ehzabethan  Miscellanies,  Francis  Davison's 
Poetical  Rhapsody,  appeared  in  1602.^  Although  it  contains 
Raleigh's  Lie  and  a  series  of  sonnets  by  Watson,  the  collec- 
tion has  few  lyrics ;  a  great  number  of  the  poems  are  by 
unknown  writers  and  are  not  in  any  way  remarkable.  In  its 
pastorals,  in  its  translations  from  the  Italian,  the  book  is 
thoroughly  typical  of  the  age;  in  poetic  value,  it  is  much 
inferior  to  England's  Helicon.  It  includes,  however,  a  num- 
ber of  lyrics  by  a  writer  we  have  not  mentioned — -Thomas 
Campion — reminding  us  that  we  have  yet  to  consider  the 
very  flower  of  Elizabethan  song,  the  lyrics  in  the  drama  and 
in  the  song  books. 

IV 

The  miracle  plays,  the  moralities  and  interludes,  were 
still  witnessed  in  the  early  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  From 
them  the  Elizabethans  inherited  not  only  the  "law  of 
liberty" — freedom  from  the  unities  of  the  classic  stage — but 
equally  important,  the  tradition  of  song  in  the  drama.  The 
first  playwrights  did  not  emphasize  this  song  element. 
Robert  Greene  (1560P-1592)  has  but  one  song  in  his  five 
plays ;  for  his  lyrics,  we  must  read  his  prose  tracts  and 
romances.     His   style  was   singularly   sweet   and  plaintive; 

1  See  the  reprint  edited  by  A.  H.  BuUen,  London,  1899. 

2  See  Bullen's  reprint,  London,  1890. 


200  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

his  wild  life  and  his  death  in  poverty  and  disgrace  are  in 
sharp  contrast  to  the  peaceful  note  of  his  lyrics  which  are 
marked  not  by  outbursts  of  feeling,  but  by  grace  and 
delicacy : 

"  Ahj  what  is  love  ?     It  is  a  pretty  thing, 
As  sweet  unto  a  shepherd  as  a  king; 
And  sweeter  too." 

Read  in  the  light  of  his  restless  career,  there  is  the  very 
essence  of  tragic  contrast  in  his  song  "Sweet  are  the  thoughts 
that  savour  of  content." 

"  The  homely  house  that  harbours  quiet  rest; 

The  cottage  that  affords  no  pride  nor  care ; 
The  mean  that    grees  with  country  music  best; 

The  sweet  consort  of  mirth  and  music's  fare; 
Obscured  life  sets  down  a  type  of  bliss: 
A  mind  content  both  crown  and  kingdom  is." 

His  two  best  lyrics  are  his  sonnet  "Ah  were  she  pitiful  as  she 
is  fair,"  which  Martin  Person  set  to  music,  and  Sephestia's 
song  to  her  child,  a  counterpart  to  Breton's  lullaby,  with  its 
refrain : 

"  Weep  not,  my  wanton,  smile  upon  my  knee ; 
When  thou  art  old  there's  grief  enough  for  thee."^ 

George  Peele  (1658P-1597)  introduces  lyrics  freely  in  his 
dramatic  compositions.  David  and  Bethsabe  opens  with 
singing;  there  are  many  snatches  of  song  in  his  Old  Wives 
Tale;  in  his  Arraignment  of  Paris  we  have  a  Latin  song,  an 
ItaUan  song,  and  the  gay  duet,  "Fair  and  fair,  and  twice  so 
fair."  "His  golden  locks  Time  hath  to  silver  turned,"  the 
lyric  which  Thackeray  admired,  is  certainly  his  best  one.  It 
was  sung  when  Sir  Henry  Lea,  master  of  the  armory,  bore 

1  A.  H.  Bullen,  Poems,  chiefly  lyrical  from  Romances  and  Prose 
Tracts  of  the  Elizabethan  Age,  London,  1890,  pp.  23,  33,  15. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  201 

arms  for  the  last  time  in  the  yearly  joust  he  had  instituted  in 
the  Queen's  honor.^  As  she  sat  in  the  royal  pavilion  she  heard 
strains  of  music,  "accompanied  with  these  verses,  pronounced 
and  sung  by  M.  Hales  her  Majesty's  servant,  a  gentleman 
in  that  art  excellent  and  for  his  voice  both  commendable  and 
admirable" : 

"  My  helmet  now  shall  make  a  hive  for  bees. 

And  lovers'  sonnets  turned  to  holy  psalms, 

A  man-at-arms  must  now  serve  on  his  knees, 

And  feed  on  prayers,  which  are  old  age  his  alms : 

But  though  from  court  to  cottage  he  depart. 

His  saint  is  sure  of  his  unspotted  heart." 

Could  a  lyric  have  a  better  setting? 

Christopher  Marlowe  (1564-1593),  whose  genius  trans- 
formed the  drama,  contented  himself  with  splendid  lyrical 
passages  in  dialogue  and  soliloquy  and  did  not  introduce 
formal  songs  in  his  plays.  His  one  song  is  the  most  perfect 
expression  of  that  pastoral  ideal  which  fascinated  the  age ; 
it  is  small  wonder  that  "Come  live  with  me  and  be  my  love" 
had  its  numerous  rejoinders  and  imitations.  There  is  the 
spirit  and  music  of  many  song  books  in  the  four  lines : 

"  Where  we  will  sit  upon  the  rocks. 
And  see  the  shepherds  feed  their  flocks 
By  shallow  rivers,  to  whose  falls 
Melodious  birds  sing  madrigals."^ 

The  most  notable  series  of  dramatic  lyrics  by  this  first 
group  of  playwrights  appeared  in  Summer's  Last  Will  and 

iThe  full  account  is  in  Segar's  Honour,  Military  and  Civil,  Bk.  Ill, 
chapter  liv,  cited  by  A.  Dyce  in  his  Works  of  Oreene  and  Peele,  London, 
1861,  p.  566.    As  usually  printed,  the  song  is  in  the  third  person. 

2  J.  H.  Ingram,  Christopher  Marlowe  and  his  Associates,  London, 
1904,  p.  221.    There  are  several  versions  of  this  song. 


W2  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Testament  by  Thomas  Nashe  (1567-1601).  These  songs 
make  us  regret  the  energy  Nashe  consumed  in  his  unreadable 
controversies ;  they  will  outlive  all  his  prose.  Their  range  is 
remarkable.  The  opening  song  by  Ver  who  enters  "with  his 
train,  overlaid  with  suits  of  green  moss,  representing  short 
grass,"  has  all  the  happy  artlessness  of  the  early  folk  lyrics  : 

"  The  fields  breathe  sweet,  the  daisies  kiss  our  feet, 
Young  lovers  meet,  old  wives  a-sunning  sit; 
In  every  street,  these  tunes  our  ears  do  greet — 
Cuckoo,  j  ug-j  ug,  pu-we,  to-witta-woo  ! 
Spring,  the  sweet  Spring !" 

but  when  Summer,  who 

"  terms  himself  the  god  of  poetry. 
And  setteth  wanton  songs  unto  the  lute," 

feels  his  end  at  hand  and  cries : 

"  Sing  me  some  doleful  ditty  to  the  lute, 
That  may  complain  my  near  approaching  death," 

we  hear  a  lament  which  is  the  cry  of  hopeless  grief : 

"  Beauty  is  but  a  flower 
Which  wrinkles  will  devour. 
Brightness  falls  from  the  air; 
Queens  have  died  j'oung  and  fair; 
Dust  hath  closed  Helen's  eye. 
I  am  sick,  I  must  die: 

Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us." 

This  is  the  very  essence  of  melancholy ;  each  line  is  a  dirge ; 
to  affect  the  mind  the  sorrows  of  the  past  are  added  to  the 
utter  desolation  of  the  present.     We  can  imagine  the  effect 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC 

of  such  a  song,  produced  when  the  plague  was  ravaging 
London : 

"  Strength  stoops  unto  the  grave, 
Worms  feed  on  Hector  brave. 
Swords  may  not  fight  with  fate. 
Earth  still  holds  ope  her  gate. 
Come,  Come,  the  bells  do  cry. 
I  am  sick,  I  must  die: 

Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us." 

Nashe  could  employ  to  perfection  a  long,  slow,  melancholy 
hne: 

"  Go  not  yet  hence,  bright  soul  of  the  sad  year ; 
The  earth  is  heU,  when  thou  leav'st  to  appear." 
or 

"  Short  days,  sharp  days,  long  nights  come  on  apace. 
Ah,  who  will  hide  us  from  the  winter's  face? 
Cold  doth  increase,  the  sickness  will  not  cease. 
And  here  we  lie,  God  knows,  with  little  ease: 
From  winter,  plague,  and  pestilence. 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us."^ 

One  does  not  question  the  sincerity  of  such  writing. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  heyday  of  the  drama  and  it 
would  be  far  too  great  a  task  to  consider  not  the  individual 
lyrics,  but  even  the  lyric  mood  of  each  playwright.  Songs 
are  scattered  lavishly  through  comedy  and  tragedy  alike ; 
if  at  times  we  find  a  play  without  a  single  bar  of  melody, 
on  the  other  hand  one  character  alone  in  Heywood's  Rape 
of  Lucrece  has  eighteen  lyrics !  Song  has  departed  from 
the  drama  as  it  has  very  largely  from  our  lives.  In  a  mod- 
ern comedy  the  heroine  may  seat  herself  at  the  piano,  strike 
a  few  chords,  and  sing  a  line  or  two,  but  it  is  done  merely 

1  R.  B.  McKerrow,  Works  of  Thomas  Nashe,  London,  1904,  vol.  Ill, 
pp.  338,  383,  237,  292. 


20 i  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

to  give  an  air  of  reality  to  the  play.  Probably  it  is  a  bless- 
ing that  our  actors  do  not  attempt  to  sing;  but  in  Eliza- 
bethan times  the  boy  actors  were  often  members  of  church 
choirs  and  thus  the  dramatist  had  at  his  command  well- 
trained  voices.  Two  great  companies,  the  "boys  of  Paul's" 
and  "children  of  the  Queen's  chapel"  were  composed  entirely 
of  choir  boys  and  were  trained  by  choir  conductors.  More- 
over, the  audiences,  whose  influence  on  dramatic  composition  is 
all-powerful,  were  brought  up  on  the  song  books  and  were 
eager  to  hear  new  lyrics.  When  we  lament  the  utter  absence 
of  the  lyric  in  our  modern  plays  we  must  remember  that  in 
Shakespeare's  day  the  conditions  were  ideal  for  the  develop- 
ment of  song. 

in  that  refuge  of  weak  intellects,  the  musical  comedy, 
there  are  found  what  the  play-bills  generously  entitle 
"lyrics,"  but  they  are  usually  destitute  of  any  Uterary  value 
and  at  their  best  show  merely  a  clever,  nimble  metre.  The 
lyrics  we  are  considering  are  the  perfection  of  art.'^  We 
frequently  wonder  whether  a  Shakespearean  audience  appre- 
ciated the  beauty  of  the  blank  verse  they  heard,  for  very  few 
of  our  actors  understand  it.  These  songs  show  a  more  elusive 
style  in  the  refinements  of  metre.  We  have  lost  the  musical 
setting  for  most  of  them ;  yet  no  matter  how  lovely  were  the 
melodies,  they  could  not  have  surpassed  the  music  of  the 
words.  The  variety  of  the  lyrics  is  noteworthy ;  we  turn 
from  the  charming  artificiality  of  the  songs  attributed  to 
Lyly,  such  as : 

"  Cupid  and  my  Campaspe  played 
At  cards  for  kisses — Cupid  paid;" 

1  For  the  lyrics  that  follow  see  R.  Bell's  Songs  from  the  Dramatists, 
A.  H.  Biillen's  Lyrics  from  the  Dramatists  of  the  Elizabethan  Age,  Lon- 
don, 1893,  and  that  best  of  modern  anthologies,  indispensable  for  a  study 
of  the  lyric,  the  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse.  For  the  music  of  these 
lyrics  see  An  Historical  Sketch  of  the  History  of  Dramatic  Music  in 
England,  in  E.  F.  Rimbault's  edition  of  Purcell's  Bonduca,  London,  1842. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  205 

to  that  sturdy  song  of  Thomas  Heywood's  with  its  enthu- 
siasm, its  exultation  of  a  spring  mood : 

"  Pack,  cloudsj  away !  and  welcome,  day ! 
With  night  we  banish  sorrow." 

or  to  Dekker's  equally  effective 

"  Haymakers,  rakers,  reapers,  and  mowers. 
Wait  on  your  summer-queen; 
Dress  up  with  musk-rose  her  eglantine  bowers. 
Daffodils  strew  the  green." 

The  flower  songs  are  a  small  anthology  in  themselves ;  they 
tell  of  the  joys  of  life,  as  in  Fletcher's  superb 

"  Now  the  lusty  Spring  is  seen; 
Golden  yellow,  gaudy  blue. 
Daintily  invite  the  view;" 

they  adorn  the  brows  of  beauty,  they  deck  the  graves  of 
unhappy  lovers: 

"  Lay  a  garland  on  my  hearse 
Of  the  dismal  yew; 
Maidens,  willow  branches  bear; 
Say,  I  died  true." 

We  hear  an  echo  of  the  old  drinking  songs  in  Dekker's 
"Trowl  the  bowl,  the  jolly  nut-brown  bowl,"  or  in  Shakes- 
peare's "And  let  me  the  canakin  clink,  clink;"  we  have  the 
sublimation  of  the  old  moral,  sententious  song  in  Dekker's 
"Art  thou  poor,  yet  hast  thou  golden  slumbers.'"'  Love, 
nature,  and  grief  are  the  main  motives  of  these  lyrics  and  with 
such  themes  the  variety  of  the  songs  may  be  understood.  The 
love  songs  range  from  compliment  to  passion;  the  nature 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

lyrics  depict  "All  the  flowers  of  the  Spring"  and  re-echo  the 
call  of  every  bird ;  the  elegies  turn  from  the  graceful  melan- 
choly of 

"  Weep  no  more,  nor  sign,  nor  groan. 
Sorrow  calls  no  time  that's  gone: 
Violets  plucked,  the  sweetest  rain 
Makes  not  fresh  nor  grow  again;" 

to  the  blank  despair  of  Webster's  "Call  for  the  robin-red- 
breast and  the  wren." 

It  would  be  a  most  interesting  study  to  observe  at  what 
points  in  the  plays  these  lyrics  are  introduced.  If  they  fre- 
quently appear  to  be  interpolated  at  random,  more  often 
they  plainly  intensify  the  dramatic  situation ;  in  many  a 
scene  they  are  a  part  of  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  the  plot. 
In  losing  the  lyric  from  the  drama,  not  only  has  our  poetry 
been  impoverished  but  the  resources  of  the  playwright  have 
been  distinctly  weakened. 

The  songs  of  Shakespeare  are  by  no  means  an  epitome  of 
these  lyrics ;  he  has  nothing,  for  example,  to  equal  Fletcher's 
praise  of  Melancholy,  which  might  have  been  sung  by 
Jacques : 

"  Hence,  all  you  vain  delights. 
As  short  as  are  the  nights 

Wherein  you  spend  your  folly ! 
There's  naught  in  this  life  sweet. 
If  men  were  wise  to  see't. 

But  only  melancholy. 

Oh,  sweetest  melancholy !" 

yet  it  is  true  beyond  a  doubt  that  in  Shakespeare's  lyrics 
this  form  of  poetry  found  its  most  perfect  expression. 
Within  this  small  field  of  verse,  he  moves  as  freely  and  as 
commandingly  as  in  the  plays  whose  province  is  as  wide  as 
humanity  itself.     With  his   fondness   for  music,   repeatedly 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  Wl 

expressed,  he  has  caught  all  tones;  the  homely,  half- 
humorous  realism  of  the  folk  songs: 

"  When  all  aloud  the  Wind  doth  blow, 

And  coughing  drowns  the  parson's  saw, 
And  birds  sit  brooding  in  the  snow, 

And  Marian's  nose  looks  red  and  raw. 
When  roasted  crabs  hiss  in  the  bowl. 
Then  nightly  sings  the  staring  owl. 
Tu-whit ! 
Tu-who ! — a  merry  note. 
While  greasy  Joan  doth  keel  the  pot." 

the  Platonic  idealism  in 

"  Who  is  Silvia  ?    What  is  she. 

That  all  our  swains  commend  her? 

Holy,  fair,  and  wise  is  she; 

The  heaven  such  grace  did  lend  her. 

That  she  might  admired  be." 

There  is  the  simpKcity  of  the  early  songs  in  "0  mistress 
mine,  where  are  you  roaming,"  or  "It  was  a  lover  and  his 
lass" ;  there  is  the  delicacy,  the  refinement  of  the  art  lyric 
in  the  strophe  "Come  unto  these  yellow  sands"  or  "Over 
hill,  over  dale."  We  have  heard  so  many  times  "Under  the 
greenwood  tree,"  and  "Blow,  blow  thou  winter  wind"  that 
these  "sweets  grown  common  lose  their  dear  delight,"  but 
how  marvellously  the  moral  platitudes  of  the  earlier  mis- 
cellanies have  been  transformed  in 

"  Freeze,  freeze,  thou  bitter  sky. 
That  dost  not  bite  so  nigh 

As  benefits  forgot: 
Though  thou  the  waters  warp, 
Thy  sting  is  not  so  sharp 

As  friend  remembered  not." 


208  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  style  of  these  songs  is  as  varied  as  their  content,  and 
the  metres  range  from 

"  Sigh  no  more^  ladies,  sigh  no  more; 
Men  were  deceivers  ever; 
One  foot  in  sea  and  one  on  shore. 
To  one  thing  constant  never:" 

to  the  magic  music  of  "Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies." 
Shakespeare  gains  his  effects  in  such  little  space ;  eight  lines 
suffice  for  the  most  passionate  of  all  his  songs,  "Take,  0  take 
those  lips  away,"  and  there  is  the  essence  of  all  spring  songs 
and  serenades  in  the  single  stanza  "Hark !  hark !  the  lark  at 
heaven's  gate  sings. "^  It  is  small  wonder  that  Hugo  and 
the  French  romanticists,  turning  to  Shakespeare's  example 
in  their  fight  against  the  classic  drama,  imitated  his  method 
of  introducing  lyrics  in  his  plays  as  they  did  his  mingling 
of  tragedy  and  comedy ;  yet  no  one  has  been  able  to  imitate 
his  style.  We  catch  strains  of  the  long-drawn-out  sweet- 
ness of  Spenser's  Epithalamion  in  Tennyson's  Lotos-Eaters; 
the  vigor,  the  mordant  tone  of  Raleigh's  Lie  may  be  found 
in  our  modern  songs  and  ballads ;  the  sensuousness  of  the 
Elizabethan  sonnet  has  been  caught  by  Keats,  but  Shakes- 
peare's songs  have  no  counterpart  in  all  the  verse  that  has 
been  written  since  his  day.  As  we  read  them,  we  seem  to 
see  above  them  that  hne  of  John  Donne's 

"  The  mystery,  the  sign  you  must  not  touch." 


We  have  said  that  the  audiences  in  the  theatres  demanded 
songs   because    all   classes   of   society   delighted   in   singing 

1  "His  songs  possess  in  perfection  all  the  essential  elements  of  gaiety 
and  tenderness,  facility  and  grace,  idiomatic  purity,  melody  in  the 
expression,  variety,  suddenness,  and  completeness.  In  their  airiness  and 
sweetness,  their  spontaneity  and  full-throated  ease,  they  resemble  the 
song  of  birds."    Bell,  op.  cit.,  pp.  109-110. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  209 

them;  we  find  the  confirmation,  of  this  statement  in  the 
Stationers'  Register.  In  1530  Wynkyn  de  Worde  published 
his  song  book,  of  which  only  the  part  for  the  bass  has  been 
preserved.  No  other  book  with  music  appeared  until  1571, 
when  there  was  published  Songs  of  three,  four,  and  five  voices, 
composed  and  made  by  Thomas  Whythorne,  which  we  may  dis- 
miss with  the  comment  that  the  music  is  mediocre  and  the 
verses  are  doggerel.^  From  1587  to  1630  there  were  pub- 
lished eighty-eight  song  books  containing  between  fifteen 
hundred  and  two  thousand  pieces. 

The  first  Elizabethan  song  books  were  directly  inspired 
by  the  Italian  madrigal  collections,  for  Italy  was  the 
acknowledged  home  of  song.  In  the  Cortegiano,  a  work 
which  both  Italians  and  Englishmen  regarded  as  a  classic, 
we  read :  "Signori,  ....  avete  a  sapere  ch'  io  non  mi  contento 
del  Cortegiano,  se  egli  noil  e  ancor  musico,  e  se,  oltre  alio 
intendere  ed  esser  sicuro  a  libro,  non  sa  di  varii  instruments "^ 
To  understand  music,  to  play  or  to  sing,  was  a  necessary 
accomplishment  for  a  gentleman.  This  produced  an  army 
of  composers,  who  set  to  melodies  the  sonnets  of  Petrarch  and 
his  followers  and  the  strambotti  of  Serafino.  The  favorite 
poetic  form  for  these  song  writers  was  not  the  sonnet  how- 
ever but  the  madrigal.  Petrarch  had  written  a  small  number 
of  them,  but  the  Neapolitan  Dragonetto  Bonifacio  (1500- 
1529)  was  the  first  poet  to  gain  fame  in  this  genre.  Luigi 
Cassola,  considered  by  many  the  best  of  all  madrigal  writers, 
pubHshed  in  1545  a  collection  of  over  three  hundred,  without 
music ;  other  well-known  names  are  Muzio  Manfredi,  Guarini, 
and  the  two  Strozzi  who  wrote  over  fifteen  hundred.  To  show 
the  tone  of  the  Italian  madrigal  we  shall  quote  one  by 
Cassola : 

1  See  the  quotations  in  E.  F.  Rimbault's  article  in  The  Bibliographical 
Miscellany,  No.  4,  London,  1854. 

2  Book  I,  chapter  xlvii. 


210  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Quando  piu  guardo  le  bellezze  estreme, 
E  quelle  gratia  rare, 
Ch'in  la  mia  donna  sola 
Fur  per  gratia  del  ciel  raccolte  insieme : 
Alhor  piu  penso  come  mai  parola 
Possa  d'altra  parlare, 
E  ch'in  altra  il  pensier  possa  pensare: 
Che  nel  mirar  sotto  il  suo  bianco  velo 
Veggo  quanto  puo  far  natura,  e  il  cielo."^ 

(The  more  I  see  the  highest  beauties  and  those  rare  graces  which 
by  the  grace  of  Heaven  were  united  in  my  lady  alone,  the  more 
I  wonder  how  words  can  speak  of  any  other,  or  the  thought 
dwell  on  any  one  else;  because  looking  beneath  her  white  veil, 
I  see  all  that  nature,  all  that  Heaven  can  do.) 

Here  is  graceful  flattery,  the  characteristic  trait  of  these 
madrigals,  for  they  do  not,  so  often  as  the  sonnets,  affect  a 
high  and  passionate  strain.  In  other  respects  their  subject- 
matter  is  similar ;  they  sing  of  pastoral  life,  of  beauty  and 
its  brief  moment,  of  love  with  its  many  sorrows.  Precisely 
as  we  have  elegiac  and  religious  sonnets,  so  we  have  mad- 
rigals written  on  the  death  of  friends,  madrigals  that  are 
prayers  to  Christ  or  the  Virgin.  In  technique  the  sonnet  and 
madrigal  do  not  approach  each  other;  the  madrigal  form 
was  not  a  fixed  one  either  in  its  rhyme  scheme  or  in  the  num- 
ber of  its  verses.     "The  madrigal,"  writes  Crescimbeni,  "is 

the  shortest  lyrical  composition  used  by  good  writers 

In  regard  to  the  number  of  its  lines,  the  earliest  fathers  of 
song  did  not  use  less  than  six  nor  more  than  eleven,"  yet 
Cassola  has  madrigals  with  as  many  as  twenty-four  lines.^ 
The  music  of  the  madrigal  followed  an  invariable  tradition. 
Madrigals  were  unaccompanied  part  songs,  frequently  writ- 
ten for  as  many  as  five  or  six  voices ;  each  part  was  carried 

1  See  the  1545  edition  of  Cassola's  madrigals,  p.  91. 
^L'lstoria  della  Volgar  Poesia,  3d  edition,  Venezia,  1731,  vol.  I,  p. 
184. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  211 

by  but  a  single  performer  and  not,  as  we  arrange  them 
to-day,  by  several  singers.  The  music  was  a  "combination 
of  two  elements  originally  totally  separate,  the  contrapuntal 
secular  music  of  the  Italians  and  their  resident  masters  of 
Netherlandish  blood,  and  the  harmonic  Italian  quasi-popular 

song All  the  English  madrigal-writers  show  both  the 

contrapuntal  and  the  harmonic  elements  in  their  works,  and 

indeed  generally  combine  them  in  the  same  composition 

Even  in  the  subsidiary  form  of  madrigals  known  as  Ballets 
or  Fa  Las,  where  the  markedly  rhythmical  element  is 
especially  prominent,  and  the  whole  tendency  is  in  the  direc- 
tion of  plainly  melodic  swing,  there  is  still  an  attention  to 
the  delicate  shades  of  individual  part-writing  which,  even  if 
there  were  not  (as  there  usually  are)  occasional  contrapuntal 
passages,  would  prevent  us  from  regarding  them  merely  as 
harmonized  tunes. "'^ 

The  first  books  of  the  new  madrigal  music  were  William 
Byrd's  Psalms,  Sonnets  and  Songs  of  Sadness  and  Piety 
(thirty-five  in  number),  published  in  1588,  and  Nicholas 
Yonge's  Musica  Transalpina.  Madrigals  translated,  of  four, 
five  and  six  parts,  chosen  out  of  divers  excellent  authors, 
which  appeared  the  same  year,  bringing  into  England,  for 
the  first  time,  the  term  "madrigal."  Fifty-seven  Italian  and 
Netherlandish  composers  are  represented  in  this  collection, 
and  the  Italian  poetry  which  accompanied  their  music  has 
been  clumsily  translated  into  English.  The  success  of  these 
two  books  started  a  whole  school  of  madrigal  composition; 
we  at  once  have  English  composers  and  English  madrigal 
writers,  although  many  Italian  madrigals,  translated  or 
adapted,  were  constantly  appearing  side  by  side  with  original 
verse.  The  next  step  was  to  introduce  musical  accompani- 
ment and  in  John  Dowland's  First  Book  of  Songs  or  Airs, 

IE.  Walker,  A  History  of  Music  in  England,  Oxford,  1907,  p.  59. 
Chapter  IV  contains  some  interesting  transcriptions  of  English  mad- 
rigals. 


212  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

1597,  there  are  twenty-one  songs  for  four  voices  with  lute 
accompaniment.  In  1601  books  of  airs  were  pubHshed  by 
Jones  and  by  Campion  and  Rosseter,  and  in  these  two  books 
there  was  not  only  an  instrumental  accompaniment,  but  a 
second  innovation:  the  songs  were  written  for  one  voice. 
The  solo  had  long  been  found  in  the  dramatic  lyrics ;  it  enters 
the  song  books  at  a  comparatively  late  date.^ 

To  understand  Elizabethan  song,  we  must  reconstruct 
our  ideas  of  English  music.  In  our  own  day  Norway  has 
produced  in  Grieg  a  song  writer  more  famous  than  any  one 
the  great  Anglo-Saxon  race  has  given  to  the  world  in  the 
last  fifty  years.  Both  in  England  and  America  we  turn  to 
foreign  composers,  players,  and  singers,  while  our  native 
music  constitutes  a  very  small  part  of  a  concert  programme. 
In  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  English  composers  and 
performers  were  unsurpassed ;  their  music  was  frequently 
printed  abroad — in  Berlin  and  Utrecht,  in  Frankfort  and 
Nuremberg— and  their  fame  spread  through  Europe.  John 
Dowland  was  made  lutanist  to  the  court  of  Denmark;  John 
Bull  was  appointed  organist  of  Antwerp  cathedral ;  Alphonso 
Ferrabosco  was  taken  to  Turin  by  the  Duke  of  Savoy  to  be 
his  chief  musician.  The  tributes  foreign  critics  paid  to  Eng- 
lish music  are  laudatory  in  the  highest  degree.  In  a  letter 
of  Monsieur  de  Champany  not  written  to  flatter  English 
pride  (it  was  intercepted  by  the  government),  we  read:  "I 
was  invited  to  Eltham  ....  an  house  of  the  Queen.  At 
which  time  I  heard  and  saw  three  things  that  in  all  my  travel 
of  France,  Italy  and  Spain,  I  never  heard  or  saw  the  like. 
The  first  was  a  consort  of  music,  so  excellent  and  sweet  as 
can  not  be  expressed."^  From  Elizabeth  to  the  humblest 
peasant,  all  classes  delighted  in  song.     Wherever  the  Queen 

ij.  Erskine,  The  Eliznhethan  Lyric,  N.  Y.,  1903,  chapter  VII,  The 
Song-Book;  W.  Bolle,  Die  gedruckten  englischen  Liederbiicher  bis  1600, 
Palmtra,  XXIX,  Berlin,  1903,  p.  iv. 

2  A.  Dyce,  Works  of  Oreene  and  Peele,  p.  567. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  213 

was  entertained  in  her  royal  progresses,  lyrics  were  sung  in 
her  honor ;  to-day  our  distinguished  guests  are  merely  dined. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  we  enj  oy  songs  as  did  our  forefathers ; 
certainly  we  lack  their  musical  training.  The  preface  to 
Morley's  Canzonets  (1597)  has  become  a  locus  classicus: 
"Supper  being  ended,  and  music  books  (according  to  the 
custom)  being  brought  to  the  table,  the  mistress  of  the  house 
presented  me  with  a  part,  earnestly  requesting  me  to  sing; 
but  when,  after  many  excuses,  I  protested  unfeignedly  that  I 
could  not,  everyone  began  to  wonder.  Yea,  some  whispered 
to  others,  demanding  how  I  was  brought  up.""^  This  sight 
reading  was  the  more  difficult  because  the  singer  had  before 
him  not  the  full  score  but  merely  his  own  part,  which  was 
never  a  simple  harmony,  as  in  our  part  songs,  but  a  melody, 
for  madrigals  were  polyphonic. 

Though  Morley  probably  exaggerated  the  case  to  recom- 
mend his  book,  the  plays  of  the  period  show  that  song  was 
not  only  a  diversion  but  a  necessary  and  highly  prized 
accomplishment.  In  Othello's  praise  of  Desdemona  he  cries 
admiringly,  "O,  she  wiU  sing  the  savageness  out  of  a  bear," 
and  in  his  eyes  it  was  not  the  least  of  her  perfections.  When 
Cassio  desires  to  secure  her  favor,  he  arranges  a  serenade. 
In  Cymheline  the  foolish  churl  Cloten  courts  Imogen  with 
song :  "I  am  advised  to  give  her  music  o'  mornings ;  they  say 
it  will  penetrate";  then  follows  "Hark!  hark!  the  lark  at 
heaven's  gate  sings."  To  turn  from  fiction  to  history,  when 
David  Rizzio  wished  to  meet  Mary  of  Scotland,  he  stationed 
himself  on  the  stair  at  Holyrood  and  as  she  descended,  care- 
lessly strummed  a  gittern.  There  could  be  no  surer  means 
of  attracting  her  attention.  As  the  lyric  played  such  a  part 
in  life,  there  were  songs  for  all  occasions ;  for  weddings,  for 
funerals,  for  dances,  for  feasts.  There  were  special  songs 
for  all  the  trades — the  tinkers,  for  example,  were  renowned 
for  their  catches — and  the  viol,  the  lute,  or  the  virginals 

1  BoUe,  p.  iv. 


2H  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

were  commonly  found  in  the  houses  of  rich  and  poor.  To-day 
at  the  barber's  shop  waiting  patrons  read  the  papers;  in 
Elizabethan  days  they  played  the  barber's  gittem.  We  say 
"as  cheap  as  dirt" ;  that  age  expressed  the  idea  in  the  phrase 
"as  common  as  a  barber's  gittern,"  for  every  one  used  it.^ 

We  have  had  music  married  to  immortal  verse — the  lyrics 
of  Shakespeare  and  Heine  set  to  the  melodies  of  Schubert 
and  Schumann — but  our  popular  songs  have  not  the  slightest 
poetic  value.  The  Elizabethan  composers  wrote  their  music 
for  poetry  which  in  many  respects  has  never  been  surpassed. 
The  most  striking  feature  of  these  madrigals  and  songs  is 
their  great  metrical  charm — they  fairly  sing  themselves — 
yet  this  does  not  imply  that  their  subject  matter  is  trivial 
or  uninteresting.  The  song  writers  are  genuinely  fond  of 
country  life ;  they  abandon  the  pastoral  conventionalities  of 
the  Elizabethan  romances  for  fresh  descriptions  of  meadows 
and  flowers,  of  May  fields  where  a  shepherd  and  his  lass  sing, 
dance,  and  make  love: 

"  See  where  my  love  a-maying  goes 

With  sweet  dame  Flora  sporting ! 
She  most  alone  with  nightingales 
In  woods'  delights  consorting. 

"  Turn  again,  my  dearest ! 

The  pleasant'st  air's  in  meadows; 
Else  by  the  river  let  us  breathe, 
And  kiss  among  the  willows." 

writes   an   anonymous   poet  in   Pilkington's   madrigals,   and 
Morley's  best-known  ballet  repeats  the  theme : 

"  Now  is  the  month  of  maying. 
When  mery  lads  are  playing 
Each  with  his  bonny  lass 
Upon  the  greeny  grass. 
Fa  la  la ! 

1  W.  Chappell,  Popular  Music  of  the  Olden  Time,  London,  1859,  pp. 
98  ff. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  215 

"  The  spring  clad  all  in  gladness 
Doth  laugh  at  winter's  sadness^ 
And  to  the  bagpipe's  sound 
The  nymphs  tread  out  their  ground. 
Fa  la  la!" 

He  returns  to  it  again  in: 

"  Harkj  joHy  shepherds,  hark;  hark  yon  lusty  ringing; 
How  cheerfully  the  bells  dance,  the  whilst  the  lads  are  spring- 
ing: 
Go  then,  why  sit  we  here  delaying? 
And  all  yond  merry  wanton  lasses  playing?" 

These  songs  have  a  more  homely  tone  than  the  lyrics  of  the 
drama ;  they  are  simpler  both  in  thought  and  expression. 
In  the  sonnets  and  in  the  longer  Elizabethan  lyrics  the  birds 
are  often  described  as  merely  a  part  of  some  meadow  scene, 
precisely  as  an  artist  might  paint  them  in  the  corner  of  a 
picture;  here,  as  in  some  of  the  lyrics  from  the  plays,  they 
are  named  as  old,  familiar  friends : 

"  The  nightingale,  the  organ  of  delight ; 

The  nimble  lark,  the  blackbird,  and  the  thrush; 
And  all  the  pretty  choristers  of  flight. 

That  chant  their  music  notes  in  every  bush ; 
Let  them  no  more  contend  who  shall  excell. 
The  cuckoo  is  the  bird  that  bears  the  bell."^ 

or 

"  Lady  the  birds  right  fairly 
Are  singing  ever  early: 
The  lark,  the  thrush,  the  nightingale. 
The  make-sport  cuckoo  and  the  quail; 
These  sing  of  love;  then  why  sleep  ye? 
To  love  your  sleep  it  may  not  be."^ 

1  F.  A.  Cox,  English  Madrigals  in  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  London, 
1899,  pp.  138,  112,  70,  149. 

2  T.  Oliphant,  Musa  Madrigalesca,  London,  1837,  p.  132. 


216  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

It  is  in  these  songs,  not  in  the  formal  pastorals  of  the  period, 
that  we  find  the  truest  expression  of  the  spirit  of  outdoor  life. 
Although  the  majority  of  these  songs  are  light-hearted 
bursts  of  melody,  both  composers  and  poets  wished  to  show 
their  skiU  in  graver  writing ;  accordingly  the  sunniest  day 
has  its  clouds  and  the  lasses  are  not  always  kind.  We  have 
many  complaints  of  inconstancy;  Amaryllis  writes  on  the 
sand  "my  faith  shall  be  immortal" 

"  But  suddenly  a  storm  of  wind  and  weather 
Blew  all  her  faith  and  sand  away  together." 

There  is  many  a  shepherd  who  with  Philon,  in  William  Byrd's 
finest  lyric,  sings  "Untrue  love,  untrue  love,  adieu,  love," 
still  we  feel  these  pastoral  lovers  will  soon  be  reconciled. 
There  are  few  tragedies  such  as  "There  were  three  ravens" 
and  though  the  songs  have  a  gentle  melancholy,  they  lack 
deep  feeling;  they  attract  and  deKght  us,  but  they  rarely 
touch  us  with  a  sense  of  the  dark  moments  in  life.  This, 
their  chief  defect,  is  in  a  great  measure  due  to  their  music. 
Polyphonic,  unaccompanied  songs  are  best  adapted  to  light 
and  graceful  dialogues  or  descriptions ;  in  our  modern  music, 
the  single  voice,  reinforced  by  an  instrumental  accompani- 
ment, expresses  the  deepest  feelings,  but  the  Elizabethan 
instruments  could  portray  only  a  very  limited  range  of 
emotions.  The  lute,  the  most  popular  of  all,  has  a  faint, 
far-ofF  sound,  like  an  etherealized  guitar ;  its  music  is  deli- 
cate, but  never  strong.  The  gentle  tone  of  the  virginals  has 
no  sustained  quality,  and  its  rapid  runs  and  trills  which  give 
to  this  instrument  "a  delightful  shimmering,  silver  quality," 
would  make  it  pathetically  unfit  to  depict  the  terror  of 
Schubert's  ErlJconig,  the  passion  of  Brahm's  Von  Ewiger 
Liebe.  It  is  true  that  at  times  these  songs  sound  the  high 
Platonic  note : 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  217 

"  Thy  mind  is  fairer  than  thy  face  or  eyes: 

And  that  same  beauteous  outside  which  thou  hast. 
Is  but  a  curious  casket,  in  which  lies 

The  treasure  of  a  mind,  virtuous  and  chaste;"' 

they  even  attempt  the  invocations  to  sleep  in  the  strain  of 
the  sonneteers: 

■■  Come,  shadow  of  my  end,  and  shape  of  rest, 
Allied  to  death,  child  of  the  blackest  night,"^ 

but  such  verses  are  out  of  keeping;  they  break  the  charm, 
the  mood  of  the  songs  is  a  quieter  one. 

We  have  said  that  the  most  admirable  feature  of  these 
songs  is  their  metrical  grace,  and  something  of  their  art  can 
be  seen  in  the  stanzas  we  have  cited.  To-day  our  song  metres 
are  comparatively  few;  the  stanzas  are  invariably  regular 
and  simple  in  construction.  These  lyrics  range  from  a 
Spenserian  stanza  to 

"  April  is  in  my  mistress'  face. 
And  July  in  her  eyes  hath  place: 
Within  her  bosom  is  September, 
But  in  her  heart  a  cold  December."^ 

a  quatrain  which  Carew  remembered;  from  Sidney's  "The 
Nightingale  as  soon  as  April  bringeth,"  with  its  stanza  and 
refrain  of  thirty-two  lines,  to  the  three  line 

"  Why  weeps,  alas !  my  lady  love  and  mistress .'' 

Sweet-heart,  fear  not ;  what  tho'  a-while  I  leave  thee ; 
My  life  may  fail,  but  I  will  not  deceive  thee."* 

1  Cox,  p.  159. 

2T.  OUphant,  p.  159. 

3  P.  73. 

4  P.  92.    This  is  a  translation  from  the  Italian. 


218  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Fond  of  a  quick  beat  to  the  measure,  the  tripping  verses  of 
these  poets  are  without  that  vulgar  facility  which  marks  the 
modern  song;  they  can  be  lively  without  being  cheap.  In 
equally  sharp  contrast  to  our  lyric  is  the  deHght  of  poets 
and  composers  for  a  long,  slow  line : 

"  When  thou  must  home  to  shades  of  underground. 
And  there  arrived,  a  new  admired  guest." 

"  Though  love  and  all  his  pleasures  are  but  toys, 
They  shorten  tedious  nights.'' 

"  Dear,  if  you  change,  I'U  never  chose  again; 

Sweet,  if  you  shrink,  I'll  never  think  of  love;" 

"  I  saw  my  lady  weep. 
And  Sorrow,  proud  to  be  advanced  so 
In  those  fair  eyes  where  all  perfections  keep." 


They  seek  new  combinations  of  metre,  and  gain  some  of  their 
most  artistic  effects  in  irregular  stanzaic  forms.  From  many 
examples  we  select  but  one — a  slumber  song  quite  different 
from  the  sonnet  invocations  to  sleep : 

"  Sleep  is  a  reconciling, 

A  rest  that  peace  begets: — 
Doth  not  the  sun  rise  smiling. 
When  fair  at  even  he  sets  ? 

— Rest  you,  then^  rest,  sad  eyes ! 
Melt  not  in  weeping ! 
While  she  lies  sleeping 
Softly,  now  softly  lies 
Sleeping."^ 

1  Cox,  p.  169.  For  the  music  of  this  song,  see  Jackson's  English 
Melodies  from  the  13th  to  the  18th  Century,  p.  60.  This  valuable  book; 
contains  the  airs  for  many  of  the  lyrics  we  have  quoted. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  219 

This  is  the  perfection  of  song  writing ;  the  longer  line  of  the 
first  quatrain  drops  gently  into  a  shorter  measure  and  the 
singer's  voice  is  almost  hushed  as  the  verse  moves  more  and 
more  quietly: 

"  Softly,  now  softly  lies 
Sleeping." 

The  greater  part  of  the  poetry  in  the  song  books  is  anony- 
mous, though  familiar  names — Sidney,  Dyer,  Lodge, 
Daniel — appear  here  and  there.  One  song  writer,  however, 
is  well  known ;  his  work  contains  all  the  best  qualities  of  these 
lyrics  and  with  a  consideration  of  his  verse  we  shall  close  our 
chapter. 

Thomas  Campion  (1567-1620)  was  a  finely  educated  and 
highly  gifted  physician  whose  tastes  were  literary  and  musi- 
cal rather  than  scientific.  He  published  a  book  of  Latin 
epigrams ;  he  wrote  a  treatise  on  English  versification ;  he 
was  the  author  of  a  well-known  masque ;  but  to-day  he  lives 
in  his  lyrics.  He  possessed  in  the  highest  degree  the  art  of 
writing  verse  exquisite  in  workmanship  yet  perfectly  adapted 
for  music.    In  one  of  his  lyrics  he  wrote 

"  Let  well-tuned  words  amaze 
With  harmony  divine," 

and  his  rhythms  are  always  beautifully  modulated.  Moore's 
Irish  Melodies  have  the  true  singing  quality,  but  they  lack 
the  surprises,  the  variety,  and  the  delicate  shadings  of  Cam- 
pion's metres.  Where  so  much  is  remarkable,  selection  is 
difficult;  he  employs  many  styles  and  all  successfully.  In  a 
gay  mood  he  writes : 

"  I  care  not  for  these  ladies, 
That  must  be  woo'd  and  prayed; 
Give  me  kind  Amarillis, 
That  wanton  country  maid ;'' 


220  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

from  this  he  turns  to  a  broader  melody : 

"  Where  she  her  sacred  bower  adorns, 

The  rivers  clearly  flow; 
The  groves  and  meadows  swell  with  flowers. 

The  winds  all  gently  blow. 
Her  sun-like  beauty  shines  so  fair, 

Her  Spring  can  never   fade. 
Who  then  can  blame  the  life  that  strives 

To  harbour  in  her  shade?" 

He  can  write  in  the  naive  spirit  characteristic  of  so  much  in 
the  song  books,  using  an  almost  monosyllabic  diction: 

"  Never  love  unless  you  can 
Bear  with  all  the  faults  of  man:" 

at  other  times  he  uses  a  more  heightened  style  and  finely 
wrought  phrase  and  writes  the  line  that  stirs  the  imagina- 
tion, as  in  his  most  famous  song,  "When  thou  must  home  to 
shades  of  underground" : 

"  Then  wilt  thou  speak  of  banqueting  delights. 
Of  masques  and  revels  which  sweet  youth  did  make. 
Of  tourneys  and  great  challenges  of  knights. 
And  all  these  triumphs  for  thy  beauty's  sake: 
When  thou  hast  told  these  honours  done  to  thee. 
Then  tell,  O  tell,  how  thou  didst  murder  me."  !^ 

The  subject-matter  of  Campion's  lyrics  is  not  always  as 
admirable  as  his  style;  he  gives  us  the  art  song  rather  than 
the  lyric  of  life.  There  is  personal  feeling  in  his  religious 
lyrics,  "View  me,  Lord,"  for  example,  but  as  a  rule  he 
lacks  emotional  force.  We  search  in  vain  through  aU  his 
songs  for  even  an  echo  of  such  a  poignant  cry  as  "Ae  fond 
kiss,  and  then  we  sever." 

iSee  P.  Vivian,  Campion's  Works,  Oxford,  1909,  pp.  7,  134,  173,  17. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  LYRIC  221 

We  have  now  considered  briefly  the  chief  writers  of  the 
Elizabethan  lyric — their  ideas,  the  emotions  they  expressed, 
their  art — and  the  question  naturally  arises,  Has  this  lyric 
of  the  golden  time  of  song  ever  been  surpassed?  Has  the 
modern  age  declined  in  the  lyric  as  it  has  in  the  verse  drama  ? 
It  is  always  difiicult  to  compare  two  ages  because  writers 
have  a  way  of  overlapping  the  purely  artificial  boundaries 
of  a  reign  or  of  a  generation;  yet  we  may  take  as  the  basis 
of  an  estimate  the  lyrical  poetry  written  during  the  twenty- 
four  years  between  the  publication  of  the  Shepherd's  Calen- 
dar, 1579,  and  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  1603,  and  the  modern 
lyrics  composed  in  the  twenty-three  years  between  the 
appearance  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  1798,  and  the  death  of 
Keats,  1821.  /  In  every  respect  save  one,  the  modern  lyric 
seems  the  greater.  If  some  ten  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  are 
unexcelled,  the  best  sonnets  of  Wordsworth  and  Keats  stand 
by  them  and  surpass  the  work  of  the  other  Elizabethans. 
The  modern  sonnet  has  more  variety  and  harmony  in  its 
music ;  it  has  a  greater  wealth  of  observation ;  and  it  is  far 
deeper  in  its  interpretation  of  life.  The  modem  Odes  are 
much  more  significant  than  those  of  the  Elizabethans ;  only 
Spenser's  Hymns,  and  his  Prothalamion  and  Epithalamion 
approach  in  poetic  value  and  inspiration  such  typically  mod- 
em work  as  the  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immortality,  the 
Ode  to  the  Departing  Year,  Adonais,  and  the  Ode  to  a  Night- 
ingale, i^  How  much  more  intense  are  the  emotions  of  our 
modem  poets,  how  much  deeper  is  their  outlook  upon  life! 
Their  lyric  verse  is  greater  in  its  philosophy,  in  its  purely 
spiritual  content,  while  its  technique  is  broader  and  more 
resourceful.  The  majority  of  Elizabethan  lyrics  disclose  a 
purely  personal  mood  of  joy  or  sadness;  the  modern  lyric 
shows  these  moods  even  more  poignantly  and  in  addition  has 
what  we  may  call  the  social  mood,  studying  the  thoughts  and 
desires  of  whole  peoples.  To-day,  the  world  seems  to  lie  at 
the  poet's  feet. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

In  one  respect,  as  we  have  said,  the  modern  lyric  must 
yield  to  the  Elizabethan:  its  songs  lack  the  melody  and 
charm  of  those  of  the  earlier  age.  The  care-free  spirit ;  the 
grace,  the  daintiness  of  metre ;  those  touches  above  the  reach 
of  art,  we  can  not  attain.  Our  lyric  poets  think  and  feel 
too  deeply  ever  to 

"  recapture 
The  first  fine  careless  rapture." 

This  summing  up  is  incomplete  because  we  have  not  con- 
sidered among  the  Elizabethans  Jonson  and  Donne.  Most 
of  Jonson's  lyrics  were  written  after  Elizabeth's  death,  yet 
the  songs  of  Donne  belong  to  her  reign.  Both  poets  in 
departing  from  Elizabethan  traditions  founded  new  schools 
of  lyric  verse;  it  is  for  this  reason  that  we  have  chosen  to 
discuss  them  in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

The  Jacobean  and  Caroline  Lyric 


Early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  if  a  citizen  of  London 
had  been  asked  who  was  the  foremost  English  writer,  in  all 
probability  he  would  have  replied,  "Ben  Jonson"  (1573- 
1637).  There  have  been  great  poets  who  have  worked  in 
retirement,  who  even  shunned  the  life  of  their  times,  but 
Jonson  was  London  born  and  bred.  He  lived  in  the  open; 
his  character  was  aggressive;  his  likes  and  dislikes  were 
expressed  in  no  uncertain  language ;  and  even  the  most  un- 
literary  must  have  admired  his  commanding  personality. 
He  had  won  his  way  to  fame  by  sheer  ability  allied  with 
indefatigable  industry.  As  a  boy  he  had  commenced  his 
classical  studies  at  Westminster  School  with  the  great  Cam- 
den as  his  master  (he  addressed  to  him  in  later  years  an 
"epigram"  full  of  reverence  and  gratitude)  but  apparently 
he  was  denied  the  opportunity  of  studying  at  Oxford  or 
Cambridge.  His  stepfather,  a  master  builder,  desired  Jonson 
to  follow  that  trade,  but  as  he  told  Drummond,  he  could  not 
support  it  and  ran  off  to  the  Low  Countries  to  fight.^  Here 
he  distinguished  himself  for  his  bravery,  as  he  did,  on  his 
return  to  England,  at  the  duelling  ground ;  but  he  was  more 
the  disciple  of  Mercury  than  Mars,  and  he  soon  began  his 
literary  career  as  a  reviser  of  old  plays.  From  this  humble 
position  he  rose  to  the  most  honored  place  among  the  writers 
of  his  generation.  Shakespeare  confessed  himself  to  be  an 
"unlettered  clerk";  Jonson,  while  deeply  engaged  in  his 
dramas,  continued  his  studies  until  he  had  gained  the  most 

1  Cunningham-GifFord,  Works  of  Ben  Jonson,  nine  volumes,  London, 
1875,  vol.  IX,  p.  388. 


n}^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

extensive  knowledge  of  the  classic  writers — he  ranks  with 
Milton,  Gray,  and  Landor  in  this  respect — and  the  two  uni- 
versities in  recognition  of  his  scholarship,  conferred  upon 
him  the  Master's  degree.  In  the  social  life  of  the  times  he 
played  a  most  prominent  part.  He  was  a  founder  of  the 
famous  Apollo  Club,  where  gathered  the  poets  and  wits,  and 
at  its  meetings  he  presided  over  the  choicest  spirits  of  his  day. 
His  admirers,  half  in  jest,  half  seriously,  styled  themselves  the 
"Sons  of  Ben,"  and  to  be  admitted  by  him  to  their  number 
was  no  small  compHment.  Of  lowly  parentage,  he  was  on 
familiar  terms  with  the  chief  men  of  his  day — Bacon,  Selden, 
the  Earl  of  Newcastle,  Lord  Falkland ;  the  list  would  be  a 
long  one — and  he  was  an  honored  guest  at  the  homes  of  the 
nobility.  He  was  appointed  poet  laureate ;  he  became  the 
writer  of  court  masques ;  his  entertainments  were  the  delight 
of  the  nobility ;  and  his  verses  were  spoken  by  the  members  of 
the  Royal  household  and  of  the  Royal  family.  It  is  small 
wonder  that  the  age  admired  the  poet  who  had  worked  his 
way  from  the  ranks  to  such  social  and  literary  triumphs. 

For  a  man  of  Jonson's  temperament,  creative  work  was 
not  sufficient ;  he  was  so  confident  of  his  own  tastes  and  of 
his  own  Hterary  theories  that  he  wished  to  impose  them  on 
others.     In  his  poem  to  Camden  he  exclaims 

"  What  weight,  and  what  authority  in  thy  speech !" 

and  this  force  which  he  admired  in  his  old  teacher,  he  pos- 
sessed himself.  Jonson  is  the  one  poet  of  his  time  who  has 
left  us  any  trenchant  criticism  of  his  contemporaries  (for 
we  may  disregard  the  personalities  of  literary  quarrels)  ;  the 
sole  writer  who  has  stated  his  literary  creed.  Though  it  has 
been  shown  that  many  of  the  criticisms  and  statements  of 
opinion  in  his  Discoveries  are  literal  translations  from  the 
classics  and  from  the  writings  of  the  humanists,  yet  these 
very  passages  were  made  his  own  simply  because  they  coin- 
cided with  his  ideas.     So  far  as  disclosing  Jonson's  attitude 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

of  mind  is  concerned,  they  might  as  well  have  been  written 
by  him;  it  is  accordingly  no  difficult  matter  to  discover  his 
theories  in  regard  to  the  lyric. 

The  first  point  that  we  notice  is  Jonson's  utter  lack  of 
sympathy  with  the  chief  tendencies  of  the  Elizabethan  lyric. 
For  many  of  his  views  we  must  rely  on  his  conversations  with 
Drummond,  hurried,  possibly  inaccurate  notes,  taken  by  the 
Scottish  poet  whom  Jonson  had  walked  north  to  see.  Drum- 
mond's  admirations  were  Jonson's  dislikes  ;  he  must  have  been 
pained  by  many  of  his  guest's  caustic  remarks ;  and  he  made 
his  notes  in  no  admiring  spirit.  Would  that  this  Jonson  had 
found  a  Boswell !  "He  is  a  great  lover  and  praiser  of  him- 
self; a  contemner  and  scomer  of  others,"  concludes  Drum- 
mond, and  he  is  hardly  an  impartial  witness ;  yet  though  we 
may  shade  down  the  tones  of  his  picture,  it  is  evidently  true 
in  its  essentials.'^  We  see  Jonson,  secure  in  his  own  opinions, 
turning  his  back  on  the  acknowledged  masters  of  lyric  verse. 
Drummond's  conversations  were  written  in  1618,  when  the 
great  vogue  of  the  sonnet  had  passed,  yet  it  is  strange  to 
hear  that  Jonson  "cursed  Petrarch  for  redacting  verses  to 
sonnets ;  which  he  said  were  like  that  tyrant's  bed,  where  some 
who  were  too  short  were  racked;  others  too  long,  cut  short," 
and  that  "cross  rhymes  and  stanzas  were  all  forced."^  Jon- 
son's dislike  for  the  sonnet  is  shown  in  his  first  play,  Every 
Man  in  his  Humor,  acted  in  1598.  Here  he  parodies  a  sonnet 
written  by  Daniel,  and  sneers  at  the  form  in  Matthew,  the 
"Town  Gull,"  who  asserts,  "I  am  melancholy  myself,  divers 
times,  sir,  and  then  do  I  no  more  but  take  pen  and  paper, 
presently,  and  overflow  you  half  a  score,  or  a  dozen  sonnets 
at  a  sitting."'     When  we  realize  that  for  Jonson  Petrarch 

ip.  416. 

2  P.  370. 

3  Act  III,  scene  i,  vol.  I,  p.  63.  In  a  poem  in  the  Underwoods,  vol. 
VIII,  p.  398,  he  alludes  jeeringly  to  a  sonnet  written  on  the  "lace,  laid 
on  a  smock"  and  to  a  madrigal  on  the  Lady  Mayoress's  "French  hood 
and  scarlet  gown." 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  the  whole  Italian  school  meant  nothing,  we  understand 
how  radical  were  his  views. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Elizabethan  lyric  poets  turned 
as  eagerly  to  France  as  they  did  to  Italy  and  that  they 
"borrowed"  prodigally  from  Marot,  Desportes,  Du  Bellay, 
Ronsard;  Jonson,  in  a  poem  prefixed  to  Sylvester's  trans- 
lation of  Du  Bartas,  states  frankly  that  his  praise  is 

"  the  child  of  ignorance 
And  utter  stranger  to  all  air  of  France."^ 

This  was  in  1605,  and  by  1618  Jonson  had  mastered  enough 
French  to  compare  the  translation  with  the  original  and  to 
appreciate  Ronsard's  odes,  yet  on  the  whole  we  are  probably 
justified  in  accepting  Drummond's  statement  that  Jonson 
"neither  doth  understand  French  nor  ItaKan" ;  that  is,  he 
had  no  real  knowledge  of  these  hteratures.^  In  ignoring  the 
Renaissance  poetry  of  the  continent,  Jonson  condemned  his 
own  countrymen  who  were  nourished  by  it.  He  could  not 
follow  the  leadership  of  the  men  of  his  time ;  he  was  not 
pleased  with  Spenser's  stanza,  nor  did  Donne's  style,  the 
opposite  extreme,  satisfy  him.  He  was  not  a  genius  of  the 
first  order,  striking  out  in  new  paths ;  his  studies  had  made 
him  a  thoroughgoing  classicist;  and  he  sought  for  his 
models  in  the  poets  of  Rome. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  his  strictures  on  his  contem- 
poraries with  his  whole-hearted  praise  of  the  classics.  He 
told  Drummond  that  to  correct  his  faults  he  must  study 
Quintilian,  and  recommended  for  his  reading  Horace,  Taci- 
tus, Martial,  and  Juvenal.'  He  sends  to  a  friend  a  poetical 
invitation  to  dinner,  and  promises  him,  in  addition  to  the  deli- 
cacies of  the  table, 

1  Vol.  VIII,  p.  231. 

2  Vol.  IX,  p.  371. 

3  P.  366. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  227 

"  my  man 
Shall  read  a  piece  of  Virgil,  Tacitus, 
Livy,  or  of  some  better  book  to  us, 
Of  which  we'll  speak  our  minds,  amidst  our  meat."^ 

On  the  failure  of  his  New  Inn  (1629),  Jonson  wrote  one  of 
his  most  vigorous  pieces ;  to  quote  his  own  words,  "The  just 
indignation  the  author  took  at  the  vulgar  censure  of  his 
play,  by  some  malicious  spectators,  begat  the  following  Ode 
to  himself" : 

"  Come  leave  the  loathed  stage, 
And  the  more  loathsome  age; 
Where  pride  and  impudence  in  faction  knit, 
Usurp  the  chair  of  wit !" 

He  is  thoroughly  moved,  he  is  hurt  to  the  quick,  and  every 
line  betrays  that  he  is  speaking  from  his  heart.  At  this 
time,  he  turns  to  his  classics : 

V  "  Leave  things  so  prostitute. 

And  take  the  Alcaic  lute; 
Or  thine  own  Horace,  or  Anacreon's  lyre; 

Warm  thee  by  Pindar's  fire: 
And  though  thy  nerves  be  shrunk,  and  blood  be  cold 
Ere  years  have  made  thee  old. 
Strike  that  disdainful  heat 
Throughout,  to  their  defeat. 
As  curious  fools,  and  envious  of  thy  strain. 
May  blushing  swear  no  palsy's  in  thy  brain."^ 

It  would  be  a  simple  matter  to  cite  passage  after  passage 
in  which  Jonson  shows  that  he  is  a  child  of  Greece  and  Rome ; 
these  will  suffice  for  our  purpose. 

1  Vol.  VIII,  p.  204. 

2  Vol.  V,  p.  415. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Jonson  turned  to  the  classics  because  he  was  satiated 
with  the  "sugared"  sonnet  and  weary  of  the  rich  melodies 
of  Elizabethan  song.  He  believed  the  lyric  lacked  force  and 
to  a  man  of  his  sturdy  disposition,  this  was  a  fatal  defect. 
"Others  there  are,"  he  wrote  in  his  Discoveries,  "that  have 
no  composition  at  all;  but  a  kind  of  tuning  and  rhyming 
fall,  in  what  they  write.  It  runs  and  slides,  and  only  makes  a 
sound.  Women's  poets  they  are  called,  as  you  have  women's 
tailors ; 


"  They  write  a  verse  as  smooth,  as  soft  as  cream. 
In  which  there  is  no  torrent,  nor  scarce  stream."' 


He  wished  a  more  masculine  style ;  the  delicate  graces  of  the 
song  books,  the  richer  tones  of  the  Prothalamion  he  did  not 
desire.  Once  at  least  he  expressed  vigorously  a  dislike  of 
rhyme : 


"  Greek  was  free  from  rhyme's  infection, 
Happy  Greek  by  this  protection. 
Was  not  spoiled."^ 


He  might  have  agreed  with  Milton  in  wishing  the  English 
language  freed  from  "the  troublesome  bondage  of  rhyming." 
He  desired  no  lyric  outbursts,  but  a  regular,  well-ordered, 
sober  metre ;  accordingly  he  told  Drummond  that  "couplets" 
were  "the  bravest  sort  of  verses."  In  a  preface  to  a  song 
book,  Morley  wrote :  "You  must  in  your  music  be  wavering 
like  the  wind,  sometime  wanton,  sometime  drooping,  some- 
time   grave    and    staid,    otherwhile    effeminate   ....  and 

1  Vol.  IX,  p.  157. 

2  Vol.  VIII,  p.  379. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

show  the  uttermost  of  your  variety,  and  the  more  variety 
you  show,  the  better  shall  you  please."'  This  description  of 
Elizabethan  music  applies  equally  to  Elizabethan  metres.  In 
place  of  this  fluid  verse,  Jonson  wished  a  fixed  form;  the 
lyric  structure  must  be  more  solid,  more  compact,  with  each 
verse  well  balanced  and  carefully  polished.  There  are  no 
"native  wood  notes  wild"  in  his  songs ;  his  compositions,  says 
Clarendon,  who  knew  him,  "were  slow  and  upon  deliberation," 
for  Jonson  possessed  "judgment  to  order  and  govern  fancy, 
rather  than  excess  of  fancy. "^ 

If  he  disapproved  of  the  style  of  the  contemporary 
lyric,  he  was  displeased  also  with  its  subject-matter.  Many 
of  the  lyrics  are  pure  music,  Httle  else ;  he  wished  for  more 
substance.  He  disliked,  as  he  expressed  it,  "those  that 
merely  talk  and  never  think" ;  he  was  a  moralist,  and  he  was 
not  contented  as  were  many  of  the  Elizabethans  to  enjoy 
the  beauty  of  the  world  and  the  pleasures  of  life.  Spenser 
was  also  a  moralist,  but  he  saw  the  world  with  the  eyes  of 
Plato;  Jonson,  from  the  standpoint  of  Horace  and  Martial. 
How  different  from  the  style  of  Spenser's  Hymns  is  the  close- 
knit  verse  of  Jonson's  Epode: 

"  Not  to  know  vice  at  all,  and  keep  true  state, 
Is  virtue  and  not  fate: 
Next  to  that  virtue,  is  to  know  vice  well. 
And  her  black  spite  expel. 


"  He  that  for  love  of  goodness  hateth  ill. 
Is  more  crown-worthy  still, 
Than  he,  which  for  sin's  penalty  forbears; 
His  heart  sins,  though  he  fears."' 

1  Cox,  p.  xl. 

2  Jonson,  vol.  I,  p.  ccxxv. 

3  Vol.  VIII,  p.  363,  265. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

This  epigrammatic  expression  reminds  us  of  the  Queen  Anne 
poetry,  though  the  polish  is  not  here,  and  indeed  so  many 
traits  of  the  English  classical  school  are  found  in  Jonson's 
work  that  he  has  been  called  its  founder. 

To  illustrate  further  Jonson's  style  and  thought,  we  shall 
make  one  more  citation,  this  time  from  his  Pindaric  Ode — 
another  example  of  his  classical  tastes,  for  he  is  the  first 
EngHsh  writer  to  imitate  the  Greek  ode  with  its  strophe, 
antistrophe  and  epode : 

"  It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 

In  bulk,  doth  make  men  better  be; 
Or  standing  long  an  oak,  three  hundred  year, 
To  fall  a  log  at  last,  dry,  bald,  and  sear: 
A  lily  of  a  day 
Is  fairer  far  in  May, 
Although  it  fall  and  die  that  night; 
It  was  the  plant  and  flower  of  light. 
In  small  proportions  we  just  beauties  see; 
And  in  short  measures,  life  may  perfect  be."^ 

If  we  compare  these  verses,  among  the  noblest  in  the  lan- 
guage, with  the  stanza  of  Spenser's  Epithalamion,  in  which 
he  describes  the  perfections  of  his  bride,  "the  inward  beauty 
of  her  lively  spright,"  we  realize  the  change  that  has  come 
over  EngHsh  poetry. 

It  was  impossible  for  Jonson  to  withdraw  himself  entirely 
from  Elizabethan  influences  and  some  of  his  songs  are  in 
the  manner  of  that  age  and  have  the  music  of  the  madrigals, 
for  example: 

"  Slow,  slow,  fresh  fount;  keep  time  with  my  salt  tears: 
Yet  slower,  yet;  O  faintly,  gentle  springs;"^ 

1  Vol.  IX,  p.  13. 

2  Cynthia's  Bevels,  produced  in  1600,  Act  I,  scene  i,  vol.  II,  p.  233. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2S1 

or  still  better,  because  of  its  lyric  rapture: 

"  Have  you  seen  but  a  bright  lily  grow. 
Before  rude  hands  have  touched  it? 
Have  you  marked  but  the  fall  of  the  snow, 

Before  the  soil  hath  smutched  it? 
Have  you  felt  the  wool  of  beaver? 

Or  swan's  down  ever? 
Or  have  smelt  o'  the  bud  o'  the  brier? 

Or  the  nard  in  the  fire? 
Or  have  tasted  the  bag  of  the  bee  ? 
O  so  white,  O  so  soft,  O  so  sweet  is  she  !"^ 

This,  however,  is  not  his  customary  style;  much  more  char- 
acteristic in  its  polish  and  restraint  is  his 

"  Queen  and  huntress,  chaste  and  fair. 
Now  the  sun  is  laid  to  sleep. 
Seated  in  thy  silver  chair. 
State  in  wonted  manner  keep: 

Hesperus  entreats  thy  light. 
Goddess  excellently  bright."^ 

His  two  best  known  lyrics  show  this  same  finish.  "Still  to 
be  neat,"  a  translation  of  a  poem  in  the  Pancharis  of  the 
contemporary  writer,  Jean  Bonnefons,  has  the  careful  bal- 
ancing, the  antithetical  manner  of  Pope: 

"  Still  to  be  neat,  still  to  be  drest. 

As  you  were  going  to  a  feast ; 
Still  to  be  powdered,  still  perfumed; 

Lady,  it  is  to  be  presumed. 
Though  art's  hid  causes  are  not  found. 

All  is  not  sweet,  all  is  not  sound."' 

1  This  song  first  appeared  in  The  Devil  is  an  Ass,  produced  in  1616, 
Act  II,  scene  ii;  Jonson  afterwards  Included  it  in  the  Celebration  of 
Charis,  a  series  of  love  poems,  in  the  Elizabethan  manner,  written  when 
he  was  fifty  years  of  age. 

^Cynthia's  Bevels,  Act  V,  scene  ili,  vol.  II,  p.  339. 

3  The  Silent  Woman,  produced  in  1609,  Act  I,  scene  i,  vol.  Ill,  p.  337. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Every  effect  is  calculated;  the  thought  could  not  be  more 
tersely  expressed;  and  we  may  well  believe  Jonson's  state- 
ment that  hJe  wrote  his  poems  in  prose  before  turning  them 
into  verse.  1  His  masterpiece  is  a  triumph  of  workmanship, 
for  "Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes"  is  based  on  a  few 
scattered  phrases  in  the  love  letters  of  the  Greek  sophist 
Philostratus.  \  It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  original  with 
the  finished  song:  "Drink  to  me  with  thine  eyes  only — Or,  if 
thou  wilt,  putting  the  cup  to  thy  lips,  fill  it  with  kisses,  and 
so  bestow  it  upon  me."  |If  we  look  at  the  first  stanza,  so 
familiar  we  need  not  cite  it,  we  find  that  its  two  splendid 
lines  which  Jonson  never  surpassed: 

"  The  thirst  that  from  the  soul  doth  rise. 
Doth  ask  a  drink  divine,"| 

are  not  in  the  Greek.^  The  whole  poem  is  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  examples  in  the  history  of  the  lyric  of  the  fusion 
of  imitative  work  and  pure  creation. 

We  have  not  space  to  mention  the  rest  of  Jonson's  lyrics. 
His  epitaphs  are  among  the  finest  in  the  language ;  the  two 
written  for  his  children  have  more  pathos  than  all  the  formal 
elegies  of  the  Elizabethans.^  His  four  religious  lyrics,  of 
which  the  most  impressive,  because  of  its  feeling,  is 

"  Good  and  great  God !  can  I  not  think  of  thee. 
But  it  must  straight  my  melancholy  be.^" 

point  the  way  to  Herbert  and  Herrick.'  There  are  a  large 
number  of  lyrics  scattered  through  his  Masques,  the  Forest, 
and  the  Underwoods.  All  of  them  show  his  workmanship, 
though  few  equal  his 

1  Vol.  VIII,  p.  259.    See  The  Academy,  December  6,  1884.,  p.  377. 

2  Pp.   155,  167. 

3  P.  279. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2S8 

"  O  do  not  wanton  with  those  eyes. 
Lest  I  be  sick  with  seeing,"^ 

a  lyric  whose  simple,  straightforward  style  reminds  us  of 
Restoration  song  at  its  best.  Though  Jonson,  save  in  two 
or  three  instances,  never  reached  the  heights  attained  by 
even  the  lesser  EHzabethan  lyrists ;  though  we  may  agree 
with  Swinburne  that  "to  come  so  near  so  often  and  yet  never 
to  touch  the  goal  of  lyric  triumph  has  never  been  the  for- 
tune and  the  misfortune  of  any  other  poet,"  we  must  remem- 
ber, in  estimating  Jonson's  achievement,  that  he  lives  in  the 
work  of  his  followers  as  well  as  in  his  own  verses.  To  name 
but  one  instance,  the  lyrics  of  Herrick  owe,  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, their  charm,  their  perfection  to  the  inspiration  he  re- 
ceived, as  he  gratefully  acknowledged,  from  his  patron 
saint,  "Father  Ben." 

Jonson  informed  Drummond  that  he  considered  Donne  for 
some  things  the  finest  poet  in  the  world,  and  in  three  sets  of 
verses  he  has  recorded,  in  no  qualified  terms,  his  admiration 
for  him'.^  He  was  not  alone  in  his  high  estimate  of  Donne's 
genius,  for  the  age  lavished  its  praise  upon  the  poet  whose 
influence  impressed  itself,  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  upon 
the  writings  of  the  time.  To-day  Donne's  poems  are  never 
imitated;  they  are  not  even  widely  read,  for  though  he  has 
his  circle  of  devoted  admirers,  their  number  is  small.  What 
is  there  in  his  work  that  compelled  the  admiration  of  his 
contemporaries,  that  wrought  such  changes  in  the  lyric ;  and 
why  is  he  not,  with  Sidney  and  Spenser,  with  Shakespeare 
and  Jonson,  a  household  word  to  our  own  time  ? 

John  Donne    (1573-1631)    was  in  turn  student,   soldier, 

traveller,  secretary  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  and  a  penniless 

lawyer   subsisting   on   the   bounty   of   friends    and   patrons. 

Late  in  life,  at  the  insistence  of  King  James,  he  took  orders 

and  ended  a  career  filled  with  sickness,  poverty,  and  dis- 

ip.  306. 

2  Pp.  156,  197,  200. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

couragement  that  dreamed  of  suicide,  as  Dean  of  St.  Paul's 
and  the  greatest  preacher  of  his  age.  One  of  the  most  fas- 
cinating characters  in  English  literature,  it  is  unfortunate 
that  with  the  exception  of  his  hymns,  his  lyrics  do  not  repre- 
sent the  different  stages  of  his  development ;  they  do  not 
spring  from  years  of  thought  and  experience,  for  they  are 
sparks  struck  out  in  youth  by  his  vigorous  nature.  Walton 
states  that  most  of  them  were  written  before  Donne  was 
twenty ;  Jonson,  who  knew  Donne  well,  says  before  he  was 
twenty-five.  Donne  never  sent  them  to  the  press.  They 
were  first  published  a  few  months  after  his  death,  but  they 
had  long  circulated  in  manuscript,  working  as  great  a 
change  in  English  poetry  as  though  they  had  gone  through 
edition  after  edition. 

The  moment  we  open  Donne's  lyrics,  we  find  ourselves  in 
an  unexplored  realm.  As  a  rule  the  young  poet  follows  his 
models  until  he  has  attained  the  difficult  art  of  self-expres- 
sion. Chatterton  imitates  the  ballads ;  Keats  writes  with  his 
Spenser  before  him,  but  over  Donne's  pages  we  might  place 
his  own  line,  "To  all,  which  all  love,  I  say  no."  The  age  was 
fascinated  not  only  by  the  emotional  force  and  the  uncon- 
ventional thought  of  his  poems,  but  by  their  new  and  strange 
style.  In  the  case  of  Donne  it  is  peculiarly  unsatisfactory 
to  consider  the  style  apart  from  the  content  of  his  verse,  but 
we  shall  attempt  this  and  examine  first  his  manner  of  ex- 
pressing himself. 

We  have  seen  that  Elizabethan  verse  was  lyrical  in  the 
oldest  sense  of  that  term,  for  an  astonishingly  large  number 
of  poems  were  written  for  music  and  many  that  were  never 
sung  are  perfectly  adapted  for  instrumental  accompaniment. 
Few  of  Donne's  poems  are  actually  songs ;  they  are  lyrics 
because  they  arc  short,  subjective  pieces,  showing  in  every 
line  the  poet's  dominating  personality.  If  we  do  not  find 
the  lilt  of  song  in  most  of  his  work,  it  is  not  because  song 
was  beyond  him.    He  could  write,  Walton  pointed  out,  verses 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2S5 

"soft  and  smooth  when  he  thought  them  fit  and  worth  his 
labour,"  as  in  his  adaptation  of  Marlowe : 

"  Come  live  with  me,  and  be  my  love. 
And  we  will  some  new  pleasures  prove 
Of  golden  sands,  and  crystal  brooks. 
With  silken  lines  and  silver  hooks." 

If  this  meter  seems  too  facile,  we  turn  to  "Go  and  catch  a 
falling  star,"  with  a  tripping  refrain  in  each  stanza : 

"  And  find 
What  wind 
Serves  to  advance  an  honest  mind," 

or  the  better  known,  and  far  more  sincere 

"  Sweetest  love,  I  do  not  go, 
For  weariness  of  thee. 
Nor  in  hope  the  world  can  show 
A  fitter  love  for  me."' 

If  we  could  restrict  ourselves  in  the  selection,  it  would  be 
possible  to  show  that  Donne's  work  had  rare  metrical  beauty. 
His  ear  was  not  defective ;  he  did  not  possess  an  imperfect 
sense  of  rhythm,  for  no  man  can  write  splendidly  again  and 
again  by  sheer  accident.  He  deliberately  put  aside  the  popu- 
lar manner  of  the  day  and  going  to  the  other  extreme,  wrote 
verses  crabbed  and  unmusical  in  their  movement  and  dis- 
concerting, to  say  the  least,  in  their  rhymes : 

"  Whether  abstract,  spiritual  love  they  like." 

"  For  I  am  a  very  dead  thing." 

"  Ends  love  in  this,  that  my  man 
Can  be  as  happy  as  I  can,  if  he  can 
Endure  ?"2 

1 E.   K.  Chambers,  Poems  of  John  Donne,  Muses'  Library,  London, 
1896,  vol.  1,  pp.  47,  4,  16. 
2  Vol.  I,  pp.  31,  45,  41. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

These  are  typical  examples  of  harsh  rhythm;  for  slovenly 
rhymes  take  the  triplet : 

"  When  this  book  is  made  thus, 
Should  again  the  ravenous 
Vandals  and  the  Goths  invade  us."^ 

To  select  from  Donne's  poems  lines  that  lack  all  metrical 
charm,  verses  as  uncouth  as  Skelton's,  is  a  simple  task ;  the 
difficulty  is  to  reconcile  them  with  stanzas  marked  by  a  rare 
and  haunting  beauty : 

"  Twice  or  thrice  had  I  loved  thee, 

Before  I  knew  thy  face  or  name; 
So  in  a  voice,  so  in  a  shapeless  flame. 
Angels  aiFect  us  oft,  and  worshipped  be." 

"  Whoever  comes  to  shroud  me,  do  not  harm. 
Nor  question  much. 
That  subtle  wreath  of  hair,  which  crowns  my  arm; 
The  mystery,  the  sign  you  must  not  touch." 

"  I  wonder,  by  my  troth,  what  thou  and  I 
Did,  till  we  loved.?  were  we  not  weaned  till  then? 
But  sucked  on  country  pleasures,  childishly? 
Or  snorted  we  in  the  Seven  Sleepers'  den? 
'Twas  so ;  but  this,  all  pleasures  fancies  be ; 
If  ever  any  beauty  I  did  see. 
Which  I  desired,  and  got,  'twas  but  a  dream  of  thee."^ 

The  simplest,  most  familiar  metres  acquire  a  new  tone  at  his 
hands : 

"  If,  as  I  have,  you  also  do 
Virtue  in  woman  see, 
And  dare  love  that,  and  say  so  too. 
And  forget  the  He  and  She; 

iP.  31. 

2  Pp.  21,  61,  3. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2S7 

"  And  if  this  love,  though  placed  so, 
From  profane  men  you  hide. 
Which  will  no  faith  on  this  bestow. 
Or,  if  they  do,  deride; 

"  Then  you  have  done  a  braver  thing 
Than  all  the  Worthies  did; 
And  a  braver  thence  will  spring. 
Which  is,  to  keep  that  hid."^ 

Such  work  as  this  unfortunately  comprises  the  smaller  part 
of  his  verse,  and  taking  his  poems  as  a  whole,  we  can  readily 
understand  Jonson's  vigorous  remark,  that  Donne,  for  not 
keeping  accent,  deserves  hanging. 

There  are  several  reasons  we  may  give  to  account  for  his 
unmusical  moments.  Undoubtedly  many  of  the  poems  were 
struck  off  at  white  heat,  and  were  never  revised.  All  that 
he  wished  was  to  express  the  thought,  the  emotion  of  the 
hour.  At  times,  his  ideas  found  perfect  expression ;  at  others, 
language  faltered,  and  instead  of  deliberating  and  search- 
ing painfully  for  the  well-made  phrase,  he  was  content  with 
the  first  imperfect  utterance.  Moreover,  as  we  shall  see,  he 
flouted  the  ideas  of  the  day,  and  what  more  natural  than 
that  he  should  dislike  the  sweetness  of  Spenser,  the  grace  of 
the  song  writers,  the  refinement  of  Jonson.?  There  was  a 
morbid  strain  in  Donne ;  the  grotesque  appealed  strongly  to 
him ;  and  as  it  affected  his  thought,  it  made  itself  felt  in  his 
style.  We  can  endure  his  worst  dissonances  because  at  his 
best  his  verse  has  a  music  which  no  other  writer  of  his  day 
could  reach. 

Turning  to  the  poems,  we  find  that  many  of  them  bear 
the  marks  of  that  irregular  life  he  led  when  he  left  the  uni- 
versity for  the  town,  of  wild  days  whose  memories  long 
troubled  his  mind.  Several  poems  are  frankly  sensual  in 
tone,  but  their  cynicism  is  too  much  on  parade;  one  detects 

ip.  6. 


^S8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

in  them  the  swagger  of  precocious  youth  delighting  to  shock 
old-fashioned  morality.  Donne  declares  for  community  in 
love ;  boasts  of  his  inconstancy ;  and  asserts  that  no  true 
woman  exists.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  refuse  to  see  in  such 
writing  the  marks  of  days  ill  spent,  but  it  is  equally  a  mistake 
to  read  too  much  into  them  or  to  construct  from  them,  as 
Mr.  Gosse  has  done,  a  definite  tale  of  dishonorable  intrigue. 
To  his  own  times,  the  boldness  of  these  poems  must  have 
seemed  amazing.  The  Petrarchian  tradition  stiU  lingered; 
the  poets  of  the  age  worshipped  woman  from  afar;  she  was 
a  goddess,  a  saint,  or  at  the  very  least  a  shepherdess  of  sur- 
passing virtue  and  beauty.     Donne  writes  that  women 

"  are  ours  as  fruits  are  ours ; 
He  that  but  tastes,  he  that  devours. 

And  he  that  leaves  all,  doth  as  well; 
Changed  loves  are  but  changed  sorts  of  meat; 
And  when  he  hath  the  kernel  eat. 

Who  doth  not  fling  away  the  shell  ?"^ 

So  absurdly  cynical  are  such  poems  as  The  Indifferent,  Com- 
Tnimity,  Confined  Love,  or  Love's  Alchemy  with  its  ending 

"  Hope  not  for  mind  in  women;  at  their  best. 
Sweetness  and  wit  they  are,  but  mummy,  possess'd," 

that  Donne  loses  the  very  effect  he  seeks  to  gain. 

Had  he  written  in  this  fashion  only,  he  would  never  have 
made  his  impression  upon  the  lyric.  Side  by  side  with 
these  poems,  which  explain  in  part  the  neglect  of  Donne 
to-day,  are  found  a  sharply  contrasted  group  of  lyrics  ex- 
pressing in  tones  of  passionate  sincerity  the  deepest  affec- 
tion and  devotion.  This  sudden  change  in  his  mood  may  be 
attributed  to  his  meeting  with  Anne  More,  whom  he  married 
in  1601  despite  the  opposition  of  her  family.  This  run- 
away match  cost  him  his  secretary's  position  and  reduced 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  33. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2S9 

him  to  utter  poverty,  yet  through  years  of  ambitions  un- 
realized and  hopes  deferred,  his  devotion  to  her  never  fal- 
tered; when  she  died  in  1617,  he  grieved  until  his  friends 
despaired  for  his  own  life.  We  know  that  "Sweetest  love, 
I  do  not  go,"  was  written  for  her;  we  may  assume  she  in- 
spired his  finest  work. 

Donne  was  a  romanticist  at  heart.  He  thought  of  love 
as  a  mystic  power  transcending  all  boundaries  of  time  and 
space ;  it  was  a  union  of  two  spirits  forming  a  new  and  con- 
trolling soul.  To  depict  such  a  love  he  brought  all  the 
strength  of  his  vigorous  intellect,  all  the  emotion  of  his  sen- 
sitive nature ;  in  celebrating  it  he  departed  as  widely  from 
Elizabethan  tradition  as  when  he  mocked  it.  He  wastes  no 
words  in  praising  a  woman's  beauty,  in  comparing  her  eyes 
to  stars,  her  hair  to  golden  wires : 

"  But  he  who  loveliness  within 

Hath  found,  all  outward  loathes. 
For  he  who  colour  loves,  and  skin. 
Loves  but  their  oldest  clothes."'^ 

To  the  familiar  situations  of  Elizabethan  love  poetry  Donne 
brings  his  own,  never  the  conventional  point  of  view.  The 
Elizabethans  uttered  bitter  complaints  on  absence  from 
their  loves ;  for  Donne  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  real 
separation : 

"  Dull  sublunary  lovers'  love 

— ^Whose  soul  is  sense — can  not  admit 
Of  absence,  'cause  it  doth  remove 
The  thing  which  elemented  it. 

"  But  we  by  a  love  so  far  refined. 

That  ourselves  know  not  what  it  is. 
Inter-assured  of  the  mind. 

Care  less  eyes,  lips  and  hands  to  miss."^ 

IP.  6. 

2  P.  52;  cf.  p.  54. 


21^0  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Nothing  is  commoner  in  the  song  books  or  the  sonnet  col- 
lections than  pictures  of  a  lady  weeping ;  descriptions  of 
beauty  in  distress  with  a  comparison  of  tearful  eyes  to  flow- 
ing springs.  By  his  unusual  and  forceful  similes,  and  by 
the  rush  of  his  final  apostrophe,  Donne  completely  trans- 
forms this  stock  theme : 

"  O!  more  than  moon. 
Draw  not  up  seas  to  drown  me  in  thy  sphere; 
Weep  me  not  dead,  in  thine  arms,  but  forbear 
To  teach  the  sea,  what  it  may  do  too  soon."^ 

Though  many  illustrations  of  Donne's  avoidance  of  the 
beaten  track  could  easily  be  given,  one  more  must  suffice. 
It  was  a  custom  for  men  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  to  wear  bracelets  made  of  their  ladies'  hair. 
Among  the  slain  at  Marston  Moor,  Sir  Charles  Lucas  recog- 
nized "one  cavalier  with  a  bracelet  of  hair  round  his  wrist. 
He  desired  the  bracelet  to  be  taken  off,  saying  that  he  knew 
an  honourable  lady  who  would  give  thanks  for  it."^  Verses  on 
these  love  tokens  are  common  in  all  languages ;  INIelin  de 
Saint-Gelais  has  a  poem,  Alessandro  Gatti  a  madrigal,  both 
in  the  tone  of  gallantry,  on  such  a  gift.  Donne  writes  of 
one,  but  disdaining  the  spirit  of  trifling  compliment,  his 
imagination  pierces  the  tomb  and  sees  there  a  mouldering 
skeleton  with  "A  bracelet  of  bright  hair  about  the  bone." 

Originality  is  not  enough  to  establish  a  poet's  fame ;  it 
may  or  may  not  lead  to  the  finest  work.  With  Donne's  un- 
conventionality  went  two  rare  qualities  which  our  citations 
have  illustrated :  he  stirred  the  feelings,  he  awoke  the  imagi- 
nation by  far-reaching  suggestion.  In  Canonization  he 
speaks  of  two  lovers  "who  did  the  whole  world's  soul  con- 
tract" into  their  eyes,  and  Donne  could  put  the  heart  of  a 

1  P.  40. 

2  C.  R.  Markham,  A  Life  of  the  great  Lord  Fairfax,  London,  1870, 
p.   174.. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  Ul 

poem — contract  the  soul — ^into  a  single  phrase.  The  Eliza- 
bethans would  express  in  a  sonnet  what  he  tells  in  a  line.  By 
sheer  intellectual  force,  far  removed  from  mere  cleverness,  he 
could  transform  a  thought  or  feeling  by  expressing  it  in 
similes  startlingly  quaint  yet  apposite.  The  best  of  them 
were  not  sought  out  with  care  and  calculation;  his  mind, 
deeply  moved,  found  them  instinctively.  When  Shelley  com- 
pares the  skylark,  hidden  in  the  cloud,  to  a  poet,  a  maiden,  a 
glow  worm,  a  rose,  we  do  not  feel  that  he  painfully  seeks  these 
comparisons,  but  that  his  mind  naturally  overflows  in  them. 
So  with  Donne ;  every  stanza  in  his  Fever  embodies  a  new  and 
strange  thought: 

"  But  yet  thou  canst  not  die^  I  know ; 

To  leave  this  world  behind,  is  death; 
But  when  thou  from  this  world  wilt  go, 

The  whole  world  vapours  with  thy  breath. 
***** 

"  O  wrangling  schools,  that  search  what  fire 

Shall  burn  this  world,  had  none  the  wit 
Unto  this  knowledge  to  aspire. 

That  this  her  fever  might  be  it?"^ 

This  peculiar  turn  of  mind  persisted  to  the  end.  In  the 
Hymn  to  God,  my  God,  in  my  sickness,  written  on  his  death- 
bed, after  a  touching  and  beautiful  opening  stanza,  he  com- 
pares himself  to  a  map  which  his  doctors,  "grown  cosmo- 
graphers,"  are  studying. 

Attempting  to  discover  the  secret  of  Donne's  power,  the 
age  thought  it  lay  in  this  ability  to  detect  curious  analogies. 
This  was  called  "wit,"  but  with  our  modem  notions  of  the 
meaning  of  that  word,  it  is  strange  to  read  of  the  "witty 
Donne."  Dr.  Johnson  was  more  misleading  when  he  applied 
the   term   "metaphysical"   to   this   trait   of  Donne's   mind.^ 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  20. 

2  See  that  lociis  classicus,  Johnson's  Life  of  Cowley. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Moved  by  this  poetry  and  desiring  to  imitate  it,  the  men  of 
the  day  seized  upon  "wit"  as  the  one  thing  needful.  At 
times  they  partially  caught  Donne's  manner ;  his  spirit 
escaped  them.  Through  all  the  ingenuity  of  Donne's 
thought,  we  feel  the  glow  of  emotion.  The  Fever  ends  with 
this  passionate  declaration : 

"  Yet  'twas  of  my  mind,  seizing  thee, 

Though  it  in  thee  can  not  persever ; 
For  I  had  rather  owner  be 

Of  thee  one  hour,  than  all  else  ever." 

It  is  small  wonder  that  such  writing  changed  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  lyric. 


II 


It  must  not  be  presumed  that  all  the  lyrists  of  this  age 
were  followers  of  either  Donne  or  Jonson;  as  a  rule,  they 
showed  traces  of  their  influence,  but  we  may  name  two  poets, 
whose  writings  extended  over  this  period,  and  yet  were 
Elizabethan  in  their  spirit.  William  Browne  (1591-1645), 
a  student  at  Oxford  and  the  Inner  Temple,  a  friend  of  Dray- 
ton and  Jonson,  passed  his  life  quietly  in  the  country  and 
his  poetry  is  as  peaceful  as  was  his  career.  He  had  a  gentle 
fancy;  a  genuine  love  for  nature  (his  descriptions  of  a 
"musical  concert  of  birds"  in  the  third  song  of  Britannia's 
Pastorals,  his  chief  work,  is  a  most  delightful  bit  of  writ- 
ing) ;  but  he  adds  nothing  to  the  development  of  the  lyric.'' 
Skelton,  of  whom  he  speaks  slightingly,  had  a  decided  indi- 
viduality ;  Browne  is  content  to  be  a  humble  imitator  of  Spen- 
ser, writing  with  his  eye  on  the  Visions,  the  Shepherds  Cal- 
endar, and  the  Faerie  Queene,  but  never  catching  either  the 

1  Gordon  Goodwin,  The  Poems  of  William  Browne,  Muses  Library, 
London,  1894,  vol.  I,  p.  89. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2^3 

color  or  the  music  of  his  model.  He  had  but  little  of  the 
song  spirit ;  his  "Steer,  hither  steer  your  winged  pines," 
and  "Now  that  the  Spring  hath  filled  our  veins,"  are  well  writ- 
ten but  in  no  respect  remarkable.^  He  has  caught  the  lilt 
of  the  song  books  in 

"  For  her  gait  if  she  be  walking. 
Be  she  sitting  I  desire  her 
For  her  state's  sake,  and  admire  her 
For  her  wit  if  she  be  talking. 

Gait  and  state  and  wit  approve  her; 

For  which  all  and  each  I  love  her."^ 

He  will  be  remembered  for  one  poem,  the  first  half  of  his 
epitaph  on  "Sidney's  sister,  Pembroke's  mother."  He  has 
won  immortality  by  six  lines,  and  in  these  well-known  verses 
we  may  see  the  influence  of  the  epitaphs  of  Jonson,  who  was 
long  considered  the  author  of  this  httle  masterpiece. 

One  of  Browne's  warmest  friends  was  George  Wither 
(1588-1667),  a  writer  who  shared  with  Quarles  the  doubtful 
honor  of  being  the  favorite  poet  of  the  unlettered  multitude. 
In  the  fourth  eclogue  of  the  Shepherd's  Hunting,  in  which 
he  introduces  William  Browne,  he  says  of  himself  that  he  is 
one  of  those 

"  Who  at  twice-ten  have  sung  more 
Than  some  will  do  at  fourscore," 

and  he  is  indeed  a  most  voluminous  writer,  but  unfortu- 
nately his  good  work  was  over  by  the  time  he  was  thirty — he 
should  have  had  the  grace  to  die  then — and  he  degenerated 
into  a  writer  of  doggerel.  In  Fair  Virtue,  composed  in  1612, 
but  published  ten  years  later,  and  in  the  Shepherd's  Hrnit- 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  170,  213. 

2  P.  226. 

3  1  have  discussed  the  question  of  Browne's  authorship  in  the 
AthencBUm,  August  11,  1906. 


HI)-  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

ing  we  see  him  at  his  best.  In  the  songs  included  in  these 
poems,  and  in  their  lyrical  passages,  his  verse  moves  lightly 
and  harmoniously ;  it  is  unaffected,  simple,  and  so  sponta- 
neous that  it  seems  improvisation.  He  had,  unfortunately, 
the  fatal  gift  of  fluency ;  even  his  best  work  is  improved  by 
condensation.  Could  he  have  learned  from  Jonson  the  art 
of  self-restraint,  he  would  have  stood  with  the  best  lyrists 
of  the  age.  He  was  an  idealist ;  he  had  the  poet's  vision,  an 
enthusiasm  for  verse,  that  remind  us  of  the  greater  Eliza- 
bethans. His  light-heartedness,  which  instantly  attracts  us, 
even  unhappy  love  can  not  destroy;  we  see  it  in  two  of  his 
best  lyrics : 

"  Many  a  merry  meeting 

My  love  and  I  have  had; 
She  was  my  only  sweeting. 

She  made  m^y  heart  full  glad; 
The  tears  stood  in  her  eyes 

Like  to  the  morning  dew; 
But  now,  alas !  sh'as  left  me, 

Falero,  lero,  loo !" 

The  second  one  we  need  not  cite,  for 

"  Shall  I  wasting  in  despair 
Die  because  a  woman's  fair.' 

which  struck  the  fancy  of  Wither's  age  and  called  forth 
nearly  as  many  replies  and  imitations  as  Raleigh's  Lie,  has 
retained  its  popularity  to  this  day. 

We  now  come  to  a  group  of  lyric  poets  who  are  closely 
connected  with  Charles  I  and  his  court.  With  all  his  pedan- 
try, James  I  had  an  appreciation  of  poetry,  and  he  even 
tried  his  own  hand  at  verse  composition,  with  sad  results. 
In  Henry  Glapthorne's  White  Hall  (1642),  we  have  five  and 
a  half  pages  given  to  a  eulogy  of  the  Elizabethan  era — the 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  ^5 

glories  of  the  Queen's  court,  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,  the 
bravery  of  Drake  and  Essex,  but  not  a  hne  devoted  to  the 
Elizabethan  poets.    Coming  to  James's  reign,  we  are  told 

"  The  Muses  then  did  flourish,  and  upon 
My  pleasant  mounts  planted  their  Helicon. 
Then  that  great  wonder  of  the  knowing  age, 
Whose  very  name  merits  the  amplest  page 
In  Fame's  fair  book,  admired  Jonson  stood 
Up  to  the  chin  in  the  Pierian  flood. 
Quaffing  crowned  bowls  of  Nectar,  with  his  bays 
Growing  about  his  temples ;  chanting  lays 
Such  as  were  fit  for  such  a  sacred  ear 
As  his  majestic  Master's  was,  to  hear. 
Whom  he  so  often  pleased  with  (those  mighty  tasks 
Of  wit  and  judgment)  his  well  laboured  masks." 

Charles  was  not  only  a  greater  lover  of  poetry  than  was  his 
father,  but  he  was  highly  endowed  with  artistic  tastes  and 
gifts ;  he  said  that  he  could  have  earned  his  livelihood  at  any 
of  the  arts  except  tapestry  making.  He  was  extremely  fond 
of  music  and  could  play  on  the  viola  da  gamba,  the  prototype 
of  the  modem  violoncello.  In  sculpture  and  painting  he  had 
the  reputation  of  being  the  finest  connoisseur  in  Europe,  and 
his  love  of  the  fine  arts  is  strikingly  shown,  not  only  in  the 
many  portraits  of  himself  and  of  the  royal  family  which  he 
commissioned  Van  Dyck  to  make,  but  by  the  superb  collection 
of  pictures  which  he  purchased,  and  which  the  Puritans,  in 
their  ignorance,  sold  for  a  few  pounds.  It  was  the  ambition 
of  Charles  to  make  the  English  court  famous  in  art  and  let- 
ters ;  the  banqueting  room  of  Whitehall  was  to  have  been 
the  most  magnificent  in  all  Europe,  for  Van  Dyck  was  to  have 
decorated  it  at  an  expense  of  eighty  thousand  pounds.  Per- 
fectly versed  in  modern  languages,  Charles  was  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  French  and  Italian  writers,  and  showed 
the  soundness  of  his  literary  tastes  by  his  admiration  for 


U6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Shakespeare  and  Spenser.  If  we  add  to  all  this  the  fact  that 
Charles  was  of  a  romantic  temperament,  as  his  runaway 
journey  to  see  the  Spanish  Infanta  startlingly  shows  (we 
wonder  why  the  historical  novelist  has  overlooked  this  excit- 
ing episode),  it  is  quite  natural  that  his  court  attracted  and 
inspired  many  a  lyric  poet. 

Thomas  Carew  (1594-1639)  studied  at  Oxford,  had  a 
brief  diplomatic  career  in  Italy  and  at  Paris,  and  was  finally 
made  by  Charles  a  gentleman  of  the  bed-chamber.  He  be- 
came a  brilUant  figure  in  court  circles  of  which  he  was  the 
laureate,  and  though  his  poems  were  not  pubhshed  until  after 
his  death,  they  were  well  known  and  made  him  honored  for 
his  "delicate  wit  and  poetic  fancy."  We  are  not  surprised 
when  we  read  of  him  that  he  "pleased  the  ladies  with  his 
courtly  Muse." 

The  moment  we  open  Carew's  poems,  we  see  in  his  first 
lines,  the  Spring,  an  epitome  of  all  his  work.'^  In  their  de- 
scriptive poems,  especially  of  nature,  the  Elizabethans  rev- 
elled in  a  wealth  of  detail;  here  we  have  a  complete  picture 
in  twelve  highly  wrought  couplets.  It  is  art  rather  than 
nature  that  we  find  in  such  verses  as : 

"  Now  that  the  winter's  gone,  the  earth  hath  lost 
Her  snow-white  robes ;  and  now  no  more  the  frost 
Candies  the  grass,  or  casts  an  icy  cream 
Upon  the  silver  lake  or  crystal  stream." 

Where  the  Elizabethans  had  passion,  or  at  least  deep  senti- 
ment, we  have  gallantry : 

"  Now  all  things  smile;  only  my  love  doth  lower, 
Nor  hath  the  scalding  noon-day  sun  the  power 
To  melt  that  marble  ice,  which  still  doth  hold 
Her  heart  congealed,  and  makes  her  pity  cold." 

1  Arthur  \'incent,  Poems  of  Thomas  Carew,  Muses'  Library,  London, 
1899,  p.  1. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  2^7 

In  place  of  high,  Sidneyan  devotion,  we  have  compliment 
expressed  with  epigrammatic  point: 

"  Amyntas  now  doth  with  his  Chloris  sleep 
Under  a  sycamore,  and  all  things  keep 

Time  with  the  season :  only  she  doth  carry 
June  in  her  eyes,  in  her  heart  January.'' 

If  we  may  speak  of  two  schools  of  lyric  verse — the  school 
of  Jonson  and  of  Donne — we  find  that  Carew  is  a  son  of  Ben. 
With  all  his  age,  he  had  a  deep  admiration  for  Donne,  whom 
he  considered  not  only  greater  than  Virgil  and  Tasso,  but 
"worth  all  that  went  before."  His  elegy  upon  him  is  no  con- 
ventional expression  of  mourning ;  it  shows  a  very  clear  per- 
ception of  Donne's  genius,  of  his  effect  on  English  poetry, 
and  it  is  not  often  that  contemporary  criticism  is  so  just  in 
its  appreciation."^  We  find  in  Carew's  poems  many  verbal 
reminiscences  of  Donne,  faint  echoes  of  his  lines : 

"  Then  though  our  bodies  are  disjoined, 

As  things  that  are  to  place  confined, 

Yet  let  our  boundless  spirits  meet. 

And  in  love's  sphere  each  other  greet;" 
or 

"  This  silken  wreath,  which  circles  in  mine  arm. 

Is  but  an  emblem  of  that  mystic  charm 

Wherewith  the  magic  of  your  beauties  binds 

My  captive  soul," 

but  Donne's  imagination,  his  intensity  of  emotion  is  not  re- 
flected even  faintly  in  the  poem  which  ends  in  antithesis  and 
epigram : 

"  That  knot  your  virtue  tied ;  this,  but  your  hands ; 
That,  Nature  framed ;  but  this  was  made  by  art ; 
This  makes  my  arm  your  prisoner;  that,  my  heart."^ 

1  Pp.  104,  100. 

2  Pp.  29,  39. 


^48  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  last  line,  though  much  less  effective,  reminds  us  of 
Jonson's 

"  They  strike  mine  eyes,  but  not  my  heart." 

If  we  wish  to  measure  the  diiference  that  separates  Donne 
from  Carew,  we  have  only  to  compare  the  former's  Fever 
with  Carew's  Song  to  his  mistress  "she  burning  in  a  fever."^ 
Carew  had  but  little  of  Donne's  "wit,"  and  he  can  not  be  said 
to  have  caught  his  manner  in  such  poems  as  the  one  on  "A 
fly  that  flew  into  my  mistress'  eye,"  and  which,  playing  about 
Celia's  cheek 

"  Sucked  all  the  incense  and  the  spice. 
And  grew  a  bird  of  paradise. 
At  last  into  her  eye  she  flew, 
There,  scorched  in  flames  and  drowned  in  dew. 
Like  Phaethon  from  the  sun's  sphere, 
She  fell," 

or  the  Looking  Glass 

"  whose  smooth  face  wears 
Your  shadow,  which  a  sun  appears, 
Was  once  a  river  of  my  tears. 

"  About  your  cold  heart  they  did  make 
A  circle,  where  the  briny  lake 
Congealed  into  a  crystal  cake."^ 

It  is  as  an  artist  that  Carew  lives ;  his  poems  are  "neat  and 
polished,"  to  use  his  own  phrase,  and  even  the  most  trivial 
are  written  with  a  care  that  provoked  the  ridicule  of  Suck- 
ling: 

ip.  47. 

2  Pp.  53,  35. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

"  Tom  Carew  was  next,  but  he  had  a  fault 
That  would  not  well  stand  with  a  laureat; 
His  muse  was  hide-bound,  and  th'  issue  of's  brain 
Was  seldom  brought  forth  but  with  trouble  and  pain."^ 


This  is  Carew's  chief  virtue,  for  lacking  inspiration,  he  did 
not  simulate  passion  but  was  content  to  perfect  his  style, 
charming  the  ear  by  a  well-balanced  line,  by  a  delicate  modu- 
lation in  the  metre. 

"  Thy  laboured  works  shall  live,  when  Time  devours 
Th'  abortive  oflPspring  of  their  hasty  hours," 

he  wrote  to  Jonson,  defending  him  from  his  detractors,  and 
there  are  no  hasty  moments  in  Carew's  writings.^  He  does 
not  paint  on  a  large  canvas,  but  offers  us  miniatures ;  every 
stroke  is  well  considered ;  every  simile  is  beautifully  wrought, 
as  in  the  picture  of  the  pilgrim  drinking  at  the  spring  in  his 
Good  Coimcil  to  a  young  Maid.  The  old  fire  has  gone  and 
moderation  takes  its  place.  Carew  is  urged  to  write  an  elegy 
on  Gustavus  Adolphus,  but  he  knows  his  own  limitations  and 
replies : 

"  Alas  !  how  may 
My  lyric  feet,  that  of  the  smooth  soft  way 
Of  love  and  beauty  only  know  the  tread 
In  dancing  paces,  celebrate  the  dead 
Victorious  King."^ 

Not  only  in  his  style  but  in  his  thought  does  Carew  show 
the  change  that  has  taken  place  in  lyric  poetry.  Graceful 
compliment  is   his  prevailing  tone ;  he   never   strikes  deep. 

^A  Session  of  the  Poets. 

2  Carew,  p.  91. 

3  P.  104. 


250  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Carpe  diem  is  his  motto,  yet  the  passing  of  beauty  awakens 
in  him  real  sadness : 

"  But  if  your  beauties  once  decay, 
You  never  know  a  second  May. 

****** 

Spend  not  in  vain  your  life's  short  hour 
But  crop  in  time  your  beauty's  flower. 
Which  will  away,  and  doth  together 
Both  bud  and  fade,  both  blow  and  wither."^ 

His  epitaphs,  which  bear  the  marks  of  Jonson's  influence,  are 
more  remarkable  for  their  polish  than  for  their  pathos.  In 
his  love  poems,  I  find  it  diiBcult  to  discover  the  "sincere  and 
tender  passion"  which  Mr.  Gosse  attributes  to  them. 

"  Give  me  more  love  or  more  disdain; 

The  torrid  or  the  frozen  zone 
Bring  equal  ease  unto  my  pain, 

The  temperate  affords  me  none: 
Either  extreme  of  love  or  hate. 
Is  sweeter  than  a  calm  estate," 

writes  Carew,  but  there  is  nothing  of  the  old  fervor  of  the 
sonneteers  in  his  songs.  Sidney's  Muse  "tempers  her  words 
to  trampling  horses  feet" ;  Carew's,  to  a  "chamber  melody," 
or  to  use  his  own  phrase,  to  the  "sweet  airs  of  our  tuned 
violins."^  His  poems  are  the  love  songs  of  the  court,  sere- 
natas 

"  which  the  starved  lover  sings 
To  his  proud  fair,  best  quitted  with  disdain." 

The  old  idealism  has  disappeared ;  too  often  Carew's  profli- 
gate life  is  reflected  in  his  verses,  and  though  he  praises, 
"gentle  thoughts  and  calm  desires,"  though  he  writes 

ip.  4. 

2  Carew,  pp.  16,  107. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  251 

"  But  as  you  are  divine  in  outward  view, 
So  be  within,  as  fair,  as  good,  as  true,"^ 

his  mistress  is  not,  as  was  Wither's,  Fair  Virtue. 

We  have  contrasted  Carew's  spirit  with  that  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans ;  in  his  two  best  lyrics  their  spirit  is  reflected,  for 
they  are  Caroline  in  style,  Elizabethan  in  their  sentiment. 
The  first  two  stanzas  of  "He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek"  are 
worthy  of  the  best  traditions  of  Elizabethan  song;  the  con- 
cluding stanza,  utterly  conventional,  written  in  a  different 
metre — it  seems  to  be  a  most  unhappy  afterthought — is 
generally  omitted  in  anthologies.  Carew's  masterpiece  rises 
beyond  his  mood  of  gallantry ;  its  music  is  richer,  its  feeling 
deeper,  and  in  its  charm  and  grace  we  forget  the  courtier 
and  hear  only  the  poet: 

"  Ask  me  no  more  where  Jove  bestows. 
When  June  is  past,  the  fading  rose; 
For  in  your  beauty's  orient  deep 
These  flowers,  as  in  their  causes,  sleep. 

"  Ask  me  no  more  whither  do  stray 
The  golden  atoms  of  the  day; 
For  in  pure  love  heaven  did  prepare 
Those  powders  to  enrich  your  hair. 

"  Ask  me  no  more  if  east  or  west 
The  phcEnix  builds  her  spicy  nest; 
For  unto  you  at  last  she  flies. 
And  in  your  fragrant  bosom  dies."^ 

One  of  Carew's  intimate  friends  at  court  was  Sir  John 
Suckling  (1609-1642).  He  studied  at  Cambridge,  where  he 
was  known  as  "a  polite  but  not  a  deep  scholar";  travelled 

1  Ibid.,  p.  136. 

2  P.  141.  The  popularity  of  this  poem  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
it  was  turned  into  a  political  song.  See  A  Collection  of  Royal  Songs 
written  against  the  Rump  Parliament,  London,  1731,  vol.  I,  p.  41.  See 
also  the  imitations  and  answers  in  the  reprint  of  Musarum  Deliciw.  Wit 
Restored,  etc.,  London,  N.  D.,  vol.  I,  pp.  239-334. 


252  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

abroad  for  three  years;  and  joined  the  forty  English  gentle- 
men volunteers  who  fought  under  Gustavus  Adolphus.  In 
1632  he  returned  to  Whitehall,  where  his  gaiety,  his  wit,  and 
his  lavish  expenditures  made  him  a  favorite.  He  was  a  spend- 
thrift ;  he  squandered  his  fortune ;  and  to  repair  his  losses, 
became  a  reckless  gambler,  the  gossip  of  the  day  asserting 
that  he  stooped  to  dishonorable  methods  to  win.  Certain  it 
is  that  his  court  Hfe  ruined  him.  For  the  Scottish  expedi- 
tion he  raised  a  company  of  one  hundred  horse,  gorgeously 
equipped  at  his  own  costs,  but  its  career  was  brief  and  in- 
glorious. Henrietta  Maria  admired  Suckling — he  had  much 
of  the  Gallic  brilHancy — and  at  her  instigation  he  engaged 
in  a  plot  to  rescue  Straiford  from  the  Tower,  but  his  plans 
were  discovered  and  he  fled  to  Paris,  where  he  died  in  pov- 
erty and  obscurity.  The  Puritans  did  their  best  to  blacken 
his  memory;  in  the  anonymous  News  from  Rome  (1641),  we 
are  told  that  he  had  plotted  to  restore  Catholicism.  The 
Pope,  speaking  of  Englishmen,  declares : 

"  But  some  there  are  who  to  me  faithful  were, 
But  they  are  gone,  th'  are  fled  I  know  not  where; 
My  Goldfinch,  Windebanke,  my  Suckling  young, 
Who  could  so  well  pray  in  our  Roman  tongue; 
Are  gone  for  fear  of  chiding;  O  they  would 
Have  elevated  me,  if  that  they  could." 

Suckling's  poems,  as  Carew's,  were  published  post- 
humously ;  unlike  Carew's,  many  of  them  bear  the  evident 
marks  of  hasty  composition.  If  we  accept  Suckhng's  own 
assertion,  he  had  little  regard  for  the  art  of  writing,  for 
"he  loved  not  the  Muses  so  well  as  his  sport,"  yet  we  feel  in 
reading  him  that  he  never  showed  the  better  side  of  his 
nature ;  that  he  was  more  thoughtful  and  sincere  than  he 
appears  in  his  verses.''     That  the  finest  writing  appealed  to 

1  A.  H.  Thompson,  The  Works  of  Sir  John  Suckling,  London,  1910, 
p.  11. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  253 

him  is  shown  by  his  preference  for  Shakespeare.  He  is  one 
of  the  few  men  of  that  age  who  repeatedly  expresses  an 
admiration  for  him ;  he  imitates  him  in  his  plays,  writes  sup- 
plementary verses  for  Lucrece,  refers  to  him  in  a  letter  as 
"my  friend,  Mr.  William  Shakespeare,"  and  is  painted  by 
Van  Dyck,  holding  a  copy  of  the  plays  in  his  hand.^  He 
knew  Donne's  poems,  for  certain  of  his  phrases  reappear  in 
his  own  verses,  and  he  has  parodied  Jonson's  "Have  you  seen 
but  a  bright  lily  grow."  He  was  then  well  acquainted  with 
the  work  of  the  masters  of  lyric  verse,  yet  he  is  not  content 
to  imitate  them,  but  seeks  a  style  of  his  own. 

In  A  Session  of  the  Poets  SuckUng  declares  that  "A  Laure- 
at  Muse  should  be  easy  and  free";  he  speaks  admiringly  of 
"gentle  Shakespeare's  easier  strain,"  in  another  place.  It 
is  evident  that  his  aim  in  verse  was  to  appear  straight- 
forward, unaffected,  and  even  careless.  He  would  have 
deemed  it  an  honor  to  be  called  one  of  the  "mob  of  gentle- 
men who  wrote  with  ease."  His  lyric  Muse  was  not  to  be 
wooed  but  to  be  jested  with;  nothing  must  smeU  of  the  lamp, 
every  verse  must  have  the  light,  careless  tone  of  improvi- 
sation. With  such  a  method,  if  we  may  use  so  dignified  a 
term,  he  naturally  cared  little  for  the  point  and  polish  of 
Carew.    At  times  Suckling  descends  to  epigram : 

"  Women  enjoyed  (whate'er  before  th'  have  been) 
Are  like  romances  read,  or  sights  once  seen: 
Fruition's  dull,  and  spoils  the  play  much  more 
Than  if  one  read  or  knew  the  plot  before. 
'Tis  expectation  makes  a  blessing  dear; 
Heaven  were  not  heaven,  if  we  knew  what  it  were."^ 

This  has  the  tone  of  the  Augustan  school,  but  such  Hues  are 
not  characteristic.  His  metres  are  the  simplest,  and  if  a 
verse  were  rough,  or  a  rhyme  false,  it  did  not  disturb  him. 

1  Pp.  24,  332. 

2  p.  18. 


25i  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

As  for  "poetic  diction,"  he  scorned  it.  He  adopted  the  con- 
\ersational  tone,  and  his  language  is  that  of  everyday  life, 
almost  monosyllabic  in  its  simplicity : 

"  I  prithee  send  me  back  my  heart, 
Since  I  cannot  have  thine: 
For  if  from  yours  you  will  not  part, 

Why  then  shouldst  thou  have  mine? 

"  But  love  is  such  a  mystery, 
I  cannot  find  it  out: 
For  when  I  think  I'm  best  resolved, 
I  then  am  in  most  doubt. 

"  Then  farewell  care,  and  farewell  woe, 
I  will  no  longer  pine: 
For  I'll  believe  I  have  her  heart 
As  much  as  she  hath  mine."' 

In  Congreve's  Way  of  the  World,  Millimant,  after  repeating 
Suckling's 

"  I  prithee  spare  me,  gentle  boy; 
Press  me  no  more  for  that  slight  toy. 
That  foolish  trifle  of  an  heart," 

exclaims  "Natural,  easy  Suckling."  He  would  have  desired 
no  higher  praise. 

His  songs,  set  to  music  by  Henry  Lawes,  are  almost  en- 
tirely love  poems,  quite  different  in  spirit  from  the  lyrics  of 
the  Elizabethans  or  from  those  of  his  friend  Carew.  Pope's 
line  altered  to  "Love  is  a  jest,  and  all  things  show  it"  might 
well  be  the  motto  for  these  light-hearted  effusions,  too  trifling 
in  their  tone  to  be  contemptuous  or  even  cynical.  The  son- 
neteers loved  to  display  their  griefs ;  Suckling  informs  the 
"whining  lover"  that  compared  to  his  sufferings,  "A  finger 

1  P.  49. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  265 

burnt's  as  great  a  pain."  Love  is  troublesome,  but  so  are 
debts : 

"  'Tis  only  being  in  love  and  debt  that  breaks  us  of  our  rest ; 
And  he  that  is  quite  out  of  both,  of  all  the  world  is  blest." 

There  is  no  lover's  melancholy  in  the  moods  of  this  poet ;  he 
haunts  no  "fall  of  fountains  on  a  pathless  grove,"  but  is  sat- 
isfied with  Blackfrairs  and  Whitehall.  He  never  rises  hun- 
gry from  the  table  from  "much  gazing  on  her  face,"  as  he 
declares  in  a  poem  with  the  characteristic  refrain : 

"  She's  fair,  she's  wondrous  fair. 
But  I  care  not  who  know  it. 
Ere  I'll  die  for  love,  I'll  fairly  forego  it." 

The  Elizabethans  protested  eternal  devotion;  three  days' 
constancy  is  a  miracle  of  faithfulness  to  Suckling: 

"  Out  upon  it !  I  have  loved 

Three  whole  days  together. 
And  am  like  to  love  three  more. 
If  it  prove  fair  weather."^ 

His  chief  maxim  in  love  is  that  fruition  spoils  all;  admire  at 
a  distance  and  care  little;  the  very  essence  of  his  spirit  is 
contained  in  "Why  so  pale  and  wan,  fond  lover." 

More  distinctly  than  Carew,  Suckling  points  to  the 
Restoration  lyric ;  he  foretells  the  "town"  in  his  mention  of 
patches,  masks  and  hackney  coaches;  his  wit,  too,  is  not  the 
wit  of  Donne,  for  he  has  much  of  our  modern  humor: 

"  The  little  boy,  to  show  his  might  and  power. 
Turned  lo  to  a  cow,  Narcissus  to  a  flower; 
Transformed  Apollo  to  a  homely  swain. 
And  Jove  himself  into  a  golden  rain. 
Such  shapes  were  tolerable,  but  by  th'  mass! 
He's  metamorphosed  me  Into  an  ass."^ 

1  Pp.  23,  48,  47,  45. 

2  P.  62. 


256  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Modern  also  are  the  little  humorous  touches  in  his  master- 
piece, The  Ballad  upon  a  Wedding,  which  portrays  in  a  few 
strokes  the  point  of  view  of  a  country  yokel:  the  ring  too 
large  for  the  bride's  finger,  looking 

"  Like  the  great  collar  (just) 
About  our  young  colt's  neck ;" 

the  comparison  of  the  red  and  white  of  the  bride's  face  to  the 
daisy  or  the  streaks 

"  Such  as  are  on  a  Katherne  pear 

(The  side  that's  next  the  sun)."' 

There  is  more  dramatic  characterization  in  these  few  stanzas 
than  in  all  his  three  plays. 

We  have  said  that  SuckHng  concealed  beneath  his  jesting 
a  finer  nature  than  the  world  granted  to  him ;  we  see  the 
deeper  side  of  his  character  in 

"  When,  dearest,  I  but  think  of  thee, 
Methinks  all  things  that  lovely  be 
Are  present,  and  my  soul  delighted:"^ 

a  poem  written  with  unmistakable  feeling  and  expressing  not 
the  gallantry  of  Carew  but  a  manly  devotion.  The  world 
remembers  him  only  as  a  wit  and  a  trifler,  the  author  of 
"The  Devil  take  her" ;  he  openly  slighted  the  Muse  and  this 
is  the  retribution  of  such  a  rash  contempt. 

Richard  Lovelace  (1618-1658)  studied  at  Oxford;  fol- 
lowed the  King  in  the  unfortunate  Scottish  expeditions  of 
1639  and  1640;  and  prominently  identified  himself  with  the 
Royalists  by  presenting  to  Parliament  in  1642  the  Kentish 

IP.  30.  This  poem  won  instant  popularity;  it  constantly  appears  in 
the  verse  collections  and  song  books  of  the  Restoration.  Robert  Baron 
has  an  interesting  adaptation  of  it  in  his  Pocula  Castalia,  1650,  pp.  66-72. 
He  was  a,  warm  admirer  of  Suckling  and  has  two  epigrams  on  "the 
sweetest  plant  in  the  Pierian  green." 

2  P.   67. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  257 

petition,  praying  for  the  restoration  of  the  Bishops,  Liturgy, 
and  Prayer  Book.  For  this  act  he  was  imprisoned  in  the 
Gate. House  seven  weeks,  a  fortunate  punishment,  for  it  led 
him  to  compose  To  Althea  from  Prison.  On  his  release,  he 
followed  the  fortunes  of  the  King;  took  refuge  on  the  conti- 
nent, where  he  fought  in  the  service  of  Louis  XIV;  and  re- 
turning to  England,  was  again  imprisoned  in  164!8.  To 
beguile  the  tedium  of  captivity  he  prepared  his  poems 
for  publication,  and  they  were  issued  under  the  title  of 
Lucasta  in  164!9.  He  was  released  this  same  year;  he  had 
given  everything  to  the  royal  cause;  and  he  died  in  poverty 
if  not  in  actual  want,  in  1659.  From  these  simple  facts  of 
the  poet's  life,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  the  admiration  he 
inspired  in  his  contemporaries.  His  character  did  not  find 
adequate  expression,  for  he  was  neither  a  distinguished  sol- 
dier nor  a  great  poet.  Winstanley,  writing  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  Lovelace's  death,  pays  an  exaggerated  tribute 
to  him,  yet  it  shows  the  judgment  of  his  generation:  "I  can 
compare  no  man  so  like  this  Colonel  Lovelace  as  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  ....  both  of  them  endued  with  transcendent  sparks  of 
poetic  fire,  and  both  of  them  exposing  their  lives  to  the  ex- 
tremest  hazard  of  doubtful  war."' 

As  a  lyric  poet,  Lovelace  is  singularly  disappointing.  He 
has  won  immortality  with  two  songs,  whose  note  is  not  heard 
again  in  all  his  writings.  The  two  poems  to  Lucasta  entitled 
Going  beyond  the  Seas  and  The  Rose,  are  well-written  lyrics ; 
they  stand  out  above  the  rest  of  his  work,  but  they  have  no 
touch  of  that  nobility  of  feeling  which  distinguishes  "Tell  me 
not,  sweet,"  or  "When  Love  with  unconfined  wings. "^  Like 
Suckling,  he  cared  nothing  for  the  painful  process  of  revision ; 
he  is  satisfied  with  such  lines  as  "Thou  thee  that's  thine  dost 
discipline,"  but  unlike  Suckling,  he  can  not  assume  a  degage 

1  Lives  of  the  moat  famous  English  Poets,  London,  1687,  p.  170. 

2  The  Poems  of  Richard  Lovelace,  Hutchinson's  Popular  Classics, 
London,  1906,  pp.  17,  33,  18,  69. 


268  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

air  which  persuades  the  reader  to  overlook  defects  of  work- 
manship. Apparently  Lovelace  lacked  the  critical  sense; 
he  could  not  separate  the  good  from  the  bad  in  his  writing. 
Amyntor' s  Grove  is  utterly  conventional  and  uninteresting, 
yet  we  find  in  it  delicate  and  musical  verses,  which  removed 
from  their  context,  might  have  lived;  in  a  verse  epistle  to 
The  Lady  A.  L.  occur  lines,  which  printed  alone,  would  form 
a  graceful  lyric,  but  in  their  context  they  are  forgotten. 
Lacking  Jonson's  art,  Lovelace  is  attracted  by  the  wit  of 
Donne,  but  his  conceits  are  trivial.  The  patch  on  Lucasta's 
face  is  a  bee  seeking  honey ;  the  poet's  heart  is  a  ball  for 
Cupid ;  the  snail  is  an  "epitome  of  Euclid,"  a  warlike 
Scythian  moving  his  men  and  cities,  a  hooded  monk  walking 
in  his  cloister — a  quaint  conceit  which  partially  atones  for 
the  insipidity  of  the  others.  It  can  not  be  said  then  that 
Lovelace  is  identified  with  any  school ;  he  is  a  transitional 
writer  and  if  we  have  a  faint  reminiscence  of  Donne's  method, 
we  have  an  anticipation  of  Dorset  or  Sedley  in  such  a  stanza 
as 

"  Oh,  she  is  constant  as  the  wind 

That  revels  in  an  evening's  air ! 
Certain,  as  ways  unto  the  blind, 

More  real  than  her  flatteries  are ; 
Gentle,  as  chains  that  honour  bind, 

More  faithful  than  an  Hebrew  Jew, 
But  as  the  Devil  not  half  so  true."' 

One  trait  of  Lovelace  that  points  to  later  writers  is  his  ob- 
servation of  animal  Hfe ;  he  watches  with  interest  the  ant,  the 
grasshopper,  the  falcon,  for  Lovelace  was  not  a  courtier  but 
a  country  gentleman.  There  is  quiet  humor  in  his  address 
to  the  "great  good  husband,  little  ant" : 

"  Down  with  thy  double  load  of  that  one  grain ; 
It  is  a  grainery  for  all  thy  train." 

1  P.  86 ;  cf .  The  Scrutiny,  p.  25. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 
Better  still  is  his  grasshopper  that  swings 

"  upon  the  waving  hair 
Of  some  well  filled  oaten  beard, 
Drunk  every  night  with  a  delicious  tear 

Dropt  thee  from  Heaven,  where  now  th'art  reared."' 

The  tone  of  these  poems  recalls  the  fieldmouse  of  Robert 
Burns. 

In  his  two  best  lyrics,  Lovelace  has  caught  the  finest  spirit 
of  EHzabethan  chivalry.  "TeU  me  not,  sweet,"  is  the  better 
known,  because  of  its  concluding  stanza,  but  it  is  not  the 
better  poem.  Though  it  is  an  ungracious  task  to  criticise 
an  acknowledged  classic,  if  we  look  critically  at  the  second 
stanza  we  find  that  its  wit — 

"  True ;  a  new  mistress  now  I  chase, 
The  first  foe  in  the  field;" — • 

seems  a  little  out  of  place,  and  unworthy  of  the  rest  of  the 
song.  To  Althea  is  a  more  sustained  piece  of  writing ;  it  has 
a  broader  sweep: 

"  When  (like  committed  linnets)  I 

With  shriller  throat  shall  sing 
The  sweetness,  mercy,  majesty. 

And  glories  of  my  King; 
When  I  shall  voice  aloud  how  good 

He  is,  how  great  should  be. 
Enlarged  winds  that  curl  the  flood 

Know  no  such  liberty." 

Such  a  stanza  contains  the  very  essence  of  that  unswerving 
loyalty  which  the  Stuarts  were  destined  to  inspire.  For 
more  than  a  century  that  devotion  found  expression  in  the 
finest  political  lyrics  that  any  literature  possesses  ;  the  humor 

1  Pp.  125,  35. 


260  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  pathos,  the  tenderness,  the  enthusiasm,  the  spirit  of  dar- 
ing that  animates  these  Jacobite  songs  won  many  a  follower 
to  a  desperate  cause  and  their  effect  on  the  modern  lyric  has 
been  no  small  one.  Scott  and  Burns  owe  some  of  their  finest 
stanzas  to  the  forgotten  writers  of  these  deeply  felt  poems. 

LoweU,  who  constantly  showed  towards  the  lesser  poets  a 
certain  lofty  impatience,  has  characterized  Lucasta  as  "dirt 
and  dullness."  The  first  charge  is  unfair,  for  Lovelace  is 
free  from  the  sensual  taint  that  mars  Carew's  poems ;  on  the 
other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that  many  of  his  poems  are 
wearisome  reading.  There  is  no  half  way  point  in  his  writ- 
ings ;  he  reaches  the  two  extremes,  and  in  the  greater  part 
of  his  book  the  worse  prevails.  Ten  lyrics,  at  the  most,  are 
worthy  of  remembrance ;  it  is  a  small  number,  yet  two  of 
these  are  the  finest  expression  in  our  language  of  the  love, 
honor,  and  loyalty  of  the  Cavaliers. 

We  may  consider  at  this  point  a  group  of  minor  poets, 
who  were  outspoken  Royalists.  William  Cartwright  (1611- 
1643)  and  Henry  King  (1592-1669),  Bishop  of  Chichester, 
enjoyed  in  their  day  a  considerable  reputation,  yet  they  are 
by  no  means  inspired  writers  and  their  few  lyrics  need  not 
detain  us.'  Alexander  Brome  (1620-1666)  had  three  themes 
— love,  loyalty,  and  above  all,  wine.  His  songs,  written 
to  be  sung  in  the  tavern  or  the  camp,  have  small  literary 
merit,  but  their  lively  stj'le  made  them  popular.  His  love 
poems,  of  whicli  the  Resolve  is  the  best,  adopt  the  attitude 
of  Suckling,  for  Brome  imitates  him  freely.  He  is  indeed 
the  laureate  of  wine ;  he  sings  the  praises  of  claret  and 
canary,  sack  and  ale  in  no  uncertain  tones ;  and  even  in  his 
Ro3'alist  lyrics  he  seems  ready  to  lay  aside  the  sword  for  the 
bottle.     The  Cavalier  in  prison  consoles  himself  readily: 

1  Cartwright's  best  poem,  Valediction,  is  not  included  in  the  Oxford 
Book  of  English  Verse  which  prints  King's  touching  elegy  upon  his  wife, 
one  of  the  sincerest  poems  of  the  age.  There  is  need  of  a  new  edition  of 
King. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  261 

"  Come  pass  about  the  bowl  to  me, 

A  health  to  our  distressed  King; 
Though  we're  in  hold,  let  cups  go  free, 
Birds  in  a  cage  may  freely  sing."^ 

Perhaps  the  most  attractive  feature  of  these  poems  is  their 
recklessness.  Without  a  doubt  they  inspired  devotion  for  the 
Stuarts,  and  Isaac  Walton  tells  us  in  an  "humble  Eglog" 
that  these  are  the  songs 

"  that  we 
Have  sung  so  oft  and  merilie. 
As  we  have  marched  to  fight  the  cause 
Of  God's  annointed,  and  our  laws." 

War  songs  are  seldom  effective  in  proportion  to  their  literary 
merit  .^ 

A  much  more  important  figure  is  John  Cleveland  (1613- 
1658),  fellow  of  St.  Johns,  Cambridge,  and  for  "about  the 
space  of  nine  years,  the  delight  and  ornament  of  that 
society."  Driven  from  his  college  by  the  Puritans,  he  fol- 
lowed the  King,  fighting  valiantly  with  his  pen.  His  satire. 
The  Rebel  Scot,  was  one  of  the  most  effective  blows  struck 
by  either  side. 

Cleveland's  poems  on  Jonson  express  the  warmest  admira- 
tion, but  he  was  attracted  by  the  satiric  rather  than  by  the 
lyric  element  in  the  elder  poet's  work.  He  attacks  more 
often  than  he  sings.  In  his  descriptive  poems  and  in  his 
satires  he  adopts  the  "metaphysical"  manner;  in  his  few 
lyrics — none  are  included  in  such  anthologies  as  Palgrave's 
Golden  Treasury  or  the  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse — 
he  shows  more  vivacity  than  "wit."     Th€  General  Eclipse 

lA.  Brome,  Songs  and  other  Poems,  third  edition,  1668,  p.  50. 

2  If  any  proof  of  this  statement  Is  needed,  it  is  only  necessary  to 
remember  tiiat  the  doggerel,  "When  the  King  shall  enj  oy  his  own  again," 
was  the  most  popular  song  of  the  age.  Ritson  called  it  the  most  famous 
song  of  any  time  or  country. 


262  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

is  an  interesting  parody  on  Wotton's  best  lyric,  "Ye  meaner 
beauties  of  the  night" ;  Mark  Antony,  with  its  good  opening: 

"  When  as  the  nightingale  chanted  her  vespers 

And  the  wild  forester  couched  on  the  ground," 

has    a   lilt   that   foretells   the  Restoration   song   books   and 
D'Urfey: 

"  First  on  her  cherry  cheeks  I  mine  eyes  feasted. 
Thence  fear  of  surfeiting  made  me  retire; 
Next  on  her  warmer  lips,  which,  when  I  tasted. 
My  duller  spirits  made  active  as  fire. 
Then  we  began  to  dart. 
Each  at  another's  heart, 
Arrows  that  knew  no  smart, 
Sweet  lips  and  smiles  between. 
Never  Mark  Antony 
Dallied  more  wantonly 
With  the  fair  Egyptian  Queen."^ 

We  leave  the  minor  poetry  of  the  period  with  a  brief  notice 
of  two  other  well-known  writers.  Thomas  Randolph  (1605- 
1635)  was  in  residence  at  Cambridge  until  1632,  when  he 
forsook  the  university  for  London,  attracted  by  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  town  and  by  the  reigning  poets,  especially  Jonson. 
He  enjoyed  life  too  recklessly  and  died  before  he  had  justi- 
fied his  reputation  as  a  highly  gifted  and  brilliant  writer. 
He  lives  in  a  single  lyric,  his  delightful  Ode  to  Master  Staf- 
ford to  hasten  Him  into  the  Country,  one  of  the  best  poems 
on  pastoral  life  written  during  this  whole  century.  Randolph 
is  tired  with  "the  chargeable  noise  of  this  great  town,"  weary 
of  foppery  and  the  war  of  wits : 

"  'Tis  time  that  I  grow  wise,  when  all  the  world  grows  mad," 

iJohn  M.  Berdan,  The  Poems  of  John  Cleveland,  New  Haven,  1911, 
pp.  158,  103. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

he  cries,  and  so  he  spurs  away  to  see  "old  simplicity,"  to 
watch  "the  wholesome  country  girls  make  hay,"  and  to  hear 
the  choir  of  birds.  There  is  nothing  conventional  in  such 
writing;  every  verse  rings  true. 

Thomas  Stanley  (1625-1678)  wrote  many  songs;  over 
eighty  of  them  were  given  a  musical  setting  by  John  Gamble 
in  his  Ayres  and  Dialogues,  1657,  who  finds  that  they  possess 
"flowing  and  natural  graces"  for  the  words  are  "pure  har- 
mony in  themselves."  Though  correctly  written,  these  lyrics 
lack  the  inward  touch;  they  are  of  the  school  of  Carew,  yet 
have  neither  his  charm  nor  sentiment.  With  Donne,  Stanley 
writes  of  a  bracelet  of  hair,  "This  mystic  wreath  which  crowns 
my  arm,"  but  his  verses  are  merely  a  formal  compHment.  At 
his  best  he  has  something  of  Jonson's  simple,  direct  style  in 
the  Relapse,  or  in  the  song: 

"  I  prithee  let  my  heart  alone ! 

Since  now  'tis  raised  above  thee: 
Not  all  the  beauty  thou  dost  own 
Again  can  make  me  love  thee."' 

Ill 

The  greatest  of  Jonson's  sons  was  Robert  Herrick  (1591- 
1674),  in  turn  a  goldsmith's  apprentice,  a  student  at  Cam- 
bridge, a  poet  at  London  dependent  on  the  patronage  of 
courtiers,  a  chaplain  to  Buckingham's  expedition  to  the  Isle 
of  Rhe,  and  finally  a  country  parson,  vicar  of  Dean  Prior, 
Devonshire.  He  was  a  Royalist  at  heart ;  in  several  poems  he 
expresses  attachment  to  the  King  and  his  cause,  yet  he 
mourns  over  the  troubled  times  principally  because  they  are 
untunable  and  unfit  for  song.  After  nineteen  years  at  Dean 
Prior,  he  was  ejected  by  the  Puritans  in  1648,  and  returning 
to  London,  brought  out  that  same  year  his  Hesperides.  In 
1662  he  was  restored  to  his  vicarage,  where  he  died  in  1674, 

1  L.  I.  Guiney,  Thomas  Stanley,  Hull,  1907,  p.  65. 


^6i  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  year  of  Milton's  death.  He  pubHshed  but  one  poem,  and 
that  a  poor  one,  after  the  appearance  of  the  Hesperides} 

In  a  previous  chapter,  we  spoke  of  the  neglect  that  over- 
took Shakespeare's  sonnets ;  the  Hesperides  had  even  a  harder 
fate.  Quite  contrary  to  the  custom  of  the  day,  they  were 
published  without  any  commendatory  verses.  Though  Her- 
rick  was  a  son  of  Ben  and  addresses  him  most  famiharly, 
Jonson  never  mentions  his  name ;  he  is  not  included  in  Suck- 
hng's  Session  of  the  Poets,  and  the  earliest  allusion  to  the 
Hesperides,  a  Latin  couplet  prefixed  to  Lucasta,  actually 
ranks  Lovelace  with  Herrick.  Three  lines  in  the  Mmarum 
Delicice  (1656)  ;  a  really  appreciative  stanza  in  Naps  upon 
Parnassus  (1658)  f  a  ridiculously  patronizing  reference  in 
Phillips's  Theatrum  Pcetarum  Anglorum  (1675)  is  all  that 
we  hear  of  Herrick  until  1796,  when  some  articles  concerning 
him  appeared  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine.  To  show  how 
completely  he  had  been  forgotten,  when  Giles  Jacobs  brought 
out  in  1723  his  Poetical  Register,  or  Lives  of  all  the  English 
Poets,  though  he  was  assisted  by  Congreve,  "the  celebrated 
Mr.  Prior,"  and  many  others,  no  one  had  heard  of  Herrick's 
name.  Scores  of  poetasters  are  noticed  in  this  work ;  Her- 
rick had  passed  entirely  from  the  memories  of  English  poets 
and  readers,  one  more  illustration  of  the  vanity  of  contem- 
porary criticism. 

Though  the  world  of  letters  long  neglected  him,  though 
the  fame  he  desired  was  long  delayed,  the  unlettered  peasants 
repeated  his  verses ;  his  wassail  and  harvest  songs,  his  Christ- 
mas glees,  were  handed  down  from  father  to  son.  There 
must  have  been  many  country  squires  who,  with  Irving's  host 

1  The  New  Charon.     Upon  the  Death  of  Henry  Lord  Hastings. 

2         "  And  then  Flaccus  Horace, 
He  was  but  a  sour-ass, 
And  good  for  nothing  but  Lyricks. 
There's  but  one  to  be  found 
In  all  English  ground. 
Writes  as  well,  who  is  hight  Robert  Herrick." 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  265 

at  Bracebridge  Hall,  would  have  nothing  but  "Herrick's 
good  old  English  songs."  In  1810,  a  visitor  at  Dean  Prior 
found  a  woman  of  ninety  years  who  had  repeated  from  child- 
hood Herrick's  Litany,  and  knew  a  few  traditions  concern- 
ing the  poet ;  as  late  as  1843  Mr.  King  wrote :  "Many  of  the 
spells,  charms,  bits  of  folk  lore  that  are  scattered  through 
his  volumes  are  still  to  be  found  in  his  parish  and  in  a  flour- 
ishing condition."^ 

Though  the  Hesperides  had  no  effect  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  the  lyric,  Herrick  drew  inspiration  from  the  classic 
lyric  and  from  the  songs  of  Jonson.  Catullus,  Ovid,  Martial, 
Theocritus,  Anacreon,  are  easily  discernible  in  his  poems, 
sometimes  in  direct  translation,  oftener  by  allusion  or  free 
imitation.  It  is  with  Horace  that  he  has  the  closest  affinity, 
for  with  as  much  art  and  with  greater  color  and  feeling,  he 
repeats  the  Horatian  warnings  of  the  inevitable  approach  of 
death  and  of  the  brief  time  given  us  to  pluck  the  joys  of  life. 
This  classical  influence  never  fetters  him ;  there  is  not  the 
slightest  air  of  pedantry  in  his  imitations ;  and  his  trans- 
lations, especially  those  of  Anacreon,  in  their  lightness  and 
graceful  finish  rank  with  his  best  work. 

It  is  a  rather  remarkable  fact  that  the  greatest  of  the  sons 
of  Ben  was  not  a  dramatist  but  a  lyric  poet.  Herrick  leaves 
no  doubt  as  to  his  indebtedness  to  the  "best  of  poets,"  whom, 
in  his  Elysium,  he  places  above  Catullus,  Pindar  and  Homer, 
and  the  number  and  nature  of  his  references  to  his  "father 
Ben"  can  hardly  be  paralleled  in  the  case  of  any  other  poet 
of  the  period  and  one  of  his  followers.  They  express  more 
than  friendship  and  admiration ;  Herrick  asks  Jonson  to  aid 
him  "when  he  a  verse  would  make,"  and  these  words  are  not 
altogether  figurative.  From  Jonson's  Underwoods,  and 
Forest,  Herrick,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  has  "adopted"  several 
poems  and  at  times  the  imitation  is  very  exact.  As  has  been 
often  pointed  out,  "Still  to  be  neat,  still  to  be  drest,"  evi- 

i  Quarterly  Review,  1810;  Fraser")  Magazine,  vol.  47,  p.  103. 


266  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

dently  inspired  Herrick's  charming  poems  on  clothes — 
"When  I  behold  a  forest  spread,"  and  "A  sweet  disorder  in 
the  dress,"^- — while  "Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes"  re- 
echoes in  Herrick's: 

"  Reach,  with  your  whiter  hands  to  me 
Some  crystal  of  the  spring; 
And  I  about  the  cup  shall  see 
Fresh  lilies  flourishing. 

"  Or  else,  sweet  nymphs,  do  you  but  this, 
To  th'  glass  your  lips  incline; 
And  I  shall  see  by  that  one  kiss 
The  water  turned  to  wine." 

Or,  more  plainly,  in : 

"  'Twas  but  a  single  rose. 

Till  you  on  it  did  breathe. 
But  since,  methinks,  it  shows 

Not  so  much  rose  as  wreath."^ 

Herrick's  exquisite  Night-Piece  to  Julia  far  surpasses  the 
following  song  from  Jonson's  masque,  The  Gypsies  Metamor- 
phosed, though  certainly  modeled  upon  it : 

"  The  faery  beam  upon  you. 
The  stars  to  glister  on  you; 
A  moon  of  light. 
In  the  noon  of  night. 
Till  the  fire-drake  hath  o'ergone  you."' 

To  point  out  actual  imitation,  similarities  in  thought  and 
diction,  does  not  bring  us  to  the  heart  of  the  matter;  it  is 
more  important  to  notice  how  completely  Herrick  escaped 

1  A.  W.  Pollard,  Herrick's  Works,  Muses'  Library,  London,  1891,  vol. 
1,  pp.  354,  32,  232. 

2  Pp.  232,  61. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  267 

the  influence  of  Donne.  Though  he  loves  to  play  with  a  sub- 
ject, to  repeat  with  variations  one  idea,  there  are  scarcely 
a  dozen  poems  in  the  Hesperides  containing  strained  conceits 
or  fantastic  ingenuity  of  thought.  This  may  well  be  due  to 
Jonson's  influence  and  it  is  certain  that  Herrick's  self- 
critical  spirit,  his  sense  of  art,  was  fostered  by  Jonson's  pre- 
cept and  practice.  In  no  small  degree,  Jonson's  fame  as  a 
lyric  poet  will  rest  upon  this  fact.  Since  in  this  instance 
the  disciple  is  above  his  master,  we  may  apply  to  the  verses 
of  Herrick  the  hne  which  Jonson  placed  over  his  own  child's 
grave : 

"  Ben  Jonson  his  best  piece  of  poetry."^ 

Whether  or  not  Herrick  is  our  foremost  lyric  poet  is  a 
subject  for  critical  discussion;  that  he  is  one  of  our  foremost 
artists  is  unquestionable.  Because  at  times  he  condescended 
to  carve  cherry  stones ;  because  he  illuminated  the  pages  of 
a  manuscript  when  others  spread  whole  landscapes  on  their 
canvas,  we  should  not  forget  how  remarkable  is  his  technique. 
He  lacked  romantic  passion,  he  was  not  one  of  those  who  had 
loved  much,  but  to  some  men  art  is  as  real  a  mistress  as  one 
of  flesh  and  blood ;  to  certain  natures,  the  beauty  of  a  splen- 
did line  of  poetry  appeals  as  strongly  as  the  beauty  of  a  fair 
face.  Endowed  with  artistic  perception  above  his  fellows, 
able  to  give  to  his  songs  the  crowning  touch,  he  had  that 
rarest  gift — the  power  to  conceal  his  art.  In  his  Farewell 
to  Sack  he  exclaims 

"  what's  done  by  me 
Hereafter  shall  smell  of  the  lamp,  not  thee," 

but  he  belies  himself,  and  so  supreme  is  his  skill  that  song 
after  song  seems  to  be  unpremeditated,  full  of  those  "name- 

1 1  have  discussed  this  more  fully  in  "Herrick's  Indebtedness  to  Ben 
Jonson,"  Modern  Language  Notes,  December,  1902. 


268  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

less  graces  that  no  art  can  teach."  In  Elizabethan  poetry, 
we  find  splendid  lyrical  passages,  unforgettable  lines  that  we 
may  detach  from  their  setting,  but  Herrick's  poems  are  com- 
plete. We  cast  aside  the  last  stanza  of  Carew's  "He  that 
loves  a  rosy  cheek,"  or  of  Browne's  "Underneath  this  sable 
hearse" ;  we  discard  line  after  line  of  Crashaw's  Wishes  to 
his  supposed  Mistress,  and  thereby  improve  indisputably 
these  poems,  but  we  would  not  touch  a  syllable  in  To 
Meadows,  To  CEnone,  To  Anthea — the  Hst  is  an  unending 
one.  Herrick's  aim  never  exceeded  his  reach;  he  kept  in 
sight  perfection  and  obtained  it.  There  are  in  the  Hesperides 
no  lines  more  significant  than  the  simple  couplet : 

"  Better  'twere  my  book  were  dead, 
Than  to  live  not  perfected."' 

Herrick's  volume  consisted  of  two  parts- — the  Hesperides 
and  the  Noble  Numbers,  or  His  Pious  Pieces.  His  rehgious 
poems  are  distinctly  inferior  to  his  secular  verse,  for  though 
a  passage  in  his  Farewell  to  Poetry  apparently  proves  that 
he  voluntarily  took  orders,  not  driven  to  the  priesthood  by 
need,  yet  his  Farewell  to  Sack  has  more  feeling  in  it  than 
we  find  in  all  but  a  few  of  his  sacred  poems.^  He  has  none  of 
Herbert's  spiritual  conflicts,  nothing  of  Vaughan's  mysticism 
or  of  Crashaw's  glowing  emotion.  Keenly  sensitive  to  the 
beautiful,  it  is  a  material  loveliness  that  attracts  him,  and 
his  religion  is  one  of  incense  and  of  floral  oflf^erings.  This 
absence  of  mysticism  is  best  seen  in  a  little  poem  on  the  Com- 
munion, where  Herrick  looks  chiefly  at  the  golden  altar  with 
its  covering  of  figured  damask.'  There  is  a  simplicity  of 
spirit  in  his  religious  verse  that  recalls  the  lyrics  of  the 
miracle  plays : 

iVol.  I,  p.  59. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  265,  a  poem  not  included  in  the  Hesperides;  vol.  I,  p.  53. 

3  Vol.  II,  p.  191. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

"  Go,  pretty  child,  and  bear  this  flower 
Unto  thy  little  Saviour; 


And  tell  Him,  for  good  handsel  too, 
That  thou  hast  brought  a  whistle  new, 
Made  of  a  clean  straight  oaten  reed, 
To  charm  His  cries  at  time  of  need."^ 

He  sings  the  birth  of  Prince  Charles  in  much  the  same  way, 
and  his  shepherds  bring  the  same  offerings  to  him.  Her- 
rick's  carols  are  especially  good,  with  their  quaint  touches, 
as  when  he  calls  Christ  the  "Lord  of  all  this  revelling,"  or 

"  Our  pretty  twelfth-tide  King, 
*         *         *         *         * 
And  when  night  comes  we'll  give  him  wassailing."^ 

Mr.  Gosse  has  pointed  out  that  Herrick  is  at  his  best  when 
his  religious  poems  are  most  secular,  when  he  can  describe 
the  flowers  brought  to  Christ  or  sing  a  dirge  for  Jephthah's 
daughter.  He  is  the  artist  who  makes  the  shrine,  not  the 
saint  who  kneels  before  it.  He  wishes  in  his  old  age  some 
hermitage  where 

"  the  remnant  of  my  days  I'd  spend, 
Reading  Thy  Bible  and  my  Book;  so  end."' 

The  order  is  significant,  and  we  suspect  that  Herrick's  read- 
ing would  be  chiefly  the  Hesperides. 

There  are  in  the  Noble  Numbers  several  poems  marked  by 
the  sincerest  feeling — poems  of  repentance  and  gratitude. 
His  material  view  of  life  makes  his  Thanksgiving  to  God  for 

1  No.  59. 

2  Pp.  206,  308. 

3  P.  313. 


270  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

his  House  one  of  his  finest  pieces.  In  the  hands  of  many 
writers  the  list  he  gives  of  his  humble  possessions  would  be 
ineffective,  even  grotesque : 

"  The  worts,  the  purslain,  and  the  mess 
Of  water  cress, 

***** 

Thou  mak'st  my  teeming  hen  to  lay 
Her  egg  each  day."^ 

In  his  Litany  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  he  shows  an  intensity  of 
emotion  which  does  not  appear  elsewhere  in  his  verse : 

"  When  the  flames  and  hellish  cries 
Fright  mine  ears,  and  fright  mine  eyes, 
And  all  terrors  me  surprise. 

Sweet  Spirit,  comfort  me  !"^ 

Such  lines  sound  strangely  amid  the  songs  of  flowers  and 
spices. 

It  is  in  the  Hesperides  that  Herrick's  art  finds  its  most 
perfect  expression.  Whatever  he  owed  to  the  classic  writers 
or  to  his  "Saint  Ben,"  he  is  one  of  the  most  original  of  lyrists, 
and  his  province  is  all  his  own.  He  had  no  followers  in  his 
own  day ;  in  our  own  times,  he  has  no  imitators,  for  the  ob- 
jectivity of  so  much  of  his  work  is  alien  to  our  mood.  Yet 
the  personal  note  in  his  writings  is  decidedly  modem,  and 
modern  too  is  his  love  for  nature.  Herrick's  parish  was  a 
small  one ;  his  people  "rude  and  churlish  as  the  sea" ;  and  it 
is  scarcely  difficult  to  understand  the  inconsistencies  in  his 
lyrics,  his  praise  of  Devonshire  mingled  at  times  with  expres- 
sions of  utter  contempt  for  it.  Cut  off'  from  his  London 
friends  and  lyric  feasts,  he  turned  with  genuine  delight  to 

IP.  184. 
2  P.  181. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  271 

the  rustic  life  about  him.  Though  his  Julias  and  Dianemes 
live  in  a  world  of  fancy,  a  world  of  spices  and  silks,  there  is 
no  conventionality  in  his  songs  of  the  country.  He  saw 
more  in  the  pastoral  life  than  did  his  contemporaries,  yet 
his  vision  was  limited,  for  he  is  the  singer  of  meadows  and  of 
blossoms.  There  is  a  refinement  in  his  descriptive  touches, 
a  delicacy  in  his  flower  songs  quite  different  from  the  hearti- 
ness of  Heywood's  "Pack  clouds  away  and  welcome  day," 
yet  this  delicacy  of  treatment  is  far  removed  from  artifi- 
ciality, and  though  he  sought  for  new  and  difficult  verse 
forms,  they  never  restrained  his  thought  nor  impeded  the 
song-like  flow  of  his  style.  There  are  no  more  exquisite  lines 
on  flowers  than  To  Primroses,  To  Daffodils,  or  To  Blossoms. 
They  combine  the  triumph  of  art — ^the  songs  themselves  are 
as  fragile  as  the  flowers  they  celebrate — with  a  sympathy, 
and  a  tenderness  for  the  short-lived  "whimpering  younglings." 
Herrick  has  been  reproached  for  lacking  that  strength 
of  emotion  seen  in  the  songs  of  the  Elizabethans,  and  it  is 
said  that  many  a  minor  lyrist  has  shown  a  depth  of  feeling 
he  never  reached.  When  he  so  wished,  he  could  write  a 
spirited  love  song: 

"  Thou  art  my  life,  my  love,  my  heart, 
The  very  eyes  of  me: 
And  hast  command  of  every  part 
To  live  and  die  for  thee,"^ 

but  as  he  concealed  his  art,  so  he  chose  to  conceal  his  emo- 
tion. He  has  been  called  a  trifler,  but  there  is  too  much 
pathos  in  his  work  to  justify  that  epithet.  He  is  the  singer 
of  flowers  and  meadows,  but  his  songs  are  elegies.  We  think 
of  him  as  the  poet  of  May  and  of  the  joys  of  fields  and 
woods,  but  he  never  forgets  the  fast-approaching  end  of  all 
that  charms  him : 

iVol.  I,  p.  135. 


^n  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  But  you  are  lovely  leaves^  where  we 
May  read  how  soon  things  have 
Their  end,  though  ne'er  so  brave: 
And  after  they  have  shown  their  pride 
Like  you  awhile,  they  glide 
Into  the  grave. "^ 

His  emotion  is  the  more  poignant  because  it  is  restrained. 
With  all  his  love  for  the  earth,  with  his  delight  in  jewels, 
silks  and  spices,  he  can  not  lose  sight  of  the  shadow  of  death. 
His  mistresses  in  their  taffetas  and  laces,  fragrant  with 
those  perfumes  that  so  pleased  him,  are  flowers  blooming  for 
the  moment: 

"  You  are  a  tulip  seen  to-day, 
But,  dearest,  of  so  short  a  stay 
That  where  you  grew,  scarce  man  can  say."^ 

He  can  not  rid  himself  of  this  thought ;  he  recurs  to  it  again 
and  again,  expressing  it  nowhere  more  perfectly  than  in 
"Sweet,  be  not  proud  of  those  two  eyes."  As  he  gazes  on  the 
beauty  of  Dianeme,  he  bids  her  forget  the  star-light  sparkle 
of  her  eyes,  the  wealth  of  her  rich  hair,  for  her  ruby 

"  Will  last  to  be  a  precious  stone 
When  all  your  world  of  beauty's  gone."' 

Here  is  no  graceful  compKment,  no  gallant  serenade,  but 
a  lament  at  the  irony  of  fate,  the  tragedy  of  life.  In  a 
poem  containing  his  finest  qualities — his  love  of  nature,  his 
graceful  description,  his  musical  expression — we  find  the 
same  note.     After  he  has  pictured  to  Corinna  the  lovehness 

1  P.  221. 

2  P.  108. 

3  p.  74. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

of  the  May  day,  the  pleasures  of  the  budding  boys  and  girls 
gone  a-Maying,  he  forgets  the  spring  and  its  flowers : 

"  Our  life  is  short,  and  our  days  run 

As  fast  away  as  does  the  sun. 
And,  as  a  vapour  or  a  drop  of  rain 
Once  lost,  can  ne'er  be  found  again. 

So  when  or  you  or  I  are  made 

A  fable,  song,  or  fleeting  shade. 

All  love,  all  liking,  all  delight 

Lies  drowned  with  us  in  endless  night. 
Then,  while  time  serves,  and  we  are  but  decaying, 
Come,  my  Corinna,  come,  let's  go  a-Maying."^ 

The  poet  who  stands  nearest  Herrick  in  his  love  of 
nature — at  times  he  surpasses  him — is  Andrew  Marvell 
(1621-1678).  He  was  educated  at  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, travelled  on  the  continent,  and  in  1650  was  taken 
by  Lord  Fairfax  to  his  Yorkshire  estate,  to  be  the  tutor  of 
his  daughter.  Here,  in  the  retirement  of  the  country,  Mar- 
vell composed  his  finest  poems  Upon  Appleton  House,  the 
Horatian  Ode,  The  Garden,  On  a  Drop  of  Dew,  and  in  all 
probability,  The  Nymph  Complaining  for  the  Death  of  her 
Fawn.  Fairfax  delighted  in  poetry,  but  could  not  write  it, 
though  he  made  many  attempts.  Undoubtedly  he  encouraged 
MarveU,  but  the  young  tutor's  lyric  period  was  a  brief  one. 
As  Milton's  colleague  in  the  Latin  secretaryship,  and  later,  as 
member  of  Parliament  from  Hull,  he  became  absorbed  in 
politics ;  in  place  of  nature  poems,  he  wrote  verse  satires, 
brutally  frank,  or  pamphlets  full  of  vigorous,  ironical  prose. 
English  history  gained  a  patriot  at  a  time  when  honesty  and 
courage  seemed  forgotten  virtues ;  the  English  lyric  is  the 
poorer  since  it  possesses  not  the  achievement,  but  the  promise 
of  Andrew  Marvell. 

If  Herrick  avoided  Donne's  influence,  Marvell  shows  it 
most  plainly.     He  never  mentions  Donne's  name;  he  does 

IP.  84. 


%llp  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

not  imitate  any  one  poem,  or  even  lift  any  phrase,  but  the 
spirit  of  Donne  is  in  many  a  line.  At  times  he  can  be  as 
fantastic  as  any  of  the  metaphysical  poets : 

"  Tears   (watery  shot  that  pierce  the  mind,) 
And  sighs  (Love's  cannon  filled  with  wind;)" 

and  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  might  have  written  such  stanzas 
as: 

"  My  love  is  of  a  birth  as  rare 

As  'tis,  for  object,  strange  and  high; 
It  was  begotten  by  Despair, 
Upon  Impossibility. 

#  *  *  *  * 

"  As  lines,  so  love's  oblique,  may  well 

Themselves  in  every  angle  greet: 
But  ours,  so  truly  parallel. 

Though  infinite,  can  never  meet."^ 

As  a  rule  Marvell's  conceits  are  quaint  and  charming  rather 
than  extravagant  and  grotesque.  We  see  this  in  such  a 
couplet  as 

"  And  stars  show  lovely  in  the  night. 
But  as  they  seem  the  tears  of  light,"^ 

and  better  in  these  stanzas  from  The  Mower  to  the  Glow 
Worms : 

"  Ye  living  lamps,  by  whose  dear  light 
The  nightingale  does  sit  so  late. 
And  studying  all  the  summer  night. 
Her  matchless  songs  does  imitate; 

1  G.  A.  Aitken,  Poems  of  Andrew  Marvell,  Muses'  Library,  London, 
1892,  pp.  31,  73,  74. 

2  P.  37.    Cf.  Sully  Prudhomme,  La  Voie  LacUe : 

"  £tes-vous  touj  ours  en  prifere  ? 
£tes-vous  des  astres  bless6s? 
Car  ce  sent  des  pleurs  de  lumi^re, 
Non  des  rayons,  que  vous  versez." 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  275 

"  Ye  country  comets,  that  portend 
No  war  nor  prince's  funeral, 
Shining  unto  no  higher  end 
Than  to  presage  the  grass's  fall."'^ 

Such  verses  show  plainly  what  Lamb  has  called  the  "witty 
delicacy"  of  Marvell. 

The  themes  of  Marvell  are  not  those  of  Donne ;  he  lacked 
the  romantic  temperament  and  writes  coldly  of  women. 
Only  one  of  his  love  poems  is  worthy  of  him ;  it  has  some- 
thing of  Donne's  wit,  and  far  more  important,  fine  moments 
of  imagination  and  passion,  for  Marvell  is  continually  hint- 
ing at  greater  things.  His  Coy  Mistress  has  the  same  theme 
as  Herrick's  Corvnna,  but  not  Herrick's  art.  Contrasted 
with  this  poem,  Marvell's  octosyllabics  are  rough  and  un- 
finished; his  humor  seems  out  of  keeping  and  too  grotesque. 
He  tells  his  coy  love  that  the  days  haste  away ;  if  there  were 
time 

"  I  would 
Love  you  ten  years  before  the  flood, 
And  you  should,  if  you  please,  refuse 
Till  the  conversion  of  the  Jews." 

Then,  in  this  quaint  tirade,  he  pauses  and  cries  with  an  in- 
tensity of  emotion  which  Herrick  never  expressed: 

"  But  at  my  back  I  always  hear 
Time's  winged  chariot  hurrying  near, 
And  yonder  all  before  us  lie 
Deserts  of  vast  eternity. 
****** 

Let  us  roll  all  our  strength  and  all 
Our  sweetness  up  into  one  ball. 
And  tear  our  pleasures  with  rough  strife. 
Thorough  the  iron  gates  of  life."^ 

1  P.  89. 

2  Pp.  56,  ST. 


^76  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Never  again  does  this  mood  seize  him ;  instead  of  love  poems, 
he  writes  verses  to  children,  "young  beauties  of  the  woods." 
If  Marvell  forsook  the  greatest  lyric  theme  of  all,  he  at 
least  brought  new  ones  to  English  verse.  Through  the 
Elizabethan  period,  when  Italian  influence  was  supreme,  the 
patriotism  of  the  Italian  sonneteers  was  never  imitated;  we 
have  no  sonnets,  no  odes  to  England  or  to  English  leaders, 
whereas  the  Italian  poets  took  the  deepest  interest  in  the 
political  fortunes  of  their  towns  or  provinces.  Marvell  con- 
sidered Cromwell  to  be  the  savior  of  his  country ;  moved  by 
the  sincerest  admiration  for  him  he  became  his  laureate. 
Where  other  poets  flattered  subserviently,  he  praised  boldly 
and,  on  the  whole,  justly,  though  he  is  not  free  from  certain 
absurd  touches  of  adulation.  We  can  hardly  call  his  elegy 
on  Cromwell  a  lyric,  for  it  is  rather  a  descriptive  poem,  rising 
at  times  to  a  Miltonic  diction : 

"  When  up  the  armed  mountains  of  Dunbar 
He  marched,  and  through  deep  Severn,  ending  war," 

with  lines  that  move  with  the  rugged  strength  of  Cromwell's 
Ironsides: 

"  Thee,  many  ages  hence,  in  martial  verse 
Shall  the  English  soldier,  ere  he  charge,  rehearse;"^ 

but  his  Horatian  Ode  upon  CromwelV s  Return  from  Ireland 
falls  well  within  our  province.  It  is  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful attempts  to  reproduce  in  English  the  effect  of  Horace's 
close-knit  stanzas.  Abandoning  the  experiment  of  forcing 
English  thought  into  a  Latin  metre — a  tour  de  force  which 
diverts  the  reader's  mind  from  the  substance  of  the  poem — 
he  uses  his  own  difficult  measure  with  such  success  that  we 
forget  his  metrical  skill  in  admiring  the  nobility  of  thought 
and  the  dignity  of  expression  as  he  praises  the  man 

iPp.  160,  165. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  277 

"  Who  from  his  private  gardens,  where 
He  lived  reserved  and  austere 
(As  if  his  highest  plot 
To  plant  the  bergamot;) 

"  Could  by  industrious  valour  climb 
To  ruin  the  great  work  of  time. 
And  cast  the  kingdoms  old, 
Into  another  mould."^ 

It  is  more  than  a  century  before  the  English  lyric  can  equal 
this. 

Turning  to  Marvell's  nature  poenms,  we  find  their  spirit 
astonishingly  modern ;  he  views  nature  not  as  an  artist  but 
as  a  lover.  He  belonged  to  his  generation,  for  he  was  the 
poet  of  meadows  and  woods,  and  with  Howell  regarded 
mountains  as  "hook-shouldered  excrescences."  Summer  was 
his  season;  the  warm  earth  with  its  flowers  and  fruits,  his 
delight ;  he  says  little  of  sky  or  clouds.  Keen  in  his  observa- 
tion, nature  is  to  him  an  end ;  his  descriptions  are  not  orna- 
ments to  his  poems.  There  is  all  the  languor  and  luxury  of 
a  summer's  day  in  the  tropical  richness  of  his  Garden.  Here 
and  in  his  Nymph  Complaining  for  the  Death  of  her  Fawn, 
he  has  the  sensuousness  of  Keats.  "I  stood  tip-toe  upon  a 
little  hill"  is  more  delicate ;  it  has  a  greater  wealth  of  detail 
and  a  finer  finish;  but  its  spirit  differs  in  no  wise  from  that 
of  Marvell's  verses. 

But  Marvell  sees  more  than  the  loveliness  of  the  earth;  he 
has  a  touch  of  that  transcendentalism  that  characterizes  our 
modem  conception  of  nature.  Overpowered  by  the  beauty 
about  him  he  cries,  in  Wordsworth's  spirit: 

"  Thrice  happy  he,  who,  not  mistook. 
Hath  read  in   Nature's  mystic  book!" 

ip.  134. 


278  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

He  becomes  a  part  of  the  life  around  him ;  he  confers  with 
birds  and  trees ;  he  casts  aside  the  "body's  vest" ;  his  soul  flies 
into  the  boughs  and 

"  TherCj  like  a  bird,  it  sits  and  sings, 
Then  whets  and  combs  its  silver  wings." 

The  visible  world  disappears,  and  the  mind  creates  other 
regions  for  itself 

"  Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade."^ 

No  other  Enghsh  poet  had  approached  nature  in  this  spirit. 
Marvell's  poems  are  lyrical  because  of  the  intensity  of 
his  feeling ;  even  those  poems  which  he  has  entitled  songs  do 
not  suggest  a  musical  accompaniment.  His  verse  is  too  com- 
pact, too  overladen  with  thought  and  emotion  for  the  lute's 
melody  of 

"  lesser  intervals,  and  plaintive  moan 
Of  sinking  semitone." 

The  lyric  is  becoming  more  and  more  an  art  form,  inde- 
pendent of  music.  We  see  this  in  the  song  of  the  English 
emigrants  in  the  Bermudas,  a  poem  worth  all  the  pages  of 
Tom  Moore's  lyrical  description  of  these  islands. 

IV 

In  this  age  when  men  went  to  war  for  their  faith  we  look 
for  writers  of  the  religious  lyric;  we  find  them  in  Herbert, 
Crashaw,  and  Vaughan. 

George  Herbert  (1593-1633),  distinguished  at  Cambridge 
and  at  the  court,  entered  the  church  in  1626 ;  in  1630  he  was 
made  priest  at  Bemerton,  where  he  died.  On  his  deathbed 
he  sent  the  manuscript  of  the  Temple  to  Nicholas  Ferrar, 

iPp.  26,  100. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  279 

who  published  it  within  a  few  months.  It  became  popular 
at  once  and  six  editions  were  brought  out  in  eight  years. 

Though  Herbert  was  not  the  first  Englishman  to  compose 
religious  lyrics,  he  created  a  new  school  of  verse.  The  reli- 
gious poetry  before  him  had  been  Scriptural  paraphrases 
(chiefly  of  the  Psalms),  penitential  verses,  hymns,  and  medi- 
tations. Generally,  as  in  the  case  of  Ben  Jonson,  they  formed 
but  a  small  part  of  any  writer's  work;  often,  especially 
in  the  sonnet  sequences,  they  served  as  foils  for  the  secular 
verse.  No  poet,  except  Southwell,  had  written  rehgious 
poetry  exclusively ;  no  one  had  analyzed  the  religious  expe- 
rience, or  pondered  deeply  on  the  life  of  the  spirit,  or  re- 
corded the  defeats  and  victories  of  his  own  soul.  Herbert, 
therefore,  adopted  deliberately  a  style  and  a  theme  for  which 
he  had  no  models.  As  an  undergraduate  he  had  regretted 
that  poetry  wore  the  livery  of  Venus ;  as  a  priest  he  felt  the 
need  of  expressing  his  own  spiritual  conflicts  and  thus  from 
piety,  from  the  impulse  of  confession  and  the  desire  to  give 
sorrow  words,  sprang  the  lyrics  of  the  Temple. 

Among  Herbert's  warmest  friends  was  John  Donne;  in 
his  poetic  method  Herbert  stands  with  him  and  not  with  the 
Elizabethans,  for  his  keen  and  brilliant  mind  expressed  itself 
readily  in  Donne's  manner.  We  certainly  can  not  say  that 
without  Donne's  poems  the  Temple  would  not  have  been 
written,  yet  without  his  example  Herbert's  book  would  not 
have  assumed  its  present  form.  To  us  Herbert's  conceits 
may  seem  too  ingenious  to  be  anything  but  artificial,  but 
they  are  not  a  mere  ornament  to  his  verse,  for  he  uses  them 
when  he  is  most  deeply  moved.  Because  the  great  emotions 
of  life  do  not  vary  from  generation  to  generation,  we  forget 
that  the  natural  method  of  expressing  these  feelings  has 
constantly  changed.  When  Herbert  calls  aloud  to  England: 
"Spit  out  thy  phlegm  and  fill  thy  breast  with  glory,"  he  is 
not  endeavoring  to  startle  us  by  a  strange  phrase ;  he  is 
deeply  stirred  and  wishes  to  arouse  his  country.     Few  of  his 


^80  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

poems  contain  more  conceits  than  Sunday — the  sabbath  is 
man's  face  while  the  week  days  are  his  body;  Sundays  are 
the  pillars  of  Heaven's  palace  while  the  other  days  are  the 
empty  spaces  between  them ;  Sundays  are  the  pearls  threaded 
to  adorn  the  bride  of  God — yet  Walton  asserts  that  Herbert 
sang  this  song  on  his  deathbed.  He  has  many  conceits  that 
mar  his  work — we  could  do  without  the  comparison  of  spring 
to  a  box  of  sweetmeats  in  "Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so 
bright" — yet  they  are  an  essential  element  in  his  writing. 

Like  Donne,  Herbert  is  impatient  of  melody ;  his  verse  is 
grave  and  lacks  the  sweetness  of  Crashaw's  hymns.  Though 
full  of  striking  felicities  of  phrase,  his  lyrics  are  rarely  metri- 
cally perfect  throughout.  He  knew  the  work  of  the  sonnet- 
eers and  in  the  style  of  their  sonnets  on  sleep  he  composed 
one  on  prayer: 

"  Prayer,  the  Churches  banquet,  angel's  age, 

God's  breath  in  man  returning  to  his  birth. 

The  soul  in  paraphrase,  heart  in  pilgrimage, 

The  Christian  plummet  sounding  heaven  and  earth;"' 

but  there  is  little  of  Elizabethan  music  here.  His  most  im- 
pressive sonnet,  My  comforts  drop  and  melt  like  snow,  has 
a  splendid  opening  and  is  suffused  with  the  deepest  feeling, 
but  it  too,  drops  and  melts  into  such  a  line  as  "But  cooling 
by  the  way,  grows  pursy  and  slow."^  He  envied,  so  he  said, 
"no  man's  nightingale  or  spring" ;  he  lacks  the  graces  of 
his  contemporaries ;  yet  The  Quip,  The  Collar,  Virtue,  have 
a  music  rarer  than  the  facile  strains  of  the  earlier  age.  At 
his  best  he  has  a  sober  harmony  that  grows  in  impressive- 
ness  the  more  it  is  heard,  for  with  few  exceptions,  the  musical 
appeal  of  Herbert's  verse  is  not  an  immediate  one. 

The  great  value  of  Herbert's  lyrics  consists  in  their  reve- 

IG.  H.   Palmer,  English    Works   of  Oeorge   Herbert,   Boston,   1905, 
vol.  II,  p.  181. 
2  P.  351. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  281 

lation  of  his  character,  for  the  religious  lyric  gains  in  power 
according  to  the  degree  in  which  it  discloses  a  man's  soul. 
In  many  of  the  lyrics  we  see  the  struggle  for  holiness,  but 
more  impressive  is  his  struggle  for  peace;  this  it  is  that 
makes  him  such  a  human  figure.  The  average  man  does  not 
long  for  spiritual  perfection,  but  he  does  desire  the  calm 
and  steadfast  mind.  What  Herbert  could  not  say  from  the 
pulpit  he  wrote  in  his  lyrics.  Of  a  noble  family,  the  friend 
of  courtiers  and  the  King,  famed  for  his  scholarship  and  wit, 
he  found  himself  ministering  to  the  needs  of  fifty  peasants — 
his  little  church  would  not  hold  more.  He  could  not  forget 
the  things  of  earth,  his  old  dreams  and  hopes  of  worldly 
greatness;  he  is  "full  of  rebellion,"  and  longs  to  fight,  to 
travel,  to  deny  his  service.^  Sickness  and  doubt  overtake 
him ;  he  has  drunk  from  a  bitter  bowl ;  he  believes  his  nature 
has  been  thwarted: 

"  Whereas  my  birth  and  spirit  rather  took 
The  way  that  takes  the  town. 
Thou  didst  betray  me  to  a  lingring  book, 
And  wrap  me  in  a  gown." 

He  feels  that  he  has  accomplished  nothing  in  the  world,  that 
the  struggle  naught  availeth : 

"  Now  I  am  here,  what  thou  wilt  do  with  me 

None  of  my  books  will  show. 
I  read,  and  sigh,  and  wish  I  were  a  tree, 

For  sure  then  I  should  grow 
To  fruit  or  shade.     At  least  some  bird  would  trust 
Her  household  to  me,  and  I  should  be  just."^ 

He  is  constantly  reproaching  himself  with  his  empty  days; 
the  very  plants  and  bees  do  more  than  he : 

"  Poor  bees  that  work  all  day 
Sting  my  delay." 

IP.  303. 
2  P.  339. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

When,  moreover,  we  remember  that  the  world  and  its  train- 
bands still  call  him ;  that  Beauty  creeps  into  a  rose  and 
tempts  him ;  that  he  feels  the  scorn  of  "proud  Wit  and  Con- 
templation," we  can  understand  why  he  writes  so  often  on 
affliction.  The  frankness  of  these  poems  points  to  a  new  era 
in  the  lyric ;  Herbert  conceals  nothing,  and  his  heart,  so  he 
tells  us,  bleeds  on  his  writing. 

It  must  not  be  presumed  that  these  lyrics  are  depressing 
reading;  with  few  exceptions  they  are  not  morbid,  for  Her- 
bert has  reconciled  these  unhappy  experiences  with  a  divine 
plan  to  bring  the  soul  to  felicity.  This  restlessness  and  dis- 
content is  thrust  upon  him  to  draw  his  soul  to  God : 

"If  goodness  lead  him  not,  yet  weariness 
May  toss  him  to  my  breast."' 

The  lyrics  of  the  Temple  lead  not  to  pessimism  but  to  hope. 

Looking  at  the  lyrics  from  the  artistic  standpoint.  Virtue, 
to  which  Isaac  Walton  has  given  a  perfect  prose  setting, 
deserves  its  popularity,  for  it  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all  his 
poems.  The  Elixir  is  equally  well  known,  because  of  those 
lines  quoted  as  frequently  as  Pope's  epigrams : 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room  but  for  thy  cause 
Makes  that  and  the  action  fine," 

but  more  characteristic  than  either  of  these  two  lyrics  is  Man. 
It  has  his  peculiar  music,  his  quaintness  of  style,  and  deep 
thought : 

"  Man  is  all  symmetry, 
Full  of  proportions,  one  limb  to  another. 
And  all  to  all  the  world  besides. 
Each  part  may  call  the  farthest,  brother; 
For  head  with  foot  hath  private  amity. 
And  both,  with  moons  and  tides.^ 

1  Vol.  Ill,  p.  149. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  217. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

The  lyrics  of  Herbert  make  a  man  look  more  deeply  both 
into  his  own  heart  and  into  the  world  about  him. 

Richard  Crashaw  (1613?-164!9),  son  of  a  bitter  opponent 
of  Rome,  was  driven  by  the  Puritans  in  1644  from  Peter- 
house,  Cambridge,  where  he  was  a  feUow.  He  turned  Cath- 
oKc,  fled  to  Italy,  and  died  a  lay  priest  at  the  famous  shrine 
of  Loretto.  He  lived  far  from  the  world;  his  life  history 
is  a  series  of  spiritual  experiences  to  be  read  in  his  poems. 
He  never  stands  apart  from  his  work ;  his  sensitive  and  emo- 
tional temperament  is  disclosed  in  every  page  of  his  writ- 
ings. He  fell  on  evil  days,  yet  even  in  a  time  of  peace  his 
story  would  have  been  a  simple  one — that  of  a  dreamer  and 
a  recluse. 

During  the  twelve  years  Crashaw  spent  at  Cambridge,  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  Spanish  mysticism  and  chose 
Theresa  of  Avila  as  his  Saint.  When  we  say  that  her 
visions  and  ecstasies  were  his  spiritual  food,  we  have  defined 
both  his  character  and  his  poetry.  He  made  St.  Mary's 
church  his  home  and  offered  there  more  prayers  at  night 
than  others  did  in  the  day.  Little  Gidding  is  near  Cam- 
bridge ;  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  this  retreat ;  and  the 
vigils  and  prayers  of  this  household  intensified  his  fervor. 
Many  of  his  religious  lyrics  are  not  songs,  but  the  impas- 
sioned cry  of  his  soul;  he  writes  hymns  but  they  are  too 
glowing  and  mystical  to  be  hymns  of  the  church.  His  sacred 
verse  has  never  been  adopted  by  English  Catholics ;  it  holds 
no  such  place  as  Herbert's  Temple,  which  is  read  as  much 
for  its  religious  spirit  as  for  its  poetry. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  discover  why  Crashaw  has  a  fit 
audience,  but  few.  He  declares  that  in  spiritual  matters 
there  is  no  distinction  of  race  or  country.  Speaking  of  St. 
Theresa  he  says: 

"  What  soul  soe'er,  in  any  language,  can 
Speak  Heaven  like  hers,  is  my  soul's  countryman." 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Yet  fine  as  the  thought  may  be,  for  most  of  us  it  is  not  the 
truth.  With  all  his  tolerance,  the  author  of  the  Religio 
Medici  realized  that  there  was  "a  geography  of  religions  as 
well  as  lands,"  and  there  is  an  unmistakable  difference  be- 
tween English  and  Spanish  religious  thought  and  emotion. 
There  have  been  English  mystics  since  the  days  of  Richard 
Rolle,  yet  Crashaw  seems  un-English.  He  has  nothing  of 
Quarles's  dull  morality,  Herbert's  expression  of  doubts  and 
discouragements  common  to  us  all,  or  of  Vaughan's  moral 
interpretation  of  nature.  His  poems,  the  product  of  long 
fasts  and  prayers,  are  the  work  of  an  ascetic ;  they  have  a 
tropical  air  and  seem  to  have  been  written  under  warmer 
skies.  He  fed  on  the  mystical  writings  of  St.  Theresa  until 
he  trembles  in  his  ecstasy ;  his  fervor  is  unquestionably  as 
sincere  as  it  is  intense,  but  to  the  lay  mind  its  "immortal 
kisses,"  "flames,"  and  "bleeding  wounds"  are  somewhat  in- 
comprehensible.    He  sings  of  a  spiritual  love  with 

"  Amorous  languishments ;  luminous  trances ; 
Spiritual  and  soul-piercing  glances. 


Delicious  deaths,  soft  exhalations 

Of  soul ;  dear  and  divine  annihilations."^ 

Much  nearer  our  modern  thought  are  Newman's  deprecations 
of  these  "brightest  transports"  which  "bloom  their  hour  and 
fade" : 

"  But  he  who  lets  his  feelings  run 
In  soft  luxurious  flow. 
Shrinks  when  hard  service  must  be  done. 
And  faints  at  every  woe."^ 

1  A.  R.  Waller,  Poems  by  Richard  Crashaw,  Cambridge,  1904,  p.  280. 

2  Flowers  without  Fruit. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  285 

If  we  consider  the  artistic  import  of  these  lyrics,  we  find 
them  brilliant  in  color,  musical  in  their  expression,  and  thrill- 
ing in  an  emotional  power  that  recalls  Shelley  and  Swin- 
burne.   They  are  filled  with  such  splendid  phrases  as 

"  Whose  blush  the  moon  beauteously  mars^ 
And  stains  the  timorous  light  of  stars ;" 

with  such  stanzas  as 

"  Not  in  the  Evening's  eyes 
When  they  red  with  weeping  are 
For  the  sun  that  dies, 
Sits  sorrow  with  a  face  so  fair."' 

The  final  apostrophe  to  "the  seraphical  Saint  Theresa"  in 
the  poem  upon  her  book  and  picture  is  unequalled  in  all  the 
range  of  the  religious  lyric. 

Crashaw's  secular  verse  lacks  the  enthusiasm  of  his  hymns, 
yet  it  has  their  music  and  color.  His  two  most  graceful  love 
lyrics  are  a  translation  from  the  Italian,  "To  thy  lover,  dear 
discover,"  and  his  well-known  Wishes  to  his  supposed  Mis- 
tress, a  poem  which  shows  his  defects  as  well  as  his  virtues. 
He  was  too  versatile — an  engraver,  musician,  and  poet — 
and  he  expressed  himself  too  readily.  Language  was  a 
facile  instrument ;  metrical  expression  offered  no  difficulties ; 
and  his  style,  easy  and  brilliant,  is  often  too  diffuse.  With 
few  ideas  to  express,  he  prolongs  his  poems  through  several 
pages ;  the  thought  that  the  Magdalene  is  weeping  suffices 
for  thirty-three  stanzas,  some  of  the  greatest  beauty,  others 
pure  bathos.  He  needed  the  restraint  of  Jonson;  his  most 
sustained  poems  are  adaptations  (one  can  hardly  call  them 
translations),  such  as  his  Music's  Duel,  taken  from  the  Latin 
of  Strada — a  most  successful  attempt  to  express  one  art  in 
terms  of  another.  His  Wishes,  full  of  that  Platonism  that 
inspired  Spenser, 

1  Crashaw,  p.  260. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Till  that  divine 
Idea,  take  a  shrine 
Of  crystal  flesh,  through  which  to  shine;" 

is  greatly  improved  by  the  excisions  made  by  Palgrave. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  effect  of  Crashaw's  writings 
on  other  poets.  Milton,  his  contemporary,  did  not  disdain 
to  borrow  from  him ;  Pope  and  Coleridge,  the  extremes  of 
opposing  schools,  acknowledge  their  indebtedness  to  him. 
Pope  sends  to  his  friend,  Henry  Cromwell,  a  copy  of  Crashaw 
and  states  that  he  has  read  his  poetry  several  times.^  He 
selects  as  very  remarkable  lines  from  Crashaw,  balanced 
couplets  from  Music's  Duel,  almost  the  only  verses  that  ap- 
proach his  own  style,  for  the  poem  is  marked  by  its  free 
handling  of  the  heroic  metre.  He  was  untouched  by  Cra- 
shaw's spirit  and  merely  hfted  phrases.^  On  the  other  hand, 
Coleridge  complains  of  Crashaw's  lack  of  form  and  sweetness, 
but  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  "where  he  does  combine  rich- 
ness of  thought  and  diction,  nothing  can  excel."  He  con- 
tinues :  "his  lines  on  St.  Theresa  are  the  finest These 

verses  were  ever  present  to  my  mind  whilst  writing  the 
second  part  of  Christ abel;  if,  indeed,  by  some  subtle  process 
of  the  mind,  they  did  not  suggest  the  first  thought  of  the 
whole  poem."'  The  influence  here  asserted  is  such  a  subtle 
one  that  without  Coleridge's  statement,  it  would  not  be  sus- 
pected, yet  it  must  be  remembered  as  no  small  part  of 
Crashaw's  accomplishment,  that  he  inspired  one  of  the  finest 
achievements  of  the  romantic  school. 

It  is  difficult  to  assign  to  Crashaw  his  position  in  our  lyric 
poetry  because  of  his  unevenness.  When,  in  his  own  words, 
he  is 

1  Elwin  and  Courthope,  The  Works  of  Alexander  Pope,  vol.  VI, 
London,  1871,  pp.  109,  116. 

2  For  example,  "Obedient  slumbers  that  can  wake  and  weep,"  in 
Eloisa  to  Abelard. 

3  J.  W.  Mackail,  Coleridge's  Literary  Criticism,  London,  1908,  p.  149. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  287 

"  Dressed  in  the  glorious  madness  of  a  Muse 
Whose  feet  can  walk  the  milky  way  and  choose 
Her  starry  crown,"^ 

he  seems  more  truly  inspired  than  any  of  his  contemporaries, 
always  excepting  Milton.  In  a  degree,  Herrick  includes 
Carew;  Herbert  and  Vaughan  stand  near  each  other;  the 
sons  of  Ben,  the  followers  of  Donne  have  much  in  common ; 
but  Crashaw,  a  romanticist  born  out  of  due  time,  stands 
absolutely  alone. 

The  numerous  editions  of  Herbert's  Temple  are  not  the 
only  proof  of  its  popularity.  More  important,  as  an  indi- 
cation of  its  effect  on  the  lyric,  are  the  imitations  it  inspired. 
"After  him  followed  divers,  Sed  non  passibus  sequis ;  they 
had  more  of  fashion  than  force,"  writes  Vaughan  of  Herbert,^ 
and  we  see  this  imitation,  sometimes  throughout  a  whole 
book,  as  in  Harvey's  Synagogue  (1640),  at  other  times  in 
single  poems,  as  in  Meditation  or  The  Mercy  Seat  in  Thomas 
Beedome's  Poems  Divine  and  Human  (1641).  The  most 
important  follower  of  Herbert  (he  was  more  than  a  follower, 
for  in  many  respects  he  surpassed  him)  was  Henry  Vaughan 
(1621-1695)  the  Silurist,  as  he  calls  himself,  from  Siluria, 
the  Roman  name  for  his  birthplace,  South  Wales.  After  his 
student  days  at  Jesus  College,  Oxford,  and  at  London,  he 
passed  his  life  in  Wales  as  a  country  doctor,  unknown  and 
unmentioned  by  the  Restoration  writers. 

Unlike  Herbert,  Vaughan  published  two  collections  of 
secular  verse.  Poems  (1647)  and  Olor  Iscanus  (1651).  His 
love  poetry  is  very  tame  indeed;  his  verses  to  Amoret  are 
smoothly  written  but  lifeless,  and  it  is  amusing  to  hear 
Vaughan,  in  his  religious  lyrics,  speaking  regretfully  of  his 
"Idle  Verse." 

1  Crashaw,  p.  146. 

2E.  K.  Chambers,  The  Poems  of  Henry  Vaughan,  Silurist,  Muses' 
Library,  London,  1896,  vol.  I,  p.  7. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Go,  go,  quaint  follies,  sugared  sin. 
Shadow  no  more  my  door; 
I  will  no  longer  cobwebs  spin; 
I'm  too  much  on  the  score. 

****** 

"  Blind,  desperate  fits,  that  study  how 
To  dress  and  trim  our  shame; 
That  gild  rank  poison,  and  allow 
Vice  in  a  fairer  name; 

"  The  purls  of  youthful  blood  and  bowls, 
Lust  in  the  robes  of  Love; 
The  idle  talk  of  feverish  souls 
Sick  with  a  scarf  or  glove."^ 

There  is  a  slight  possibility  that  the  last  stanza  may  refer  to 
Suckling's  poetry ;  in  any  case,  he  would  have  smiled  at  the 
mild  verses  written  in  what  Vaughan  called  his  "warmer 
days."  It  is  believed  that  Vaughan  fought  in  the  Royal  army, 
but  at  heart  he  is  a  Puritan ;  in  The  World,  the  doting  lover 
is  placed  with  the  perjured  statesman  and  the  downright 
epicure,  fools  that 

'■  prefer  dark  night 
Before  true  light  !"^ 

As  a  writer  of  love  lyrics,  Vaughan  does  not  deserve  remem- 
brance. 

His  genius  found  adequate  expression  in  his  Silex  Scintil- 
lans  (Part  I,  1650  ;  Part  II,  1652).  Here  are  some  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  religious  lyrics  and  didactic  poems ;  fifty  of 
them  show  Herbert's  influence,  at  times  imitating  line  for  line 
a  given  poem  from  the  Temple,  at  other  times  reflecting  Her- 
bert's spirit,  or  catching  up  a  phrase  here  and  there.  As  an 
illustration  of  this,  Vaughan's  SortrDays  imitates  two  poems 

ip.  113. 
2  P.  150. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

of  the  Temple  which  we  have  cited,  Prayer,  and  Simday;  a 
glance  at  a  single  stanza  will  show  that  the  decisive  event  in 
Vaughan's  poetic  development  was  his  receiving  a  copy  of 
Herbert's  poems.     Sundays  are 

"  The  pulleys  unto  headlong  man ;  Time's  bower ; 
The  narrow  way; 
Transplanted  Paradise ;  God's  walking  hour, 

The  cool  o'  th'  day ! 
The  creature's  jubilee;  God's  parle  with  dust; 

Heaven  here ;  man  on  those  hiUs  of  myrrh  and  flowers ; 
Angels  descending;  the  returns  of  trust; 
A  gleam  of  glory  after  six  days  showers  !"* 

As  a  rule  Vaughan  does  not  improve  on  Herbert  in  his  poems 
deliberately  modelled  on  definite  lyrics  in  the  Temple;  his 
Easter  Day  lacks  the  force  of  Herbert's  Dawning;  his  Pur- 
suit the  vividness  and  deep  feeling  of  the  Pulley;  his  Orna- 
ment the  beauty  of  expression  and  the  personal  touch  that 
makes  Herbert's  Quip  one  of  his  most  notable  poems.  Her- 
bert's enduring  effect  on  Vaughan  was  gained  not  by  fur- 
nishing him  definite  models  for  his  verse  but  by  stirring  his 
spiritual  emotions,  by  showing  him  what  feelings  the  religious 
lyric  could  express.  Vaughan  differed  from  Herbert  in  tem- 
perament ;  he  is  equally  devout,  but  more  calm,  more  satisfied 
with  the  world.  There  is  pathos  in  Vaughan,  but  not  the 
pathos  of  indecision  and  unrest.  Nature  too  often  brought 
to  Herbert  a  message  of  reproach ;  the  trees  bore  their  fruit 
and  sheltered  the  birds  in  their  branches,  but  his  own  life 
seemed  empty.  Vaughan  found  the  world  beautiful  to  con- 
template; he  believed  that  nature  was  full  of  consolation 
and  hope.  Marvell's  Garden  had  no  religious  significance 
for  him;  to  Vaughan  the  bird  driven  in  his  window  by  the 
storm  tells  of  the  life  of  the  spirit.     He  finds  a  flower  fresh 

1  P.  114. 


290  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  green  beneath  the  snow;  in  thoroughly  characteristic 
Hnes  he  seeks  its  message : 

"  Yet  I,  whose  search  loved  not  to  peep  and  peer 
I'  th'  face  of  things. 
Thought  with  myself,  there  might  be  other  springs 
Besides  this  here." 

As  Tennyson  would  question  the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 
so  to  the  plant 

"  Many  a  question  intricate  and  rare 
Did  I  there  strow;"^ 

and  as  he  sees  the  flower  sleeping  in  the  cold  of  winter,  he 
realizes  that  the  dead  rest  in  peace.  It  must  not  be  thought 
that  Vaughan  pushes  this  spiritual  interpretation  of  nature 
to  excess ;  he  is  not  always  pointing  a  moral ;  he  can  view 
nature  with  the  eyes  of  an  artist  : 

"  I  see  a  rose 
Bud  in  the  bright  East,  and  disclose 
The  pilgrim  sun."^ 

His  poems  are  fiUed  with  little  descriptive  touches  that  show 
a  man  who  lived  out  of  doors,  who  loved  the  earth  and  the 
sky.  We  are  struck  more  frequently  by  the  observation 
shown  in  his  verses  than  by  their  technique ;  he  is,  for  ex- 
ample, one  of  the  first  English  poets  to  write  often  of  clouds. 
Vaughan  was  more  than  an  observer ;  he  possessed  imagin- 
ative insight  and  if  on  the  whole  he  does  not  appear  as 
thoughtful  as  Herbert,  he  often  strikes  deeper.  A  good 
instance  of  this  are  the  famous  opening  Hnes  of  The  World, 
in  which  he  pictures  eternity  as  "a  great  ring  of  pure  and 
endless  light.  All  calm  as  it  was  bright."    Herbert  has  noth- 

1  Pp.  171,  172. 

2  P.  33. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  291 

ing  to  compare  with  Vaughan's  Retreat,  a  panegyric  on 
childhood  that  is  the  poetic  converse  to  Browning's  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra.  Former  poets  had  written  in  praise  of  beautiful 
children ;  it  was  reserved  for  Vaughan  to  discern  the  spiritual 
beauty  of  childhood: 

"  When  on  some  gilded  cloud,  or  flower, 
My  gazing  soul  would  dwell  an  hour. 
And  in  those  weaker  glories  spy 
Some  shadows  of  eternity." 

It  is  the  age  of  innocence  that  he  both  praises  and  mourns ; 
he  would  call  back  that  time  when  he  felt 

"  through  all  this  fleshly  dress 
Bright  shoots  of  everlastingness."^ 

Vaughan  appears  more  modern  than  Herbert,  especially  in 
"They  are  all  gone  into  the  world  of  hght,"  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  English  elegies.  It  contains  Vaughan's  finest 
traits ;  exquisite  are  the  nature  descriptions  which  the  lyric 
was  soon  to  lose  for  over  a  century : 

"  It  glows  and  glitters  in  my  cloudy  breast. 
Like  stars  upon  some  gloomy  grove. 
Or  those  faint  beams  in  which  this  hill  is  dress'd 
After  the  sun's  remove." 

For  a  perfect  comparison  few  stanzas  can  equal: 

"  He  that  hath  found  some  fledged  bird's  nest,  may  know 
At  first  sight,  if  the  bird  be  flown; 
But  what  fair  well  or  grove  he  sings  in  now. 
That  is  to  him  unknown." 

Except  for  the  metre,  it  might  well  be  found  in  In,  Memorian. 
How  utterly  removed  is  such  writing  from  the  formal  similes 
with  which  the  lyric  poets  of  the  coming  generation  con- 

ip.  69. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

tented  themselves.  For  intense  but  restrained  feeling  per- 
fectly expressed  this  poem  has  rarely  been  surpassed.  What 
the  Italian  sonneteers  tried  in  vain  to  do  in  their  apostrophes 
to  death,  Vaughan  has  accomplished  in  a  single  quatrain : 

"  Dear,  beautous  Death!  the  jewel  of  the  just. 

Shining  nowhere,  but  in  the  dark; 
What  mysteries  do  lie  beyond  thy  dust. 
Could  men  outlook  that  mark  !"^ 

Vaughan  was  not  always  such  an  artist;  many  of  his  poems 
are  marred  by  infelicitous  passages,  but  this  does  not  account 
for  Herbert's  greater  popularity.  The  explanation  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  moods  of  the  Temple  are  nearer  everyday 
experience  than  those  of  Vaughan,  who  loved  "strange 
thoughts"  that 

"  transcend  our  wonted  themes 
And  into  glory  peep." 

We  remembered  the  influence  of  Crashaw  upon  Christabel; 
we  must  not  forget  the  closer  connection  between  Vaughan's 
Retreat  and  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality from  Recollections  of  Early  CMldhood.  To  compare 
these  two  poems  differing  widely  in  their  genres  would  be 
absurd ;  if  we  must  make  a  choice  we  would  not  lose  the  great 
ode,  yet  in  its  simpler  metre,  its  quieter  manner,  its  quainter 
diction,  the  Retreat  seems  nearer  to  that  age  of  innocence 
which  both  poets  celebrate. 

Herbert,  Crashaw,  and  Vaughan,  though  the  chief,  were 
by  no  means  the  only  writers  of  religious  lyrics  in  this  age 
we  are  considering.  William  Habington  (1605-1654)  pub- 
lished in  1634  Castara,  a  collection  of  secular  and  religious 
verse   that   went   through  three   editions  before   the   poet's 

ip.  182. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC 

death.  A  country  gentleman  writing  poetry  for  his  amuse- 
ment, Habington  has  little  sentiment  or  imagination  in  his 
love  lyrics  though  he  assures  us  that  he  "feels  a  distracted 
rage"  and  that 

"  All  those  tortures,  poets  (by  their  wine 
Made  judges)  laid  on  Tantalus,  are  mine." 

His  rehgious  lyrics  show  more  emotion : 

"  Place  me  alone  in  some  frail  boat, 

'Mid  th'  horrors  of  an  angry  sea. 
Where  I,  while  time  shall  move,  may  float 
Despairing  either  land  or  day ! 

■■  Or  under  earth  my  youth  confine 

To  th'  night  and  silence  of  a  cell; 
Where  scorpions  may  my  limbs  entwine. 
O  God !  so  thou  forgive  me  hell."^ 


This  is  quite  different  in  its  intensity  of  feeling  from  To 
Cupid,  Upon  a  dimple  in  Castara's  Cheek.  Although  a  Cath- 
olic, he  has  little  in  common  with  Crashaw ;  Nox  Nocti  Indi- 
cat  Scientiam,  his  best  lyric,  has  in  certain  of  its  stanzas  a 
dignity  of  thought  and  expression  that  approach  the  vigor 
of  Dryden. 

More  famous  than  Habington,  "in  wonderful  veneration 
among  the  vulgar,"  was  Francis  Quarles  (1592-1644),  "the 
sometime  darling  of  our  plebeian  judgment,"  as  Wood  calls 
him.  He  was  unfortunately  a  most  energetic  writer  (his 
widow  informs  us  that  he  began  his  composing  at  three  in 
the  morning!)  and  his  verse,  plebeian  in  tone,  lacking  charm 
and  distinction,  is  depressing  reading.  The  lyrical  element 
in  his  work  is  small;  he  is  a  didactic  writer,  yet  his  strong 

1  E.  Arber,  Castara,  in  English  Reprints,  London,  1870,  pp.  19,  133. 


^H  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

religious  feeling  finds  expression  at  times  in  a  Gottesminne 
that  has  much  of  Crashaw's  spirit.  Gosse  notices  that  some 
of  these  religious  lyrics,  sHghtly  altered,  were  adapted  to 
baser  uses  and  published  with  Rochester's  and  Dorset's 
erotic  verse,  yet  such  poems  are  few  in  number.  He  has  left 
hardly  a  single  lyric  that  is  sustained  throughout.  A  song 
against  the  Puritans  in  his  Shepherd's  Oracle,  published 
posthumously,  points  to  Butler's  satire  on  the  Roundheads : 

"  Know  then,  my  brethren,  heaven  is  clear, 
And  all  the  clouds  are  gone; 
The  righteous  now  shall  flourish  and 
Good  days  are  coming  on; 

■■  Come  then,  my  brethren,  and  be  glad, 
And  eke  rejoice  with  me: 
Lawn  sleeves  and  rochets  shall  go  down. 
And,  hey !  then  up  go  we."^ 

but  this  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  many  anonymous 
songs  of  the  war.  The  fourteenth  poem  of  the  Hieroglyphics 
shows  Quarles  at  his  best.  It  is  an  elegy,  its  long,  slow  metre 
corresponding  well  with  its  gloomy  thought : 

"  The  day  grows  old,  the  low-pitched  lamp  hath  made 
Now  less  than  treble  shade," 

while  in  such  verses  as 

"  And  now  the  cold  autumnal  dews  are  seen 
To  cobweb  every  green; 
And  by  the  low-shorn  rowins  doth  appear 
The  fast-declining  year,"^ 

1  A.   B.   Grosart,   Complete    Works  in  Prose   and   Verse   of  Francis 
Quarles,  Edinburgh,  1870,  vol.  Ill,  p.  235. 

2  P.  196. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  295 

we  have  really  effective  description  of  nature.  Such  occa- 
sional passages  are  all  that  will  save  Quarles  from  total 
neglect. 


We  have  reserved  for  the  closing  pages  of  our  chapter  the 
greatest  genius  of  this  age,  John  Milton  (1608-1674),  and 
with  him  we  may  mention  Sir  Henry  Wotton  (1568-1639). 
Among  the  minor  poets  of  the  day,  Wotton  holds  an  honor- 
able place.  Finely  educated  at  Oxford,  then  for  eight  years 
a  student  in  France,  Germany,  Spain,  and  Italy,  he  became 
the  most  cultured  man  of  his  generation  and  fittingly  ended 
his  career  as  Provost  of  Eton.  He  was  an  accomplished  critic 
of  painting  and  architecture  and  his  long  residence  abroad 
as  ambassador  at  Venice  gave  him  ample  opportunity  to 
develop  his  artistic  tastes.  His  own  poetry  was  dignified  and 
graceful,  but  like  many  critics,  he  lacked  creative  force.  His 
little  pastoral,  admired  by  Walton,  "As  on  a  bank  I  sat 
reclined,"  anticipates  Milton's  L' Allegro;  his  "How  happy  is 
he  bom  and  taught,"  has  a  moral  earnestness  expressed  elo- 
quently ;  his  best  lyric,  "Ye  meaner  beauties  of  the  night," 
written  for  the  unhappy  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia,  has  much  of 
the  polish  and  of  the  gallantry  of  Carew. 

Shortly  before  leaving  on  his  Italian  journey,  Milton  sent 
to  Wotton  a  copy  of  Comus.  The  letter  of  thanks  which  he 
received  for  it  must  have  thrilled  him  with  pride  and  sent 
him  on  his  way  with  a  renewed  confidence  in  his  powers. 
While  Wotton  commends  the  "tragical  part"  of  the  masque, 
he  prefers  the  lyrical  passages  ;  he  is  ravished  "with  a  certain 
Doric  delicacy  in  your  songs  and  odes,  whereunto  I  must 
plainly  confess  to  have  seen  yet  nothing  parallel  in  our  lan- 
guage :  Ipsa  mollities."  Never  was  there  a  juster  criticism ; 
the  lyric  note  that  Milton  struck  had  not  been  heard. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  first  of  Milton's  lyrical  achievements,  the  Ode  on  the 
Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity,  showed  this  same  originality 
and  revealed,  as  did  Pope's  earliest  compositions,  the  essen- 
tial marks  of  the  poet's  genius.  Written  when  he  was  twenty- 
one,  an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  ode,  for  all  its  greatness,  is  an  uneven  performance. 
That  Milton  was  attracted  by  the  conceits  of  the  day  is 
shown  in  several  fantastic  touches:  we  could  well  spare  the 
penultimate  stanza  with  its  description  of  the  sun  in  bed, 
drawing  the  clouds  as  curtains  and  pillowing  "his  chin  upon 
an  orient  wave" ;  but  whereas  the  metaphysical  poets  made 
their  conceits  prominent,  in  this  hymn  they  are  merely  mis- 
taken touches  of  ornamentation.  Milton  writes,  then,  not  in 
the  style  of  the  day  but  in  his  own  manner. 

We  see  in  the  ode  that  reticence  which  always  marked  Mil- 
ton's poetic  utterances ;  even  in  the  most  personal  sonnets  we 
feel  a  certain  reserve.  He  chooses  a  religious  theme  and 
writes  of  it  obj  ectively  at  the  very  time  when  George  Herbert 
was  finding  in  the  religious  lyric  the  most  vital  medium  of 
personal  expression.  We  must  not  push  this  point  too  far; 
obviously  it  would  have  been  inartistic  for  the  poet  to  intrude 
himself  in  such  a  hymn,  but  there  was  legitimate  opportunity 
for  the  personal  note,  if  but  in  a  phrase  here  and  there. 
Milton  eventually  turned  from  the  lyric  because  of  the  aloof- 
ness of  his  nature ;  the  reticence  he  maintains,  his  suppression 
of  personal  emotion,  is  fatal  to  the  song  impulse.  Critics 
constantly  attribute  the  veiled  personal  utterance  in  Paradise 
Lost,  Milton's  scorn  for  the  sons  of  Belial,  his  contempt  for 
the  pomp  of  court  processions  and  "grooms  besmeared  with 
gold"  to  his  precarious  position  in  Restoration  London.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Milton  would  have  written  with  the  same 
reserve  had  Cromwell  been  governing  England.  In  his  prose 
he  tells  of  himself  and  his  ambitions  fearlessly ;  in  his  verse, 
excepting  a  few  sonnets,  he  soars  far  above  the  earth. 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  297 

If  the  lyric  does  not  gain  with  Milton  a  fuUer  revelation 
of  personality,  it  finds  in  this  ode  a  new  music.  Though 
Milton  admired  Spenser,  he  has  not  sought  to  reproduce  his 
lusciousness  of  phrase;  the  richness  of  his  melody  has  dis- 
appeared and  in  its  place  we  find  a  vigor  of  phrase  and  a 
haunting  music.  "Sweet  Thames,  run  softly  till  I  end  my 
song,"  is  a  typical  strain  of  the  Prothalamion.  "The 
trumpet  spake  not  to  the  armed  throng,"  represents  the 
movement  of  Milton's  ode.  Yet  Milton  felt  the  fascination 
of  strange  words  and  sounds ;  we  find  here  that  magic  use  of 
unfamiliar  names  which  he  employs  so  often  in  his  epic : 

"  Peer  and  Baalim 

Forsake  their  temples  dim/' 
or 

"  Nor  is  Osiris  seen 

In  Memphian  grove  or  green." 

That  a  new  master  had  taken  up  the  lyre  is  felt  at  once  in 
such  a  superb  stanza  as 

"  The  lonely  momitains  o'er, 
And  the  resounding  shore, 
A  voice  of  weeping  heard  and  loud  lament; 
From  haimted  spring,  and  dale 
Edged  with  poplar  pale. 
The  parting  Genius  is  with  sighing  sent; 
With  flower-inwoven  tresses  torn 
The  Nymphs  in  twilight  shade  of  tangled  thickets  mourn." 

These  lines  are  among  the  imperishable  trophies  of  the  Eng- 
lish lyric. 

The  thought  of  the  ode  is  indicative  of  the  change  that 
had  come  over  English  song.  There  is  little  description  for 
its  own  sake;  where  the  Elizabethans  would  have  lavished 
detail,  Milton  employs  economy  of  phrase.  One  stanza  suf- 
fices for  the  description  of  the  mother  and  child : 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  But  see !  the  Virgin  blest 
Hath  laid  her  babe  to  rest, 
Time  is  our  tedious  song  should  here  have  ending: 
Heaven's  youngest-teemed  star 
Hath  fixed  her  polished  car. 
Her  sleeping  Lord  veith  handmaid  lamp  attending; 
And  all  above  the  courtly  stable 
Bright-harnessed  angels  sit  in  order  serviceable." 

Instead  of  elaborating  one  or  two  incidents  or  describing 
clearly  defined  events,  the  poet's  thoughts  wander  through 
eternity ;  he  muses  on  the  destruction  of  the  false  gods  or 
on  the  cessation  of  the  oracles.  The  range  of  thought  and 
imagination  in  this  ode  is  as  remarkable  as  its  music.  Here 
Milton  points  to  the  lyric  of  the  next  century.  The  deepen- 
ing of  the  content  of  song,  the  significant  work  of  the  poets 
of  Milton's  age,  is  as  extraordinary  as  the  artistic  changes 
wrought  by  the  Elizabethans. 

At  Cambridge  Milton  had  practiced  what  he  called  the 
"Petrarchian  stanza."  His  sonnet  to  the  nightingale,  which 
stands  alone  among  his  English  lyrics  in  its  suggestion  of 
romance,  is  proof  that  before  he  left  for  the  continent,  he 
had  acquired  the  grace  of  expression  that  characterized  the 
successors  of  Petrarch.  Love  plaints,  the  usual  theme  of 
sonnet  collections,  he  disdained,  but  he  imitated  the  Italian 
use  of  the  sonnet  for  the  expression  of  friendship  and  praise. 
Always  a  law  unto  himself,  Milton  observes  the  Italian 
rhyme  scheme,  but  not  the  sharp  separation  of  the  octave 
and  sestet.  We  have  said  that  Shakespeare's  sonnets  find 
an  echo  in  the  sonnets  of  Keats ;  Milton's  stand  alone.  The 
sonnets  on  his  blindness  have  such  nobility  and  dignity  of 
expression,  such  restraint  in  their  pathos,  that  the  laments 
of  our  modem  romanticists,  when  compared  with  them,  read 
like  the  complaints  of  querulous  children.  The  greatest  of 
all  his  sonnets,  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,"  is 
the  most  forceful  expression  of  a  burning  anger  in  all  our- 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  299 

sonnet  literature.  That  fourteen  lines  could  express  so  per- 
fectly and  so  adequately  such  intense  feeling  is  one  of  the 
miracles  of  verse. 

The  greatest  lyrical  achievement  of  Milton  is  Lycidas. 
Its  sole  detractor  is  Dr.  Johnson,  who  objected  to  the  metri- 
cal scheme  of  the  poem  and  above  all,  to  its  pastoral  setting. 
Lycidas,  he  argued,  is  not  the  expression  of  real  but  feigned 
sorrow,  "for  passion  runs  not  after  remote  allusions  and 
obscure  opinions.  Where  there  is  leisure  for  fiction,  there 
is  little  grief. "^  Many  a  modem  reader  has  felt,  though  to 
a  lesser  degree,  the  contrast  between  the  clear,  outspoken 
frankness  of  our  modern  elegies  and  Milton's  allegorical 
presentation  of  his  sense  of  loss.  The  death  of  King  seems 
forgotten  in  Milton's  attack  on  the  church  or  in  his  search 
for  the  right  adjective  to  picture  the  primrose  or  the  violet. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  pastoral  had  been  con- 
secrated to  complaints  and  elegies ;  so  far  from  being  an 
artificial  means  of  expression,  for  a  poet  versed  in  the  classics 
and  in  Itahan  literature,  it  was  the  most  natural  one.  Cer- 
tainly Milton  turned  to  it  instinctively.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  sincerity  of  his  grief  at  the  death  of  his  best 
friend,  Diodati,  a  man  who  had  stood  much  nearer  to  him 
than  did  King.  To  mourn  him,  Milton  wrote  not  only  a 
pastoral,  but  a  Latin  pastoral  in  which  occur  the  same 
phrases  which  Dr.  Johnson  considered  meaningless  in 
Lycidas — flocks,  fields,  "copses,  flowers,  heathen  divinities." 
In  adopting  this  form,  Milton  has  added  to  traits  common 
to  all  Italian  and  English  pastoral  elegies,  elements  that 
seem  strangely  at  variance.  No  one  but  the  greatest  artist 
could  have  made  of  such  material  a  perfect  whole.  Here  is 
Christian  and  Pagan  thought;  idyllic  description  and  the 
fierce  denunciation  of  the  reformer;  classic  imagery  and  the 
very  essence  of  the  shudder  and  mystery  of  romance  in  the 
thought  of  the  shipwrecked  friend  washed  far  away 

lii/«  of  Milton. 


SOO  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  beyond  the  stormy  Hebrides, 
Where  thou  perhaps  under  the  whelming  tide 
Visit'st  the  bottom  of  the  monstrous  world." 

Not  only  is  Lycidas  supreme  in  English  pastoral  elegy,  but 
what  can  surpass  it  in  other  literatures? 

The  music  of  the  poem  is  as  remarkable  as  its  beauty  of 
expression.  Here,  as  later  in  Paradise  Lost,  Milton  employs 
verse  paragraphs,  each  one  different  in  its  movement,  yet  all 
blending  perfectly,  as  the  various  instruments  in  an  orches- 
tra make  up  one  great  volume  of  sound.  We  marvel  not  so 
much  at  the  rhythm  of  individual  verses,  or  at  the  music  of 
certain  phrases,  but  rather  at  the  harmony  of  the  whole 
elegy.  Spenser's  odes  have  no  such  strength  of  sound; 
even  the  most  aspiring  passages  of  his  hymns  lack  the  force 
of  this  measured  cadence.  The  Elizabethan  lyric  is  written 
for  the  tabor,  the  lute,  the  virginals ;  here  we  listen  to  the 
tones  of  an  organ.  The  art  of  the  poem  is  as  great  as  the 
inspiration;  we  are  carried  on  and  on  by  the  sweep  of  the 
verse  until  the  elegy  reads  as  though  it  had  been  struck  off 
in  the  white  heat  of  the  poet's  emotion,  yet  Milton's  manu- 
script shows  how  patiently  he  revised  word  and  phrase. 
Familiarity  with  Lycidas  but  deepens  admiration;  its  music 
haunts  the  ear,  its  phrases  the  memory.  It  is  the  most  truly 
inspired  lyric  that  England  had  yet  produced. 

If,  at  the  close  of  this  chapter,  we  attempt  to  gather  up 
in  a  few  sentences  the  chief  distinctions  between  the  Eliza- 
bethan lyric  and  Jacobean  and  Caroline  song,  we  perceive 
that  the  later  lyric  is  less  spontaneous  in  its  expression  and 
that  it  has  less  of  the  hght-hearted  attitude  towards  life. 
Men  are  no  longer  content  to  paraphrase  Petrarch;  they 
have  begun  to  peer  in  the  face  of  things,  to  analyze  their 
feelings,  to  question  their  thoughts.  Technically,  the  later 
lyric  shows  more  reserve.  With  exuberance  of  fancy  has 
gone  the  freer  metrical  movement  of  song;  the  lyric  measures 


JACOBEAN  AND  CAROLINE  LYRIC  SOI 

are  more  restrained;  the  art  is  more  evident.  The  old  ideal- 
ism is  passing  away,  yet  its  light  has  not  wholly  vanished. 
If  we  miss  the  Elizabethan  spirit,  we  must  remember  that  in 
compensation,  song  has  deepened  its  message ;  it  has  come 
closer  to  the  hearts  and  minds  of  men.  If  there  is  less  bril- 
liancy of  phrase  in  the  Caroline  lyric,  there  is  in  the  love 
poetry  a  charm  and  a  grace,  an  unmistakable  touch  that 
lends  distinction  and  that  brings  us  back  to  these  songs 
again  and  again. 


CHAPTER  SIX 

The  Lyric  feom  the  Restoeation  to  the  Death  of  Pope 


The  Restoration  marks  a  new  epoch  in  the  lyric  as  well  as 
in  the  drama.  The  proof  of  this  statement  is  to  be  found  in 
the  neglect  which  overtook  the  poets  we  have  just  considered. 
"Theirs  was  the  giant  race  before  the  flood,"  wrote  Dryden, 
and  the  change  in  taste  was  indeed  a  deluge  that  spared  the 
dramatic  writings  of  Shakespeare,  Jonson,  and  Fletcher,  but 
entirely  submerged  the  less  pretentious  works  of  their  con- 
temporaries. Donne,  no  longer  a  force,  was  vaguely  remem- 
bered as  a  wit;  Herbert,  adopted  by  the  church,  was  read 
more  as  a  preacher  than  as  a  poet ;  the  other  lyrists — ^Love- 
lace, Herrick,  Crashaw,  we  need  not  name  them  all — were 
quite  forgotten: 

"  But  for  the  wits  of  either  Charles's  days. 
The  mob  of  gentlemen  who  wrote  with  ease; 
Sprat,  Carew,  Sedley,  and  a  hundred  more, 
(Like  twinkling  stars  the  miscellanies  o'er) 
One  simile,  that  solitary  shines 
In  the  dry  desert  of  a  thousand  lines. 
Or  lengthened  thought  that  gleams  through  many  a  page, 
Has  sanctified  whole  poems  for  an  age."^ 

So  wrote  Pope  three  quarters  of  a  century  after  these  writers 
flourished.  Of  the  poets  who  lived  previous  to  the  Restora- 
tion, he  mentions  only  Carew ;  the  rather  ambiguous  "hundred 
more"  suggests  that  he   did  not  know  even  the  names  of 

1  The  First  Epistle  of  the  Second  Book  of  Horace,  11.  107-114. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  SOS 

Carew's  contemporaries.^  That  he  had  not  studied  them  is 
perfectly  evident,  for  he  complains  of  the  absence  of  brilliant 
similes  and  striking  thought  in  Caroline  verse.  The  average 
reader  would  have  even  less  knowledge  of  these  lyrists,  for 
Pope  was  a  close  student  of  poetry. 

It  is  customary  to  explain  the  difference  that  exists  be- 
tween Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  verse  on  the  one  hand  and 
Restoration  and  Queen  Anne  verse  on  the  other,  by  a  short 
and  convenient  phrase — ^French  influence.  Like  many  other 
formulas,  it  offers  no  real  solution  of  the  question;  when  we 
seek  for  such  borrowings  from  the  French  as  we  found  in 
Elizabethan  poetry,  we  discover  nothing.  Pope  indeed  drew 
from  Boileau,  but  the  spirit  of  English  verse  had  been  trans- 
formed before  Pope  wrote  his  satires.  Had  France  pos- 
sessed no  literature,  English  poetry  would  have  undergone 
precisely  the  same  change  we  find  in  it. 

The  descent  from  the  heights  of  Elizabethan  song  to  the 
plains  and  even  the  marshes  of  the  Restoration  lyric  is  such 
a  deep  one  that  it  is  natural  to  look  for  some  compelling 
influence  from  without  rather  than  to  the  perfectly  compre- 
hensible desire  of  a  new  generation  for  new  themes  and  a  new 
style.  The  English  novel  swings  from  romance  to  realism, 
from  realism  to  romance,  not  because  novelists  are  imitating 
Continental  writers,  but  because  each  generation  and  even 
each  decade  has  its  own  conception  of  life  which  it  must 
express.  The  sonnets  of  Petrarch,  Platonism,  Ehzabethan 
chivalry,  were  exhausted  sources  of  lyric  inspiration;  Eng- 
land had  outgrown  or  forgotten  them  and  the  age  desired 
to  see  itself  in  its  writings.  Moreover  the  style  of  the  lyric 
was  plainly  developing  towards  that  of  the  Restoration  and 
pseudo-classic  schools.  Jonson,  in  his  songs,  laid  the  chief 
emphasis  upon  form  and  finish  and  the  minor  writers  from 

1  Pope  had  his  sneer  at  Quarles  and  we  have  seen  that  he  read 
Crashaw  carefully.  Writing  to  Cromwell,  he  describes  Crashaw  as 
though  he  were  unknown. 


S04  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

1625  to  1650  show  an  increasing  fondness  for  the  couplet 
and  a  readiness  to  abandon  the  older  lyric  measures.  In  1636 
appeared  Fasciculus  Florum  or  a  Nosegay  of  Flowers,  trans- 
lated out  of  the  Gardens  of  several  poets  and  other  authors. 
It  is  significant  that  nearly  every  one  of  the  eight  hundred 
and  fifty-three  selections  are  taken  not  from  the  Italian  or 
French  but  from  the  Latin,  and  that  with  but  few  exceptions, 
the  couplet  is  the  medium  of  translation.  The  substance  of 
the  lyric  was  changing  also.  There  are  songs  of  Lovelace 
and  Suckling  that  would  pass  undetected  in  the  poems  of 
Sedley  and  Rochester,  and  we  find  an  even  clearer  prophecy 
of  the  Restoration  lyric  in  the  work  of  Edmund  Waller 
(1606-1687). 

His  earliest  poem  describes  the  escape  of  Charles  I  (then 
Prince  of  Wales)  from  being  swept  out  to  sea.^  Although 
the  verses  were  revised  before  their  publication  in  1645,  they 
were  written  in  1623  when  this  event  occurred.  If  we  examine 
the  poem  carefully  we  perceive  that  when  Waller  was  but 
seventeen  his  style  was  so  formed  that  it  shows  no  real  devel- 
opment in  all  his  later  work;  as  Dr.  Johnson  observed,  "his 
versification  was,  in  his  first  essay,  such  as  it  appears  in  his 
last  performance."  Though  he  proved  weak  and  cowardly 
in  the  struggle  between  the  King  and  Parliament,  in  his 
verse  he  showed  a  certain  boldness  of  innovation.  He  cared 
little  for  his  contemporaries ;  he  told  Aubrey  that  he  had 
never  met  Ben  Jonson  and  certainly  he  shows  no  marks  of 
Donne's  wit.  Turning  aside  from  the  literary  fashions  of 
the  day,  he  chose  for  himself  a  measured  style  quite  different 
from  Jonson's  well-calculated  stanzas.  "When  he  was  a 
brisk  young  spark,"  writes  Aubrey,  "and  first  studied 
poetry,  'Me  thought,'  said  he,  'I  never  saw  a  good  copy  of 
English   verses ;    they    want    smoothness ;   then    I   began   to 

1 G.  T.  Drury,  Poems  of  Edmund  Waller,  Muses'  Library,  London, 
1893,  p.  1. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  805 

essay.'  "^  He  revolted,  if  such  a  weak  nature  can  be  said  to 
revolt,  against  all  irregularity  of  style.  Taking  Fairfax  as 
his  model,  he  found  in  the  couplets  of  his  translation  of  Tasso 
the  desired  metre.  In  this  verse  form  he  wrote  the  greater 
part  of  his  poetry,  yet  he  is  fond  of  octosyllabics  and  chose 
for  the  song  in  which  he  really  lives — "Go,  lovely  rose" — an 
irregular  stanza. 

His  first  poem,  then,  showed  his  one  good  quality — a 
smooth  style.  He  did  not  bring  the  couplet  to  perfection. 
Dryden  gave  it  energy  and  strength;  Pope,  epigramatic 
point  and  brilliancy ;  but  Waller  made  it  as  popular  a  verse 
form  as  the  sonnet  had  been.  So  great  was  his  fame  that  by 
his  rejection  of  the  lyric  measures  of  the  Elizabethans  and 
by  his  outspoken  preference  for  definite  rules  in  place  of 
freedom  in  verse  composition,  he  fettered  the  spirit  of  song. 

"  Above  our  neighbors  our  conceptions  are ; 
But  faultless  writing  is  the  effect  of  care. 
Our  lines  reformed,  and  not  composed  in  haste, 
Polished  like  marble,  would  like  marble  last."^ 

There  is  no  lyric  note  in  such  writing.  Patient  workman- 
ship was  to  take  the  place  of  the  poetic  impulse ;  the  lines  of 
a  song  were  no  more  to  rise  and  fall  with  the  thought,  but 
were  to  be  laid  carefully  one  upon  another. 

Not  only  did  Waller  change  the  music  of  the  lyric ;  he 
modified  its  content.  In  the  hands  of  Marlowe,  the  couplet 
had  expressed  the  very  essence  of  romantic  beauty  and  pas- 
sion. Nearer  Waller's  own  day,  Browne  had  used  the  heroic 
measure  in  his  Britannia's  Pastorals  to  describe  nature. 
Waller  rejected  all  deeper  emotions  and  not  content  with 
"elegance  of  diction,"  sought  for  "propriety  of  thought." 
In  his  poem  on  the  Earl  of  Roscommon's  translation  of 
Horace,  he  gives  his  literary  creed: 

1  Introduction,  p.  LXX. 

2  P.  224. 


306  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Horace  will  our  superfluous  branches  prune. 
Give  us  new  rules,  and  set  our  harps  in  tune ; 
Direct  us  how  to  back  the  winged  horse. 
Favour  his  flight,  and  moderate  his  force. 
Though  poets  may  of  inspiration  boast. 
Their  rage,  ill  governed,  in  the  clouds  is  lost."'^ 

Here  we  have  the  critical,  self-conscious  attitude  towards 
poetry  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  we  find  few  lyrics  in  an 
age  that  prized  correctness  above  emotion  and  high  imagin- 
ation. Waller's  diction  shows  the  limiting  hand  of  conven- 
tionality. Shakespeare  had  spoken  of  the  poet's  "rage" ; 
with  Waller  this  becomes  a  stereotyped  word  and  even  the 
bee,  flying  from  flower  to  flower,  "rages."  We  read  of 
"nymphs,"  of  "gilded  scenes,"  of  sounds  that  "invade  the 
ear,"  and  we  seem  to  hear  Pope.  Waller  never  forgets  him- 
self; he  is  never  carried  away  by  a  burst  of  feeling;  and  his 
self-restraint  and  moderation  debase  his  poetry  to  weak 
society  verse. 

Waller  wrote  a  number  of  love  lyrics.  The  name  most 
closely  connected  with  his  is  that  of  Sacharissa,  or  in  plain 
English,  Dorothy  Sidney,  eldest  daughter  of  the  Earl  of 
Leicester.  Though  Waller  tells  us  that  her  "beam  of 
beauty"  scorches  like  the  raging  sun,  it  did  not  inspire  even 
a  gentle  glow  in  the  poet's  verses.  The  most  hasty  reader 
must  notice  the  absence  of  romance  and  feeling  in  these  once 
famous  lyrics.  If,  as  Gosse  assumes,  To  a  Girdle  and  "Go, 
lovely  rose,"  were  addressed  to  Sacharissa,  certainly  his 
"passion"  produced  his  two  finest  songs,  but  there  is  nothing 
to  support  this  theory.  To  use  Waller's  own  phrase,  he 
"pursued  the  nymph  in  vain,"  and  on  her  marriage  wrote 
very  calmly  of  his  lost  mistress.  We  agree  with  his  earliest 
biographer  that  "he  was  not  of  such  a  complexion  as  to 
become  a  martyr  to  his  passions." 

1  P.  214. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  307 

We  have  said  that  in  his  lyrics  he  gives  us  society  verse, 
but  in  this  genre  he  can  not  take  a  high  position.  His  trifling 
has  not  the  charm  of  Herrick's ;  he  has  not  caught  the  care- 
less tone  of  Suckhng;  he  lacks  Prior's  wit.  The  one  admir- 
able quality  he  possessed  was  a  mild  eloquence,  seen  at  its 
best  in  his  masterpiece. 

"  Then  die !  that  she 
The  common  fate  of  all  things  rare 

May  read  in  thee; 
How  small  a  part  of  time  they  share 
That  are  so  wondrous  sweet  and  fair !"' 

Here  is  no  pathos,  no  deep  melancholy,  but  a  charming  and 
graceful  rendering  of  an  old  theme.  His  care  and  polish  are 
not  too  evident  and  the  lyric  is  free  from  his  formal 
similes  and  his  classic  deities.  Nowhere  is  he  more  musical 
and  in  abandoning  his  poetic  theories  he  has  written  one  of 
the  loveliest  of  English  songs. 

Though  Waller's  lyrics  hardly  seem  adapted  for  music, 
Henry  Lawes  composed  melodies  for  them.  One  of  them  is 
quoted  with  admiration  in  Walton's  Complete  Angler: 

"  While  I  listen  to  thy  voice, 
Chloris !  I  feel  my  life  decay ; 
That  powerful  noise 
Calls  my  flitting  soul  away. 
Oh !  suppress  that  magic  sound, 
Which  destroys  without  a  wound.  "^ 

Here  and  there  we  meet  with  a  fine  phrase.  Love's  Farewell 
commences  in  a  deeper  tone  than  usual : 

"  Treading  the  path  to  nobler  ends, 
A  long  farewell  to  love  I  gave. 
Resolved  my  country,  and  my  friends, 
All  that  remained  of  me  should  have. 

IP.  138. 
2  P.  127. 


SOS  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  And  this  resolve  no  mortal  dame. 
None  but  those  eyes  could  have  o'erthrown, 
The  nymph  I  dare  not,  need  not  name. 
So  high,  so  Hke  herself  alone." 

The  last  line  has  the  true  ring,  but  Waller  immediately  falls 
back  on  the  couplet,  introduces  a  conventional  simile  begin- 
ning 

"  Thus  the  tall  oak,  which  now  aspires 
Above  the  fear  of  private  fires,"^ 

and  the  song  is  ruined. 

If  we  are  astonished  at  the  obscurity  that  covered  Her- 
rick's  poems,  we  are  more  amazed  at  the  fame  Waller  en- 
joyed for  nearly  a  century.  His  name  constantly  recurs  in 
the  writings  of  the  Restoration  and  of  the  Queen  Anne  age, 
and  is  invariably  mentioned  with  respect.^  "Spenser's  verses 
are  so  numerous,  so  various,  and  so  harmonious  that  only 
Virgil  has  surpassed  him  among  the  Romans ;  and  only  Mr. 
Waller  among  the  English,"'  writes  Dryden,  and  the  state- 
ment shows  how  completely  the  fine  sense  of  rhythm  and  of 
melody  had  been  lost.  Speaking  of  rhyme,  Dryden  informs  us 
that  "the  excellence  and  dignity  of  it  were  never  fully  known 
until  Mr.  Waller  taught  it ;  he  first  made  writing  easily  an 
art."*  This  praise  is  constantly  repeated  by  the  writers  who 
succeeded  Dryden.  "Nor  yet  shall  Waller  yield  to  fame," 
wrote  Pope,  and  without  a  doubt  he  was  considered  the 
greatest  lyric  poet  that  England  had  produced.  "The 
admired  Mr.  Waller,"  the  "first  refiner  of  our  English 
tongue,"  is  quite  forgotten  to-day ;  only  three  or  four  of 
his  lyrics   are   remembered ;   and   the  adulation  he   received 

ip.  93. 

2  The  flattering  eulogy  on  Waller  in  the  poems  of  Robert  Hill,  1775, 
p.  52,  shows  how  persistently  the  tradition  continued. 

3  Essay  on  Satire. 

*  Dedication  to  The  Rival  Ladies. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  S09 

merely  shows  how  far  the  desire  to  be  correct  could  pervert 
the  taste. 

Another  poet,  once  held  in  the  highest  esteem,  shares 
Waller's  fate.  Abraham  Cowley  (1618-1667)  seemed 
destined  for  great  achievements.  His  Poetical  Blossoms, 
published  when  he  was  about  fifteen,  showed  something  more 
than  mere  precocity.  He  produced  plays  when  a  student  at 
Westminster  school  and  at  Cambridge ;  his  Mistress,  brought 
out  in  1647,  was  considered  the  most  important  series  of  love 
poems  of  that  period.  His  Odes,  1656,  introduced  into  Eng- 
lish verse  the  "high  Pindaric  style" — his  chief  distinction — 
and  the  wide  applause  these  inflated,  rhetorical  verses  re- 
ceived is  best  shown  in  Sprat's  ode  on  Cowley,  one  of  the 
curiosities  of  poetic  eulogy. 

In  his  earliest  poem  Cowley  writes : 

"  From  too  much  poetry  that  shines 
With  gold  in  nothing  but  its  lines. 
Free,  O  you  powers,  my  breast."'^ 

and  in  aU  his  work  he  endeavored  to  show  his  wit.  In  this 
respect,  as  Dr.  Johnson  pointed  out,  he  is  a  follower  of 
Donne,  but  he  lacks  absolutely  his  imagination  and  emotion. 
The  Mistress  is  hard  reading;  it  has  little  feeling  and  its 
ingenuity  of  thought  is  not  great  enough  to  hold  the  flagging 
interest. 

"  But  do  not  touch  my  heart,  and  so  be  gone; 
Strike  deep  thy  burning  arrows  in: 
Lukewarmness  I  account  a  sin. 
As  great  in  love,  as  in  religion."^ 

lA.  R.  Waller,  Essays  and  Plays  of  Abraham  Cowley,  Cambridge, 
1906,  p.  49. 

2  A.  R.  Waller,  The  Poems  of  Abraham  Cowley,  Cambridge,  1905, 
p.  66. 


310  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

he  tells  us.  Judged  by  this  standard,  Cowley  is  the  chief  of 
sinners.  One  stanza  will  show  this ;  its  artificiality  is  unfor- 
tunately typical  not  only  of  the  Mistress  but  of  many  a 
Restoration  lyric: 

"  I  came,  I  saw,  and  was  undone; 

Lightning  did  through  my  bones  and  marrow  run; 
A  pointed  pain  pierced  deep  my  heart; 
A  swift,  cold  trembling  seized  on  every  part; 
My  head  turned  round,  nor  could  it  bear 
The  poison  that  was  entered  there." 

The  next  stanza  descends  to  the  formal  simile : 

"  So  a  destroying  angel's  breath 
Blows  in  the  plague,  and  with  it  hasty  death."' 

Such  writing  is  a  mere  academic  exercise.  Many  of  the 
Elizabethan  songs  have  very  little  feeling,  but  there  is  ample 
compensation  in  their  charm  of  metre  and  grace  of  diction. 
We  do  not  find  these  saving  qualities  in  Cowley's  poems; 
rarely  he  has  something  of  the  Elizabethan  spirit  in  such  a 
passage  as : 

"  Love  in  her  sunny  eyes  does  basking  play ; 
Love  walks  the  pleasant  mazes  of  her  hair; 
Love  does  on  both  her  lips  for  ever  stray; 
And  sows  and  reaps  a  thousand  kisses  there. 
In  all  her  outward  parts  Love's  always  seen; 
But,  oh,  he  never  went  within."^ 

but  the  rest  of  the  poem  falls  far  below  this.  He  writes  on 
the  subjects  that  every  sonneteer  employed — sleep,  absence, 
parting,  beauty  unadorned — yet  there  is  not  a  single  sonnet 
in  all  these  poems.  We  hardly  recognize  the  familiar  themes, 
for,  disguised  in  Cowley's  rhetoric,  they  seem  translated  into 
a  new  language. 

ip.  67. 
2  P.  76. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  311 

The  Mistress,  though  admired,  did  not  set  the  fashion  for 
the  Restoration  love  lyric;  Rochester,  Sedley,  Dorset,  and 
their  contemporaries  preferred  a  more  direct  and  a  less 
ingenious  manner  than  Cowley  employed.  It  was  his  Odes 
that  introduced  a  new  poetic  style.  There  is  a  long  Hst  of 
writers,  from  his  day  to  our  own,  who  have  paid  homage  to 
Cowley  by  their  use  of  his  "Pindaric  stanzas."  When  we 
consider  the  veneration  in  which  the  classics  were  held,  it  is 
surprising  that  no  English  poet  had  hitherto  adopted 
Pindar's  method ;  Jonson's  ode  to  the  memory  of  Cary  and 
Morison  is  his  solitary  experiment  in  this  genre.  A  full  cen- 
tury before  Cowley's  work  appeared,  Ronsard  had  won  the 
title  of  "le  Pindare  fran9ois"  by  writing  a  series  of  odes 
imitating  the  Greek  poet's  language  and  thought  much  more 
closely  than  Cowley  ever  attempted  to  do.  The  Elizabe- 
thans, we  remember,  translated  Ronsard's  sonnets ;  they  were 
not  attracted  by  his  Pindaric  flights. 

In  his  prefaces,  Cowley  has  discussed  his  odes.  He  tells 
us  that  in  two  of  his  versions  of  Pindar  he  took,  omitted,  and 
added  what  he  pleased.  He  aimed  to  show  the  reader  not 
what  Pindar  said  but  his  manner  of  speaking ;  Pindar's  style, 
"though  it  be  the  noblest  and  highest  kind  of  writing  in 
verse,"  had  not  yet  been  introduced  into  English  literature. 
He  fears  these  Pindaric  odes  wiU  not  be  understood  even  by 
readers  well  versed  in  poetry  because  of  the  sudden  and  long 
digressions  and  their  bold  and  unusuaLfigures.  "The  num- 
bers are  various  and  irregular,  and  sometimes  seem  harsh 
and  uncouth,  if  the  just  measures  and  cadences  be  not  ob- 
served in  the  pronunciation."  The  music  of  these  poems  lies 
wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the  reader.^  So  much  for  his  poetic 
theory ;  his  practice  is  well  shown  in  a  single  stanza  from  his 
Ode  upon  Liberty,  in  which  he  speaks  once  more  of  his  Pin- 
daric style: 

iPp.  156,  11. 


S12  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  If  Life  should  a  well-ordered  poem  be, 
(In  which  he  only  hits  the  white 
Who  joins  true  profit  with  the  best  delight) 
The  more  heroic  strain  let  others  take. 
Mine  the  Pindaric  way  I'll  make. 
The  matter  shall  be  grave,  the  numbers  loose  and  free. 
It  shall  not  keep  one  settled  pace  of  time, 
In  the  same  tune  it  shall  not  always  chime. 
Nor  shall  each  day  just  to  his  neighbour  rhyme. 
A  thousand  liberties  it  shall  dispense, 
And  yet  shall  manage  all  without  ofFence."'^ 

In  other  words,  to  write  on  some  abstract  theme,  using  an 
irregular  verse  form,  was  to  catch  the  very  spirit  of  Pindar. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  odes  of  Pindar  have  a  regular 
structure — "a  system  of  stanzas  recurring  in  the  same  order 
till  the  end  of  the  poem,  and  consisting  of  two  stanzas  of 
identical  form,  the  strophe  and  antistrophe,  followed  by  a 
third,  the  epode,  entirely  differing  from  the  two  others."^ 
Cowley  never  perceived  this  (though  Jonson  had  understood 
it)  and  it  was  left  to  Congreve  to  point  out  that  Cowley 
never  followed  Pindar,  even  afar  off.'  To  Cowley's  imme- 
diate contemporaries,  his  irregularity  of  metre  implied  imag- 
ination and  even  sublimity.  The  poet  had  only  to  group 
together  a  certain  number  of  long  and  short  verses  and  his 
thought  assumed  an  unmistakable  majesty.  If  Waller's 
couplets  on  the  escape  of  Prince  Charles  had  been  trans- 
formed to  irregular  stanzas  and  not  a  syllable  of  their  sub- 
stance altered,  by  some  mysterious  process  the  verse  would 
have  been  lifted  to  the  realms  of  the  imagination.  We  under- 
stand to-day  that  no  device  of  metre  can  atone  for  a  lack 
of  inspiration.  The  question  is  not  whether  odes  are  regular 
or  irregular,  but  whether  there  is  any  life  in  them.     In  his 

1  Essays  and  Plays,  p.  391. 

2  J.  Schipper,  A   History  of  English   Versification,  Oxford,  1910,  p. 
366.  Cf.  Introductory  Essay  to  B.  L.  Gildersleeve's  Pindar,  N.  Y.,  1885. 

3  Discourse  on  the  Pindaric  Ode. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  313 

Progress  of  Poesy,  Gray  follows  exactly  the  regular  struc- 
ture of  the  Greek  ode,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  reader 
perceives  this ;  what  he  does  notice  is  the  imagination  and 
the  thought.  Cowley  has  cleverness  and  ingenuity  of 
thought  rather  than  imagination  and  a  gentle  melancholy 
rather  than  deep  emotion ;  accordingly  he  was  tempera- 
mentally unfitted  for  this  most  difficult  of  all  lyric  types. 
At  the  close  of  his  Ode  on  the  Resurrection  it  is  curious  to 
hear  him  beg  his  Muse  to  "allay  thy  vigorous  heat,"  to 

"  Hold  thy  Pindarique  Pegasus  closely  in. 
Which  does  to  rage  begin,"^ 

for  in  most  of  the  verses,  Pegasus  has  certainly  ambled. 

There  is  something  to  be  said  on  the  other  side,  for  Cowley 
possessed  one  quality — though  hardly  a  lyric  one — which 
we  must  not  overlook.  His  best  odes  have  an  intellectual 
element,  a  reasoning  in  verse,  which  is  not  without  attraction 
and  which  goes  far  to  explain  his  popularity  with  his  con- 
temporaries and  why  Milton  valued  him  with  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare.  To  see  this  we  have  merely  to  turn  to  the 
Ode  to  the  Royal  Society  or  to  the  better  Hymn  to  Light. 
Here  with  a  certain  felicity  of  phrase  at  times  approaching 
the  language  of  imagination,  he  traces  light  from  the  rose 
to  the  jewel,  from  the  rainbow  to  the  firefly, 

"  Nor  amidst  all  these  triumphs  dost  thou  scorn 
The  humble  glow-worms  to  adorn. 
And  with  those  living  spangles  gild 
(O  greatness  without  pride !)  the  bushes  of  the  field."^ 

Cowley  is  most  attractive  in  his  less  formal  writing.  His 
Anacreontics  are  light  and  graceful  and  the  ode  at  the  close 
of  his  essay  on  gardens  has  many  charming  lines.     He  will 

1  Poems,  p.  182. 

2  P.  445. 


314  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

be  remembered  chiefly  by  two  elegies,  on  Richard  Crashaw 
and  on  Wilham  Hervey,  a  college  friend.  In  the  days  of 
religious  bigotry  and  persecution  he  is  not  afraid  to  praise 
his  brother  poet,  a  Cathohc  convert.  In  lines  full  of  that 
emotion  which  the  odes  lacked,  he  exalts  the  purity  of  his 
life  and  the  intensely  spiritual  quality  of  his  verse.  The 
poem  on  Hervey  is  even  better  because  more  personal ;  it  does 
not  speak  of  sorrow,  a  vague  abstraction  of  the  odes,  but 
describes  in  an  intimate  way  the  poet's  deep  sense  of  what  he 
has  lost : 

"  Ye  fields  of  Cambridge,  our  dear  Cambridge,  say, 
Have  ye  not  seen  us  walking  every  day.'' 
Was  there  a  tree  about  which  did  not  know 

The  love  betwixt  us  two.^ 
Henceforth,  ye  gentle  trees,  for  ever  fade; 

Or  your  sad  branches  thicker  join. 

And  into  darker  shades  combine. 
Dark  as  the  grave  wherein  my  friend  is  laid."'^ 

When  we  compare  such  a  stanza  with  Cowley's  interesting 
and  ingenious  Ode  on  Wit,  we  realize  how  far  astray  a  false 
conception  of  poetry  had  led  him.  The  elegy  has  the  vital 
spark  in  it.  One  touch  of  deep  feeling  is  worth  all  the 
brilliant  strokes  of  rhetoric ;  judged  by  such  a  standard  these 
lines  on  Hervey  are  not  unworthy  to  be  read  with  Lycidas 
and  Thyrsis. 

What  Cowley  failed  to  do  was  accomplished  by  John 
Dryden  (1631-1700),  whose  Pindaric  odes  have  both  vigor 
of  thought  and  dignity  of  expression.  It  is  significant,  how- 
ever, that  the  greatest  poet  of  this  age  should  have  written 
but  three  odes  worthy  of  remembrance  and  but  four  or  five 
short  lyrics  that  deserve  a  place  in  anthologies.  Though  a 
few  good  lyrics  were  composed  in  this  generation,  from 
Dryden  to  the  lowest  poetaster,  the  writers  lacked  that  gift 

ip.  34. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  SIS 

of  song  which  even  the  humblest  Elizabethan  seemed  to  pos- 
sess as  a  birthright.  In  the  collected  works  of  the  drama- 
tists and  poets  of  this  period  we  frequently  come  across  sets 
of  verses  entitled  "songs,"  but  almost  invariably  they  are 
merely  a  collection  of  conventional  phrases  that  rhyme. 

On  the  other  hand,  much  stimulating  criticism  and  satire 
of  the  highest  order  was  written  in  verse.  No  one  who  reads 
it  will  believe  that  there  had  been  a  decline  in  the  intellectual 
element  of  poetry.  The  wits  of  the  Restoration  poets  were 
keen  and  alert,  but  their  emotions  seem  deadened  and  their 
ears  had  grown  dull.  In  his  Threnodia  Augiistalis,  a  Pin- 
daric ode  on  the  death  of  Charles  II,  Dryden  gravely  pro- 
claims the  reign  of  Charles  to  be  the  age  of  verse.  The  "gay 
harmonious  quire"  of  "ofHcious  Muses"  attended  him, 

"  And  such  a  plenteous  crop  they  bore. 
Of  purest  and  well-winnowed  grain. 
As  Britain  never  knew  before." 

We  can  understand  why  Dryden  flattered  the  King;  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  he  arrived  at  his  opinion  of  contemporary 
poetry.  Apart  from  this  spirit  of  self-satisfaction,  there  is 
another  reason  why  the  lyric  declined.  The  social  life  of 
the  age  forbade  fineness  of  feeling,  honest  emotion,  and  ideal- 
ism in  its  songs.  In  a  period  in  which  lampoons  and  doggerel 
satire  flourished,  the  lyric  was  forgotten.  The  hterary  taste 
of  the  nation  had  been  lowered;  the  Faerie  Qiteene  was  the 
poem  of  the  court  of  EHzabeth,  but  the  book  which  Charles  II 
carried  about  with  him  was  Hudibras. 

Dryden,  then,  was  a  man  of  his  age;  he  generally  lacked 
in  his  writings  the  melodic  gift  that  makes  a  song,  yet  his 
verse  was  more  musical  than  that  of  his  contemporaries.  In 
his  Annus  Mirabilis,  written  in  the  metre  of  Gray's  Elegy, 
there  are  many  passages  worthy  to  stand  in  that  most  musi- 
cal of  poems ;  in  his  satires  we  are  often  as  much  impressed 


S16  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

by  the  sonorous  ring  of  his  couplets  as  by  the  force  of  their 
attack.  He  was,  accordingly,  admirably  fitted  for  the  Pin- 
daric ode  as  Cowley  wrote  it. 

His  two  best  odes  are  To  the  memory  of  Mrs.  Anne  KUli- 
grew  and  Alexander's  Feast.  The  latter  is  the  more  famous 
chiefly  because  it  is  the  more  brilliant  but  the  first  ode  con- 
tains the  better  poetry  and  is  obviously  the  more  sincere 
piece  of  writing.  In  Alexander's  Feast  the  workmanship  is 
too  evident ;  the  effects  are  too  plainly  calculated ;  and  the 
poem  with  its  constant  antithesis  and  even  epigram — "None 
but  the  brave  deserve  the  fair" — is  composed  in  the  wits. 
It  is  not  so  much  dramatic  as  it  is  theatrical.  In  extenuation, 
it  should  be  remembered  that  Dryden  wrote  this  poem  for 
music  and  those  artificial  lines  imitating  the  sounds  of  various 
instruments  were  designed,  in  part  at  least,  to  give  the  com- 
poser his  opportunity.  Judged  as  poetry,  such  writing  is 
neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  couplets  in  Pope's  Essay 
on  Criticism  that  make  the  sound  an  echo  to  the  sense ;  it  is 
in  reahty  a  trick  to  catch  the  applause  of  the  groundlings. 
Crashaw  employs  this  same  device  in  his  Music's  Duel,  but 
his  lines  are  beautiful  both  in  phrasing  and  in  their  melody. 
The  best  writing  is  found  in  the  close  of  this  ode.  As  Dryden 
proceeds,  his  mind  kindles,  his  style  rises,  and  the  well-known 
passage, 

"  At  length  divine  Cecilia  came, 
Inventress  of  the  vocal  frame ;" 

has  a  rhetorical  eloquence  no  other  poet  of  the  day  could 
reach. 

The  ode  on  Mrs.  KilHgrew  is  written  throughout  in  a 
broader  style.  It  depends  for  its  effect  not  upon  verbal 
skill,  but  upon  its  imagination  and  emotional  force.  We  see 
this  in  the  opening  apostrophe  composed  in  Dryden's  highest 
manner : 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  317 

"  Thou  youngest  virgin-daughter  of  the  skies, 
Made  in  the  last  promotion  of  the  blest ; 
Whose  palms,  new  plucked  from  Paradise, 
In  spreading  branches  more  sublimely  rise, 

Rich  with  immortal  green  above  the  rest: 
Whether,  adopted  to  some  neighbouring  star. 
Thou  roU'st  above  us  in  thy  wandering  race. 
Or  in  procession  fixed  and  regular. 
Moved  with  the  heaven's  majestic  pace; 
Or,  called  to  more  superior  bliss. 
Thou  tread'st  with  Seraphim  the  vast  abyss:" 

Such  verses  lack  the  sweetness,  the  rich  coloring,  the  sensuous 
appeal  of  Elizabethan  poetry,  but  there  is  no  fair  point  of 
comparison  between  such  an  ode  and  Spenser's  Prothalamion. 
If  the  earlier  writing  appeals  to  us  more  forcibly,  it  is  because 
we  are  trained  in  the  school  of  Keats  and  Tennyson  rather 
than  that  this  ode  is  a  weak  production. 

We  must  pass  over  that  deeply  felt  stanza  in  which  Dryden 
laments  the  degradation  of  poetry  and  his  own  part  in  it, 
and  come  to  the  closing  lines.  They  have  a  solemnity,  a 
grave  cadence  which  we  have  not  heard  before  in  the  lyric : 

"  When  in  mid-air  the  golden  trump  shall  sound. 
To  raise  the  nations  under  ground; 
When,  in  the  valley  of  Jehosaphat, 
The  j  udging  God  shall  close  the  book  of  Fate, 
And  there  the  last  assizes  keep 
For  those  who  wake  and  those  who  sleep." 

The  Pindaric  odes  written  for  a  century  after  Cowley's 
death  seem  innumerable.  They  were  composed  on  every 
conceivable  subject  from  the  King's  birthday  to  "The  Intol- 
erable Heat,"  but  Dryden's  odes  were  never  approached.  To 
read  them  is  to  see  the  highest  development  of  Cowley's  genre 
until  we  reach  our  modern  poets. 

Dryden  followed  the  Elizabethan  custom  of  introducing 
songs  freely  in  his  dramas.     To  one  familiar  with  but  his 


S18  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

satires  and  his  odes,  it  is  surprising  to  meet  him  in  his  lighter 
mood. 

"  Wherever  I  am,  and  whatever  I  do. 

My  Phyllis  is  stiU  in  my  mind; 
When  angry,  I  mean  not  to  Phyllis  to  go. 

My  feet,  of  themselves,  the  way  find: 
Unknown  to  myself  I  am  just  at  her  door. 
And,  when  I  would  rail,  I  can  bring  out  no  more 

Than,  Phyllis  too  fair  and  unkind  !"^ 

He  has  many  experiments  in  metre,  from  the  too  facile : 

"  How  unhappy  a  lover  am  I, 

While  I  sigh  for  my  Phyllis  in  vain; 
All  my  hopes  of  delight 
Are  another  man's  right, 

Who  is  happy,  while  I  am  in  pain  !"^ 

to  the  beautifully  modulated: 

"  No,  no,  poor  suffering  heart,  no  change  endeavour. 
Choose  to  sustain  the  smart,  rather  than  leave  her; 
My  ravished  eyes  behold  such  charms  about  her, 
I  can  die  with  her,  but  not  live  without  her."' 

He  never,  in  his  most  tripping  measures,  attains  the  grace 
or  the  melody  of  the  Elizabethans;  he  has  written  songs  for 
"Aerial  Spirits,"  but  there  is  no  magic  in  them.  He  is  at  his 
best  in  a  soberly  modulated  lyric. 

"  Ah  fading  joy!  how  quickly  art  thou  past! 

Yet  we  thy  ruin  haste. 
As  if  the  cares  of  human  life  were  few. 

We  seek  out  new: 
And  follow  fate  that  does  too  fast  pursue." 

1  From  the  Conquest  of  Oranada,  Part  I.  See  Scott-Saintsbury,  John 
Dryden'a  Works,  vol.  IV,  p.  85. 

i  Conquest  of  Oranada,  Part  II,  vol.  IV,  p.  187. 

3  Cleomenes,  vol.  VIII,  p.  292.  The  Maiden  Queen,  vol.  II,  p.  483,  has 
another  good  song  in  this  same  metre. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  S19 

He  tries  to  end  this  with  a  bit  of  pure  melody : 

"  Hark,  hark,  the  waters  fall,  fall,  fall. 
And  with  a  murmuring  sound. 
Dash,  dash  upon  the  ground. 
To  gentle  slumber  call."^ 

How  far  this  is  from  the  slumber  songs  we  have  read.  In 
his  perversion  of  the  Tempest,  Dryden  did  not  shrink  from 
adding  lyrics  of  his  own  and  among  them,  this  duo  between 
Ferdinand  and  Ariel : 

"  When  the  winds  whistle,  and  when  the  streams  creep. 
Under  yon  willow-tree  fain  would  I  sleep. 
Then  let  me  alone. 
For  'tis  time  to  be  gone. 
For  'tis  time  to  be  gone."^ 

Indeed  it  is. 

The  dramatic  lyrics  of  Dryden  are  typical  of  all  that  the 
Restoration  stage  has  to  offer.  Sir  William  Davenant 
(1606-1668)  inherited  something  of  the  CaroUne  tradition 
yet  the  lyrics  in  his  masques  are  devoid  of  merit.  The  folio 
edition  of  his  works  (1673)  contains  a  thousand  pages,  but 
in  all  this  vast  extent  of  verse  there  is  but  one  good  song, 
"The  lark  now  leaves  his  watery  nest."  The  best  tragedies 
of  the  period  were  written  by  Thomas  Otway  (1651  .''-1685). 
His  Venice  Preserved  does  not  contain  a  single  lyric  and  the 
only  one  in  The  Orphan  does  not  deserve  citation.  In  Alci- 
biades  there  is  a  song  on  the  theme  of  Shirley's  "The  glories 
of  our  blood  and  state" ;  its  inferiority  measures  the  unhappy 
change  that  has  come  over  Restoration  verse: 

"  Princes  that  rule  and  empires  sway. 
How  transitory  is  their  state ! 
Sorrows  the  glories  do  allay, 

And  richest  crowns  have  greatest  weight." 

1  The  Indian  Emperor,  vol.  II,  p.  380. 

2  Vol.  Ill,  p.  168. 


320  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

In  the  comedies  of  the  day  we  naturally  expect  to  find 
better  songs;  a  search  through  them  yields  but  little.  We 
are  not  surprised  that  the  three  or  four  lyrics  in  Wycherley's 
plays  are  coarse  in  tone,  unpoetic  in  diction,  and  altogether 
quite  worthless,  but  it  is  disconcerting  to  find  no  good  song 
in  the  dramas  of  such  lively  writers  as  Vanbrugh  and  Far- 
quhar,  who  merely  adapted  his  "Over  the  hills  and  far  away," 
in  the  Recruiting  Officer,  from  a  popular  song.  William 
Congreve  (1670-1729)  has  one  succession  of  songs  in  his 
masque.  The  Judgment  of  Paris,  and  in  his  "opera"  Semele, 
but  they  do  not  deserve  a  second  reading.  His  only  lyric  to 
gain  popularity  is  in  his  Way  of  the  World.     It  begins : 

"  Love's  but  the  fraility  of  the  mind. 
When  'tis  not  with  ambition  joined; 
A  sickly  flame,  which  if  not  fed,  expires; 
And  feeding,  wastes  in  self-consuming  fires." 

This  is  as  artificial  as  Waller's  lyrics.  It  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  the  heroine  of  this  play  is  introduced  repeating  a  lyric 
of  Suckling's ;  an  Elizabethan  dramatist  would  have  com- 
posed his  own  song. 

In  Congreve's  Old  Bachelor,  Araminta  asks  the  music- 
master  for  "the  last  new  song,"  which  he  sings  to  her.  One 
stanza  is  enough : 

"  Thus  to  a  ripe,  consenting  maid, 
Poor,  old,  repenting  Delia  said: — 
'  Would  you  long  preserve  your  lover  ? 

Would  you  still  his  goddess  reign? 
Never  let  him  all  discover. 

Never  let  him  much  obtain.'  " 

Bellamour's  opinion  of  this  production — "I  don't  much 
admire  the  words" — may  be  taken  as  a  final  verdict  upon 
all  these  lyrics.  Some  of  the  playwrights  have  good  moments 
of  song,  but  they  are  literally  moments.     Thomas  Shadwell 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  321 

(1642-1692)  introduces  many  lyrics  into  his  dramas  and  he 
has  given  to  some  of  the  songs  in  the  Royal  Shepherdess 
a  faint  touch  of  Elizabethan  grace.  More  characteristic  are 
his  anapests  in  Psyche: 

"  There's  none  without  love  ever  happy  can  be. 
Without  it  each  brute  were  as  happy  as  we. 

It  was  from  such  crude  verse  that  Prior's  lightest  measures 
were  developed.^ 

Sir  George  Etheredge  (1635-1691)  showed  in  his  lyrics  an 
easy  style  and  a  lively  spirit,  as  he  does  in  his  prose  comedies. 
His  two  best  songs  were  not  written  for  his  plays.  The  first 
pleases  us  by  its  formality,  not  carried  to  excess: 

"  Ye  happy  swains,  whose  hearts  are  free 

From  love's  imperial  chain, 
Take  warning  and  be  taught  by  me, 

T'avoid  th'  enchanting  pain. 
Fatal  the  wolves  to  trembling  flocks. 

Fierce  winds  to  blossoms  prove. 
To  careless  seamen  hidden  rocks. 

To  human  quiet  love." 

The  second,  entitled  Sylvia,  must  rank  with  the  best  of  Prior's 
verses. 

"  The  nymph  that  undoes  me  is  fair  and  unkind. 
No  less  than  a  wonder  by  nature  designed. 
She's  the  grief  of  my  heart,  the  joy  of  my  eye, 
And  the  cause  of  a  flame  that  never  can  die. 

"  Her  mouth  from  whence  wit  still  obligingly  flows. 
Has  the  beautiful  blush  and  the  smell  of  the  rose ; 
Love  and  destiny  both  attend  on  her  will. 
She  wounds  with  a  look,  with  a  frown  she  can  kiU."^ 

1  The  Dramatic  Works  of  Thomas  Shadwell,  1720,  vol.  II,  p.  46. 

2  A.  W.  Verity,  The  Works  of  Sir  George  Etheredge,  London,  1888, 
pp.  381,  389. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

II 

Leaving  the  dramatists,  we  come  to  three  well-known 
lyrists  in  Dorset,  Sedley,  and  Rochester.  Charles  Sackville 
(1638-1706),  who  succeeded  to  the  titles  of  Lord  Buckhurst 
and  Earl  of  Dorset,  began  life  as  a  dissolute  courtier  and 
wit.  Pepys,  who  might  be  expected  to  look  leniently  on 
shortcomings  of  conduct,  speaks  of  him  with  great  dis- 
approbation and  pictures  him,  in  company  with  Sedley, 
sunk  in  the  most  degrading  dissipation.  Dorset  outgrew 
this  life  and  in  later  years  became  known  as  a  kindly  and 
generous  patron  of  poets,  among  whom  were  Dryden,  Butler, 
and  Prior.  They  did  not  neglect  to  sing  his  praises  and 
he  died  in  the  odor  of  poetic  sanctity. 

He  has  left  but  little  verse — a  few  pages  will  contain  it 
all — for  like  his  feUows,  he  had  little  inspiration.  To  realize 
fully  the  variety  and  wealth  of  the  Elizabethan  lyric,  we 
must  contrast  that  age  of  music  with  this  untuneful  period, 
when  a  dozen  stanzas  would  gain  a  reputation.  Dorset 
gained  his  by  a  single  lyric.  He  is  fond  of  the  anapestic 
measure,  a  metre  which  is  as  characteristic  of  this  time  as 
is  the  sonnet  of  Elizabethan  days  or  the  couplet  of  the 
Queen  Anne  period.  In  all  his  work  there  is  an  easy,  good- 
natured  tone: 

"  Ah !  Chloris,  'tis  time  to  disarm  your  bright  eyes. 
And  lay  by  those  terrible  glances; 
We  live  in  an  age  that's  more  civil  and  wise, 
Than  to  follow  the  rules  of  romances." 

He  sings  of  no  hard-hearted  beauty,  but  of  Bess,  "with  her 
skin  white  as  milk,  and  her  hair  black  as  coal" : 

"  But  now  she  adorns  both  the  boxes  and  pit. 
And  the  proudest  town  gallants  are  forced  to  submit; 
All  hearts  fall  a-leaping  wherever  she  comes. 
And  beat  day  and  night,  like  my  Lord  Craven's  drums. "^ 

1  Chalmers'  English  Poets,  vol.  "VIII,  London,  1810,  pp.  344,  345. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC 

If  his  best  song  was  not  composed,  as  the  tradition  runs, 
on  the  eve  of  an  engagement  with  the  Dutch  fleet,  it  never- 
theless shows  what  is  the  most  admirable  trait  in  these  later 
Cavaliers — a  fearlessness  in  the  presence  of  danger — and  in 
its  reckless  tone  we  feel  that  contempt  of  death  which  the 
former  generation  would  have  expressed  in  a  nobler  manner. 
If  To  Lucasta  contains  the  essence  of  the  Cavalier  spirit, 
Dorset's  "To  all  you  ladies  now  on  land"  is  to  an  equal  degree 
typical  of  the  Restoration  lyric.  The  English  sailors  think 
not  of  the  Dutch  but  of  the  court  beauties : 

"  To  pass  our  tedious  hours  away. 

We  throw  a  merry  main ; 
Or  else  at  serious  ombre  play; 

But,  why  should  we  in  vain 
Each  other's  ruin  thus  pursue? 
We  were  undone  when  we  left  you — 

With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la. 

"  But  now  our  fears  tempestuous  grow, 

And  cast  our  hopes  away; 
Whilst  you,  regardless  of  our  woe, 

Sit  careless  at  a  play: 
Perhaps,  permit  some  happier  man 
To  kiss  your  hand,  or  flirt  your  fan. 

With  a  fa,  la,  la,  la,  la."^ 

Truly  a  lively  hymn  before  action.  Throughout  the  eleven 
stanzas  (this  is  Dorset's  longest  composition)  the  gaiety 
never  flags. 

Sir  Charles  Sedley  (1639-1701)  is  a  better  song  writer 
than  Dorset.  His  touch  is  always  graceful  and  light;  his 
metres  are  invariably  the  most  simple  ones: 

"  Phlllis,  men  say  that  all  my  vows 
Are  to  thy  fortune  paid: 
Alas !  my  heart  he  little  knows 
Who  thinks  my  love  a  trade. 
1  P.  343. 


S21^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Were  I  of  all  these  woods  the  lord, 
One  berry  from  thy  hand 
More  real  pleasure  would  afford, 
Than  all  my  large  command. 

"  My  humble  love  has  learned  to  live 
On  what  the  nicest  maid. 
Without  a  conscious  blush,  may  give 
Beneath  the  myrtle-shade."^ 

Could  the  thought  be  more  naturally  expressed.''  We  find 
gallantry,  not  love  in  these  songs,  and  if  the  sonneteers 
repeated  stock  themes,  these  writers  have  even  less  to  tell 
us.  In  the  song  from  The  Mulberry  Garden,  "Ah  Chloris ! 
that  I  now  could  sit,  As  unconcerned,"  he  anticipates  but  in 
no  sense  approaches  Prior's  To  a  child  of  quality.  Occa- 
sionally he  introduces  an  epigrammatic  turn  to  his  verse : 

"  'Tis  cruel  to  prolong  a  pain. 
And  to  defer  a  joy, 
Believe  me,  gentle  Celemene, 
Offends  the  winged  boy."^ 

but  he  relies  chiefly  on  the  ease  of  his  style. 

Two  other  songs  of  Sedley  deserve  notice:  "Phillis  is  my 
only  joy,"  and  To  Celia.  The  latter  is  not  only  his  little 
masterpiece,  it  is  one  of  the  best  songs  of  the  century,  written 
with  a  feeling  and  in  a  style  that  could  not  be  improved. 

"  Not,  Celia,  that  I  juster  am. 
Or  better  than  the  rest. 
For  I  would  change  each  hour  like  them, 
Were  not  my  heart  at  rest. 

1  The  Works  of  the  Honourable  Sir  Charles  Sedley,  London,  1778, 
vol.  I,  p.  101. 

2  P.  65. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  3£S 

"  But  I  am  tied  to  very  thee, 

By  every  thought  I  have; 
Thy  face  I  only  care  to  see. 
Thy  heart  I  only  crave. 

"  All  that  in  woman  is  adored 
In  thy  dear  self,  I  find; 
For  the  whole  sex  can  but  afford 
The  handsome  and  the  kind. 

"  Why  then  should  I  seek  further  store. 
And  still  make  love  anew.'' 
When  change  itself  can  give  no  more, 
'Tis  easy  to  be  true."'^ 

John  Wilmot,  Earl  of  Rochester  (1647-1680),  was  the 
most  gifted  lyrist  of  the  Restoration.  His  life  began  bril- 
liantly and  ended  tragically.  He  fell  a  victim  to  the  vices 
of  the  court  set,  yet  his  nature  was  essentially  finer  than  that 
of  a  Dorset  or  a  Sedley.  Bishop  Burnet's  well-known  account 
of  Rochester's  last  days  reveals  a  man  gentle  and  generous, 
worthy  of  a  better  age. 

There  is  no  authoritative  edition  of  Rochester's  writings. 

The  scandals  of  his  life  prompted  unscrupulous  publishers 

to  issue,  after  his  death,  several  editions  of  his  works.     They 

contained  many  poems  for  which  without  a  doubt  he  was  not 

responsible.     The  contents  of  these  volumes  are  never  alike ; 

his  best  lyrics  appear  or  are  excluded  at  haphazard,  and 

even  when  an  attempt  is  made  to  include  his  finest  verses, 

there   are   serious   omissions.      "Why   dost   thou   shade   thy 

lovely  face,"  is  a  notable  bit  of  writing;  it  is  one  of  the  few 

Restoration  songs  that  depict  deep  emotion,  yet  it  does  not 

appear  in  Dr.  Johnson's  English  Poets}     Careless  of  fame, 

Rochester  never  collected  his  poetry  and  undoubtedly  much 

of  his  work  has  vanished. 

iP.  56. 

2  Works  of  the  Earls  of  Rochester,  Roscommon,  Dorset,  etc.,  1721, 
vol.  I,  p.  95. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

He  was  known  as  a  wit — his  epigram  on  "the  King,  whose 
word  no  man  reUes  on,"  justifies  his  title — and  he  wrote 
more  satires  than  lyrics.  He  admired  Cowley  and  in  his 
Ode  to  Nothing,  imitates  his  turn  of  thought;  he  sensibly 
avoided,  however,  the  Pindaric  style  and  preferred  the  man- 
ner of  Dorset  andSedley.  He  is  a  better  lyrist  than  either, 
for  he  has  their  ease  and  yet  a  more  sincere  feeling.  His 
metres  are  more  varied.   He  turns  from  the  famihar  anapests, 

"  To  this  moment  a  rebel,  I  throw  down  my  arms. 
Great  Love,  at  first  sight  of  Olinda's  bright  charms;" 

to 

"  All  my  past  life  is  mine  no  more, 
The  flying  hours  are  gone: 
Like  transitory  dreams  given  o'er. 
Whose  images  are  kept  in  store 
By  memory  alone." 

or  to  the  more  familiar 

"  My  dear  mistress  has  a  heart 

Soft  as  those  kind  looks  she  gave  me. 
When,  with  Love's  resistless  art 

And  her  eyes,  she  did  enslave  me."'^ 

The  Restoration  lyrists  are  not  sharply  individualized.  It 
is  never  a  difficult  matter  to  distinguish  the  sonnets  of  Sidney 
from  those  of  Drayton,  but  the  songs  of  this  age  are  all  very 
much  alike.  Rochester  stands  apart  from  the  rest ;  he  writes 
with  more  sincerity  and  in  a  higher  manner.  No  one  of  his 
contemporaries  struck  the  note  he  reached  in  his  "Absent 
from  thee  I  languish  still" : 

1  Chalmers'  Poets,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  240,  342. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  S27 

"  When,  wearied  with  a  world  of  woe, 
To  thy  safe  bosom  I  retire. 
Where  love,  and  peace,  and  truth,  does  flow: 
May  I  contented  there  expire ! 

"  Lest,  once  more  wandering  from  that  heaven, 
I  fall  on  some  base  heart  unblest; 
Faithless  to  thee,  false,  unforgiven. 
And  lose  my  everlasting  rest."^ 

Ill 

Before  coming  to  the  song  books  of  the  Restoration,  we 
must  at  least  mention  some  of  the  minor  writers.  Charles 
Cotton  (1630-1687),  the  friend  of  Walton,  offers  us  a  num- 
ber of  songs,  sonnets,  and  Pindaric  odes  in  his  Poems  on 
Several  Occasions  (1689),  and  though  he  is  interesting  when 
he  writes  on  country  life  and  especially  on  fishing,  his  best 
lyrics  are  only  passable.  Philip  Ayres  (1638-1712)  deserves 
more  consideration  that  he  has  received  because  he  is  a  belated 
Elizabethan,  the  last  of  the  Petrarchists.  His  Lyric  Poems 
made  in  Imitation  of  the  Italians  (1687)  is  a  collection  of 
translations  from  Petrarch,  Guarini,  Tassoni,  and  from 
Spanish  writers  as  well.  Curiously  enough,  he  states  that 
he  can  find  in  French  poetry  nothing  worthy  of  imitation. 
In  his  sonnets  he  has  not  caught  the  sweetness  of  the  EHza- 
bethans ;  his  style  is  Caroline,  as  in  his  song  To  the  Winds. 
His  best  sonnet.  On  a  Fair  Beggar,  is  probably  a  translation, 
yet  it  deserves  a  place  in  aU  anthologies.  It  is  surprisingly 
modern  in  the  sympathetic  description  of  the  girl,  "Barefoot 
and  ragged,  with  neglected  hair."^ 

Thomas  Flatman  (1637-1688)  is  a  more  important  be- 
cause a  more  original  writer.     In  some  introductory  verses 

ip.  240. 

2G.  Saintsbury,  Minor  Poets  of  The  Caroline  Period,  Oxford,  1906, 
vol.  II,  pp.  393,  379. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

to  Flatman's  Poems  and  Songs  (1674),  Cotton  calmly  in- 
forms us  that  Pindar's  touch  never  yielded  such  harmony  as 
the  odes  in  this  book  attain,  but  they  are  more  notable  for 
their  thought  than  for  their  style.  The  poems  show  force 
and  imagination,  for  he  writes 

"  Verse  that  emancipates  the  mind, 
Verse  that  unbends  the  soul." 

He  dwells  on  death  with  a  morbid  insistence.  His  "Mourn- 
ful Song,"  as  a  contemporary  anthology  calls  it,  beginning 
"0  that  sad  day,"  is  his  most  typical  lyric,  resembling  some- 
what both  in  its  movement  and  in  its  realism,  the  Odes  of 
Coventry  Patmore.  Two  of  his  songs,  hymns  for  morning 
and  evening,  are  quaintly  but  musically  written,  and  deserve 
to  be  rescued  from  oblivion.'^ 

Thomas  Traherne  (1636 .''-1674)  did  not  send  his  poems 
to  the  press ;  they  were  discovered  and  first  published  in  1903 
by  Bertram  Dobell.  They  are  religious  lyrics ;  at  their  best, 
they  are  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  Herbert's  and  Vaughan's, 
for  their  thought  is  striking,  their  emotion  sincere,  their 
idealism  moving  in  its  simplicity.  Traherne  resembles 
Vaughan  not  in  his  technique  but  in  his  love  of  the  innocence 
and  glory  of  childhood.  "How  like  an  angel  came  I  down!" 
is  his  cry.    The  world  was  but  another  heaven : 

"  The  skies  in  their  magnificence, 
The  lively,  lovely  air. 
Oh  how  divine,  how  soft,  how  sweet,  how  fair ! 

The  stars  did  entertain  my  sense. 
And  all  the  works  of  God,  so  bright  and  pure, 
So  rich  and  great  did  seem. 
As  if  they  ever  must  endure 
In  my  esteem. 

1  Poems  and  Songs,  4th  ed.,  1686,  pp.  57,  58.  Rochester  sneers  at  Flat- 
man  in  his  Satire  X. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  329 

"  The  streets  were  paved  with  golden  stones, 
The  boys  and  girls  were  mine. 
Oh  how  did  all  their  lovely  faces  shine ! 

The  sons  of  men  were  holy  ones. 
In  joy  and  beauty  they  appeared  to  me, 

And  every  thing  which  here  I  found, 
While  like  an  angel  I  did  see. 

Adorned  the  ground."^ 

We  can  not  dismiss  the  minor  poets  without  mentioning 
the  renowned  "Matchless  Orinda,"  Katharine  Philips  (1631- 
1664)).  Praised  by  Cowley  and  Dryden,  she  is  far  from 
being  the  "English  Sappho" ;  she  did  not  possess  the  lyrical 
temperament,  and  her  work  lies  outside  our  province  though 
she  composed  a  few  songs.  Her  favorite  metre  was  the 
couplet,  but  at  times,  as  Professor  Saintsbury  has  pointed 
out,  she  catches  the  cadences  of  Donne  and  Jonson : 

"  I  did  not  live  until  this  time 
Crown'd  my  felicity. 
When  I  could  say  without  a  crime, 
I  am  not  thine,  but  thee. 

"  Then  let  our  flames  still  light  and  shine. 
And  no  false  fear  control. 
As  innocent  as  our  design. 
Immortal  as  our  soul."^ 


IV 

We  have  not  as  yet  considered  the  song  books  of  the  Res- 
toration, though  many  of  the  lyrics  we  have  quoted  found 

1  Bertram  Dobell,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Traherne,  London, 
1903,  p.  4. 

2  Saintsbury,  op.  cit.,  vol.  I,  p.  537. 


330  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

a  place  in  them.  Readers  of  Pepys'  diary  will  remember  the 
great  delight  he  took  in  the  songs  of  the  day;  his  frequent 
references  to  them  remind  us  that  the  Elizabethan  composers 
were  succeeded  by  men  of  no  mean  ability.  Lawes  and  Pur- 
cell  were  names  to  be  honored  in  any  generation,  and  a  glance 
at  the  list  of  song  books  published  by  John  Playford  and 
his  son  is  enough  to  confute  the  oft-repeated  fallacy  that  the 
Puritan  revolution  destroyed  the  popular  lyric.  In  1653 
John  Playford  published  Select  Musical  Ayres  and  Dia- 
logues in  three  boohs.  Turning  over  its  pages  we  find  such 
lyric  triumphs  as  Herrick's  "Bid  me  to  live,"  and  "Gather 
ye  rosebuds" ;  Suckhng's  "I  prithee  send  me  back  my  heart" ; 
and  Shakespeare's  "Take,  O  take  those  lips  away."  This 
same  year  Henry  Lawes  brought  out  his  Ayres  and  Dia- 
logues, containing  poems  by  Lovelace,  Herrick,  Waller,  and 
Carew.  The  Restoration  composers  had  no  such  poetry  to 
inspire  them.  They  were  forced  to  write  new  settings  for 
old  songs,  to  use  the  few  lyrics  of  Sedley  and  Rochester,  or 
as  more  frequently  happened,  to  fall  back  on  utterly  trivial 
words.  There  is  still  some  gleaning  to  be  done  in  these  song 
books,  but  the  amount  of  gold  in  them  is  small  when  com- 
pared with  the  dross. 

Le  Prince  d' Amour,  or  the  Prince  of  Love.  With  a  collec- 
tion of  Several  Ingenious  Poems  and  Songs  by  the  Wits  of 
the  Age  (1660),  contains  nearly  a  hundred  pages  of  songs. 
If  we  disregard  the  work  of  the  older  writers,  such  as  Raleigh 
and  Wotton,  there  are  not  six  lyrics  we  would  read  a  second 
time.  The  following  year  appeared  An  Antidote  against 
Melancholy:  made  up  in  Pills.  Compounded  of  Witty  Bal- 
lads, Jovial  Songs,  and  Merry  Catches,  a  collection  that  con- 
tains among  other  interesting  pieces  a  Ballad  called  the 
Green-Gown.  The  tone  of  the  song  is  somewhat  free ;  we 
quote  but  the  first  and  last  stanzas.  They  show  a  splendid 
sense  of  rhythm  and  are  written  in  a  metre  hitherto  unknown :. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  SSI 

"  Pan  leave  piping,  the  Gods  have  done  feasting, 

There's  never  a  Goddess  a  hunting  to-day. 
Mortals  marvel  at  Coridon's  jesting. 

That  gives  them  assurance  to  entertain  May. 
The  lads  and  the  lasses,  with  scarves  on  their  faces, 

So  lively  as  passes  trip  over  the  downs,  (pusses?) 
Much  mirth,  and  sport  they  make,  running  at  Barley-break, 

Lord !  what  haste  they  make  for  a  green  gown. 

"  Bright  Apollo  was  all  the  time  peeping. 

To  see  if  his  Daphne  had  been  in  the  throng. 
But  missing  her,  hastily  downwards  was  creeping. 

For  Thetis  imagined  he  tarried  too  long. 
Then  all  the  troop  mourned,  and  homeward  returned. 

For  Cinthia  scorned  to  smile  or  to  frown. 
Thus  did  they  gather  may  all  the  long  Summer  day, 

And  at  night  went  away  with  a  green  gown."^ 

This  is  quite  the  gem  of  the  book ;  few  songs  of  this  century 
are  more  effective  in  their  use  of  rhyme.  The  larger  col- 
lection of  songs  that  appeared  this  same  year,  Merry  Drol- 
lery or  a  Collection  of  Jovial  Poems,  Merry  Songs,  Witty 
Drolleries,  Intermixed  with  Pleasant  Catches,  Parts  I  and  11^ 
has  nothing  to  equal  this.  As  illustrating  the  manner  and 
morals  of  the  time,  it  is  important.  It  contains  some  telling 
satire  on  the  Puritans,  even  those  of  New  England,  but  its 
songs  are  of  slight  value. 

The  numerous  books  of  drolleries,  such  as  the  Windsor, 
the  Epsom,,  the  Norfolk  Drolleries,  may  be  said  to  culminate 
in  Westminster  Drolleries,  published  in  two  parts  in  1671 
and  1672.^    The  tone  of  the  whole  collection  is  struck  by  the 

IP.  20.  This  ballad  may  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  J.  W.  Ebs- 
worth's  reprint  of  W eatminster  Drolleries.  D'Urfey  included  it  in  his 
Pills  to  Purge  Melancholy. 

2  Reprinted  by  J.  W.  Ebsworth,  Boston,  England,  1875. 

3  Reprinted  by  Ebsworth,  1875. 


SS2  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

opening  song,  ascribed  to  Charles  II : 

"  I  pass  all  my  hours  in  a  shady  old  grove, 
And  I  live  not  a  day  that  I  see  not  my  love: 
I  survey  every  walk  now  my  Phillis  is  gone. 
And  sigh  when  I  think  we  were  there  all  alone. 

O  then,  'tis  O  then,  I  think  there's  no  such  Hell, 

Like  loving,  like  loving  too  well."^ 

The  diiference  between  the  spirit  of  the  Restoration  and  the 
spirit  of  the  age  of  the  Puritan  revolution  may  be  easily 
measured  by  comparing  this  gay  trifle  with  the  rugged  lines 
written  by  the  Royal  Martyr  when  a  prisoner  at  Carisbroke 
castle.  In  all  these  books  there  is  little  art ;  at  the  best  the 
metres  please  by  their  sprightly,  tripping  pace.  We  must 
never  look  for  thought  or  emotion  in  songs  whose  value  con- 
sists in  a  lively  lilt,  indeed  some  of  the  best  writing  is  found 
in  burlesques,  such  as  The  Hunting  of  the  Gods,  whose  meas- 
ure recalls  Father  Front's  stanzas : 

"  Songs  of  shepherds,  and  rustical  roundelays. 
Formed  of  fancies,  and  whistled  on  reeds ; 
Sung  to  solace  young  nymphs  upon  holidays. 
Are  too  unworthy  for  wonderful  deeds. 
Phooebus  ingenious. 
Or  winged  Cylenius 
His  lofty  genius 

May  seem  to  declare. 
In  verse  better  coined. 
And  voice  more  refined. 
How  states  devined 

Once  hunted  the  hare."^ 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  go  over  the  whole  list  of  song  books, 
for  our  selections  show  them  at  their  best.  In  New  Court 
Songs  and  Poems  by  R.  V.  Gent,  there  is  one  lyric,  entitled 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  11. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  64. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  SSS 

Snow,  worthy  of  notice.  It  is  a  strikingly  modern  poem  in 
the  metre  of  Gray's  Elegy: 

"  See  how  the  feathered  blossoms  through  the  air, 
Traverse  a  thousand  various  paths,  to  find 
On  the  impurer  earth  a  place  that's  fair, 

Courting  the  conduct  of  each  faithless  wind  !"^ 

but  we  have  outgrown  these  songs  on  constancy  and  uncon- 
stancy,  all  written  on  the  same  model,  smooth  and  graceful 
yet  without  a  single  bold  idea  or  splendid  phrase.  The 
lighter  the  thought,  the  better  the  lyric  is  the  rule  for  these 
books.  There  is  no  personality  behind  these  poems ;  they 
are  written  around  a  few  conventional  bouts  rimes — flames, 
darts,  woes,  hearts ;  traitor,  change,  vows,  range — it  is 
generally  unnecessary  to  read  more  than  the  end  rhymes. 
In  the  preface  to  Methmks  the  Poor  Town  has  been  troubled 
too  long,  or  A  Collection  of  all  the  New  Songs  that  are  gen- 
erally Sung,  either  at  the  Court  or  Theatre  (1673),  the 
compiler  has  a  significant  statement.  "What  I  design  is  to 
bring  that  ridiculous  way  of  printing  songs  out  of  fashion; 
for  if  a  song  is  good,  why  should  it  be  printed;  if  it  be,  in 
being  so  it  is  doubly  spoiled  [by  changes  and  misprints]  and 
even  the  name  of  being  in  print,  makes  it  become  ridiculous 
to  that  degree  that  you  will  hardly  hear  a  printed  song  but 
in  an  Ale-house."  This  criticism  is  aimed  at  the  songs  pub- 
lished in  single  sheets ;  many  of  them  were  the  worst  doggerel, 
but  reading  this  very  collection  makes  us  hope  that  the  good 
songs  were  not  printed,  and  that  the  age  had  something 
better.  Even  such  important  books  as  Playford's  Theatre 
of  Music  or  a  Choice  collection  of  the  newest  and  best  songs 
swng  at  the  Court  and  Public  theatres.  Books  I-IV  (1685- 
1687),  and  his  Banquet  of  Music  (1688)  have  little  that  is 
new  to  ofi^er  us. 

iSee  G.  Ellis,  Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Poets,  4th  ed.,  London, 
1811,  vol.  Ill,  p.  403. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

These  song  collections  culminated  in  the  writings  of 
Thomas  D'Urfey  (1653-1723).  Of  French  descent,  possess- 
ing much  of  the  Gallic  temperament,  his  success  was  in 
large  measure  a  purely  personal  one,  for  he  was  not  only  a 
poet  and  composer,  but  he  sang  his  compositions  with  great 
effect.  He  tells  us  that  he  had  sung  "before  their  Majesties 
King  Charles  the  Second,  King  James,  King  William, 
Queen  Mary,  Queen  Anne,  and  Prince  George" — he  had  a 
repertoire  that  suited  all  tastes ! — and  that  he  never  went 
off  "without  happy  and  commendable  approbation."  He 
prided  himself  that  he  could  compose  appropriate  melodies 
for  any  verses,  no  matter  how  difficult  the  metre,  and  that 
he  had  set  to  music  many  old  songs  whose  rhythm  would 
have  puzzled  the  most  skillful  musician.  "I  must  presume 
to  say,  scarce  any  other  man  could  have  performed  the  like, 
my  double  genius  for  poetry  and  music  giving  me  still  that 
ability  which  others  might  perhaps  want."'  It  is  said  that 
he  wrote  one  of  his  own  songs  in  a  most  irregular  metre  to 
annoy  Purcell,  who  was  to  furnish  the  music  for  it.^ 

As  a  poet,  D'Urfey  has  two  styles — he  either  cultivates 
the  high  Pindaric  mood  and  loves  a  proudly  swelling  phrase, 
or,  more  frequently,  writes  a  gay  love  song  or  a  drinking 
catch  in  the  most  familiar  tone,  often  far  too  familiar.  His 
patriotic  songs  belong  to  his  most  formal  attempts  at  verse 
making;  Charles  or  George  is  invoked  as  "Great  Caesar," 
while  the  Muse,  always  in  evidence,  does  her  best  to  appear 
majestic : 

"  As  far  as  the  glittering  God  of  day 
Extends  his  radiant  light, 
Old  Britain  her  glory  will  display, 
In  every  action  bright."^ 

1  See  the  dedication  to  D'Urfey's  Wit  and  Mirth,  or  Pills  to  Purge 
Melancholy,  1719-30. 

2  "One  long  Whitsun  holiday,"  vol.  I,  p.  39. 

3  Vol.  I,  p.  327. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC 

His  lighter  mood  is  hi3  best  one.  The  first  two  volumes  of 
the  1719  edition  of  his  Pills  to  Purge  Melancholy  contain 
his  own  poems ;  but  few  ot  them  have  lived,  yet  his  "  'Twas 
within  a  furlong  of  Edinboroi'ofh  town,"  greatly  revised,  is 
one  of  the  most  popular  of  Scottish  songs,  and  he  has  given 
several  hints  to  Burns.^  Doubtless  he  would  have  agreed 
with  Moore's  wish  that  his  songs  should  never  be  read  but 
always  sung,  and  as  we  turn  the  pages  of  his  book  we  realize 
that  most  of  its  attraction  has  gone  forever.  Despite  his 
obvious  faults,  D'Urfey  must  have  been  an  interesting  per- 
son ;  Addison,  the  moralist,  goes  out  of  his  way  to  speak  a 
good  word  for  him.  His  song  book  can  never  be  reprinted ; 
his  poems  rarely  appear  in  anthologies,  and  he  is  hardly 
more  than  a  name  to  readers  of  English  verse.  We  take 
leave  of  him  with  one  of  his  freshest  lyrics : 


"  Bright  was  the  morning,  cool  was  the  air, 

Serene  was  all  the  sky; 
When  on  the  waves  I  left  my  dear. 

The  center  of  my  joy: 
Heaven  and  nature  smihng  were, 

And  nothing  sad  but  I. 

"  Each  rosy  field  did  odours  spread, 

All  fragrant  was  the  shore ; 
Each  river  God  rose  from  his  bed. 

And  sighed  and  owned  her  power: 
Curling  their  waves  they  decked  their  heads, 

As  proud  of  what  they  bore."^ 

This  is  not  an  inspired  production,  yet  it  comes  from  some- 
thing more  than  a  "Jockey  Muse,"  to  quote  Prior's  con- 
temptuous reference  to  D'Urfey. 

iVol.  I,  p.  283. 
2  Vol.  I,  p.  261. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 


With  this  writer,  we  have  come  to  the  days  of  Queen  Anne. 
Never  was  there  a  time  in  E^iigland  when  letters  were  more 
highly  honored  and  yet  tLis  very  period  is  one  of  the  most 
barren  epochs  in  the  ijistory  of  the  lyric.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  another  age  can  show  such  a  galaxy  of  writers  in- 
capable of  composing  the  song  that  "from  the  soul  speaks 
instant  to  the  soul."  A  pessimist  would  have  declared  that 
as  the  Elizabethan  verse  drama  had  passed  away,  so  the 
lyric  was  fated  to  disappear,  for  the  songs  of  this  genera- 
tion bear  much  the  same  relation  to  the  lyrics  of  Campion 
and  Shakespeare  that  Addison's  Cato  does  to  Hamlet  or 
Othello. 

The  greatest  personality  between  Milton  and  Byron  is 
Jonathan  Swift  (1667-1745).  He  is  the  bloodhound  of  our 
literature,  delighting  to  track  down  offending  humanity ; 
life  offers  no  illusions  to  him  and  the  manifest  beauty  in  the 
world  is  hidden  from  his  eyes.  We  can  not  expect  lyrics  from 
such  a  nature ;  the  three  volumes  of  his  poems  contain  chiefly 
political  and  social  satires.  He  wrote  a  few  poor  songs  and 
early  in  his  career  tried  the  Pindaric  ode.  He  showed  to 
Dryden  the  one  he  had  composed  on  the  Athenian  Society, 
and  was  told,  "Cousin  Swift,  you  will  never  be  a  poet," a  frank 
criticism  which  he  could  not  forgive.  According  to  Dr. 
Johnson,  this  rebuff  was  the  cause  of  the  satirical  passages 
Swift  aimed  at  Dryden. 

From  Richard  Steele  (1672-1729)  we  expect  better 
things.  He  had  traits  of  character  that  his  more  famous 
contemporaries  did  not  possess ;  his  nature  was  impulsive 
and  generous,  sentimental  and  romantic,  and  the  emotions 
that  swayed  him  were  far  removed  from  the  sceva  indignatio 
of  the  satirists.  He  was  the  one  writer  of  his  time  who 
idealized  woman :  his  letters  to  his  wife  have  many  a  line 
that  might  well  be  the  text  of  a  love  lyric,  and  he  should 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  SS7 

have  composed  songs,  neither  profound  nor  finely  wrought, 
but  graceful  and  appealing.  The  few  he  has  left  are  with- 
out importance. 

Joseph  Addison  (1672-1719)  started  his  literary  career 
and  gained  his  reputation  as  a  poet.  His  Letter  from  Italy 
and  the  fortune-bringing  Campaign  have  taken  their  place 
in  that  all-embracing  collection  of  poems  that  are  mentioned 
with  respect  but  never  read.  These  two  productions,  of 
course,  are  not  lyrical,  but  his  Song  for  St.  Cecelia's  Day 
and  his  opera  Rosamund  come  within  our  field.  The  first 
is  a  typical  and  hence  a  mediocre  Pindaric  ode ;  the  opera 
is  such  a  work  as  a  precocious  schoolboy  might  write,  and 
it  would  be  unjust  to  his  memory  to  quote  its  songs.  As  yet 
Addison  had  not  expressed  in  verse  his  strongest  feelings, 
but  towards  the  close  of  the  Spectator  series,  among  the 
Saturday  numbers  in  which  religious  topics  were  often  dis- 
cussed, he  published  five  hymns  .^  These  are  among  the  most 
personal,  the  most  emotional  of  lyrics.  With  Pope  and 
Swift,  Addison  was  a  satirist,  but  unlike  them,  he  was  a 
kindly  one.  He  had  been  brought  up  in  a  Deanery  and  was 
destined  for  the  church;  of  all  the  Queen  Anne  wits,  he  was 
best  adapted  to  continue  the  traditions  of  the  religious  lyric. 
These  hymns,  unconventional  and  free  from  Pindaric 
strokes,  are  the  sincere  and  fervent  expression  of  a  pure 
nature  deeply  moved;  they  show  a  strength  of  feeling 
absent  from  his  earher  poems  and  a  finer  and  simpler  style. 
He  had  read  to  good  advantage  the  old  ballads  and  it  may 
not  be  fanciful  to  detect  in  these  lyrics  something  of  their 
influence — ^not  in  "The  spacious  firmament  on  high,"  which 
has  many  touches  of  Queen  Anne  diction — ^but  in  the  simpler 
measures  of  "When  all  thy  mercies"  or  "How  are  thy  ser- 
vants blessed."  How  modern  seem  those  stanzas  which  tell 
of  his  escape  while  travelling  in  Italy : 

1  Spectators,  Nos.  441,  453,  465,  489,  513. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  In  foreign  realms,  and  lands  remote, 
Supported  by  thy  care. 
Through  burning  climes  I  passed  unhurt, 
And  breathed  in  tainted  air. 

"  For  though  in  dreadful  whirls  we  hung. 
High  on  the  broken  wave, 
I  knew  thou  wert  not  slow  to  hear. 
Nor  impotent  to  save. 

"  The  storm  was  laid,  the  wind  retired 
Obedient  to  thy  will; 
The  sea  that  roared  at  thy  command. 
At  thy  command  was  still."' 

It  is  little  wonder  that  Robert  Burns,  reading  these  verses 
when  a  boy,  recognized  their  emotional  force  and  saw  a  new 
world  in  poetry.  For  more  hymns  such  as  these  we  would 
have  spared  willingly  many  Spectator  papers. 

There  is  the  greatest  possible  contrast  between  the  hymns 
of  Addison  and  the  light  verse  of  Matthew  Prior  (1664- 
1721).  Employed  in  his  uncle's  wine  house,  he  attracted 
the  favorable  attention  of  the  Earl  of  Dorset  by  turning 
into  English  verse  an  ode  of  Horace,  and  it  was  fitting  that 
this  slight  incident  decided  the  career  of  one  whose  poetry 
was  so  Horatian  in  tone.  Dorset  sent  the  lad  to  West- 
minster school,  whence  he  proceeded  to  Cambridge.  Shortly- 
after  leaving  the  university  he  was  appointed  secretary  to 
the  English  ambassador  at  The  Hague;  he  was  ambassador 
at  Paris  when  Queen  Anne  died,  and  on  the  accession  of 
George  I  was  confined  in  the  Tower  for  nearly  two  years. 
He  was  charged  with  treason,  but  his  guilt  consisted  in  being 
a  prominent  Tory.  On  his  release  he  published  his  poems 
and  gained  a  small  fortune  with  which  he  bought  a  country 
estate,  Down-Hall.     He  lived  to  enjoy  it  but  a  few  months. 

There  are  not  many  poets  whose  appeal  is  so  instant  as 

1  No.  489. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC 

Prior's,  for  he  had  the  rare  art  of  putting  himself  at  once 
in  the  most  friendly  relations  with  the  reader.  He  has 
drawn  his  own  portrait  in  two  poems,  The  Secretary  and 
For  my  own  Monument,  and  they  are  not  formal  engrav- 
ings of  the  courtier  in  his  periwig,  but  of  the  wit  in  his 
dressing  gown.     His  disposition  is  summed  up  in  two  verses : 

"  In  public  employments  industrious  and  grave. 

And  alone  with  his  friends.  Lord,  how  merry  was  he !"' 

and  as  the  reader  is  his  friend,  he  finds  him  lively,  witty,  and 
charmingly  humorous.  Affecting  in  his  lyrics  a  light- 
hearted  tone,  disdaining  deep  considerations  on  humanity 
at  large,  he  is  nevertheless  a  shrewd  observer  with  a  well- 
defined  philosophy  of  life.  He  agreed  essentially  with  Swift 
that  happiness  was  the  state  of  being  perpetually  deceived, 
yet  he  accepted  this  view  of  the  world  quite  calmly,  for  he 
had  nothing  of  Swift's  bitterness  of  spirit.  If,  as  Gay 
wrote,  "life  is  a  jest  and  all  things  show  it,"  Prior,  as  a 
humorist,  was  prepared  to  enjoy  it: 

"  If  we  see  right,  we  see  our  woes: 

Then  what  avails  it  to  have  eyes  ? 
From  ignorance  our  comfort  flows: 
The  only  wretched  are  the  wise."^ 

Accept  Fate,  be  not  over-curious,  enjoy  the  passing  moment, 
is  his  rule  of  life.  There  is  no  mystery  or  romance  in  such 
a  nature ;  but  at  times  we  tire  of 

"  those  merry  blades 
That  frisk  it  under  Pindus'  shades. 
In  noble  songs,  and  lofty  odes. 
They  tread  on  stars,  and  talk  with  gods."' 

1  A.  R.  Waller,  Prior,  Dialogues  of  the  Dead  and  other  works  in  prose 
and  verse,  Cambridge,  1907,  p.  130. 

2  A.  R.  Waller,  Prior,  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,  Cambridge,  1905, 
p.  22. 

3  P.  135. 


S40  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

From  the  over-seriousness  of  modern  writing,  it  is  a  relief 
to  turn  to  Prior. 

As  a  lyric  poet,  he  too  essayed  the  Pindaric  ode.  We 
wonder  by  what  process  of  reasoning  a  man  of  his  wit  could 
persuade  himself  that  these  odes  had  even  dignity,  to  say 
nothing  of  sublimity.  He  parodied  most  effectively  Boileau's 
Ode  sur  la  Prise  de  Namur,  but  many  of  his  own  stanzas 
could  have  been  ridiculed  with  equal  justice.  Henry  and 
Emma,  his  grandiloquent  version  of  The  Nutbrown  Maid, 
seems  a  mere  burlesque  on  that  lyrical  debat.  To  read  it  is 
to  perceive  how  thoroughly  the  Pindaric  odes  had  perverted 
the  taste  of  the  day  and  how  difficult  was  the  task  to  restore 
to  the  lyric  its  old  simplicity,  to  replace  the  empty  phrases 
of  false  art  by  the  language  of  emotion.  Austin  Dobson 
performed  one  of  the  truest  services  ever  rendered  a  poet 
when,  in  his  admirable  Selections  from  Prior,  he  separated 
the  gold  from  the  dross. 

Prior's  finest  lyrics  are  not  in  the  series  of  twenty-four 
songs  set  by  various  composers ;  they  are  the  verses  he  made 
for  his  own  pleasure  as  he  considered  the  comedy  of  love. 
Women  for  him  were  but  an  agreeable  diversion ;  he  watched 
them  as  one  regards  with  interest  an  amusing  child,  and  in 
his  most  delightful  lines  he  assumes  towards  them  the  tone 
of  an  over-indulgent  parent: 

"  Dear  Chloej  how  blubbered  is  that  pretty  face! 

Thy  cheek  all  on  fire,  and  thy  hair  all  uncurled: 
Prithee  quit  this  caprice;  and  (as  old  Falstafi"  says) 
Let  us  e'en  talk  a  little  like  folks  of  this  world. 

"  What  I  speak,  my  fair  Chloe,  and  what  I  write,  shows 
The  difference  there  is  between  nature  and  art: 
I  court  others  in  verse;  but  I  love  thee  in  prose: 

And  they  have  my  whimsies ;  but  thou  hast  my  heart."^ 

IP.  77. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  S^ 

But  for  Stella,  Swift  would  have  despised  all  womankind, 
and  the  scornful  frankness  of  his  letter  to  a  young  lady  on 
the  eve  of  her  marriage  is  simply  astounding.  Not  even 
lago  surpassed  Pope  in  his  brutal  phrase,  "For  every  woman 
is  at  heart  a  rake."  If  Prior  is  free  from  this  attitude  of 
mind,  he  is  equally  far  removed  from  the  beauty  worship  of 
the  Elizabethans,  for  he  is  ever  delighted  to  observe  the 
inconsistencies  of  woman. 

"  Be  to  her  virtues  very  kind, 
Be  to  her  faults  a  little  blind/' 

is  his  motto.  Though  if,  as  we  stated,  he  regarded  woman  as 
essentially  a  child,  he  admired  childhood  and  has  left  us  two 
of  the  most  tender  and  beautiful  poems  to  children  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  range  of  English  verse,  A  Letter  to  the 
Honourable  Lady  Margaret  Harley  and  To  a  Child  of 
Quality,  which  almost  deserves  Swinburne's  rhapsodical 
praise.'  Could  anything  be  more  gracious  than  the  whimsi- 
cal, affectionate  tone  of  the  courtier  of  forty  as  he  writes 
to  the  five-year-old  beauty? 

"  For  while  she  makes  her  silk-worms  beds, 
With  all  the  tender  things  I  swear. 
Whilst  all  the  house  my  passion  reads. 
In  papers  round  her  baby's  hair. 

"  She  may  receive  and  own  my  flame. 

For  tho'  the  strictest  prudes  should  know  it, 
She'll  pass  for  a  most  virtuous  dame. 
And  I  for  an  unhappy  poet. 

"  Then  too  alas !  when  she  shall  tear 

The  lines  some  younger  rival  sends, 
She'll  give  me  leave  to  write  I  fear. 
And  we  shall  still  continue  friends. 

'^Dialogues,  etc.,  pp.  131,  85. 


Sl^%  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  For  as  our  different  ages  move, 

'Tis  so  ordained,  would  fate  but  mend  it, 
That  I  shall  be  past  making  love 

When  she  begins  to  comprehend  it." 

Prior's  style  has  the  clarity  and  ease  which  we  associate 
with  the  best  writers  of  France.  Gay  tried  to  write  fables 
in  the  manner  of  La  Fontaine  and  failed;  Prior  would  have 
succeeded  completely.  The  Restoration  poets  could  assume 
the  familiar  tone,  but  in  defiance  of  the  injunction  of  Polo- 
nius,  they  were  both  familiar  and  by  all  means  vulgar.  They 
would  have  ruined  Prior's  A  Lover's  Anger  with  its  delight- 
ful beginning : 

"  As  Chloe  came  into  the  room  t'other  day, 
I  peevish  began:  'Where  so  long  could  you  stay? 
In  your  lifetime  you  never  regarded  your  hour; 
You  promised  at  two ;  and  (pray  look.  Child)  'tis  four.'  " 

or  that  gay  ballad  of  Down-Hall,  in  which  the  lively  tone, 
through  all  its  forty-three  stanzas,  never  flags.  Dobson 
observes  that  it  was  a  "favorite  with  vocalists." 

In  his  own  field,  few  poets  can  surpass  Prior.  His  humor 
does  not  depend  upon  surprise  and  consequently  we  never 
tire  of  it.  Cowper  paid  him  the  flattery  of  evident  imitation 
and  Thackeray,  himself  a  master  of  this  lighter  style,  places 
these  lyrics  "amongst  the  easiest,  the  richest,  the  most  charm- 
ingly humorous  of  English  lyrical  poems. "^ 

John  Gay  (1685-1732),  the  chief  song  writer  of  this  age, 
off^ers  but  little  material  for  discussion.  He  belonged  to  the 
set  of  Tory  wits  and  writers  who  enjoyed  his  society  but  had 
little  respect  for  him.  "In  wit,  a  man,  simplicity,  a  child," 
wrote  Pope  in  his  epitaph  on  Gay,  and  he  was  indeed  a  child 
and  very  much  of  a  spoiled  one.  He  constantly  complained 
of  his  ill  success  at  court ;  there  is  a  querulous  note  in  his 

^English  Hwmourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century;  Prior,  Oay  and 
Pope. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  S43 

■writings;  and  Pope  in  his  Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot  speaks 
bitterly  of  Gay's  neglected  merit.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he 
was  not  fitted  for  any  high  position ;  he  had  nothing  of 
Prior's  ability ;  and  he  was  only  too  content  to  live  on  the 
bounty  of  others.  The  fortune  he  gained  by  the  Beggar's 
Opera  he  threw  away  in  the  South  Sea  bubble  and  became 
largely  dependent  upon  the  hospitality  of  his  friends. 

The  lyrical  element  in  his  writings  is  a  small  one.  His 
best  known  poems,  the  Fables,  contain  but  one  conventional 
song ;  his  Shepherd's  Week  has  merely  a  burlesque  of  a  lover's 
plaint.  His  finest  song,  Sweet  William's  Farewell  to  Black- 
eyed  Susan,  a  graceful  piece  of  writing,  was  not  composed  for 
one  of  his  plays.  It  is  as  artificial  as  the  song  of  the  shep- 
herdesses in  Elizabethan  pastorals: 

"  All  in  the  Downs  the  fleet  was  moored, 
The  streamers  waving  in  the  wind. 
When  black-eyed  Susan  came  aboard. 

Oh !  where  shall  I  my  true  love  find ! 
Tell  me,  ye  jovial  sailors,  tell  me  true. 
If  my  sweet  WiUiam  sails  among  the  crew."^ 

D'Urfey's  Muse,  according  to  Gay,  rejoiced  with  Joan  and 
Hodge  over  cakes  and  ale.  Certainly  there  is  a  plebeian  tone 
to  his  songs,  yet  he  would  have  made  his  sailor  speak  more 
in  character  than  does  Gay's  Sweet  WilHam : 

"  If  to  far  India's  coast  we  sail. 

Thy  eyes  are  seen  in  diamonds  bright. 
Thy  breath  is  Afriek's  spicy  gale. 
Thy  skin  is  ivory  so  white." 

'  It  would  be  absurd  to  quarrel  with  this  lyric,  written  in  the 
spirit  of  Watteau,  because  it  is  not  realistic;  it  is  however, 
utterly  remote  from  life,  and  what  lyric  verse  needed  was 

ij.  Underbill,  The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Oay,  Muses'  Library, 
London,  1893,  vol.  II,  p.  361. 


3U  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

not  artificial  prettiness  but  some  touch  of  passion  and 
imagination. 

We  have  called  Gay  the  chief  lyrist  of  his  age  because  of 
the  great  vogue  of  his  songs  in  The  Beggar's  Opera.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  not  one  of  them  is  as  well  written  as  "  'Twas 
when  the  seas  were  roaring"  from  his  The  what  d'ye  call  it; 
but  they  caught  the  fancy,  were  sung  everywhere,  and  made 
his  burlesque  the  greatest  success  the  English  stage  had 
seen.  The  song  that  saved  the  performance  the  first  night 
is  a  fair  example  of  all  the  lyrics : 

"  Oh,  ponder  well !  be  not  severe ; 
So  save  a  wretched  wife; 
For  on  the  rope  that  hangs  my  dear, 
Depends  poor  Polly's  life." 

This  is  hardly  a  work  of  genius,  and  the  best  known  song  is 
little  better: 

"  How  happy  could  I  be  with  either, 

Were  t'other  dear  charmer  away; 
But  while  thus  you  teaze  me  together, 
To  neither  a  word  will  I  say; 
But  toll  de  rol."i 

Of  the  many  songs  in  this  opera  (and  we  may  include  those 
in  Polly  and  Achilles)  there  is  not  one  marked  by  fancy  or 
by  delicacy  of  rhythm ;  of  imagination  or  passion  there  is 
not  the  slightest  trace.  The  only  possible  praise  to  be  given 
them  is  that  they  are  vivacious  and  well  suited  for  music. 
They  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  songs  of  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists  that  the  pickpockets  and  women  of  the  town  who 
sing  them  bear  to  Rosalind  and  Orlando. 

We  must  mention  two  poets  because  each  of  them  wrote 
a  popular  lyric.  James  Thomson  (1700-174<8),  of  The 
Seasons,  composed  blank  verse  tragedies  in  the  Elizabethan 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  296,  305. 


THE  RESTORATION  LYRIC  3^5 

manner,  but  with  no  lyrics.  The  six  songs  in  his  Masque  of 
Alfred  are  unimportant  with  the  exception  of  the  Patriotic 
Ode  with  its  refrain: 

"  Rule,  Britannia,  rule  the  waves ; 
Britons  never  will  be  slaves." 

This  note  of  patriotism  made  the  song  famous.  Thomson  was 
not  a  lyrist,  and  as  his  best  critic  has  expressed  it,  he  lacked 
the  power  to  concentrate  in  a  single  strophe  the  energy  of 
a  passion  or  the  life  of  the  heart.^  Henry  Carey  (?-174!3), 
a  mediocre  poet  and  musician,  a  composer  of  operas  and 
burlesques,  was  a  most  voluminous  writer,  publishing  over 
two  hundred  works.  He  prided  himself  chiefly  upon  his 
musical  ability,  declaring  that  poetry  was  not  his  profession 
but  his  amusement.^  The  modem  reader  has  no  such  luck, 
for  he  can  get  but  little  amusement  from  Carey's  songs.  In 
his  best  poem,  his  famous  Sally  in  our  Alley,  he  for  once 
absolutely  succeeded.  He  tells  us  that  in  this  ballad  he 
endeavored  to  set  forth  a  "chaste  and  disinterested  passion, 
even  in  the  lowest  class  of  life."  Charmed  with  the  simplicity 
of  a  shoemaker's  prentice  and  his  sweetheart,  he  followed 
them  in  their  outing  to  the  puppet  show,  Moor-fields,  and 
the  "farthing  Pie-house,"  and  sketched  his  poem  "from 
nature."  Its  value  was  at  once  recognized;  Carey  declares 
with  a  touch  of  pride  that  though  some  ridiculed  this  study 
of  low  life,  he  was  "amply  recompensed  by  the  applause  of 
the  divine  Addison,  who  was  pleased  (more  than  once)  to 
mention  it  with  approbation."' 

When  the  greatest  poet  of  this  age  composed  a  lyric  he 
could  not  equal  the  work  of  the  lesser  lights  of  Elizabeth's 

1 L.  Morel,  James  Thomson,  Paris,  1895,  pp.  S81-587. 

2  H.  Carey,  Poems  on  several  Occasions,  third  edition,  London,  1729, 
Preface. 

'P.  128.  There  is  an  amusing  ballad  on  the  popularity  of  the 
Beggar's  Opera  on  p.  151. 


S46  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

day.  Pope's  Ode  on  Solitude,  his  Dying  Christian  to  his 
Sovl,  and  his  Deistic  hymn  are  small  contributions  to  our 
subject.  No  poet  so  gifted  has  been  more  destitute  of  lyric 
inspiration.  He  has  reflected  the  life  of  his  age  in  his  writ- 
ings and  he  reminds  us  that  the  English  lyric  had  never 
seemed  nearer  extinction.  This  poverty  of  song  is  evident 
in  the  Miscellanies.  The  fifth  edition  of  Dryden's  Miscel- 
lanies was  published  in  1727.  The  number  of  lyrics  in'the 
six  volumes  is  surprisingly  small  and  the  greater  number  are 
by  writers  of  the  former  century — Ben  Jonson,  Donne, 
Milton,  Carew,  Marvell,  Waller^ — or  are  taken  from  the 
early  Restoration  Miscellanies.  There  are  a  few  lyrics  by 
Dorset  and  Prior ;  D'Urfey  is  represented  by  his 

"  The  night  her  blackest  sables  wore, 
And  gloomy  were  the  skies," 

but  the  gleaning  is  poor.  It  was  not  necessary  for  pastorals 
to  quote  Spenser,  or  for  satires  to  reprint  Donne,  but  when 
the  age  desired  lyrics,  the  Miscellanies  published  Donne's 
songs  by  the  score. 

It  needed  a  new  generation  to  regain  the  lyric,  for  an  age 
that  sneers  is  rarely  an  age  that  sings.  The  Royal  Society, 
founded  at  the  Restoration,  hoped  to  raise  up  "a  race  of 
young  men  ....  invariably  armed  against  all  the  encroach- 
ments of  enthusiasm."  Whatever  such  a  race  might  do,  it 
certainly  could  never  write  songs.  Until  there  was  raised  up 
a  race  of  young  poets  wh,o  could  not  only  think  deeply  but 
feel  deeply  and  express  profound  emotions  in  song,  the  lyric 
Muse  could  never  re-ascend  the  heights  from  which  she  had 
been  banished.  To  show  by  what  paths  she  climbed  the  slopes 
of  Parnassus  (surely  these  classical  allusions  befit  the  Queen 
Anne  age)  must  be  the  theme  of  our  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  SEVEN 
The  Lyric  of  the  Tbansition 


We  have  now  come  to  the  beginnings  of  the  romantic 
movement.  On  the  borders  of  the  new  kingdom  of  romance 
and  song  we  meet  poets  who  explore  these  forgotten  or  un- 
discovered regions  and  yet  return  from  time  to  time  to  their 
old  haunts.  They  are  writers  of  the  transition ;  though  they 
foretell  the  future,  in  all  their  work  there  is  much  of  the 
thought  and  expression  of  the  old  school.  The  change  that 
came  over  lyric  verse  was  so  complete  that  we  may  call  it  a 
revolution,  yet  no  one  of  these  writers  led  an  open  revolt 
against  the  accepted  standards  of  taste.  There  was  no  Hugo 
in  this  movement,  no  self-constituted  or  chosen  leader,  no 
concerted  plan  of  action.  These  poets  worked  unostenta- 
tiously, even  timidly ;  alone,  they  seemed  to  accomplish  little ; 
together,  they  prepared  the  way  for  the  new  Renaissance  in 
English  verse. 

It  is  not  paradoxical  to  assert  that  the  Queen  Anne  writers 
themselves  hastened  the  change  in  taste.  As  if  by  some  in- 
exorable law,  every  poetic  school  progresses  until  it  reaches 
the  most  fitting  expression  of  its  ideals.  Until  this  is  done, 
the  school  remains ;  once  adequately  accomplished,  there  is 
nothing  to  be  added,  no  last  word  to  be  spoken,  and  men's 
minds  turn  elsewhere.  The  Restoration  and  Queen  Anne 
writers  had  brought  to  perfection  the  lyric  of  polished 
common  sense,  of  playful  satire,  of  trifling  fancy.  It  was 
needless  to  seek  to  improve  upon  Rochester  and  Sedley,  Prior 
and  Gay  in  their  own  fields,  and  accordingly  there  must  be 
a  new  lyric. 

One  of  the  first  writers  to  show  the  approaching  change 
is  William  Shenstone   (1714-1763).     The  romantic  revival 


SJ^8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

meant  a  renewal  of  song ;  more  than  half  of  Shenstone's  poems 
are  lyrical.  They  have  much  that  is  old  and  in  them  the 
pseudo-classic  diction  still  lingers.  When  he  hears  the  birds 
sing  in  the  woods,  he  "ranges  the  groves"  to  "explore  the 
science  of  the  feathered  choir."  He  does  not  listen  to  the 
nightingale,  he  "construes  its  millifluent  strain."  In  nearly 
every  page  of  his  lyrics  we  find  striking  and  amusing  ex- 
amples of  false  diction.  A  lover  of  nature,  he  continually 
talks  of  the  "hermit's  cell,"  of  "fountains,"  of  "sylvan  grots," 
the  stereotyped  phrases  of  the  day.  He  can  be  as  vague  as 
Pope  in  his  descriptions ;  "and  where  the  turf  diffused  its 
pomp  of  flowers"  presents  little  to  the  eye. 

This  then  is  the  old  manner  in  Shenstone ;  but  there  is  a 
better  side  to  his  work.  Though  he  writes  Pindarics,  and 
employs  the  measures  of  Sedley,  he  dislikes  the  accepted 
metres ;  in  his  songs  and  ballads,  there  is  but  one,  The 
Scholar's  Relapse,  written  in  the  familiar  anapests  of  Prior. 
Pope  in  his  Elegy  to  the  Memory  of  an  unfortunate  Lady 
employs  the  heroic  couplet ;  Shenstone  decides  that  this 
measure  is  apt  "to  render  the  expression  either  scanty  or 
constrained,"  and  writes  his  twenty-six  elegies  in  the  metre 
Gray  afterwards  employed.  Gray  read  Shenstone  atten- 
tively and  did  not  disdain  to  improve  upon  him : 

"  No  wild  ambition  fired  their  tranquil  breast, 

To  swell  with  empty  sounds  a  spotless  name," 
or 

"  Through  the  dim  veil  of  evening's  dusky  shade. 

Near  some  lone  fane,  or  yew's  funereal  green,"' 

have  certainly  a  familiar  sound.  Though  Shenstone  never 
approached  Gray's  melody,  many  of  his  stanzas  have  a 
graceful  movement : 

1  The  Poetical  Works  of  William  Shenstone,  Esq.,  London,  1798,  vol. 
I,  pp.  53,  13,  Elegies  xv  and  iv.  Cf.  H.  A.  Beers,  A  History  of  English 
Romanticism  in  the  XVIIl  Century,  N.  Y.,  1899,  p.  138. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  S49 

"  On  distant  heaths^  beneath  autumnal  skies. 

Pensive  I  saw  the  circling  shade  descend; 
Weary  and  faint  I  heard  the  storm  arise, 

While  the  sun  vanished  like  a  faithless  friend."'^ 

His  best  poem,  A  Pastoral  Ballad  (1743),  is  written  in  ana- 
pests  more  musical  than  anything  Prior  attempted : 

"  When  forced  the  fair  nymph  to  forego. 

What  anguish  I  felt  at  my  heart ! 
Yet  I  thought — but  it  might  not  be  so — 

'Twas  with  pain  that  she  saw  me  depart. 
She  gazed,  as  I  slowly  withdrew; 

My  path  I  could  hardly  discern; 
So  sweetly  she  bade  me  adieu, 

I  thought  that  she  bade  me  return." 

If  there  is  something  of  Prior  in  the  turn  of  the  last  verses, 
the  following  stanza  shows  more  love  for  nature  than  we  find 
in  any  of  the  poets  of  the  town : 

"  My  banks  they  are  furnished  with  bees, 

Whose  murmur  invites  one  to  sleep; 
My  grottos  are  shaded  with  trees. 

And  my  hills  are  white-over  with  sheep. 
I  seldom  have  met  with  a  loss, 

Such  health  do  my  fountains  bestow; 
My  fountains  all  bordered  with  moss, 

Where  the  hare-bells  and  violets  grow."^ 

Here  we  have  one  of  the  first  clear  indications  of  the  new 
melodies  English  song  was  to  gain.  Often  in  Shenstone's 
poetry  we  seem  to  hear  Cowley,  Sedley,  or  Prior,  but  with 
a  difference ;  it  is  as  if  one  should  take  a  familiar  air  and 
weave  about  it  new  variations. 

There  is  more  that  is  new  in  Shenstone's  mood  than  in  his 
style.  The  lyric  has  lost  its  wit,  its  gay  recklessness ;  he 
turns  to  elegies  which,  he  says,  "should  diffuse  a  pleasing 

1  Elegy  vii,  vol.  I,  p.  20. 

2  Vol.  II,  pp.  48,  49. 


350  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

melancholy."  Here  is  the  new  Muse,  the  Muse  of  low  spirits. 
Shenstone  loved  to  be  alone,  to  take  his  "plaintive  reed"  and 
seek  a  "sequestered  shade,"  when 

"  From  a  lone  tower  with  reverend  ivy  crowned. 
The  pealing  bell  awaked  a  tender  sigh."^ 

In  all  this  there  is  little  real  emotion;  he  is  but  an  amateur 
in  grief,  and  where  we  expect  to  hear  the  note  of  personal 
sorrow,  he  gives  us  moral  platitudes,  yet  the  change  from 
the  light-hearted  lyric  of  the  past  is  profoundly  significant. 
Our  quotations  have  indicated  another  characteristic  of 
Shenstone's  writings  which  was  to  assume  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  new  lyric — a  love  for  nature.  Shenstone's 
estate,  the  Leasowes,  was  renowned  for  its  artificial  garden 
which  he  created;^  in  all  the  artificiality  of  his  songs  and 
elegies  we  find  a  genuine  love  of  birds  and  flowers.  In  his 
Ode  on  Rural  Elegance,  after  talking  of  the  "sprightly  scenes 
of  mom,"  of  harvests  that  "gild  the  plain,"  we  come  upon 
these  verses  : 

"  Lo !  not  an  hedge-row  hawthorn  blows. 

Or  humble  hare-bell  paints  the  plain, 
Or  valley  winds,  or  fountain  flows, 

Or  purple  heath  is  tinged  in  vain; 
For  such  the  rivers  dash  their  foaming  tides. 
The  mountain  swells,  the  dale  subsides. 
E'en  thriftless  furze  detains  the  wandering  sight. 
And  the  rough  barren  rock  grows  pregnant  with  delight."' 

Shenstone  is  forgotten  to-day,  yet  his  Pastoral  Ballad  has 
lost  none  of  its  freshness.  Though  his  elegies  are  unevenly 
written  and  weak  in  thought,  they  deserve  remembrance,  for 
they  show  the  lyric  in  the  process  of  transmutation. 

Thomas  Gray  (1716-1771)  was  a  student  and  a  recluse. 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  50,  Elegy  xv. 

2  Cf.  Beers,  op.  cit.,  pp.  131-137. 

3  Vol.  I,  p.  143. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  36 1 

Shy,  sensitive,  given  to  fits  of  depression  ("Low  spirits  are 
my  true  and  faithful  companions,"  he  writes),  he  was  not 
the  man  to  institute  a  propaganda  against  the  Augustans, 
yet  he  is  a  founder  of  the  new  poetry.^  He  wrote  with  the 
most  scrupulous  taste,  revising,  rejecting,  forever  polishing, 
never  satisfied;  his  Cambridge  fellowship  supplied  his  few 
wants  and  he  felt  under  no  necessity  to  publish.  Such  self- 
critical  natures  produce  little  and  Gray  had  indeed  what 
William  Watson  aptly  terms  a  "frugal  note."  His  poetic 
development  was  impeded  by  his  absorption  in  many  fields 
of  study,  for  he  never  gave  himself  wholly  to  his  art.  He  was 
a  linguist  with  a  predilection  for  French ;  a  keen  reader  and 
critic  of  English  literature;  a  botanist;  a  student  of  archi- 
tecture; and  a  finished  Greek  scholar.  Shortly  before  his 
death,  Cambridge  University,  where  he  lived  and  died,  elected 
him  professor  of  Modern  History. 

Gray's  earliest  lyrics  have  a  Queen  Anne  flavor.  His  Ode 
on  the  Death  of  a  favourite  Cat  is  quite  in  the  style  of 
Prior:  the  description  of  the  unfortunate  Selima  is  as  neatly 
drawn  as  Pope's  pictures  in  the  Rape  of  the  Lock.  Gray 
actually  began  a  didactic  poem  in  the  manner  of  Pope,  The 
Alliance  of  Education  and  Government,  but  it  Is  significant 
of  his  change  in  taste  that  he  never  finished  it.  His  three 
earliest  odes.  On  the  Spring,  On  a  distant  prospect  of  Eton 
College,  and  the  Hymn  to  Adversity,  are  all  in  the  old  man- 
ner. Spring  offers  us  but  the  customary  vague  description, 
with  the  conventional  "zephyrs"  and  the  "Hours,  fair  Venus' 
train,"  together  with  much  commonplace  moralizing: 

"  How  vain  the  ardour  of  the  Crowd, 
How  low,  how  little  are  the  Proud, 
How  indigent  the  Great!" 

1  See  W.  L.  Phelps,  Selections  from  the  Poetry  and  Prose  of  Thomas 
Oray,  Boston,  1894,  p.  62.  The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Romantic 
Movement,  Boston,  1893,  by  the  same  author  should  be  consulted  for 
this  chapter. 


S52  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

In  the  ode  a  fly  terms  the  poet  "poor  moralist" ;  the  sting  is 
deserved.  In  one  respect  the  poem  is  unconventional;  it  is 
a  spring  song,  yet  saturated  with  melancholy. 

His  Eton  ode  is  Addison's  Vision  of  Mirzah  turned  into 
verse.  Looking  at  a  band  of  vigorous  English  schoolboys 
at  their  sports  (they  "urge  the  flying  ball")  he  sees  in  his 
mind's  eye  "black  Misfortune's  baleful  train" — Anger,  Fear, 
Jealousy,  Care — waiting  in  ambush  for  them. 

"  Alas,  regardless  of  their  doom, 
The  little  victims  play  !" 

Gray  has  not  yet  learned  to  prepare  the  reader  for  his 
mournful  mood ;  the  pessimism  does  not  lay  hold  on  us ;  and 
the  poem  lives  chiefly  in  its  concluding  epigram,  in  the  style 
of  Pope  or  Congreve,  "Where  ignorance  is  bliss,  'tis  folly 
to  be  wise."  The  little  known  Hymn  to  Adversity,  despite 
its  personifications  and  its  Miltonic  borrowings,  is  the  best 
of  the  three  poems.  Dimly  suggesting  Wordsworth's  Ode  to 
Duty,  it  has  an  impressiveness  that  the  other  poems  lack; 
there  is  much  more  than  rhetoric  in  it. 

Had  Gray  written  but  these  poems,  he  would  be  forgotten 
or  at  the  best  remembered  for  a  phrase  or  two.  His  Pindaric 
odes  are  a  great  advance,  but  they  too  have  not  worn  well ; 
we  regard  them  with  respect  but  we  do  not  reread  them  for 
sheer  pleasure.  They  are  deliberate  attempts  on  his  part 
to  lead  the  Muse  of  lyric  verse  up  the  heights  of  Parnassus ; 
their  defect  is  that  they  are  too  deliberate.  Gray's  nature 
lacked  enthusiasm,  indeed  he  scorned  it,  and  he  is  never  with 
Spenser 

"  Rapt  with  the  rage  of  his  own  ravished  thoughts.'' 

The  effects  are  too  nicely  calculated;  the  curtain  rises  too 
soon  and  we  see  the  scenery  pulled  upon  the  stage.  As  a 
lover  qi  Greek  poetry,  he  knew  the  greatness  of  Pindar  and 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  SBS 

imitates  afar  off  the  stanzaic  structure  of  his  odes.  His 
metrical  system,  planned  with  the  greatest  care,  does  not 
impress  the  reader  who  rarely  stops  to  notice  the  agreement 
of  strophe  with  strophe,  epode  with  epode.  The  form  is  half 
the  charm  of  the  Elegy;  the  odes  gain  little  or  nothing  from 
their  metrical  scheme. 

In  the  Progress  of  Poesy  the  reader  is  taken  upon  a  high 
mountain  and  surveys  the  world;  he  sees  the  Muse  deserting 
Greece  for  Italy,  Italy  for  England,  and  witnesses  a 
triumphal  march  of  England's  greatest  singers.  By  the 
mere  vastness  of  the  view  Gray  hopes  to  thrill  the  reader,  but 
a  great  subject  does  not  necessarily  awake  emotion  and  the 
chances  are  that  a  writer  will  approach  nearer  the  sublime 
in  a  poem  upon  a  single  star  rather  than  in  an  ode  on  the 
solar  system.  Though  there  are  eloquent  passages,  the 
whole  poem  seems  too  remote  from  life  and  it  is  difficult  to 
understand  how  Lowell  could  assert  that  "The  Progress  of 
Poesy  overflies  all  other  English  lyrics  hke  an  eagle." 

The  Bard,  an  ode  which  reflects  Gray's  interest  in  Welsh 
poetry,  is  not  only  more  interesting  but  more  significant. 
Here,  in  the  spirit  of  Scott,  is  portrayed  the  aged  minstrel, 
the  last  of  his  race,  standing 

"  On  a  rock,  whose  haughty  brow 
Frowns  o'er  old  Conway's  foaming  flood," 

chanting  his  imprecations  on  the  English  invaders  below 
him.  He  sees  "On  yonder  cliff^s,  a  griesly  band,"  his  brethren, 
the  murdered  poets,  who  weave  with  their  curses  the  "wind- 
ing sheet  of  Edward's  race."  After  a  vision  of  the  glories 
of  England  under  the  Tudors,  the  Bard  casts  himself  down 
the  cliff: 

"  He  spoke,  and  headlong  from  the  mountain's  height 
Deep  in  the  roaring  tide  he  plunged  to  endless  night." 


354-  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

This  ode,  more  spirited,  more  imaginative,  more  musical  than 
the  Progress  of  Poesy,  is  one  of  the  first  indications  of  the 
rediscovery  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  reception  these  odes  received. 
The  public  complained  of  their  obscurity.  "One  very  great 
man,"  writes  Gray,  "had  read  them  seven  or  eight  times," 
and  has  "not  above  thirty  questions  to  ask,"  while  a  "lady 
of  quality  who  is  a  great  reader"  never  suspected  that 
"Nature's  Darling"  by  "lucid  Avon"  referred  to  Shakes- 
peare or  that  a  more  detailed  account  of  a  poet  who  saw  the 
secrets  of  the  abyss  and  the  glories  of  heaven 

"  but  blasted  with  excess  of  light, 
Closed  his  eyes  in  endless  night," 

was  a  description  of  Milton  !^  There  is  not  in  either  poem  a 
single  subtle  thought  and  for  English  readers,  the  historical 
allusions  can  hardly  be  considered  recondite.  The  trouble 
lay  in  the  fact  that  for  half  a  century  the  English  lyric,  if 
we  except  a  few  odes  by  Cowley  and  Dryden,  had  not  risen 
above  a  superficial  expression  of  commonplace  thought  and 
feeling. 

The  Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Churchyard  appeared 
anonymously  in  1751 ;  its  first  stanzas  had  been  written  nine 
years  before  and  no  poem  of  Gray's  had  been  revised  with 
more  care.  It  became  popular  at  once.  Though  modern  his- 
torical criticism  has  destroyed  many  cherished  myths,  it  has 
confirmed  the  well-known  incident  of  Wolfe's  quoting  with 
admiration  "The  boast  of  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  power," 
the  night  before  he  fell  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham.  This  was 
in  1754 ;  in  three  years  the  poem  had  become  an  accepted 
classic. 

The  music  of  the  Elegy  is  more  remarkable  than  its 
thought.  As  Lowell  expressed  it,  Gray's  originality  lay  in 
his  use  of  the  vowels: 

1  Phelps,  Thomas  Oray,  p.  75. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  365 

"  The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day." 

In  ten  syllables  we  have  nine  different  vowel  sounds  and  the 
modulation  in  stanza  after  stanza  is  exquisite.  In  Cynthia, 
an  interminable  poem  in  praise  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  Raleigh 
had  employed  the  same  metre : 

"  These  were  those  marvellous  perfections, 

The  parents  of  my  sorrow  and  my  envy, 
Most  deathful  and  most  violent  infections ; 
These  be  the  tyrants  that  in  fetters  tie."^ 

The  crudeness  of  such  lines  throws  in  relief  Gray's  achieve- 
ment. He  attempts  no  Pindaric  flights ;  it  is  the  sober  and 
solemn  expression  of  a  quiet  and  resigned  melancholy.  There 
is  no  real  pessimism  here,  no  revolt  at  the  injustice  of  life; 
his  nature  would  have  been  incapable  of  expressing  it,  his 
style  could  not  have  risen  to  it.  The  theme  of  the  Elegy  and 
its  dehberate  music  were  wonderfully  suited  to  Gray's  char- 
acter and  to  the  taste  of  the  age.  Richardson's  Clarissa 
Harlowe,  over  which  English  readers  loved  to  weep,  had 
appeared  but  three  years  before. 

Turning  to  the  substance  of  the  Elegy,  we  notice  a  sym- 
pathy for  the  peasant  which  the  lyric  had  not  hitherto  ex- 
pressed; the  Damons  of  Enghsh  poetry  had  been  mere  lay 
figures  and  laments  at  their  fate  had  no  significance.  Gray 
finds  pathos  in  the  uneventful  lives  of  ignorant  men,  in 
their  mouldering  graves  of  turf,  in  their  artless  epitaphs 
spelt  by  the  unlettered  Muse.  The  lyric  has  come  closer  to 
life.  If  the  musical,  emotional,  and  we  may  add  the  pictorial 
quality  of  the  Elegy  are  new  and  altogether  admirable,  we 
can  not  say  as  much  of  the  thought.  Editors  have  shown 
a  misplaced  ingenuity  in  detecting  parallels  for  nearly  every 
line,  but  it  needed  little  research  to  show  that  his  apothegms 
are  often  unoriginal  in  the  extreme,  at  times  reminding  us 

1  J.  Hannah,  Poems  of  Raleigh,  Wotton,  etc.,  p.  39. 


356  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

of  the  maxims  of  Queen  Anne  verse.  There  is,  however,  this 
all-important  difference  in  the  Elegy:  "its  moral  is  suffused 
with  emotion  and  expressed  concretely."  The  Augustans 
delivered  their  moral  sentences  as  a  series  of  cold,  abstract 
propositions,  as  Pope  gives  us  his  critical  maxims  in  the 
Essay  on  Criticism.  Gray  prepares  us  for  his  thought  pre- 
cisely as  Hamlet  takes  us  to  the  edge  of  the  grave  when  he 
tells  us  to  what  base  uses  we  may  return. 

To  the  average  reader  the  Elegy  loses  its  effectiveness  as 
it  draws  to  its  close;  Gray  writes  his  own  epitaph,  yet  there 
is  httle  direct  self-revelation  in  the  poem.  In  this  respect  it 
is  interesting  to  compare  it  with  Lamartine's  Le  Lac  and 
Hugo's  Tristesse  d'Olympio,  two  of  the  most  beautiful  ex- 
amples of  French  elegy.  Lamartine's  poem  resembles  Gray's 
in  its  harmony ;  without  adopting  Gray's  metre,  he  has  much 
of  his  music.  His  thought  is  quite  different  from  the  English 
poet's,  for  the  melancholy  that  oppresses  him  comes  from  a 
sense  of  personal  loss.  "Time's  winged  chariot"  has  passed 
swiftly  by  and  he  is  left  but  the  memory  of  his  love.  Hugo's 
elegy  is  a  finer  piece  of  work.  The  lover,  revisiting  alone 
his  old  trysting-places,  finds  that  all  is  changed ;  even  nature 
is  not  the  same,  for  the  tree  whose  bark  they  carved  has  been 
cut  down  and  their  woodland  paths  have  been  turned  into 
highways : 

"  Que  peu  de  temps  suffit  pour  changer  toutes  choses ! 
Nature  au  front  serein,  comma  vous  oubliez  ! 
Et  comme  vous  brisez  dans  vos  metamorphoses 
Les  fils  mysterieux  ou  nos  coeurs  sent  lies !" 

The  French  poets  not  only  are  more  personal  but  they  are 
more  frank  in  their  expression  of  grief ;  la  grande  passion 
never  laid  hold  on  Gray. 

It  is  not  in  the  Elegy  but  in  the  one  sonnet  Gray  wrote, 
on  the  death  of  Richard  W'est,  that  we  find  his  personal 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  357 

emotions  most  clearly  expressed.  In  spite  of  its  traces  of 
Queen  Anne  diction,  too  severely  criticised  by  Wordsworth, 
the  poem  is  thoroughly  modem  in  its  outspoken  expression 
of  grief;  the  lyric  is  regaining  its  subjective  quality.  It  is 
significant  that  Gi;uy  should  have  chosen  for  this  lament  the 
long  neglected  sonnet  form;  once  more  he  points  the  way  to 
the  new  lyric. 

William  Collins  (1721-1759)  was  as  fastidious  a  writer 
as  Gray,  revising  and  destroying  his  work,  unable  to  satisfy 
his  own  standards.  Such  a  method  of  composition  generally 
means  scanty  production.  In  this  case  it  was  rendered 
inevitable  by  physical  debility  ending  in  madness.  The  last 
decade  of  his  short  life  was  darkened  by  insanity. 

Gray  and  Collins  are  alike  in  the  fact  that  neither  poet 
began  his  career  with  a  sudden  break  from  the  Augustan 
school ;  their  progess  towards  romanticism  was  a  leisurely 
one.  Among  Collins's  earliest  writings  are  a  series  of 
eclogues  none  the  less  artificial  because  their  scene  of  action 
is  a  "valley  near  Bagdat,"  "the  desert,"  or  a  "mountain  in 
Circassia"  instead  of  Arcadia  or  the  banks  of  some  English 
stream.  Equally  pseudo-classic  in  style  is  the  verse  epistle 
to  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer  written  in  the  heroic  couplet  with 
reminiscences  of  Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism: 

"  As  Arts  expired,  resistless  Dullness  rose ; 
Goth,  priests,  or  Vandals — all  were  Learning's  foes. 
Till  Julius  first  recalled  each  exiled  maid. 
And  Cosmo  owned  them  in  the  Etrurian  shade."'^ 

Though  these  were  but  early  experiments  which  Collins 
abandoned  as  he  felt  the  new  impulses  and  turned  towards 
the  new  lyric,  yet  even  in  his  finest  work  we  frequently  hear 
the  echoes  of  Queen  Anne  verse. 

Gray  tells  us  in  his  letters  (among  the  most  interesting 

1 W.  C.  Bronson,  The  Poems  of  William  Collins,  Boston,  1898,  p.  27. 


S58  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

in  the  language)  what  writers  he  admired  and  what  were  his 
ideals  in  writing ;  it  is  in  his  poems  alone  that  we  see  the  mind 
of  Collins.  At  the  first  reading  we  are  struck  by  his  out- 
spoken admiration  for  the  Greek  lyric.  The  Augustans  were 
Latin  in  their  sympathies,  their  models  were  Juvenal  and 
Martial,  Virgil  and  Horace,  poets  from  whom  Collins  turns 
to  "revive  the  just  designs  of  Greece."  In  English  literature 
his  admirations  were  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and  above  all 
Milton,  the  Milton  of  the  minor  poems.  More  than  any  other 
piece  of  writing,  II  Penseroso  inspired  the  poetry  of  the  mid- 
century.  We  feel  its  quiet  melancholy  from  Gray's  Elegy 
to  the  humblest  verses  forgotten  in  the  columns  of  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine,  while  its  personifications,  "spare 
Fast,"  "retired  Leisure,"  the  "cherub  Contemplation,"  are 
undoubtedly  responsible  for  the  endless  train  of  allegorical 
figures  that  stalk  through  the  odes  of  the  period. 

Collins  prefixed  to  his  Odes  (1746)  three  verses  from 
Pindar  asking  for  "boldness"  and  "resistless  force"  in  his 
poetry,  and  it  is  apparent  that  he  wished  to  appeal  to  the 
imagination  and  to  move  the  deepest  feelings.  Tempera- 
mentally unfitted  for  Pindar's  style,  his  effort  to  follow  him 
even  afar  off  explains  a  certain  artificiality  and  coldness 
which  we  discover  in  many  of  the  odes.  He  deals  in  abstrac- 
tions ;  he  writes  poems  to  Pity,  Mercy,  Fear,  Peace,  but 
these  qualities  never  really  possess  him;  his  subjects  are  too 
deliberately  chosen ;  they  do  not  embody  his  desires  or  his 
feelings.  We  see  this  especially  in  the  Ode  to  Liberty.  It 
belongs  to  what  we  may  call  the  panoramic  school  of  poetry ; 
in  it  we  are  shown  Greece  and  Rome,  Venice  and  Switzer- 
land, and  finally  Liberty  in  England.  There  is  in  all  this  no 
cry  of  revolt,  no  shadow  of  impending  revolution,  no  desire 
to  defend  or  arouse  the  oppressed.  The  ending  is  undoubt- 
edly the  weakest  part  of  the  ode,  but  we  cite  it  because  it 
emphasizes  the  lack  of  "boldness"  and  "resistless  force." 
Liberty  is  welcomed  to  England: 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  359 

"  Her  let  our  sires  and  matrons  hoar 
Welcome  to  Britain's  ravaged  shore; 
Our  youths,  enamoured  of  the  fair, 
Play  with  the  tangles  of  her  hair; 
Till,  in  one  loud  applauding  sound, 
The  nations  shout  to  her  around, 
■  O  how  supremely  art  thou  blest ! 
Thou,  lady,  thou  shalt  rule  the  West !'  "^ 

The  Odes,  neglected  to-day,  were  coldly  received  when  they 
appeared.  The  Passions,  often  set  to  music,  proved  the  most 
popular;  it  is  by  no  means  the  best,  although  it  has  some- 
thing of  the  effectiveness  of  Dryden's  Alexander's  Feast  and 
should  be  read  side  by  side  with  it. 

The  Odes  fail,  then,  not  because  of  their  diction  or  their 
music,  but  because  they  deal  too  much  in  abstract  qualities. 
When  the  ballad  makers  wished  to  inspire  fear  or  pity  they 
did  not  invoke 

"  Thou  to  whom  the  world  unknown 
With  all  its  shadowy  shapes  is  shown;'' 
or 

"  The  Friend  of  man  assigned 
With  balmy  hands  his  wounds  to  bind," 

they  showed  us  the  three  sons  taking  leave  of  the  Wife  of 
Usher's  Well  or  Lady  Margaret  in  her  burning  castle  hear- 
ing the  cries  of  her  children.  Spenser  is  deeply  moved  by  the 
misfortunes  of  Una ;  nothing  under  heaven  stirs  his  com- 
passion as  "beauty  brought  t'unworthy  wretchedness,"  and 
he  feels  his  heart 

"  perst  with  so  great  agonie, 
When  such  I  see,  that  all  for  pittie  I  could  die," 

yet  few  readers  find  genuine  pathos  in  the  distress  of  this 
allegorical   character.      Accordingly   the  best   odes    Collins 
wrote  have  but   few  of  these  figures  which  belong  to  the 
ip.  50. 


S60  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

masque  and  not  to  the  drama  of  life.  His  Ode  to  Simplicity, 
the  finest  product  of  his  Greek  studies,  is  worthy  of  its  sub- 
ject; there  is  no  attempt  for  the  sublime,  no  startling 
antitheses,  but  a  purely  drawn  picture  and  a  gentle  and 
tender  music.  The  ode  written  for  those  who  fell  fighting 
against  the  Pretender  is  as  flawless  a  gem  as  the  Greek 
anthology  can  ofi^er,  a  perfect  dirge  in  twelve  lines.  The 
personifications  that  mar  the  other  odes  are  exquisite  here: 

"  When  Spring,  with  dewy  fingers  cold. 
Returns  to  deck  their  hallowed  mold," 
or 

"  There  Honour  comes,  a  pilgrim  grey. 
To  bless  the  turf  that  wraps  their  clay." 

The  lyric  Muse  sang  for  the  Stuart  cause ;  this  is  the  one 
English  lyric  that  vies  with  the  Jacobite  songs  for  Bonnie 
Charlie.  Had  Collins  written  but  this,  his  name  would  have 
remained. 

The  Ode  to  Evening  is  his  masterpiece.  It  is  11  Penseroso 
once  more.  No  personal  sorrow  moves  us ;  but  that  vague 
melancholy  which  the  approach  of  night  brings.  So  perfect 
is  the  modulation  of  the  verse  that  though  the  ear  expects 
rhyme  it  does  not  feel  cheated  by  the  unrhymed  measure : 

"  But  when  chill  blustering  winds,  or  driving  rain. 
Forbid  my  willing  feet,  be  mine  the  hut 
That  from  the  mountain's  side 
Views  wilds,  and  swelling  floods, 

"  And  hamlets  brown,  and  dim-discovered  spires. 
And  hears  their  simple  bell,  and  marks  o'er  all 
Thy  dewy  fingers  draw 
The  gradual  dusky  veil."'^ 

That  atmosphere  which  modern  poets  seek  so  earnestly  to 
create  is  ever  apparent  here.    Were  it  not  for  the  disturbing 
1  P.  54. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  361 

stanza  that  concludes  the  ode,  it  would  rank  with  the  most 
perfect  accomplishments  of  English  lyrists. 

This,  then,  is  CoUins's  field,  the  awakening  of  tender 
emotion;  his  song  for  Shakespeare's  Cymbeline  gains  this 
effect  and  his  lament  for  Thomson  is  in  the  same  strain : 

"  Remembrance  oft  shall  haunt  the  shore 

When  Thames  in  summer  wreaths  is  drest, 
And  oft  suspend  the  dashing  oar 
To  bid  his  gentle  spirit  rest."'^ 

yet  Collins  was  capable  of  writing  in  a  larger,  broader  style. 
The  unfinished  Ode  on  the  Popular  Superstitions  of  the  High- 
lands of  Scotland,  considered  as  the  subject  of  poetry,  shows 
a  strength  both  of  thought  and  of  diction  found  in  no  other 
one  of  his  poems.  Here  he  is  possessed  of  his  subject;  he 
writes,  not  of  Superstition,  hateful  Goddess,  but  of  the  weird 
beliefs  of  the  Highland  peasants — of  second  sight,  of  wizards, 
of  kelpies — enthusiastically  urging  his  friend  to  embody  them 
in  verse.  He  has  caught  the  tone  of  mystery  and  awe ;  there 
is  more  terror  in  his  single  stanza  depicting  a  herdsman 
drowned  by  a  water  sprite  than  in  all  his  Ode  to  Fear.  Not 
only  is  this  poem  of  the  highest  importance  as  foreshadowing 
the  romantic  school  (Lowell  remarks  that  it  contains  the 
whole  school  in  the  germ)  but  it  is  equally  notable  in  its 
sure  indication  that  Collins,  had  he  lived,  would  have  gained 
some  of  that  power  he  so  admired  in  the  Greek  lyric. 

II 

We  now  approach  the  minor  lyrists  of  the  age  and  those 
greater  writers  who  occasionally  tried  their  hand  at  lyric 
verse,  though  with  no  marked  success.  To  the  first  group 
belong  the  Wartons. 

Both  Joseph  Warton  (1722-1800)  and  Thomas  Warton 
(1728-1790)  were  avowed  imitators  of  Milton.     They  came 

ip.  65. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

by  their  admiration  for  him  honestly;  their  father,  Thomas 
Warton  (1687-1745),  a  writer  of  verse  epistles,  imitations 
of  Horace,  and  typical  Queen  Anne  satires,  had  felt  the 
influence  of  II  Penseroso  : 

"  Nymphs  of  the  groves,  in  green  arrayed. 
Conduct  me  to  your  thickest  shade, 
Deep  in  the  bosom  of  the  vale. 
Where  haunts  the  lonesome  nightingale. 
Where  Contemplation,  maid  divine. 
Leans  against  some  aged  pine. 
Wrapt  in  solemn  thought  profound. 
Her  eyes  fixed  stedfast  on  the  ground."^ 

The  sons  were  not  content  with  occasional  borrowing,  for 
their  whole  spirit  was  Miltonic ;  the  revolt  of  Gray  and 
Collins  against  the  pseudo-classic  standards  was  implied 
rather  than  expressed,  but  the  Wartons  were  openly  defiant. 
Joseph  Warton,  whose  Essay  on  Pope  (1756-1782)  is  the 
first  important  critical  document  of  the  new  school  of  poetry, 
was  a  lesser  poet  than  his  brother.  His  odes  To  Health,  To 
Liberty,  To  Fancy  resemble  the  odes  of  Collins  but  are  less 
interesting;  it  is  instructive  to  compare  Warton's  Ode  to 
Content  with  the  Ode  to  Evening,  for  though  Warton  uses  its 
unrhymed  stanza,  he  can  not  catch  its  music : 

"  Hail,  meek-eyed  maiden,  clad  in  sober  gray. 
Whose  soft  approach  the  weary  woodman  loves. 
As,  homeward  bent  to  kiss  his  prattling  babes. 
He  jocund  whistles  through  the  twilight  groves,"^ 

To-day  he  is  little  read  because  in  his  own  field  he  is  surpassed 
by  his  brother,  to  say  nothing  of  Gray  and  Collins. 

Thomas   Warton   began   his   career   by   composing   when 
seventeen  a  poem  in  blank  verse,  entitled  significantly  The 

1  Thomas  Warton,  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,  London,  1748,  p.  15. 
i  Poems    of   Dr.   Joseph    Warton   in    Chalmers'    English   Poets,   voL 
XVIII,  p.  167. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION 

Pleasures  of  Melancholy.  In  addition  to  the  Miltonic  cast 
of  the  rhapsody,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  the  young  poet's 
enthusiasm  for  Spenser,  whom  he  prefers  to  Pope.  The  Rape 
of  the  Lock,  he  tells  us,  does  not  please  him,  for 

"  The  gay  description  palls  upon  the  sense, 
And  coldly  strikes  the  mind  with  feeble  bliss." 

and  Belinda,  "in  all  the  lustre  of  brocade,"  must  yield  to  Una. 
The  influence  of  Spenser,  however,  is  felt  in  the  descriptive 
poems  of  this  period  and  not  in  the  lyrics.  Warton's  Odes, 
published  the  same  year  Collins  sent  his  to  the  press,  are 
valuable  not  as  works  of  art  but  as  illustrating  the  progress 
of  the  lyric.  His  style  is  an  intimate  one  and  he  speaks  with 
the  utmost  freedom  of  his  tastes  and  desires.  His  person- 
ality, however,  was  not  strong  enough  to  find  its  own  method 
of  expression ;  admiring  Milton,  he  is  not  content  to  catch 
a  hint  or  to  reflect  his  spirit,  but  he  plunders  whole  passages. 
In  two  respects  he  shows  originality:  he  is  a  lover  of  nature 
and  as  he  tells  us  in  his  sonnet  on  Stonehenge,  he  delights  "to 
muse  on  many  an  ancient  tale  renowned."  Warton's  position 
as  a  leader  in  the  new  nature  poetry  has  not  been  sufficiently 
recognized;  all  through  his  poems  are  passages  of  sympa- 
thetic observation  of  birds  and  flowers  that  have  by  no  means 
lost  their  charm : 

"  Midst  gloomy  glades,  in  warbles  clear, 
Wild  nature's  sweetest  notes  they  hear; 
On  green  untrodden  banks  they  view 
The  hyacinth's  neglected  hue : 
In  their  lone  haunts,  and  woodland  roimds, 
They  spy  the  squirrel's  airy  bounds: 
And  startle  from  her  ashen  spray, 
Across  the  glen,  the  screaming  jay."' 

1  Richard  Mant,  The  Poetical  Works  of  the  late  Thomas  Warton, 
Oxford,  1802,  vol.  I,  p.  125.  Cf.  Ode  on  the  First  of  April,  Ode  on  the 
Approach  of  Summer. 


364-  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Not  only  in  his  History  of  English  Poetry,  but  in  all  his 
writings  Warton  showed  the  fascination  which  "the  chronicles 
of  wasted  time"  possessed  for  him,  and  the  age  of  chivalry 
inspired  him  as  it  did  Scott ;  there  is  much  of  the  author  of 
Ivanhoe  and  Marmion  foreshadowed  in  Warton's  two  odes, 
The  Crusade  and  The  Grave  of  King  Arthur.  The  first  ode, 
the  most  spirited  of  Warton's  poems,  is  supposed  to  be  com- 
posed by  Cceur  de  Lion  and  Blondel. 

"  Salem,  in  ancient  majesty, 
Arise,  and  lift  thee  to  the  sky ! 
Soon  on  thy  battlements  divine 
Shall  wave  the  badge  of  Constantine. 
Ye  Barons,  to  the  sim  unfold 
Our  cross  with  crimson  wove  and  gold!"'^ 

The  Grave  of  King  Arthur  is  descriptive  rather  than  lyrical; 
it  stirs  the  imagination  especially  by  its  use  of  names  that 
carry  with  them  the  glamour  of  romance: 

"  O'er  Cornwall's  cliffs  the  tempest  roared. 
High  the  screaming  sea-mew  soared; 
On  Tintagel's  topmost  tower 
Darksome  fell  the  sleety  shower."^ 

In  lyrical  poetry  it  is  unfortunate  that  the  anthologist 
and  not  the  critic  has  often  decided  what  verses  shall  be 
rescued  from  "Time's  fell  hand."  Neither  the  Golden 
Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics  nor  the  Oxford  Booh  of 
English  Verse  includes  any  one  of  Warton's  nine  sonnets. 
Two  should  be  found  in  every  comprehensive  anthology  of 
English  lyrics.  The  sonnet  written  in  Dugdale's  Monasticon 
is  a  restrained  yet  an  eloquent  defense  of  the  antiquary, 
"of  painful  pedantry  the  poring  child,"  for  Warton  has 
found  that 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  49. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  58. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  365 

"  Nor  rough,  nor  barren,  are  the  winding  ways 
Of  hoar  Antiquity,  but  strown  with  flowers." 

The  first  four  verses  of  the  sonnet  to  the  river  Loddon  are 
enough  to  save  it: 

"  Ah !  what  a  weary  race  my  feet  have  run, 
Since  first  I  trod  thy  banks  with  alders  crowned, 
And  thought  my  way  was  all  through  fairy  ground. 
Beneath  thy  azure  sky,  and  golden  sun."^ 

If  life  had  brought  disillusionments,  Warton  could  comfort 
himself  with  the  thought  that  his  days  had  not  been  useless, 
"nor  with  the  Muse's  laurel  unbestowed." 

The  two  great  contemporaries  of  the  Wartons,  Goldsmith 
and  Johnson,  were  unmoved  by  the  new  lyric  poetry;  or 
rather,  Johnson  was  moved  to  ridicule  the 

"  Uncouth  words  in  disarray, 
Tricked  in  antique  ruff  and  bonnet. 
Ode,  and  elegy,  and  sonnet." 

He  wrote  a  few  odes — not  Pindarics ;  a  single  stanza  suffi- 
ciently illustrates  their  quahty : 

"  Now  o'er  the  rural  kingdom  roves 

Soft  Pleasure  with  her  laughing  train. 
Love  warbles  in  the  vocal  groves. 
And  vegetation  plants  the  plain,"^ 

Respect  for  a  great  name  prohibits  further  quotation.  Gold- 
smith (1728-1774),  always  the  idyllic  poet  even  when  he 
writes  his  novel,  has  left  but  one  good  lyric,  "When  lovely 
woman  stoops  to  folly."  Sung  by  Olivia  in  the  Vicar  of 
Wakefield,  its  efi^ectiveness  is  due  principally  to  its  setting. 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  150,  160. 

2  T.  M.  Ward,  The  Poems  of  Johnson,  Goldsmith,  Oray,  and  Collins, 
Muses'  Library,  London,  1905,  pp.  89,  72. 


see  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

There  are  many  lyrics  in  Goldsmith's  Oratorio  but  they  are 
all  unimportant : 

"  Hope,  like  the  taper's  gleamy  light. 
Adorns  the  wretch's  way. 
And  still,  as  darker  grows  the  night. 
Emits  a  brighter  ray."^ 

is  a  typical  stanza.  The  revival  of  lyric  verse,  so  successfully 
inaugurated  by  Gray,  Collins,  and  the  Wartons,  met  with 
no  support  from  the  accredited  leaders  of  English  thought. 
Only  in  the  Queen  Anne  age  have  the  chief  writers  of  a  period 
in  which  letters  flourished  been  so  destitute  of  the  lyric 
impulse. 

The  drama  of  the  day  contained  lyrics,  but  few  possess 
the  least  merit.  In  the  Duenna  Sheridan  inserted  a  number 
of  songs. 

"  I  ne'er  could  any  lustre  see 
In  eyes  that  would  not  look  on  me;" 

and  the  more  familiar,  "Had  I  a  heart  for  falsehood  framed," 
show  a  certain  skill  of  expression ;  "Here's  to  the  maiden  of 
bashfull  sixteen,"  in  the  School  for  Scandal  has  an  attractive 
liveliness,  but  such  lyrics  have  little  substance,  and  a  single 
phrase  from  Dekker's  or  Shakespeare's  songs  is  worth  them 
all. 

One  writer  for  the  theatre  deserves  remembrance  for  his 
lyrics.  Charles  Dibdin  (1745-1814),  actor,  dramatist,  com- 
poser, singer,  was  a  popular  figure  during  the  last  three 
decades  of  the  century.  Of  an  attractive  personality,  with 
"a  voice  of  no  great  power  or  compass  but  of  a  sweet  and 
mellow  quality,"  his  dramatic  entertainments  depended  upon 
his  songs  for  their  success.  As  an  admirer  has  pointed  out, 
he  was  the  last  of  the  bards ;  Moore  used  well-known  Irish 
melodies,  but  Dibdin  invariably  composed  the  music  for  his 

1  P.  190. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  367 

verses.  He  was  a  most  voluminous  writer;  he  produced 
some  nine  hundred  songs  and  claimed  that  he  had  written  the 
words  and  music  of  the  best  ones  in  less  than  an  hour. 

Dibdin  essayed  all  types  of  lyrics — love  songs,  hunting 
songs,  war  songs,  Irish  and  Scottish  songs — ^but  his  sailor 
songs,  though  uninspired,  contain  his  most  genuine  and  his 
most  skillful  writing.  He  had  never  shipped  before  the 
mast,  yet  he  became  the  laureate  of  the  British  tar,  giving 
to  him  the  same  popularity  that  Kipling's  Barrack  Room 
Balladg  brought  to  the  soldier  in  India,  with  this  difference: 
that  Dibdin  lacked  the  modern  poet's  realism,  narrative 
power,  and  dramatic  force.  His  sailor  is  a  sentimental, 
idealized  figure,  fearless,  patriotic,  and  above  all,  a  faithful 
lover  of  his  Poll.  Dibdin  wrote  in  an  easy,  swinging  style 
and  from  his  first  lyric  of  the  sea: 

"  Blow  high,  blow  low,  let  tempests  tear 
The  mainmast  by  the  board;" 

until  his  last : 

"  Some  sweetheart  or  wife  that  he  loved  as  his  life 

Each  drank,  while  he  wished  he  could  hail  her; 
But  the  standing  toast  that  pleased  the  most 

Was — the  wind  that  blows,  the  ship  that  goes. 
And  the  lass  that  loves  a  sailor  !"^ 

he  could  boast  that  English  sailors  had  made  his  songs  their 
own.  For  the  modern  reader  they  do  not  strike  deep  enough, 
and  though  they  are  the  best  in  the  drama  from  1750  to 
the  close  of  the  century,  they  are  quite  forgotten ;  even  Tom 
Bowling,  a  "sailor's  epitaph"  on  his  own  brother  and  the 
finest  example  of  his  serious  style,  has  disappeared  from 
most  anthologies.' 

The  poetical  miscellanies  of  the  day  can  not  claim  our 

1  G.  Hogarth,  The  Songs  of  Charles  Dibdin,  London,  1843,  p.  xxvii. 

2  Pp.  28,  81. 

3  P.  97. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

attention.^  Their  only  good  lyrics  were  those  poems  by 
Gray,  Collins,  or  Warton  which  we  have  already  considered ; 
their  numerous  imitations  of  these  writers — especially  the 
interminable  elegies — are  not  amusing  enough  to  be  con- 
sidered unconscious  parodies.  As  for  the  song  books  of  the 
day,  the  "Songsters"  and  "Jovial  Companions,"  their  only 
good  lyrics  were  the  old  ones  and  in  these  compilations  we 
frequently  go  back  to  Elizabethan  times.  There  was  much 
verse  published  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  established 
1731,  but  it  is  astonishing  to  see  there  the  Queen  Anne 
tradition  long  surviving  in  satire  and  verse  epistle.  One 
may  dismiss  the  minor  poets  of  the  day  with  a  single 
phrase — they  were  hopelessly  dull  and  uninspired.  One 
Miscellany,  however,  was  epoch-making — Percy's  Reliques 
of  Ancient  Poetry,  1765.  In  this  book  were  brought  to  light 
again  not  only  the  best  of  the  old  ballads  but  some  of  the 
finest  of  the  old  lyrics :  songs  from  Harleian  MS.  2253, 
Chaucer,  and  from  TotteVs  Miscellany;  the  most  charac- 
teristic stanzas  of  Daniel  and  Drayton,  Lyly  and  Shirley, 
Raleigh  and  Wotton,  Carew,  Suckling  and  Lovelace.  Such 
poems  were  a  more  enduring  source  of  inspiration  than  the 
much-followed  odes  of  Gray  and  Collins  and  the  next  genera- 
tion of  writers  found  in  this  collection  many  hints  for  their 
finest  achievements.  Age  had  not  withered  the  infinite  variety 
of  these  songs  which  showed  a  new  race  of  poets  that  the 
noblest  thoughts  and  the  strongest  emotions  needed  no 
Pindaric  lyre. 

Ill 

A  special  province  of  lyric  verse — the  hymns  of  the 
church — demands  our  attention  at  this  point.  When  Stem- 
hold,  about  1547,  published  nineteen  psalms  in  the  simple 
and  popular  ballad  stanza,  he  unconsciously  decided  the  form 

1  See  for  example,  A  Collection  of  Poems  in  four  volumes,  By  several 
hands,  J.  Dodsley,  London,  1783. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION 

for  countless  religious  songs.  No  one  has  attempted  to 
estimate  the  number  of  hymns  written  in  the  eighteenth 
century ;  it  is  certain,  however,  that  in  this  great  mass  of 
poetry  there  is  very  little  that  shows  artistic  excellence.  Of 
the  vast  majority  of  hymn  writers  it  may  be  asserted  as  a 
general  rule  that  their  spirit  is  willing  but  their  style  is  weak. 

We  retrace  our  steps  to  the  previous  age  and  find  in  the 
writings  of  Thomas  Ken  (1637-1711),  bishop  of  Bath  and 
Wells,  the  first  indications  of  the  hymn  writing  which  was 
later  to  accompany  the  religious  awakening  and  the  rise 
of  the  Methodists.  Ken  was  an  eloquent  preacher,  a  musi- 
cian, and  a  poet  who  essayed  in  vain  the  epic  style.  The 
three  hymns  published  in  the  Manual  of  Prayers  for  the  use 
of  Winchester  scholars  contain  his  best  writing ;  two  of  them, 
"Awake,  my  soul,  and  with  the  sun,"  and  "Glory  to  thee, 
my  God,  this  night,"  have  become  rehgious  classics. 

A  much  more  voluminous  writer  was  the  dissenter  Isaac 
Watts  (1674!-174<8),  who  composed  some  six  hundred  hymns 
and  versions  of  the  Psalms.  He  published  in  1706  Horce 
Lyricas,  a  volume  which  included  several  odes  showing  faint 
traces  of  Cowley;  Watts  speaks  of  his  "bold  harp  profusely 
played,  Pindarical,"  but  with  the  exception  of  "profusely," 
his  view  of  his  work  is  quite  erroneous.  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
admired  the  character  of  Watts,  found  it  difficult  to  comment 
upon  his  poetry.  He  could,  however,  bestow  on  him  the 
praise  "the  general  interest  of  mankind  requires  to  be  given 
to  writers  who  please  and  do  not  corrupt,  who  instruct  and 
do  not  decoy."  The  bare  possibility  of  the  author  of  "Let 
dogs  delight  to  bark  and  bite,"  and  "How  doth  the  little 
busy  bee,"  corrupting  and  decoying  is  delicious.  Unlike 
Crashaw  and  Vaughan,  he  has  no  mistress,  real  or  supposed. 

"  No  Phyllis  shall  infect  the  air, 

With  her  unhallowed  name."^ 

1  "Meditation  in  a  grove"  in  Horas  Lyricw. 


870  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

His  original  hymns  often  attain  a  noble  dignity  and  are 
not  without  imaginative  lines : 

"  Lord  of  the  armies  of  the  sky, 
He  marshals  all  the  stars. 
Red  comets  lift  their  banners  high. 
And  loud  proclaim  his  wars."^ 

while  his  versions  of  the  psalms,  by  no  means  mere  para- 
phrases, have  at  times  a  simplicity  and  a  directness  of 
expression  which  makes  them  altogether  worthy  to  be  placed 
beside  the  canticles  from  which  they  were  taken.  "God  is 
a  refuge  for  his  saints"  and  "Our  God,  our  help  in  ages 
past"  are  his  masterpieces.  His  Divine  Songs  for  Children 
(1715),  which  have  given  many  phrases  to  the  language  and 
which,  in  certain  Knes  dimly  foretell  Blake,  contain  his  tender 
and  pathetic  "Hush,  my  dear,  lie  still  and  slumber,"  sung 
more  than  any  other  English  cradle  song.  If  popularity 
alone  determined  worth.  Watts  would  be  one  of  our  greatest 
poets. 

The  tradition  of  Watts  was  continued  by  John  Wesley 
(1703-1791)  and  his  brother  Charles  (1708-1788),  a  better 
poet  whose  style  is  more  vigorous  than  that  of  Watts  but 
who  has  given  less  to  our  hymnals.  Among  other  famous 
hymns  of  the  period  are  Toplady's  (1740-1788)  "Rock  of 
Ages,"  Skelton's  (1707-1787)  "Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul," 
Newton's  (1725-1807)  "How  sweet  the  name  of  Jesus 
sounds,"  and  Williams's  (1717-1791)  "Guide  me,  0  thou 
great  Jehovah."  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the  eighteenth 
century,  popularly  considered  to  be  spiritually  dead,  has 
expressed  most  effectively  in  song  those  religious  feelings 
which  move  all  types  of  character.^ 

1  God's  Dominion  and  Decrees. 

2Cf.  Book  II  of  F.  T.  Palgrave's  The  Treasury  of  Sacred  Song, 
Oxford,  1890.    This  is  the  best  anthology  of  religious  verse. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  371 

Christopher  Smart  (1722-1770)  and  WilHam  Cowper 
(1731-1800)  are  distinguished  from  these  religious  poets 
because  they  wrote  on  secular  as  well  as  upon  divine  themes. 
Smart  had  an  unhappy  life,  descending  from  a  fellowship 
in  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  to  the  precarious  exist- 
ence of  Grub  Street.  His  Song  to  David,  composed  while 
confined  in  a  madhouse,  was  published  in  1763.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  poems  of  the  century,  unevenly 
written  yet  ranging  from  the  pathetic  to  the  sublime  and  in 
turn  tender,  lofty,  and  impassioned  in  its  expression.  It 
has  a  peculiar  quality ;  there  is  nothing  in  contemporary 
writing  to  compare  with  such  stanzas  as : 

"  Sweet  is  the  dew  that  falls  betimes. 
And  drops  upon  the  leafy  limes ; 

Sweet  Hermon's  fragrant  air: 
Sweet  is  the  lily's  silver  bell. 
And  sweet  the  wakeful  tapers'  smell 
That  watch  for  early  prayer." 
or 

"  Glorious^the  northern  lights  a-stream ; 
Glorious  the  song,  when  God's  the  theme; 

Glorious  the  thunder's  roar: 
Glorious  Hosannah  from  the  den; 
Glorious  the  catholic  Amen; 

Glorious  the  martyr's  gore." 

The  mysticism  and  emotional  force  of  the  poem  were  beyond 
the  taste  of  the  day;  the  editor  of  The  Poems  of  the  late 
Christopher  Smart,  in  two  volumes,  Reading,  1791,  did  not 
reprint  it,  for  he  included  only  "such  poems  as  were  likely 
to  be  acceptable  to  the  reader."^ 

iThe  poem,  half  lyrical  and  half  descriptive,  consists  of  eighty-six 
stanzas.  See  A  Song  to  David  by  the  late  Christopher  Smart,  London, 
1819.  The  Oxford  Book  of  Verse,  p.  538,  prints  eighteen  stanzas.  Smart's 
pathetic  Hymn  to  the  Supreme  Being  has  been  too  much  overshadowed 
by  the  Song. 


S72  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

William  Cowper,  like  Smart,  brooded  over  his  imagined 
wickedness  until  he  believed  himself  to  be  a  spiritual  outcast, 
doomed  to  destruction.  At  one  time  he  found  relief  in  read- 
ing Herbert's  Temple,  but  his  relatives  caused  him  to  lay 
aside  the  book,  fearing  that  it  increased  his  morbid  ten- 
dencies. This  religious  melancholia  resulted  in  temporary 
insanity  and  he  was  confined  in  a  madhouse ;  from  such  bitter 
experience  sprang  his  hymns.  Written  in  conjunction  with 
his  friend  John  Newton,  the  Olney  Hymns,  sixty-seven  of 
them  by  Cowper,  appeared  in  three  books  in  1779.  In  gen- 
eral, little  individuality  can  be  shown  in  these  religious  songs, 
for  the  limitations  of  the  form  and  even  of  the  vocabulary 
are  very  definite  ones  and  the  tendency  is  to  cast  all  spiritual 
thought  and  emotion  in  purely  conventional  molds.  Cowper's 
finest  hymns,  however,  are  readily  differentiated  from  those 
of  Watts  or  Ken  by  their  intensity  of  feeling  and  by  their 
more  intimate  tone.  "Hark,  my  soul!  it  is  the  Lord,"  "God 
moves  in  a  mysterious  way,"  and  "Oh !  for  a  closer  walk 
with  God"  are  the  very  flower  of  the  religious  lyrics  of  the 
eighteenth  century.' 

One  could  scarcely  expect  to  find  in  the  writer  of  these 
hymns  a  worthy  follower  of  Prior.  In  his  early  poems 
Cowper  plainly  imitated  Waller,  Sackville,  and  the  Queen 
Anne  lyrists,  but  above  all,  "dear  Mat  Prior's  easy  jingle." 

"  Matthew,   (says  Fame)  with  endless  pains 
Smoothed  and  refined  the  meanest  strains; 
Nor  suffered  one  ill-chosen  rhyme 
To  escape  him,  at  the  idlest  time ; 
And  thus  o'er  all  a  lustre  cast. 
That,  while  the  language  lives,  shall  last."^ 

We  do  not  need  this  eulogy  to  show  us  where  Cowper  found 
his  model  for  such  lines  as : 

1 H.  S.  Milford,  The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  William  Cowper, 
Oxford,  1907,  pp.  444,  455,  433. 
2  P.  268. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  373 

"  Let  her  guess  what  I  muse  on,  when  rambling  alone 
I  stride  o'er  the  stubble  each  day  with  my  gun, 
Never  ready  to  shoot  till  the  covey  is  flown. 

"  Let  her  think  what  odd  whimsies  I  have  in  my  brain, 
When  I  read  one  page  over  and  over  again. 
And  discover  at  last  that  I  read  it  in  vain.""^ 

He  has  Prior's  light  and  graceful  manner  of  description : 

"  The  black  bird  has  fled  to  another  retreat 
Where  the  hazels  afford  him  a  screen  from  the  heat. 
And  the  scene  where  his  melody  charmed  me  before. 
Resounds  with  his  sweet-flowing  ditty  no  more."^ 

Such  a  stanza  might  have  come  from  Dowrv-Hall.  Cowper 
has  absolutely  caught  Prior's  gayety,  his  kindly  humor,  his 
whimsical  manner  of  alluding  to  himself: 

"  These  carpets,  so  soft  to  the  foot, 

Caledonia's  traffic  and  pride ! 
Oh  spare  them,  ye  knights  of  the  boot ! 

Escaped  from  a  cross-country  ride  ! 
This  table  and  mirror  within. 

Secure  from  collision  and  dust. 
At  which  I  oft  shave  cheek  and  chin. 

And  periwig  nicely  adjust."' 

If  Cowper,  in  his  lighter  moods,  turned  back  to  the  days 
of  Anne,  in  his  deeper  moments  he  anticipated  the  simplicity 
and  the  pathos  of  Wordsworth.  His  easy,  unadorned  style 
did  not  desert  him  when  he  expressed  the  strongest  emotions ; 
his  words  sink  deeply  because  they  are  spoken  so  quietly. 

His  poem  on  Selkirk,  "I  am  monarch  of  all  I  survey" — a 
lyrical  monologue — ^has  achieved  an  unjustified  popularity. 
It  has  little  imagination  or  feeling  and  reads  as  though  it 

1  P.  270. 

2  P.  363. 

3  P.  378. 


S7Jf  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

had  been  written  not  by  a  castaway  but  by  a  beau  in  a 
coffee  house.  His  dirge  on  the  loss  of  the  "Royal  George" 
possesses,  as  Palgrave  has  pointed  out,  a  "bare  and  truly 
Greek  simplicity  of  phrase";  there  could  be  no  greater 
contrast  to  the  pride,  pomp  and  circumstance  of  the  Pin- 
daric odes  than  these  verses,  simple  as  the  old  ballads : 

"  It  was  not  in  the  battle. 
No  tempest  gave  the  shock. 

She  sprang  no  fatal  leak, 
She  ran  upon  no  rock; 

His  sword  was  in  the  sheath, 
His  fingers  held  the  pen, 

When  Kempenfelt  went  down. 
With  twice  four  hundred  men."^ 

Cowper  is  most  inspired  when  he  writes  of  his  own  life  and 
two  poems  expressing  his  devotion  for  Mary  Unwin  are 
among  the  most  sincere  and  affecting  lyrics  in  the  language.^ 
There  are  many  sonnets  better  constructed  than  Mary!  I 
want  a  lyre  with  other  strings,  but  none  more  beautiful  or 
heartfelt  in  the  intimate  revelation  of  admiration  and  love. 
This  poem  and  To  Mary  stand  alone  in  this  century,  for 
Cowper's  deeply  felt  verses  on  his  mother's  picture.  Oh  that 
those  lips  had  language,  are  not  lyrical  in  form.  One  feels 
in  reading  these  two  lyrics  a  sense  of  constraint  as  when 
some  intimate  conversation  is  overheard,  for  here  we  have 
"such  fair  question  as  soul  to  soul  affordeth."  To  Mary  is 
more  affecting  than  the  sonnet ;  its  quiet  metre,  its  homely 
pictures,  its  frank  realism,  its  avoidance  of  the  slightest 
trace  of  sentimentality  render  the  emotion  so  poignant  that 
Palgrave  is  justified  in  declaring  that  "Cowper  is  our  highest 
master  in  simple  pathos."' 

1  P.  344.     One  is  hardly  prepared  to  follow  Palgrave  in  making  of 
this  poem  a  touchstone  of  the  reader's  taste. 

2  Pp.  421,  427. 

3  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics,  notes. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  376 

IV 

Thomas  Chatterton  (1752-1770)  and  William  Blake 
(1757-1827),  the  heralds  of  the  romantic  movement,  stand 
apart  from  and  above  the  poets  of  their  day.  Both  were  of 
imagination  all  compact;  and  though  their  visions  beheld 
two  different  worlds,  we  may  consider  them  together. 

Chatterton,  apprenticed  to  an  attorney,  recreated  Bristol 
of  the  fifteenth  century  and  wrote,  in  what  he  believed  to  be 
middle  English,  poems  that  he  attributed  to  Thomas  Rowley, 
a  purely  imaginary  character.  He  went  to  London  to  try 
his  fortune;  within  four  months  he  found  himself  alone  and 
starving — and  took  poison.  But  one  of  his  Rowley  poems 
had  been  printed;  they  were  published  in  1777. 

The  tragedy  of  his  life  profoundly  impressed  the  poets 
of  the  next  generation.  To  Wordsworth  he  was  "the  mar- 
vellous Boy";^  Coleridge,  who  called  him 

"the  wondrous  boy. 
An  amaranth,  which  earth  seemed  scarce  to  own,"^ 

wrote  an  impassioned  Monody  on  the  Death  of  Chatterton, 
dwelhng  more  upon  the  "story  of  his  woes"  than  upon  his 
poetry.  Keats  writes  a  sonnet  to  the  "Dear  child  of  sorrow — 
son  of  misery!"  and  dedicates  Endymion  to  his  memory.  It 
was,  however,  a  Frenchman  who  paid  the  most  striking 
tribute  to  him.  Alfred  de  Vigny's  Chatterton,  acted  at  the 
Theatre  Fran^ais  in  1835,  is  a  protest  against  the  "per- 
petual immolation  of  the  poet,"  to  use  the  language  of  his 
emotional  preface,  and  an  attack  on  society  which  neglects 
the  artist  and  even  forces  him  to  his  doom.  De  Vigny  re- 
garded Chatterton  as  the  personification  of  neglected  genius 
and  accordingly  his  drama  is  a  rhapsody.  We  find  Chat- 
terton in  love  with  a  certain  Kitty  Bell,  humiliated  by  super- 

1  Resolution  and  Independence. 

2  On  Observing  a  Blossom  on  the  First  of  February,  1796. 


S76  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

cilious  noblemen,  his  companions  at  Oxford,  and  upbraided 
by  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  because  he  writes  verses! 
This  stony-hearted  dignitary  offers  the  penniless  boy  the 
position  of  valet  de  chambre;  rather  than  degrade  himself 
and  renounce  his  art,  the  poet  dies  and  with  him,  Kitty  Bell. 
Knowing  Chatterton's  history,  it  is  difficult  to  judge  his 
writings  impartially.  That  strangest  of  fathers,  Patrick 
Bronte,  wishing  his  children,  mere  babes,  to  "speak  with  less 
timidity,"  gave  them  a  mask  and  told  them  "to  stand  back 
and  speak  boldly  under  cover  of  it"  in  answer  to  his  ques- 
tions.'^ This  method  certainly  elicited  remarkable  replies. 
When  Chatterton  wrote  with  no  mediaeval  disguise,  he  was 
merely  an  imitative,  precocious  boy ;  when  he  assumed  the 
mask  of  Rowley,  he  was  a  poet.  His  acknowledged  verses 
are  noteworthy  not  for  their  quality  but  because  of  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  they  were  written.  They  are  quite 
conventional  and  there  is  little  difficulty  in  discovering  his 
models : 

"  Wet  with  the  dew  the  yellow  hawthorns  bow ; 
The  rustic  whistles  through  the  echoing  cave ; 
Far  o'er  the  lea  the  breathing  cattle  low, 
And  the  full  Avon  lifts  the  darkened  wave."^ 

In  the  Rowley  poems  also  Chatterton  followed  models. 
His  masterpiece,  The  Ballad  of  Charity,  written  during  his 
last  weeks  in  London,  is  the  story  of  a  mediaeval  good  Samari- 
tan told  with  Spenser's  color  and  rich  detail ;  the  Bristowe 
Tragedy  harks  back  to  the  ballads  in  the  Reliques,  yet  in 
these  poems  is  a  quality  all  his  own.  From  dictionaries, 
from  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  he  had  made  for  himself  a  glos- 
sary of  ancient  words  and  phrases  often  curiously  inaccu- 
rate  and  erroneous ;   as   Jonson  said  of  Spenser,   "he  writ 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell,  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronti,  chapter  III. 
2W.  W.  Skeat,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Chatterton,  London, 
1871,  I,  p.  55. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  377 

no  language."^  Composing  the  Rowley  poems  in  this  strange 
dialect,  his  mind  seemed  to  take  on  the  very  color  of 
the  mediaeval  world.  If  Professor  Beers  finds  the  best  quality 
of  his  verse  to  be  its  unexpectedness — "sudden  epithets  of  a 
wild  and  artless  sweetness" — certainly  the  best  quality  of 
his  mind  is  its  intuitive  perception  of  the  romance  and 
mystery  of  the  past. 

The  lyrical  element  in  the  Rowley  poems  is  not  their  chief 
one;  the  poems  to  which  we  have  just  alluded  are,  with  most 
of  his  work,  descriptive  and  narrative.  His  best  songs  are 
in  his  tragedy  of  Aella.  The  stanzas  sung  by  the  third  min- 
strel show  a  lusciousness  of  phrase  that  must  have  attracted 
Keats : 

"  When  Autumn  sere  and  sunburnt  doth  appear, 
With  his  gold  hand  gilding  the  falling  leaf, 
Bringing  up  Winter  to  fulfil  the  year. 
Bearing  upon  his  back  the  ripened  sheaf. 
When  all  the  hills  with  woody  seed  are  white. 
When  lightning-fires  and  gleams  do  meet  from  far  the  sight ; 

"  When  the  fair  apples,  red  as  evening  sky. 
Do  bend  the  tree  unto  the  fruitful  ground. 
When  juicy  pears,  and  berries  of  black  dye. 
Do  dance  in  air,  and  call  the  eyes  around ; 
Then,  be  the  evening  foul,  or  be  it  fair, 
Methinks  my  heart's  delight  is  mingled  with  some  care." 

The  "song  by  Syr  Thybbot  Gorges,"  who  by  a  miracle  must 
have  foreseen  the  Restoration  writers,  has  the  lilt  of  Prior : 

"  She  said,  and  Lord  Thomas  came  over  the  lea. 
As  he  the  fat  deerkins  was  chasing. 
She  put  up  her  knitting,  and  to  him  went  she ; 
So  we  leave  them  both  kindly  embracing." 

1  Cf .  Skeat's  Essay  on  the  Bowley  Poems,  vol.  II. 


S78  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

His  finest  lyric  is  a  dirge,  reminiscent  of  Ophelia's  song: 

"  Oh,  sing  unto  my  roundelay. 
Oh,  drop  the  briny  tear  with  me, 
Dance  no  more  on  holiday; 
Like  a  running  river  be. 

My  love  is  dead. 

Gone  to  his  death-bed. 

All  under  the  willow-tree. 

"  See !  the  white  moon  shines  on  high. 
Whiter  is  my  true  love's  shroud. 
Whiter  than  the  morning  sky. 
Whiter  than  the  evening  cloud. 

My  love  is  dead. 

Gone  to  his  death-bed, 

All  under  the  willow-tree."^ 

Chatterton  saw  instinctively  the  poetry  in 

"  old,  unhappy,   far  off  things 
And  battles  long  ago." 

Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and  his  knights,  the  pomp  and 
pageantry  of  mediaeval  tournament  and  battle,  inspired  him 
as  they  did  Scott ;  with  more  knowledge  and  with  greater 
maturity,  Chatterton  and  not  the  Wizard  of  the  North 
would  have  been  the  great  revealer  of  romance.  If  we  com- 
pare him  with  the  medaevalists  of  his  day — with  Thomas 
Warton,  for  example — we  see  that  Warton  was  painstaking 
while  Chatterton  was  imaginative.  Short  as  was  his  Hfe,  his 
position  as  poet-artist  is  secure. 

William    Blake     (1757-1827),    an    "enthusiastic,    hope- 
fostered  visionary,"  as  he  once  subscribed  himself,  was  the 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  38,  40,  71. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  S79 

son  of  a  London  hosier.  At  the  age  of  ten,  he  was  placed 
in  a  small  drawing  school;  at  fourteen  he  was  apprenticed 
to  an  engraver  who  sent  the  boy  for  his  training  to  copy  the 
monuments  and  tombs  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Blake  was, 
accordingly,  self-taught;  his  lack  of  formal  instruction  is 
manifest  in  all  his  drawings — their  faults  of  anatomy  and 
of  perspective  are  apparent  to  the  most  untrained  eye — but 
such  a  nature  must  find  its  own  method  of  expression.  In 
1783  he  published  a  slender  collection  of  verses,  Poetical 
Sketches;  his  Songs  of  Innocence  appeared  six  years  later, 
and  his  Songs  of  Experience  in  1794.^  The  Sketches  was 
the  only  volume  to  be  published  in  the  ordinary  fashion; 
his  other  writings  he  printed  himself  from  copper  plates 
upon  which  he  had  engraved  both  his  poems  and  the  designs 
that  weave  themselves  around  them.  As  if  this  were  not 
labor  enough,  the  printed  pages  he  colored  by  hand.  This 
slow  method  of  production  was  not  a  good  means  for  bring- 
ing Blake's  poetry  before  the  reading  public ;  his  books  were 
practically  unknown  and  whatever  fame  he  acquired  came 
to  him  from  the  engravings  he  made  for  the  writings  of 
others,  such  as  his  wonderful  plates  for  Blair's  Grave.  Con- 
temporary references  to  Blake  speak  of  him  as  an  artist  and 
not  as  a  poet. 

Although  Blake  felt  that  he  had  received  a  divine  com- 
mand to  write  and  that  he  must  "speak  to  future  generations 
by  a  sublime  allegory,"  he  was  not  ambitious  in  the  accepted 
sense  of  the  word.  He  wrote,  "I  am  more  famed  in  Heaven 
for  my  works  than  I  could  well  conceive,"  and  to  deliver  his 
message  was  his  one  concern.^  All  his  life  he  was  poor; 
but  for  the  help  of  friends  he  would  have  been  destitute. 
He  was,  nevertheless,  an  indefatigable  worker,  at  one  time 
so  absorbed  in  his  writing  and  drawing  that  he  did  not  leave 

1  J.  Sampson,  The  Poetical  Works  of  William  Blake,  Oxford,  1905. 

2  A.  G.  B.  Russell,  The  Letters  of  William  Blake,  London,  1906,  p. 
76. 


S80  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

his  house  for  two  years.  He  stated  that  in  addition  to  all 
his  printed  work  he  had  composed  six  or  seven  epics  as  long 
as  Homer  and  twenty  tragedies  as  long  as  Macbeth.  After 
Blake's  death,  his  injudicious  friend  Tatham  destroyed  some 
hundred  volumes  of  unpublished  manuscripts.  Despite  his 
undaunted  energy  and  his  creative  power,  he  never  would 
have  accomplished  all  this  single-handed.  His  wife,  the 
daughter  of  a  market  gardener,  a  girl  who  could  neither 
read  nor  write  when  he  married  her,  learned  to  aid  him  in 
preparing  his  books  and  to  color  them  in  a  manner  that 
rivalled  Blake's  own  work.  She  believed  in  her  husband's 
mission;  to  quote  Tatham's  grandiloquent  period,  she  was 
"the  buttress  of  his  hopes,  the  stay  to  his  thoughts,  the 
admirer  of  his  genius,  the  companion  of  his  solitude  and  the 
solace  of  his  days."^ 

Blake  lived  in  his  imagination.  "To  me  this  world  is 
all  one  continued  vision  of  fancy  or  imagination,"  he 
wrote,  and  throughout  his  life  visions  appeared  to  him.^ 
He  conversed  hourly  and  daily  with  his  dead  brother,  he 
wrote  Hayley,  and  it  was  his  spirit  who  taught  Blake  to 
prepare  his  plates  and  print  his  books.  He  was  "under  the 
direction  of  messengers  from  heaven,  daily  and  nightly" ; 
he  wrote  his  Milton  "from  immediate  dictation,  twelve  or 
sometimes  twenty  or  thirty  hnes  at  a  time,  without  premedi- 
tation, an'd  even  against  my  wiU."'  His  mind  was  filled  with 
books  and  pictures  which  he  had  written  in  eternity  before 
his  mortal  life,  "and  those  works  are  the  delight  and  study 
of  the  archangels."  Such  sentences  might  imply  mental 
derangement,  but  those  who  knew  Blake  best  saw  no  sign 
of  an  unbalanced  mind.  After  his  death  John  Linnell  wrote : 
"I  never  in  all  my  conversations  with  him  could  for 
a  moment  feel  there  was  the  least  justice  in  calling  him  in- 

ip.  44. 

2  P.  63. 

3  P.  115. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  S8t 

sane;  he  could  always  explain  his  parodoxes  satisfactorily 
when  he  pleased,  but  to  many  he  spoke  so  that  'hearing  they 
might  710*  hear.'  "^  His  Prophetic  Books,  which  do  not  con- 
cern us,  are  as  a  whole  unintelligible  to  Blake's  most  devoted 
readers,  yet  even  here  of  many  a  page  it  may  be  said 

"  what  he  spake,  though  it  lacked  form  a  little. 
Was  not  like  madness." 

Blake's  genius  was  essentially  lyrical.  Reason  and  logic 
were  to  him  "spectrous  fiends"  to  be  destroyed ;  the  real  man 
was  imagination.  He  wished  to  cast  aside  from  poetry  "the 
rotten  rags  of  Memory"  and  "all  that  is  not  inspiration," 
and  accordingly  he  wrote  as  no  other  poet  had  written. 
Much  of  the  unequalled  quality  of  Milton's  blank  verse  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  composed  it  for  his  ear,  not  for 
his  eye ;  Blake's  lyrics  have  a  fascination  because  they  were 
written  by  a  man  who  was  blind  to  this  world  and  who  saw 
in  its  stead  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 

This  is  not  so  apparent  in  his  earliest  volume.  In  the 
Poetical  Sketches  we  find  that  he  has  caught  many  a  hint 
from  books,  which  is  not  surprising  when  we  remember  that 
some  of  these  songs  were  written  when  Blake  was  but  four- 
teen and  that  they  were  published  when  he  was  seventeen. 
Fair  Elenor  and  Gwin,  King  of  Norway  show  that  Blake 
knew  the  ballads  of  the  Reliques,  yet  he  had  read  them  in  his 
own  fashion.  To  Spring  and  To  the  Evening  Star  have 
something  of  CoUins's  unrhymed  Ode  to  Evening,  yet  they 
are  not  copies  of  that  poem.  To  the  Muses,  one  of  the  most 
perfect  of  all  Blake's  lyrics,  has  the  finish,  the  music  of 
Collins's  finest  work.  When  we  consider  that  it  appeared 
on  the  very  eve  of  the  romantic  revival,  it  shows  that  Blake, 
though  a  seer,  was  no  prophet: 

IP.  239. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Whether  on  Ida's  shady  brow, 

Or  in  the  chambers  of  the  East, 
The  chambers  of  the  sun,  that  now 

From  ancient  melody  have  ceased; 

"  How  have  you  left  the  ancient  love 

That  bards  of  old  enjoyed  in  you! 
The  languid  strings  do  scarcely  move ! 

The  sound  is  forced,  the  notes  are  few  !"^ 

His  two  songs,  "My  silks  and  fine  array"  and  "Memory, 
hither  come,"  are  Elizabethan  in  expression  and  feeling,  yet 
here  we  have  some  characteristic  lines : 

"  I'll  pour  upon  the  stream 
Where  sighing  lovers  dream. 
And  fish  for  fancies  as  they  pass 
Within  the  watery  glass."^ 

It  is  in  the  song  "Love  and  harmony  combine"  that  we  see 
most  plainly  Blake's  spirit : 

"  Love  and  harmony  combine. 
And  around  our  souls  entwine 
While  thy  branches  mix  with  mine. 
And  our  roots  together  join. 

"  Joys  upon  our  branches  sit. 
Chirping  loud  and  swinging  sweet; 
Like  gentle  streams  beneath  our  feet 
Innocence  and  virtue  meet."' 

The  Songs  of  Innocence  are  pure  Blake.     He  had,  says 
Linnell,  "the  simplicity  and  gentleness  of  a  child,"  and  one 

ij.  Sampson,   The  Lyrical  Poems  of   William  Blake,  Oxford,  1906, 
p.  19. 

2  P.  15. 

3  P.  13. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  383 

may  add,  the  tenderness.  Love  for  the  unfortunate  and 
weak  was  a  cardinal  article  in  his  faith : 

"  A  horse  misused  upon  the  road 
Calls  to  Heaven  for  human  blood. 
Each  outcry  of  the  hunted  hare 
A  fibre  from  the  brain  does  tear. 
He  who  shall  hurt  the  little  wren 
Shall  never  be  beloved  by  men. 
Kill  not  the  moth  nor  butterfly. 
For  the  last  judgment  draweth  nigh."^ 

With  such  a  nature,  he  is  not  the  poet,  understanding  the 
child's  point  of  view,  he  is  the  child  itself  speaking  with  a 
directness  of  spiritual  apprehension  that  shames  our  reason 
and  touches  our  hearts.  The  poem  that  begins  "Little 
Lamb,  who  made  thee"  is  an  excellent  example  of  this. 
Stevenson  writes  with  equal  simplicity  of  the  simple  hap- 
penings in  a  child's  life;  Blake's  poems  are  deeper  and  lay 
hold  on  eternity,  for  he  saw  beyond  the  visible : 

"  For  a  double  vision  my  eyes  do  see. 
And  a  double  vision  is  always  with  me. 
With  my  inward  eye,  'tis  an  old  man  grey, 
With  my  outward,  a  thistle  across  my  way."^ 

All  these  qualities  combine  to  give  to  his  poems  a  touch  of 
strangeness  and  wonder  that  seems  alien  to  their  simple 
forms  and  monosyllabic  diction.  Even  in  his  Songs  of  Expe- 
rience, where  his  spirit  is  troubled,  he  keeps  this  mood  of 
wonder.  In  "Tiger !  Tiger !  burning  bright"  we  have  the 
most  perfect  example  of  this.  After  asking  what  hammer 
and  what  anvil  could  frame  its  fearful  symmetry,  he  writes : 

1  P.  138.    Several  lines  are  transposed. 

2  P.  153. 


38^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  When  the  stars  threw  down  their  spears. 
And  watered  heaven  with  their  tears. 
Did  he  smile  his  work  to  see? 
Did  he  who  made  the  Lamb  make  thee?"' 

The  effect  of  the  last  line,  with  its  naive  astonishment,  one 
never  forgets.  His  slumber  songs,  among  the  most  tender 
and  beautiful  in  the  language,  are  not  without  their  pathos 
when  we  remember  that  Blake  was  childless — they  were 
written  for  his  dream  children. 

We  find  in  the  Songs  of  Experience  his  deepest  lyric  note. 
London  is  an  outcry  against  the  wrongs  of  modern  society, 
but  rarely  does  he  look  at  his  age  in  this  fashion.  He  protests 
against  the  cruelty  and  falsehood  in  our  natures.  It  is  a  mark 
of  his  pecuhar  genius  that  his  shortest  poems,  eight  lines,  can 
start  such  far-reaching  thoughts  and  emotions.  The  Sick 
Rose,  Infant  Sorrow,  "I  told  my  love,"  have  a  significance 
in  their  direct  yet  subtle  appeal  which  the  grotesque  and 
grim  creatures  that  stalk  through  the  prophetic  books  have 
never  gained.  Blake  took  pleasure  in  the  fact  that  children 
had  delighted  in  his  drawings ;  the  simplest  reader  may  catch 
the  meaning  of  his  best  work.  Had  these  lyrics  been  widely 
read,  Blake  might  have  claimed  the  honor  of  restoring  to 
English  song  its  imaginative  and  spiritual  heritage. 

It  is  instructive  to  compare  these  poems  with  the  lyrics 
of  the  neo-Celtic  writers  who  claim  Blake  as  one  of  their 
band.  These  modern  poets  have  no  such  definite  vision,  for 
they  live  in  the  shadows  and  twilight.  They  lack  his  firm 
technique ;  their  verses  waver  and  falter  where  his  lyrics, 
like  arrows,  fly  swift  to  the  mark.  Their  pale  women  find 
no  place  in  his  songs,  for  he  writes  not  of  love  but  as  a  French 
critic  has  phrased  it,  of  a  love  for  humanity.^  Their  note  is 
full  of  pathos,  but  he  sings  of  action  and  hope.  Both  the 
moderns  and  Blake  lose  themselves  at  times  in  the  clouds, 

1  P.  58. 

2  P.  Berger,  William  Blake:  Mysticisme  et  PoMe,  Paris,  1906. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  386 

but  our  younger  poets  see  the  clouds  from  which  the  light 
is  fading;  Blake,  the  clouds  that  are  flushed  with  the  dawn. 


Though  we  have  confined  our  study  to  the  English  lyric, 
it  would  be  pedantry  to  pass  bj'  Robert  Burns  (1759-1796)  ; 
to  say  nothing  of  his  genius,  his  efi'ect  on  Wordsworth  alone 
would  justify  his  inclusion  in  a  volume  which  does  not  con- 
sider Scottish  verse.  He  stahds  at  the  end  of  a  long  line  of 
Scottish  singers ;  he  gathers  up  in  his  writings  all  the  domi- 
nant characteristics  of  the  vernacular  school ;  he  inherits  his 
vocabulary — racy  and  vivid — ^his  metres,  and  his  very  sub- 
jects. Accordingly  we  can  not  fully  appreciate  Burns  until 
we  perceive  what  he  took  from  his  predecessors  and  how  he 
transformed  what  he  took,  precisely  as  it  is  impossible  to 
understand  Shakespeare's  art  without  a  knowledge  of  his 
contemporaries  and  of  what  he  learned  from  them. 

Scottish  vernacular  literature  is  remarkable  for  its 
patriotism,  its  humor  and  its  realism.^  We  have  not  found 
in  the  English  lyric  that  outspoken  expression  of  nationality, 
that  pride  in  birth  and  tradition  that  has  always  marked 
the  Scottish  writers.  When  our  English  lyrists  turned 
eagerly  to  foreign  models,  Scottish  poets  found  their  inspira- 
tion more  often  at  home,  and  such  an  exception  as  Drummond 
of  Hawthornden  who  pillaged  French  and  Italian  poetry  in 
no  way  disproves  this.  The  very  years  when  Chaucer,  with 
all  his  English  spirit,  was  utilizing  French  fabliaux  or 
Boccaccio's  Griselda,  John  Barbour  was  writing  his  Bruce, 
the  story  of  Scotland's  hero,  and  writing  it  with  such  feeling 
that  centuries  after  it  stirred  the  imagination  of  Walter 
Scott  and  had  its  share  in  determining  his  career.  Given 
Burns's  familiarity  with  the  vernacular  poetry  and  given 
his  imitative  spirit,  it  was  almost  predestined  that  "Scots 

1  See  T.  F.  Henderson,  Scottish  Vernacular  Literature,  London,  1900. 


S86  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled,"  or  some  lyric  as  ardent  in  its 
patriotism  should  come  from  his  lips. 

We  have  seen  but  little  humor  in  the  English  lyric.  The 
gaiety  of  Suckhng,  the  wit  of  Prior,  the  pleasantry  of 
Cowper  are  far  removed  from  the  rollicking  spirit  of  the 
songs  that  pleased  the 

"  hairum-scairum,  ram-stam  boys. 
The  rattling  squad." 

The  humor  of  Scottish  poetry  is  that  of  the  country  wedding, 
the  village  fair,  the  rustic  dance,  the  tavern  song;  a  humor 
that  is  always  vigorous,  often  coarse  because  it  is  close  to 
the  soil.  It  is  the  literature  of  high  spirits  seeking  outlet; 
it  is  always  hearty  and  spontaneous  and  if  at  times  it  is 
pushed  too  far,  yet  it  is  saner  than  much  that  has  passed 
for  humor  in  the  writings  of  some  poets  we  have  considered. 

This  patriotism  and  humor  is  expressed  in  a  thoroughly 
realistic  manner ;  there  is  little  idealizing — though  to  every 
lover  a  mistress  is  all  beauty — and  there  is  small  searching 
for  fine  phrases  or  rare  similes  in  this  poetry.  The  men 
and  women  of  these  songs  are  the  peasants  at  the  plow,  and 
the  lasses  in  the  fields,  "yonder  girl  that  fords  the  bum." 
These  poets  who  sing  "the  loves,  the  ways  of  simple  swains," 
strive  to  show  life  as  they  see  it  and  feel  it ;  they  employ  a 
realistic  method  that  reminds  one  of  the  pictures  of  Terbourg 
or  Teniers,  except  that  the  Dutch  painters  give  us  the 
interiors  of  homes  and  taverns  while  the  Scottish  lyrists  show 
us  their  men  and  women  in  the  com  rigs  or  under  the  stars. 
When  Zola  mistakenly  argued  that  the  Latin  races  had 
introduced  realism  into  literature,  he  forgot,  among  other 
matters,  Scottish  poetry. 

It  is  to  our  poet's  honor  that  he  did  not  seek  to  depart 
from  the  traditions  of  the  vernacular.  From  boyhood  he 
had  been  an  eager  reader  of  verse  and  it  was  impossible  that 
he  should  always  avoid  what  he  considered  the  grand  manner. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  387 

We  have  many  traces  of  cold  and  lifeless  imitation,  many 
lapses  into  false  diction  ("wild  poetic  rage,"  he  called  it) 
He  even  wrote  a  poor  sonnet  and  a  Pindaric  ode,  yet  this 
is  a  small  part  of  his  work  and  his  own  good  sense  and  his 
Scottish  audience  saved  him  from  becoming  a  feeble  follower 
of  poets  with  whom  he  had  little  in  common.  Henley  has 
shown  that  Burns  often  needed  a  suggestion,  a  line  or  a 
phrase,  to  begin  his  song  and  he  found  these  hints  not  in 
"Thomson's  Landscape  glow"  or  "Shenstone's  art,"  but  in 
the  verses  of  many  forgotten  Scottish  singers.  "O  my  Luve's 
like  a  red,  red  rose"  is  a  good  example  of  this.  Cinthio's 
story  of  a  brutal  murder  caught  Shakespeare's  eye  and,  re- 
fashioned so  that  its  own  author  would  not  know  it,  a  clumsily 
told  tale  becomes  Othello.  Bums  makes  a  flawless  lyric  out 
of  these  rude  verses : 

"  Her  cheeks  are  like  the  roses 

That  blossom  fresh  in  June, 

O,  she's  like  a  new-strung  instrument 

That's  newly  put  in  tune." 

"  The  seas  they  shall  run  dry. 

And  rocks  melt  into  sands; 
Then  I'll  love  you  still,  my  dear. 
When  all  those  things  are  done." 

"  Fare  you  well,  my  own  true  love. 
And  fare  you  well  for  a  while. 
And  I  will  be  sure  to  return  back  again. 
If  I  go  ten  thousand  mile.""^ 

Each  of  these  three  stanzas  represents  a  diflFerent  song; 
the  poet's  instinct  told  him  what  to  leave  and  what  to  change 
for  all  through  his  lyrics  he  showed  a  remarkable  intuition 

1  W.  E.  Henley  and  T.  F.  Henderson,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Burns, 
Edinburgh,  1896,  vol.  Ill,  p.  402.  Cf.  Henley's  splendid  essay,  vol.  IV, 
pp.  332-332. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

for  the  best.  Thus  in  his  work  lives  on  the  finest  emotion, 
the  inspired  phrase  of  many  a  rustic  singer,  and  his  songs 
move  us  because  we  hear  in  them  not  only  Bums  but  other 
poets  who  have  hoped  and  sorrowed.  These  country  songs, 
these  Jacobite  relics,  were  common  property ;  Ramsay  knew 
them  and  collected  many,  but  it  was  Burns  who  saw  in  them 
his  opportunity,  as  every  artist  sees  in  the  trivial  and 
commonplace  the  material  for  his  greatest  work. 

It  must  not  be  presumed  that  Bums  was  content  merely  to 
refine  the  work  of  others.  What  he  learned  from  Scottish 
song  is  incalculable — he  was  no  Chatterton  or  Blake,  creating 
his  own  world — yet  a  man  of  his  force  and  fearlessness  has 
always  his  own  message.  The  most  impressive  quality  in  his 
songs  is  the  energy,  the  life  that  infuses  them.  Too  many  of 
our  lyrists  have  written  to  please  a  patron  or  a  mistress ; 
Burns  wrote  to  please  himself.  If  there  had  been  no  printing 
press,  he  still  would  have  rhymed  "for  fun,"  to  use  his  own 
phrase;  had  there  been  no  peasants,  no  Edinburgh  society 
to  applaud  him,  he  still  would  have  taught 

"  the  lanely  heights  an'  howes 
My  rustic  sang." 

Burns  knew  precisely  what  he  wished  to  accompHsh :     , 

"  Gie  me  ae  spark  o'  Nature's  fire, 
That's  a'  the  learning  I  desire; 
Then,  tho'  I  drudge  thro'  dub  an'  mire 

At  pleugh  or  cart. 
My  Muse,  the'  hamely  in  attire. 

May  touch  the  heart."^ 

He  threw  himself  into  life ;  even  in  his  conversation,  said  one 
who  knew  him,  he  carried  everything  before  him.  His  one 
aim  was  to  express  not  fancies,  or  sentiments,  or  dreams,  but 
the  emotions  of  a  full-blooded  man.  It  was  this  faculty  of 
^Epistle  to  J.  Lapraik,  Henley  and  Henderson,  Burns,  vol.  I,  p.  158. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION 

gaining  from  the  very  moment  all  that  it  has  to  offer,  this 
concentration  of  feeling,  that  gives  his  poems  their  power. 
If  we  contrast  his  To  a  Daisy  or  To  a  Fieldmouse  with 
Vaughan's  lines  to  a  flower  or  to  the  bird  blown  in  his  window 
we  see  how  much  closer  Burns  is  to  hfe,  though  Vaughan  was 
a  nature  lover.  This  intensity  of  feeling  was  aided  by  the 
fact  that  Burns  did  not  write  for  the  eye  but  for  the  ear; 
his  songs  were  really  sung  and  the  old  melodies  to  which  he 
composed  them  lent  some  of  their  feeling  to  his  words. 

To  English  readers,  the  Scottish  dialect  is  as  poetic  as 
Milton's  latinized  diction,  but  his  vocabulary  was  the  simple 
one  of  the  Scotch  peasant.  He  shared  with  Villon  the  gift 
of  drawing  his  pictures  firmly  and  sharply;  we  have  had 
many  personifications  that  leave  no  image  on  the  memory, 
but  in  a  phrase,  Burns  outdoes  a  whole  Pindaric  ode: 

"  See,  crazy,  weary,  joyless  Eild, 
Wi'  wrinkled  face, 
Comes  hostin,  hirplin  owre  the  field, 
Wi'  creepin  pace.""^ 

What  a  vivid  picture  of  old  age.  In  his  nature  descriptions, 
we  have  whole  landscapes  in  a  pair  of  verses.  It  is  interesting 
to  see  him  meet  Shakespeare  on  his  own  ground  and  equal 
in  his  stanza  on  the  lark,  the  exquisite  picture  in  the  song 
from  Cymbelme. 

To  express,  then,  the  deepest  feelings  in  the  simplest 
manner  was  Burns's  gift.  There  are  many  aspects  of 
thought  and  emotion  which  he  did  not  consider.  If  we  accept 
Shelley's  simile  of  Hfe — a  dome  of  many  colored  glass  stain- 
ing the  radiance  of  eternity- — the  richer  and  subtler  colors 
were  not  for  Bums.  "Ae  fond  kiss"  or  "Of  a'  the  airts"  are 
as  clear  as  the  sunlight  itself  and  beside  such  frank  expres- 
sion  much   of   our   modern   song   seems    fantastically   over- 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  63,  Epistle  to  James  Smith. 


S90  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

wrought  and  curiously  subtle.    Not  to  Wordsworth  alone  has 
Bums  revealed  that 

"  Verse  may   build   a  princely   throne 
On  humble  truth."'^ 

VI 

The  death  of  Burns  brings  us  within  two  years  of  the 
publication  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads;  yet  before  we  come  to 
that  epoch-making  work,  we  must  consider  one  more  pre- 
cursor of  the  romantic  movement.  WilKam  Lisle  Bowles 
(1762-1850),  a  graduate  of  Oxford,  a  canon  of  Salisbury, 
wrote,  among  other  poems,  thirty  sonnets.  Many  of  them 
are  descriptions  of  places  which  he  visited  in  a  vain  attempt 
to  forget  the  death  of  his  betrothed.  They  are  accordingly 
filled  with  a  grief  which,  as  his  nature  was  a  mild  one, 
diffuses  itself  in  a  plaintive  melancholy,  not  unlike  the 
mood  of  the  Miltonic  group.  At  times  Bowles  shows  their 
influence  and  takes  many  a  phrase  from  Milton  himself. 
We  see  the  ocean  stiUed  at  evening,  gray  battlements,  for- 
saken towers ;  we  wander  beside  sequestered  streams  musing 
on  happier  days ;  we  hear  the  mournful  sound  of  bells  across 
the  water.  The  descriptions  are  graceful,  the  thought  is 
simply  expressed,  and  if  beside  the  elegiac  verses  of  Shelley 
and  Byron  (who  detested  Bowles  and  dubbed  him  the  "Maud- 
lin Prince  of  mournful  sonneteers")  the  emotional  force 
appears  weak,  it  is  never  insincere  and  we  know  that  he 
weeps  "for  her  who  in  the  cold  grave  lies."  The  sonnet 
beginning  "0  Time!  who  know'st  a  lenient  hand  to  lay," 
sums  up  all  his  qualities. 

The  influence  of  Bowles  on  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  was 
a  marked  one.^     Coleridge,  in  his  enthusiasm,  made  forty 

lAt  the  Grave  of  Burns. 

2  See  T.  E.  Casson,  Bowles,  in  Eighteenth  Century  Literature,  Oxford, 
1909. 


LYRIC  OF  THE  TRANSITION  S91 

copies  of  twenty  of  the  sonnets  and  presented  them  to  his 
friends ;  amid  other  eulogies  he  has  called  Bowles  "the  most 
tender,  and  with  the  exception  of  Burns,  the  only  always 
natural  poet  in  our  language."  The  story  of  Wordsworth 
reading  the  sonnets  through  on  Westminster  Bridge,  forget- 
ful of  the  noise  of  the  passers,  is  a  weU-known  one  and  there 
are  many  descriptions  in  them  that  plainly  attracted  him : 

"  As  one  who,  long  by  wasting  sickness  worn, 

Weary  has  watched  the  lingering  night,  and  heard 
Heartless  the  carol  of  the  matin  bird 

Salute  his  lonely  porch,  now  first  at  morn 

Goes  forth,  leaving  his  melancholy  bed; 

He  the  green  slope  and  level  meadow  views. 
Delightful  bathed  with  slow-ascending  dews; 

Or  marks  the  clouds,  that  o'er  the  mountain's  head 

In  varying  forms  fantastic  wander  white."' 

To  express  one's  grief  unaffectedly,  to  find  in  nature  not 
only  beauty  but  consolation,  these  were  the  chief  tenets  of 
this  poet's  creed.  Like  many  a  pathfinder,  he  is  now  for- 
gotten, yet  with  others  considered  in  this  chapter,  he  led  the 
way  for  the  newer  and  greater  race  of  singers. 

IW.  L.  Bowles,  Sonnets  and  other  Poems,  seventh  edition,  London, 
1800,  p.  35. 


CHAPTER  EIGHT 

The  Lyric  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 


PART   ONE 


The  Lyrical  Ballads  appeared  in  1798,  making  that  year 
forever  memorable  in  literary  history.  To  this  volume  Cole- 
ridge (1772-1834i)  contributed  the  Ancient  Mariner  and 
three  other  pieces ;  of  the  remaining  nineteen  poems  by 
Wordsworth  (1770-1850),  Tintern  Abbey,  the  last  one  in 
the  book,  is  at  once  the  most  significant  and  the  most  beauti- 
ful. As  Wordsworth's  share,  then,  in  this  first  fruit  of  the 
modern  Renaissance  was  the  greater,  we  shall  consider  him 
before  Coleridge. 

Although  Wordsworth's  productivity  covered  a  long 
period  of  years,  the  distinctive  qualities  of  his  work  are  all 
to  be  found  in  the  Ballads.  We  see  at  once  his  preference 
for  a  simple  and  unadorned  diction ;  his  insistence  upon  the 
significance  and  the  grandeur  of  the  most  elementary  feel- 
ings ;  his  passion  for  the  beauty  of  nature  and  his  realization 
of  its  power  over  man's  mind  and  soul.  Though  his  spirit 
is  here,  the  book  does  not  show  his  technique  at  its  best;  it 
contains  neither  ode  nor  sonnet  and  this  omission  of  the 
formal  lyric  is  significant.  The  genius  of  Wordsworth  was 
not  lyrical;  he  has  not  left  us  a  single  song,  for  though 
lyrical  feeling  surges  through  his  verse,  the  gift  of  Burns 
was  denied  to  him. 

This  seems  remarkable,  for  not  only  was  Wordsworth  of 
a  deeply  emotional  nature,  but  he  gave  his  emotions  free 
play ;  his  finest  poems  are  suff^used  with  a  feeling  so  poignant 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  393 

that  they  subdue  us  instantly  to  the  poet's  mood.  He  was 
ever  given  to  splendid  enthusiasm.  As  a  young  graduate 
from  Cambridge,  studying  in  France  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution,  he  determined  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  Girondist  party;  his  life  was  saved  because  his  friends 
in  alarm  summoned  him  back  to  England.  Such  an  episode 
seems  to  come  from  the  biography  of  Shelley.  Assured  that 
he  had  a  message  for  the  world,  he  abandoned  everything  to 
study  it  and  to  tell  it.  Living  frugally,  far  from  the  busy 
hum  of  men,  like  Blake  he  knew  what  it  meant  to  scorn 
delights  and  live  laborious  days ;  surely  no  one  had  ever  a 
better  right  to  extol  plain  living  and  high  thinking.  He 
was  a  deeper  mystic  than  Blake,  for  the  poet-artist  often 
felt  himself  but  the  instrument  of  the  spirit  world  and  his 
vision  passed  beyond  poetic  representation;  Wordsworth 
never  lost  the  power  of  telUng  what  he  saw  and  felt  so  that 
all  might  understand  the  purport  if  not  the  depth  of  his 
meaning.  From  such  a  nature,  emotional,  idealistic,  we 
expect  a  veritable  flood  of  song.  We  have  said  that  this 
Renaissance  of  poetry  was  distinguished  by  a  renewal  of  the 
lyric  and  in  considering  Wordsworth's  verse,  we  must  seek 
to  ascertain  why  it  lacked  the  song  quality. 

One  reason  for  this  is  that  he  had  a  well-considered,  and 
for  his  day,  a  revolutionary  theory  of  poetry  to  expound; 
if  he  was  not  a  teacher,  he  said,  then  he  was  nothing.  Now 
the  didactic  spirit  is  inimical  to  song.  The  Psalms,  the 
grandest  collection  of  lyrics  in  ancient  literature,  certainly 
are  at  times  didactic ;  a  modern  writer  has  declared  that 
poets  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach  in  song.  However, 
the  first  concern  of  Psalmist  and  modern  lyrist  alike  is  the 
expression  of  emotion  and  we  read  into  their  songs  the  lesson. 
With  Wordsworth  the  message  too  often  was  first  in  his 
mind,  and  while  this  may  or  may  not  lower  the  emotional 
tone,  it  disturbs  and  even  destroys  song.  We  see  a  good 
illustration  of  this  in  one  of  his  best-known  poems : 


3H  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 

A  rainbow  in  the  sky: 
So  was  it  when  my  life  began; 
So  is  it  now  I  am  a  man ; 
So  be  it  when  I  shall  grow  old, 

Or  let  me  die !" 

Here  is  a  pure  lyric ;  the  lines  sing  themselves,  but  when  we 
come  to  the  three  concluding  verses  that  give  the  significance 
to  the  emotion,  the  thought  is  expressed  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  song  quality  instantly  vanishes: 

"  The  child  is  father  of  the  man; 
And  I  could  wish  my  days  to  be 
Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 

Another  poem,  equally  familiar,  has  a  lyric  opening: 

"  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 
That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills," 

but  it  has  too  much  description,  the  style  is  too  compact  for 
a  song.  It  forms  a  deUghtful  contrast  with  Herrick's 
To  Daffodils,  which  is  more  delicate  and  more  artful  in  its  ■ 
lament  for  fading  beauty.  Reading  these  poems  side  by 
side  we  see  how  much  more  significant  even  a  flower  has 
become  to  the  modern  poet. 

If  Wordsworth's  desire  to  comment  upon  his  emotions  and 
to  explain  his  thoughts  restrains  him  from  song,  equally  so 
does  his  fundamental  conception  of  poetry,  which  is,  he 
informs  us,  "emotion  recollected  in  tranquillity."  The  song 
springs  at  once  from  the  occasion ;  but  this  burst  of  feeling 
Wordsworth  would  restrain  to  ponder  and  reflect  upon.  If  it 
be  not  sacrilege  to  enlarge  upon  his  definition,  his  poetry  at 
least  is  not  only  emotion  recollected  in  tranquillity  but  it 
produces  tranquil  feelings  and  calm  thoughts — and  this  is 
not  the  lyric  mood,  though  all  lyrics  do  not  spring  from 
storm  and  stress.     Unlike  his  Highland  reaper,  Wordsworth 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  395 

does  not  sing  of  old,  unhappy,  far-oflF  things,  but  of  the 
peace  of  nature  and  her  restoring  power.  Song  finds  such 
a  theme  too  vast  for  it. 

Love  is  the  most  common  of  lyric  themes ;  there  is  remark- 
ably little  love  poetry  in  his  many  poems.  Of  all  his  sonnets, 
"AVhy  art  thou  silent"  is  the  only  one  that  approaches  the 
mood  of  the  Elizabethans,  and  this  was  written,  he  said, 
without  the  least  reference  to  any  individual  and  merely  to 
show  that  he  could  write  "in  a  strain  poets  have  been  fond 
of."  The  Lucy  poems,  however,  contain  one  memorable 
lyric,  a  dirge  that  expresses  in  eight  lines  the  utter  desolation 
wrought  by  death.  "A  slumber  did  my  spirit  steal"  goes  as 
deep  as  the  plummet  of  grief  ever  sounded,  for  the  poet 
realizes  that  what  he  once  loved  is  now  a  dull  clod,  no  better 
than  the  stone  or  tree.  The  anguish  of  despair  does  not 
burst  forth  as  it  does  in  the  elegies  of  Byron  or  Shelley,  for 
in  the  very  whirlwind  of  Wordsworth's  passion  there  is 
always  a  temperance  that  gives  it  smoothness.  We  must 
never  be  deceived  by  his  calmer  manner. 

The  love  that  Wordsworth  sang  was  not  for  woman  but 
for  one  who  never  betrayed  the  heart  that  loved  her. 
Nature  was  more  beautiful  to  him  than  she  had  been  to  any 
of  his  predecessors  because  he  knew  her  better.  He  found 
her  "so  lovely  that  the  heart  can  not  sustain  her  beauty" ; 
he  felt  love  stealing  "from  earth  to  man,  from  man  to  earth," 
and  more  than  any  other  writer,  he  changed  the  whole  atti- 
tude of  his  race  towards  the  outer  world.  He  has  here  a 
subject  for  verse  that  never  grows  old.  Many  of  the  emo- 
tions that  have  moved  our  lyric  poets  seem  remote  to  us,  or 
at  least  the  manner  in  which  they  were  expressed  has  ren- 
dered them  so.  Not  only  has  Wordsworth  found  in  the 
beauty  and  in  the  sustaining  power  of  nature  an  enduring 
theme,  but  he  has  expressed  it  in  a  language  and  style  of 
almost  Biblical  simplicity.  Nature  seems  to  take  the  pen 
from  his  hand,  Arnold  said,  but  the  verse  he  selects  to  show 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

this    loses   its    force    apart    from   its    context.      Far   better 
examples  are  such  lines  as : 


or 


"  Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart:" 

"  The  sea  that  bares  her  bosom  to  the  moon;" 
or 

"  The  winds  come  to  me  from  the  fields  of  sleep," 

where  every  word  but  one  is  monosyllabic  and  where  nature 
gives  the  inspiration.  Taine  has  said  that  to  understand 
Wordsworth  one  must  empty  his  head  of  all  earthly  matters ; 
on  the  contrary,  one  must  come  very  close  to  the  earth  to 
see  the  power  and  truthfulness  of  his  writing  compared  with 
which  much  of  our  modern  verse  seems  affected,  if  not  posi- 
tively insincere. 

It  is  by  virtue  of  his  sonnets  and  odes  that  Wordsworth 
is  numbered  among  our  lyric  poets.  It  must  frankly  be 
confessed  that  the  great  majority  of  his  sonnets  are  unread- 
able, for  they  are  dull.  Self-centered,  destitute  of  humor 
(which  implies  a  lack  of  self-criticism)  Wordsworth  could 
not  separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  in  his  poetic  garner; 
still,  if  we  select  the  very  best  of  the  sonnets,  they  form  the 
finest  series  in  the  language.  They  have  nothing  of  Shakes- 
peare's grace  or  of  his  idealization  of  human  loveHness; 
they  never  approach  the  tone  of  Milton's  scorching  anger 
or  the  dignity  of  his  pathos ;  their  music  has  never  the 
"weight  and  volume  of  sound"  that  distinguishes  Rossetti's 
sonnets ;  yet  this  is  merely  saying  that  Wordsworth  is  not 
many  sonneteers,  but  one.  The  range  of  the  sonnets  is 
remarkable.  Our  modem  poets  believe  that  they  have  dis- 
covered the  city,  but  they  have  never  equalled  the  sonnet 
composed  upon  Westminster  Bridge;  they  sing  of  crowded 
streets,  of  poverty  and  shame,  while  Wordsworth  finds  in  the 
sleeping  London  the  peace  that  broods  on  his  mountains. 
For  political  sonnets,  we  have  the  ones  on  Venice,  on  Switzer- 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  397 

land,  and  the  six  written  in  London  in  1802,  filled  with  a 
patriotism  that  is  not  blind,  and  a  stern  criticism  that  is 
inspiring.  For  description  of  nature  there  are  many 
masterpieces,  such  as  "It  is  a  beauteous  evening,"  or  the 
lines  on  the  Trossachs ;  for  pure  music,  "A  flock  of  sheep 
that  leisurely  pass  by,"  which  rivals  in  its  imagery  and  in 
its  soft  melody  the  famous  picture  of  the  cave  of  Sleep  in 
the  Faerie  Queene;  for  feeling,  expressing  his  dominant  idea, 
"The  world  is  too  much  with  us."  All  these  sonnets  are 
broad  in  their  spirit;  they  have  the  health  and  strength 
of  the  ocean  breezes.  Despite  the  beauty  of  individual  lines, 
they  owe  their  distinction  to  their  content  rather  than  to 
their  form ;  many  sonnets  have  been  more  cunningly  wrought, 
but  none  have  surpassed  them  in  nobility  of  feeling. 

Two  of  Wordsworth's  odes  rank  among  his  highest 
achievements.  The  Ode  to  Duty  is  modelled  on  Gray's  Hymn 
to  Adversity,  but  the  similarity  of  form  is  the  only  resem- 
blance. Wordsworth's  poem  contains  no  allegorical  figures, 
no  descriptive  touches,  but  relies  entirely  upon  the  elevation 
of  its  thought  expressed  with  a  restraint  that  befits  the 
subject: 

"  Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong ; 
And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through  Thee,  are  fresh  and 
strong." 

It  is  fortunate  that  the  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality, the  justification  of  the  whole  pseudo-Pindaric  school, 
is  so  familiar  that  it  needs  little  comment.  Wordsworth  has 
written  odes  as  uninspired  as  Cowley's;  a  mere  glance  at 
"Hail,  orient  Conqueror  of  gloomy  night,"  or  at  the  Ode  on 
the  Power  of  Sound  will  show  it.  Here,  with  a  subject  that 
thrilled  him,  he  became  what  he  wished  to  be,  the  prophet, 
the  bard.  The  ode  has  not  the  richness  of  Spenser's  verse, 
nor  has  its  music  the  cumulative  effect  of  Lycidas,  in  which 
there  are  ever-advancing  waves  of  melody ;  in  at  least  one 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

stanza,  as  Professor  Saintsbury  points  out,  the  metre  is 
thoroughly  inadequate,  but  we  forget  this  in  the  eifect  of 
the  poem  as  a  whole.  Again  and  again  the  feeling  and 
thought  concentrate  in  verse  so  simple  and  yet  so  poignant, 
that  we  may  call  this  the  greatest  ode  in  the  language.  If 
such  praise  seems  uncritical,  what  is  to  be  placed  above  this 
poem? 

Coleridge  (1772-1834),  poet,  philosopher,  and  critic, 
turned  to  prose  from  verse  in  which  he  had  shown  a  genius 
unmatched  and  even  unapproached.  No  poet  before  or  after 
him  has  written  with  such  imagination  and  thought  so 
vitally  united.  At  times  his  criticism  appears  positively  in- 
spired, yet  other  writers  might  have  brought  as  keen  an 
insight  to  the  study  of  Shakespeare  or  have  analyzed  with 
equal  clearness  the  qualities  of  Wordsworth's  style ;  we  feel 
in  reading  Christabel  or  Dejection  that  we  are  listening  to 
a  voice  whose  melodies  none  can  repeat.  When  a  great  poet 
abandons  his  art,  nothing  can  compensate  for  the  loss. 
An  act  of  Faust  outweighs  all  the  pages  of  Wilhelm  Meister. 

Coleridge  has  three  distinct  lyric  moods ;  we  see  them  in 
The  Ancient  Mariner,  Kubla  Khan,  and  the  Odes.  The 
Ancient  Mariner,  the  first  poem  in  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  is  as 
much  a  lyric  as  a  tale.  We  did  not  discuss  the  early  ballads 
because  they  were  little  epics ;  the  ballad  makers  described 
the  deeds  of  men  and  women  in  an  impersonal  manner,  with 
little  censure  or  praise.  An  old  woman,  sheltered  for  seven 
years  by  the  outlaw,  William  of  Cloudesly,  rises  up  from 
his  hearth  to  sell  his  life  for  a  scarlet  gown ;  the  ballad  maker 
neither  comments  upon  her  villainy  nor  laments  the  ingrati- 
tude of  mankind.  Often  the  ballad  singers  stand  far  off 
from  the  world  they  depict : 

"  O  lang,  lang  may  their  ladies  sit, 

Wi'  their  fans  into  their  hand, 
Or  eir  they  see  Sir  Patrick  Spans 
Cum  sailing  to  the  land !" 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC 

In  the  Ancient  Mariner,  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  the  story 
has  one  purpose ;  to  thrill  us  with  the  sufferings  of  a  man 

"  Alone,  alone,  all,  all  alone. 
Alone  on  a  wide,  wide  sea !" 

Amid  aU  the  horrors  of  that  strange  voyage,  we  never  forget 
him,  for  he  it  is  and  not  the  poet  who  speaks  to  us,  and  again 
and  again  the  narrative  pauses  and  we  hear  his  song  of 
agony.  We  must  compare  with  this  poem  the  ballad  of 
Thomas  the  Rhymer  if  we  would  understand  the  intensity 
of  the  modern  imagination  and  feeling ;  how  far  removed  are 
the  ferlies  he  sees  from  the  fearful  sights  which  but  recounted 
stun  the  wedding  guest !  The  art  of  the  verse,  apparently 
so  simply  written,  the  effect  of  the  repetitions,  the  sudden 
climaxes,  show  a  complete  mastery  of  technique ;  no  one  had 
ever  suspected  that  such  possibilities  lay  concealed  in  this 
measure.  What  is  perhaps  the  most  difficult  feat  of  all, 
Coleridge  has  perfectly  accomplished.  He  has  brought  the 
terror  and  shudder  of  romance  to  a  story  told  as  though  it 
were  an  adventure  in  the  Spanish  main;  that  is,  the  tale 
never  fades  away  into  the  shadows  though  the  mystery  is 
always  before  us.  It  is  as  though  a  spirit  passed  before  us 
taking  the  form  of  man,  and  yet  we  knew  it  to  be  a  ghostly 
visitant.  GUpin  Horner,  the  goblin  page  of  the  Lay  of  the 
Last  Minstrel,  has  nothing  of  the  other  world  about  him ;  this 
is  a  dream  that  has  all  the  sharp  outline  of  reality,  and  yet 
we  know  it  is  a  dream. 

Kubla  Khan  is  the  finest  example  in  our  literature  of  what 
Herrick  has  called  the  magic  incantation  of  verse.  The 
scenery  in  the  Lotos-Eaters  is  carefully  designed;  in  this 
poem  the  "sunny  pleasure-dome  with  caves  of  ice"  rises  like  an 
exhalation  at  the  sound  of  the  music  that  is  in  every  word. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the  poem  is  pure  melody,  for 
from  its  modulations  comes  a  more  definite  mood  than  our 
modem  poets  of  the  Celtic  twilight  can  evoke  with  all  their 


400  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

tone  pictures.  The  quiet  opening;  the  more  rapid  move- 
ment of  the  lines  in  which  is  depicted  the  mighty  fountain 
bursting  from  the  earth;  the  mystery  of  the  far-ofF  voices 
prophesying  war ;  the  vision  of  the  Abyssinian  maid ;  the 
burst  of  ecstasy  with  which  the  poem  closes,  show  Coleridge 
more  the  magician  here  than  in  the  Ancient  Mariner.  How 
few  poems  there  are  that  leave  us  in  this  mood  of  wonder, 
thrilled  with  the  rapture  of  a  vision  which  leaves  the  imagi- 
nation untouched  with  sadness.  In  Shelley's  poems  we  have 
an  ecstasy  of  feeling  but  inevitably  accompanied  with 
despondency  and  even  despair. 

Before  we  come  to  the  Odes,  two  short  lyrics  deserve  con- 
sideration.    The  song  from  Zapolya, 

"  A  sunny  shaft  did  I  behold. 

From  sky  to  earth  it  slanted: 
And  poised  therein  a  bird  so  bold — • 

Sweet  bird,  thou  wert  enchanted !" 

is  musical  and  full  of  color ;  his  lament,  Work  without  Hope, 
whose  fourteen  lines  another  poet  would  have  cast  in  the 
sonnet  form,  is  more  impressive  than  the  passionately 
expressed  laments  of  our  later  romanticists.  They  express 
some  mood  or  sorrow  of  the  moment ;  here  we  have  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  futility  of  a  man's  whole  life : 

"  With  lips  unbrightened,  wreathless  brow,  I  stroll: 
And  would  you  learn  the  spells  that  drowse  my  soul .'' 
Work  without  Hope  draws  nectar  in  a  sieve. 
And  Hope  without  an  object  cannot  live." 

Of  the  three  Odes,  the  two  pohtical  ones,  On  the  Depart- 
ing Year  and  To  France,  must  yield  to  Dejection.  The  first 
two,  romantic  in  feeling,  have  something  of  the  eighteenth 
century  classic  style  about  them ;  their  personifications — 
Avarice,  Destruction,  Ambition — are  masks  rather  than  the 
figurative  embodiment  of  the  poet's  thought.     The  Ode  to 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  4OI 

France  is  the  finer  one,  for  its  opening  strophe  is  one  of 
Coleridge's  best  achievements.  The  spirit  of  these  lines  is 
as  emotional  as  Shelley's,  yet  where  his  music  comes  with  a 
burst,  here  the  "dark  inwoven  harmonies"  strike  the  ear 
more  gradually.  We  have  spoken  of  the  rhetoric  which  dis- 
figures Pindaric  odes  as  a  class;  here  is  an  apostrophe  to 
nature  in  which  every  line  rings  with  sincerity.  There  is  no 
better  way  of  distinguishing  in  any  ode  feigned  emotion 
from  the  genuine  expression  of  deeply  wrought  feeling  than 
reading  aloud  this  stanza  and  then  turning  to  Cowley's 
Pindarics. 

The  Ode  to  Dejection  deals  not  with  the  tragedy  of  the 
French  Revolution,  but  with  the  tragedy  in  the  poet's  mind, 
and  though  he  writes  but  of  himself,  this  poem  seems  broader 
in  spirit  than  his  others.  The  thought,  we  may  even  say 
the  philosophy,  of  the  ode  has  neither  repressed  the  feeling 
nor  the  poet's  delight  in  picturing  the  clouds  and  the  moon 
in  lines  which  rival  the  observation  and  the  beauty  of  phrase 
of  Wordsworth  at  his  best: 

"  All  this  long  eve,  so  balmy  and  serene, 
Have  I  been  gazing  on  the  western  sky. 

And  its  peculiar  tint  of  yellow  green : 
And  still  I  gaze — and  with  how  blank  an  eye ! 
And  those  thin  clouds  above,  in  flakes  and  bars. 
That  give  away  their  motion  to  the  stars; 
Those  stars,  that  glide  behind  them  or  between. 
Now  sparkling,  now  bedimmed,  but  always  seen: 
Yon  crescent  moon,  as  fixed  as  if  it  grew 
In  its  own  cloudless,  starless  lake  of  blue ; 
I  see  them  all  so  excellently  fair, 
I  see,  not  feel,  how  beautiful  they  are !" 

This  is  the  rare  quality  of  Coleridge's  poetry :  the  purely 
intellectual  element  in  his  verse  is  fused  naturally  with  his 
most  emotional  and  sensuous  writing.     If  we  compare  this 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

ode  with  Shelley's  expression  of  dejection,  we  shall  see  that 
Coleridge  analyzes  his  mood,  he  "looks  before  and  after," 
while  Shelley,  with  all  his  richness  of  imagery,  but  tries  to 
explain  his  feeling  at  one  given  moment  of  time.  In  Words- 
worth's thought  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  seems 
not  sought  out  but  intuitively  perceived,  directly  appre- 
hended ;  in  Coleridge's  poems,  we  see  the  mind  at  work,  and 
it  is  the  mind  of  a  mystic  and  thinker,  a  dreamer  and  an 
observer. 


II 


Lord  Byron  (1788-1824),  the  greatest  personal  force  in 
English  letters  since  Dean  Swift,  has  left  many  lyrics  of 
self-revelation,  the  most  frank  and  intimate  poems  that  had 
hitherto  seen  the  light,  for  they  disclosed  moods  that  are 
not  often  shown  the  world.  In  them  we  find  him  from  very 
boyhood  shy,  sensitive,  deeply  emotional,  longing  for  appre- 
ciation and  sympathy.  Without  glossing  over  in  his  career 
much  that  was  unworthy,  much  that  was  wrong,  it  may  at 
least  be  said  that  many  of  his  misfortunes  came  from  Fate 
rather  than  from  his  own  acts.  His  unhappy  love  for  Mary 
Chaworth  (she  married  when  Byron  was  but  seventeen!)  em- 
bittered his  whole  hfe,  as  The  Dream  and  many  other  poems, 
unmistakable  in  their  sincerity,  attest.  He  was  unhappy  in 
a  proud  and  violent  mother  who  treated  him  with  alternate 
affection  and  cruelty ;  in  a  wife  who  so  little  understood  him 
that  she  actually  inquired  when  he  would  give  up  his  bad 
habit  of  writing  verses.  He  proclaimed  with  bravado  his 
contempt  for  society,  yet  he  desired  homage ;  he  wrote  that 
he  would  willingly  forget  man,  yet  he  longed  for  fame.  His 
last  weeks  in  Greece  were  filled  with  discouragements  and 
disillusionment  as  he  saw  the  petty  jealousies  and  the  mer- 
cenary aims  of  the  race  for  which  he  had  such  hopes.    Even 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^03 

a  soldier's  death,  which  he  sought,  was  denied  to  him.  As 
Byron  is  the  least  impersonal  of  poets,  his  life  is  pictured  with 
such  fidelity  in  his  verse  (for  we  can  brush  aside  the  rhetoric) 
that  in  reading  the  lyrics  there  is  a  temptation  to  regard 
them  not  as  works  of  art  but  as  psychological  documents, 
as  though  they  were  so  many  letters  in  a  novel  written  by  a 
greater  Richardson,  laying  bare  the  mind  and  heart  of  a 
genius. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  these  lyrics  that  holds  our 
attention;  there  is  a  certain  evolution  of  thought  and  emo- 
tion that  culminates  in  Byron.  The  pensive  elegies  of  the 
Miltonic  school;  the  sentimentalism  of  Sterne's  Tristram 
Shandy;  the  carefully  calculated  sorrows  and  even  agonies 
of  Richardson's  Clarissa  Harlowe,  are  signs  of  what  we  may 
call  the  revival  of  pity.  Rousseau,  sinister  influence,  in  his 
Nouvelle  Heloise  shows  the  deepening  of  this  emotion  and  its 
transformation  into  uncontrolled  passion;  Goethe,  in  his 
WertJier,  shows  pity  transformed  to  bitterness  and  despair. 
Then  came  the  French  Revolution  and  its  failure.  France 
with  its  Bourbon  king,  England  with  Castlereagh,  settled 
back  in  the  old  established  ways ;  in  the  reaction,  high  hopes 
were  lost,  ideals  of  a  regenerated  society  were  shattered,  and 
free  thought  was  crushed  by  the  orthodoxy  of  church  and 
state.  Pity  changed  to  anger;  the  love  of  humanity  to  a 
contempt  for  society;  enthusiasm  to  scorn.  Carlyle  has 
defined  Weltschmerz  as  passion  incapable  of  action,  and  this 
feeling  of  disappointment,  of  frustrated  hopes,  this  Welt- 
schmerz, Byron  expressed  as  did  no  other  poet.  If  there  is 
danger  of  treating  his  lyrics  as  personal  biography,  there  is 
equal  danger  of  regarding  them  as  social  documents,  of  see- 
ing in  them  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Burns  was  in  revolt 
against  the  authority  of  the  church  in  a  country  parish; 
Byron  was  a  revolutionist  to  whom  Europe  listened,  and 
stiU  on  the  Continent  he  is  regarded  as  the  greatest  of  modem 
English  poets. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Remembering  then  Byron's  life  and  the  temper  of  the 
times,  we  read  his  lyrics  and  find  in  them  two  moods.  The 
first  is  his  expression  of  the  tcedium  vita;  we  see  writ  large 
his  unhappiness,  his  discontent  with  life : 

"  Count  o'er  the  joys  thine  hours  have  seen. 

Count  o'er  thy  days  from  anguish  free, 
And  know,  whatever  thou  hast  been, 
'Tis  something  better  not  to  be."'^ 

We  hear  the  voice  of  Hamlet : 

"  It  is  that  weariness  which  springs 

From  all  I  meet,  or  hear,  or  see: 
To  me  no  pleasure  Beauty  brings. 

Thine  eyes  have  scarce  a  charm  for  me."^ 

Insisting  upon  his  own  wretchedness,  there  is  a  tendency  to 
drop  from  the  tragic  to  the  purely  melodramatic,  as  in  the 
close  of  his  Epistle  to  a  Friend,  where  he  foretells  that  he  may 
become  one 

"  whom  love  nor  pity  sways. 
Nor  hope  of  fame,  nor  good  men's  praise; 
One,  who  in  stern  ambition's  pride. 
Perchance  not  blood  shall  turn  aside; 
One  ranked  in  some  recording  page 
With  the  worst  anarchs  of  the  age."' 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  is  mere  rhetoric,  written  to  convince 
the  reader  and  not  to  express  an  emotion  the  poet  is  unable 
to  restrain.  But  this  mood  of  sadness  is  again  and  again 
expressed  with  sincerity  as  in  his  Stanzas  to  Augusta,  or  in 
his  song,  "There's  not  a  joy  the  world  can  give."     No  lyric 

1  The  Poetical  Works  of  Lord  Byron,  Oxford,  1909,  p.  63,  Euthanasia. 

2  P.  188. 

3  P.  61. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^05 

rings  truer  than  his  very  last  one,  written  on  his  thirty-sixth 
birthday,  in  which  he  tells  us 

"  My  days  are  in  the  yellow  leaf ; 

The  flowers  and  fruits  of  love  are  gone; 
The  worm,  the  canker,  and  the  grief 
Are  mine  alone  !"^ 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  Byron's  mood  is 
not  ours,  even  in  moments  of  discouragement ;  our  depression 
comes  not  because  the  world  is  barren  but  because  it  offers 
so  much  that  we  can  not  grasp  it.  We  do  not  wish  for  "the 
dreamless  sleep  that  lulls  the  dead,"  for  we  would  prolong 
our  lives  forever;  we  mourn  not  the  length  of  the  weary  day 
but  that  the  very  years  are  all  too  short  and  fly  too  quickly. 
In  our  darkest  moments  we  cry,  with  Milton's  Belial: 

"  For  who  would  lose. 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being. 
Those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity." 

We  are  most  in  sympathy  with  Byron's  despairing  mood 
when  he  writes  of  death.  His  elegies  on  Thyrza,  "One 
struggle  more,  and  I  am  free,"  or  the  finer  "And  thou  art 
dead,  as  young  and  fair,"  have  the  inward  touch  that  makes 
the  eighteenth  century  poems  of  the  grave,  with  their  grief 
for  the  world  at  large,  with  their  moralizing,  seem  but  faint 
echoes  of  sorrow. 

The  other  mood  of  Byron  is  the  quieter  one  in  which  he 
sings  of  beauty.  Knowing  the  magnificent  descriptive  pas- 
sages of  Childe  Harold  and  Don  Juan,  we  are  surprised  that 
this  mood  does  not  enter  more  into  his  lyrics.  They  are 
indeed  singularly  unadorned  with  picturesque  phrases,  with 
those  touches  that  call  before  us  the  beauty  of  art  or  nature. 
Two  songs,  however,  beautiful  both  in  their  descriptions  and 
in  their  music,  represent  this  side  of  his  work.    "She  walks  in 

1  On  this  Day  I  complete  my  Thirty-sixth  Year,  p.  110. 


iOe  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

beauty  like  the  night"  anticipates  the  art  and  melody  of 
Tennyson;  "There  be  none  of  Beauty's  daughters"  has  a 
rarer  music  and,  from  the  aesthetic  standpoint,  is  his  best 
lyric. 

The  interest,  then,  in  Byron's  lyrics  lies  in  their  direct 
expression  of  feeling,  not  in  their  thought  or  in  their 
technique.  The  great  object  in  life,  said  Byron,  is  sensa- 
tion, and  this  at  once  expresses  the  attraction  and  the  defect 
of  his  work.  There  is  no  emotion  recollected  in  tranquillity 
here ;  he  writes  on  the  spot  and  a  great  deal  of  his  work  is 
pure  and  simple  improvisation.  The  sister  art  which  Byron 
most  admired  was  music ;  even  when  in  Italy  he  showed  him- 
self singularly  insensible  to  sculpture  and  painting,  and  yet 
he  wrote  so  rapidly  that  he  was  often  careless  of  the  melody 
of  his  verse.  He  had,  says  Swinburne,  "a  feeble  and  faulty 
sense  of  metre ;  no  poet  of  equal  or  inferior  rank  ever  had  so 
bad  an  ear.  His  smoother  cadences  are  often  vulgar  and 
facile ;  his  fresher  notes  are  often  incomplete  and  inharmo- 
nious." William  Morris  observes  that  he  had  no  original 
measures.  At  least  we  may  urge  that  Byron  shows  an 
advance  over  Wordsworth  in  rhymed  measure;  he  has  a 
fairly  wide  range  from  the  anapests  of  "The  Assyrian  came 
down  like  the  wolf  on  the  fold,"  to  the  restraint,  unusual  for 
him,  of  "When  we  two  parted."  Many  of  his  Spenserian 
stanzas  do  indeed  falter ;  his  odes  on  Waterloo  and  on 
Napoleon  have  neither  the  breadth  of  expression  nor  the 
orchestral  music  the  genre  demands,  yet  to  deny  to  Byron 
the  gift  of  melody  is  to  read  him  with  deaf  ears. 

In  our  opening  chapter  we  stated  that  in  purely  descrip- 
tive poems  we  come  upon  lyrical  passages,  and  this  is  espe- 
cially true  of  Byron's  work.  How  much  of  Childe  Harold 
and  even  Don  Juan  is  lyrical.  In  reading  the  famous 
apostrophe  to  the  ocean ;  the  lines  on  solitude ;  the  verses  on 
Time,  the  beautifier  of  the  dead;  we  can  understand  why 
Byron  captivated  his  age.     He  needed  a  large  canvas  for 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  Ifil 

his  word  pictures ;  it  took  him  some  time  to  work  up  to  his 
cUmaxes  and  accordingly  song  pure  and  simple  was  not  his 
best  gift.  One  who  has  read  only  the  lyrics  has  not  felt  the 
real  Byron ;  indeed  his  greatest  mood  of  all — his  mockery 
and  scorn — is  seen  at  its  best  in  Don  Juan. 

It  seems  strange  that  such  a  mighty  personality  could  ever 
become  obscured,  yet  the  vogue  of  Byron  waned  with  the 
coming  of  Tennyson  and  Browning.  We  have  passed  from 
his  spell  and  may,  therefore,  estimate  him  more  fairly  than 
did  his  contemporaries.  If  we  demand  higher  art  and  a  more 
just  and  hopeful  attitude  towards  hfe,  we  still  should  feel 
the  power  of  his  inspiration.  An  age  that  depreciates  Byron 
has  become  conventional  and  artificial. 

Of  all  English  poets,  Shelley  (1792-1822)  is  the  most 
lyrical.  As  Charlotte  Bronte  disclosed  her  emotional  per- 
sonaHty  in  her  novels,  so  he  found  in  song  his  most  perfect 
method  of  self-expression.  In  by  far  the  greater  number 
of  his  poems  (always  excepting  the  Cenci,  written  with  a 
remarkable  restraint  and  a  close  adherence  to  the  story)  we 
feel  only  the  subjective  moods  and  the  compelling  emotions 
that  determined  the  poet's  life. 

The  character  of  Shelley  is  not  a  difficult  one  to  under- 
stand, especially  with  the  aid  given  us  by  the  biographies 
and  letters  of  those  who  knew  and  appreciated  him.  There 
were  no  great  changes  in  his  nature ;  he  was  consistent  to  his 
own  ideals ;  and  in  reading  his  verse  we  find  in  it,  as  in 
Byron's  poetry,  two  predominating  moods.  The  first,  in 
which  he  expresses  his  ideals  for  humanity  and  his  hopes  for 
the  regeneration  of  the  world,  we  may  call  his  social  mood; 
the  second  is  a  purely  personal  mood  of  joy  or  sorrow,  and 
generally  sadness  prevails.  The  first  mood  enters  but  rarely 
into  his  shorter  lyrics — as  in  Ozymandias,  or  the  concluding 
song  in  Hellas,  or  the  sonnet  to  Wordsworth — yet  we  must 
consider  it ;  certainly  it  deepened  the  tone  of  even  his  briefest 
songs  such  as  "Rough  wind  that  moanest  loud." 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Wordsworth,  Byron  and  Shelley  have  expressed  in  their 
lyrics  their  views  on  society.  The  Elizabethan  and  Caroline 
singers  were  generally  self-centered  and  wrote  in  the  spirit 
of  "My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is";  the  modern  lyrist  has  a 
wider  vision.  Byron's  views  are  the  least  valuable,  for  they 
are  purely  negative:  the  world  is  vanity;  it  is  better  not  to 
be;  if  you  must  live,  seek  the  pathless  wood  and  the  solitary 
shore  to  escape  from  your  fellows;  love  the  ocean  because  it 
bears  no  trace  of  man.  Wordsworth,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
constructive.  He  accepts  the  social  order  but  he  would 
improve  upon  it ;  we  are  too  worldly ;  we  must  live  more 
simply ;  we  are  worse  than  pagans  in  our  blindness  to  nature ; 
we  must  let  her  refine  and  elevate  us.  Shelley  did  not  accept 
the  position  of  either  poet.  He  wished  to  sweep  away 
entirely  the  present  social  scheme — all  rulers  and  priests,  all 
laws  and  customs — and  then  to  build  upon  the  wrecks  of 
faiths  and  empires  a  new  world.  He  had,  to  use  his  own 
words,  a  "passion  for  reforming  the  world" ;  he  would  have 
rejoiced  in  the  prospect  of  a  second  deluge. 

His  watchword  was  accordingly  Liberty,  and  he  was  in 
perpetual  revolt  against  every  restraint.  At  nineteen  he 
is  expelled  from  Oxford  for  publishing  a  tract,  "The  Neces- 
sity of  Atheism,"  his  first  public  attack  on  the  church.  This 
very  year  he  elopes  with  Harriet  Westbrook,  a  girl  of  six- 
teen, chiefly  because  her  father,  he  writes,  "persecuted  her 
in  a  most  horrible  manner  by  compelling  her  to  go  to  school," 
and  he  had  urged  her  "to  resist  such  stupendous  and  galling 
tyranny."  In  Ireland  with  Harriet  he  distributes  pamphlets 
and  books  urging  a  revolt  against  English  rule.  The  up- 
risings in  Naples  and  Spain  call  from  him  his  two  fiery  odes. 
In  his  last  months  at  Pisa,  deeply  moved  by  the  story  of 
Emilia  Viviani,  an  Italian  girl  confined  against  her  will  in 
a  convent,  he  writes  his  Epipsychidion.  He  hears  of  the 
Greek  struggle  for  independence  and  writes  Hellas.  The 
subject  of  the  Cenci  attracts  him,  partly  because  it  is  the 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^09 

revolt  against  a  father's  tyranny  and  crime.  Prometheus 
Unbound,  the  most  wonderful  piece  of  sustained  lyric  writing 
in  the  language,  is  the  tale  of  the  final  emancipation  of 
humanity  by  the  resistance  of  the  human  will  to  divine  oppres- 
sion.    Surely  he  is  the  very  apostle  of  Freedom. 

When  we  search  closely  for  Shelley's  meaning  of  liberty 
we  find  it  to  be  a  vague  ideal.  He  had  no  well-considered 
plan  for  either  a  new  repubUc  or  a  new  faith;  he  simply 
wished  freedom  from  every  restraint  of  government  and 
religion,  having  an  imphcit  faith  in  the  power  of  the  un- 
trammeled  mind  and  soul  to  create  a  new  Paradise.  Granted 
that  our  civilization  has  much  that  is  base  and  wrong,  that 
every  society  has  its  plague  spots  which  it  complacently 
forgets,  yet  from  the  hard  lessons  of  the  centuries  we  have 
won  some  truths  that  are  not  to  be  cast  lightly  aside.  We 
can  not  dismiss  in  a  mood  of  unseeing  exaltation  all  that  it 
has  cost  humanity  to  win.  The  very  nature  Shelley  loved  so, 
the  very  sea  of  which  he  has  written  more  instinctively  than 
any  other  poet,  is  not  free.  Meredith  is  nearer  our  thought 
when  he  made  Satan,  viewing  the  stars,  perceive  that 

"  Around  the  ancient  track  marched,  rank  on  rank, 
The  army  of  unalterable  law." 

Accordingly,  in  his  longer  poems  his  social  mood,  as  an 
American  critic  has  well  put  it,  is  a  "kind  of  elusive  yet 
rapturous  emanation  of  hope  devoid  of  specific  content." 
The  Ode  to  Liberty,  its  finest  expression,  is  to  Swinburne 
the  greatest  English  ode.  It  has  the  fire  and  glow  of  imagi- 
nation, the  brilliant  phrase,  the  impetuous  movement  that 
befits  it,  yet  does  not  give  us,  as  does  Wordsworth's  Intima- 
tions of  Immortality,  what  Milton  has  finely  called  the  "sober 
certainty  of  waking  bliss."  Shelley  is  an  enchanter  rather 
than  a  seer. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  his  ideal  of  freedom  was  sure 
to  bring  despondency  for  it  was  an  impossible  one.     The 


UO  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

world  did  not  listen  to  his  call  and  if  he  had  been  untroubled 
by  more  intimate  griefs,  the  failure  of  his  social  theories 
would  have  bruised  if  not  crushed  his  spirit.  But  in  his  own 
life  he  was  constantly  waking  from  his  dream  to  the  bitter- 
ness of  disillusionment ;  no  verse  comes  closer  to  his  experience 
than  his  own  "I  fall  upon  the  thorns  of  Ufe,  I  bleed."  Ideal- 
izing women,  his  "Portias"  become  "Black  Demons" ;  he  finds 
the  heroine  of  his  Epipsychidion  to  be  not  Juno  but  a  cloud ; 
even  Mary  Godwin  did  not  wholly  understand  him,  and  so 
through  his  shorter  lyrics  runs  the  strain  of  dejection.  His 
nature  was  singularly  pure ;  he  was  all  fire  and  air,  and  one 
must  distinguish  between  the  dejection  of  Byron  who  felt 
the  "fullness  of  satiety"  and  the  disappointment  of  this 
idealist,  for  the  men  were  at  the  opposite  poles  of  experience 
and  emotion.  And  if  we  turn  from  Shelley's  life  to  his  art, 
he  felt  the  lack  of  appreciation  and  even  the  hostility  shown 
towards  his  poetry.  "Nothing,"  he  wrote  Peacock,  a  year 
before  his  death,  "is  more  difficult  and  unwelcome  than  to 
write  without  a  confidence  of  finding  readers,"  and  at  his 
death,  Stopford  Brooke  doubts  whether  fifty  people  in 
England  knew  and  appreciated  his  work.  Medwin  tells  us 
in  his  Life  of  Shelley  that  he  read  in  manuscript  the  Ode  to 
Liberty,  The  Sensitive  Plant,  and  many  other  lyrics,  express- 
ing admiration  for  them.  "He  was  surprised  at  my  enthu- 
siasm, and  said  to  me — 'I  am  disgusted  with  writing,  and 
were  it  not  for  an  irresistible  impulse  that  predominates  my 
better  reason,  should  discontinue  so  doing.'  On  such  occa- 
sions he  fell  into  a  despondent  mood,  most  distressing  to 
witness,  was  affected  with  a  prostration  of  spirits  that  bent 
him  to  the  earth,  a  melancholy  too  sacred  to  notice,  and 
which  it  would  have  been  a  vain  attempt  to  dissipate." 

By  far  the  greater  number  of  his  lyrics  express  this  sad- 
ness: 

"  Rarely^  rarely  comest  thou, 
Spirit  of  delight.'' 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^11 

"How  am  I  changed!  my  hopes  were  once  like  fire";  "The 
flower  that  smiles  to-day,  To-morrow  dies" ;  "Far,  far  away, 
0  ye,  Halcyons  of  Memory,"  are  typical  poems.  The  poet 
sings  his  melancholy,  making  no  attempt  to  discover  why 

"  Out  of  the  day  and  night 
A  joy  has  taken  flight." 

Where  so  much  is  perfect  expression,  it  is  hard  to  choose,  but 
perhaps  the  Stanzas  written  in  Dejection  near  Naples  are  the 
most  beautiful  rendering  of  this  mood.  Nature  brings  no 
peace  to  him,  as  she  did  to  Wordsworth.  The  bright  skies, 
blue  isles,  and  snowy  mountains  but  remind  him  that  he  has 
neither  hope  nor  health,  "nor  peace  within,  nor  calm  around." 
It  is  the  same  situation  in  his  other  lyrics ;  the  wind  "moans 
for  the  world's  wrong" ;  the  moon  is  a  lady  "sick  and  pale" ; 
even  the  happy  notes  of  the  lark  remind  the  poet  that  his 
own  song  can  not  make  the  world  listen. 

Love  brings  to  him  the  bitterest  disappointments ;  "Send 
the  stars  light,  but  send  not  love  to  me,"  is  his  prayer. 

"  I  would  not  be  a  king — enough 
Of  woe  it  is  to  love;" 

he  sings,  and  the  thought  of  many  poems  is  compressed  in 
the  lyric  "When  the  lamp  is  shattered."^  It  would  seem  that 
he  suffers  from  the  very  intensity  of  his  emotion;  he  is  in  a 
state  of  ecstasy  or  in  the  inevitable  reaction  which  brings 
despair.  He  laments  that  "the  gentle  visitations  of  calm 
thought"  do  not  stay;  it  is  certainly  significant  that  he 
employs  frequently  the  word  "intense,"  and  it  is  this  intensity 
of  feeling  that  gives  the  exotic  air  to  the  Indian  Serenade 
(which  Poe  was  one  of  the  first  to  praise)  or  to  the  less 
familiar  fragment: 

IT.    Hutchinson,    The   Complete  Poetical   Works   of  Percy   Bysshe 
Shelley,  Oxford,  1909,  pp.  642,  661. 


412  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  I  faint,  I  perish  with  my  love !  I  grow 

Frail  as  a  cloud  whose  [splendours]  pale 
Under  the  evening's  ever-changing  glow; 

I  die  like  mist  upon  the  gale, 
And  like  a  wave  under  the  calm  I  fail."^ 

or  to  his  entreaty  for  music : 

"  I  pant  for  the  music  which  is  divine. 

My  heart  in  its  thirst  is  a  dying  flower ; 
Pour  forth  the  sound  like  enchanted  wine. 
Loosen  the  notes  in  a  silver  shower; 
Like  a  herbless  plain,  for  the  gentle  rain, 
I  gasp,  I  faint,  till  they  wake  again."^ 

This  extreme  emotion  has  kept  Shelley  from  such  popularity 
as  Burns  enjoys;  "Ae  fond  kiss  and  then  we  sever"  is  closer 
to  the  earth.  Shelley  is  indeed  the  passive  instrument  of  his 
emotions ;  he  is  carried  away  by  his  feelings ;  he  is  filled  with 
a  divine  madness.  While  much  of  Byron's  verse  was  impro- 
visation, Shelley's  seems  the  inspiration  of  the  very  Muse 
herself,  so  strongly  does  his  poetry  move  us.  The  one  artistic 
fault  in  his  writing  is  that  at  times  he  can  not  control  either 
his  imagination  or  his  feeling ;  Shakespeare  in  the  tempest 
of  his  greatest  tragedies  could  ride  the  whirlwind  and  direct 
the  storm. 

It  is  in  his  nature  lyrics — The  Cloud,  The  Skylark,  The 
Ode  to  the  West  Wind — that  Shelley  has  won  his  greatest 
popularity.  The  most  ethereal  of  our  poets,  he  loves  to 
write  of  the  heavens,  of  light  in  all  its  forms,  of  the  flowers. 
A  critic  has  remarked  that  poets  usually  illustrate  the 
spiritual  by  the  material  (as  Verlaine  in  his  "Ton  ame  est 
un  paysage  choisi")  but  Shelley  makes  nature  ghostly;  it 
is  a  spirit  that  he  seeks  behind  the  cloud  and  the  rain.  The 
Skylark  illustrates  aptly  the  points  we  have  discussed;  the 

1  P.  653. 

2  P.  651. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^13 

poet's  spirit  pours  itself  out  in  stanza  after  stanza  all  illus- 
trating one  idea:  the  bird  is  likened  to  a  poet,  a  maiden  in 
her  bower,  a  glow  worm,  a  rose.  We  prefer  the  Ode  to  the 
West  Wind  to  all  his  lyrics.  No  other  poem  better  discloses 
his  passive  imagination,  his  desire  to  be  played  upon  and 
stimulated,  and  though  his  melancholy  appears  here  also, 
the  song  ends  in  an  unusually  hopeful  strain.  Exquisite  in 
its  imagery- — it  is  here  that  we  find  that  immortal  line, 
"Driving  sweet  buds  hke  flocks  to  feed  in  air" — emotional 
and  yet  restrained  to  an  unusual  degree,  this  is  one  of  the 
treasures  of  English  literature. 

We  have  said  little  of  Shelley's  style,  the  most  glowing, 
the  most  sensuous  we  have  yet  found.  He  is  an  artist,  a 
beauty  worshipper,  fascinated  by  color  and  form.  Many 
of  his  lyrics  deal  neither  with  nature  nor  with  love:  "On  a 
poet's  lips  I  slept,"  the  Echo  songs,  and  Asia's  "My  soul 
is  an  enchanted  boat,"  all  from  Prometheus,  show  the  art 
lyric  at  its  highest  development.  If  we  wish  to  measure  the 
change  that  has  come  over  the  lyric,  we  should  read  side  by 
side  the  Ode  to  Evening  by  Collins  and  Shelley's  To  Night. 
Much  as  we  find  to  admire  in  the  earlier  poem,  we  perceive 
that  Shelley's  lyric  is  more  suggestive,  more  lovely  in  its 
descriptions,  and  more  musical. 

This  brings  us  to  our  final  consideration — Shelley's  metre. 
He  has  expressed  in  many  a  line  his  love  for  music  and  his 
verse  forms  offer  a  wealth  of  melody.  Had  the  content  of 
his  poetry  been  negligible,  we  should  still  read  it  for  the 
music ;  he  said  with  truth : 

"  I  have  unlocked  the  golden  melodies 
Of  the  deep  soul." 

Rarely  does  he  echo  strains  we  have  heard  before;  he  leaves 
the  well-worn  measures  for  a  music  of  his  own;  even  from 
the  Spenserian  stanza  he  gains  a  new  effect.  He  has  not 
achieved  excellence  in  the  sonnet  form — critics  say  that  it 


]^ll^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

offered  too  narrow  a  scope  for  him — yet  how  much  of  melody 
and  emotion  is  expressed  in  the  eight  lines  of  "Music,  when 
soft  voices  die."  From  a  song,  he  turns  with  ease  to  the 
cumulative  effect  of  Adonais.  His  melodies  have  never  been 
recaptured ;  Tennyson,  Rossetti,  and  Swinburne  have  each 
a  different  voice.  Surely  we  may  consider  Shelley  supreme 
in  the  lyric. 

Ill 

"I  claim  no  place  in  the  world  of  letters ;  I  am  alone,  and 
will  be  alone,  as  long  as  I  Hve,  and  after,"  wrote  Landor 
(1775-1864).  Time  has  tested  the  truth  of  this  proud,  half- 
defiant  statement ;  his  place  in  English  poetry  is  secure,  but 
he  stands  indeed  alone,  with  no  followers.  His  personality 
is  a  unique  one.  Ordinarily  we  study  a  writer's  life  because 
it  is  reflected  in  his  verse  and  explains  much  that  would  other- 
wise be  unintelligible ;  we  read  Landor's  career  chiefly  to  see 
how  utterly  different  from  the  poet  was  the  man.  Every- 
thing about  him  seems  paradoxical.  Proud  of  his  aristo- 
cratic family,  he  despised  the  nobility ;  loving  freedom,  he 
hated  democracy  and  said  some  severe  things  about 
America ;  a  thorough  Grecian  in  his  tastes,  he  disUked  Plato ; 
revolting  against  society,  he  wrote  contemptuously  of  Byron, 
the  poet  of  revolt;  often  a  keen  and  penetrating  critic  (wit- 
ness his  exquisite  commentary  on  Dante's  Paolo  and  Fran- 
cesca)  he  considered  Southey  a  great  poet.  From  his 
Oxford  days,  his  Hfe  was  disturbed  by  a  long  series  of  dis- 
putes and  quarrels ;  he  writes  in  his  finest  epigram — English 
poetry  can  not  show  one  more  exquisite  in  its  dignity  and 
restraint- — "I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my 
strife." 

Amid  all  these  contradictions,  there  was  one  unifying 
principle  in  his  nature — ^his  classicism ;  with  the  single  excep- 
tion of  Milton,  he  is  the  most  classical  of  all  EngHsh  poets. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  4I6 

From  boyhood  he  had  been  attracted  by  Greek  and  Italian 
literature.  He  was  often  in  doubt  whether  to  write  in 
English  or  Latin.  Gebir  (1798),  his  first  important  poem, 
was  written  in  both  languages,  and  he  has  said  that  when- 
ever the  English  word  he  sought  failed  him,  the  Latin  phrase 
would  be  at  his  tongue's  end.  It  is  not  surprising  that  as 
Donne  turned  from  the  beauty  worship  of  the  Elizabethans, 
Landor,  wearied  of  "too  much  froth  and  too  much  fire," 
abandoned  the  manner  of  the  romantic  school  and  wrote  in 
the  style  of  Meleager  or  of  Martial  at  his  best. 

In  his  essay  on  Landor,  Professor  Dowden  remarks  that 
discussions  on  the  differences  that  exist  between  classic  and 
romantic  art  invariably  put  the  reader  to  sleep ;  yet  in  spite 
of  this  warning,  we  must  consider  the  question  briefly.  The 
difference  between  the  romantic  and  classic  is  one  of  treat- 
ment rather  than  of  subject-matter.  A  writer  may  be  classic 
in  a  poem  describing  New  York  harbor  and  conversely,  Mar- 
lowe's Hero  and  Leander  enriches  a  classic  theme  with  the 
wealth  of  romantic  art.  It  is  obvious  that  we  can  not 
describe  in  a  few  phrases  any  of  the  great  modes  of  human 
thought,  but  in  general  we  may  point  out  that  the  romantic 
spirit  yearning  for  the  unattainable,  aims  to  suggest,  to 
touch  the  reader's  imagination;  half  the  beauty  of  Shelley's 
To  Night  lies  in  the  mood  it  invokes.  The  classic  poem  is 
clearly  and  sharply  drawn ;  the  art  is  complete ;  the  last 
word  has  been  spoken.  What  a  difference  between  Antigone, 
with  her  task  plain  before  her,  and  Hamlet,  uncertain,  waver- 
ing, lost  in  a  maze  of  thought.  We  understand  the  character 
of  the  Greek  heroine  but  will  any  one  ever  pluck  out  the 
heart  of  Hamlet's  mystery?  Our  modern  poetry,  with  its 
subtle  shadings,  touches  more  closely  on  the  spiritual  world; 
the  enchantments  of  Circe  are  less  mysterious  than  the  phan- 
toms that  appal  the  Ancient  Mariner.  The  discontent,  the 
struggle,  the  aspiration  of  our  modern  life  are  remote  from 
the  dignity  and  calm  with  which  the  ancient  poets,  even  when 


U6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

they  despaired,  faced  the  problems  of  life  and  death.  They 
felt  deeply,  but  the  feehng  was  controlled.  We  see  this  in 
a  moment  if  we  consider  Landor's  epigram  once  more : 

"  I  strove  with  none ;  for  none  was  worth  my  strife, 
Nature  I  loved,  and  next  to  Nature,  Art; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life, 
It  sinks,  and  I  am  ready  to  depart."^ 

How  definite  is  the  picture  of  the  old  man  bending  with  out- 
stretched hands  over  the  dying  embers ;  with  what  dignity 
is  the  emotion  repressed.  We  feel  the  modern  spirit  if  we 
contrast  this  with  Browning's  Prospice,  with  its  cry  of 
exulting  struggle,  or  with  Tennyson's  Crossing  the  Bar,  with 
its  music,  its  twiUght  tones,  its  mystery  of  the  sea. 

Landor,  with  his  deliberate  art,  rarely  felt  the  lyric 
impulse;  there  is  no  spontaneity  in  his  style;  every  effect  is 
carefully  prepared.  His  verse  moves  soberly ;  for  the  slow, 
impressive  line  that  fills  the  ear,  he  rejected  the  lighter 
measures,  and  said  that  Scott's  verse  was  to  be  jumped,  not 
danced  or  sung.  In  spite  of  this  lack  of  the  song  element, 
we  have  included  him  among  our  lyrists  because  he  has  many 
short  poems  both  musical  and  subjective.  Poetry,  he 
declared,  was  his  amusement;  prose,  his  study  and  business, 
and  accordingly  his  verse  occupies  but  little  room  in  his 
works,  yet  it  offers  many  if  not  infinite  riches. 

The  moment  we  read  these  brief  poems,  we  think  of  the 
Greek  Anthology.  Between  five  and  six  thousand  Greek 
epigrams  have  come  down  to  us.  They  resemble  in  no  wise 
the  modern  epigram ;  as  the  name  indicates,  they  were  short 
inscriptions  written  to  be  placed  on  tombs  and  altars,  on 
monuments  or  public  buildings.  Written  almost  invariably 
in  the  elegiac  metre,  they  rarely  exceeded  twelve  lines ;  four, 
six,  and  eight  verses  was  the  favorite  length.     Gradually  the 

1  C.  G.  Crump,  Poems,  Dialogues  in  Verse  and  Epigrams  by  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  London,  1892,  vol.  II,  p.  223. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  il7 

epigram  included  any  short  poem  written  in  elegiacs  and 
the  Anthology  accordingly  offers  a  wide  range  of  subjects — 
life  and  death,  love  and  art.  Many  of  the  epigrams  are 
lyrical  in  all  but  their  form,  and  indeed  Meleager  speaks  of 
them  as  hymns  or  songs.  Two  examples  of  his  own  work 
show  this  lyric  quality: 

"  Evermore  in  mine  ears  eddies  the  sound  of  Love,  and  mine 
eye  carries  the  silent  sweetness  of  a  tear  to  the  Desires;  neither 
does  night  nor  light  let  me  rest,  but  already  my  enchanted  heart 
bears  the  well-known  imprint.  Ah,  winged  Loves,  why  do 
you  ever  know  how  to  fly  towards  me,  but  have  no  whit  of 
strength  to  fly  away.''" 

"  Now  the  white  violet  blooms,  and  blooms  the  moist  narcissus, 
and  bloom  the  mountain-ranging  lilies ;  and  now,  dear  to  her 
lovers,  spring  flower  among  the  flowers,  Zenophile,  the  sweet  rose 
of  Persuasion,  has  burst  into  bloom.  Meadows,  why  idly  laugh 
in  the  brightness  of  your  tresses  ?  for  my  girl  is  better  than  gar- 
lands sweet  to  smell. "^ 

Short  as  these  snatches  of  song  are  many  of  Landor's  love 
poems.     They  are  generally  graceful,  courtly  compliments : 

"  I  love  to  hear  that  men  are  bound 
By  your  enchanting  links  of  sound: 
I  love  to  hear  that  none  rebel 
Against  your  beauty's  silent  spell. 
I  know  not  whether  I  may  bear 
To  see  it  all,  as  well  as  hear ; 
And  never  shall  I  clearly  know 
Unless  you  nod  and  tell  me  so."^ 

This  is  almost  Herrick  again  save  that  it  lacks  some  picture 
of  a  flower  or  jewel.  These  poems  have  little  or  no  unity; 
there  is  no  dominant  feeling  running  through  them  as  there 

IJ.  W.  Mackail,  Select  Epigrams  from  the   Oreek  Anthology,  new 
edition,  London,  1906,  pp.  100,  103. 
i  Poems,  II,  p.  97. 


U8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

is  in  Wordsworth's  sonnets  or  Byron's  lyrics.  They  are 
detached  thoughts  interesting  for  the  manner  in  which  they 
are  expressed.  How  far  removed  from  the  passion  of  the 
romanticists  is  the  narrative  lyric  "It  is  no  dream  that  I 
am  he."  How  thoroughly  in  the  spirit  of  the  Anthology  is 
the  lament: 

"She  I  love  (alas  in  vain!) 

Floats  before  my  slumbering  eyes : 
When  she  comes  she  lulls  my  pain. 

When  she  goes  what  pangs  arise ! 
Thou  whom  love,  whom  memory  flies. 

Gentle  Sleep  !  prolong  thy  reign  ! 
If  even  thus  she  soothe  my  sighs. 

Never  let  me  wake  again  \"^ 

One  of  his  love  poems  is  immortal — the  lament  for  Rose 
Aylmer.  Here  in  but  eight  verses,  written  by  a  man  stirred 
to  the  depths  yet  outwardly  calm,  we  find  expressed  the  grief 
of  a  life  time.  Poe  asserted  that  the  most  pathetic  subject 
a  writer  could  devise  was  the  death  of  a  young  and  beautiful 
maiden  mourned  by  her  lover.  The  Raven  and  Rose  Aylmer 
are  alike  in  theme  but  one  is  the  most  romantic,  the  other 
the  most  classic  of  elegies. 

In  a  number  of  his  best  poems  he  has  chiselled  his  own  form. 
It  is  a  strong  and  placid  face  that  we  see.  In  his  views  on 
life  and  death  and  nature  he  is  always  calm  and  composed. 
Shelley,  in  his  lament  for  the  change  that  comes  over  all 
lovely  things,  can  not  restrain  himself;  Landor  writes  with 
composure : 

"  I  see  the  rainbow  in  the  sky. 
The  dew  upon  the  grass, 
I  see  them,  and  I  ask  not  why 

They  glimmer  or  they  pass."" 

1  Poems,  II,  p.  89. 
2 II,  p.  130. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  419 

His  friends  depart,  Death  stands  before  him  whispering 
low,  but  the  poet  has  no  fear  at  his  strange  language.  There 
is  no  outcry,  no  revolt,  though 

"  spring  and  summer  both  are  past. 
And  all  things  sweet." 

Such  a  writer  can  never  win  popular  applause  and  Landor 
proudly  disdained  it.  "I  shall  dine  late,"  he  wrote,  "but  the 
dining  room  will  be  well  lighted,  the  guests  few  and  select."^ 
Art  does  indeed  endure  and  Landor  will  always  find  "fit 
audience,  but  few." 

The  beauty  of  Grecian  myths,  the  grace  and  splendor  of 
the  ancient  world  entered  into  the  very  hfe  of  John  Keats 
(1795-1821).  With  Landor  he  found  in  Hellas  an  inspira- 
tion that  shaped  his  whole  career,  for  in  writing  Endymion 
he  discovered  his  own  powers.  Unlike  Landor,  he  gave  to 
his  classic  themes  the  most  romantic  treatment.  If  we  may 
call  Landor  a  sculptor,  Keats  is  a  painter  using  all  the 
warmth  and  glow  of  modern  coloring.  The  spirit  of  Greece 
touched  both  these  writers  but  it  led  them  through  paths 
that  never  met. 

In  the  early  death  of  Keats,  English  poetry  sustained  its 
greatest  loss.  Had  Marlowe  hved,  the  spirit  of  his  day 
would  have  bound  him  to  the  drama  for  which  he  was  temper- 
amentally unfitted.  Chatterton  was  attracted  by  the  age 
of  feudalism ;  his  inspiration  was  tenuous ;  and  as  we  have 
seen,  his  acknowledged  writing  is  disconcertingly  poor. 
Byron  and  Shelley  lived  long  enough  to  tell  their  message 
and  to  gain  a  mastery  of  the  style  they  most  desired.  Keats, 
despite  the  perfection  of  certain  poems,  never  reached  his 
maturity ;  the  fate  he  most  feared — that  he  should  die  before 
he  reaped  the  gamers  of  his  mind — overtook  him.  Yet  the 
rapidity  of  his  development  is  as  remarkable  as  his  actual 

1  Sidney  Colvln,  Selections  from  the  writings  of  Landor,  London, 
1890,  p.  345.  This  admirable  book  should  do  for  Landor  what  Arnold 
accomplished  for  Wordsworth. 


m  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

accomplishment.  Spenser,  Dryden,  and  Milton,  in  rapid 
succession,  taught  him  their  secrets.  Shakespeare,  both  in 
his  sonnets  and  his  plays,  was  a  constant  inspiration ;  Homer 
and  Dante  opened  new  worlds  to  him,  yet  in  aU  his  imitation 
and  assimilation,  there  was  a  conscious  and  definite  process 
of  finding  himself.  No  man  has  recorded  more  beautifully 
a  love  for  the  great  masters  of  song.  When  he  writes,  he 
hears  their  music  but  like  the  sound  of  the  wind  in  the  leaves 
or  the  song  of  birds,  it  never  disturbs  but  rather  inspires  his 
own  poetry.^  "I  was  never  afraid  of  failure ;  for  I  would 
sooner  fail  than  not  be  among  the  greatest,"  he  wrote,  and 
such  high  ambition  would  not  permit  him  to  be  any  man's 
disciple  though  he  could  learn  from  many  bards  of  Passion 
and  of  Mirth.  "I  will  write  independently,"  he  tells  Hessey. 
"The  Genius  of  Poetry  must  work  out  its  own  salvation  in 
a  man."  With  Milton,  he  was  ready  to  dedicate  his  whole 
life  to  his  art.  He  reahzed  his  own  defects  and  was  deter- 
mined to  overcome  them ;  if  he  lacked  a  broad  outlook  on  Ufe, 
he  would  gain  one  by  a  study  of  philosophy.  "There  is  but 
one  way  for  me.  The  road  hes  through  application,  study, 
and  thought.  I  will  pursue  it;  and,  for  that  end,  purpose 
retiring  for  some  years. "^    Those  years  were  denied  him. 

Such  words  are  the  more  remarkable  coming  from  one 
filled  with  the  creative  impulse.  He  believed  that  poetry 
must  come  naturally  or  not  at  all  and  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  his  friends,  he  wrote  with  that  same  ease  that  aroused 
the  admiration  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries.  Indeed,  he 
could  not  restrain  his  pen.  He  is  all  in  a  tremble  because 
he  has  written  no  verses ;  he  composes  a  sonnet  and  sleeps 
the  better  for  it,  but  wakes  in  the  morning  "nearly  as  bad 
again."     From  Winchester  he  writes  Reynolds  that  he  had 

1  See  the  sonnet  "How  many  bards,"  H.  B.  Forman,  The  Poetical 
Works  of  John  Keats,  Oxford,  1910,  p.  35. 

2  H.  B.  Forman,  The  Poetical  Works  and  other  Writings  of  John 
Keats,  London,  1883,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  230-1,  14.8. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^21 

been  walking  in  the  stubble  fields  and  had  found  the  autumn 
coloring  more  beautiful  than  the  chilly  green  of  spring. 
Then  follows,  as  one  might  enclose  a  leaf  turned  crimson, 
the  Ode  to  Autumn.  With  a  supreme  carelessness,  Keats 
scattered  through  his  letters  some  of  the  most  perfect  of 
English  poems.  The  sheer  power  that  resided  in  that  sickly 
frame  never  was  fully  disclosed ;  the  sure  and  steady  develop- 
ment of  Keats  is  as  marvellous  as  his  finest  writing;  above 
all  others,  he  is  the  one  we  would  recall  to  earth. 

He  understood  perfectly  wherein  lay  his  power  and  in 
one  verse  he  proclaimed  his  creed:  "I  follow  Beauty,  of  her 
train  am  I."  The  questions  of  church  and  state  that  stirred 
Shelley  to  the  depths  had  small  interest  for  him ;  his  sonnet 
"written  in  disgust  of  vulgar  superstition,"  inspired  by  the 
sound  of  church  bells,  seems  a  discord  in  his  music.  It  was 
not  his  task  to  attack  the  existing  social  order  or  plan  a 
new  creation;  he  had  no  desire  to  expound  a  new  system  of 
philosophy  or  to  discover  a  moral  interpretation  of  nature. 
He  often  recited  with  the  greatest  admiration  Wordsworth's 
Ode  on  Immortality,  but  in  the  end,  Wordsworth's  meta- 
physics utterly  repelled  him.  He  refused  to  visit  Shelley 
because  he  wished  to  maintain  his  own  unfettered  scope.  His 
nature  was  not  speculative;  he  loved  the  earth  as  he  found 
it  and  searched  in  it  for  but  one  thing — a  beauty  that 
could  be  grasped.  A  typical  anecdote  of  Shelley  pictures 
him  floating  out  to  sea  with  the  terrified  Jane  Williams, 
asking  her  if  she  did  not  wish  then  and  there  to  solve  the 
great  mystery  of  death.  Equally  characteristic  is  the 
description  Keats  gives  of  himself  at  Oxford,  exploring  in 
his  boat  the  windings  of  the  Char:  "We  sometimes  skim  into 
a  bed  of  rushes,  and  there  become  naturalised  river-folks." 
He  finds,  as  does  every  genius,  that  the  beauty  of  the  world 
is  new  and  unknown.  As  though  Shakespeare  and  Herrick 
had  never  written,  he  describes  the  flowers  in  gardens  and 
fields ;  he  revels  in  the  odors  of  the  earth ;  he  listens  with 


]tM2  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  joy  of  a  discoverer  to  the  song  of  the  birds.  We  have 
to-day  patient  and  careful  observers  of  nature,  but  too 
often  they  merely  tabulate  what  they  see;  with  Keats, 
observation  is  always  fused  with  emotion.  Nature's  loveli- 
ness is  inexhaustible ;  here  was  enough  for  one  who  wrote 
"with  a  great  poet  the  sense  of  beauty  overcomes  every  other 
consideration,  or  rather  obliterates  all  consideration."^ 

Keats  sought  for  beauty  not  only  in  the  earth  but  in  that 
other  world  of  books.  He  read  with  a  keen  eye  and  ear ;  "I 
look  upon  fine  phrases  as  a  lover,"  he  said,  and  he  adorned 
his  verse  with  many  a  phrase  culled  with  exquisite  taste 
from  the  masters  of  poetry.  He  is  continually  reading; 
he  can  not  exist  without  poetry ;  half  the  day  will  not  do  for 
it,  he  needs  all  the  hours.  We  have  seen  how  the  Wartons 
tricked  out  their  odes  with  whole  passages  of  Milton;  Keats 
intuitively  culls  the  right  word.  The  title  of  an  early  Eng- 
lish poem  gives  him  his  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci;  he  knew 
Milton's 

"  As  the  wakeful  bird 
Sings  darkling," 

and  remembers  it  in  the  "Darkling  I  listen"  of  his  own  Ode 
to  a  Nightingale.  ]\Iany  a  line,  such  as  "How  tiptoe 
Night  holds  back  her  dark  grey  hood,"  has  the  impress  of 
Shakespeare's  style,  and  again  and  again  he  has  caught  the 
melody  of  the  Faerie  Queene — "Spenserian  vowels  that  elope 
with  ease."  Mr.  Bridges  has  pointed  out  many  lapses  of 
taste  in  the  diction  of  Keats,  and  yet  at  his  best  his  sense 
of  the  beauty  and  music  of  words  is  as  high  as  his  perception 
of  color  and  form. 

His  imagination  fairly  revelled  in  beauty.  He  was  gov- 
erned by  what  he  called  "the  mighty  abstract  idea  of  beauty 
in  all  things,"  and  he  felt  that  he  did  not  live  in  this  world 
alone  but  in  a  thousand  worlds.     He  was  certain  of  nothins 

IP.  100. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^23 

but  of  the  holiness  of  the  heart's  affections  and  the  truth 
of  imagination,  for  "what  the  imagination  seizes  as  beauty 
must  be  truth."'  Everything,  with  him,  tended  but  to  one 
end  and  his  poetic  vision  found  Madeline's  bower  or  Latmos 
even  more  lovely  than  a  little  hill  decked  with  the  flowers  of 
an  Enghsh  May.  There  are  indeed  many  conceptions  of 
beauty.  The  Hedonist  and  the  Platonist  would  each  find  a 
different  charm  in  the  same  object;  the  modern  poet  dis- 
covers a  fascination  in  bleak  coasts  and  in  the  waste  places 
of  the  earth;  he  hears  a  lyric  in  the  songless  reeds.  To 
many  beauty  has  a  disquieting  allurement;  it  even  leads,  as 
it  did  the  "knight-at-arms,"  to  death.  Keats  is  an  EHza- 
bethan  reborn.  An  idealist,  he  yet  finds  beauty  before  him 
and  can  grasp  it.  When  asked  why  he  makes  a  long  poem 
of  Endymion  he  replies  that  it  must  be  full  of  pleasant  pas- 
sages to  which  the  lover  of  verse  may  retire,  and  everywhere 
he  shows  that  fine  excess  which  he  declares  constitutes  the 
chief  delight  of  verse. 

We  may  now  see  why  song,  the  simplest  form  of  the  lyric, 
so  rarely  attracted  Keats.  If  offered  too  little  opportunity 
for  those  splendid  passages  that  dazzle  the  eye  and  fill  the 
ear  with  melodies.  He  wrote,  however,  two — sharply  con- 
trasted but  equally  beautiful.     His  Faery  Song 

"  Shed  no  tear- — O  shed  no  tear ! 
The  flower  will  bloom  another  year," 

might  indeed  have  been  sung  by  Ariel;  no  higher  praise 
could  be  given  it.  "In  a  drear-nighted  December"  comes 
as  near  Shelley's  mood  as  Keats  ever  approached  save  that 
the  lament  of  the  last  stanza  is  not  bitter  enough: 

"  To  know  the  change  and  feel  it, 
When  there  is  none  to  heal  it, 
Nor  numbed  sense  to  steel  it^ 
Was  never  said  in  rhyme." 
IP.  90. 


^^^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci  is  so  intensely  subjective  that  we 
may  claim  it  as  a  lyric.  This  poem,  rather  than  CoUins's 
Ode  on  the  Superstitions  of  the  Scottish  Highlands,  may  be 
said  to  contain  the  germ  of  the  romantic  school.  Here  is 
the  very  essence  of  romance — fear  added  to  beauty — and 
so  perfect  is  the  poet's  art  that  one  is  at  a  loss  what  to 
admire  the  most :  the  imagery,  the  delicacy  of  treatment,  or 
the  form.  Here  is  a  rhythm  that  expresses  absolutely  the 
mood  of  the  writer.  The  melancholy  effect  of  the  shortened 
fourth  line  is  indescribable: 

"  And  this  is  why  I  sojourn  here 
Alone  and  palely  loitering. 
Though  the  sedge  is  withered  from  the  lake. 
And  no  birds  sing."'^ 

It  was  natural  that  Keats,  a  fervent  admirer  of  Shakes- 
peare's sonnets,  should  have  left  some  sixty  sonnets  of  his 
own.  Many  of  them  are  surprisingly  poor,  written  in  no 
serious  mood,  but  added  to  his  letters  as  one  might  scrawl 
a  pen  sketch  on  the  margin.  Ten  of  his  sonnets,  so 
Bridges  believes,  comprise  his  best  work ;  Matthew  Arnold 
has  chosen  eight,  and  these  are  enough  to  place  Keats  with 
our  finest  sonneteers.^  Of  the  ones  written  in  the  Italian 
form,  On  First  Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer  is  his 
masterpiece  and  indeed  its  sestet  for  its  perfect  picture  of 
the  poet's  mood  (is  it  not  one  of  the  finest  similes  in  the  lan- 
guage.'') and  for  its  breadth  and  amplitude  of  suggestion, 
is  unsurpassed  in  our  sonnet  literature.  In  this  same  form, 
"To  one  who  has  been  long  in  city  pent,"  and  "The  poetry 
of  earth  is  never  dead,"  are  beautiful  expressions  of  a  lighter 
mood.  The  first  has  caught  the  languor  and  the  tenderness 
of  a  summer's  day ;  the  second  shows  Keats  resembling  Burns 

1  Formal),  Keats,  1910,  pp.  311,  338,  356. 

2  See  Bridges'  Introduction  to  The  Poems  of  John  Keats,  Muses' 
Library,  London,  1896. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^25 

by  his  interest  in  the  life  of  the  small  creatures  of  the  earth. 
For  his  deepest  utterances,  Keats  turned  to  the  Shakes- 
pearean sonnet.  "When  I  have  fears  that  I  may  cease  to 
be,"  is  so  rich  in  its  expression  that  its  intense  though 
restrained  pathos  is  at  times  obscured.  What  could  be  more 
typical  of  Keats's  conception  of  beauty  heightened  by  a  sense 
of  mystery  than  such  an  imaginative  phrase  as 

"  When  I  behold,  upon  the  night's  starred  face. 
Huge  cloudy  symbols  of  a  high  romance." 

Of  his  last  sonnet,  Bright  star,  it  can  be  said  without  fear 
of  contradiction  that  no  one  of  Shakespeare's  surpasses  its 
rare  union  of  emotional  force,  melody,  and  imaginative 
description. 

The  odes  of  Keats  are  not  only  the  greatest  lyric  achieve- 
ment, but  they  are  the  finest  expression  of  his  genius.  They 
possess  the  beauty  of  the  finest  passages  in  Endymion  or  the 
Eve  of  St.  Agnes — indeed  their  music  is  of  a  higher  and 
subtler  quality — and  two  at  least  have  in  marked  degree 
that  subjective  element  which  brings  verse  closer  to  us,  or 
rather  catches  us  up  into  the  poet's  heaven.  In  these  poems 
we  find  all  the  traits  of  mind  which  we  have  discussed — the 
intense  perception  of  beauty  in  nature,  in  art,  in  literature ; 
and  in  the  world  which  the  imagination  can  create.  The 
odes  differ  absolutely  in  their  tone  and  consequently  in  their 
effect,  agreeing  only  in  their  exquisite  workmanship.  In 
his  essay  on  the  letters  of  Keats,  Bradley  has  written 
that  the  poet's  genius  "showed  itself  soonest  and  perhaps 
most  completely  in  the  rendering  of  Nature,"^  and  this 
agrees  with  Mr.  Bridge's  judgment  that  To  Autumn  is  the 
most  perfect  of  all  the  odes.  It  has  unusual  restraint  and 
yet  every  line  brings  some  new  picture  to  the  eye.  The  per- 
sonification   of   Autumn   is    exquisitely    imagined;    it    is   no 

lA.  C.  Bradley,  Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry,  London,  1909,  p.  332. 


426  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

statue  that  we  see  before  us  but  a  sleeping  woman.  Such 
an  ode  pleases  equally  the  classic  and  the  romantic  taste. 
The  Ode  to  a  Nightingale  has  the  greatest  emotional  quality 
and  like  some  splendid  tapestry,  blends  many  colors.  We 
have  almost  a  Byronic  mood  in  the  picture  of  the  weariness 
and  fever  of  modem  hfe 

"  Here,  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan ;" 

we  have  a  richness  of  description  that  vies  with  the  Protha- 
lamion  and  surpasses  it,  because  of  the  modern  sense  of 
mystery : 

"  I  can  not  see  what  flowers  are  at  my  feet, 

Nor  what  soft  incense  hangs  upon  the  boughs,'' 

and  above  all  we  have  that  perfect  union  of  the  real  and  the 
unreal,  for  as  surely  as  we  hear  the  song  of  the  bird  we  hear 
other  notes  that  charm  the  magic  casements  of  fairy  lands. 
The  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  despite  its  popularity,  does 
not  rank  with  his  best  two  odes ;  indeed,  above  it  should  be 
placed  the  little-known  Ode  to  Sorrow  from  the  fourth  book 
of  Endymion.  The  opening  stanzas  are  EUzabethan  in  their 
music : 

"  To  Sorrow, 

I  bade  good-morrow. 
And  thought  to  leave  her  far  away  behind; 

But  cheerly,  cheerly. 

She  loves  me  dearly; 
She  is  so  constant  to  me,  and  so  kind. 

Would  any  one  suspect  this  to  be  by  Keats.?  Then  follows 
a  lyrical  description  of  Bacchus  and  his  crew  which,  for  color 
and  magnificence  of  sound,   seems   a  page  of  the  Arabian- 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  P7 

Nights  set  to  music.     All  that  Spenser  gave  to  lyric  verse, 
Keats  equalled  and  surpassed. 

IV 

In  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1771-1832)  and  Thomas  CampbeU 
(1777-1844!)  we  reach  the  lyrics  of  patriotism  and  war,  the 
best  songs  of  action  that  this  age  produced. 

It  has  become  too  much  the  fashion  of  late  to  speak  apolo- 
getically, even  sHghtingly,  of  Scott's  verse,  and  to  value  him 
almost  exclusively  as  a  novehst.^  Scott  himself,  with  his  fine 
and  modest  spirit,  disclaimed  too  readily  his  poetic  gift  and 
it  must  be  admitted  at  once  that  not  only  is  his  field  a  limited 
one,  but  even  his  most  characteristic  work  is  uneven  in 
quality.  At  his  best,  he  is  unrivalled;  his  battle  scenes  are 
described  with  such  force  and  vigor  that  they  have  no  equals 
in  the  language ;  his  pictures  of  the  splendor  and  color  of 
the  last  days  of  chivalry  are  still  unmatched.  Any  doubts 
as  to  the  validity  of  Scott's  inspiration  will  vanish  at  a  read- 
ing of  the  stag  hunt  in  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  the  death  of 
Constance,  and  the  battle  of  Flodden,  in  Marmion,  to  name 
three  widely  differing  passages. 

Scott's  best  work,  if  we  look  for  sustained  writing,  and 
disregard  the  brilliant  but  detached  passages  from  the  poetic 
tales,  is  to  be  found  in  his  lyrics.  Bacon  tells  us  that  Demos- 
thenes was  once  asked  what  was  the  chief  part  of  an  orator. 
He  answered,  action:  What  next.''  action:  What  next  again.'' 
action.  Judged  by  such  a  standard,  Scott's  lyrics  are  dis- 
tinguished above  those  of  most  writers,  for  action  is  his  great 
quality.  Bacon  then  proceeds  to  decry  action  in  a  speaker 
as  a  paltry  thing  which  the  ignorant  admire ;  to  give  life 
and  movement  to  verse  is  no  easy  matter.  Scott  had  been 
brought  up   on  the  ballads ;  if  he  never,  except  in  Proud 

1  See  for  example  Arthur  Symons,  The  Romantic  Movement  in  Eng- 
lish Poetry,  London,  1909,  pp.  108-119. 


4^8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Maisie,  attained  their  pathos  or  tragic  force,  he  caught  their 
simphcity  of  diction,  their  rapidity  of  action.  At  times  his 
verse  fairly  leaps : 

"  Like  adder  darting  from  his  coil. 
Like  wolf  that  dashes  through  the  toil, 
Like  mountain-cat  who  guards  her  young, 
Full  at  Fitz- James's  throat  he  sprung."^ 

No  one  has  written  anapests  that  speed  more  lightly  or  more 
rapidly  than  his : 

"  One  touch  to  her  hand,  and  one  word  in  her  ear. 
When  they  reach'd  the  hall-door,  and  the  charger  stood  near ; 
So  light  to  the  croupe  the  fair  lady  he  swung. 
So  light  to  the  saddle  before  her  he  sprung ! 
'  She  is  won !  we  are  gone,  over  bank,  bush,  and  scaur ; 
They'll  have  fleet  steeds  that  follow,'   quoth  young  Lochin- 


Professor  Saintsbury  has  spoken  enthusiastically  yet  ad- 
visedly of  the  success  of  such  a  stanza.  We  have  seen  this 
metre  used  for  whimsical,  trifling,  half-serious  and  half-jest- 
ing love  poetry ;  Scott  makes  a  new  thing  of  it.  Not  only 
is  there  "racing  and  chasing  on  Cannobie  Lee,"  but  in  every 
verse  of  The  Cavalier's  Song  in  Rokehy  or  the  better-known 
Bonnie  Dundee.  To  write  anapests  with  this  ballad  move- 
ment is  no  slight  achievement,  for  no  other  metre,  not  even 
the  octosyllabic  couplet,  degenerates  so  rapidly  into  dog- 
gerel. 

Many  other  of  his  lyrics  have  this  same  spirited  rhythm. 
What  better  marching  song  could  there  be  than 

1  J.  L.  Robertson,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Walter  Scott,  Oxford,  1909, 
p.  355. 

2  P.  143. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  4^9 

"  March,  march,  Ettrick  and  Teviotdale, 

Why  the  deil  dinna  ye  march  forward  in  order? 
March,  march,  Eskdale  and  Liddesdale, 

All  the  blue  bonnets  are  bound  for  the  Border. 

Many  a  banner  spread, 

Flutters  above  your  head. 
Many  a  crest  that  is  famous  in  story. 

Mount  and  make  ready  then. 

Sons  of  the  mountain  glen. 
Fight  for  the  Queen  and  our  old  Scottish  glory."^ 

Scott  is  at  his  best  when  the  clans  go  out  to  battle,  yet  the 
war  song  echoes  in  all  types  of  his  lyrics.  We  have  read 
many  lullabies  from  Greene  to  Blake  in  which  the  mother 
or  an  angel  guards  the  child;  with  Scott,  a  warrior  stands 
near  the  cradle: 

"  O,  fear  not  the  bugle,  though  loudly  it  blows. 
It  calls  but  the  warders  that  guard  thy  repose ; 
Their  bows  would  be  bended,  their  blades  would  be  red, 
Ere  the  step  of  a  foeman  draws  near  to  thy  bed."^ 

The  lyric  of  the  deserted  maiden  has  said  nothing  hitherto 
of  war,  but  Scott  can  not  forget  the  battle : 

"  Where  shall  the  traitor  rest. 

He,  the  deceiver. 
Who  could  win  maiden's  breast, 

Buin,  and  leave  her.'' 
In  the  lost  battle. 

Borne  down  by  the  flying. 
Where  mingles  war's  rattle 

With  groans  of  the  dying. "^ 

In   his    few   love   lyrics,    Scott    writes    poorly ;   when    he 
attempts  a  more  thoughtful  or  heightened  style,  as  in  his 

ip.  790. 

2  P.  729. 

3  P.  118. 


430  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

song  to  the  moon  in  Rokehy,  his  skill  vanishes.  He  could 
write  the  dirge  for  lovely  Rosabelle,  but  he  could  have  written 
no  deep  and  passionate  protestation  of  devotion  to  her.  If 
Scott's  lyrics  move  to  the  simplest  music,  yet  there  is  always 
a  melody : 

"  And  each  St.  Clair  was  buried  there, 

With  candle,  with  book,  and  with  knell; 
But  the  sea-caves  rung,  and  the  wild  winds  sung, 
The  dirge  of  lovely  Rosabelle."^ 

There  is  something  of  Campion's  direct  style  in  that  Hvely 
little  hunting  song,  "Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay";  cer- 
tainly it  has  the  metre  and  the  simple  diction  of  his 

"  Never  love  unless  you  can 
Bear  with  all  the  faults  of  man." 

Three  lyrics  of  Scott  are  decidedly  better  than  the  rest 
of  his  songs.  Two  of  them  were  inspired  by  a  few  Hues  from 
old  songs,  but  "Why  weep  ye  by  the  tide,  ladie,"  is  no  in- 
genious imitation,  it  is  the  very  essence  of  the  ballad  lyric, 
and  the  song  from  Rokehy  far  surpasses  its  original,  "It 
was  a'  for  our  rightful  king."  Scott's  lyric  has  the  true 
haunting  quality,  as  Clive  Newcome  found : 

This  morn  is  merry  June,  I  trow, 

The  rose  is  budding  fain; 
But  she  shall  bloom  in  winter  snow. 

Ere  we  two  meet  again.' 
He  turned  his  charger  as  he  spake. 

Upon  the  river  shore, 
He  gave  his  bridle-reins  a  shake. 

Said,  'Adieu  for  evermore. 
My  love! 
And  adieu  for  evermore.'  "^ 

1  P.  45. 

2  P.  341. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^Sl 

His  masterpiece  is  Proud  Maisie.  Here  is  a  situation  that 
would  have  appealed  to  Poe,  but  how  differently  would  he 
have  treated  it.  Scott  gains  his  effect  by  his  brevity ;  Nature 
does  not  suggest  death  but  pronounces  the  girl's  doom : 


"  The  glow-worm  o'er  grave  and  stone 
Shall  light  thee  steady. 
The  owl  from  the  steeple  sing, 
'  Welcome,  proud  lady.'  "^ 


Thomas  Campbell  tried  his  hand  at  various  styles  of  verse 
composition.  The  Pleasures  of  Hope  resembles  the  Queen 
Anne  verse  essay ;  Gertrude  of  Wyoming  and  The  Pilgrim 
of  Glencoe  are  pure  narrative;  Lines  on  Poland,  or  The 
Power  of  Russia  are  political  manifestos.  From  all  these 
poems  the  interest  has  faded ;  Campbell's  war  lyrics  still 
remain  among  the  finest  in  the  language. 

This  is  to  say  that  Campbell  had  but  one  gift.  He  could 
express  most  admirably  the  shock  of  battle  and  the  thrill  of 
patriotism.  He  has  a  measured  eloquence  that  few  writers 
of  war  songs  have  attained,  for  surely  Ye  Mariners  of  Eng- 
land and  the  Battle  of  the  Baltic  stand  alone.  There  is  no 
more  dreary  reading  than  collections  of  patriotic  songs,  but 
the  expression  of  a  nation's  spirit  was  Campbell's  oppor- 
tunity. At  times  his  writing  is  so  poor  that  his  climaxes  are 
not  only  weak  but  positively  ludicrous,  as  in  the  closing 
stanza  of  his  ballad  of  the  Ritter  Banm,: 

"  One  moment  may  with  bliss  repay 
Unnumbered  hours  of  pain; 
Such  was  the  throb  and  mutual  sob 
Of  the  knight  embracing  Jane," 

1  P.  776. 


JfS2  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

yet  the  man  who  wrote  that  cheap  jingle  also  wrote : 

"  Britannia  needs  no  bulwarks, 
No  towers  along  the  steep; 
Her  march  is  o'er  the  mountain  waves^ 
Her  home  is  on  the  deep. 
With  thunders  from  her  native  oak 
She  quells  the  floods  below, 
As  they  roar  on  the  shore 
When  the  stormy  winds  do  blow, — 
When  the  battle  rages  loud  and  long 
And  the  stormy  winds  do  blow."^ 

Surely  this  is  something  more  than  brilliant  rhetoric. 

With  Lovelace,  Campbell  needed  a  war  to  arouse  his  mind 
and  feeling,  and  we  may  add,  his  artistic  sense.  He  found 
some  good  lines  in  the  old  song,  Ye  Gentlemen  of  England, 
and  with  this  suggestion  he  made  his  Mariners  of  England 
from  which  we  have  just  quoted  a  typical  stanza.  He  wrote 
his  Battle  of  the  Baltic  first  in  twenty-six  stanzas  of  six  lines, 
some  of  them  singularly  feeble  and  ineffective.  He  condensed 
this  first  version  to  eight  stanzas,  altering  the  metre  and 
saving,  with  the  best  of  judgment,  every  good  line.  As  this 
is  one  of  the  happiest  instances  of  successful  revision  it  is 
worth  while  to  give  two  stanzas  in  their  first  form  and  then 
show  what  he  made  from  them : 

"  The  bells  shall  ring !  the  day 

Shall  not  close 
But  a  blaze  of  cities  bright 
Shall  illuminate  the  night. 
And  the  wine-cup  shine  in  light 

As  it  flows ! 

IJ.  L.  Robertson,  The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Camp- 
bell, Oxford,  1907,  pp.  184,  188. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  J^SS 

"  Yet,  yet  amid  the  joy 

And  uproar. 
Let  us  think  of  them  that  sleep 
Full  many  a  fathom  deep 
All  beside  thy  rocky  steep, 

Elsinore !" 

This  becomes: 

"  Now  joy,  Old  England,  raise 
For  the  tidings  of  thy  might 
By  the  festal  cities'  blaze. 
While  the  wine-cup  shines  in  light; 
And  yet,  amidst  that  joy  and  uproar. 
Let  us  think  of  them  that  sleep. 
Full  many  a  fathom  deep. 
By  thy  wild  and  stormy  steep, 
Elsinore  l"^ 

Hoherdinden,  half  narrative,  half  lyrical,  has  the  same 
effectiveness  of  rhythm  and  energy  of  expression  that  lends 
these  patriotic  odes  their  value.  As  in  the  case  of  Scott, 
Campbell's  love  poetry  is  poor.  The  Wownded  Hussar,  we 
are  told  by  Beattie,  was  sung  in  the  streets  of  Glasgow  and 
became  popular  everywhere.  It  is  certainly  quite  different 
from  the  modern  street  song: 

"  Alone  to  the  banks  of  the  dark-rolling  Danube 

Fair  Adelaide  hied  when  the  battle  was  o'er: 
'  Oh,  whither,'  she  cried,  'hast  thou  wandered,  my  lover  ? 
Or  here  dost  thou  welter  and  bleed  on  the  shore  }'  " 

Not  merely  the  rhythm  but  the  sentiment  of  this  poem  reminds 
us  that  we  are  approaching  the  vogue  of  Tom  Moore;  we 
feel  this  in  the  Soldier's  Dream,  with  its  line  adapted  from 
Lovelace : 

iPp.  195,  191. 


4B4.  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Our  bugles  sang  truce^for  the  night-cloud  had  lowered. 
And  the  sentinel  stars  set  their  watch  in  the  sky/'^ 

though  Campbell  rarely  caught  the  easy,  famiUar  style  of 
the  Irish  Melodies. 


We  come  to  the  lighter  side  of  the  lyric  in  the  poems  of 
Moore  and  Praed.  Tom  Moore  (1779-1852)  forsook  his 
birthplace,  as  most  Irish  writers  have  done,  and  made  him- 
self the  favorite  of  London  drawing-rooms.  He  was  clever 
and  witty  in  conversation ;  he  had  a  rare  faculty  for  making 
friends  (witness  Byron's  over-enthusiastic  praise  of  Moore's 
poetry)  ;  and  his  writings  hit  the  popular  fancy.  At  the 
height  of  his  fame  he  was  easily  considered  a  much  greater 
poet  than  Wordsworth  or  Shelley.  Time  has  dealt  hardly 
with  him;  indeed,  he  himself  saw  his  reputation  wane,  but 
though  his  satirical  and  humorous  verse  has  lost  its  sparkle, 
and  though  the  rococo  work  of  Lalla  Roohh  has  become  sadly 
tarnished,  his  Irish  Melodies  will  never  lack  readers.  Once 
more,  a  poet's  best  work  is  contained  in  his  lyrics. 

We  have  many  pictures  of  Moore,  but  none  more  vivid 
than  the  sketch  Willis  gives  of  him.  He  heard  Moore  talk 
of  Ireland — "the  whole  country  in  convulsions — people's 
lives,  fortunes  and  religion  at  stake" — yet  on  such  a  subject 
what  Willis  finds  most  characteristic  is  "the  delicacy  and 
elegance  of  Moore's  language,"  the  "kind  of  frost-work  of 
imagery  which  was  formed  and  melted  on  his  lips !"  He 
heard  Moore  sing.  "He  makes  no  attempt  at  music.  It  is 
a  kind  of  admirable  recitative,  in  which  every  shade  of 
thought  is  syllabled  and  dwelt  upon,  and  the  sentiment  of 
the  song  goes  through  your  blood,  warming  you  to  the  very 
eyelids,  and  starting  your  tears,  if  you  have  a  soul  or  sense 
in  you.      I  have  heard  of  women's   fainting   at   a   song  of 

1  Pp.  197,  198. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  435 

Moore's;  and  if  the  burden  of  it  answered  by  chance  to  a 
secret  in  the  bosom  of  the  listener,  I  should  think,  from  its 
comparative  effect  upon  so  old  a  stager  as  myself,  that  the 
heart  would  break  with  it."^  The  tears  that  were  shed,  over 
Clarissa  Harlowe  now  flow  at  Moore's  songs.  It  is  the  revival 
of  the  sentimental  school,  and  Moore's  lyrics  represent  the 
best  form  of  the  tender  stanzas  that  adorned  the  Annuals 
and  Garlands  of  the  second  quarter  of  the  century. 

It  was  a  happy  thought  that  prompted  the  publication  of 
a  series  of  Irish  melodies  with  words  written  for  them  by 
Moore.  From  1807  to  1834  the  melodies  appeared  in  sepa- 
rate parts  with  twelve  songs  in  each.  The  music,  arranged 
so  simply  that  a  child  could  play  it,  was  in  a  large  measure 
responsible  for  the  success  of  this  venture,  for  many  of  the 
melodies  were  extremely  beautiful.  Endless  repetition  has 
not  yet  destroyed  the  appeal  of  Believe  me,  if  all  those  endear- 
ing young  charms,  or  of  The  Last  Rose  of  Summer.  Moore 
insisted  that  his  only  talent  lay  in  discovering  the  emotion 
or  sentiment  in  the  melody  and  then  translating  it  into 
words;  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  desire  that  his  songs  be 
always  sung  and  never  read.  It  is  true  that  in  nearly  every 
case,  his  words  fit  the  music  perfectly.  He  had  no  help 
whatever  from  Irish  poetry  or  from  the  verses  long  asso- 
ciated with  these  folk  tunes,  as  many  of  them  were.  The 
Groves  of  Blarney  becomes  The  Last  Rose  of  Summer;  0, 
Patrick  fly  from  me  and  Paddy  Whack  are  transformed  to 
When  first  I  met  thee  and  While  History's  Muse;  The  Pretty 
girl  milking  her  cow  and  The  girl  I  left  behind  me  are 
changed  to  The  valley  lay  smiling  before  me  and  As  slow  our 
sMp. 

It  is  amusing  to  observe  that  Moore  gravely  informed  his 
English  readers  that  there  was  nothing  "revolutionary"  in 
these  poems,  and  he  speaks  of  his  work  as  his  "patriotic 
task."     A  most  casual  reading  of  the  Irish  Melodies  reveals 

1  N.  P.  Willis,  Pencilings  by  the  Way,  London,  1839,  p.  368. 


^36  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

their  lack  of  national  spirit.  Certainly  we  find  allusions  to 
the  minstrel's  harp,  to  Erin,  to  Tara's  halls,  to  Irish  saints 
and  heroes,  patriots  and  exiles,  but  the  heart  of  the  matter 
is  not  in  these  sentimental  ditties  composed  for  London 
drawing-rooms.  Collins  in  his  unfinished  ode  realized  more 
clearly  than  did  Moore  in  all  his  melodies  what  the  Celtic 
spirit  is.  Moore  wrote  a  song  on  the  gloomy  lake  in  Done- 
gal beheved  by  the  peasants  to  be  the  mouth  of  Purgatory 
and  the  abode  of  spirits.^  There  is  not  the  slightest  shudder 
or  mystery  in  his  stanzas  as  there  is,  for  example,  in  "Moira 
O'Neill's"  Fairy  Lough: 

"  Loughareema,  Loughareema ; 

When  the  sun  goes  down  at  seven, 
When  the  hills  are  dark  an'  airy, 

'Tis  a  curlew  whistles  sweet ! 
Then  somethin'  rustles  all  the  reeds 

That  stand  so  thick  an'  even; 
A  little  wave  runs  up  the  shore 

An'  flees,  as  if  on  feet." 

If  it  seems  unfair  to  contrast  Moore  with  the  writers  of  the 
neo-Celtic  school  (for  he  lacked  their  knowledge  of  Irish 
legend  and  poetry),  we  can  justly  compare  liim  with 
Burns.  In  the  songs  of  Burns  we  have  the  Scotch  peasant 
as  he  lived  and  loved  and  caroused ;  we  hear  the  very  words 
he  used.  In  Moore  there  is  no  Irish  dialect,  no  smell  of  the 
soil,  nothing  that  comes  from  the  heart  of  the  folk.  There 
is  indeed  a  devotion  to  Erin  expressed  many  times,  but  it 
has  none  of  the  ring  of  "Scots,  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled." 
There  is  little  of  Irish  thought  or  life  in 

"  When  Love,  rocked  by  his  mother. 

Lay  sleeping  as  calm  as  slumber  could  make  him  " 

1 1  wish  I  was  by  that  dim  lake. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^37 

or 

"  The  young  May  moon  is  beaming,  love. 
The  glow-worm's  lamp  is  gleaming,  love. 

How  sweet  to  rove 

Through  Morna's  grove, 
When  the  drowsy  world  is  dreaming,  love  !"^ 

Compare  this  with  Of  a'  the  airts  and  we  realize  instantly 
the  difference  between  sentimental  fancy  and  that  emotion 
whose  natural  language  is  verse.  If  we  do  not  wish  to  leave 
Ireland,  let  the  reader  compare  the  lyrics  of  Mangan,  who 
died  three  years  before  Moore,  with  the  lyrics  from  the  Irish 
Melodies  that  are  published  in  the  Dublin  Book  of  Irish 
Verse  and  he  will  see  how  deep  is  the  gulf  that  separates  the 
patriotic  lyric  from  the  song  for  poKte  society. 

The  artificiality  of  many  of  these  songs — their  conven- 
tional allusions  to  the  harp,  the  bowl,  the  rose,  the  moon 
(how  rarely  the  moon  appears  in  the  songs  of  Burns) — 
must  not  blind  us  to  their  one  splendid  quality :  they  are  per- 
fectly adapted  to  music  and  constantly  suggest  it.  How 
few  of  the  lyrics  of  Byron  or  Shelley  are  suitable  for  musical 
accompaniment.  At  his  best,  Moore  has  a  genuine  pathos. 
"She  is  far  from  the  land,"  or  to  leave  the  Irish  Melodies, 
"Come,  ye  disconsolate,"  and  above  all,  "Oft  in  the  stilly 
night,"  have  a  tender  melancholy  that  atones  for  many  an 
insincere  and  insipid  song.  His  finest  lyric  shows  this  same 
mood,  expressed  with  a  music  that  is  unsurpassed  elsewhere 
in  his  verse : 

"  I  saw  from  the  beach,  when  the  morning  was  shining, 
A  bark  o'er  the  waters  move  gloriously  on; 
I  came  when  the  sun  o'er  that  beach  was  declining. 

The  bark  was  still  there,  but  the  waters  were  gone. 

1  A.  D.  Godley,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Moore,  Oxford,  1910, 

pp.  227,  203. 


iS8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  And  such  is  the  fate  of  our  life's  early  promise. 

So  passing  the  spring-tide  of  joy  we  have  known; 
Each  wave,  that  we  danced  on  at  morning,  ebbs  from  us. 
And  leaves  us,  at  eve,  on  the  bleak  shore  alone. 

"  Ne'er  tell  me  of  glories,  serenely  adorning 

The  close  of  our  day,  the  calm  eve  of  our  night; — - 
Give  me  back,  give  me  back  the  wild  freshness  of  Morning, 

Her  clouds  and  her  tears  are  worth  Evening's  best  light."^ 

Winthrop  Mackworth  Praed  (1802-1839)  hardly  justified 
the  brilliant  promise  of  his  student  days,  and  as  in  the  case 
of  Moore,  a  much  better  poet,  the  greater  part  of  his  work 
has  now  little  significance.  His  best  quality  was  his  wit,  his 
ability  to  express  a  clever  phrase  in  an  apt  metre,  but 
he  desired  to  write  in  a  serious  vein.  Thus  we  find  in  the 
Troubadour  a  number  of  sentimental  songs,  of  which  My 
Mother's  Grave  is  the  best.  In  general,  when  Praed  would 
be  emotional,  his  feeling  is  too  obvious ;  there  is  no  person- 
ality behind  it,  and  his  too  facile  metres  deepen  the  impres- 
sion of  artificiality : 

"  So  glad  a  life  was  never,  love. 

As  that  which  childhood  leads. 
Before  it  learns  to  sever,  love. 

The  roses  from  the  weeds; 
When  to  be  very  duteous,  love. 

Is  all  it  has  to  do; 
And  every  flower  is  beauteous,  love. 

And  every  folly  true."^ 

This  reads  like  Moore  in  his  weakest  moments. 

It  is  when  Praed  turns  to  the  light  satire  of  fashionable 
folly,  when  he  writes  of  the  artificial  life  of  the  day,  that  he 
is  at  his  very  best.    No  one  has  quite  caught  his  tone,  though 

1  P.  209. 

2  A.  D.  Godley,  Select  Poems  of  Winthrop  Mackworth  Praed,  Oxford, 
1909,  p.  19. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC 

he  foretells  London  Lyrics  and  the  modern  school  of  society 
verse  in  his  Good-Night  to  the  Season: 

"  Good  night  to  the  Season! — the  dances. 

The  fillings  of  hot  little  rooms, 
The  glancings  of  rapturous  glances, 

The  fancyings  of  fancy  costumes; 
The  pleasures  which  fashion  makes  duties. 

The  praisings  of  fiddles  and  flutes. 
The  luxury  of  looking  at  Beauties, 

The  tedium  of  talking  to  mutes; 
The  female  diplomatists,  planners 

Of  matches  for  Laura  and  Jane; 
The  ice  of  her  Ladyship's  manners. 

The  ice  of  his  Lordship's  champagne."^ 

Praed  has  one  or  two  tricks  he  repeats  too  often;  his  use  of 
zeugma : 

"  He  cleared  the  drawbridge  and  his  throat. 
He  crossed  his  forehead  and  the  moat," 

loses  its  effect,  but  his  gaiety  never  flags  and  he  is  an  artist 
in  lighter  metres.  His  two  most  successful  pieces,  Our  Ball 
and  A  Letter  of  Advice,  can  not  by  any  chance  be  considered 
lyrical,  and  he  comes  before  us  as  the  first  in  point  of  time 
of  our  modern  vers  de  societe  writers  rather  than  as  one  who 
has  contributed  much  to  this  delightful  genre. 

Praed  has  brought  us  to  the  minor  poets  of  the  period. 
Campbell  certainly  belongs  among  them  but  we  found  it 
convenient  to  consider  him  with  Scott.  We  shall  consider 
but  three  others — omitting  several  well-known  names.  Of 
these  the  most  popular  is  Thomas  Hood  (1799-184!5). 
We  shall  not  concern  ourselves  with  his  humorous  lyrics 
except  to  remark  that  it  is  a  misfortune  that  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  his  verse  aims  to  be  nothing  more  than 
clever  trifling.     In  his  serious  work  there  are  two  distinct 

iP.  121. 


UO  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

moods :  he  is  the  social  reformer  and  he  is  the  artist.  A  small 
group  of  poems — The  Lady's  Dream,  The  Workhouse  Clock, 
The  Lay  of  the  Labourer,  The  Song  of  the  Shirt,  The  Bridge 
of  Sighs— show  the  humanitarian  side  of  his  nature;  he  has 
no  philosophical  theories  of  a  possible  regeneration  of  society, 
but  he  sees  certain  definite  wrongs  and  he  strikes  at  them. 
The  Song  of  the  Shirt  is  not  merely  a  tract  for  Hood's  times, 
but  for  all  times ;  he  was  not  a  great  enough  writer  to  stamp 
out  the  sweatshop,  yet  it  is  true  that  this  poem  had  more 
effect  on  the  people  of  his  day  than  some  of  the  greater  odes 
we  have  considered.  True  and  sincere  as  is  its  pathos,  its 
workmanship  is  not  at  all  remarkable  and  it  must  yield  to 
The  Bridge  of  Sighs. 

If  the  reader  will  turn  to  our  remarks  upon  Raleigh's  Lie 
or  to  those  sonnets  of  Shakespeare  which  express  dissatis- 
faction with  the  social  order,  he  will  find  that  we  appreciated 
the  vigor  and  force  of  these  poems.  Here  we  have  a  more 
effective  complaint  of  man's  inhumanity,  because  instead  of 
generalizations,  of  indignation  at  the  thought  of  "Captive 
Good  attending  Captain  111,"  we  have  the  picture  of  the 
friendless  girl  standing 

"  with  amazement. 
Houseless  by  night. 

"  The  bleak  wind  of  March 
Made  her  tremble  and  shiver; 
But  not  the  dark  arch. 
Or  the  black  flowing  river: 
Mad  from  life's  history, 
Glad  to  death's  mystery. 
Swift  to  be  hurled — 
Anywhere,  anywhere 
Out  of  the  world !" 

We  are  too  prone  to  neglect  the  work  of  the  present.  Here 
is  a  dirge  for  the  outcast  which  stands  absolutely  alone  in 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  Ul 

its  pathos,  its  intensity,  its  artistic  restraint.  How  quietly 
this  fearful  arraignment  of  modern  society  closes : 

"  Cross  her  hands  humbly, 
As  if  praying  dumbly. 
Over  her  breast ! 

"  Owning  her  weakness. 
Her  evil  behaviour. 
And  leaving,  with  meekness, 
Her  sins  to  her  Saviour !" 

The  short  line,  which  in  other  hands  might  become  jerky,  fits 
the  mood,  for  it  brings  the  picture  and  the  emotion  to  us  at 
once;  skillful  is  the  use  of  assonance  and  the  chant  of  the 
chorus : 

"  Take  her  up  tenderly 

Lift  her  with  care ; 

Fashioned  so  slenderly. 

Young,  and  so  fair  !"^ 

In  what  we  have  called,  for  the  sake  of  contrast.  Hood's 
art  lyrics,  his  pathos  is  still  evident.  At  times  it  is  merely 
a  gentle  melancholy,  as  in  his  Fair  Ines,  whose  melody  won 
the  praise  of  Poe.  It  is  fancy  rather  than  imagination  that 
we  see  in  this  picture  of  the  beauty  sailing  to  her  lover  in 
the  West : 

"I  saw  thee,  lovely  Ines, 
Descend  along  the  shore. 
With  bands  of  noble  gentlemen. 
And  banners  waved  before; 
And  gentle  youth  and  maidens  gay. 
And  snowy  plumes  they  wore; — 
It  would  have  been  a  beauteous  dream, 
— If  it  had  been  no  more  !"^ 

1 W.  Jerrold,  The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Hood,  Oxford, 
1906,  p.  643. 
ZP.  177. 


U^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  same  may  be  said  of  his  lament  for  his  lost  boyhood, 
"I  remember,  I  remember,"  in  which  we  see  regret  rather  than 
that  deep  longing  which  Vaughan  shows  when  he  writes  on 
the  same  subject. 

In  his  rather  meagre  appreciation  of  Hood,  Professor 
Saintsbury  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  couplets  in 
the  fragment  of  the  Sea  of  Death  have  something  of  Keats ;' 
it  is  more  interesting  to  notice  poems  in  which  Hood's  mate- 
rial is  plainly  modelled  on  the  older  poet's  work,  for  it  is 
instructive  to  observe  the  difference  between  the  poetry  of 
a  genius  and  of  a  talented,  sensitive  writer.  Hood's  Water 
Lady  is  a  weaker  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci;  his  Ode  to  Autumn, 
though  not  without  many  original  strokes,  is  plainly  reminis- 
cent of  Keats's  greater  ode.  And  if  Hood  followed  a  modern 
poet,  he  also  knew  the  work  of  the  Jacobean  and  Caroline 
writers,  for  he  has  something  of  their  quaintness  of  imagery 
and  of  their  conceits.    We  hear  Marvell  in  such  a  stanza  as : 

"  'Tis  not  trees'  shade,  but  cloudy  glooms 
That  on  the  cheerless  valleys  fall. 
The  flowers  are  in  their  grassy  tombs. 
And  tears  of  dew  are  on  them  all,"^ 

while  The  Death  Bed  reminds  one  of  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's, 
though  more  harmonious  and  more  tender  than  he  would 
have  made  it : 

"  Our  very  hopes  belied  our  fears. 

Our  fears  our  hopes  belied — 
We  thought  her  dying  when  she  slept. 
And  sleeping  when  she  died ! 

"  For  when  the  morn  came  dim  and  sad. 
And  chill  with  early  showers. 
Her  quiet  eyelids  closed — she  had 
Another  morn  than  ours  !"' 

"^History  of  English  Prosody,  vol.  Ill,  p.  145. 

2  P.  183. 

3  P.  444. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  U^ 

In  his  own  day,  Bryan  Waller  Procter  (1787-1874),  better 
known  as  Barry  Cornwall,  was  ranked  with  Moore  as  a  song 
writer.  We  hear  an  echo  of  this  mistaken  opinion  in  the 
pages  of  Stedman's  Victorian  Poets  (1876)  in  which  more 
space  is  devoted  to  Procter  than  to  Matthew  Arnold.  We  are 
told  that  his  songs  "beyond  those  of  any  other  modern,  have 
an  excellence  of  'mode'  which  renders  them  akin  to  the  melo- 
dies of  Shakespeare,  Marlowe,  Jonson,  Heywood,  Fletcher," 
and  Stoddard  is  quoted  with  approval  when  he  doubts 
"whether  all  the  early  English  poets  ever  produced  so  many 
and  such  beautiful  songs  as  Barry  Cornwall."  To-day  his 
work  is  so  little  regarded  that  neither  Palgrave  nor  Quiller- 
Couch  print  in  their  anthologies  a  single  Hne  of  his  verse. 

The  third  edition  of  Procter's  songs  appeared  in  1851. 
This  volume  contained  a  preface,  written  in  1832,  in  which 
the  poet  lamented  the  fact  that  England  is  singularly  barren 
of  song  writers,  and  it  was  plainly  his  ambition  to  fill  what 
he  considered  to  be  the  chief  lactma  in  English  poetry.  He 
admired  Burns  above  all  other  lyrists,  finding  in  his  verse 
"an  earnestness  and  directness  of  purpose  which,  if  attended 
to,  would  strengthen  the  poetry  of  the  present  day."  Un- 
fortunately, Procter's  aim  was  beyond  him.  Turning  over 
his  pages,  the  charm  seems  to  have  vanished  from  these  once 
popular  lyrics.  Their  diction  is  simple,  their  style  is  un- 
affected, they  appear  admirably  adapted  for  music,  but  they 
lack  all  distinction  and  their  artistic  spirit  and  their  imagi- 
native quality  is  slight.  Even  his  most  quoted  song  is  no 
longer  read  beyond  the  first  two  lines : 

"  The  sea !  the  sea !  the  open  sea ! 
The  blue,  the  fresh,  the  ever  free !" 

We  are  hardly  thrilled  by 

"  I  love  (Oh!  how  I  love)  to  ride 
On  the  fierce  foaming  bursting  tide." 


Ui  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Of  all  his  lyrics  (and  he  wrote  too  many),  the  Htmter's  Song, 
"How  many  Summers,  love,"  and  "Touch  us  gently.  Time!" 
represent  his  best  work,  yet  these  poems  are  far  from  being 
inspired.^ 

We  must  pass  by  Thomas  Love  Peacock  (1785-1866), 
whose  Paper  Money  Lyrics,  parodying  the  manner  of  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge,  of  Scott,  Campbell  and  Moore,  furnish 
a  comic  relief  to  the  high  seriousness  of  their  work.  He  was, 
however,  much  more  than  a  satirist,  and  showed,  in  his  serious 
moods,  skill  and  talent.  His  ballad  of  Robin  Hood  has  a 
free  and  attractive  movement: 

"  Oh,  bold  Robin  Hood  is  a  forester  good. 
As  ever  drew  bow  in  the  merry  greenwood !" 

his  Love  and  Age  has  the  lightness  of  Praed;  and  his  poem 
on  the  death  of  his  child  has  much  of  the  pathos  of  Hood.^ 
We  must  also  omit  George  Darley  (1795-1846),  an  even 
better  lyrist,  whose  songs  in  Sylvia  have  the  grace  and  airi- 
ness of  the  Elizabethans  in  their  gayest  moods,'  and  we  close 
the  chapter  with  Beddoes,  a  neglected  poet,  we  may  almost 
say  a  neglected  genius. 

Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes  (1803-1849)  was  temperamentally 
an  own  brother  to  Webster  and  Toumeur,  the  last  of  the 
Elizabethan  dramatists.  He  resembles  them  both  in  style 
and  in  morbid  thought ;  his  favorite  lyric  form  is  the  dirge. 
Life  for  him  was  indeed  a  tragedy,  for  he  died  by  his  own 
hand. 

The  most  characteristic  work  of  Beddoes,  Death's  Jest- 
Book,  is  as  sombre  and  terrible  a  drama  as  the  Duchess  of 

1  Barry  Cornwall,  English  Songs,  and  other  small  poems,  London, 
1851,  pp.  73,  81,  91,  208. 

2  B.  Jonson,  The  Poems  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  Muses'  Library, 
London,  1906,  pp.  284,  373,  328. 

3  R.  Colles,  The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  George  Darley,  Muses' 
Library,  London,  N.  D.,  pp.  83-206. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  US 

Malft.  Throughout  its  soUloquies  and  dialogues,  the  thought, 
the  imagination,  the  fierce  energy  of  many  a  line  recall  the 
most  moving  passages  in  the  old  drama.  The  songs  are  even 
more  startling  in  their  kinship  to  the  lyrics  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan playwrights,  for  Beddoes  is  no  imitator  but  seems 
actually  one  of  their  number.  He  does  not  reproduce  the 
light  and  airy  melodies  of  Shakespeare ;  his  songs  are  laments, 
the  bridal  hymn  turning  to  the  funeral  song: 

"If  thou  wilt  cure  thine  heart 
Of  love  and  all  its  smart, 
Then  die,  dear,  die." 

Even  when  we  feel  the  influence  of  a  modern  writer,  as  in 
these  lines  that  recall  Shelley: 

"  The  swallow  leaves  her  nest, 
The  soul  my  weary  breast;" 

he  ends  the  lyric  with  the  gloom  of  Webster : 

"  The  wind  dead  leaves  and  snow 
Doth  hurry  to  and  fro; 
And,  once,  a  day  shall  break 

O'er  the  wave. 
When  a  storm  of  ghosts  shall  shake 
The  dead,  until  they  wake 

In  the  grave." 

It  is  this  morbid  strain  in  his  writings  more  than  their  uneven 
quality  that  has  robbed  Beddoes  of  the  fame  he  deserves.  In 
his  sadness  he  rarely  approaches  the  obvious  moods  of  sor- 
row ;  he  has  nothing  to  compare  with  Tennyson's  "As  through 
the  land  at  eve  we  went,"  or  "Home  they  brought  her  war- 
rior dead."  He  appeals  accordingly  with  most  force  to  the 
lovers  of  the  old  poets,  yet  all  must  feel  the  haunting  sug- 
gestion of  his  Dream  Pedlary: 


U6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  If  there  were  dreams  to  sell. 

What  would  you  buy? 
Some  cost  a  passing  bell; 

Some  a  light  sigh. 
That  shakes  from  Life's  fresh  crown 
Only  a  rose-leaf  down. 
If  there  were  dreams  to  sell, 
Merry  and  sad  to  tell. 
And  the  crier  rung  the  bell. 

What  would  you  buy?"*^ 

The  lyrists  of  the  Elizabethan  age  ran  the  gamut  of  emo- 
tion from  the  simplicity  of  Greene's  songs  to  the  subtlety  of 
Donne's  thought.  With  the  exception  of  Milton  and  Her- 
rick,  they  were  succeeded  by  distinctly  minor  writers.  The 
poets  of  our  modem  Renaissance  have  a  wider  range  than 
the  singers  of  Shakespeare's  day,  and  furthermore  they  in- 
spired another  generation  whose  achievement  far  surpasses 
that  of  the  Jacobean  and  Caroline  poets.  We  are  too  near 
the  nineteenth  century  to  pass  final  judgment  upon  its  work. 
Much  that  moves  us  may  fail  even  to  interest  future  genera- 
tions ;  yet  surely  an  age  that  produced  the  poets  we  have 
just  considered,  an  age  that  led  to  the  lyrists  who  await  us 
in  our  next  chapter,  is  more  significant  and  more  inspiring, 
in  our  chosen  field,  than  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth. 

1  R.  CoUes,  The  Poems  of  Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes,  Muses'  Library, 
London,  N.  D.,  pp.  31,  30,  356. 


CHAPTER  NINE 

The  Lyeic  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 


PART   TWO 


Alfred  Tennyson  (1809-1892)  above  all  other  nineteenth 
century  poets  truly  and  adequately  portrayed  his  land  and 
his  age.  He  was  English  to  the  heart's  core.  His  verse 
shows  more  of  his  country's  thought  and  feehng  and  char- 
acter than  does  the  poetry  of  any  one  of  his  predecessors,  be 
it  Byron,  or  Shelley,  or  Keats ;  or  of  any  one  of  his  contem- 
poraries, be  it  Browning  or  Arnold,  Swinburne  or  Rossetti. 
This  does  not  imply  any  narrowness  of  mind ;  indeed,  Thack- 
eray, not  given  to  hero-worship,  called  Tennyson  the  wisest 
man  he  had  ever  known.  In  many  a  passage  the  poet  showed 
how  deeply  he  had  studied  the  classics.  He  loved  Italy  as 
English  writers  have  always  loved  the 

"  lands  of  palm,  or  orange-blossom. 
Of  olive,  aloe,  and  maize  and  vine !" 

but  above  the  glory  that  was  Greece,  the  grandeur  that  was 
Rome,  above  "olive  silvery  Sirmio,"  or  all  else  that  Italy 
could  oiFer,  he  prized  England.  He  is  the  poet  of  English 
coasts  and  fields,  of  English  traditions  and  beliefs,  of  Eng- 
lish hfe,  and  character,  and  exploits.  Arnold  labors  to  recon- 
struct in  his  own  tongue  a  Greek  tragedy ;  Browning  finds 
in  Italy  the  theme  for  his  greatest  poem ;  it  is  characteristic 
that  for  his  most  extended  work,  Tennyson  should  turn  to  an 
English  classic,  Malory,  and  draw  inspiration  from  legends 
that  went  deep  into  England's  past. 


U8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Because  Tennyson  lived  so  completely  in  his  own  land,  in 
his  own  day  and  generation,  and  not  in  spite  of  this,  he  has 
won  his  place  beside  our  greatest  poets,  for  are  not  a  nation's 
great  men  those  who  represent  most  completely  the  spirit  of 
their  race?  Cromwell  was  typically  English  in  his  virtues 
and  his  defects ;  Lincoln  was  thoroughly  American,  bearing 
the  strong  impress  of  a  definite  section  of  our  country ;  every 
drop  of  blood  in  Bismarck's  veins  was  German ;  while  Hugo 
incarnates  the  weakness  and  the  brilliancy  of  the  Gallic  spirit. 
That  Tennyson's  poetry  was  an  epitome  of  his  times,  that  it 
exhibited  the  society,  the  art,  the  philosophy,  the  religion  of 
his  day  was  proved  by  the  welcome  which  all  classes  gave  to  it. 
The  Prince  Consort  admired  the  chivalric  spirit  of  the  Idylls, 
while  the  plebeian  judgments  were  taken  by  the  sentimen- 
talism  of  The  May  Queen  or  In  the  Children's  Hospital. 
Scientists  applauded  his  acceptance  of  their  theories  and  dis- 
coveries ;  scholars  praised  his  Virgilian  sweetness  ;  the  behever 
found  his  faith  strengthened  by  In  Memoriam;  while  such  a 
questioner  and  doubter  as  Henry  Sidgwick  discovered  in  three 
stanzas  of  that  same  poem  "the  indestructible  and  inalienable 
minimum  of  faith  which  humanity  cannot  give  up."  Swin- 
burne is  moved  to  rhapsody  (not  unusual,  to  be  sure)  by  the 
strength  and  pathos  of  Rizpah;  FitzGerald  is  touched  to 
tears  by  the  truth  and  tragedy  of  The  Northern  Farmer. 

The  inevitable  reaction  has  set  in.  Critics  tell  us  that 
Tennyson's  poetry  is  too  smooth,  too  placid,  too  effeminately 
graceful,  too  "Victorian." 

"  Faultily  faultless,  icily  regular,  splendidly  null, 
Dead  perfection,  no  more." 

The  Idylls  are  Malory  reduced  to  limpid  sentimentality;  In 
Memoriam  is  shallow  in  its  philosophy;  it  does  not  grapple 
with  the  problems  it  presents  but  helplessly  avoids  them.  In 
all  such  derogatory  criticism — and  there  is  too  much  of  it — 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  U9 

the  lyrics  are  never  assailed;  already  their  place  is  secured 
and  they  are  acknowledged  to  stand  with  the  highest  crea- 
tions of  English  genius. 

These  lyrics  are  divided  readily  into  distinct  groups.  The 
first  contains  the  art  lyrics,  songs  that  attract  us  more  by 
their  beauty  of  melody  and  description  than  by  their  emotion 
or  their  thought.  They  are  all  so  familiar  that  they  are 
upon  our  lips  as  we  name  them.  Claribel,  pure  music,  curi- 
ously anticipates  much  of  modern  poetry  that  makes  its 
appeal  by  suggestion,  by  its  half  concealed  imagery,  yet  no 
one  has  quite  imitated  its  tone;  The  Brook  and  Far-Far- 
Away  are  the  allegro  and  adagio  of  song;  The  Owl  is  a  bit 
of  melody  for  an  Elizabethan  Puck.  AU  these  lyrics,  even 
the  most  trifling,  are  perfect  in  their  form.  Writers  of  lesser 
rank,  when  carried  away  by  their  imagination  or  their  emo- 
tion, frequently  attain  a  perfection  of  speech  that  delights 
and  then  disappoints  us  because  it  so  soon  is  gone.  Tennyson 
shows  the  marks  of  his  genius  in  these  lyrics  of  slight  import 
as  he  does  in  the  deeper  poems  throbbing  with  feeling.  The 
Bugle  Song  from  The  Princess  is  wonderful  in  its  rhythm,  in 
the  melody  of  its  vowels  and  of  its  rhymes,  but  more  remark- 
able is  the  exquisite  blending  of  thought  and  music.  For 
these  horns  of  elfland,  too  deep  an  emotion,  too  marked  a 
motif  would  be  unsuited,  and  accordingly  Tennyson  has  ex- 
pressed that  quiet  surprise,  that  tender  regret  which  the  echo 
of  distant  music  brings  to  us.  We  have  heard  this  poem  so 
many  times  that  we  have  ceased  to  wonder  at  it,  taking  it  as 
a  matter  of  course.  There  is  nothing  like  it  in  our  poetry. 
Apparently  its  thought  and  sentiment  could  be  as  well  ex- 
pressed by  lyrists  of  lesser  gifts,  but  if  we  read  Moore's  echo 
song,  "How  sweet  the  music  echo  makes,"  we  find  that  it  has 
none  of  Tennyson's  magic. 

We  turn  for  an  example  of  the  art  lyric  in  a  more  highly 
developed  form  to  the  choric  song  in  The  Lotos-Eaters.  It 
has  the  sensuous,  luxuriant  description   of   Spenser's  ideal 


i.50  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

landscapes;  it  has  that  vivid  beauty  of  phrase  which  Keats 
desired,  and  yet  it  is  distinctly  Tennysonian. 

"  Music  that  gentlier  on  the  spirit  lies. 
Than  tired  eyelids  upon  tired  eyes ;" 

"  Let  us  swear  an  oath,  and  keep  it  with  an  equal  mind. 
In  the  hollow  Lotos-land  to  live  and  lie  reclined 
On  the  hills  like  Gods  together,  careless  of  mankind." 

There  is  the  distinctive  note,  the  range  in  the  modulation  that 
keeps  this  song  with  all  its  appeal  to  the  senses  from  being 
over  sweet  and  cloying.  With  a  skill  that  never  deserted 
him,  Tennyson  varies  his  metre,  making  it  rise  and  fall  with 
the  thought,  as  a  tree  sways  in  the  wind.  Here  as  elsewhere 
he  uses  effectively  that  device  we  found  in  the  earliest  lyrics, 
a  succession  of  verses  on  one  rhyme : 

"  Here  are  cool  mosses  deep. 
And  thro'  the  moss  the  ivies  creep. 
And  in  the  stream  the  long-leaved  flowers  weep. 
And  from  the  craggy  ledge  the  poppy  hangs  in  sleep." 

The  gradual  lengthening  of  the  lines  until  the  slow  move- 
ment culminates  in  the  Alexandrine  is  a  stroke  of  art.  In 
our  poetry  of  the  last  century,  no  writer,  not  even  Swin- 
burne, surpassed  Tennyson  in  giving  to  the  poet's  message 
"The  music  that  wraps  it  in  language  beneath  and  beyond 
the  word." 

Surely  we  are  Platonists  enough  to  agree  with  Browning 
that 

"  If  you  get  simple  beauty  and  naught  else. 
You  get  about  the  best  thing  God  invents:" 

yet  we  turn  more  frequently  to  those  lyrics  in  which  the  senti- 
ment or  the  emotion  is  stronger  and  the  musical  element  not 
a  whit  weaker,  to  "All  along  the  valley";  "Break,  break, 
break";   The  Miller's  Daughter;   "Move   eastward,  happy 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  451 

earth" ;  "Birds  in  the  high  wood  calling."  What  a  variety  of 
thought  and  expression  is  here !  With  these  poems  we  include 
the  songs  from  The  Princess:  "As  through  the  land"  and 
"Home  they  brought  her  warrior  dead,"  pathos  purified  from 
sentimentality;  "Sweet  and  low,"  as  widely  known  as  were 
once  the  old  folk  ballads,  sung  more  often  to-day  than  any 
English  slumber  song ;  "Ask  me  no  more,"  in  which,  as  Pro- 
fessor Saintsbury  remarks,  he  challenges  the  Caroline  writers 
on  their  own  ground  ;^  and  above  aU,  "Tears,  idle  tears,"  the 
most  beautiful  unrhymed  lyric  in  the  language.  There  is  a 
most  interesting  contrast  between  its  sure  and  firm  style  and 
the  more  elusive  qualities  of  Verlaine's  little  masterpiece, 

"  II  pleura  dans  mon  coeur 
Comme  il  pleure  dans  la  ville." 

In  all  these  lyrics — and  we  have  not  mentioned  those  ex- 
quisite songs  from  the  Idylls,  "Turn,  Fortune,  turn  thy 
wheel";  "In  love,  if  love  be  love";  "Free  love — free  field"; 
"Ay,  ay,  O,  ay — the  winds  that  bend  the  brier !" — Tennyson 
is  much  more  than  a  consummate  artist  in  language  and 
metre.  In  a  sonnet  to  Cambridge  he  once  upbraided  his  Alma 
Mater : 

"  You  that  do  profess  to  teach 
And  teach  us  nothing,  feeding  not  the  heart.'' 

He  himself  was  free  from  this  charge  and  back  of  all  these 
songs  is  an  emotion,  communicated  directly  to  us.  In  any 
of  the  fine  arts  we  weary  of  technique  alone,  no  matter  how 
brilliant.  Les  Trophees  by  De  Heredia  is  a  collection  of 
remarkable  sonnets  that  are  purely  objective  writing.  We 
admire  the  vividness  of  the  description,  the  elegance  of  the 
style,  and  then  we  forget  the  poems.     It  is  a  safe  assertion 

1  Cf .  Carew's  "Ask  me  no  more."  There  is  a  reminiscence  of  Marvell's 
Nymph  la/menting  the  death  of  her  fawn  in  the  line  from  Maud,  "You 
have  but  fed  on  the  roses  and  lain  in  the  lilies  of  life." 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

that  no  modern  lyrics  are  so  firmly  fixed  in  our  memories  as 
are  Tennyson's. 

We  come  to  the  final  group  of  his  lyrics  in  which  the  emo- 
tion and  the  thought  are  deeper,  songs  in  which  we  hear  the 
cry  of  passion.  Here  we  would  consider  many  of  the  sections 
of  In  Memoriam.  If  we  regard  this  elegy  as  verse  argument, 
as  an  attempt  to  reconcile  faith  with  experience,  to  justify 
the  ways  of  God  to  man,  we  shall  be  disappointed  in  it.  If 
we  read  it  as  a  series  of  lyrics,  showing  not  the  experiences 
of  love,  as  do  the  sonnet  sequences,  but  the  moods  of  grief, 
we  shall  find  that  this  work  deserves  its  place  among  the 
English  classics.  Even  here  the  poet  shows  his  wide  range 
in  this  highest  form  of  the  lyric.  But  this  variety  is  typical 
of  all  his  work.  We  turn  from  the  cloistered  purity  of  Saint 
Agnes'  Eve  to  the  impassioned  love  song  from  Maud;  from 
the  tranquillity  of  Crossing  the  Bar  to  what  is  the  most 
poignant  lyric  note  in  all  his  writings : 

"  O  that  'twere  possible 
After  long  grief  and  pain 
To  find  the  arms  of  my  true  love 
Round  me  once  again ! 

"  A  shadow  flits  before  me. 
Not  thou,  but  like  to  thee. 
Ah,  Christ,  that  it  were  possible 
For  one  short  hour  to  see 
The  souls  we  loved,  that  they  might  tell  us 
What  and  where  they  be  !"^ 

Here  is  the  simplicity  of  greatness.  These  six  verses  are 
worthy  of  Hamlet  in  his  most  inspired  moments.  Comment- 
ing upon  The  Silent  Voices,  Tennyson's  last  lyric,  dictated  on 
his  deathbed,  Palgrave  writes,  "Those  solemn  words,  As  sor- 
rowful yet  always  rejoicing,  give  the  true  key  to  Alfred 
1  Maud. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^53 

Tennyson's  inmost  nature,  his  life  and  his  poetry."^  More 
than  any  other  modern  poet  he  united  in  his  lyrics  the  joy 
in  life  and  the  sense  of  its  discouragements,  its  disasters,  its 
tragedies. 

For  the  greater  lyric  forms,  Tennyson's  fame  might  rest 
on  two  widely  contrasted  odes,  the  youthful  Ode  to  Memory 
and  the  great  dirge  for  the  Iron  Duke.  The  former  is  rich 
in  its  music  and  in  its  descriptions,  tender  in  its  feeling  and 
its  suggestions;  the  funeral  ode  has  a  fitting  restraint  both 
in  its  diction  and  rhythm,  yet  this  severity  of  style  has  caused 
it  to  be  undervalued.  It  is  direct  and  straightforward  in  its 
appeal ;  over  the  grave  of  this  warrior,  Tennyson  has  erected 
a  granite  shaft,  not  a  Gothic  chapel.  A  smaller  poet  would 
have  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  indulge  in  the  lurid  color- 
ings of  battle  scenes;  it  is  easy  to  imagine  how  this  subject 
would  have  been  treated  by  the  eighteenth  century  writers 
of  Pindaric  odes.  There  is  no  finer  expression  of  English 
patriotism  than  this  ode,  and  its  enduring  qualities  will  be 
more  fully  recognized  as  time  goes  on.  Nothing  is  more 
characteristic  of  it  than  the  nobility  of  its  concluding  verses. 
How  simply  Paradise  Lost  draws  to  its  end.  There  is  no 
Miltonic  organ  music,  no  great  picture  of  the  world  to  which 
the  exiles  go,  in  those  last  lines : 

"  They,  hand  in  hand,  with  wandering  steps  and  slow, 
Through  Eden  took  their  solitary  way." 

So  this  ode  shows  its  kinship  with  the  great  works  of  Eng- 
lish genius  nowhere  more  closely  than  in  its  ending : 

"  Speak  no  more  of  his  renown. 
Lay  your  earthly  fancies  down. 
And  in  the  vast  cathedral  leave  him, 
God  accept  him,  Christ  receive  him!" 

1  Golden  Treasury  of  Songt  and  Lyrics,  Second  Series,  p.  261. 


464  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Robert  Browning  (1812-1889)  is  one  of  the  most  fasci- 
nating and  one  of  the  most  perplexing  figures  in  all  English 
literature,  an  inviting  personality  for  the  lover  of  paradox. 
Over  no  modem  poet  are  critics  so  hopelessly  at  variance. 
He  sings  and  he  stammers;  he  writes  with  the  simplicity  of 
inspiration  and  with  the  awkwardness  of  one  to  whom  Eng- 
lish is  a  foreign  language;  he  arrives  after  many  twistings 
and  turnings  at  the  goal  of  his  thought  and  he  rushes  at  it 
with  the  speed  of  the  wind ;  he  takes  pages  to  explain  a  situa- 
tion, he  reveals  it  in  a  line ;  he  delights  in  pure  beauty,  he 
revels  in  the  grotesque.  These  are  but  a  few  of  the  incon- 
sistencies that  meet  us  the  moment  we  approach  his  work. 

From  boyhood  he  seemed  destined  for  verse ;  as  a  child  he 
was  keenly  sensitive  to  the  appeal  of  music,  painting,  and 
poetry.  When  twelve,  he  had  written  a  book  of  poems  (it 
was  destroyed)  in  the  style  of  Byron,  and  in  the  following 
year  he  fell  under  the  charm  of  Keats  and  Shelley.  When, 
however,  his  first  work  was  published,  he  spoke  in  his  own 
language  and  throughout  his  whole  career  his  manner  was 
"very  strange  and  new."  If  the  years  have  made  him  a  less 
commanding  figure,  if  they  have  somewhat  tarnished  parts 
of  the  eternal  monument  he  reared,  they  have  destroyed  noth- 
ing of  the  beauty  and  the  power  of  his  finest  lyrics. 

The  lyrics  contain  the  very  essence  of  Browning's  poetry, 
for  they  show  his  form  and  expression  at  their  highest  level. 
As  there  is  much  poetry  in  the  prose  of  everyday  life,  so 
there  is  much  prose  in  the  verse  of  every  writer — even  in 
Shakespeare,  assuredly  in  Milton.  In  Browning's  longer 
poems,  the  prose  element  is  frequently  so  conspicuous  that  we 
wonder  why  he  chose  a  metrical  form  for  his  discussions  and 
analyses.  In  his  lyrics,  this  prosaic  element  has  vanished  yet 
his  distinctive  tone,  free  from  admixture  of  classic  or  con- 
tinental influence,  remains.  It  is  Browning's  misfortune  that 
he  did  not  recognize  this,  that  his  lyrics  form  such  a  small 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^65 

part  of  his  work,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  discover  why  such 
is  the  case. 

No  modern  poet  surpassed  Browning  in  intellectual  curi- 
osity or  in  subtlety  of  thought.  His  life  was  filled  with  mani- 
fold interests.  He  certainly  lived  in  his  own  day  and  genera- 
tion, yet  his  imagination  revivified  the  past,  and  characteris- 
tically, not  the  past  that  attracted  Scott  and  Coleridge, 
Keats  or  Shelley,  or  the  Pre-Raphaelite  group.  All  human 
existence  seemed  to  be  his  field,  and  with  the  greatest  novel- 
ists, he  is  attracted  by  the  most  widely  separated  characters, 
the  hero  and  the  knave ;  the  saint  and  the  libertine ;  the  Pope 
and  the  peasant  girl;  Caliban  and  Mr.  Sludge.  Moveover 
his  temperament  is  argumentative;  he  loves  nothing  better 
than  to  discuss  his  creations,  looking  behind  their  actions 
to  their  motives.  As  Spedding  would  prove  that  Lord  Bacon 
had  been  unfairly  condemned,  so  Browning  delighted  to  take 
the  other  side  of  the  case  and  turn  our  accepted  opinions 
inside  out.  This  curiosity,  this  alertness  is  much  more  sur- 
prising than  the  calmer  introspection  of  Tennyson,  but  it 
by  no  means  implies  a  greater  depth  of  thought  than  Tenny- 
son showed. 

Now  the  lyric  poet,  as  we  have  seen,  depends  more  upon 
sheer  intuition  than  upon  analysis.  He  may  comment  upon 
his  emotions  and  seek  to  explain  them,  but  in  a  moment  he 
is  caught  up  again  by  the  surge  of  his  feelings.  He  con- 
vinces, not  by  argument  or  discussion,  but  by  the  sheer  inevi- 
tableness  of  his  thought  and  sensation.  His  nature  will  not 
permit  him  to  question  overmuch,  and  he  is  more  intent  upon 
showing  his  state  of  mind  than  upon  explaining  it  critically. 
The  purely  emotional  element  in  In  Memoriam  repeatedly 
overpowers  the  poet's  attempt  to  consider  the  philosophic 
significance  of  the  mystery  of  death.  Browning's  tendency 
is  to  peer  too  deeply  in  the  face  of  things.  He  is  not  content 
to  enjoy  the  color  and  perfume  of  a  flower;  he  would  dig  to 
see  its  roots  and  what  manner  of  soil  produced  it.     It  would 


^56  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

be  a  difficult  matter  to  discover  lyric  stanzas  finer  than  cer- 
tain ones  in  Two  in  the  Campagna,  yet  this  description  of 
imperfect  sympathies  is  not  a  lyric  chiefly  because  the  poet 
becomes  so  interested  in  explaining  the  lover's  attitude. 

Again,  judged  by  his  work  as  a  whole,  Browning  did  not 
regard  sufficiently  the  technique  of  verse.  His  Old  Pictures 
in  Florence  teUs  the  story ;  he  prefers  to  highly  finished  art, 
pictures  crude  in  coloring  and  imperfect  in  drawing  because 
he  sees  in  the  lower  art  a  chance  for  development,  something 
beyond  to  strive  for.  In  a  celebrated  statement,  he  declared 
that  a  poet  should  lay  stress  on  the  incidents  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  soul  and  that  little  else  is  worth  study.  Surely 
the  manner  of  telling  these  incidents  is  worthy  of  the  highest 
study.  In  reading  much  of  Browning,  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  he  was  a  musician  and  that  at  one  time  he  determined 
to  become  a  composer  of  songs,  for  the  music  of  his  verse 
so  often  disappoints  us.  Who  but  Browning  would  have 
allowed  in  the  pure  melody  of  Love  among  the  Ruins,  one  of 
the  most  splendid  achievements  in  the  field  of  the  lyric,  such 
an  inexcusable  discord  as 

"  Where  the  patching  houseleek's  head  of  blossom  winks 
Through  the  chinks".^ 

Professor  Saintsbury  has  declared  that  Browning  is  an 
audacious  but  almost  invariably  a  correct  prosodist;  "he 
goes  often  to  the  very  edge,  but  hardly  ever  over  it."  Such 
negative  praise  is  not  enough ;  the  lyric  poet  must  have  music 
ever  ringing  in  his  ears.  Browning  felt  the  force  in  words ; 
to  an  extraordinary  degree,  he  discovered  their  emotional 
content,  but  not  always  their  melody.  It  is  easy  to  find 
exceptions  to  this,  as  the  verses  from  Paracelsus, 

"  Heap  cassia,  sandal-buds  and  stripes 
Of  labdanum,  and  aloe-balls," 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^57 

yet  this  is  not  his  usual  style,  and  the  close  of  the  song  reads 
like  the  work  of  the  neo-Celtic  school,  in  its  dreamy  sadness : 

"  like  a  cloud 
From  closet  long  to  silence  vowed, 
With  mothed  and  drooping  arras  hung, 
Mouldering  her  lute  and  hooks  among. 
As  when  a  queen,  long  dead,  was  young." 

His  poems  please  us  more  often  because  of  the  nobility  of 
their  thought  and  feeling  than  by  their  workmanship. 

Browning's  lyrics,  then,  are  comparatively  few  in  number, 
but  these  few  are  most  precious.  If  we  look  for  their  dis- 
tinctive traits,  we  remark  first  of  all  their  superb  sense  of 
movement.  As  Swinburne  observed,  much  of  Browning's 
obscurity  comes  from  the  rapidity  of  his  thought ;  we  can 
not  follow  him  in  his  haste.  The  tide  of  his  emotion  is  never 
a  tide  that  moving  seems  asleep  and,  in  lyrical  writing,  this 
is  an  excellence  rather  than  a  defect.  What  a  splendid  rush 
there  is  in  his  cavalier  tunes.  No  knight-at-arms  eager  for 
battle  ever  sang  a  more  ringing  refrain  than : 

"  King  Charles,  and  who'll  do  him  right  now  ? 
King  Charles,  and  who's  ripe  for  fight  now.? 
Give  a  rouse:  here's,  in  Hell's  despite  now. 
King  Charles!" 

Such  a  song  would  have  been  worth  many  regiments.  In  the 
Last  Ride  Together,  we  hear  the  very  beat  of  the  horses' 
feet  in  the  marvellous  rhythm,  while  the  thoughts  hurry 
through  the  lover's  mind  as  quickly  as  the  landscape  rushes 
by.  In  "The  year's  at  the  spring,"  how  the  song  leaps  to 
its  triumphant  conclusion, 

"  God's  in  his  heaven — 
All's  right  with  the  world !" 

In  Prospice,  in  the  Epilogue  to  Asolando,  where  we  expect 
a  quieter  movement  because  of  the  opening  phrases. 


iB8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  At  the  midnight  in  the  silence  of  the  sleep-time. 
When  you  set  your  fancies  free," 

what  an  onward  march  there  is.  Love  among  the  Rums  is 
the  most  beautiful  of  all  his  lyrics.  Using  a  metre  as  musical 
as  that  of  the  Elegy  in  a  Coimtry  Cfmrchyard  (though 
utterly  diiferent  in  its  effect),  Browning  draws  in  the  open- 
ing verses  as  quiet  a  picture  as  did  Gray : 

"  Where  the  quiet-colored  end  of  evening  smiles 
Miles  and  miles 
On  the  solitary  pastures  where  our  sheep 

Half -asleep 
Tinkle  homeward  through  the  twilight,  stray  or  stop 
As  they  crop — " 

Yet  after  such  a  prelude  we  hear  the  tread  of  armies,  we  see 
the  chariot  race,  and  the  poem  ends  in  a  splendid  burst  of 
feeling  as  fine  in  its  effect  as  Blake's  plate  of  the  soul  re- 
united to  the  body.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  Browning's 
verse,  it  certainly  throbs  with  life.  It  is  the  spirit,  and  no 
technical  excellence,  that  gives  the  value  to  his  patriotic 
"Nobly,  nobly  Cape  Saint  Vincent  to  the  North-west  died 
away." 

We  have  said  nothing  of  nature  descriptions  in  his  lyrics. 
As  we  might  infer,  they  are  sharply  and  precisely  drawn, 
no  imagined  scenes  but  bits  of  real  life — the  campagna,  the 
sea  coast  "to  the  farther  South,"  or  England  in  May.  De 
Gustibus  and  Home-Thoughts,  from  Abroad  show  the  clear- 
ness of  his  vision;  where  other  poets  but  draw  details,  he 
gives  us  a  whole  country  in  a  few  lines.  It  is  not,  however, 
in  his  treatment  of  nature  but  of  love  that  Browning's  lyrics 
reach  their  highest  point. 

The  poet's  philosophy  of  life  is  summed  up  in  his  line 
"Love  is  best,"  and  to  represent  the  emotions,  the  idealism, 
the  happiness,  the  despair  of  a  lover  was  his  chief  lyric  gift. 
Could  there  be  a  better  way  of  measuring  the  artificiality 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^59 

of  the  followers  of  Petrarch  or  the  courtier  poets  of  "either 
Charles's  days"  than  by  comparing  their  gallant  compli- 
ments with  Browning's  Summwm  Bonum,  My  Star,  or  the 
songs  from  In  a  Gondola?  The  delight  in  the  "wild  joy  of 
living"  felt  in  all  these  lyrics  has  led  many  a  poet  into  the 
quagmires,  but  it  brought  Browning  to  the  heights.  His 
women  are  flesh  and  blood,  no  pale  abstractions,  but  he  is 
as  much  of  an  ideaUst  as  any  poet  we  have  discussed.  The 
love  he  sings  is  a  union  of  heart  and  mind;  it  is  a  moulding 
force ;  it  is  the  final  touch  that  crowns  man's  life,  if  not  in  this 
world,  surely  in  the  next.  "Let  us  be  unashamed  of  soul," 
he  cries,  and  he  follows  his  own  injunctions.  There  is  a 
nobihty  in  these  poems  that  affects  us  as  strongly  as  their 
emotional  power;  it  is  conspicuously  seen  in  the  calmness 
and  courage  with  which  his  men  and  women  who  sing  these 
songs  meet  disappointment  and  death. 

If  a  study  of  Hterature  teaches  anything,  it  cautions  us  to 
beware  of  trusting  the  praise  or  blame  a  poet  receives  from 
his  contemporaries.  Browning  has  suffered  equally  from 
neglect  and  from  over-enthusiastic  admiration.  Whatever 
may  be  his  ultimate  fate,  it  is  impossible  to  beheve  that  these 
lyrics  will  ever  lose  their  freshness,  their  vigor,  their  appeal 
to  what  is  highest  in  man  and  woman. 

II 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  (1828-1882)  was  the  son  of 
Frances  Polidori  and  Gabriele  Rossetti.  His  father,  a  man 
of  letters  and  the  custodian  of  ancient  bronzes  in  the  Museo 
Borbonico  at  Naples,  was  an  ardent  patriot.  His  songs, 
directed  against  the  tyranny  of  Ferdinand  I,  brought  him 
in  such  danger  that  he  left  his  home  and  took  refuge  in 
London  in  1824.  Frances  Polidori  had  an  English  mother, 
but  her  father  was  an  Italian  litterateur  who  had  published 
a  translation  of  Milton  and  who  had  been  secretary  to  the 
poet  Alfieri. 


460  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Though  the  traditions  of  his  family  pointed  him  towards 
a  literary  career,  Rossetti  had  determined  from  boyhood  to 
become  a  painter.  Beginning  his  art  studies  in  18412,  he 
became  the  pupil  of  Ford  Maddox  Brown  in  184!8.  This 
same  year,  with  Millais  and  Holman  Hunt,  he  founded  the 
Pre-RaphaeUte  brotherhood — a  protest  against  the  conven- 
tional technique,  the  trifling  sentimentality,  and  the  lack  of 
imagination  in  English  art.  It  was  the  behef  of  the  men  who 
formed  this  group  that  the  very  perfection  of  Raphael's 
style  had  tended  to  destroy  originality  in  modern  painting. 
They  affirmed  that  the  modern  artist  should  assert  his  own 
individuahty  and  paint  objects  as  he  saw  them  not  as  he 
thought  Raphael  would  have  seen  them.  "They  did  not  take 
the  earlier  painters  as  a  model,  but  they  wished  to  revert  to 
the  principles  of  an  artistic  age  when  a  strong  and  domi- 
nating tradition  was  not  at  work,  but  when  painters  devel- 
oped art  on  their  own  lines  with  sturdy  fidelity,  masculine 
individuahty,  and  serious  intention."^ 

A  description  or  criticism  of  the  paintings  of  this  school, 
to  say  nothing  of  Rossetti's  work,  would  lead  us  too  far 
afield,  but  we  certainly  must  mention  one  undertaking  of  the 
brotherhood.  The  Germ.  This  was  a  monthly  magazine, 
founded  to  defend  and  illustrate  the  Pre-RaphaeHte  theories 
of  art.  It  was  short  Kved ;  only  four  numbers  were  pubHshed. 
They  were  enough  to  make  it  forever  famous ;  the  second 
contained  The  Blessed  Damozel,  the  last,  six  of  Rossetti's 
sonnets  on  pictures. 

In  1851  Rossetti  became  engaged  to  EUzabeth  Siddal,  a 
girl  of  extraordinary  beauty,  whose  face  appears  in  many 
of  his  paintings  and  who  inspired  a  work  greater  than  all 
his  canvasses- — his  sonnet  sequence,  The  House  of  Life.  Not 
until  1860  did  his  means  permit  him  to  marry  her  and  within 
two  years  she  died  suddenly  from  an  overdose  of  laudanum. 
In  an  agony  of  grief  Rossetti  buried  with  her  the  sole  manu- 

1  A.  C.  Benson,  Rossetti,  London,  1904,  p.  20. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^61 

script  of  his  poems.  In  1869  her  grave  was  opened,  the 
manuscript  recovered,  and  in  the  following  year  the  poems 
were  published. 

The  sonnets  contained  in  this  volume  establish  Rossetti's 
position  among  our  greatest  lyrists.  Palgrave  includes  The 
blessed  Damozel  in  his  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics, 
yet  it  hardly  lies  within  our  province.  We  feel  this  when 
we  compare  it  with  the  poem  that  inspired  it,  Poe's  Raven. 
The  refrain,  the  inner  rhymes  of  the  Raven  instantly  suggest 
music ;  Rossetti's  masterpiece  with  its  characteristic  mingling 
of  the  spiritual  and  the  sensuous,  with  its  definite  imagery, 
with  its  vivid  coloring,  suggests  a  painting: 

"  She  had  three  lilies  in  her  hand, 

And  the  stars  in  her  hair  were  seven." 

When  we  remember  how  thoroughly  familiar  he  was  with 
Itahan  poetry,  we  are  surprised  to  find  in  his  work  so  little 
that  has  song  quality,  for  he  wrote  no  madrigals  or  baUate. 
Certainly  there  are  a  number  of  exquisite  lyrics  scattered 
through  his  poems,  Sudden  Light,  Insomnia,  The  Wood- 
spurge,  An  old  Song  ended.  Although  they  have  not  the 
artistic  significance  of  the  sonnets,  yet  they  bear  the  stamp 
of  his  genius. 

We  perceive  that  Rossetti  is  a  supreme  master  of  technique 
the  instant  we  read  the  opening  sonnet  in  The  House  of  Life. 
We  quote  but  its  octave: 

"  A  sonnet  is  a  moment's  monument, — 
Memorial  from  the  soul's  eternity 
To  one  dead  deathless  hour.     Look  that  it  be. 

Whether  for  lustral  rite  or  dire  portent. 

Of  its  own  arduous  fulness  reverent: 
Carve  it  in  ivory  or  in  ebony, 
As  Day  or  Night  may  rule ;  and  let  Time  see 

Its  flowering  crest  impearled  and  orient." 


462  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

No  English  sonneteer  had  attained  such  a  style ;  its  effect 
is  as  unique  and  original  as  the  impression  The  Blessed 
Damozel  makes  upon  us.    Rossetti  said  that  Drayton's 

"  Since  there's  no  help,  come,  let  us  kiss  and  part, — 
Nay,  I  have  done,  you  get  no  more  of  me;" 

was  the  finest  sonnet  in  the  language,  yet  his  own  style  is 
as  far  removed  as  possible  from  such  a  simple,  monosyllabic 
diction.  Many  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  Elizabethan 
sonnets  are  so  fluent  in  their  expression  that  they  read  like 
inspired  improvisation ;  the  flowers  of  speech  that  adorn  them 
are  gathered  in  any  garden.  In  the  majority  of  Rossetti's 
sonnets,  every  line  seems  curiously  and  exquisitely  wrought. 
However,  they  are  much  more  than  carvings  in  ivory  or 
ebony,  to  use  his  own  figure,  for  we  feel  in  them  all  the  most 
poignant  emotion.  His  hues  have  a  new  note;  the  ear  is 
filled  with  the  languorous  tones  of  long  drawn  out  chords : 

"  What  dawn-pulse  at  the  heart  of  heaven,  or  last 
Incarnate  flower  of  culminating  day, — 
What  marshalled  marvels  on  the  skirts  of  May, 
Or  song  full-quired,  sweet  June's  encomiast;" 
or 

"  Sweet  dimness  of  her  loosened  hair's  downfall 

About  thy  face ;  her  sweet  hands  round  thy  head 
In  gracious  fostering  union  garlanded; 
Her  tremulous  smiles;  her  glances'  sweet  recall 
Of  love;  her  murmuring  sighs  memorial;"^ 

William  Sharp  considers  Shakespeare,  Wordsworth,  and 
Rossetti  our  three  greatest  sonneteers,  and  that  Rossetti  is 
supreme  in  "weight  and  volume  of  sound.  As  a  wind-swayed 
pine  seems  literally  to  shake  off  music  from  its  quivering 
branches,  so  do  his  sonnets  throb  with  and  disperse  deep- 
sounding  harmonies."^ 

1  Beauty's  Pageant;  Love-Sweetness. 

i  Sonnets  of  this  Century,  London,  1886,  p.  Ixxiii. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  463 

The  sonnets  in  The  House  of  Life  tell  of  the  overpowering 
appeal  of  beauty;  of  the  ardor  of  love;  of  the  desolation 
wrought  by  death; — old  themes  yet  new  ones  in  Rossetti's 
hands.  As  we  have  seen,  the  predominating  strain  in  his 
blood  was  Italian,  and  these  sonnets  have  little  of  English 
tradition  in  them.  We  have  quoted  Browning's  "Let  us  be 
unashamed  of  soul,"  yet  Browning  is  more  restrained  than 
Rossetti.  Donne  is  at  times  frankly  sensual  yet  in  a  few 
lines  he  shows  more  of  the  intellectual  side  of  love,  more  of 
the  union  of  two  minds,  than  we  discover  in  all  Rossetti's 
sequence.  Although  he  declared  that  it  was  never  his  wish 
to  assert  that  the  body  is  greater  than  the  soul  one  does  not 
get  that  impression  from  his  verse.  He  appeals  insistently 
even  morbidly  to  the  senses;  the  very  love  letter  he  receives 
from  his  mistress  seems  warmed  by  her  hand,  shadowed  by  her 
hair,  shaken  by  her  breath.  We  remember  that  the  Eliza- 
bethan Platonists  worshipped  beauty  and  celebrated  human 
loveliness,  but  they  made  a  clear  distinction  between  the  body 
and  the  spirit.  They  never  forgot  the  greater  beauty  of 
which  the  earthly  is  but  a  type  or  symbol ;  Rossetti  lives  for 
the  present  moment.  How  far  removed  from  Spenser's  Hymn 
to  Beauty  are  Rossetti's  lines : 

"  Lady,  I  fain  would  tell  how  evermore 
Thy  soul  I  know  not  from  thy  body,  nor 
Thee  from  myself,  neither  our  love  from  God."^ 

When  the  Elizabethan  lyrists  praise  physical  beauty — 
Lodge's  Rosalynde  is  a  good  instance — they  are  like  men 
admiring  some  wonderful  statue  bathed  in  sunlight.  Brown- 
ing's lovers  meet  under  the  open  sky  in 

"  The  champaign  with  its  endless  fleece 
Of  feathery  grasses  everywhere ! 
Silence  and  passion,  joy  and  peace. 
An  everlasting  wash  of  air;" 

^Searfa  Hope. 


^6^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

but  Rossetti  takes  us  to  a  dim  room,  where  we  are  over- 
powered by  the  incense  burning  at  a  shrine  to  Venus  Victrix, 
or  by  the  heavy  fragrance  of  flowers  scattered  on  the  floor. 
Robert  Buchanan's  bitter  attack  on  Rossetti  in  his  diatribe 
entitled  The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry  was  unjust;  on  the 
other  hand  there  is  truth  in  Patmore's  strictures.  He  con- 
sidered, writes  Gosse,  that  Rossetti  above  all  other  modem 
writers  had  been  granted  an  insight  into  spiritual  mysteries, 
but  though  the  ark  of  passion  had  been  placed  in  his  hands, 
he  had  used  it  chiefly  to  serve  his  curiosity,  and  we  might  add, 
to  dehght  his  artistic  sense.^ 

Although  the  House  of  Life,  taken  as  a  whole,  cloys  the 
taste ;  although  its  intense  worship  of  beauty  may  antagonise 
the  reader  as  do  parts  of  Crashaw's  poetry,  it  contains  son- 
nets that  are  unsurpassed  in  any  literature.  We  turn  from 
the  despair  of  Lost  Days  to  The  One  Hope;  from  The  Birth- 
Bond,  whose  sestet  contains  that  faultless  description  of  a 
predestined  love,  to  Silent  Noon,  so  vividly  written  that  one 
almost  feels  the  calm  of  mid-day ;  from  the  pure  idealism  of 
Soul's  Beauty  to  the  fearful  reahty  of  death  in  Without  Her. 
If  we  compare  the  imagery  and  the  passionate  abandon- 
ment to  grief  of  this  sonnet  with  the  restrained  sorrow  of 
Milton's  "Methought  I  saw  my  late  espoused  saint,"  we  see 
at  a  glance  the  essential  diff'erence  between  the  classic  and 
the  romantic  styles. 

But  Rossetti  was  much  more  than  a  notable  painter  and 
a  great  sonneteer;  he  was  a  dominating  personality.  His 
spirit  impressed  itself  on  contemporary  poetry — plainly  in 
the  early  poems  of  Morris  and  Swinburne,  less  apparently 
but  quite  unmistakably  in  the  writings  of  many  smaller 
poets.  Keats  had  shown  the  world  the  beauty  of  classic 
myth  and  the  loveliness  of  nature;  Rossetti  found  in  beauty 
the  white  heat  of  emotion,  an  enchantment  that  enthralled 
the  senses.     It  is  little  wonder  that  a  genius  so  original,  so 

1  Edmund  Gosse,  Coventry  Patmore,  N.  Y.,  1905,  p.  175. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  466 

forceful  in  expression  should  have  set  aflame  the  imaginations 
of  the  two  poets  whom  we  now  reach  in  our  study. 

William  Morris  (1834-1896),  "poet,  artist,  manufacturer, 
and  socialist,"  felt  from  childhood  the  fascination  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  He  delighted  to  visit  the  old  churches  about 
his  Essex  home,  making  rubbings  from  the  inscriptions  on 
their  tombs  or  studying  their  carvings.  There  is  a  certain 
period  in  the  life  of  every  boy  when  he  must  have  his  soldier 
suit ;  Morris,  true  to  his  tastes,  had  a  suit  of  armor. 

When  Morris  entered  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  he  looked 
forward  to  taking  orders,  as  did  Burne-Jones,  a  fellow  colle- 
gian and  firm  friend,  but  the  call  of  art  proved  too  strong 
for  them.  In  1855,  on  a  vacation  trip  to  France,  they  both 
decided  that  they  were  not  destined  for  the  priesthood; 
Bume-Jones  was  to  become  a  painter  and  Morris  an  archi- 
tect. This  devotion  to  art  led  them  directly  to  Rossetti  and 
for  two  years  Morris  was  his  ardent  disciple,  vainly  endeavor- 
ing to  make  of  himself  a  painter.  His  first  important  work 
was  not  a  picture  but  a  book.  The  Defence  of  Guenevere  and 
other  Poems  (1858). 

This  volume  was  dedicated  to  Rossetti  and  throughout  it 
his  influence  is  plainly  felt.  Here  are  the  Middle  Ages  with 
their  fair  women,  their  combats,  their  tragedies,  but  above 
all,  with  their  pomp  and  pageantry.  These  are  the  poems 
of  a  painter ;  on  every  page  we  see  the  love  of  color : 

"  Gold  on  her  head,  and  gold  on  her  feetj 
And  gold  where  the  hems  of  her  kirtle  meet, 
And  a  golden  girdle  around  my  sweet; — 
Ah!  qu'elle  est  belle.  La  Marguerite."^ 

On  the  purely  artistic  side,  in  the  choice  of  subjects  and  in 
the  manner  of  treatment,  we  see  Rossetti,  yet  the  two  men 
were  diff"erent  in  temperamnt.  Morris  writes  objectively; 
in  this  book  he  sees  more  than  he  feels  and  he  nowhere  dis- 

1  The  Eve  of  Crecy. 


466  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

closes  that  intense  personal  emotion  which  was  to  mark  the 
sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life.  Accordingly  the  lyrical  ele- 
ment is  sHght  in  this  first  volume.  Its  best  poems  are 
dramatic  narration,  The  Haystack  in  the  Floods,  King 
Arthur's  Tomb,  Sir  Peter  Harpdon's  End;  the  few  lyrics, 
The  GilUflower  of  Gold,  The  Eve  of  Crecy,  Two  Red  Roses 
across  the  Moon,  Sir  Giles'  War-Song,  Praise  of  my  Lady, 
and  In  Prison,  are  sHght  in  texture,  frankly  artificial,  and 
show  Httle  of  his  genius. 

In  his  next  volume,  Morris  appears  as  the  follower  of 
Chaucer  and  indeed  he  is  his  greatest  disciple.  The  opening 
of  the  seventeenth  book  of  The  Life  and  Death  of  Jason, 
(1867)  proclaims  his  allegiance: 

"  Would  that  I 
Had  but  some  portion  of  that  mastery 
That  from  the  rose-himg  lanes  of  woody  Kent 
Through  these  five  hundred  years  such  songs  have  sent 
To  us,  who,  meshed  within  this  smoky  net 
Of  unrejoicing  labor,  love  them  yet. 
And  thou,  O  Master ! — Yea,  my  Master  stiU, 
Whatever  feet  have  scaled  Parnassus'  hill. 
Since  hke  thy  measures,  clear,  and  sweet,  and  strong, 
Thames'  stream  scarce  fettered  bore  the  bream  along 
Unto  the  bastioned  bridge,  his  only  chain, — 
O  Master,  pardon  me,  if  yet  in  vain 
Thou  art  my  Master,  and  I  fail  to  bring 
Before  men's  eyes  the  image  of  the  thing 
My  heart  is  filled  with." 

The  poet's  style  has  been  transformed ;  it  is  no  longer  ornate 
and  over-wrought  but  "clear  and  sweet,"  if  not  always 
strong.  It  has  not,  however,  become  more  lyrical  and  this 
admiration  for  Chaucer,  expressed  with  even  more  feeling 
in  the  Envoi  to  The  Earthly  Paradise,  would  not  turn  him 
towards  song.    He  is  to  be  a  teller  of  tales. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  4.67 

Throughout  his  narrative  poems  Morris  does  introduce 
a  few  lyrics.  In  Jason,  there  are  several,  written  in  octo- 
syllabics, of  which  the  best  is : 

"  I  know  a  little  garden  close 
Set  thick  with  lily  and  red  rose, 
Where  I  would  wander  if  I  might 
From  dewy  dawn  to  dewy  night, 
And  have  one  with  me  wandering." 

yet  none  of  them  have  distinction.  In  his  prose  romances 
we  find  songs ;  The  Roots  of  the  Movntains  has  at  least  one 
that  deserves  remembrance : 

"  Green  and  green  is  thy  garment  growing 
Over  thy  blossoming  limbs  beneath; 
Up  o'er  our  feet  rise  the  blades  of  thy  sowing. 

Pierced  are  our  hearts  with  thine  odorous  breath. 

"  But  where  art  thou  wending,  thou  new-comer  } 
Hurrying  on  to  the  Courts  of  the  Sun? 
Where  art  thou  now  in  the  House  of  the  Summer? 
Told  are  thy  days  and  thy  deed  is  done. 

"  Spring  has  been  here  for  us  that  are  living 
After  the  days  of  Winter's  fear; 
Here  in  our  hands  is  the  wealth  of  her  giving, 

The  Love  of  the  Earth,  and  the  Light  of  the  Year.""^ 

The  gleaning,  however,  is  scanty,  though  we  search  in  his 
morality.  Love  is  Enough,  or  in  his  renderings  of  the  North- 
ern Sagas. 

The  case  is  altered  when  we  turn  to  The  Earthly  Paradise, 
(1868-1870).  Even  here,  in  all  the  forty-two  thousand  lines, 
the  lyrics  are  but  few  yet  they  are  extremely  beautiful.  The 
duo  in  the  tale  of  Ogier  the  Dane  has  the  simplicity  and  the 
freshness  of  the  Elizabethans : 

1  Chapter  XXIX. 


^68  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  In  the  white-flowered  hawthorn  brake. 
Love,  be  merry  for  my  sake; 
Twine  the  blossoms  in  my  hair, 
Kiss  me  where  I  am  most  fair — 
Kiss  me,  love !  for  who  knoweth 
What  thing  cometh  after  death?" 

The  Noel  in  The  Land  East  of  the  Sun  has  caught  the  spirit 
of  our  earliest  lyrics,  except  that  the  refrain  seems  affected: 

"  In  an  ox-stall  this  night  we  saw 

The  snow  in  the  street  and  the  wind  on  the  door. 
A  babe  and  a  maid  without  a  flaw, 

Minstrels  and  maids,  stand  forth  on  the  floor. 

The  love  song  in  Accontius  and  Cydippe  has  charm  and 
music ;  the  one  in  He  Who  Never  Laughed  Again  has  more 
emotion  than  Morris  usually  cares  to  show ;  the  stanzas  that 
the  "sweet-voiced  choir  of  unknown,  unseen  folk"  sing  in 
Cupid  and  Psyche  are  tender  in  feeUng  and  beautiful  in 
expression,  yet  none  of  these  would  be  ranked  among  the 
great  English  lyrics. 

To  give  variety  and  to  separate  into  groups  the  tales  of 
the  Earthly  Paradise,  Morris  composed  twelve  lyric  inter- 
ludes, one  for  each  month.  They  are  placed  far  apart,  with 
long  stretches  of  verse  between,  but  they  should  be  detached 
from  their  context  and  printed  side  by  side  since  they  form 
a  lyric  cycle  that  for  variety,  beauty  and  pathos,  ranks 
with  the  best  work  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Each  lyric  con- 
sists of  three  stanzas  in  Chaucer's  favorite  rhyme  royal.  Like 
the  Chaucerian  imitators  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Morris 
was  too  prolix,  but  in  these  short  songs  he  has  restrained 
himself,  with  the  result  that  these  lyrics  are  finer  in  their 
workmanship  and  more  intense  in  their  feeling  than  any 
other  poems  in  this  volume.  These  songs  of  the  months 
portray  with  a  skill  that  recalls  Rossetti  the  aspects  of  the 
changing  seasons,  yet  they  are  not  mere  descriptive  poems. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^69 

for  through  them  all  runs  the  poet's  lament  for  change  and 
death.  He  sees  the  inevitable  end  even  in  the  promise  of 
April: 

"  When  summer  brings  the  lily  and  the  rose, 
She  brings  us  fear;  her  very  death  she  brings 
Hid  in  her  anxious  hearty  the  forge  of  woes; 
And,  dull  with  fear,  no  more  the  mavis  sings." 

In  the  songs  of  fall  and  winter  we  seem  to  hear  the  old  strains 
of  "Wynter  wakeneth  all  my  care,"  but  sung  with  the  shad- 
ings and  the  intensity  of  modern  art.  In  his  writings  Morris 
did  not  follow  the  injunction  of  Sidney's  verse  to  look  in  his 
heart  and  write ;  he  looked  back  on  the  myths  and  legends 
of  the  past.  In  these  few  lyrics,  there  is  more  than  mere 
objective  art,  and  as  Alfred  Noyes  points  out,  "many  of 
them  are  personal  utterances — glimpses  of  Morris's  own  life, 
recollections  of  golden  afternoons  on  the  river  above  Oxford, 
when  he  was  composing  his  great  poem  or  reading  it  aloud 
to  his  wife  and  friends"  ■} 

"  O  June,  O  June,  that  we  desired  so. 
Wilt  thou  not  make  us  happy  on  this  day.'' 
Across  the  river  thy  soft  breezes  blow 
Sweet  with  the  scent  of  beanfields  far  away. 
Above  our  heads  rustle  the  aspens  gray. 
Calm  is  the  sky  with  harmless  clouds  beset, 
No  thought  of  storm  the  morning  vexes  yet." 

If  we  turn  from  this  placid  mood  to  the  dejection  of 
November,  expressed  with  an  intensity  that  recalls  SheUey, 
we  find  a  range  of  expression  that  makes  us  regret  the  poet's 
devotion  to  the  epic. 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  (1837-1909)  had  no  long 
and  painful  struggle  to  win  popular  recognition.  His 
Atalanta  in  Calydon  (1865)  and  Poems  and  Ballads  (1866), 

1  Alfred  Noyes,  William  Morris,  London,  1908,  p.  79. 


Jl^^O  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

a  volume  that  owes  much  to  Rossetti,  astonished  the  age  by 
the  remarkable  originality  and  brilliancy  of  the  verse  as  well 
as  by  the  audacity  of  theme  and  treatment.  He  won  in- 
stantly partisans  and  opponents  and  was  alternately  extolled 
and  traduced.  For  nearly  half  a  century  he  was  a  command- 
ing figure ;  he  steadily  produced  lyrics,  verse  tragedy  and 
romance,  prose  criticism,  yet  he  was  never  a  writer  whose 
language  and  thoughts  entered  into  the  life  of  the  times. 
We  can  not  attribute  this  to  the  over-sweetness,  to  the  sensual 
tone  of  part  of  his  early  work,  nor  to  his  avowed  hostihty 
towards  church  and  creed,  which  offended  many,  for  in  some 
of  his  very  greatest  achievements  these  traits  of  style  and 
thought  never  appear.  We  can  not  say  that  his  style  is 
too  difficult  or  his  thought  too  obscure  for  the  plebeian  judg- 
ment when  Browning  has  become  popular.  Without  accept- 
ing Tolstoi's  theory  of  art,  we  may  at  least  believe  that  there 
is  a  defect  in  the  work  of  a  gifted  poet  who  has  failed  to 
sing  his  way  into  our  common  speech  and  thought.  We  do 
not  complain  that  there  are  no  trite  quotations,  brilliant 
half  truths,  or  soft  sentiments  in  his  writings,  but  that  even 
avowed  lovers  of  English  poetry  have  at  the  best  a  most 
superficial  acquaintance  with  his  verse.  Socrates  was  proud 
that  he  had  drawn  philosophy  down  from  the  heights  to  the 
home  and  to  the  market  place ;  the  greatest  musicians, 
Beethoven  and  Wagner,  appeal  to  no  small  circle  of  the  elect 
but  to  the  most  unskilled  listeners;  why  does  not  Swinburne 
stand  with  Tennyson  and  Browning,  and  even  with  Arnold, 
in  attracting  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  readers.? 

The  first  impression  that  Swinburne  makes  on  the  reader 
is  one  of  unqualified  admiration  for  his  marvelous  technique. 
He  surpasses  every  Victorian  poet  excepting  Tennyson  in 
his  instinctive  perception  of  the  music  latent  in  our  language, 
and  he  gains  many  effects  which  Tennyson  never  approached. 
The  consummate  ease  with  which  he  used  the  most  difficult 
rhythms  and  rhyme  schemes ;  the  impetuous  melody,  or  we 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^71 

may  call  it,  the  full  chorus  of  his  verse,  never  faltering,  never 
lapsing  into  discords,  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  English 
literature.  Thoroughly  familiar  with  the  poetry  of  Greece, 
Italy,  and  France,  he  seems  to  have  brought  something 
foreign  into  his  own  lines.  We  can  not  point  out  what  it  is ; 
the  heart  of  it  aU  is  English;  and  yet  we  hear  his  poetry 
with  something  of  the  sensation  we  feel  in  listening  to  a 
foreign  tongue.  Generally  when  a  poet  strikes  a  new  path 
for  himself,  he  astonishes  by  mere  innovation ;  it  is  the  beauty 
of  Swinburne's  innovations  in  English  rhythms  that  makes 
him  conspicuous  among  modem  writers. 

He  seemed  to  be  master  of  all  styles.  A  revolutionist,  with 
Hugo  as  his  ideal,  he  wrote  the  most  uncontrolled  invectives 
against  the  tyranny  of  Austria  and  Russia.  He  was 
attracted  by  the  roundel,  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  French 
verse  forms,  and  his  poems  of  childhood  written  in  that 
measure  have  a  surpassing  grace  and  delicacy.  More  than 
any  Victorian  poet  he  admired  the  grandeur  and  elevation 
of  the  Greek  ode,  yet  he  feels  equally  the  pathos  of  the  simple 
Jacobite  ballads  and  imitates  them,  or  rather,  becomes  him- 
self a  Jacobite  and  writes  them.  No  description  can  do  his 
style  justice,  and  we  need  illustrations.  What  a  haunting 
music  there  is  in  his  Adieux  a  Marie  Stuart: 

"  Queen^  for  whose  house  my  fathers  fought. 
With  hopes  that  rose  and  fell, 
Red  star  of  boyhood's  fiery  thought. 
Farewell. 

"  Queen  once  of  Scots  and  ever  of  ours 
Whose  sires  brought  forth  for  you 
Their  lives  to  strew  your  way  like  flowers. 
Adieu." 

Could  Tennyson  better  the  melody  of  A  Match: 

"  If  love  were  what  the  rose  is. 

And  I  were  like  the  leaf"? 


Itn  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

From  these  simpler  forms,  Swinburne's  music  rises  higher 
and  higher  as  an  organist  builds  up  his  tone,  drawing  stop 
after  stop.  We  go  from  the  Laus  Veneris  stanza  struck  off 
at  white  heat,  Meredith  tells  us,  after  reading  FitzGerald's 
Omar  Khayyam, 

"  Ah  yet  would  God  this  flesh  of  mine  might  be 
Where  air  might  wash  and  long  leaves  cover  me, 

Where  tides  of  grass  break  into  foam  of  flowers, 
Or  where  the  wind's  feet  shine  along  the  sea." 

to  the  more  rapid  measure  of  Dolores: 

"  On  sands  by  the  storm  never  shaken. 

Nor  wet  from  the  washing  of  tides ; 
Nor  by  foam  of  the  waves  overtaken. 

Nor  winds  that  the  thunder  bestrides; 
But  red  from  the  print  of  thy  paces. 

Made  smooth  for  the  world  and  its  lords, 
Ringed  round  with  a  flame  of  fair  faces. 

And  splendid  with  swords." 

What  variety  in  the  metres  of  The  Garden  of  Proserpine,  the 
Hymn  to  Proserpine,  and  the  choruses  of  Atalanta,  his 
greatest  lyrical  achievement !     He  never  surpassed  his  own 

"  When  the  hounds  of  Spring  are  on  winter's  traces. 
The  mother  of  months  in  meadow  or  plain 
Fills  the  shadows  and  windy  places 

With  lisp  of  leaves  and  ripple  of  rain." 

We  go  from  his  finest  elegy,  Ave  atque  Vale,  to  his  great 
odes  To  Athens  and  The  Armada,  which  he  rightly  said  would 
decide  his  rank  as  a  lyric  poet  in  the  higher  sense  of  the 
term.  What  a  range  from  such  a  lyric  as  A  Child's  Laughter 
to  the  ocean  swells  of  the  Armada  ode : 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  473 

"  'They  that  ride  over  ocean  wide  with  hempen  bridle  and  horse 

of  tree/ 
How  shall  they  in  the  darkening  day  of  wrath  and  anguish 

and  fear  go  free? 
How  shall  these  who  have  curbed  the  seas  not  feel  his  bridle 

who  made  the  sea? 

"  Mast  on  mast  as  a  tower  goes  past,  and  sail  by  sail  as  a  cloud's 

wing  spread; 
Fleet  by  fleet,  as  the  throngs  whose  feet  keep  time  with  death 

in  his  dance  of  dread; 
Galleons  dark  as  the  helmsman's  bark  of  old  that  ferried  to 

hell  the  dead." 

Surely  there  must  be  whole  pages  of  such  writing  that  stamp 
themselves  indelibly  on  the  memory,  and  yet — one  may  easily 
try  the  experiment — these  poems  do  not  stay  with  us  as  the 
lyrics  of  Shelley  and  Tennyson  that  almost  memorize  them- 
selves. 

In  the  case  of  Swinburne,  facility  of  expression  actually 
harmed  his  work.  His  poetry  is  often  linked  sweetness  too 
long  drawn  out.  Even  while  the  reader  is  admiring  the 
vigorous  sweep  of  the  rhythm,  the  beauty  of  a  phrase,  he 
finds  himself  unconsciously  fingering  the  pages  to  see  how 
far  he  is  from  the  end.  By  the  North  Sea  is  a  typical  piece 
of  writing;  it  contains  many  beautiful,  even  superb  stanzas, 
yet  it  would  be  much  more  effective  if  shorter.  Again  and 
again  in  Swinburne's  work  we  find  not  a  progression  of 
thought  or  emotion,  but  merely  a  progression  in  the  har- 
monies of  verse.  His  melodic  gift  misleads  him.  Carried 
along  by  the  music  of  words,  he  can  not  come  quickly  to  his 
climax;  it  is  for  this  reason,  chiefly,  that  he  never  succeeded 
as  a  dramatist.  Atalanta  in  Calydon  followed  the  Greek 
ideas  of  tragedy ;  restraint  was  virtually  forced  upon  him 
with  the  result  that  the  poem  is  his  masterpiece. 

In  the  dedicatory  epistle  to  the  first  collected  edition  of 
his  poems,  he  speaks  of  his  art  as  having  its  material  more 


]^^l^  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

in  common  with  a  musician's  than  a  sculptor's  medium.  He 
tells  us  that  "there  is  no  music  in  verse  which  has  not  in 
it  sufficient  fullness  and  ripeness  of  meaning,  sufficient  ade- 
quacy of  emotion  or  of  thought,"  to  abide  the  test  of  honest 
criticism.  While  this  is  true  in  part,  it  is  also  a  fact  that 
much  of  the  finest  verse  appeals  to  the  mind's  eye  as  much  as 
to  the  ear.  The  sea  is  one  of  Swinburne's  chief  sources  of 
inspiration ;  his  rhythms  have  caught  something  of  the  sweep 
and  surge  of  its  waves,  yet  the  lines  that  bring  the  ocean 
before  our  eyes  do  not  come  from  his  poems.  If  we  compare 
a  stanza  from  In  Guernsey  with  three  lines  from  Tennyson's 
Eagle,  we  illustrate  the  point : 

"  Across  and  along,  as  the  bay's  breadth  opens,  and  o'er  us 
Wild  autumn  exults  in  the  wind,  swift  rapture  and  strong 
Impels  us,  and  broader  the  wide  waves  brighten  before  us 
Across  and  along." 

This  is  felt  rather  than  perceived.     We  turn  to  Tennyson: 

"  The  wrinkled  sea  beneath  Mm  crawls; 
He  watches  from  his  mountain  walls. 
And  like  a  thunderbolt  he  falls." 

Italy  inspired  him,  but  he  has  left  us  no  such  word  painting 
of  the  South  as  we  get  in  a  few  lines  of  De  Gustibus  or  the 
opening  stanzas  of  By  the  Fire  Side.  He  writes  much  of  the 
earth,  but  not  as  one  who  treads  on  it ;  he  sees  it  as  from  a 
cloud  or  as  one 

"  blown  with  restless  violence  round  about 
The  pendent  world." 

There  is  generally  a  vagueness  in  his  pictures ;  he  was  inca- 
pable of  such  a  definite  and  satisfying  piece  of  word  painting 
as  Rossetti's  Silent  Noon.  This  is  a  serious  defect.  There 
is  a  profound  significance  in  the  myth  of  the  giant  Antaeus 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^75 

whose  strength  was  replenished  each  time  he  set  foot  upon 
the  ground. 

There  is  a  lack  of  human  interest  in  much  of  his  work. 
The  Armada  ode  is  a  magnificent  composition,  entirely 
worthy  of  its  great  subject,  yet  we  turn  more  frequently  to 
Tennyson's  song  of  the  bravery  of  Elizabethan  seamen 
because  the  ballad  of  the  last  fight  of  the  Revenge  shows  us 
what  the  great  ode  does  not — a  man  fighting  against  over- 
whelming odds.  No  one  can  be  insensible  to  the  tenderness 
and  pathos  of  Swinburne's  poems  on  a  baby's  death,  yet 
how  much  more  poignant  is  that  little  poem  Dora,  by  Brown, 
the  Manx  poet.  Swinburne's  verses  do  not  bring  death  home 
to  us ;  Brown's  poem  awakens  almost  a  sense  of  personal  loss. 
There  are  many  stanzas  of  impressive  description  in  By  the 
North  Sea,  but  we  do  not  find  the  peasant  or  the  sailor  on 
the  shores  of  Swinburne's  ocean.  The  interest  in  Robinson 
Crusoe  begins  not  with  the  pictures  of  a  desolate  coast,  but 
when  a  human  footprint  is  seen  on  the  beach. 

Critics  have  emphasized  the  fact  that  Swinburne  is  the 
direct  inheritor  of  Shelley's  revolutionary  ideas  and  of  his 
love  of  liberty.  Much  like  the  work  of  the  older  poet  are 
such  Hnes  as : 

"  Yea,  one  thing  stronger  and  more  high  than  God, 
Which  if  man  had  not,  then  should  God  not  be: 
And  that  was  Liberty."^ 

yet  Shelley  in  his  lyrics  comes  closer  to  our  experiences  than 
does  his  successor.  There  is  too  much  of  the  lofty  style  and 
too  Httle  of  human  nature's  daily  food.  Though  he  writes 
much  of  sky  and  sea,  Swinburne  appears  at  times  as  a  recluse, 
as  one  who  lived  in  the  world  of  books,  in  a  world  created 
by  his  own  imagination.  It  is  because  he  did  not  lay  hold 
on  life  that  Swinburne  will  never  be  ranked  with  the  greatest 
Victorian  poets. 
1  Thallasius, 


i7e  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

III 

We  complained  that  the  intellectual  element  is  too  much 
lacking  in  Swinburne's  work;  this  is  the  last  charge  that 
could  be  brought  against  the  two  Oxford  poets  whose  writ- 
ings are  the  most  evident  and  most  attractive  manifestation 
of  the  reaction  against  the  Tractarian  movement.  Arthur 
Hugh  Clough  (1819-1861),  a  favorite  pupil  of  Dr.  Arnold 
of  Rugby ;  a  scholar  of  Balliol  and  fellow  of  Oriel,  volun- 
tarily left  Oxford  because  he  could  not  believe  in  the  religious 
tenets  which  officially  he  was  supposed  to  hold.  He  trav- 
elled in  Italy,  spent  a  few  weeks  in  America,  and  was  for  a 
brief  period  employed  in  the  education  department  of  the 
Privy  Council.  He  did  not  in  his  writings  fulfill  his  brilliant 
intellectual  promise ;  indeed  Palgrave,  in  his  sympathetic 
account  of  the  poet,  suggests  that  he  lived  rather  than  wrote 
his  poem."^  His  winning  personality,  so  adequately  praised 
in  Matthew  Arnold's  Thyrsis,  never  fully  recorded  itself. 

Clough  was  a  thinker  rather  than  a  singer,  a  moralist 
rather  than  an  artist.  In  the  greater  part  of  his  writing 
he  did  not  pay  sufficient  heed  to  technique.  His  two  sonnets 
are  feebly  expressed ;  the  hexameter  is  used  with  only  toler- 
able success  in  his  Bothie  of  Tober-na-VnoUch;  while  his 
lyrics  frequently  offend  the  ear  with  trivial  and  even  dis- 
cordant sounds.  To  tag  his  rhymes  he  indulges  in  construc- 
tions so  awkward  that  the  expression  becomes  inharmonious 
and  the  thought  obscure. 

"  Heaven  guide,  the  cup  be  not,  as  chance  may  be. 
To  some  vain  mate  given  up  as  soon  as  tasted ! 
No,  nor  on  thee  be  wasted. 
Thou  trifler.  Poesy  I"^ 

he  exclaims,  and  he  clearly  neglected  his  art. 

1  F.  T.  Palgrave,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Clough,  The  Muses'  Library, 
I^ondon,  Prefatory  Memoir. 

2  P.  11. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^77 

In  the  content  of  his  verse,  likewise,  art  counts  for  but 
little.  Both  Arnold  and  Palgrave  testify  to  Clough's  great 
love  of  nature ;  to  the  latter  critic,  he  seemed  to  have  inherited 
a  double  portion  of  Wordsworth's  spirit.  In  a  Lecture 
Room,  a  poem  that  certainly  recalls  Wordsworth's  "One 
impulse  from  a  vernal  wood,"  decries  "vain  Philosophy"  that 
leaves  the  spirit  dead: 

"  Unto  thy  broken  cisterns  wherefore  go. 
While  from  the  secret  treasure-depths  below. 
Fed  by  the  skiey  shower, 

And  clouds  that  sink  and  rest  on  hill-tops  high. 
Wisdom  at  once,  and  Power, 
Are  welling,  bubbling  forth,  unseen,  incessantly?"^ 

yet  Clough  does  not  delight  enough  in  picturing  nature  for 
its  own  sake.  In  the  Bothie,  that  refreshing  vacation 
romance  filled  with  the  humor,  the  vigor,  the  idealism  of 
youth,  there  are  many  graceful  passages  picturing  mountain 
and  glen,  shaded  pool  and  foaming  water-fall,  yet  less  gifted 
poets  have  surpassed  his  descriptions  of  the  beauty  of  earth. 
What  Clough  saw  chiefly  was  the  world  of  the  spirit. 

Few  English  poets  have  been  so  deeply  religious  as  Clough ; 
in  his  most  characteristic  work  the  moral  consciousness 
reigned  supreme.  Living  at  a  time  when  scientific  thought 
came  in  conflict  with  traditional  religious  belief,  he  felt  it 
his  solemn  obligation  to  discover  what  truth  is.  This  was 
the  eager  quest  of  his  life.  Intellectual  honesty  forbade  him 
to  accept  the  tenets  of  orthodoxy ;  the  solutions  off'ered  by 
the  church  for  the  never  settled  problems  of  human  life  and 
destiny  seemed  to  him  insincere  or  inadequate.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  never  confident  of  his  own  conclusions : 

"  We!  what  do  we  see?  each  a  space 

Of  some  few  yards  before  his  face; 

Does  that  the  whole  wide  plan  explain?"^ 
iP.  4. 
2  P.  55. 


^.78  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

With  Arnold,  he  was  a  strange  mixture  of  the  sceptic  and 
one  who  would  fain  believe.  As  Professor  Walker  pointed 
out,  both  poets  felt  strongly  the  attraction  of  the  old  faith 
and  the  deepest  tones  in  their  poetry  "are  struck  by  just  this 
emotional  sympathy  with  a  creed  which  their  intellect  com- 
pels them  to  reject."^ 

"  Ah  yet,  when  all  is  thought  and  said. 
The  heart  stiU  overrules  the  head;"^ 

writes  Clough,  yet  he  dares  not  trust  his  emotions.  He  was 
determined  to  walk  by  sight,  yet  felt  the  necessity  of  faith, 
and  the  result  was  uncertainty  and  doubt. 

"  O  Good  and  Great, 
In  whom  in  this  bedarkened  state 
I  fain  am  struggling  to  believe,"' 

shows  him  in  a  typical  mood. 

In  discussing  Byron,  we  noticed  that  his  mood  is  remote 
from  our  modern  attitude  of  mind.  So  must  we  reluctantly 
say  of  this  poet  whose  world  was  infinitely  removed  from 
Byron's.  Whatever  we  may  boast  of  the  present  age,  we 
can  not  say  that  the  philosophy  of  religion  greatly  occupies 
it.  Our  artistic  sense  has  been  highly  developed;  we  love 
nature  and  hve  out  of  doors ;  we  are  curious  for  new  sensa- 
tions, bold  to  the  point  of  rashness,  restless  to  the  point  of 
vagrancy,  but  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  spiritual  event 
is  not  one  of  our  traits.  On  such  matters,  we  prefer  not  to 
think  at  all  or  to  let  some  one  else  think  for  us.  The  average 
reader  is  not  torn  by  what  Clough  calls  his  "mortal  moral 
strife,"  for  he  is  satisfied  with  an  attempt  to  observe  the 
more  obvious  commands  of  the  decalogue.  Clough  frequently 
compares  a  man  to  a  ship  at  sea,  ignorant  of  its  course ;  we 

1  Hugh  Walker,  The  Literature  of  the  Victorian  Era,  Cambridge, 
1910,  p.  453. 

2  P.  50. 

3  P.  9. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^79 

know  precisely  for  what  port  we  are  embarked.  He  speaks 
of  the  mystery  of  the  world ;  for  us  the  problem  has  resolved 
itself  into  a  purely  physical  one  which  science  is  speedly  set- 
tling. Even  when  we  abandon  our  materialistic  vantage 
ground  and  meet  Clough,  we  wish  him  to  fight  his  way  out. 
He  has  said 

"  'Tis  better  to  have  fought  and  lost. 
Than  never  to  have  fought  at  all," 

and  while  we  assent  to  this  in  a  general  way,  we  enjoy  a 
victory.  Surely  the  call  of  the  world  should  be  to  something 
more  than 

"  To  finger  idly  some  old  Gordian  knot. 
Unskilled  to  sunder,  and  too  weak  to  cleave, 
And  with  much  toil  attain  to  half  beheve."'^ 

Such  a  poet  sings  to  a  small  audience. 

We  have  said  that  Clough  was  not  confident  of  his  own 
conclusions,  yet  he  did  obtain  to  what  we  may  call  a  residuum 
of  faith.  There  are  two  distinct  phases  of  thought  in  his 
poetry.  In  the  first,  as  our  quotations  have  shown,  he  is 
struggling  to  believe.  His  questionings  lead  only  to  despon- 
dency : 

"  But  whoso  ponders,  weighs,  and  measures. 
She  calls  her  torturers  up  to  goad 
With  spur  and  scourges  on  the  road."^ 

He  can  find  no  abiding  place  and  asks  what  home  has  one 
"whose  ship  is  driving  o'er  the  driving  sea."  From  this  state 
of  mind,  he  emerges  into  the  dawn  if  not  the  sunlight  of 
belief : 

1  P.  60. 

2  P.  46. 


Jf80  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Hope  evermore  and  believe,  O  man,  for  e'en  as  thy  thought 

So  are  the  things  that  thou  see'st;  e'en  as  thy  hope  and 
belief. 


"  Go  from  the  east  to  the  west,  as  the  sun  and  the  stars  direct 
thee. 
Go  with  the  girdle  of  man,  go  and  encompass  the  earth. 
Not  for  the  gain  of  the  gold ;  for  the  getting,  the  hoarding,  the 
having. 
But  for  the  joy  of  the  deed:  but  for  the  Duty  to  do. 

********* 

"  Go  with  the  sun  and  the  stars,  and  yet  evermore  in  thy  spirit 
Say  to  thyself:  It  is  good:  yet  is  there  better  than  it. 
This  that  I  see  is  not  all,  and  this  that  I  do  is  but  little ; 

Nevertheless  it  is  good,  though  there  is  better  than  it."' 

Our  soul  becomes  entranced  by  what  he  calls  the  "bare  con- 
science of  the  better  thing."  The  seekers  for  truth  will  at 
last  be  united ;  though  we  find  at  morning  that  our  ship  has 
parted  from  the  others  during  the  night,  we  shall  all  meet 
in  the  harbor.  This  optimism,  quiet  when  compared  with 
Browning's,  reaches  its  most  convincing  expression  in 
Clough's  masterpiece,  "Say  not,  the  struggle  naught  avail- 
eth."  There  is  a  more  reticent  faith  in  his  finest  religious 
lyrics,  "What  we,  when  face  to  face  we  see,"  "0  thou  whose 
image  in  the  shrine,"  and  "O  only  Source  of  all  our  light," 
in  which  every  syllable  is  deeply  felt  and  pondered.  These 
are  poems  composed  on  the  battlefield,  and  they  strike  home. 
George  Herbert,  too,  went  through  the  valley  of  despair, 
yet  it  was  his  faith  in  himself  that  was  shaken,  not  his  faith 
in  God.  Clough  pushed  his  doubts  much  further,  and  accord- 
ingly the  subjective  element  in  his  poems  seems  deeper.  It 
is  this  spirit,  rather  than  their  melody,  that  brings  the  poems 
we  have  just  cited  within  our  field  of  study.     Even  in  "0 

1  P.  48. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  481 

stream  descending  to  the  sea,"  or  "Put  forth  thy  leaf,  thou 
lofty  plane,"  it  is  not  song  that  we  hear,  but  the  lyric  cry. 

The  poems  of  Matthew  Arnold  (1822-1888)  were  slow 
in  winning  their  way ;  indeed,  his  first  two  volumes,  appearing 
anonymously  in  1849  and  1852,  were  so  little  appreciated 
that  they  were  withdrawn  from  publication.  To-day  the 
opinion  is  frequently  expressed — and  it  is  probably  a  correct 
one — that  though  the  greater  part  of  his  career  was  devoted 
to  his  critical  essays,  his  verse  is  destined  to  outlive  his  prose. 
Certainly  he  offers  in  his  poetry  something  that  no  other 
Victorian  singer  has  given  us. 

In  the  1853  edition  of  his  poems,  Arnold  published  a  criti- 
cal preface  that  plainly  foreshadowed  his  later  writing.  He 
discloses  in  it  his  ideal  of  poetry.  His  admiration  is  all  for 
the  "severe  and  scrupulous  self-restraint  of  the  ancients"; 
for  their  noble  simplicity  and  calm  pathos.  He  believes  their 
grandeur  which  so  impresses  him  consists  in  their  "unity  and 
profoundness  of  moral  impression."  Modern  poetry  is  prone 
to  be  incomplete,  beautiful  in  detached  passages,  and  hence 
it  lacks  art ;  its  interests  are  too  often  temporary  ones,  it 
does  not  strike  deep  enough  into  human  experience.^  If  to 
this  conception  of  the  superlative  importance  of  art  and  of 
the  intellectual  content  of  verse,  we  link  his  famous  precept 
that  poetry  should  be  a  criticism,  that  is,  an  interpretation 
of  Hfe,  and  primarily  of  the  life  of  the  spirit,  we  are  prepared 
to  find  in  Arnold's  own  lyrics  a  chastened  style,  thought 
rather  than  passion,  analysis  rather  than  imaginative  intui- 
tion.   Such  indeed  is  the  case. 

The  poet  was  brought  up  in  the  tenets  of  the  Church  of 
England.  His  father,  Arnold  of  Rugby,  was  a  man  of  deep 
faith  who  exerted  on  his  pupils  a  profound  religious  influence, 
for  he  never  doubted  that  he  could  point  out  to  his  scholars 
the  way  of  salvation.  His  son  had  no  such  confidence,  for, 
despite  the  beauty  of  the  old  creed  and  its  appeal  to  the  finest 

1  The  Poems  of  Matthew  Arnold,  Oxford,  1909,  pp.  12-16. 


J^82  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

emotions,  he  felt  it  outworn  and  yet  knew  nothing  that  could 
take  its  place.  It  was  inevitable  that  this  temper  of  mind 
should  breed  unhappiness  and  that  his  most  impressive  poems, 
such  as  Dover  Beach  or  the  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Char- 
treuse, should  be  elegies  on  our  loss  of  faith. 

It  would  appear  that  the  safety  for  a  man  of  Arnold's  tem- 
perament would  lie  in  raising  the  banner  of  a  more  liberal 
and  rational  belief,  and  to  have  become  the  militant  apostle 
of  a  new  faith : 

"  Hail  to  the  courage  which  gave 
Voice  to  its  creed,  ere  the  creed 
Won  consecration  from  Time."^ 

In  his  verse  at  least  he  can  not  do  this.  He  is  not  sure 
enough  of  his  position ;  he  is  sick  of  asking,  "what  I  am  and 
what  I  ought  to  be."    For  this  poet, 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds,   one   dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born, 
With  nowhere  yet  to  rest  my  head,"^ 

there  would  seem  to  be  no  creed  but  pessimism.  He  tells 
Fausta  that  our  vaunted  life  is  one  long  funeral ;  we  are  on 
a  dark  plain  where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night ;  we  hear 
no  voice  to  inspire  us,  for  the  kings  of  modern  thought  are 
dumb.     Our  bane  is  a  faltering  course : 

"  Oh  that  past  times  would  give  our  day. 
Joined  to  its  clearness,  of  their  force !" 

We  may  try  to  lose  ourselves  in  "action's  dizzying  eddy 
whirled,"  but  we  merely  rush  in  vain  over  the  whole  earth, 

"  And  never  once  possess  our  soul 
Before  we  die. 

All  this  is  urged  with  intense  feehng,  yet  with  dignity.    The 
voice  of  the  poet's  muse  is  never  shrill ;  there  is  no  hectic 
ip.  277. 

2  P.  272. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  i8S 

flush  on  her  cheek  as  she  gazes  on  modern  Ufe  with  "unwaver- 
ing, deep  disdain." 

Utterly  removed  from  the  querulous  complaint  of  disap- 
pointed pride  or  ambition,  such  writing  should  bring  us  to 
a  profound  melancholy,  yet  such  is  not  the  case.  Though 
we  may  assent  to  many  of  his  strictures,  why  do  not  these 
poems  leave  us  disheartened  at  the  tragedy  of  life.''  The 
answer  seems  to  be  that  here,  as  in  so  much  of  his  writing, 
the  emotional  appeal  is  lacking  in  force ;  in  his  own  words, 
he  is 

"  Never  by  passion  quite  possessed 
And  never  quite  benumbed  by  the  world's  sway." 

What  Arnold  said  of  Wordsworth  is  not  true  of  himself, 
"He  spake,  and  loos'd  our  hearts  in  tears,"  and  accordingly 
while  the  effect  of  reading  Arnold's  despondent  moods  may 
be  disquieting,  it  is  never  discouraging.  He  does  indeed 
prick  the  iridescent  bubble  of  our  self-complacency,  of  our 
irrational  optimism,  yet  he  rarely  wounds  us.  The  scholar's 
mind,  and  Arnold  was  a  scholar-poet,  has  a  certain  aloofness 
from  the  drama  of  life.  Despite  his  sincerity,  we  feel  that 
he  stands  on  the  hill  of  truth  and  watches  the  fighting 
below ;  that  from  the  shore,  he  marks  the  sea  of  faith  recede, 
and  that  he  is  not  the  swimmer,  borne  out  by  the  undertow, 
struggling  to  make  the  land.  In  the  Hayswater  Boat, 
Arnold  pictures  a  battered  skiff,  with  its  moldering  oars, 
caught  by  the  tide  and  sent  drifting  aimlessly  down  the  bay : 

"  The  rudder  swings — ^yet  none  doth  steer. 

What  living  hand  hath  brought  it  here?" 

It  is  perfectly  easy  to  make  of  this  a  symbol  of  a  wrecked 
life,  or  even  of  mankind,  yet  we  must  read  it  into  the  poem. 
Henley,  as  much  of  a  romanticist  as  Arnold  is  a  classicist, 
has  also  written  of  an  "old  black  rotter  of  a  boat,"  stranded 
in  midstream,  "with  a  horrid  list,  a  frightening  lapse  from 
line."    As  he  looks  at  it. 


4.Si  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  the  good  green  earth  seemed  dying — 
Dying  or  dead; 

And,  as  I  looked  on  the  old  boat,  I  said: — 
'  Dear  God.  it's  I!'  '"■ 

This  strikes  home  with  a  sense  of  pathos  that  either  was 
beyond  Arnold  or  from  which  he  shrank.  In  general  we  feel 
this  lack  of  a  strong  emotional  power  throughout  his  poetry, 
both  in  his  imaginative  and  in  his  personal  writing.  Tris- 
tram and  Iseult  may  challenge  a  comparison  with  the  best 
of  Tennyson's  Idylls,  yet  the  last  interview  of  the  lovers  is 
poorly  written ;  the  emotion  never  rises  to  the  tragic  situation 
and  the  very  metre  flags.  Hamlet's  self-analysis  is  accom- 
panied with  bursts  of  passion;  Arnold's  by  melancholy. 

So  clear  a  thinker  must  discover  some  way  of  escape,  and 
as  befits  a  devoted  admirer  of  Wordsworth,  Arnold  finds  his 
message  of  hope  in  nature.  After  he  has  drawn  in  A  Slimmer 
Night  a  depressing  picture  of  man's  unmeaning  taskwork 
and  his  vain  attempts  to  gain  release  from  it — -"Madman  or 
slave,  must  man  be  one?" — the  moonht  heavens  tell  him  that 
man,  if  he  wishes,  may  make  his  soul's  horizon  boundless.  In 
Self-Dependence,  a  voice  assures  him  that  man  may  attain 
the  tranquillity  of  the  unafFrighted,  undistracted  stars  that 
pour  all  their  powers  in  their  own  tasks : 

"  'Resolve  to  be  thyself:  and  know,  that  he 
Who  finds  himself,  loses  his  misery.'  " 

This  doctrine  is  most  beautifully  expressed  in  one  of  the 
noblest  English  sonnets.  Quiet  Work,  which  reveals  Nature's 
message  to  be  "toil  unsevered  from  tranquillity."  It  is  man's 
moral  duty  to  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole,  for  whoever 
does  this  will  "think  clear,  feel  deep,  bear  fruit  well." 

In  this  brief  analysis  of  Arnold's  chief  lyric  moods,  we 
have  said  nothing  of  his  love  poetry.  He  composed  a  small 
number  of  love  lyrics,  songs  of  parting  and  meeting  which 

1  W.  E.  Henley,  Hawthorn  and  Lavender,  London,  1901,  p.  61. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  485 

if  not  commonplace  are  certainly  not  distinguished.  Of  these, 
Isolation  alone  is  worthy  of  him.  As  he  writes  of  the  loneli- 
ness of  our  lives,  he  has  discovered  one  of  the  finest  similes 
in  modern  verse — that  of  the  two  islands,  once  united  but 
now  severed  by  "The  unplumb'd,  salt,  estranging  sea."  The 
beautifully  wrought  simile  is  characteristic  of  Arnold's 
writing;  two  others,  that  of  the  tempest-driven  mariner  in 
A  Summer  Night,  and  above  aU,  that  of  the  Tyrian  trader 
at  the  close  of  The  Scholar  Gipsy,  rank  with  the  finest  ex- 
anlples  of  poetic  illustration. 

Though  a  more  polished  writer  than  Clough,  it  is  the 
subjective  rather  than  the  musical  element  in  Arnold's  verse 
that  places  him  among  our  lyric  poets.  As  he  avoided  rich 
and  glowing  description,  so  he  shunned  the  melodies  of  the 
romanticists.  One  of  his  sonnets  declares  that  poetry  should 
be  austere  in  speech,  and  many  of  his  own  unrhymed  metres 
err  in  this  direction  and  lack  charm.  At  his  best,  his  verses 
are  finely  modulated;  the  Forsaken  Merman,  on  the  border- 
land of  the  lyric,  is  a  triumph  in  its  masterly  changes  of 
metre;  his  sonnet  on  Shakespeare  is  a  notable  example  of 
dignified,  lofty  expression.  For  pure  song,  his  finest  is  the 
concluding  lyric  of  Callicles  in  Empedocles  on  Etna;  its 
measure  is  a  difficult  one,  but  the  lightly  moving  verses  never 
falter : 

"  Not  here,  O  Apollo ! 
Are  haunts  meet  for  thee. 
But,  where  Helicon  breaks  down 
In  cliflf  to  the  sea." 

The  greatest  lyrical  achievement  of  Arnold  is  in  the  ode, 
for  surely  the  Scholar  Gipsy  deserves  that  title.  Thyrsis, 
his  elegy  on  Clough,  is  full  of  the  beauty  of  the  country 
about  Oxford, 

"  that  sweet  city  with  her  dreaming  spires, 
She  needs  not  June  for  beauty's  heightening," 


i86  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

but  his  sorrow  for  his  friend  is  not  expressed  with  as  much 
feehng  as  his  lament  for  the  men  of  his  time,  the  "vague  half- 
believers  of  our  casual  creeds."  The  Scholar  Gipsy  contains 
all  the  finest  qualities  of  his  poetry:  his  academic  spirit,  his 
love  of  nature,  his  penetrating  criticism  of  modern  thought, 
his  unconquerable  idealism — all  expressed  in  his  purest,  most 
musical,  and  loftiest  style.  If  Arnold's  fame  were  to  rest 
on  any  single  poem,  it  would  be  this  one. 

IV 

EHzabeth  Barrett  Browning  (1809-1861)  is  one  of  the 
strongest  personalities  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Though 
an  invalid  from  girlhood,  she  had  no  narrow  outlook  upon 
the  world  and  in  Aurora  Leigh  eloquently  asserted  the  sur- 
passing interest  and  significance  of  the  age  in  which  she 
lived.  On  the  other  hand,  she  saw  its  dark  sides,  she  was 
aroused  by  the  cruelty  and  the  injustice  of  modern  social 
conditions,  and  her  Cry  of  the  Children,  reminding  us  of 
Hood,  is  a  stirring  plea  against  child  labor.  An  idealist, 
neither  her  own  suffering  nor  the  ills  of  life  could  shake  her 
strong  religious  faith.  Two  countries — England  and 
Italy — were  home  to  her  and  both  aroused  her  loyalty ;  when 
the  Austrians  were  driven  over  the  border,  no  one  felt  more 
keenly  the  thrill  of  patriotism  that  unified  a  nation.  She 
found  her  inspiration  not  only  in  Ufe  hut  in  books,  for  she 
was  a  Greek  scholar  and  well  read  in  English  poetry.  Thus 
she  had  many  of  the  traits  and  the  gifts  that  go  to  the  mak- 
ing of  a  great  lyric  poet,  yet  because  one  was  not  granted 
to  her,  very  little  of  her  work  will  endure.     She  lacked  art. 

Her  study  of  Greek  did  not  correct  her  imperfect  sense 
of  form.  We  see  this  defect  most  plainly  in  her  verse  novel, 
Aurora  Leigh.  It  has  a  number  of  striking  resemblances 
to  that  most  emotional  of  romances,  Jane  Eyre,  and  these 
are  not  superficial  incidents,  but  turning  points  in  the  plots. 
For  example,  in  both  novels  the  hero's  marriage  is  inter- 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^7 

rupted  at  the  very  altar  in  a  highly  sensational  manner ;  in 
both  novels  the  hero  is  bUnded  by  the  burning  of  his  ances- 
tral home.  Jane  Eyre,  however,  is  much  more  of  an  artistic 
whole ;  it  carries  the  reader  along  breathlessly  while  in  Aurora 
Leigh  the  action  is  neglected  for  over-lengthy  dialogues  and 
discussions.  The  poem  is  fuU  of  keen  and  even  deep  comments 
on  society  and  human  character;  it  has  many  phrases  so 
striking  that  they  seem  to  have  come  from  the  pages  of  our 
finest  dramatists ;  it  is  filled  with  passages  of  acute  and 
sympathetic  description — an  English  garden,  a  London  fog, 
the  Paris  flower  market,  Florence  seen  from  Bellosguardo. 
All  these  fine  qualities  never  hide  from  us  the  fact  that  the 
story  is  weak  in  construction,  diffuse  in  method,  and  super- 
ficial in  its  character  drawing.    It  lacks  art. 

Her  lyrics  show  the  same  faults :  they  are  long  drawn  out, 
careless  in  diction,  atrocious  in  their  rhymes.  Their  thought 
is  generally  slight  and  their  sentiment  is  frequently  too 
obvious.  In  the  song  of  imaginations,  she  is  generally  unin- 
spired ;  she  is  at  her  best  when  she  writes  of  her  own  feelings. 
The  Drama  of  Exile  does  not  show  her  finest  work,  yet  its 
choruses  are  such  typical  examples  of  the  defects  we  have 
mentioned  that  we  shall  cite  one,  supposed  to  be  sung  by 
angels  to  the  exiled  Adam  and  Eve: 

"  Mortal  man  and  woman. 

Go  upon  your  travel! 
Heaven  assist  the  Human 

Smoothly  to  unravel 
All  that  web  of  pain 

Wherein  ye  are  holden. 
Do  ye  know  our  voices 

Chanting  down  the  golden.^ 
Do  ye  guess  our  choice  is. 

Being  unbeholden. 
To  be  barkened  by  you  yet  again  ?"^ 
1  The  Poetical  Works  of  Elizabeth  Barrett  Brovming,  Oxford,  1908, 
p.  112. 


^88  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

This  must  have  made  the  expulsion  from  Eden  doubly  bitter. 
It  seems  incredible  that  the  same  writer  should  have  pro- 
duced, even  at  a  later  period,  such  an  imaginative  and  musi- 
cal lyric  as  "What  was  he  doing,  the  great  god  Pan." 

The  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  contain  Mrs.  Browning's 
best  lyrics.  Here  the  form  compelled  her  to  come  at  once 
to  the  heart  of  the  matter;  she  chose  the  Itahan  rhyme 
scheme,  and  the  result  justified  once  again  Gautier's  advice 
to  the  artist  to  select  a  difficult  medium  for  his  thought. 
Yet  even  here  the  technique  is  never  remarkable  and  fre- 
quently lacks  distinction ;  the  sonnets  live  because  of  their 
emotional  power. 

Written  for  her  husband,  these  poems  are  so  personal,  so 
frank  in  laying  bare  her  most  intimate  feeUngs,  that  they 
give  the  reader  a  sense  of  constraint ;  he  is  overhearing 
whispered  vows,  he  is  profaning  a  sanctuary.  Remembering 
their  history  we  can  not  view  them  coldly.  In  the  presence 
of  this  life  of  the  soul,  it  seems  pedantry  to  speak  of  art, 
yet  we  must  endeavor  to  forget  the  circumstances  of  the 
composition  of  these  sonnets  and  read  them  critically.  Why 
is  it  that  we  do  not  turn  repeatedly  to  them.?  It  is  because 
all  is  emotion,  and  the  tone  of  the  writing  becomes  morbid; 
it  is  because  introspection  is  pushed  so  far  that  it  brings  a 
cruel  delight  in  self-abasement.  Here  again  we  approach 
Jane  Eyre's  ruthless  examination  of  her  own  worthlessness. 
These  sonnets  have  the  atmosphere  of  the  sick  room  in  which 
they  were  written  and  their  feverish  tone  is  too  unrelieved. 
It  would  be  hard  to  find  another  sequence  with  so  little  de- 
scription, by  way  of  adornment  or  contrast,  or  as  a  means 
of  illustrating  moods.  Here  indeed  is  a  superabundance  of 
that  emotion  which  the  Elizabethan  sonneteers  lacked;  in 
fact  she  repeats  an  Elizabethan  theme : 

"  Love  me  not  for  comely  grace. 
For  my  pleasing  eye  or  face," 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  489 

in  "If  thou  must  love  me,  let  it  be  for  nie,"  but  her  treatment 
of  it  has  nothing  of  the  old  simplicity  and  lightness  of  touch. 
We  have  said  that  these  sonnets  live  because  of  their  emo- 
tional power  and  yet  we  have  made  these  strictures  on  the 
feelings  they  disclose.  This  implies  that  the  collection  as  a 
whole  is  written  at  too  high  a  tension;  nevertheless  certain 
of  the  sonnets  are  worthy  to  rank  with  the  best  that  England 
has  produced.  The  finest  are  numbers  one,  three,  fourteen, 
twenty-five,  and  above  all,  forty-three,  "How  do  I  love  thee." 
With  these  should  be  placed  one  not  in  this  series,  the  sonnet 
on  Grief,  "I  tell  you,  hopeless  grief  is  passionless."  Her 
simile  of  the  desert  may  be  an  obvious  one,  yet  what  power 
of  suggestion  there  is  in  its  three  lines,  while  in  the  impressive 
ending,  her  style  gains  an  unwonted  breadth  and  strength. 

"  Deep-hearted  man,  express 
Grief  for  thy  dead  in  silence  like  to  death: — 
Most  like  a  monumental  statue  set 
In  everlasting  watch  and  moveless  woe. 
Till  itself  crumble  to  the  dust  beneath. 
Touch  it :  the  marble  eyelids  are  not  wet ; 
If  it  could  weep,  it  woidd  arise  and  go." 

Where  Mrs.  Browning  failed,  Christina  Rossetti  (1830- 
1894!),  the  sister  of  the  poet  of  the  House  of  Life,  succeeded 
absolutely ;  in  her  work,  form  and  feeling  perfectly  blend. 
She  wrote  with  ease;  her  thoughts  sung  themselves,  yet 
fluency  never  lowered  her  artistic  standards.  Her  brother, 
W.  M.  Rossetti,  regrets  that  she  was  over-scrupulous  in  her 
spiritual  life;  in  her  verse,  this  trait  made  her  an  almost 
flawless  artist  within  the  restricted  sphere  of  her  work.  There 
are  no  needless  rhymes,  no  unnecessary  phrases  in  her  lyrics ; 
she  gained  her  effects  quietly,  without  one  superfluous  word. 
Unlike  Jane  Austen  in  character,  she  resembled  her  abso- 
lutely in  her  exquisite  gift  of  selection  and  in  her  sense  of 
style.     In  her  religious  poems,  especially  in  her  carols,  she 


wo  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

has  the  naivete  of  the  writers  of  our  early  English  lyrics; 
there  is  no  pride,  pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war  in 
her  religious  conflicts.  While  there  is  a  love  of  beauty  evi- 
dent in  all  her  work,  it  has  nothing  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
color  or  sensuousness. 

In  her  faultless  sense  of  rhythm,  she  is  worthy  to  stand 
near  Herrick,  for  though  he  had  a  broader  nature  and  a 
wider  vision,  she  has  his  deHcate  ear  for  the  modulations  of 
verse,  his  endless  variety  of  metre,  and  his  economy  of  phrase. 
Like  Herrick  also  is  her  avoidance  of  the  greater  lyric ;  short 
and  quick  are  her  songs.  Even  readers  who  are  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  her  prevailing  states  of  mind,  are  attracted  by 
the  music  of  her  lines.  Forms  that  are  old  take  on  a  new 
cadence  as  she  writes  them;  forms  that  she  invents,  surprise 
us  by  their  perfection,  not  by  their  novelty,  as  her  lines  to 
France  written  in  1870,  in  which  the  same  rhyme  is  repeated 
through  every  stanza.  Never  master  of  the  long,  slow  Une; 
never  building  up  a  stately  palace  of  art  with  Spenserian 
verse,  she  is  past  master  of  the  short  song  that  completely 
renders  the  mood  by  description  or  even  by  mere  suggestion : 

"  I  wish  I  were  a  little  bird 

Which  out  of  sight  doth  soar; 
I  wish  I  were  a  song  once  heard 

But  often  pondered  o'er. 
Or  shadow  of  a  lily  stirred 

By  wind  upon  the  floor. 
Or  echo  of  a  loving  word 

Worth  all  that  went  before. 
Or  memory  of  a  hope  deferred 

That  springs  again  no  more."^ 

Wordsworth  affirmed  that  "nuns  fret  not  at  their  convent's 
narrow  room,"  but  dramatists  tell  us  otherwise.     Christina 

1  W.  M.  Rossetti,  The  Poetical  Works  of  Christina  Oeorgina  Bossetti, 
London,  1904,  p.  309. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  431 

Rossetti,  ascetic  and  mystic,  was  in  character  a  nun;  she 
turned  from  the  world  believing  it  to  be  but  vanity  of  vani- 
ties. It  is  strange  to  read  that  her  religious  scruples  made 
her  at  eighteen  turn  aside  from  the  theatre  and  opera,  and 
even  from  the  game  of  chess;  it  is  pathetic  to  read  that  she 
parted  from  her  lover  because  his  religious  ideals  were  not 
her  own.^  Not  the  enjoyment  of  life  but  renunciation  was 
her  creed;  several  times  in  her  poetry  she  pictures  the  Chris- 
tian martyr  in  pagan  Rome.  She  humbles  herself ;  she  asks 
for  the  lowest  place — and  yet  from  her  convent's  narrow 
room,  to  use  the  image,  she  sees  the  beauty  of  the  world  and 
loves  it;  she  sees  man's  devotion  and  longs  for  it.  It  is  an 
old  theme  for  a  tragedy  but  it  has  lost  none  of  its  pathos 
whether  it  appears  in  her  sonnets  Monna  Irmommata  or  in  a 
slighter  song: 

"  The  door  was  shut.    I  looked  between 
Its  iron  bars;  and  saw  it  lie, 
My  garden,  mine,  beneath  the  sky. 
Pied  all  with  flowers  bedewed  and  green."^ 

In  some  verse  entitled  Charity,  composed  when  she  was 
fourteen,  she  has  imitated,  to  quote  her  own  words,  "that 
beautiful  little  poem  Virtue,  by  George  Herbert,"  and  in 
many  of  her  later  lyrics  she  frequently  reminds  us  of  him. 
Like  Herbert,  she  has  a  series  of  songs  on  the  festivals  of  the 
church  and  saints'  days;  like  Herbert  she  is  impressed  with 
her  own  unworthiness  and  struggles  to  gain  peace.  She  did 
not  have  Herbert's  intellectual  power ;  she  was  quite  incapable 
of  such  a  poem  as  Man,  for  instead  of  searching  thought, 
or  obstinate  questionings,  she  employs  dehcate  imagery  or 
vivid  description,  yet  no  religious  poems  in  the  language  are 
more  penetrating  than  hers.     If  she  is  not  more  spiritual  than 

1  P.  liii. 

2  P.  320. 


^92  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Herbert  in  the  temper  of  her  mind,  she  is  in  her  style.  One 
of  her  masterpieces,  Sleep  at  Sea,  depicts  the  indifference  of 
mankind  drifting  on  to  spiritual  death: 

"  Soimd  the  deep  waters : — ■ 

Who  shall  sound  that  deep? — 
Too  short  the  plummet. 

And  the  watchmen  sleep." 

Herbert  would  have  expressed  this  thought  in  a  few  closely 
packed  phrases  or  in  a  vivid  metaphor ;  her  imagination  is 
so  stirred,  that  the  poem  has  caught  something  of  the  magic 
quality  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  as  she  sings  of  the  sleeping 
sailors  and  of  the  spirits  that  try  in  vain  to  rouse  them: 

"  One  by  one  slowly. 

Ah  how  sad  and  slow ! 
Wailmg  and  praying 

The  spirits  rise  and  go: 
Clear  stainless  spirits. 

White,  as  white  as  snow; 
Pale  spirits,  wailing 

For  an  overthrow."^ 

Vanity  of  vanities  is  its  conclusion,  and  it  is  her  own  view  of 
the  world.  She  longs  for  death  because  it  brings  peace. 
There  is  no  shudder  as  she  writes  of  the  grave ;  with  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  morality  plays,  she  sings  in  Up-Mll  of  the 
inevitable  end. 

Nature  meant  more  to  her  than  books  or  art.  As  she 
made  no  attempt  at  a  large  philosophy  of  life,  so  she  has 
no  desire  to.  picture  the  imposing  aspects  of  ocean  and  moun- 
tain. The  wind,  the  birds,  the  fruits  and  flowers,  are  enough 
for  her: 

IP.  155. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^93 

"  My  heart  is  like  a  singing  bird 

Whose  nest  is  in  a  watered  shoot: 
My  heart  is  like  an  apple-tree 

Whose  boughs  are  bent  with  thickest  fruit; 
My  heart  is  like  a  rainbow  shell 

That  paddles  in  a  halcyon  sea; 
My  heart  is  gladder  than  all  these 

Because  my  love  is  come  to  me."^ 

This  lyric,  The  Birthday,  is  her  one  happy  love  song; 
there  is  this  same  note  of  ecstacy  in  the  opening  of  To-Day 
and  To-Morrow,  but  the  mood  quickly  changes  to 

"  I  wish  I  were  dead,  my  foe, 
My  friend,  I  wish  I  were  dead. 
With  a  stone  at  my  tired  feet 
And  a  stone  at  my  tired  head." 

Her  fine  sonnet,  The  Pause,  with  its  happy  ending,  is  not  as 
typical  as  "Remember  me  when  I  am  gone  away,"  "Come  to 
me  in  the  silence  of  the  night,"  or  "When  I  am  dead,  my 
dearest."  In  all  these  poems  there  is  no  bitterness  or  revolt ; 
they  are  lyrics  of  resignation  not  of  pessimism. 

We  may  safely  predict  that  as  surely  and  steadily  as  Mrs. 
Browning's  fame  has  declined,  Christina  Rossetti's  will  grow. 
Mrs.  Browning  had  the  larger  mind  and  the  wider  interests ; 
she  attempted  greater  things,  but  her  success  was  only  a 
partial  one.  Christina  Rossetti's  range  is  exceedingly  lim- 
ited ;  all  her  work  is  in  one  tone,  in  one  key,  but  her  success  is 
absolute.  She  spoke  of  the  author  of  the  Sonnets  from  the 
Portuguese  as  "the  great  poetess  of  our  own  time" ;  so  far  as 
the  lyric  is  concerned,  we  may  with  more  justice  apply  that 
phrase  to  herself. 

It  is  a  natural  transition-  from  the  religious  lyrics  of 
Christina  Rossetti  to  the  hymns  of  the  church.  Because  of 
their  music  and  because  of  the  memories  they  awaken,  their 

1  P.  335. 


J^H  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

appeal  is  altogether  out  of  proportion  to  their  artistic  merit. 
A  large  percentage  of  the  hymns  in  any  modern  collection 
will  be  found  to  belong  to  the  eighteenth,  not  to  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  if  we  contrast  the  work  of  Watts  or 
Newton  with  the  religious  lyrics  of  Heber,  Keble,  and  Faber, 
we  shall  find  that  the  modern  writers  show  more  art  in  their 
metres  and  in  their  descriptions,  especially  of  nature,  and 
that  they  offer  a  more  intimate  expression  of  their  doubts 
and  beliefs.  On  the  other  hand,  their  poems  have  less  of  the 
sense  of  awe ;  they  are  more  personal  and  less  sublime.  In  a 
word,  hymnology  has  felt  the  influence  of  the  romantic  move- 
ment. 

It  would  be  rash  to  attempt  to  decide  what  modern  hymns 
wiU  become  classics,  but  a  selection  of  the  best  and  the  most 
typical  of  them  would  surely  include  "Forever  with  the  Lord," 
by  James  Montgomery  (1771-1854),  "Holy,  holy,  holy. 
Lord  God  Almighty,"  by  Reginald  Heber  (1783-1826), 
"Sun  of  my  soul,"  by  John  Keble  (1792-1866),  "Abide  with 
me,"  by  Henry  Francis  Lyte  (1793-1847),  "Lead,  kindly 
Light,"  by  Cardinal  Newman  (1801-1890),  "Nearer,  my 
God,  to  thee,"  by  Sarah  Flower  Adams  (1805-1848),  "I 
heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say,"  by  Horatius  Bonar  (1808- 
1889),  and  "Hark,  hark,  my  soul,"  by  Frederick  William 
Faber  (1814-1863). 


We  shall  consider  as  a  study  in  contrasts  four  poets  whose 
works  have  nothing  in  common.  It  is  a  convenient  and  a 
striking  exposition  of  the  wide  range  of  the  modern  lyric. 

The  first  volume  published  by  George  Meredith  (1828- 
1909)  was  a  book  of  verse  that  appeared  in  1851 ;  his  last 
formal  publication,  A  Reading  of  Life  and  other  Poems,  was 
brought  out  in  1901.  Thus  for  half  a  century,  not  satisfied 
with  his  established  reputation  as  a  novelist,  he  was  desirous 
of  being  numbered  among  the  great  poets  of  his  day.     He 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^.95 

had  many  endowments  that  justified  this  ambition.  His 
verse  is  marked  by  intellectual  force,  by  a  tireless  energy  of 
mind,  by  imagination  and  passion.  He  has  the  dramatic 
instinct  and  in  Modern  Love  shows  a  subtlety  of  character 
analysis  that  Browning,  except  in  so  long  a  poem  as  The 
Ring  and  the  Book,  never  surpassed.  He  is  a  nature  lover, 
but  he  does  more  than  picture  the  woods  and  reproduce  the 
song  of  the  lark;  he  has  an  original  and  an  inspiring  phil- 
osophy of  life  that  links  closely  the  earth  and  man,  her  son. 
With  his  equipment,  there  was  every  reason  to  presume  that 
he  might  rank  with  the  chief  poets  of  the  Victorian  age,  yet 
in  aU  probability  very  little  of  his  work  will  endure.  Many 
poets  have  been  forgotten  because  of  style  misapplied ;  Mere- 
dith will  be  neglected  because  of  style  unapplied. 

He  has  written  some  of  the  most  obscure  poems  of  the 
century.  Compared  with  many  of  his  pages,  Browning's 
most  involved  passages  are  fairly  lucid.  In  an  appreciative 
and  even  enthusiastic  critique  of  Meredith's  verse,  Mr.  de 
Selincourt  suggests  that  The  Sage  Enamoured  and  the 
Honest  Lady  "must  be  read  at  least  twenty  times"  to  be 
understood.^  What  baffles  us  is  generally  not  the  subtlety 
or  the  profundity  of  the  thought  but  an  inexcusable  viola- 
tion of  the  simplest  laws  of  composition.  Needless  inver- 
sions ;  confusing  compression  or  omission  of  the  connecting 
hnks  of  thought ;  the  too  rapid  succession  of  metaphors ; 
grotesque  eccentricities  of  construction  and  diction — all  these 
faults  are  too  plainly  evident.  Yet  when  he  wished,  Mere- 
dith could  write  as  all  true  poets  must  write,  with  a  straight- 
forward appeal  to  the  mind  and  heart,  and  then  his  work 
gained  rather  than  lost  in  individuality.  The  Lark  Ascend- 
ing; A  Night  of  Frost  in  May,  the  best  of  the  sonnets; 
Modern  Love;  Attila;  France,  December,  1870,  compel  our 
admiration  not  at  the  twentieth  reading  but  at  the  first.  If 
the  study  of  poetry  has  taught  us  anything,  it  has  shown 

1 M.  Sturge  Henderson,  George  Meredith,  N.  Y.,  1907,  p.  243. 


i96  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

that  neither  stimulating  thought  nor  startling  originality 
of  diction  can  take  the  place  of  clear  expression.  When 
Meredith  chose  the  wrong  path,  as  he  did  too  frequently, 
he  did  so  deliberately. 

As  Meredith's  style  was  new,  so  were  his  rhythms.  He 
dehghted  in  avoiding  measures  proved  worthy  by  long  tradi- 
tion and  his  poetry  contains  numerous  experiments  in  metre. 
In  Modern  Love,  he  uses,  in  place  of  the  sonnet,  a  sonnet-like 
form  of  sixteen  lines.  In  this  case,  the  innovation  is  a  suc- 
cess, but  on  the  whole  he  does  not  show  in  his  new  forms  the 
poet's  instinct  for  the  line  and  stanza  that  alone  fit  his 
thought.  A  sure  test  of  a  writer's  sense  of  form  is  the  manner 
in  which  he  varies  the  rhythm  of  a  poem,  as  Tennyson  does 
in  Maud  or  The  Lotos-Eaters.  Judged  from  this  stand- 
point, Meredith's  odes,  even  France,  show  an  absence  of  the 
artistic  sense.  FitzGerald  once  said  that  Tennyson's  In 
Memoriam  had  "the  air  of  being  evolved  by  a  Poetical 
Machine  of  the  highest  order."  This  criticism  would  be  a 
fair  one  if  transferred  to  many  of  Meredith's  attempts  to 
discover  new  metres. 

"  When  by  Zeus  relenting  the  mandate  was  revoked, 
Sentencing  to  exile  the  bright  Sun-God, 
Mindful  were  the  ploughman  of  who  the  steer  had  yoked, 
Who :  and  what  a  trace  showed  the  upturned  sod !" 

In  this  over-emphasis  of  accent,  we  seem  to  hear  "the  very 
pulse  of  the  machine,"  yet  in  this  same  poem  are  such  musical 
verses  as: 

"  Water,  sweetest  soother  to  kiss  a  wound  and  cool, 
Sweetest  and  divinest,  the  sky-born  brook. 
Chuckled  with  a  whimper,  and  made  a  mirror-pool," 

for  as  his  diction  can  be  above  reproach,  so  his  lines  can  be 
splendidly  harmonious.  From  the  Hymn  to  Colour  we  take 
this  imaginative  stanza  that  would  have  delighted  Spenser: 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  ^97 

"  Look  now  where  Colour,  the  soul's  bridegroom,  makes 
The  house  of  heaven  splendid  for  the  bride. 
To  him  as  leaps  a  fountain  she  awakes, 
In  knotting  arms,  yet  boundless:  him  beside, 
She  holds  the  flower  to  heaven,  and  by  his  power 
Brings  heaven  to  the  flower." 

yet  we  fall  from  this  to  cacaphony  in: 

"  With  thee,  O  fount  of  the  Untimed !  to  lead ; 
Drink  they  of  thee,  thee  eying,  they  unaged 
Shall  on  through  brave  wars  waged." 

There  is  the  same  contradiction  in  his  metres  that  there  is 
in  his  style. 

The  number  of  lyrics  in  Meredith's  poetry  is  not  large. 
Occasionally  he  tried  to  write  snatches  of  song,  to  give  to  a 
mood  or  fancy  light  and  graceful  expression;  we  even  find 
him  writing  anapests — and  they  are  poor  ones.  Two  of  the 
shorter  lyrics  deserve  to  be  remembered:  Woodland  Peace, 
and  Song  in  the  Songless,  so  exquisite  in  its  rhythm  that  it 
resembles  the  best  work  of  the  neo-Celtic  school.  Of  his 
sonnets,  the  best  are  Earth's  Secret,  Internal  Harmony,  The 
Spirit  of  Shakespeare,  and  above  all,  Lucifer  vn  Starlight. 
Of  the  last  one,  we  may  assert  that  Milton  himself  would  have 
been  proud  to  own  it,  for  it  has  caught  the  exalted  spirit  of 
his  epic.  It  is  sublime  in  its  conception  and  magnificent  in 
its  expression.  Modern  Love — ^his  greatest  work — is  one  of 
the  most  subtle  and  moving  tragedies  in  English  verse.  Its 
"sonnets,"  dramatic  and  to  a  greater  degree  analytic,  are 
rarely  lyrical;  the  lovers  are  no  longer  "beneath  the  singing 
sky  of  May,"  and  when  we  first  see  them  they  are  struck  by 

"  that  fatal  knife. 
Deep  questioning,  which  probes  to  endless  dole." 

Yet  two  of  the  "sonnets"  at  least,  and  they  are  among  the 
best  of  the  sequence,  belong  to  our  study,  "Mark  where  the 
pressing  wind  shoots  javelin  like"  and  "We  saw  the  swallows 


^.98  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

gathering  in  the  sky,"  two  elegies  expressing  hopeless 
despair.  The  first  opens  with  a  description  of  wind  and 
waves  and  has  no  parallel  in  English  verse,  and  ends  with 
the  agonising  cry : 

"  In  tragic  life,  God  wot. 
No  villain  need  be !  Passions  spin  the  plot : 
We  are  betrayed  by  what  is  false  within." 

The  second  is  equally  poignant,  for  though  it  is  composed 
in  a  quieter  strain  it  but  shows  the  calmness  of  a  spirit  that 
knows  the  fatal  stroke  will  not  long  be  delayed. 

Love  in  the  Valley  is  the  best  known  of  all  his  lyrics.  When 
it  first  appeared  in  the  Poems  of  1851,  Tennyson  wrote  that 
he  had  gone  up  and  down  stairs  repeating  it,  and  that  he 
wished  it  had  been  his  own  ;^  Stevenson  has  said  that  the 
stanza  beginning  "When  her  mother  tends  her"  haunted  him 
and  made  him  drunk  like  wine.  This  picture  of  the  young 
girl  seen  against  the  background  of  the  four  seasons  is  char- 
acteristic of  Meredith's  best  work  only  in  its  original  metre 
and  its  vivid  descriptions ;  it  lacks  his  incisive  thought.  We 
would  not  say  of  it  that  "pure  description  takes  the  place 
of  sense,"  yet  it  would  be  even  more  of  a  masterpiece  if  we 
felt  in  it  more  of  the  poet's  mind.  In  its  first  version  it  con- 
sisted of  but  eleven  stanzas ;  in  adding  fifteen  more  to  it, 
Tennyson  felt  that  Meredith  had  spoiled  it.  We  could  ill 
afford  to  lose  some  of  the  later  stanzas,  yet  the  poem  as  it 
now  stands  is  somewhat  over-sensuous.  If  it  surprises,  it 
also  tires  us  by  a  fine  excess. 

In  Meredith's  odes  there  is  no  lack  of  thought,  but  the 
shaping  intelligence  is  not  evident  enough.  They  are  full 
of  high  sounding  and  imaginative  phrases ;  one  discovers  in 
them  any  number  of  splendid  individual  lines,  but  the  final 
impression  of  such  an  ode  as  Napoleon  is  that  of  strength 
ill  used.     France  is  by  far  the  best  of  the  series.     It  has 

1  T.  H.  Warren,  The  Centenary  of  Tennyson,  Oxford,  1909,  p.  20. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  499 

force,  nobility  of  thought,  and  a  lofty  expression,  but  in 
many  a  passage  the  spirit  of  song  droops  and  falters.  It 
has  the  epic  rather  than  the  lyric  quality. 

Arthur  O'Shaughnessy  (1844-1881)  had  a  metrical  gift 
which  seemed  to  so  excellent  a  judge  as  Palgrave  "the  finest, 
after  Tennyson,  of  any  of  our  later  poets."  His  first  volume 
was  cordially  received;  he  was  given  a  place  next  Rossetti, 
and  critics  believed  that  England  had  produced  one  more 
poet  to  continue  her  great  tradition  of  song.  It  was  real- 
ised that  the  substance  of  his  verse  lacked  strength,  but  it 
was  hoped  that  the  years  would  bring  the  philosophic  mind 
and  that  he  would  have  something  to  say  which  would  be 
worth  "the  garment  of  perfect  poetic  speech,"  to  quote  from 
a  contemporary  review.  Time  would  give  him  a  wider  out- 
look and  a  deeper  sympathy  with  life.  This  hope  was  never 
fulfilled. 

Our  great  poets  have  had  something  new  to  offer  us  in 
their  style  as  well  as  in  their  thought  and  emotion.  The  end- 
less variety  of  human  experience  will  never  be  even  partially 
recorded  in  verse.  O'Shaughnessy  never  had  a  firm  hold  on 
life ;  his  forte  lay  in  the  other  direction,  in  giving  us  dreams 
and  reminiscences  of  emotion  rather  than  the  emotions  them- 
selves.    There  is  something  exotic  in  all  that  he  wrote : 

"  We  are  the  music  makers. 

And  we  are  the  dreamers  of  dreams. 
Wandering  by  lone  sea-breakers. 

And  sitting  by  desolate  streams; — 
World-losers  and  world-forsakers. 

On  whom  the  pale  moon  gleams: 
Yet  we  are  the  movers  and  shakers 

Of  the  world  forever,  it  seems."'^ 

To  this  band  of  singers  he  certainly  belonged.  His  vein  of 
ore  is  a  very  narrow  one  and  in  the  greater  part  of  his  work 

I  Music  and  Moonlight,  London,  1874,  p.  1. 


500  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

we  feel  constantly  disappointed  at  the  poverty  of  the  subject- 
matter.  He  repeated  himself  too  frequently  and  the  critics 
who  heralded  his  coming,  ended  by  pronouncing  him  insin- 
cere. Every  writer,  if  he  has  anything  worth  saying,  repeats 
himself  but  always  with  some  difference  in  thought  or  manner. 
After  having  written  Hamlet's  great  soliloquy  on  death,  we 
should  have  imagined  that  Shakespeare  never  would  have 
composed  another.  In  Measure  for  Measure  he  returns  to 
the  same  theme,  but  here  the  speaker  is  a  coward  and 
Claudio's  thrilling  lines,  inspired  by  a  fear  that  destroys  all 
sense  of  shame,  have  little  in  common  with  Hamlet's  thoughts. 
We  do  not  imply  that  O'Shaughnessy  should  have  resembled 
Shakespeare ;  we  point  out  merely  that  he  lacked  the  dramatic 
instinct  which  the  finest  lyric  poets  have  always  felt  and  that, 
in  consequence  of  this,  he  never  varies  his  tone. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  O'Shaughnessy  would  have 
achieved  his  greatest  distinction  by  translating  French  verse 
into  English.  He  was  well  known  in  Paris ;  he  was  a  great 
admirer  of  French  literature ;  and  he  had  made  many  of  the 
Latin  principles  of  art  his  own.  He  felt  that  England  needed 
more  of  art  for  art's  sake ;  "correctness  of  form,"  he  wrote, 
"is  virtue.  Beauty  is  all  God's  gift  and  man's  mastery." 
Despite  this,  he  lacked  the  restraint  of  a  true  artist  and  his 
lyrics  are  greatly  improved  by  excisions.  In  the  second  part 
of  the  Golden  Treasury,  a  volume  which  missed  Tennyson's 
guiding  hand,  Palgrave  has  included  seventeen  of  O'Shaugh- 
nessy's  lyrics ;  no  other  poet,  except  Tennyson  himself,  is 
represented  by  so  large  a  number.  Palgrave,  however,  has 
not  only  printed  practically  every  lyric  of  value,  but  has 
skillfully  condensed  them.  O'Shaughnessy's  complete  works 
are  a  disappointment. 

When  we  have  praised  the  poet's  music,  we  have  said 
the  final  word.  It  is  all  pitched  in  one  key:  it  is  plaintive, 
dreamy,  charmingly  pathetic,  but  never  poignant  or  inspir- 
ing.    His  life  was  saddened  by  the  death  of  wife  and  chil- 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  601 

dren  and  all  his  work  is  melancholy  in  tone.  The  Foimtain 
of  Tears;  The  Spectre  of  the  Past,  with  its  evident  reminis- 
cence of  De  Musset;  even  his  love  songs  are  written  in  a 
minor  strain: 

"  She  entered  with  her  weary  smile. 

Just  as  of  old; 
She  looked  around  a  little  while, 

And  shivered  at  the  cold. 
Her  passing  touch  was  death  to  all, 

Her  passing  look  a  blight: 
She  made  the  white  rose-petals  fall. 

And  turn'd  the  red  rose  white."^ 

In  much  that  he  writes  we  hear  echoes  of  other  poets.  In 
Love's  Eternity  is  almost  the  converse  of  the  Blessed  Damozel, 
for  it  shows  us  the  lover,  not  the  maiden,  waiting  in  heaven. 
Some  lyrics  have  a  suggestion  of  Poe;  the  Song  of  Palms 
offers  that  beauty  of  description  which  Leconte  de  Lisle  and 
his  contemporaries  cultivated. 

It  seemed  a  fatahty  that  kept  O'Shaughnessy  from  his 
rightful  place  among  the  Victorian  poets,  for  he  could  always 
sing.  In  music  we  may  listen  entranced  to  a  song  in  a 
strange  tongue;  in  poetry  we  are  not  satisfied  long  with 
mere  melody. 

Coventry  Patmore  (1823-1896)  began  his  poetic  career 
as  an  admirer  of  Tennyson.  One  stanza  from  The  River, 
written  when  he  was  sixteen,  shows  his  discipleship : 

"  The  sheep-bell  tolls  the  curfew  time ; 

The  gnats,  a  busy  rout. 
Fleck  the  warm  air ;  the  distant  owl 

Shouteth  a  sleepy  shout; 
The  voiceless  bat,  more  felt  than  seen. 

Is  flitting  round  about."^ 

ip.  39. 

2  Basil  Champneys,  Poems  by  Coventry  Patmore,  London,  1909,  p.  402. 


602  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

From  this  to  his  Odes  is  a  far  cry.  If  Patmore  had  con- 
tinued to  write  in  this  style,  many  others  would  have  sur- 
passed him ;  but  choosing  a  new  form  and  a  firmer  and  less 
florid  tone  for  his  lyrics,  he  disclosed  an  individuality  which 
will  win  for  him  as  times  goes  on  more  and  more  readers. 

Sargent  took  the  poet  as  his  model  for  Ezekiel  in  his 
frieze  of  the  prophets  and  there  was  an  appropriateness  in 
this,  for  Patmore  considered  himself  a  seer  and  a  teacher. 
He  believed  that  it  was  given  to  him  to  expound  an  old,  and 
yet  for  our  days,  a  new  doctrine  of  love.  Ardent  Catholic 
and  exalted  mystic,  he  saw  in  human  love  a  faint  type  of 
the  love  of  Christ  for  the  soul.  In  his  eyes,  passion  was 
sanctified  by  this  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  depict  it  in  some 
of  the  boldest  writing  in  our  poetry.  In  this  conception  of 
love,  he  is  far  removed  from  any  poet  we  have  considered; 
he  has  something  of  Crashaw's  spirit — though  nothing  of 
his  fluency,  in  the  odes  at  least — ^but  as  a  mystic,  he  soared 
far  beyond  his  predecessor. 

If  the  eighteen  poems  in  the  second  book  of  The  Unknown 
Eros  are  written,  as  he  admitted,  "in  a  dead  language";  if 
the  analogies  which  he  draws  between  the  earthly  and  the 
heavenly  repel  more  often  than  they  attract,  the  odes  in  the 
first  book  come  very  close  to  human  experience  and  thought. 
Their  realism  is  so  true  and  so  intense  that  we  seem  to  be 
taking  part  in  a  tragedy  rather  than  to  be  hearing  a  poet 
sing.  There  is  nothing  here  of  the  fluent  and  shallow  senti- 
mentalism  of  The  Angel  in  the  House;  here  are  no  artful 
dirges  sung  over  Love's  grave,  but  the  cries  of  a  stricken 
soul.  His  wife's  death  inspired  The  Azalea  and  Departure, 
two  of  the  most  pathetic  poems  in  the  language.  It  is  a  sign 
of  greatness  that  in  Patmore's  odes  the  simplest  event  gains 
a  significance  which  we  attach  to  some  unusual  or  terrifying 
catastrophe.  An  azalea  that  his  wife  had  tended,  wakens  him 
in  the  night  by  its  fragrance,  after  her  death ;  his  little  child 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  BOS 

whom  he  had  struck,  "His  Mother,  who  was  patient,  being 
dead,"  puts  by  its  bedside: 

"  A  box  of  counters  and  a  red-veined  stone, 
A  piece  of  glass  abraded  by  the  beach 
And  six  or  seven  shells, 
A  bottle  with  bluebells 

And  two  French  copper  coins,  ranged  there  with  careful  art. 
To  comfort  his  sad  heart. "^ 

From  these  slight  incidents,  he  has  gained  in  the  Azalea  and 
The  Toys  the  most  poignant  effects.  There  is  all  the  in- 
tensity of  Donne  in  Departure  and  as  Gosse  has  remarked, 
there  is  much  of  Donne's  spirit  in  the  poet's  grief  that  he 
heard  no  last  good-bye;  this  afflicts  him  even  more  than  the 
thought  of  her  death : 

"  But  all  at  once  to  leave  me  at  the  last. 
More  at  the  wonder  than  the  loss  aghast. 
With  huddled,  unintelligible  phrase. 
And  frightened  eye. 
And  go  your  journey  of  all  days 
With  not  one  kiss,  or  a  good-bye. 

And  the  only  loveless  look  the  look  with  which  you  passed: 
'Twas  all  unlike  your  great  and  gracious  ways."^ 

Our  quotations  have  shown  the  peculiar  structure  of  his 
odes,  as  irregular  as  any  Pindaric  but  much  more  compact. 
Gosse  finds  in  them  a  resemblance  to  the  Italian  canzone, 
though  in  reading  them  we  miss  both  the  song  quality  and 
the  beauty  of  phrase  of  the  Italian.  At  times  harsh  in  dic- 
tion and  grotesque  in  imagery,  they  have  a  sincerity  of  feel- 
ing and  a  strength  of  tone  that  is  all  too  rare  in  the  lyric 
of  the  present  day. 

1  P.  287. 

2  P.  285. 


60i  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

William  Barnes  (1801-1886)  was  a  Dorsetshire  clergy- 
man. Self-educated,  devoted  to  the  history  and  traditions 
of  his  shire,  he  was  even  better  known  as  a  philologist  than 
as  an  antiquarian.  Above  all  else,  he  valued  the  dialect  of 
Dorset,  pointing  out  with  pride  its  superiority  of  vocabulary 
and  construction  over  English,  of  which  it  is  a  distinct  branch 
and  not  a  corruption,  and  in  Dorsetshire  speech  he  composed 
his  best  work.  He  published  in  1868  Poems  of  Rural  Life, 
in  Common  English,  but  the  collection  as  a  whole  is  thin  in 
quality  though  it  contained  such  lyrics  as  The  Mother's 
Dream  (worthy  of  Blake),  The  Wind  at  the  Door,  Joy  Pass- 
ing by,  and  Plorata  Veris  Lachrymis  which  has  the  simplicity 
of  Cowper: 

"  How  can  I  live  my  lonesome  days.'' 
How  can  I  tread  my  lonesome  ways  ? 
How  can  I  take  my  lonesome  meal? 
Or  how  outlive  the  grief  I  feel? 
Or  how  again  look  on  to  weal? 
Or  sitj  at  rest^  before  the  heat 
Of  winter  fires^  to  miss  thy  feet. 

When  evening  light  is  waning  ?"'^ 

Sprung  from  the  soil,  Barnes  thoroughly  understood  the 
Dorset  peasant.  He  aimed  to  reproduce  not  only  his  lan- 
guage, but  the  turn  of  his  mind  and  his  very  emotions,  and 
he  succeeded.  The  metres  of  the  poems  are  too  skillfully 
handled  to  suggest  peasant  song.  Barnes  is  fond  of  employ- 
ing the  refrain,  that  favorite  device  of  folk  poetry,  and  the 
ones  he  uses  are  the  very  simplest,  "When  birds  be  still," 
"Moonlight  on  the  door,"  "Sleep  did  come  wi'  the  dew,"  but 
there  is  little  of  the  uncouth  swain  in  his  rhythms.  In  the 
content  of  his  verse  and  in  his  language,  Barnes  is  a  realist 
of  the  highest  order;  his  poems  are  the  truest  pastorals  of 
the  century. 

1  P.  197. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  505 

This  is  to  infer  that  these  lyrics  of  peasant  life  have  a 
limited  range.  Unlike  the  Corydons  of  Elizabethan  pastoral, 
these  farmers  hold  no  literary  or  religious  discussions ;  they 
have  no  great  ambitions,  but  are  contented  with  "their 
destiny  obscure."  They  enjoy  the  flowers  and  the  fields; 
they  appreciate  the  physical  comforts  of  their  homes;  they 
fall  in  love ;  they  weep  over  the  dead.  The  simplicity  of 
these  poems  is  equalled  by  their  sincerity  of  tone;  the  poet 
does  not  obtrude  himself  to  explain  or  to  moralise  but  seems 
to  be  recording  songs  he  has  overheard.  He  is  most  effective 
in  his  pensive  moods : 

"  We  now  mid  hope  vor  better  cheer,  (may  hope) 
My  smilen  wife  o'  twice  vive  year. 
Let  others  frown,  if  thou  bist  near 

Wi'  hope  upon  thy  brow,  Jeane; 
Vor  I  vu'st  lov'd  thee  when  thy  Ught 
Young  sheape  vu'st  grew  to  woman's  hight; 
I  loved  thee  near,  an'  out  o'  zight. 
An'  I  do  love  thee  now,  Jeane."'^ 

There  is  nothing  of  the  ardor  of  Bums  in  this ;  although  the 
two  poets  have  been  compared,  their  natures  were  essen- 
tially different. 

The  majority  of  writers  use  dialect  as  a  mere  ornament; 
with  Barnes,  it  is  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  his  verse.  For- 
tunately, as  our  quotation  shows,  the  Dorset  speech  offers 
no  difficulties  that  might  hinder  the  reader  from  enjoying 
this  "genuine,  original,  exquisite  Singer." 

VI 

We  have  saved  for  the  closing  pages  of  the  chapter  two 
writers  of  light  verse.  Whatever  definition  we  may  hold  of 
poetry,  we  certainly  believe  it  must  give  pleasure.     Judged 

1 T.  Hardy,  Select  Poems  of  William  Barnes,  London,  1908,  p.  23. 


606  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

by  this  standard,  the  Lyra  Frivola  which  has  ever  added  to 
the  enjoyment  of  life,  deserves,  if  we  may  use  the  phrase, 
our  serious  consideration. 

In  his  anthology  of  light  verse,  Lyra  Elegantiarwm, 
Locker-Lampson,  has  given  the  best  definition  of  this  genre. 
"Genuine  vers  de  societe  and  vers  d'occasion  should  be  short, 
elegant,  refined,  and  fanciful,  not  seldom  distinguished  by 
chastened  sentiment,  and  often  playful.  The  tone  should 
not  be  pitched  high ;  it  should  be  idiomatic,  and  rather  in  the 
conversational  key ;  the  rhythm  should  be  crisp  and  sparkling 
and  the  rhyme  frequent  and  never  forced,  while  the  entire 
poem  should  be  marked  by  tasteful  moderation,  high  finish, 
and  completeness:  for,  however  trivial  the  subject-matter 
may  be,  indeed  rather  in  proportion  to  its  triviality,  subordi- 
nation to  the  rules  of  composition  and  perfection  of  execu- 
tion should  be  strictly  enforced The  two  qualities  of 

brevity  and  buoyancy  are  absolutely  essential The 

chief  merit  of  vers  de  societe  is,  that  it  should  seem  to  be 
entirely  spontaneous.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  right  to  observe 
that  this  absence  of  effort,  as  recognized  in  most  works  of 
real  excellence,  is  only  apparent ;  the  writing  of  vers  de  societe 
is  a  difficult  accomplishment."  The  writer  of  light  verse 
must  express  his  sentiment,  his  wit,  his  emotion,  in  a  careless 
tone  but  in  the  most  finished  form.  He  assumes  a  nonchalance 
that  he  does  not  feel.  Humor  is  no  essential  element  in  this 
genre;  indeed,  light  verse  is  more  prone  to  cause  a  sigh  than 
a  smile. 

Locker-Lampson  observes  that  though  many  poets  have 
attempted  to  compose  light  verse,  they  have  produced  little 
that  deserves  remembrance.  We  notice  that  anthologists  are 
compelled  to  eke  out  their  collections  with  poems  that  are 
anything  but  vers  de  societe.  The  latest  book  of  light  verse 
reprints  Sidney's  "Loving  in  truth,  and  fain  in  verse  my  love 
to  show";  Shakespeare's  sonnet,  "Who  will  believe  my  verse 
in  time  to  come";  Jonson's  "Drink  to  me  only  with  thine 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  607 

eyes";  Lovelace's  To  Althea  and  To  Lucasta;  Herrick's  To 
Dianeme  and  To  Meadows;  Blake's  To  the  Muses  and  "Never 
seek  to  tell  thy  love";  Wordsworth's  The  Tables  Turned; 
Browning's  The  Lost  Mistress}  Not  one  of  these  lyrics  has 
the  qualities  of  light  verse ;  either  their  emotion  is  too  strong, 
their  thoughts  too  far-reaching,  or  their  art  too  elevated. 
Typical  examples  of  light  verse  are  Prior's  "Dear  Chloe, 
how  blubbered  is  that  pretty  face" ;  Gray's  Ode  on  the  Death 
of  a  Favourite  Cat;  Cowper's  Gratitude;  Praed's  Letter  of 
Advice;  and  to  come  to  the  period  we  are  considering,  the 
poems  of  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  (1811-1863)  and 
of  Frederick  Locker-Lampson  (1821-1895). 

The  light  verse  of  Thackeray  possesses  the  qualities  which 
Locker-Lampson  demanded,  save  one.  His  poems  are  con- 
versational in  tone,  they  touch  the  emotions  lightly,  but  they 
are  not  remarkable  for  their  finish,  though  they  are  not 
carelessly  written.  In  Bouillabaisse,  the  poet  sitting  in  a 
Paris  restaurant,  an  old  haunt  of  his  student  days,  recalls 
his  lost  friends.  It  is  the  same  theme  that  Lamb  has  touched 
in  The  Old  Familiar  Faces,  a  poem  too  serious,  too  pathetic 
for  society  verse;  in  Thackeray's  lines  the  poet's  reveries  of 
"the  kind  old  voices  and  old  faces"  can  not  turn  to  melan- 
choly, for  "Here  comes  the  smoking  Bouillabaisse."  In  The 
Cane-Bottomed  Chair,  an  unhappy  romance  is  lightly 
sketched.  We  are  taken  to  the  bachelor's  lodgings  beneath 
the  chimney-pots  and  are  shown  his  curios  and  belongings,  the 
most  precious  of  all  being  "a  bandy-legged,  high-shouldered, 
worm-eaten  seat."  It  was  here  that  "Saint  Fanny,  my 
patroness  sweet"  once  sat: 

"  It  was  but  a  moment  she  sat  in  this  place, 
She'd  a  scarf  on  her  neck,  and  a  smile  on  her  face ! 
A  smile  on  her  face,  and  a  rose  in  her  hair, 
And  she  sat  there,  and  bloomed  in  my  cane-bottomed  chair. 

1  R.  M.  Leonard,  A  Book  of  Light  Verse,  Oxford,  1910. 


508  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  When  the  candles  burn  low^  and  the  company's  gone, 
In  the  silence  of  night  as  I  sit  here  alone — 
I  sit  here  alone,  but  we  yet  are  a  pair — 
My  Fanny  I  see  in  my  cane-bottomed  chair. 

"  She  comes  from  the  past  and  revisits  my  room; 
She  looks  as  she  then  did,  all  beauty  and  bloom; 
So  smiling  and  tender,  so  fresh  and  so  fair. 
And  yonder  she  sits  in  my  cane-bottomed  chair." 

In  his  Letters  to  Dead  Authors,  Andrew  Lang  calls  Thack- 
eray the  first  of  English  writers  of  light  verse,  but  consider- 
ing the  small  number  of  poems  he  has  given  us,  this  is  over- 
praise. What  little  we  have  shows  a  fine  and  generous  spirit 
and  a  feeling  that  never  verges  on  sentimentality.  For  more 
such  lines  we  would  willingly  exchange  many  pages  from  the 
novels. 

Locker-Lampson  writes  with  the  utmost  regard  for  form 
and  finish ;  every  epithet,  every  rhyme  is  well  considered,  and 
in  this  small  realm  of  verse  he  is  a  thorough  artist.  His 
London  Lyrics  have  more  wit  and  humor  than  Thackeray's 
poems,  for  such  broad  burlesques  as  The  Ballads  of  Police- 
man X  do  not  concern  us.  Piccadilly,  Pali  Mall,  Rotten 
Row  are  his  Elysian  fields,  and  he  delights  in  the  comedy  of 
Vanity  Fair: 

"  Philosophy  halts,  wisest  counsels  are  vain. 
We  go,  we  repent,  we  return  there  again; 
To-night  you  will  certainly  meet  with  us  there — 
So  come  and  be  merry  in  Vanity  Fair  !"^ 

yet  there  is  nothing  of  Worldly-Wiseman  in  his  spirit.  He 
is  ever  on  the  borderland  of  romance,  and  tenderness,  even 
pathos,  is  not  far  distant  when  he  writes  of  The  Government 
Clerk  or  The  Widow's  Mite.     If  it  is  but  a  step  from  the 

1  London  Lyrics,  7th  ed.,  1874,  p.  33. 


NINETEENTH  CENTURY  LYRIC  509 

sublime  to  the  ridiculous,  it  is  but  half  a  step  from  laughter 
to  tears. 

Thackeray's  Cane-Bottomed  Chair  has  its  counterpart  in 
My  Neighbour  Rose. 

"  Though  walls  but  thin  our  hearths  divide. 
We're  strangers  dwelling  side  by  side; 
How  gaily  all  your  days  must  glide 

Unvex'd  by  labour ! 
I've  seen  you  weep,  and  could  have  wept; 
I've  heard  you  sing,  (and  might  have  slept!) 
Sometimes  I  hear  your  chimney  swept. 

My  charming  neighbour ! 

The  poet  watches  her  grow  from  girlhood  to  womanhood ;  he 
sees  from  his  window  the  coming  of  her  hero, 

"joyous  twenty- two, 
Who  sent  bouquets  and  billets  doux. 
And  wore  a  sabre," 

and  finally  her  wedding  procession : 

"  What  change  in  one  short  afternoon, 
My  own  dear  neighbour  gone, — so  soon ! 
Is  yon  pale  orb  her  honey-moon 

Slow  rising  hither? 
Lady!  so  wan  and  marvellous. 
How  often  have  we  communed  thus ; 
Sweet  memory  shall  dwell  with  us, — 
And  joy  go  with  her!"^ 
IP.  63. 


CHAPTER  TEN 
The  Lyeic  of  To-Day 


Before  we  come  to  the  poets  who  continue  to-day  the  suc- 
cession of  lyrists,  we  turn  to  a  group  of  writers  who  have 
died  but  recently  and  whose  works  belong  distinctly  to  the 
present. 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1850-1894)  told  in  prose  what 
might  well  have  been  expressed  in  poetry.  He  recorded  in 
his  essays  and,  above  all,  in  his  familiar  letters  the  questions 
and  decisions,  the  discouragements  and  enthusiasms  which 
so  often  have  inspired  lyric  verse.  If  all  Stevenson's  writ- 
ings, excepting  his  correspondence,  were  to  be  destroyed, 
his  place  among  the  English  classics  would  be  secure.  His 
letters  possess  the  highest  charm  of  style,  a  delightful  fas- 
cination in  their  self-portraiture,  and  an  intense  human 
interest.  We  accept  them  gratefully,  and  yet  we  can  not 
refrain  from  wishing  that  he  had  turned  more  frequently 
to  song. 

It  is  needless  to  enlarge  upon  Stevenson's  consummate  art, 
his  dramatic  instinct,  his  child-hke  love  of  life.  Madame 
Zassetsky's  remark  to  him — "mais  c'est  que  vous  etes  tout 
simplement  enfant" — was  literally  true ;  he  was  fitted  by 
nature  to  write  the  finest  child  lyrics  in  the  language. 
Although  songs  of  childhood  had  been  composed  before, 
Stevenson's  work  is  thoroughly  original.  Marvell  and  Prior 
pay  courtly  compliments  to  a  beautiful  girl;  Stevenson  does 
not  tell  us  how  a  child  looks,  but  what  it  thinks  and  feels. 
Earlier  poets  had  seen  in  childhood  the  age  of  innocency ; 
they  looked  regretfully  on  their  "angel  days,"  and  con- 
trasted them  sorrowfully  with  the  darkened  present.     Steven- 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  511 

son  never  treated  youth  as  a  foil  to  age.  Other  writers  had 
given  to  children  a  deep  though  unconscious  spiritual  appre- 
hension ;  with  Vaughan  the  child  spies  heaven  in  a  flower ; 
with  Blake  it  finds  a  symbol  in  a  lamb.  Stevenson  is  truer 
to  life. 

We  are  all  in  turn  romanticist  and  realist.  In  The  Child's 
Garden  of  Verses  we  find  the  contrast  between  the  matter- 
of-fact  and  the  imaginative  view  of  life.  The  poet  under- 
stood perfectly  the  tendency  of  a  child's  mind  to  link  the 
small  and  great : 

"  It  rains  on  the  umbrellas  here. 
And  on  the  ships  at  sea;" 

he  is  a  realist  as  he  describes  the  child's  intense  delight  in 
the  flowers,  the  trees,  and  the  wind.  When  the  imagination 
moves  him,  the  boy  does  not  dream  of  heaven,  but  is  perfectly 
content  to  make  a  boat  of  the  bed,  a  ship  of  the  stairs.  In 
every  line  is  the  zest  of  childhood,  for  Stevenson  disdained 
to  mar  the  golden  age  with  a  touch  of  pathos,  although 
greater  poets  have  done  this.  Many  writers  would  have  given 
a  different  ending  to  The  Sick  Child  in  Underwoods.  As  the 
thoughts  in  these  lyrics  are  those  of  children — not  one  is 
beyond  their  reach — so  is  the  language,  with  scarcely  a 
phrase  which  a  child  does  not  use  naturally.  The  art  dis- 
played in  the  diction  is  shown  also  in  the  metres ;  The  Swing, 
Bed  in  Summer,  Where  go  the  boats.  My  bed  is  a  boat,  are 
constantly  set  to  music,  for  they  are  pure  song. 

In  his  other  lyrics,  Stevenson  writes  with  the  same  clear, 
simple  style,  with  the  same  indefinable  charm.  There  are  no 
flights  of  imagination  or  passion  in  his  love  songs,  in  "I  will 
make  you  brooches  and  toys  for  your  delight"  or  Youth  and 
Love;  there  are  no  deep  ponderings  on  life  or  nature  in  a 
Song  of  the  Road  or  A  Visit  from  the  Sea;  even  when  he 
writes  of  his  own  moods,  as  in  the  exquisite  "Sing  me  a  song 
of  a  lad  that  is  gone,"  the  emotion  has  little  in  common  with 


512  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  outpourings  of  the  romantic  school.  These  lyrics,  written 
with  no  stirring  appeal,  linger  in  the  memory  when  many 
greater  songs  are  forgotten.  At  times  Stevenson  recalls 
Herrick,  as  in  the  envoy  to  Underwoods;  in  many  poems  he 
reminds  us  of  MarveU's  "witty  delicacy";  but  in  his  finest 
lyric  there  is  hardly  a  note  caught  from  English  or  Scottish 
singer.  His  Requiem  is  such  a  triumph  of  simplicity  that 
every  word  seems  inevitable.  In  this  unadorned  style  Word- 
worth  himself  wrote  nothing  more  moving  and,  knowing 
Stevenson's  nature,  we  may  say  nothing  more  true. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  simpHcity  and  buoyancy  of  Steven- 
son's verses  to  the  poems  of  Oscar  Wilde  (1854-1900)  and 
Ernest  Dowson  (1867-1900).  Modem  life  continually  sur- 
prises us  with  its  studies  in  contrast,  yet  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  anything  further  separated  from  the  Child's  Garden 
than  the  fleurs  de  mal  of  these  two  poets.  Dowson's  nature 
was  the  more  lyrical,  but  Wilde  had  by  far  the  stronger  and 
the  more  brilliant  personality  and  we  shall  consider  him  first. 

Wilde's  most  characteristic  work  was  done  in  prose,  in  his 
frankly  artificial  comedies,  masterpieces  of  sheer  cleverness, 
and  in  his  greatest  piece  of  writing,  De  Profundis,  the 
requiem  of  a  ruined  life.  His  verse  shows  neither  the  wit 
and  art  of  his  plays,  nor  the  pathos,  the  tragic  depths  of 
his  confession.  In  his  earliest  poems  he  followed  a  well- 
beaten  path  when  he  wrote  of  Italy,  but  his  best  work,  espe- 
cially in  his  sonnets,  describes  not  the 

"  purple  mist  and  gleam 
Of  morning  on  the  Apennines," 

but  the  gloom  in  his  own  soul.  In  a  typical  sonnet,  Easter 
Day,  he  draws  two  pictures,  one  of  the  "Holy  Lord  of 
Rome"  borne  in  splendor  through  the  crowds,  the  other  of 

"  One  who  wandered  by  a  lonely  sea. 
And  sought  in  vain  for  any  place  of  rest."^ 
i  Poems  by  Oscar  Wilde,  London,  1892,  p.  50. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  BIS 

The  lines  are  picturesque,  the  phrasing  is  admirable,  yet 
we  can  not  help  feeling  that  what  chiefly  interested  Wilde 
was  a  striking  contrast.  In  much  of  his  poetry  the  art  is 
too  evident,  yet  there  is  the  ring  of  sincerity  in  E  Tenebris 
when  he  writes : 

"  My  heart  is  as  some  famine-murdered  land, 

Whence  all  good  things  have  perished  utterly, 
And  well  I  know  my  soul  in  HeU  must  lie 
If  I  this  night  before  God's  throne  should  stand."' 

or  in  another  sonnet  in  which  he  cries  out  against  himself 
because  his  life  is  scrawled  with  idle  songs  when  he  might 
have  trodden  the  heights  and  "struck  one  clear  chord  to 
reach  the  ears  of  God."  Equally  sincere  is  Requiescat, 
whose  six  stanzas  combine  the  grace  of  Herrick  with  the 
more  intense  note  of  modern  song: 

"  Tread  lightly,  she  is  near 
Under  the  snow. 
Speak  gently,  she  can  hear 
The  daisies  grow. 

"  CofBn-board,  heavy  stone. 
Lie  on  her  breast, 
I  vex  my  heart  alone. 
She  is  at  rest."^ 

The  downfall  of  Wilde  produced  both  his  greatest  piece 
of  prose  and  his  greatest  poem.  The  Ballad  of  Reading 
Gaol  bears  the  stamp  of  genius.  It  is  the  most  terrifying 
poem  of  the  century.  We  go  back  to  the  Elizabethans,  to 
the  scene  between  Othello  and  Desdemona  in  the  fourth  act 
of  the  drama,  to  find  such  shuddering  fear,  such  a  laying 
bare  of  the  brutaUty  of  life.     To  match  its  realism,  we  must 

ip.  51. 

2  P.  37. 


5U  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

turn  to  the  Russian  novel.  There  is  a  grim  irony  in  the 
poem  when  we  remember  that  its  ballad  metre  was  employed 
by  Rossetti  in  The  Blessed  Damozel.  Here  are  no  dreams 
of  Paradise,  not  even  a  ray  of  sunlight,  but  on  horror's 
head  horrors  accumulated.  As  a  whole,  this  ballad  can  not 
be  brought  within  our  field  of  study,  yet  throughout  it  the 
feehng  is  so  intense  that  the  poet  can  not  restrain  himself 
to  a  bald  narration  of  the  tragedy.  The  "lyric  cry"  has 
become  a  hackneyed  phrase,  yet  for  certain  passages  in  this 
poem,  it  is  the  only  one  to  use. 

"  In  Reading  gaol  by  Reading  town 
There  is  a  pit  of  shame. 
And  in  it  lies  a  wretched  man 

Eaten  by  teeth  of  flame, 
In  a  burning  winding-sheet  he  lies, 
And  his  grave  has  got  no  name. 

"  And  there,  till  Christ  call  forth  the  dead. 

In  silence  let  him  lie: 
No  need  to  waste  the  foolish  tear, 

Or  heave  the  windy  sigh: 
The  man  had  killed  the  thing  he  loved, 

And  so  he  had  to  die. 

"  And  aU  men  kill  the  thing  they  love. 

By  all  let  this  be  heard. 
Some  do  it  with  a  bitter  look. 

Some  with  a  flattering  word. 
The  coward  does  it  with  a  kiss. 

The  brave  man  with  a  sword  l"^ 

In  his  sympathetic  memoir  of  Dowson,  Symons  declares 
that  the  poet  was  undoubtedly  a  man  of  genius,  yet  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  time  will  confirm  this  friendly  estimate. 

1  The  Ballad  of  Beading  Gaol,  London,  1898,  p.  31. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  515 

After  a  short  residence  at  Oxford,  Dowson  passed  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  in  France  and  the  influence  of  French  poetry 
is  perceptible  in  all  his  work.  His  master  is  Verlaine;  we 
should  know  it  even  though  Dowson  had  never  translated 
one  of  his  lyrics.  In  his  best  work,  Verlaine  was  a  subtle 
invoker  of  moods  and  reveries,  a  musician  who  touched  the 
emotions  rather  than  the  intellect.  By  the  harmony  of  his 
lines,  by  a  suggestion  of  some  dim-described  image  "ou 
I'imprecis  au  precis  joint,"  he  charms  rather  than  inspires 
us.  His  meaning  is  more  often  felt  than  apprehended.  Thus 
in  Clair  de  Lime  he  compares  a  woman's  soul  to  a  landscape 
fiUed  with  maskers,  playing  the  lute  and  singing,  and  in  the 
closing  stanza  he  tells  us  that  their  songs  mingle  with  the 
moon-beams : 

"  Au  calme  clair  de  lune  triste  et  beau. 

Qui  fait  rever  les  oiseaux  dans  les  arbres, 
Et  sangloter  d'extase  les  jets  d'eaux, 

Les  grands  jets  d'eau  sveltes  parmi  les  marbres." 

Every  reader  will  have  his  own  conception  of  this  woman's 
soul;  on  the  contrary,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  type 
of  woman  depicted  in  Wordworth's  "She  was  a  phantom  of 
delight."  It  is  this  power  of  Verlaine's  to  sing  a  song  that 
re-echoes  in  the  mind,  to  write  a  lyric  in  which  "more  is  meant 
than  meets  the  ear,"  that  stamps  him  a  man  of  genius.  Dow- 
son's  lyrics  are  not  so  freighted  with  suggestion.  Symons 
believes  that  "he  had  the  pure  lyric  gift,  unweighted  or  unbal- 
lasted by  any  other  quality  of  mind  or  emotion ;  and  a  song, 
for  him,  was  music  first,  and  then  whatever  you  please  after- 
wards, so  long  as  it  suggested,  never  told,  some  delicate  sen- 
timent, a  sigh  or  a  caress."^  His  music,  however,  is  too 
faint;  his  delicate  sentiments  are  not  far-reaching  in  their 

1  The  Poems  of  Ernest  Dowson.     With  a  memoir  by  Arthur  Symons, 
London,  1906,  p.  xxvi. 


616  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

appeal.  Even  when  he  translates  Verlaine,  the  force  of  the 
lyric  seems  to  vanish: 

"  Qu'as  tu  fait,  6  toi  que  voila 
Pleurant  sans  cesse, 
Dis,  qu'as  tu  fait,  toi  que  voila, 
De  ta  jeunesse?" 
becomes 

"  What  hast  thou  done,  who  comest  here. 
To  weep  alway? 
Where  hast  thou  laid,  who  comest  here. 
Thy  youth  away?"'^ 

The  magic  has  gone. 

The  theme  of  Dowson's  poetry  is  his  own  line  "Exceeding 
sorrow  consumeth  my  sad  heart."  Driven  by  a  suicidal 
impulse  to  seek  relief  from  the  tadium  vita  in  narcotic  and 
stimulant,  he  wore  his  life  away.  His  lyrics  are  the  poetry 
of  exhaustion : 

"late  I  come,  long  after  lily-time. 
With  burden  of  waste  days  and  drifted  rhyme;" 

the  verse  of  a  man 

"  tempest-tost,  and  driven  from  pillar  to  post, 
A  poor  worn  ghost." 

Nature  appears  to  him  in  her  mournful  moods ;  April  weeps 
because  she  knows  that  autumn  and  winter  will  bring  all  to 
barrenness ;  his  garden  is  a  garden  of  sorrow.  Throughout 
his  work  there  is  no  relief  and  his  last  word  is 

"  O  pray  the  earth  unfold 
Our  life-sick  hearts  and  turn  them  into  dust." 

He  sighs  rather  than  sings;  his  best  quality  is  a  plaintive 
music,  a  grace  of  expression.    If  any  of  his  lyrics  are  found 
in  the  anthology  of  this   century,  it  will  doubtless  be  his 
ip.  139. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  617 

Non  sum  qualis  eram  bonce  sub   regno  Cynarae,  for  it  is  an 
epitome  of  all  his  work: 

"  I  have  forgot  much,  Cynara !  gone  with  the  wind, 
Flung  roses,  roses  riotously  with  the  throng, 
Dancing,  to  put  thy  pale,  lost  lilies  out  of  mind; 
But  I  was  desolate  and  sick  of  an  old  passion. 

Yea,  all  the  time,  because  the  dance  was  long: 
I  have  been  faithful  to  thee,  Cynara !  in  my  fashion."^ 

Of  the  later  Victorian  poets,  William  Ernest  Henley 
(1849-1903)  was  the  greatest  personal  force.  Though  a 
cripple,  he  was  unsubdued  by  physical  suffering  and  fairly 
flung  himself  into  the  literary  and  artistic  life  of  his  day. 
London,  The  Scots  Observer,  The  New  Review,  The  Maga- 
zine of  Art,  were  all  for  a  time  under  his  management,  and 
though  he  was  unsuccessful  as  an  editor,  he  rendered  an 
invaluable  service  to  contemporary  letters  by  discovering  and 
encouraging  new  writers.  He  is  said  to  have  been  the  first 
critic  of  distinction  who  recognized  the  genius  of  Meredith; 
he  was  one  of  the  first  to  welcome  Kipling,  who  resembles 
Henley  in  many  of  his  qualities  though  he  never  equals  him. 
In  the  field  of  art,  he  fostered  and  inspired  the  critical  writ- 
ings of  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson ;  he  proved  himself  a  valiant  friend 
and  a  courageous  champion  of  Rodin.  He  ranged  over  a 
wide  field — art,  music,  the  drama,  belles-lettres— and  the 
seven  volumes  of  his  collected  writings  do  not  include  all  his 
work.  As  a  critic,  he  was  interesting  and  stimulating, 
though  too  often  governed  by  his  prejudices.  He  is  seen  at 
his  best  in  his  essay  on  Burns,  yet  his  most  penetrating 
and  vigorous  prose  does  not  possess  the  intrinsic  value  of 
his  verse;  it  is  for  his  lyric  poetry  that  Henley  will  be 
remembered. 

With  the  writers  of  his  generation,  led  by  Austin  Dobson 
and  Edmund  Gosse,  Henley  felt  the  attraction  of  French 

IP.  28. 


518  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

verse  forms.  What  Wyatt  and  Surrey  could  not  do,  our 
modern  poets  have  accomplished :  they  have  made  the  rondeau 
a  perfectly  familiar  metre,  and  we  may  say  as  much  of  the 
villanelle  and  the  ballade.  Even  the  Restoration  writers,  who 
might  be  expected  to  look  with  favor  on  all  things  French, 
cared  nothing  for  these  graceful  measures.  The  two  ron- 
deaux  of  Cotton,  the  triolets  of  Carey,  are  but  rare  excep- 
tions to  their  general  disregard  of  French  lyric  forms.  In 
1650  there  was  published  at  Paris  the  Nouveau  Recuml  de 
divers  Rondeaux,  in  two  parts.  It  did  not  inspire  imitation 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  and  not  until  quite  recently 
were  there  enough  English  rondeaux  to  form  even  a  small 
collection.  Henley's  poems  in  French  metres  are  most  suc- 
cessful. His  rondeau,  "When  you  are  old" ;  his  rondel,  "The 
ways  of  death  are  soothing  and  serene" ;  his  ballade  On  Mid- 
summer Days  and  Nights  and  the  one  of  A  Tot/okuni  Colour 
Print,  anticipating  the  Japanese  poems  of  Noyes,  have  much 
more  than  their  finish  and  their  style  to  recommend  them. 
They  do  not  show,  however,  the  real  essence  of  Henley's 
spirit. 

In  1873-1875  Henley  was  a  patient  in  the  Old  Infirmary 
of  Edinburgh.  Unsubdued  by  suffering,  he  did  not  seek  to 
escape  from  his  surroundings  by  a  flight  of  the  imagination 
but  with  senses  pretematurally  alert,  shaped  the  material  for 
In  a  Hospital,  a  startlingly  truthful  record  of  all  he  saw  and 
felt.  Many  of  the  twenty-eight  poems  in  this  series  are 
purely  descriptive,  such  as  the  well-known  sonnet  describing 
Stevenson.  There  are,  however,  a  number  of  unrhymed 
lyrics.  Operation,  Vigil,  Ave  Ccesar,  Music,  Nocturn,  Dis- 
charged, which  showed  unmistakably  a  new  genius  in  English 
song.'  This  uncompromising  realist  found  nothing  common 
or  unclean  in  the  most  dismal  experience  of  the  sick  ward; 
he  fashioned  his  verses  from  materials  that  no  one  had  used 
before.     Nothing  that  we  naturally  expect  to  find  in  lyric 

1  The  Works  of  William  Ernest  Henley,  London,  1908,  vol.  I. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  619 

verse  is  offered  to  us.  Instead  of  the  scent  of  flowers,  we 
have  the  smell  of  the  anaesthetic  reaching  "hot  and  subtle 
through  your  being";  or  when  he  is  discharged, 

"  The  smell  of  the  mud  in  my  nostrils 
Blows  brave, — like  a  breath  of  the  sea !" 

He  listens  not  to  the  song  of  birds  but  to  the  tunes  of  the 
barrel  organ  in  the  street  or  "at  the  barren  heart  of  mid- 
night," hears  the  dripping  of  a  cistern.  Other  poets  have 
felt  their  hearts  leap  up  at  beholding  the  sky  or  the  ocean ; 
for  Henley  the  "beautiful  world"  is  in  the  spell  of  the  streets, 
the  roar  of  wheels,  the  long  line  of  grey  houses.  Elsewhere 
in  his  lyrics  he  is  the  laureate  of  the  city.  He  brushes  away 
all  the  conventions  and  traditions  of  EngUsh  poetry  and  finds 
his  inspiration  in  the  very  pavements  and  the  crowds  that 
throng  them.  His  London  Volwntaries  are  so  lyrical,  so 
thrilled  with  his  spirit,  that  they  are  odes.  The  Thames,  the 
Parks,  Trafalgar  Square  in  the  glow  of  the  setting  sun,  stir 
him  as  deeply  as  Italy  affected  the  romantic  poets.  In  his 
songs  he  never  avoids  the  obvious  happenings  of  life,  the 
common  sights  and  sounds. 

"  I  took  a  hansom  on  to-day 

For  a  round  I  used  to  know — 
That  I  used  to  take  for  a  woman's  sake. 
In  a  fever  of  to-and-fro."^ 

As  we  read  the  lyric,  the  trivial  first  hne  becomes  as  full  of 
meaning  as  Sidney's 

"  Having  this  day,  my  horse,  my  hand,  my  lance 
Guided  so  well,  that  I  obtained  the  prize." 

Other  poets  have  given  us  realism  in  the  analysis  of  feeling ; 
Henley  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  most  ordinary  aspects 
of  life. 

1  Vol.  II,  p.  38. 


620  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  French  and  Russian  novelists  have  taught  us  that 
men  become  disillusioned  when  they  look  too  closely  at  life, 
when  they  see  things  as  they  are  and  not  through  the  veil  of 
fancy.  At  times  realism  has  seemed  but  another  term  for 
pessimism.  The  most  insistent  note  in  Henley  is  the  joy  of 
life;  this  is  his  "brave,  irresistible  message." 

"  '  Life  is  worth  living 

Through  every  grain  of  it, 
From  the  foundations 
To  the  last  edge 
Of  the  cornerstone,  death.'  " 

or  again: 

"  Life-life-life !     'Tis  the  sole  great  thing 
This  side  of  death."^ 

His  lyrics  fairly  tingle  with  vitality.  His  song  is  boisterous ; 
"they  shouted  it  over  the  bar,"  he  writes ;  and  surely  it  is  in 
no  quiet  mood  that  he  declares  "I  am  the  master  of  my  fate," 
or  returning  to  his  favorite  theme,  demands 

"  Life — give  me  life  until  the  end. 
That  at  the  very  top  of  being. 
The  battle-spirit  shouting  in  my  blood, 
Out  of  the  reddest  hell  of  the  fight 
I  may  be  snatched  and  flung 
Into  the  everlasting  lull. 
The  immortal  incommunicable  dream."^ 

The  calm  of  the  artist  is  not  for  him ;  there  is  a  superb  sense 
of  motion  and  of  force  in  nearly  everything  he  writes.  Such 
a  dream  as 

"  Or  ever  the  knightly  years  were  gone 
With  the  old  world  to  the  grave," 

1  Vol.  I.,  p.  219. 

2  P.  222. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  521 

has  the  same  energy  we  find  in  his  songs  of  the  present: 

"  I  saw,  I  took,  I  cast  you  by, 

I  bent  and  broke  your  pride. 
You  loved  me  well,  or  I  heard  them  lie, 

But  your  longing  was  denied. 
Surely  I  knew  that  by  and  by 

You  cursed  your  gods  and  died.""^ 

Even  in  death  he  seeks  no  sleep,  but  wishes  to  be  buried  in 
the  sea  that  he  may  roam  with  the  waves  in  "brotherly 
unrest." 

To  understand  Henley,  so  a  critic  has  affirmed,  we  must 
realize  that  his  character  was  elemental  and  essentially  primi- 
tive. Certainly  his  lyrics  reveal  no  complex  nature ;  in  many 
ways  he  was  like  a  child  and  shouted  for  joy  or  cried  for 
pain.  There  is  little  reflection  in  his  writings ;  he  does  not 
stop  to  ask  himself  why  he  has  these  emotions ;  his  songs  are 
accordingly  the  direct  and  impulsive  expression  of  his  moods 
and  passions  of  the  moment.  In  their  spirit,  they  remind 
us  of  our  earliest  English  lyrics,  of  "Winter  wakeneth  all 
my  care,"  and  kindred  poems,  for  though  their  expression 
is  more  resourceful  and  more  beautiful,  Henley's  poems  have 
the  same  outspoken  delight  in  life  and  love,  the  same  joy  in 
the  coming  of  spring.  He  likewise  resembles  our  first  lyrists, 
not  in  what  we  may  call  the  art  of  nature,  but  in  its  life. 
Though  the  poet  of  the  city  and  its  types,  he  too  longed  to 
go  a-Maying  and  sang  of  the  country.     He  loved  the  sea 

"  that  breaks  and  glooms  and  swings 
A  weltering,  glittering  plain;" 

he  believed  that  the  earth  "utters  her  joy  in  a  million  ways," 
and  he  heard  it : 

iP.  171. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  The  nightingale  has  a  lyre  of  gold. 
The  lark's  is  a  clarion  call. 
And  the  blackbird  plays  but  a  boxwood  flute. 
But  I  love  him  best  of  all. 

"  For  his  song  is  all  of  the  joy  of  life. 

And  we  in  the  mad,  spring  weather. 
We  too  have  listened  till  he  sang 
Our  hearts  and  lips  together."^ 

He  catches  in  a  phrase  the  bit  of  sky  or  field,  the  moving 
cloud  or  bird  that  delights  him : 

'^'  Gulls  in  an  aery  morrice 

Circle  and  swoop  and  close." 

He  is  always  the  lyric  poet  and  what  he  sees  is  not  so  impor- 
tant as  what  he  feels. 

Henley  believed  in  the  joy  of  life  and  he  lived  his  creed; 
he  never  allowed  disappointment,  pain,  or  even  death  to 
daunt  him.  He  bids  us  praise  the  "generous  gods"  for 
giving  "unto  all  the  joy  of  life";  he  tells  us  that  the  very 
sun  seems  glad  to  shine  and  that  life  should  thrill  us  with 
its  bounty.  The  song  he  would  have  made  of  himself  when 
he  is  dead  must  tell  that 

"  early  and  late. 
Glad  ran  the  days  with  me."^ 

When  his  task  is  accomplished  and  he  is  gathered  to  the 
quiet  west,  there  will  be  in  his  heart  "some  late  lark  singing." 
Yet  he  felt  the  desolation  of  sorrow.  There  are  no  more 
pathetic  lines  in  recent  poetry  than  the  epilogue  to  his  wife, 
picturing  his  lost  child  calling  to  him  across  the  grave. 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  142. 

2  Vol.  II,  p.  58. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  62S 

In  one  of  his  most  ringing  poems,  Henley  appeals  to  us  to 

"  Think  on  the  shame  of  dreams  for  deeds, 
The  scandal  of  unnatural  strife. 
The  slur  upon  immortal  needs. 
The  treason  done  to  life."^ 

No  such  reproach  could  be  laid  at  his  door ;  he  found  himself 
and  his  own  message.  Whatever  impulse  he  may  have 
received  from  Heine  and  Whitman,  with  whom  he  has  been 
compared  frequently,  he  is  one  of  our  most  individual  poets. 
If  we  consider  their  variety,  he  has  written  the  finest  un- 
rhymed  lyrics  in  the  language;  he  has  sounded  a  protest 
against  the  over-refinement  and  artificiality  of  modem  verse ; 
he  has  enlarged  the  scope  of  the  lyric.  His  songs,  musical, 
true  in  feeling,  vivid  yet  simple  in  expression,  are  not  as  he 
called  them 

"  Poor  windlestraws 
On  the  great,  sullen,  roaring  pool  of  Time 
And  Chance  and  Change."^ 

They  are  rather  those  enduring  monuments  of  which  many 
lyrists  have  spoken  but  which  very  few  have  ever  reared. 

All  that  Henley  represented  made  little  or  no  appeal  to 
Francis  Thompson  (1859-1907).  He  had  known  the  life  of 
the  city  streets  and  the  memories  of  that  "night-mare  time" 
haunted  him,  yet  he  seldom  pictures  it  in  his  poetry.  When 
he  writes  of  London,  he  sees  not  the  men  and  women  that 
stirred  Henley's  imagination,  but  a  Jacob's  ladder  "Pitched 
between  Heaven  and  Charing  Cross."  Thus  he  never  throws 
himself  into  the  life  about  him,  but  seeks  to  escape  it  for  a 
world  of  dreams  and  high  imaginings.  He  is  a  poet,  to  quote 
his  own  line,  who  "lives  detached  days."  If  his  early  career 
was  unfortunate,  he  was  peculiarly  happy,  as  his  genius  was 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  215. 

2  P.  239. 


52^.  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

unfolding,  in  being  received  into  a  home  devoted  to  art  and 
letters.  The  names  of  Wilfrid  and  Alice  Meynell  are  forever 
linked  with  his,  for  without  their  friendship  and  inspiration 
it  is  doubtful  whether  his  spirit  would  have  found  utterance. 
The  first  page  of  Thompson  that  one  opens  discloses  a 
highly  artificial  diction.  He  is  an  avowed  beauty-worshipper 
but  never  content  with  the  beauty  in  the  obvious  or  common- 
place : 

"  I  disdain 
To  count  the  beauty  worth  my  wish  or  gain 
Which  the  dull  daily  fool  can  covet  or  obtain."^ 

This  is  seen  at  once  in  his  language.  He  is  a  seeker  of 
gorgeous  phrases ;  what  Sir  Thomas  Browne  was  in  prose, 
he  is  in  verse.  Keats,  we  remember,  looked  upon  fine  phrases 
as  a  lover,  but  his  greater  art  kept  him  from  that  fantastic 
revel  of  sound  in  which  the  modern  poet  too  frequently 
indulges.  There  could  be  no  sharper  contrast  possible  than 
exists  between  Keats's  exquisite  picture  of  autumn  "sitting 
careless  on  a  granary  floor,"  and  the  personification  that 
Thompson  offers  us : 

"  Tanned  maiden !  with  cheeks  like  apples  russet. 

And  breast  a  brown  agaric  faint-flushing  at  tip, 
And  a  mouth  too  red  for  the  moon  to  buss  it 
But  her  cheek  unvow  its  vestalship; 
Thy  mists  enclip 
Her  steel-clear  circuit  illuminous, 
Until  it  crust 
Rubiginous 
With  the  glorious  gules  of  a  glowing  rust."^ 

He  compares  his  poetry  to  a  treasure  galleon  and  the  simile 
is  an  apt  one,  for  he  has  plundered  the  riches  of  the  older 

1  Selected  Poems  of  Francis  Thompson.     With  a  Biographical  Note 
by  Wilfrid  Meynell,  London,  1909,  p.  43. 

2  P.  64. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  525 

poets  and  made  them  his  own.  At  times  he  takes  the  whole 
measure  and  Drayton's  Shepherd's  Sirena  becomes  his  Car- 
rier Song;  at  other  times  he  has  caught  merely  a  striking 
epithet.  Yet  though  his  diction  is  over-elaborate  and  his 
thoughts  correspondingly  involved,  back  of  it  all  is  the  ever- 
compelling  force  of  his  feeling.  This  seems  paradoxical  yet 
so  is  the  appearance  of  such  a  spirit,  a  greater  Crashaw, 
in  this  day  of  realism,  this  age  that  prizes  action  above  the 
dream. 

No  description  of  Thompson's  style  can  do  it  justice.  He 
may  remind  us  at  times  of  Spenser,  of  Donne,  of  Crashaw, 
of  Rossetti,  yet  his  manner  is  distinctly  individual.  He  loves 
the  pomp  and  pageantry  of  language.  He  employs  the  con- 
ceit, as  did  the  metaphysical  poets,  but  his  diction  is  more 
magnificent  than  theirs  : 

"  When,  like  the  back  of  a  gold-mailed  saurian 

Heaving  its  slow  length  from  Nilotic  slime, 
The  first  long  gleaming  fissure  rmis  Aurorian 
Athwart  the  yet  dun  firmament  of  prime.  "^ 

A  better  example  is  offered  by  The  Poppy : 

"  Summer  set  lip  to  earth's  bosom  bare. 
And  left  the  flushed  print  in  a  poppy  there: 
Like  a  yawn  of  fire  from  the  grass  it  came, 
And  the  fanning  wind  puffed  it  to  flapping  flame. 

"  With  burnt  mouth  red  like  a  lion's  it  drank 
The  blood  of  the  sun  as  he  slaughtered  sank. 
And  dipped  its  cup  in  the  purpurate  shine 
When  the  eastern  conduits  ran  with  wine."^ 

He  writes  often  of  nature  but  we  are  more  interested  in  what 
he  thinks  he  sees,  than  in  the  sky  or  the  landscape  spread 
before  him.     His  style  is  at  its  best  not  when  he  seeks  to 

ip.  22. 
2  P.  3. 


526  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

reproduce  the  aspects  of  the  outer  world  but  when  he  ex- 
presses thoughts  and  feelings  so  high  or  subtle  that  they 
would  seem  to  defy  speech  or  when  self-confession  impels  a 
more  direct  manner.  To  see  this,  one  has  only  to  read  those 
superb  lines  from  Sister  Songs  describing  the  child-woman: 

"  Wild  Dryad !  all  unconscious  of  thy  tree. 

With  which  indissolubly 
The  tyrannous  time  shall  one  day  make  thee  whole; 
Whose  frank  arms  pass  unfettered  through  its  bole: 

Who  wear'st  thy  femineity 
Light  as  entrailed  blossoms,  that  shall  find 
It  erelong  silver  shackles  unto  thee. 
Thou  whose  young  sex  is  yet  but  in  thy  soul ; — 

As  hoarded  in  the  vine 
Hangs  the  gold  skins  of  undelirious  wine, 
As  air  sleeps,  till  it  toss  its  limbs  in  breeze : — 

In  whom  the  mystery,  which  lures  and  sunders, 

Grapples  and  thrusts  apart,  endears,  estranges, 
— The  dragon  to  its  own  Hesperides — 

Is  gated  under  slow-revolving  changes. 
Manifold  doors  of  heavy-hinged  years. ""^ 

Equally  beautiful,  and  more  moving  because  of  the  personal 
appeal,  is  the  passage  from  the  same  poem  in  which  he  speaks 
of  his  outcast  days  when  he 

"  endured  through  watches  of  the  dark 
The  abashless  inquisition  of  each  star," 

or  his  description  of  himself  and  of  his  fears  in  the  Lines  to 
the  Dead  Cardinal. 

There  are  obvious  dangers  in  employing  such  a  style.  To 
use  the  poet's  own  phrase,  "My  figured  descant  hides  the 
simple  theme";  there  is  little  song  quality  in  these  odes, 
though  there  is  music.  As  Narcissus  became  enamored  of 
his  own  image,  so  the  poet  is  led  astray  by  the  sound  of  his 

1  P.  26. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  527 

own  voice.  Thompson  was  an  ascetic,  the  gospel  of  renun- 
ciation was  the  word  heaven  spoke  to  him,  but  there  is  no 
austerity  in  his  verse.  Though  admiring  it,  we  weary  of  its 
elaborate  imagery,  of  its  revelry  of  color,  of  its  "gong  and 
cymbals'  din,"  and,  to  quote  Watson  again,  we  crave  "a  living 
voice,  a  natural  tone."  Such  a  keen  critic  of  nineteenth  cen- 
tury literature  as  Professor  Walker  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
question  whether  in  the  end  Thompson's  Hoimd  of  Heaven 
will  have  the  appeal  of  Daisy,  one  of  his  simplest  poems, 
almost  Wordsworthian  in  tone  yet  nearer  our  own  time  in  its 
touch  of  mysticism,  its  far-reaching  hints  of  loss  and  hope: 

"  The  fairest  things  have  fleetest  end: 
Their  scent  survives  their  close. 
But  the  rose's  scent  is  bitterness 
To  him  that  loved  the  rose ! 

"  She  went  her  unremembering  way. 
She  went,  and  left  in  me 
The  pang  of  all  the  partings  gone, 
And  partings  yet  to  be."^ 

We  have  called  Thompson  a  greater  Crashaw  and  indeed 
he  surpasses  him  in  brilliancy  of  technique  as  well  as  in  the 
significance  of  his  thought.  He  has  something  of  the  earlier 
poet's  morbid  spirit.  He  feels  the  call  of  the  world  yet  he  is 
forbidden  to  enjoy  it;  he  is  to  be  beauty's  hermit,  gazing 
from  a  cell  on  distant  loveliness ;  he  believes  that  life  unshared 
was  ordained  him  that  through  pain  of  loneliness  his  song 
might  be  sweeter.  Yet  with  Crashaw,  he  dreams  of  a  sup- 
posed mistress,  but  without  his  calm  of  vision ;  with  Spenser, 
beauty  is  a  religion  to  him,  yet  he  has  nothing  of  Spenser's 
serenity.  In  his  moods  of  dejection,  like  Donne  he  thinks 
of  his  grave  and  shakes  to  the  wind  that  waves  the  grass 
upon  it.     He  has  not  fought  his  way  to  the  heights  from 

iP.  2. 


ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

which  he  can  look  down  with  contempt  on  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world.  An  American  critic  has  remarked  that  the  poet's 
distress  "is  aggravated  at  once  by  the  impatience  and  uncer- 
tainty of  his  faith,  impatient  in  its  clamour  for  the  heavenly 
rapture,  uncertain  whether  this  rapture  is  to  be  obtained 
by  a  repudiation  of  the  flesh  or  'by  that  embrace  of  the  body 
and  spirit,  Seen  and  Unseen,'  as  he  calls  it."^  Nowhere  is 
this  so  poignantly  expressed  as  in  those  stanzas  in  which  he 
asks  whether  his  great  desires  are  "food  but  for  nether 
fires,"  whether  he  must  finally 

"  Through  sacrificial  tears, 
And  anchoretic  years. 
Tryst 
With  the  sensualist  ?" 

This  conflict  between  things  temporal  and  things  eternal, 
between  man  and  God,  is  most  magnificently  shown  in  his 
ode.  The  Hound  of  Heaven,  the  flower  of  modern  catholic 
poetry.  The  theme,  the  pursuit  of  the  soul  by  God,  is  no 
new  one.  We  find  it  in  the  Psalms;  the  very  title  is  almost 
suggested  by  a  passage  in  Aurora  Leigh  describing  Truth: 

"  I,  Aurora,  still 
Have  felt  it  hound  me  through  the  wastes  of  life 
As  Jove  did  lo;  and  until  that  Hand 
Shall  overtake  me  wholly  and  on  my  head 
Lay  down  its  large  unfluctuating  peace, 
The  feverish  gad-fly  pricks  me  up  and  down."^ 

If  the  theme  be  old,  its  treatment  is  new,  for  no  English  poet 
has  so  combined  a  conception  Miltonic  in  its  sweep,  with  an 
expression  as  beautiful  and  as  personal  as  Shelley's: 

1  P.  E.  More,  Shelburne  Essays,  seventh  series,  N.  Y.,  1910,  p.  160. 

2  Seventh  Book. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY 

"  I  fled  Hinij  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days ; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  arches  of  the  years ; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 

Of  my  own  mind;  and  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter. 
Up  vistaed  hopes  I  sped; 
And  shot,  precipitated 
Adown  Titanic  glooms  of  chasmed  fears. 

From  those  strong  Feet  that  followed,  followed  after. "^ 

We  may  say  confidently  that  already  Thompson's  place 
among  English  poets  is  secure;  whether  it  be  so  high  a  one 
as  his  friends  have  claimed  may  well  be  questioned.  Milton 
has  said  that  poetry  should  be  simple,  sensuous,  and  pas- 
sionate. Sensuous  and  passionate  these  poems  certainly  are ; 
they  lack  that  highest  gift,  an  inevitable  simplicity. 

John  Davidson  (1857-1909),  after  a  brief  career  as  school 
teacher  and  clerk,  came  to  London  in  1890  to  win  his  fortune 
by  his  pen.  It  was  a  hard  experience,  the  old  story  of  worth 
by  poverty  depressed,  and  it  is  significant  that  three  of  his 
most  pathetic  lyrics  are  entitled  From  Grub  St.^  He  chose 
to  cast  them  in  French  forms  and  they  are  all  the  more 
touching  because  we  have  associated  the  rondel  and  villanelle 
with  gayer  moods.  Though  a  man  of  infinite  courage,  over 
much  that  he  wrote  falls  the  shadow  of  gloom  and  of  tragedy. 
He  was  an  unsparing  worker,  he  produced  some  twenty 
books — novels,  plays,  lyrics — yet  his  audience  was  always 
a  limited  one.  Worn  out  by  his  tasks,  believing  himself  to 
be  struck  with  a  hopeless  malady,  he  threw  himself  into  the 
sea. 

Browning's  line,  "I  was  ever  a  fighter,"  might  well  have 
been  Davidson's  device.  The  son  of  a  Scottish  clergyman,  he 
conceived  it  to  be  his  mission  to  overthrow  not  merely  the 
stricter  Calvinism  in  which  he  was  reared  but  all  religions, 

1  Selected  Poems,  p.  51. 

^In  a  Music  Hall  and  other  Poems,  London,  1891,  p.  25. 


530  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

and  to  set  up  in  their  stead  a  new  gospel,  a  new  materialism, 
though  that  word  does  not  adequately  describe  it.  This 
became  with  him  not  simply  a  determined  purpose  but  an 
obsession;  again  and  again  he  rings  the  changes  on  the 
havoc  wrought  by  Christianity.  This  revolt  against  accepted 
belief  appears  in  song  and  eclogue;  it  is  set  forth  with  the 
greatest  feeling  in  his  tragic  Ballad  in  Blank  Verse  of  the 
Making  of  a  Poet,  in  which  much  of  his  own  experience 
seems  interwoven.^  It  led  him  far  astray.  He  was  a  lyric 
poet  of  unusual  gifts.  He  felt  the  music,  the  witchery  of 
words ;  he  loved  the  colors  and  sounds  of  nature ;  he  was 
inspired  by  the  greatness  of  the  present  age ;  he  was  exult- 
ingly  confident  of  man's  progress  and  final  triumph.  Such 
a  temperament  would  find  its  best  expression  in  song  but  his 
doctrine  of  materialism  made  him  in  the  end  a  preacher,  a 
controversialist,  a  bitter  arraigner  of  society.  In  his  last 
volume,  the  lyric  note  had  almost  ceased. 

Davidson's  poetry  possessed  the  rare  combination  of 
strength  and  delicacy.  It  had  a  force  and  vitaKty  which  in 
its  best  expression  is  positively  thrilling.  We  feel  this  not 
only  in  his  oft-expressed  rebellion  against  the  modern  order- 
ing of  life,  but  even  in  his  pictures  of  nature: 

"  The  adventurous  sun  took  Heaven  by  storm; 
Clouds  scattered  largesses  of  rain; 
The  sounding  cities,  rich  and  warm. 

Smouldered  and  glittered  in  the  plain."^ 

There  is  no  better  hunting  song  in  the  language  than  his 
ballad  of  A  Rwnnable  Stag.^  We  could  imagine  that  the 
stanzas  came  to  him  while  galloping  against  the  wind;  in 
their  sense  of  motion  at  least  they  surpass  Browning's  How 
they  brought  the  good  news  from  Ghent  to  Aix.     The  rush 

1  Ballads  and  Songs,  London,  1895,  p.  7. 

2  P.  53.    A  Ballad  of  a  Nun. 

3  Holiday  and  other  Poems,  London,  1906,  p.  14. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  531 

and  impetus  of  Davidson's  verse  is  one  of  its  rarest  qualities, 
yet  he  knew  as  few  have  known  the  woods,  the  flowers,  and 
the  birds,  and  he  sings  of  them  in  a  spirit  far  removed  from 
the  turmoil  of  his  ballads. 

As  Wordsworth  and  his  followers  discovered  nature,  within 
the  last  two  decades  a  group  of  poets  has  discovered  the 
city,  "London  the  unknown,"  richer  than  the  ocean  floor  and 
its  treasure  house,  insolent  and  beautiful,  a  place  of  infinite 
horror  and  despair,  of  infinite  courage  and  felicity.  David- 
son was  one  of  this  band,  for  with  Henley,  who  certainly 
influenced  him,  he  finds  beauty  in  the  thronged  streets,  in 
the  noise  of  the  traffic,  in  the  city  half  hidden  in  the  mist 
and  fog,  or  bathed  in  the  light  of  sunrise  or  sunset.  Tenny- 
son's great  lyric  has  almost  a  counterpart  in  his  song: 

"  '  Oh  sweetheart^  see !  how  shadowy, 

Of  some  occult  magician's  rearing, 

Or  swung  in  space  of  heaven's  grace 
Dissolving,  dimly  reappearing. 

Afloat  upon  ethereal  tides 

St.  Paul's  above  the  city  rides !' 

"  A  rumour  broke  through  the  thin  smoke 

Enwreathing  abbey,  tower,  and  palace. 

The  parks,  the  squares,  the  thoroughfares. 
The  million-peopled  lanes  and  alleys. 

An  ever-muttering  prisoned  storm. 

The  heart  of  London  beating  warm."'^ 

In  the  last  analysis  Davidson  is  a  realist  rather  than  a  roman- 
ticist and  he  gives  us  not  merely  visions  of  the  city  but  etch- 
ings in  which  even  its  sordid  aspects  are  not  hidden.  But 
above  the  unfolding  panorama  of  London,  its  vast  power 
stirs  him;  it  is  the  living  symbol  of  England's  greatness  to 
this  poet,  as  ardent  a  patriot  and  imperialist  as  KipHng 
himself. 

1  Ballads  and  Songs,  p.  86,  London. 


532  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  volume  of  Davidson's  which  has  the  greatest  promise 
of  long  life  is  his  Fleet  Street  Eclogues,  an  unassuming  little 
book  which,  in  English  at  least,  has  no  rival.  Here,  in  the 
heart  of  London,  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  a  few  men  meet 
to  sing  of  themes  ranging  from  England's  greatness  to  the 
tragedy  of  heredity,  for  science  deeply  influenced  this  poet. 
Whatever  the  subject  may  be,  very  shortly  one  and  all  are 
chanting  the  praises  of  the  country  Hfe  they  have  just  left 
and  to  which  they  long  to  return.  Many  pages  of  these 
eclogues  are  merely  a  series  of  nature  songs,  for  it  is  char- 
acteristic that  the  beauty  of  earth  moves  Davidson  so  pro- 
foundly that  he  can  not  describe  it  or  moralize  upon  it — he 
must  sing  it.  Because  of  his  creed,  nature,  matter  glorified, 
stirred  him  to  his  depths.  He  endeavored  to  put  his  most 
enduring  thoughts  in  his  so-called  Testaments.  In  the 
Testament  of  a  Man  Forbid,  the  poet  proclaims  the  worth- 
lessness  of  art,  philosophy,  and  religion : 

"  The  rainbow  reaches  Asgard  now  no  more; 
Olympus  stands  untenanted;  the  dead 
Have  their  serene  abode  in  earth  itself. 
Our  womb,  our  nurture,  and  our  sepulchre. 
Expel  the  sweet  imaginings,  profound 
Humanities  and  golden  legends,  forms 
Heroic,  beauties,  tripping  shades,  embalmed 
Through  hallowed  ages  in  the  fragrant  hearts 
And  generous  blood  of  men ;  the  climbing  thoughts 
Whose  roots  ethereal  grope  among  the  stars, 
Whose  passion-flowers  perfume  eternity, 
Weed  out  and  tear,  scatter  and  tread  them  down; 
Dismantle  and  dilapidate  high  heaven."^ 

For  this  he  is  banished  from  his  fellows.  Despairing,  he 
turns  to  the  earth  and  finds  a  refuge  in  the  hills  that  over- 
look the  sea,  in  the  pageant  of  spring,  in  all  the  changes 

1  The  Testament  of  a  Man  Forbid,  London,  1901,  p.  11. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  533 

of  the  year.     To  no  recent  poet  has  the  beauty  of  nature 
brought  more  delight  or  more  solace. 

It  is  Davidson's  misfortune  that  at  times  the  fires  of  his 
mind  smouldered  and  did  not  melt  the  gold  from  the  ore. 
Merely  from  the  point  of  taste,  there  are  many  lapses  in 
his  work  and  there  is  need  of  rescuing  the  best  from  much 
that  was  published  too  hastily.  Time,  the  safest  critic,  will 
eventually  do  this.  Davidson  will  not  be  forgotten,  for  his 
verse  has  much  of  that  force  which  he  admired  in  the  hfe 
of  the  city,  much  of  that  beauty  which  he  discovered  in  the 
life  of  nature. 

II 

Of  the  living  poets,  we  shall  consider  but  seven,  and  first  of 
all,  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt  (b.  1840).  He  is  interesting 
because  so  much  of  his  work  is  in  the  sonnet  form,  which  he 
employs  for  narrative  in  Esther,  and  for  a  study  of  emotions 
in  the  Love  Sonnets  of  Proteus.  More  than  any  other  metre, 
it  has  brought  out  his  best  qualities.  His  Love  Lyrics,  writ- 
ten in  many  different  measures,  lack  charm,  though  one  song 
at  least  from  this  series  has  attracted  composers.  "Oh  for 
a  day  of  Spring"  is  the  exultant  expression  of  a  familiar 
theme : 

"  Oh  for  a  day  of  youth, 

A  day  of  strength  and  passion, 

Of  words  that  told  the  truth 

And  deeds  the  truth  would  fashion! 

I  would  not  leave  untasted 

One  glory  while  it  lasted."^ 

As  a  sonneteer,  Blunt  is  not  distinguished  for  his  technique. 
He  believed  that  the  Petrarchian  rhyme  scheme  is  not  adapted 
to  our  language  and  he  accordingly  invented  a  new  one; 
it  has  not  found  favor.  The  musical  element  in  his  verse  is 
1  Esther,  Love  Lyrics,  and  Natalia's  Resurrection,  London,  1893,  p.  62. 


5Si  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

the  slightest  one.  We  have  noticed,  however,  that  an  intense 
moment,  a  sudden  vision  of  the  imagination  will  often  find  an 
expression  that  is  ordinarily  beyond  the  poet's  reach  and 
there  are  times  when  Blunt's  sonnets  attain  a  style  that  is 
admirable.  To  give  but  a  single  instance,  the  two  descrip- 
tive sonnets  entitled  The  Sublime  are  well  worthy  of  their 
name.' 

In  the  preface  to  A  New  Pilgrimage  the  poet  regrets  that 
unlike  the  Italians  of  the  fourteenth  century,  we  do  not 
make  the  sonnet  "the  vehicle  of  our  daily  thoughts  about 
daily  affairs  as  well  as  that  of  our  profoundest  utterances 
in  religion,  love  and  politics."  This  he  desires  to  do  and  he 
accordingly  gives  us  not  a  series  of  pictures  but  of  expe- 
riences. With  a  simplicity,  a  frankness,  and  a  force,  at 
times  disconcerting — for  rightly  or  wrongly  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  reserved  where  the  Latin  poets  find  nothing  to  con- 
ceal— he  tells  in  Esther  the  story  of  another  des  Grieux  or 
in  Proteus  shows  another  Manon.  The  ringing  note  in  these 
poems  is  their  pitiless  sincerity.  Henley  considered  that  they 
disclosed  more  plainly  than  any  other  writing  of  the  age  a 
poet's  personality  and  experience.^  The  simple  and  even 
homely  vocabulary ;  the  strict  avoidance  of  the  gilded  phrase 
or  skillful  epithet;  the  striking  absence  of  studied  contrasts 
give  to  these  verses  the  very  impress  of  reality. 

The  Love  Sonnets  of  Proteus  are  Blunt's  best  claim  to 
remembrance.  This  book,  first  issued  anonymously,  dis- 
closed in  the  plainest  speech  a  life  not  governed  by 

"  a  smooth  and  stedfast  mind, 
Gentle  thoughts  and  calm  desires." 

On  the  contrary,  he  had  "gambled  with  his  soul";  he  had 
pawned  his  heritage;  he  had  tasted  the  fruit  from  the  tree 

1  The  Love  Sonnets  of  Proteus,  fourth  edition,  London,  1898,  pp.  113- 
114. 

2  The  Poetry  of  Wilfrid  Blunt,  selected  and  arranged  by  W.  E.  Henley 
and  George  Wyndham,,  London,  1898,  p.  v. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  5S5 

of  knowledge  of  good  and  of  evil  and  found  it  but  poison. 
He  is  sick  and  travel-worn ;  he  calls  himself 

"  the  latest  fool  of  Time, 
Sad  child  of  doubt  and  passionate  desires," 

yet  there  is  no  trace  of  Dowson's  pale  cast  of  thought  in 
these  verses.  With  the  intensity  of  Hamlet,  he  cries  out  upon 
the 

"  Lame,  impotent  conclusion  to  youth's  dreams 
Vast  as  all  heaven !" 

He  is  a  fatalist  and  considers  man  a  foolish  worm  that  can 
not  change  its  lot : 

"  Behold,  the  flower-pot 
Of  fate  is  emptied  out,  and  one  by  one 
The  fisher  takes  you,  and  his  hooks  are  blind." 

The  inevitable  summing  up  of  life  is  his  exclamation  "There 
is  no  comfort  underneath  the  sun."  This,  then,  is  the  old 
Weltschmerz  expressed  in  modern  phrase.  Such  writing  has 
the  bitter  flavor  of  Meredith's  Modern  Love;  indeed,  many 
of  Blunt's  lines  could  appear  undetected  in  the  earher 
sequence.    His  tragic  conclusion 

"  We  planted  love,  and  lo  it  bred  a  brood 
Of  lusts  and  vanities  and  senseless  joys," 

might  be  the  text  for  both  writers. 

These  sonnets  are  not  aU  despairing;  they  have  at  least 
their  happy  moments.  St.  Valentine's  Day,  describing  a  ride 
on  the  downs ;  A  Day  in  Sussex,  praising  nature  the  con- 
soler; Gibraltar,  thrilling  with  patriotism,  show  that  the 
poet  can  forget  what  he  has  called  The  Mockery  of  Life, 
yet  these  moods  come  rarely.' 

In  a  sonnet  entitled  On  Reading  the  Memoirs  of  M. 
D'Artagnan,  Blunt  longs  to  be  a  "ruffler  in  the  camps  of 

1  Proteus,  Nos.  L.,  LXXVIII.,  CVI.,  LXIX.-LXXI. 


5S6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

Mazarin,"  and  regrets  that  he  was  bom  in  these  degenerate 
times  to  a  sad  heritage 

"  Of  fierce  desires  which  cannot  fate  control. 
Of  idle  hopes  life  never  can  assuage.""^ 

He  would  turn  his  steps  backwards  to  escape  the  present. 
Austin  Dobson  (b.  1840)  dwells  in  "the  past  Georgian  day" 
and  writes  of  an  old  Sedan  chair  or  of  Beau  Brocade,  not 
because  he  is  embittered  and  wishes  to  forget  modern  life, 
but  because  he  has  made  the  eighteenth  century  his  own  and 
moves  in  it  as  naturally  as  one  to  its  manner  bom.  In  his 
prose,  in  biography  and  essay,  he  has  shown  us  the  life  and 
thought  of  that  period;  in  his  verse,  he  discovers  for  us  the 
poetry  of  an  age  we  have  considered  eminently  prosaic. 

This  implies  that  Dobson's  verse  is  written  in  a  library 
rather  than  in  the  open  air.  He  is  a  reminiscent  writer  and 
appeals  most  strongly  to  one  who  knows  Horace  and  Prior, 
to  those  who  appreciate  the  art  of  French  metres.  As  Lang 
has  put  it: 

"  A  little  of  Horace,  a  little  of  Prior, 
A  sketch  of  a  Milkmaid,  a  lay  of  the  Squire — 
These,  these  are  "on  draught'  'At  the  Sign  of  the  Lyre !' 

"  A  lai,  a  pantoum,  a  ballade,  a  rondeau, 
A  pastel  by  Greuze,  and  a  sketch  by  Moreau, 
And  the  chimes  of  the  rhymes  that  sing  sweet  as  they  go."^ 

There  is  nothing  of  modern  realism  in  such  work.  If  the 
pathos  of  life  is  there,  its  sordidness,  its  tragedies  are  care- 
fully hidden.  He  would  rather  captivate  our  fancy  and  call 
up  delightful  reveries  than  stir  our  feelings ;  consequently 
his  appeal  to  the  past  has  little  that  the  romantic  novelist 

iNo.  LXV. 

2  A  Review  in  Rhyme,  in  Grass  of  Parnassus,  London,  1888,  p.  62. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  BS7 

offers  us.  No  one  is  further  from  the  pedant  than  Dobson; 
he  has  always  worn  his  learning  lightly,  and  yet  only  a 
student  could  have  caught  this  atmosphere  of  old  Paris  or 
old  London,  precisely  as  only  the  most  careful  workman 
could  have  written  his  ballades  and  what  are  probably  the 
best  rondeaux  in  the  language. 

All  that  Dobson  has  written  possesses  charm.  "Assume 
that  we  are  friends,"  he  tells  the  reader,  and  indeed  he  need 
not  have  said  it,  for  we  are  friends  at  once  without  this  invi- 
tation. He  has  Prior's  gift  of  putting  himself  immediately 
en  rapport  with  his  audience.  This  intimacy  is  increased  by 
his  avoidance  of  the  higher  style ;  there  are  few  long  flights 
in  his  verse.  He  has  understood  perfectly  his  limitations  as 
well  as  his  gifts;  he  is  happy  in  his  own  realm  and  conse- 
quently there  is  no  unevenness  in  his  work.  More  important, 
there  is  no  dull  level  of  mediocrity  in  it,  for  in  every  line  that 
he  writes,  Dobson  is  an  artist.  This  it  is  that  gives  to  his 
poetry  its  attractiveness  and  its  value.  The  finest  living 
writer  of  vers  de  societe,  he  lacks  Praed's  wit  and  Thack- 
eray's humor,  but  he  surpasses  both  of  his  predecessors  in 
the  finish  of  his  work.  He  has  taken  to  heart  Gautier's 
lesson : 

"  Leave  to  the  tiro's  hand 

The  limp  and  shapeless  style; 
See  that  thy  form  demand 
The  labour  of  the  file."' 

He  has  what  Herrick  called  a  "terse  Muse."  In  all  his  word- 
pictures,  not  a  syllable  is  wasted ;  in  all  his  songs,  there  is  no 
meaningless  note. 

We  have  compared  Dobson  with  Prior  and  in  one  point 
especially  these  two  poets  resemble  each  other:  the  lyric  is 
not  their  chief  form.     Dobson's  feeling  is  not  superficial  yet 

1  Ara  Victrix,  in  Old-World  Idylls,  London,  1893,  p.  206. 


6S8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

it  is  not  deep  enough  to  demand  song;  there  are  not  many 
times  when,  to  quote  his  own  words, 

■'  the  pent  sensation 
Leaps  to  lyric  exultation 

Like  a  song-bird  from  a  grave."^ 

A  Httle  group  of  lyrics  show  what  he  could  do  when  he  wished 
a  more  musical  form — A  Song  to  the  Lute,  The  Ladies  of 
St.  James,  The  Milkmaid,  A  Garden  Song,  A  song  of  the 
Four  Seasons,  and  we  must  not  omit  the  song  in  "Good- 
Night,  Babette !"  for  which  he  has  provided  such  an  exquisite 
setting. 

Andrew  Lang  is  the  most  versatile  of  modern  Enghsh 
writers.  He  has  won  well-deserved  distinction  as  an  essayist, 
poet,  historian,  translator  of  Homer,  a  writer  of  romances, 
a  student  of  primitive  religions  and  folk-lore.  Indeed  what 
has  he  not  written,  if  we  except  the  realistic  novel  to  which 
he  is  a  sworn  foe.''  He  turns  from  fishing  to  the  Homeric 
question,  from  golf  to  Celtic  mythology,  and  what  is  more 
astonishing,  he  has  invariably  something  worth  saying.  He 
is  the  standing  exception  in  our  day  to  the  rule  that  rapid 
writing  makes  poor  reading. 

For  his  lyric  verse,  he  has  studied  under  the  best  masters— 
the  poets  of  the  Greek  anthology,  Charles  D'Orleans,  Villon, 
Marot,  Du  Bellay,  Ronsard.  If  for  nothing  else,  he  would 
be  remembered  for  his  translations.  To  give  but  three  typi- 
cal examples,  it  would  be  difficult  to  improve  upon  his  ren- 
dering of  Ronsard's  De  Velection  de  son  Sepulchre,  Belleau's 
Avril,  and  Du  Bellay 's  Chanson  du  Vanneur.  His  love  for 
French  verse  is  reflected  in  many  a  poem;  it  is  shown  most 
delightfully  in  his  series  of  ballades,  grave  and  gay,  written 
with  the  most  facile  pen.  If  not  one  of  them  is  a  master- 
piece,  Lang  himself  has   pointed   out   that   "no   man   since 

1^  Revolutionary  Relic,  in  At  the  Sign  of  the  Lyre,  London,  1894, 
p.  49. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  539 

Fran9ois  Villon  has  been  immortalized  by  a  single  ballade — 
Mais  O'd,  sont  les  neiges  d'antanf"^ 

This  poet  is  a  skilled  musician  who  can  play  deftly  for  all 
moods.  If  the  muse  of  Dobson  wears  an  arch  smile,  the  muse 
of  Lang  indulges  in  heart-easing  mirth.  He  knows  just 
how  far  to  carry  parody — what  could  be  neater  than  his 
answer  to  Jules  Lemaitre's  Britannia? — and  his  gayety  and 
wit  have  given  him  a  place  with  our  best  writers  of  hght 
verse.^  He  has,  however,  never  allowed  his  wit  to  rule  his 
poetry.  To  see  his  lyric  style,  one  should  read  his  Scythe 
Song,  a  bit  of  pure  melody ;  Desiderium,  a  low-pitched  dirge 
that  strikes  home ;  Alma  Matres,  one  of  the  sincerest  poems 
university  life  has  inspired;  and  Homeric  Unity,  his  best 
sonnet,  though  he  does  not  admit  it.'  But  the  poet  is  at  his 
best  when  he  plays  on  the  old  theme  of  romance.  He  loves 
to  linger  in  "Le  Vieux  Chateau  de  Souvenir,"  and  proclaim 
that  "King  Romance  has  come  again."  Two  poems  in  this 
mood  will  be  long  remembered :  "My  love  dwelt  in  a  Northern 
land"  and  the  less  known  Lost  Love. 

"  Who  wins  his  Love  shall  lose  her, 

Who  loses  her  shall  gain. 
For  still  the  spirit  woos  her, 

A  soul  without  a  stain; 
And  Memory  still  pursues  her 

With  longings  not  in  vain ! 

"  Oh,  happier  he  who  gains  not 

The  Love  some  seem  to  gain: 
The  joy  that  custom  stains  not 

Shall  still  with  him  remain. 
The  loveliness  that  wanes  not, 

The  Love  that  ne'er  can  wane. 

1  Introduction  to  reprint  of  Ballades  and  Rhymes,  London,  1911. 

2  Ban  and  Arri^re  Ban,  London,  1897,  p.  45. 

3  Grass  of  Parnassus,  p.  55;  Ballades  and  Rhymes,  pp.  143,  139,  181. 


5^0  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  In  dreams  she  grows  not  older 

The  lands  of  Dream  among, 
Though  all  the  world  wax  colder. 

Though  all  the  songs  be  sung. 
In  dreams  doth  he  behold  her 

Still  fair  and  kind  and  young."'- 

The  value  of  the  lyrics  of  Robert  Bridges  (b.  1844)  has 
not  been  adequately  recognized.  On  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
at  least,  he  is  known  but  by  the  few  songs  published  in  anthol- 
ogies. His  verse  is  certain  to  reach  a  wider  audience  and 
eventually  win  for  him  a  place  among  the  foremost  lyrists 
of  the  whole  line  of  singers.  As  he  sings  of  reflection  and  not 
of  action,  his  appeal  will  never  be  a  popular  one.  His  quali- 
ties are  not  of  a  kind  to  force  a  hearing  and  he  has  chosen 
to  live  quietly,  almost  in  retirement.  Much  of  his  work,  his 
plays  for  example,  despite  many  fine  passages  scattered  here 
and  there,  have  chiefly  an  academic  interest,  and  it  is  possible 
that  they  have  somewhat  obscured  his  songs.  The  second 
volume  of  his  Poetical  Works  is  worth  all  the  rest,  for  it  con- 
tains lyrics  that  Campion,  Herrick,  and  Blake  would  have 
been  proud  to  own. 

We  are  at  once  attracted  in  these  lyrics  by  the  exquisite 
taste  of  the  poet.  He  writes  of  the  best  in  nature  and  life  in 
the  choicest  words  that  language  can  offer.  He  is  gifted 
with  what  seems  an  instinct  for  the  right  phrase,  expressing 
himself  with  a  simplicity  that  partially  conceals  his  art : 

"  — And  every  perfect  action  hath  the  grace 
Of  indolence  or  thoughtless  hardihood — " 

In  this  respect  he  rivals  the  best  French  stylists,  yet  his 
sincere,  serene,  and  lofty  spirit  prevents  him  from  looking 
upon  his  songs  as  mere  bits  of  dull  perfection.     They  are 

i  Ballades  and  Rhymes,  p.  166;  Ban  and  Arriire  Ban,  p.  24. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  5U 

never  Emaux  et  Camees;  even  in  his  objective  songs  of  nature, 
we  feel  the  man.    He  gives  us  both  art  and  life. 

The  metrical  charm  of  these  lyrics  exceeds  their  verbal 
felicity.  There  are  but  two  qualifying  statements  to  be  made 
in  this  praise.  Strangely  enough  his  sonnets  show  little  of 
his  best  work,  though  they  remind  us  at  times  of  Spenser. 

"  AH  earthly  beauty  hath  one  cause  and  proof, 
To  lead  the  pilgrim  soul  to  beauty  above: 
Yet  lieth  the  greater  bliss  so  far  aloof, 
That  few  there  be  are  wean'd  from  earthly  love. 

Joy's  ladder  it  is,  reaching  from  home  to  home. 
The  best  of  all  the  work  that  all  was  good; 
Whereof  'twas  writ  the  angels  aye  upclomb, 
Down  sped,  and  at  the  top  the  Lord  God  stood."^ 

This  lacks  the  rare  quality  we  perceive  at  once  in  the  songs. 
Again,  the  larger,  broader  style  is  not  his  and  with  all  his 
kinship  with  the  Elizabethans,  he  never  approaches  their 
"mighty  line."  He  is  our  best  interpreter  of  the  metre  of 
Paradise  Lost,  yet  he  is  not  of  Milton's  school.  To  take  the 
positive  side  of  the  case,  we  have  spoken  of  Campion. 
Bridges  far  surpasses  him  in  the  resources  of  his  technique 
and  is  not  already  a  classic  because  he  is  unfortunate  enough 
to  be  one  of  our  contemporaries.  Much  like  the  author  of 
"Now  winter  nights  enlarge"  are  many  stanzas  in  Bridges's 
second  ode  to  spring;  yet  when  he  catches  the  cadences  of 
the  Elizabethans,  one  never  thinks  of  imitation.  In  such 
a  bit  of  melody  as  "I  heard  a  linnet  courting"  he  has  all 
their  lightness,  but  with  our  modern  feeling.  "Crown  Winter 
with  green"  is  but  a  trifle,  yet  it  seems  to  have  strayed  from 
Herrick's  Hesperides.  To  complete  our  comparison,  how 
like  Blake  at  his  best  are  such  poems  as  "Angel  spirits  of 

1  The  Poetical  Works  of  Robert  Bridges,  London,  1898,  vol.  I.,  p.  263. 


51,2  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

sleep,"  "Love  on  my  heart  from  heaven  fell,"  "The  idle  life 
I  lead,"  or 

"  My  delight  and  thy  delight 
Walking,  like  two  angels  white, 
In  the  gardens  of  the  night."^ 

It  would  be  poor  praise  to  say  that  Bridges  recalled  the 
work  of  past  singers.  He  has  a  quality  all  his  own,  in  the 
feeling  that  informs  his  style.  He  is  a  beauty  worshipper 
and  his  creed  is  simply  expressed : 

"  I  love  all  beauteous  things, 

I  seek  and  adore  them; 
God  hath  no  better  praise. 
And  man  in  his  hasty  days 

Is  honoured  for  them. 

"  I  too  will  something  make 

And  joy  in  the  making; 
Altho'  to-morrow  it  seem 
Like  the  empty  words  of  a  dream 

Remembered  on  waking." 

In  the  old  metre  so  roughly  handled  by  Queen  Elizabeth  he 
sings : 

"  My  eyes  for  beauty  pine. 
My  soul  for  Goddes  grace: 
No  other  care  nor  hope  is  mine; 
To  heaven  I  turn  my  face."^ 

He  finds  the  highest  beauty  in  nature.  He  turns  to  the 
fields  and  woods,  not  as  did  Davidson,  to  forget  the  city  and 
modem  life  and  to  discover  a  new  philosophy,  but  in  the 

1  Vol.  II.,  London,  1899,  pp.  20,  160,  145,  137,  144,  241. 

2  Pp.  123,  134. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  5^3 

placid  mood  of  Walton.  Even  when  this  poet's  spirit  is  most 
delighted,  there  is  a  quietness  and  calm  in  his  verse.  He 
seeks  no  inspiration  from  the  past,  nothing  from  France  or 
Italy,  but  finds  England,  with  its  clear  and  gentle  streams, 
its  cliff-tops,  its  downs,  its  birds  and  flowers,  a  sufficient 
theme  for  his  best  work.  He  does  not  shut  his  eyes  to  the 
tragedy  of  life.  If  the  Elegy  on  a  Lady,  whom  grief  for  the 
death  of  her  Betrothed  killed  seems  too  consciously  Eliza- 
bethan, certainly  the  dirge 

"  I  never  shall  love  the  snow  again 
Since  Maurice  died," 

and  the  most  pathetic  On  a  Dead  Child  are  almost  too  poig- 
nant.^ In  general,  however,  the  endeavor  of  this  poet  is  to 
give  us  the  beauty  of  each  season,  of  every  glimpse  of  land, 
or  sea,  or  sky. 

This  beauty  has  no  fatal  dowry ;  it  brings  the  most  exalted 
happiness : 

"  But  since  I  have  found  the  beauty  of  joy 
I  have  done  with  proud  dismay: 
For  howsoe'er  man  hug  his  care, 
The  best  of  his  art  is  gay."^ 

He  invites  us  to  leave  our  joyless  ways.  We  are  offered 
more  than  we  can  enjoy;  the  days  are  all  too  short  for  the 
"rare  delight  of  mortal  stuff."  This  intense  pleasure  in  life 
and  in  his  own  art  is  expressed  always  with  serenity,  with 
nothing  of  "the  wild  joy  of  living."  Here  are  no  greater 
happenings  than  can  come  to  every  one ;  there  is  no  adven- 
ture, no  conflict.  We  must  simply  open  our  eyes  and  we 
may  see  what  he  sees : 

1  Pp.  34,  187,  91. 

2  P.  1ST. 


6U  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  Then  comes  the  happy  moment:  not  a  stir 
In  any  tree,  no  portent  in  the  sky: 
The  morn  doth  neither  hasten  nor  defer, 
The  morrow  hath  no  name  to  call  it  by, 
But  life  and  joy  are  one, — we  know  not  why, — 
As  though  our  very  blood  long  breathless  lain 
Had  tasted  of  the  breath  of  God  again."^ 

He  knows  that  there  is  an  end  to  beauty,  but  there  is  noth- 
ing of  Shelley's  lament  in  "I  have  loved  flowers  that  fade," 
a  lyric  of  Bridges  that  should  be  familiar  to  every  lover  of 
English  verse.  He  realizes  that  to  attain  to  the  highest 
beauty  and  truth,  one  must  "look  not  back  nor  tire."  There 
is  no  palHd  aestheticism  here,  for  he  does  not  forget  that 
though  "Beauty  and  love  are  nigh"  life  has  its  tempest, 
flood  and  fire.  He  sums  up  his  belief  not  in  an  ode,  but  in 
the  simple  lines: 

"  Press  onward,  for  thine  eye 
Shall  see  thy  heart's  desire."^ 

We  forget  the  serene  happiness  of  Bridges  when  we  turn 
to  the  poems  of  William  Watson  (b.  1858).  Compared  with 
his  older  contemporary,  he  has  a  broader  if  not  a  deeper 
mind ;  he  has  a  wider  outlook  upon  life ;  he  is  more  a  child  of 
the  past.  This  is  to  say  that  Watson  has  so  communed  with 
his  great  predecessors  that  he  has  caught  a  portion  of  their 
spirit;  we  may  say  that  he  has  inherited  it,  for  he  is  no  imi- 
tator. As  he  himself  proudly  declares,  he  is  thoroughly 
English ;  he  deprecates  the  deference  paid  to  the  writers  of 
the  continent  and  takes  for  his  masters  Milton  and  Words- 
worth, and  we  might  add,  Arnold  and  Tennyson.'  His  very 
finest  writing  is  found  in  his  interpretation  and  praise  of 

ip.  110. 

2  P.  119. 

3  To  Edward  Dowden,  The  Poems  of  William  Watson,  London,  1905, 
vol.  I.,  p.  149. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  5^5 

the  dead  poets.  Among  his  best  epigrams  are  the  ones  on 
Marlowe,  Shelley,  Keats ;  his  elegy  on  Tennyson,  a  remark- 
able piece  of  occasional  verse,  was  the  most  adequate  tribute 
the  death  of  the  laureate  called  forth;  while  Wordsworth's 
Grave  is  inspired  criticism,  surpassed  by  no  English  poem  of 
its  kind.  It  is  interesting  to  contrast  its  vivid  pictures  of  the 
Queen  Anne  age,  of  Gray  and  Collins,  of  Burns  and  Words- 
worth, with  the  maxims  of  Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism,  for  it 
shows  at  once  how  much  more  personal,  we  may  even  say 
"lyrical,"  has  become  the  work  of  the  modern  critic. 

Watson  has  stated  that  he  owes  most  to  Milton,  "The 
starriest  voice  that  e'er  on  Enghsh  ears  hath  rung,"  and 
without  even  faintly  suggesting  a  comparison,  one  may  point 
out  his  resemblances  to  him.  His  best  sonnets  are  not  love 
poems,  but  intimate  expressions  of  friendship  or  declarations 
of  his  attitude  on  the  political  questions  of  the  day.  Like 
Milton,  he  is  an  apostle  of  liberty,  and  the  intense  anger 
of  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,"  is  felt  in  Wat- 
son's sonnets  called  forth  by  the  Turkish  atrocities  in 
Armenia.  A  good  illustration  of  his  Miltonic  style  is  found 
in  Vita  Nuova,  a  poem  written  after  his  recovery  from  an 
illness  that  had  clouded  his  mind.  These  lines  have  some- 
thing of  the  dignity  and  restraint  of  Milton's  references  to 
his  blindness: 

"  I  too  have  come  through  wintry  terrors, — yea. 
Through  tempest  and  through  cataclysm  of  soul 
Have  come,  and  am  delivered.     Me  the  Spring, 
Me  also,  dimly  with  new  life  hath  touched. 
And  with  regenerate  hope,  the  salt  of  life; 
And  I  would  dedicate  these  thankful  tears 
To  whatsoever  Power  beneficent. 

Veiled  though  his  countenance,  undivulged  his  thought. 
Hath  led  me  from  the  haunted  darkness  forth 
Into  the  gracious  air  and  vernal  morn."^ 

1  Vol.  I.,  p.  105. 


5^.6  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

The  more  we  read  modem  poetry,  the  more  plainly  we 
perceive  the  abiding  influence  of  Wordsworth.  Watson 
glories  in  it.  He  is  no  poet  of  the  city  which  he  would  fain 
forget,  but  of  the  tarn,  of  the  sea  which  he  has  hymned  in 
elegiacs  unsurpassed  in  English.  He  wishes  that  we  could 
hve 

"  more  near  allied 
To  cloud  and  mountain,  wind  and  tide, 
Cast  this  unmeaning  coil  aside. 
And  go  forth  free," 

for  then  we  could 

"  hail  the  mystic  bird  that  brings 
News  from  the  inner  courts  of  things. 
The  eternal  courier-dove  whose  wings 

Are  never  furled; 
And  hear  the  bubbling  of  the  springs 

That  feed  the  world.''^ 

Despite  such  stanzas,  despite  the  rare  enthusiasm  and  power 
of  his  Ode  in  May,  Watson's  lines  on  Arnold  are  true  of  his 
own  work : 

"  The  deep,  authentic  mountain-thrill 
Ne'er  shook  his  page !" 

He  has  nothing  of  Wordsworth's  confidence  in  the  restoring, 
the  teaching  inspiration  of  nature,  but  confesses  that 
beneath  the  dome  of  the  sky  or  by  the  ocean  he  has  "never 
wholly  been  at  ease."  There  is  nothing  of  Wordsworth's 
optimism  in  a  poet  who  believes  himself  fated  "among  time's 
fallen  leaves  to  stray,"  and  that  inevitably  "A  want  of  joy 
doth  in  his  strains  abide."  He  can  not  hold  the  faith  of  the 
fathers  and  writes  of  The  Unknown  God.  The  church  is  out- 
wardly splendid,  but  inwardly  cold  and  dead  as  the  moon. 

iVol.  I.,  p.  146. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  5^7 

"  I  wandered  far  in  the  wold. 

And  after  the  heat  and  glare 
I  came  at  eve  to  a  churchyard  old: 
The  yew-trees  seemed  at  prayer. 

"  And  around  me  was  dust  in  dust, 

And  the  fleeting  light,  and  Repose — 
And  the  infinite  pathos  of  human  trust 
In  a  God  whom  no  man  knows."^ 

With  Arnold,  he  feels  that  men  do  not  know  for  what  they  are 
striving.  No  account  of  Watson  must  omit  his  epigrams — ■ 
they  rank  with  the  best — and  a  single  one  of  them — The 
Cathedral  Spire — is  enough  to  show  this  mood. 

"  It  soars  like  hearts  of  hapless  men  who  dare 
To  sue  for  gifts  the  gods  refuse  to  allot; 
Who  climb  for  ever  toward  they  know  not  where. 
Baffled  for  ever  by  they  know  not  what."^ 

There  is  nothing  of  Henley's  force  or  love  of  action,  but 
something  of  Clough  in  this  poet's  view  of  life.  Our  ideals 
too  quickly  vanish  and  leave  us  resigned  to  our  ignoble  days ; 
The  Glimpse  but  leaves  a  man 

"  to  carry  in  his  soul 
The  torment  of  the  difference  till  he  die." 

As  these  quotations  show,  there  is  back  of  aU  that  Watson 
writes,  a  profound  moral  sense  that  gives  to  his  work  dignity 
and  nobility  of  tone.  He  has  never  courted  popularity;  he 
is  perhaps  a  little  too  disdainful  of  modern  life  and  dwells 
too  much  "In  the  cold  starlight  where  thou  canst  not  climb." 
Nothing  that  he  writes  is  careless  or  trivial  in  diction;  im 

iNew  Poems,  London,  1909,  p.  112. 
^  Poems,  vol.  II.,  p.  109. 


6i8  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

style,  as  in  life,  he  advocates  "The  things  that  are  more 
excellent."  Much  of  modern  poetry  is  to  him  an  orgy  on 
Parnassus,  and  he  turns  from  it  to  Tennyson : 

"  You  phrase-tormenting  fantastic  chorus, 

With  strangest  words  at  your  beck  and  call; 
Who  tumble  your  thoughts  in  a  heap  before  us ; — 
Here  was  a  bard  shall  outlast  you  all."'^ 

With  his  liking  for  the  graver  harmonies,  and  with  his  tem- 
perament, his  best  lyrics  are  elegies.  There  is  a  certain 
formaHty  in  the  studied  contrasts  of  "Thy  voice  from  in- 
most dreamland  calls,"  "That  beauty  such  as  thine,"  "When 
birds  were  songless  on  the  boughs,"  that  overcomes  the  song 
impulse.  On  the  other  hand,  writing  in  the  elegiac  strain, 
such  a  descriptive  poem  as  The  Frontier — surely  the  equal 
of  The  Autumnal  by  Donne,  which  Walton  so  admired — 
becomes  almost  a  lyric.^ 

There  is  something  of  Hamlet  (though  nothing  of  his 
bitterness)  in  this  poet.  He  needs  a  compelling  force,  a 
high  theme  that  shall  engage  all  his  gifts.  He  himself 
expresses  this  idea  in  his  sonnet  Christmas  Day: 

"  Fated  among  time's  fallen  leaves  to  stray, 
We  breathe  an  air  that  savours  of  the  tomb. 
Heavy  with  dissolution  and  decay; 
Waiting  till  some  new  world-emotion  rise. 
And  with  the  shattering  might  of  the  simoom 
Sweep  clean  this  dying  Past  that  never  dies."' 

In  nearly  every  respect,  Rudyard  Kipling  (1865)  offers 
the  most  striking  contrast  to  Watson.  He  cares  little  for 
finish ;  he  writes  not  of  books  or  of  men  of  the  past,  but  of 

1  New  Poems,  p.  103. 

2  Poems,  vol.  I.,  pp.  64,  79,  80 ;  vol.  II.,  p.  22. 

3  Vol.  II.,  p.  4. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  6^9 

the  intense  life  of  the  present ;  he  prizes  work  above  thought ; 
he  is  a  confirmed  optimist.  No  poet  since  the  great  Victorians 
has  enjoyed  the  popularity  that  has  come  to  him;  at  its 
height,  it  must  have  resembled  the  eager  reception  given 
Byron's  works.  At  the  present  moment,  his  fame  seems 
undergoing  an  eclipse ;  certainly  his  recently  published  verse 
has  proved  disappointing,  and  critics  seem  convinced  that  he 
wiU  be  remembered  by  his  prose.  This  implies  that  the 
attractiveness  of  much  of  the  poetry  has  vanished.  The  over- 
brilliant  colors  have  faded;  the  over-emphasis  has  ceased  to 
be  eifective — "The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies."  We  tire 
of  the  Proverbial  Philosophy  of  Imperialism  and  the  trick  of 
the  Barrack-Room  Ballads,  once  learned,  no  longer  catches 
our  fancy.  There  must  be  a  complete  readjustment  of  our 
estimates  of  him. 

Of  all  modem  poets,  Kipling  resembles  most  closely  the 
old  ballad  makers.  Their  mantle  has  fallen  on  his  shoulders ; 
their  swiftness  and  force  are  his,  and  he  has  shown  in  The 
Last  Rhyme  of  True  Thomas  his  right  to  this  poetic  suc- 
cession.' But  the  ballads  can  be  superb  in  their  simplicity 
and  vigor,  because  they  do  not  preach ;  when  Kipling  exhorts, 
he  can  descend  to  doggerel.  Love,  war  and  death  are  the 
themes  which  most  surely  inspired  these  old  makers ;  Eng- 
land and  the  ocean  are  the  best  sources  of  inspiration  for 
this  poet.  Our  English  cousins  are  singularly  fortunate  in 
their  literature  of  patriotism.  Since  London  was  Spenser's 
"kindly  nurse,"  many  a  poet  has  sung  of  every  aspect  of 
that  city.  Each  English  county,  it  seems,  has  its  writer  to 
praise  it,  and  there  is  a  song  for  each  mountain,  lake  and 
beach.  If  we  except  a  few  poems  by  Whitman,  no  American 
city  has  its  singer,  and  our  prairies,  rivers,  and  forests  rarely 
have  found  verse  makers.  England,  then,  haunts  Kipling's 
imagination : 

1  The  Seven  Seas,  p.  115. 


650  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

"  She  is  not  any  common  Earth, 
Water  or  wood  or  air. 
But  Merlin's  Isle  of  Gramarye, 
Where  you  and  I  will  fare."^ 

He  sees  her  sending  her  soldiers  and  sailors,  her  explorers 
and  her  colonists  to  all  comers  of  the  earth: 

"  Her  hearth  is  wide  to  every  wind 

That  makes  the  white  ash  spin; 
And  tide  and  tide  and  'tween  the  tides 
Her  sons  go  out  and  in; 

"  And  some  return  by  failing  light, 
And  some  in  waking  dream. 
And  she  hears  the  heels  of  the  dripping  ghosts 
That  ride  the  rough  roof-beam." 

We  hardly  associate  delicacy  and  grace  with  his  work,  but 
his  style  gains  it  when  he  writes  of  English  flowers: 

"  Buy  my  English  posies! 

Kent  and  Surrey  may — 
Violets  of  the  UnderclifF 

Wet  with  Channel  spray; 
Cowslips  from  a  Devon  combe — 

Midland  furze  afire — 
Buy  my  English  posies 

And  I'll  sell  your  heart's  desire  !"^ 

The  natural  culmination  of  this  spirit  is  his  Recessional,  the 
high-water  mark  of  his  verse. 

To  Kipling,  the  sea  is  the  great  adventure  ground  of  the 
world,  and  he  knows  its  power  and  its  cruelty.  What  other 
poet  could  have  written  The  Last  Chantey,  The  Bell  Buoy, 
White  Horses,  The  Sea  and  the  Hills,  to  name  but  a  few  of 

1  Puck's  Song  in  Puck  of  Pook's  Hill. 

2  The  Sea-Wife  and  The  Flowers  in  The  Seven  Seas,  pp.  100,  111. 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-BAY  561 

the  best?  He  sings  of  the  man-of-war,  the  ocean  liner,  the 
sealer,  the  fisherman's  smack,  caught  up  in  the  sweep  of  the 
waves,  and  we  feel  the  very  deck  shake  beneath  our  feet  and 
the  spray  dash  in  our  face.  If  we  could  demand  any  one 
thing  of  Kipling,  it  would  be  to  abandon  his  sermons  and 
history  in  rhyme  and  to  give  us  a  collection  of  sea  lyrics.  It 
would  contain  his  finest  writing  and  it  would  be  unequaled. 

Alfred  Noyes  (b.  1880)  has  not  yet  found  himself  and  for 
this  reason  it  is  hard  to  form  a  definite  opinion  of  his  work. 
It  arouses  the  keenest  expectations  and  then  disappoints  us. 
His  style,  at  its  best,  is  fluent  and  musical ;  he  has  a  sane  and 
healthy  attitude  towards  life;  romance  and  nature  make  the 
great  appeal  to  him.  This  is  good  but  there  must  be  some- 
thing more — and  the  personahty  we  seek  in  the  verse  is  not 
there.  He  has  written  so  much  that  he  should  write  less ; 
he  has  written  so  well  that  he  should  write  better.  When 
we  read  him,  we  think  now  of  this,  now  of  that  poet,  which 
implies  that  his  verse  lacks  a  character  of  its  own.  It  has 
little  of  the  economy  of  thought  and  expression  that  mark 
the  best  writing;  it  has  none  of  those  surprises,  none  of 
those  phrases  that  startle  by  their  unexpected  beauty  or 
strength.  This  does  not  mean  that  his  work  offers  little  of 
interest ;  it  is  rather  an  expression  of  regret  that  he  has 
not  learned  what  Arnold  has  called  the  "austerity  of  poetry." 
It  is  certainly  a  pleasure  to  hear  him  sing  of  the  "cool  of 
the  evening,"  of  "Sherwood  in  the  twilight,"  or  of  "The 
World's  May-Queen,"  "When  Spring  comes  back  to  Eng- 
land."    His  lyrics  show  his  finest  writing. 

If,  in  closing  our  chapter,  we  attempt  to  generalize  on 
these  latter-day  poets,  we  shall  find  it  a  difficult  matter,  for 
each  is  a  law  unto  himself.  They  have  enlarged  the  resources 
of  lyric  expression,  offering  us  such  widely  differing  measures 
as  the  most  graceful  of  French  verse  forms  and  the  vigorous 
unrhymed  songs  of  Henley.  They  have  employed  a  style 
as  realistic  as  the  modern  novel  can  show,  and  they  have 


652  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

written  with  the  grace  of  Herrick.  They  have  searched 
with  the  keenest  vision  for  the  shameful  sights  of  city  life 
and  sung  of  them  with  burning  anger;  they  have  shut  their 
eyes  to  the  present  and  dreamed  of  the  past.  They  have 
discovered  a  beauty  in  sights  and  sounds  that  earher  poets 
neither  saw  nor  heard;  they  have  been  content  to  rediscover 
nature  and  to  sing  the  old  themes.  They  mourn  their  loss 
of  faith  or  are  combatively  pagan;  they  have  the  visions 
of  the  mystic  and  the  faith  of  a  child.  On  the  whole,  they 
have  brought  the  lyric  closer  to  our  life.  They  are  more 
subtle,  but  they  have  not  written  with  the  force  or  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  older  generation,  for  they  are  lesser  person- 
alities. They  are  too  prone  to  dwell  upon  the  moods  of  the 
moment,  and  we  are  seldom  caught  up  by  the  sweep  of  their 
thought,  the  surge  of  their  emotion.  They  have  more  than 
talent  but  they  have  less  than  genius. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  end  of  our  long  journey  and  we 
pause  for  a  moment  to  look  back  over  the  winding  road. 
We  still  retain  the  impression  formed  on  the  way  that  the 
great  age  of  the  lyric,  save  for  songs  in  the  drama,  is  not 
so  far  distant  as  the  time  of  Elizabeth.  The  question  that 
comes  to  us  now  is  not  what  the  lyric  has  been  but  what  it 
shall  be.  Is  the  long  succession  broken.''  Zola  had  little  of 
the  poet  in  him  and  it  was,  therefore,  natural  that  he  should 
be  the  one  to  declare  most  positively  that  verse  had  given 
its  message  and  exhausted  its  resources.  He  believed  that 
it  would  die  and  that  henceforth  the  realistic  novel  would 
depict  and  interpret  life  for  us. 

If  our  study  has  taught  us  anything,  it  has  shown  us  that 
the  very  periods  when  song  seemed  dead  were  but  the  quiet 
of  the  early  morning  before  the  day  begins.  The  limited 
accomplishment  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey  was  succeeded  by  the 
Elizabethan  lyric ;  Shenstone  and  the  Wartons  are  followed 
by  the  romantic  school.  If  to-day  there  is  no  great  English 
poet,  it  by  no  means  follows,  as  we  have  shown,  that  our 


THE  LYRIC  OF  TO-DAY  553 

verse  is  unworthy  or  that  it  points  to  the  end.  The  great 
spiritual  gift  of  the  English  race  is  its  poetry.  Other  nations 
have  painted  finer  pictures,  written  finer  music,  carved  finer 
statues.  No  people  has  produced  such  a  band  of  inspired 
singers.  England  can  not  forget  what  is  in  her  very  blood. 
We  may  wait  with  confidence  for  her  new  lyric  poet,  for  he 
will  surely  come;  if  we  may  not,  as  least  our  children  shall 
hear  him. 

FINIS 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

This  bibliography  contains  merely  a  selected  list.  Editions 
of  the  poets,  together  with  the  titles  of  critical  works  and  articles, 
will  be  found  in  the  footnotes  of  the  various  chapters.  Imme- 
diate reference  to  these  may  be  had  in  the  extended  index  of 
authors,  editors,  and  titles  of  books  (HI).  At  the  present  time, 
when  elaborate  bibliographies  of  individual  poets  are  constantly 
appearing,  it  has  seemed  unwise  for  the  purpose  of  a  general 
history  to  attempt  a  comprehensive  scheme. 

Works  on  English  Metre.  J. '  Schipper,  Englische  Metrih, 
Bonn,  1881-1888;  A  History  of  English  Versification,  Oxford, 
1910 ;  G.  Saintsbury,  A  History  of  English  Prosody,  London, 
1906-1910 ;  Historical  Manual  of  English  Prosody,  London, 
1910 ;  R.  M.  Alden,  English  Verse,  N.  Y.,  1903.  Other  useful 
books  are,  H.  Corson,  A  Primer  of  English  Verse,  Boston,  1 893 ; 
J.  B.  Dabney,  The  Musical  Basis  of  Verse,  London,  190I ;  C.  M. 
Lewis,  The  Principles  of  English  Verse,  N.  Y.,  1906;  T.  S. 
Omond,  A  Study  of  Metre,  London,  1907;  English  Metrists  in 
the  Eighteenth  and  Nineteenth  Centuries,  London,  1907;  R.  M. 
Alden,  Introduction  to  English  Poetry,  N.  Y.,  1909;  C.  F. 
Richardson,  A  Study  of  English  Rhyme,  Hanover,  1909;  B. 
Matthews,  A  Study  of  Versification,  Boston,  191I.  A  good 
bibliography  of  articles  and  books  on  English  metres  will  be 
found  in  C.  M.  Gayley  and  F.  N.  Scott's  An  Introduction  to  the 
Methods  and  Materials  of  Literary  Criticism,  chapter  V,  Boston, 
1899.  For  French  metres,  see  L.  E.  Kastner,  A  History  of 
French  Versification,  Oxford,  1903. 

Chapter  I.  For  the  classic  lyric,  see  A.  Croiset,  La  Poesie 
de  Pindare  et  les  lois  du  lyrisme  grec,  Paris,  1880;  E.  Nageotte, 
Histoire  de  la  poesie  lyrique  grecque,  Paris,  1888;  A.  and  M. 
Croiset,  Histoire  de  la  litterature  grecque,  Paris,  1898.  For  the 
modern  lyric,  see  F.  T.  Palgrave,  Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and 
Lyrics  (Preface),  London,  I86I;  T.  -  Watts-Dunton,  article 
"Poetry"  in  Encyclopcedia  Brittanica;  E.  C.  Stedman,  The 
Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry,  Boston,  1892;  F.  E.  Schelling, 


556  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

A  Book  of  Elizabethan  Lyrics  (Introduction),  Boston,  1895; 
F.  B.  Gummere,  A  Handbook  of  Poetics  (chapter  II,  Lyric 
Poetry),  Boston,  1898;  F.  B.  Gummere,  The  Beginnings  of 
Poetry,  N.  Y.,  1901 ;  J.  Erskine/^T/ie  Elizabethan  Lyric  (chapter 
I),  N.  Y.,  1903;  R.  M.  Alden,  Introduction  to  Poetry  (chapter 
II),  N.  Y.,  1909.  F.  Brunetiere,  L'ivolution  de  la  poesie 
lyrique  en  France  au  dix-neuvieme  siecle,  Paris,  1894;  R.  M. 
Werner,  Lyrik  und  Lyriker,  Leipzig,  1890  (a  disappointing 
work). 

For  the  Old  English  lyric  see  F.  B.  Gummere,  Germanic 
Origins,  N.  Y.,  1892;  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  N.  Y.,  1901. 
Cook  and  Tinker,  Select  Translations  from  Old  English  Poetry, 
Boston,  1902,  contains  a  brief  but  excellent  bibliography. 

Chapter  II.  For  the  early  French  lyric  see  K.  Bartsch, 
Altfranzosische  Romanzen  und  Pastourellen,  Leipzig,  1870; 
Chrestomathie  de  I'ancien  frangais,  Leipzig,  1872;  J.  Brakel- 
mann,  Les  plus  anciens  chansoniers  frangais,  Paris,  1891;  A 
Jeanroy,  Les  Origines  de  la  poesie  lyrique  en  France  au  moyen 
age,  Paris,  1889.  C.  Voretzsch,  Einfuhrung  in  das  Studium  der 
altfranzosischen  Literature,  Halle,  1905,  contains  a  good  list  of 
books.  J.  H.  Smith's  The  Troubadours  at  Home,  N.  Y.,  1899, 
contains  an  extensive  bibliography  on  the  subject  of  Troubadour 
verse;  there  is  a  brief  but  excellent  list  of  the  most  important 
books  on  this  subject  in  Jean  Beck's  valuable  La  Musique  des 
Troubadours,  Paris,  1910. 

The  best  bibliography  of  the  Middle  English  lyric  is  contained 
in  E.  K.  Chambers  and  F.  Sidgwick's  Early  English  Lyrics, 
London,  19O6;  there  is  also  a  good  bibliography  in  F.  A.  Pat- 
terson's The  Middle  English  Penitential  Lyric,  N.  Y.,  1911- 
Indispensable  are  Early  Bodleian  Music,  ed.  by  Sir  John  Stainer, 
London,  1901,  and  K.  Boddeker's  Altenglische  Dichtungen  des 
MS.  Harleian  225S,  Berlin,  1878.  The  E.  E.  T.  S.  promises  a 
new  edition  of  this  MS.  For  the  Planctus  Marios  see  Englische 
Studien,  Vol.  XVI,  p.  124;  Modern  Philology,  Vol.  IV,  p.  605; 
H.  Kiel,  Ueber  die  englischen  Marienklagen,  Kiel,  19O6.  For 
carols  see  bibliography  in  Early  English  Lyrics.  F.  J.  Crowest, 
The  Story  of  the  Carol,  London,  1911,  contains  a  convenient 
bibliography   (Appendix  D)   of  carols  and  music  both  in  MSS. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  657 

and  print.  To  this  list  should  be  added,  E.  Rickert,  Ancient 
English  Christmas  Carols,  London,  IQIO;  C.  J.  Sharp,  English 
Folk-Carols,  London,  191I. 

Chapter  III.  For  a  bibliography  of  writings  on  Petrarch, 
see  Luigi  Suttina,  Bibliographie  delle  Opere  a  Stampa  intorno 
a  Francesco  Petrarca,  esistente  nella  Biblioteca  Rossettiana  di 
Trieste,  Trieste,  1908.  For  a  brief  bibliography,  see  P.  De 
l^o\ha.c,  Petrarch  et  I'humanisme,  Paris,  1892;  G.  Finze,  Petrarca, 
Firenze,  19OO;  C.  Segre,  Studi  Petrarchesci,  Firenze,  1903;  F. 
De  Sanctis,  Saggio  critico  sul  Petrarca,  nuova  edizione  a  cura 
di  B.  Croce,  Napoli,  1907;  H.  C.  Holway-Calthorp,  Petrarch, 
His  Life  and  Times,  N.  Y.,  1908;  M.  F.  Jerrold,  Petrarca,  Poet 
and  Humanist,  N.  Y.,  1908.  For  the  Italian  essays  and  dialogues 
on  the  nature  of  love,  see  M.  Rosi,  Saggio  sui  tratti  d'amore  del 
cinquecento,  1889. 

For  the  English  lyrics  of  this  period,  see  E.  Fliigel,  Neueng- 
lisches  Lesebuch,  HaUe,  1 895 ;  Chambers  and  Sidgwick's  Early 
English  Lyrics.  F.  M.  Padelford's  Early  Sixteenth  Century 
Lyrics,  Boston,  1907,  contains  an  excellent  bibliography  for  the 
study  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey ;  see  also  W.  J.  Courthope,  A  History 
of  English  Poetry,  Vol.  II,  London,  1897.  A  short  but  most 
excellent  bibliography  of  sonnet  literature  is  contained  in  Alden's 
English  Verse,  chapter  IV.  For  the  vogue  of  the  sonnet  on  the 
continent,  see  J.  Vaganay,  Le  sonnet  en  Italic  et  en  France  au 
XVIme  siecle,  Lyons,  1902. 

For  the  French  sixteenth  century  lyric,  see  J.  Vianey,  Le 
Petrarquisme  en  France  au  XVIme  siecle,  Montpellier,  1909.  A 
convenient  anthology  of  the  Pleiade  is  G.  Meunier's  La  Poesie  de 
la  Renaissance,  Paris,  N.  D.  See  also  H.  Belloc,  Avril,  London, 
1904;  G.  Wyndham,  Ronsard  and  a  Pleiade,  London,  1906. 

Chapter  IV.  Erskine's  Elizabethan  Lyric  contains  a  good 
bibliography  of  this  period.  See  G.  Saintsbury,  Elizabethan 
Literature,  London,  1890;  F.  E.  Schelling,  A  Book  of  Eliza- 
bethan Lyrics.  For  the  sonnet  sequences,  see  Sidney  Lee,  Eliza- 
bethan Sonnets  in  the  re-issue  of  Arber's  English  Garner,  Lon- 
don, N.  D. ;  A.  H.  Upham,  The  French  Influence  in  English  Lit- 
erature from  the  Accession  of  Elizabeth  to  the  Restoration,  N.  Y., 
1908;  Sidney  Lee,  The  French  Renaissance  in  England,  chapter 


558  ENGLISH  LYRICAL  POETRY 

IV,  London,  191O.  See  also  the  important  articles  by  L.  E. 
Kastner  in  the  Modern  Language  Review,  1907-1909-  For 
Shakespeare's  sonnets,  see  Sidney  Lee,  Life  of  William  Shakes- 
peare, London,  1898;  Introduction  to  Shakespeare's  Sonnets, 
being  a  reproduction  in  facsimile  of  the  first  edition,  Oxford, 
1905;  E.  Dowden,  The  Sonnets  of  William  Shakespeare,  London, 
1881;  H.  C.  Beeching,  The  Sonnets  of  Shakespeare,  Boston, 
1904;  J.  Jusserand,  A  Literary  History  of  the  English  People, 
Vol.  Ill,  part  II,  N.  Y.,  1909- 

For  the  Elizabethan  song,  see  the  collections  edited  by  Bullen. 
Interesting  essays  upon  the  nature  of  these  songs  are  to  be  found 
in  J.  A.  Symonds^  In  the  Key  of  Blue  and  other  Prose  Essays, 
London,  1893;  H.  A.  Beers,  Points  at  Issue,  N.  Y.,  1904.  See 
also  T.  Oliphant,  La  Musa  Madrigalesca,  London,  1837;  F.  A. 
Cox,  English  Madrigals  in  the  Time  of  Shakespeare,  London, 
N.  D.  W.  Bolle,  Die  gedruckten  englischen  Liederbucher  bis 
1600,  Berlin,  1903.  For  the  music,  E.  F.  Rimbault,  A  Biblio- 
graphical Account  of  the  Musical  and  Poetical  Works  published 
in  England  during  the  16th  and  17th  centuries,  London,  1847; 

E.  Walker,  The  History  of  Music  in  England,  chapter  IV, 
Oxford,  1907;  E.  W.  Naylor,  An  Elizabethan  Virginal  Book, 
London,  1905,  contains  interesting  examples  of  and  comments 
upon  Elizabethan  music.  See  also  V.  Jackson,  English  Melodies 
from  the  13th  to  the  18th  Century,  London,  191O. 

Chapter  V.  E.  Gosse,  Seventeenth  Century  Studies,  London, 
1883;    G.    Saintsbury,    Elizabethan   Literature,    London,    1890; 

F.  E.  Schelling,  A  Book  of  Seventeenth  Century  Lyrics,  Boston, 
1899-  For  Cavalier  Lyrics,  see  Charles  Mackay,  The  Cavalier 
Songs  and  Ballads  of  England,  London,  1863;  The  Jacobite 
Ballads  of  Scotland,  London,  1863.  There  is  a  brief  bibliography 
for  Herrick  in  E.  E.  Hale,  Selections  from  the  Poetry  of  Robert 
Herrick,  Boston,  1895.  See  also  F.  W.  Moorman,  Robert  Her- 
rick, London,  1910.  For  other  books  on  this  period,  the  reader 
is  again  referred  to  the  footnotes  of  the  chapter. 

Chapter  VI.  E.  Gosse,  Eighteenth  Century  Literature, 
London,  1889;  R.  Garnett,  The  Age  of  Dryden,  London,  1895. 
See  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets.  Little  has  been  written  on  the 
minor  lyrists  of  this  period;   generally  they  are  treated  as  in 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  559 

Thomas  Longueville's  gossipy  Rochester  and  other  Literary 
Rakes  of  the  Court  of  Charles  II,  London,  1902. 

Chapter  VII.  T.  S.  Perry,  English  Literature  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  N.  Y.,  1883;  W.  L.  Phelps,  The  Begin- 
nings of  the  English  Romantic  Movement,  Boston,  1893;  W. 
Minto,  The  Literature  of  the  Georgian  Era  (new  edition),  N.  Y., 
1 895 ;  G.  Saintsbury,  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,  London, 
1896;  H.  A.  Beers,  A  History  of  English  Romanticism  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  N.  Y.,  1899. 

Chapters  VIII  and  IX.  H.  A.  Beers,  A  History  of  English 
Romanticism  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  N.  Y.,  1901;  A. 
Symons,  The  Romantic  Movement  in  English  Poetry,  London, 
1909;  Hugh  Walker,  The  Literature  of  the  Victorian  Era,  Cam- 
bridge, 1910. 

Chapter  X.  W.  Archer,  Poets  of  the  Younger  Generation, 
London,  1902;  A.  Symons,  Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse,  N.  Y., 
1905. 


INDEX     I 

Inbex  of  First  Lines  Quoted  in  the  Text 

A  babe  is  born   87 

A  face  that  should  content  me   126  n 

A  flock  of  sheep  that  leisurely  pass  by  397 

A  slumber  did  my  spirit  steal   395 

A  sonnet  is  a  moment's  monument  461 

A  sunny  shaft  did  I  behold   400 

A  sweet  disorder  in  the  dress   266 

Abide   with   me    494 

Absense   of  yeu    93 

Absent  from  thee  I  languish  still   326 

Ae  fond  kiss   220,  389,  412 

Ah  Chloris !  that  I  now  could  sit   324 

Ah !  Chloris,  'tis  time    322 

Ah  fading  joy  I  318 

Ah,  sweet  Content !   158 

Ah  were  she  pitiful  200 

Ah !  what  a  weary  race  365 

Ah,  what  is  love?  200 

Al  gold  Jonet  is  thin  her 48 

Alas !  have  I  not  pain  enough  ?  152 

All  along  the  valley 450 

AU  earthly  beauty  hath  one  cause  541 

AU  in  the  Downs 343 

All  my  past  life 326 

All  the  flowers  of  the  Spring  206 

Alle  that  beoth  of  huerte  trewe  54 

Amor,  che  nel  penser  mio  121 

And  let  me  the  canaldn  clink,  clink t 205 

And  thou  art  dead  as  yoimg  and  fair  405 

And  wilt  thou  leave  me  thus  ?  125 

Angel  spirits  of   sleep    541 

April  is  in  my  mistress'  face   217 

A  qualunque  animale   102 

Art  thou  pale  for  weariness    156  n 

Art  thou  poor  205 

As  Chloe  came  into  the  room 342 

As  god  of  heven   80 

As  on  a  bank  I  sat  295 

As  one  who,  long  by  wasting  sickness  worn  391 


B6S  INDEX 

As  slow  our  ship   435 

As  through  the  land  at  eve  we  went  445,  451 

Ase  y  me  rod  61 

Ask  me  no  more  451 

Ask  me  no  more  where  Jove  bestows   251,  451  n 

At  beauty's   bar    143 

At  the  midnight  in  the  silence  of  the  sleep-time  458 

Avenge,  O,  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints   298,  545 

Awake,  my  soul,  and  with  the  sun  369 

Ay,  ay,  O,  ay — the  winds  that  bend  the  briar  451 

Ay,  besherewe  you 96 

Back  and  side  go  bare  117 

Be  pes,  ye  make  me  spill  my  ale  89 

Beauty,  sweet  love  , 162 

Before  the  dread  j  ourney 19 

Behold,  dear  mistress   147 

Believe  me,  if  all  those  endearing  young  charms  435 

Belle  Aliz  matin  leva  34 

Bid  me  to  live  330 

Birds  in  the  high  wood  calling   451 

Blame  not  my  lute  126  n 

Blow,  blow  thou  winter  wind   207 

Blow  high,  blow  low,  let  tempests  tear  367 

Break,  break,  break 450 

Bright  star !  would  I  were  steadfast  425 

Bright  was  the  morning  335 

Buy  my  English  posies !  550 

Bytuene  mersh  ant  aueril   60 

Call   for  the  robin-redbreast    206 

Care-charmer  Sleep !    162 

Celeste  forma   ISO  n 

C'est  la  fins,  koi  que  nus  die  36 

Chiare,  fresche  e  dolci  aeque   105,  123 

Clear  Ankor,  on  whose  silver-sanded  shore    163 

Come  leave  the  loathed  stage  227 

Come  live  with  me   (Marlowe)    201 

Come  live  with  me  (Donne)    235 

Come  over  the  woodes   112 

Come  pass  about  the  bowl  to  me  261 

Come,  shadow  of  my  end  217 

Come  Sleep!  O  Sleep!   155 

Come  to  me  in  the  silence  of  the  night  493 

Come  unto  these  yellow  sands   207 


INDEX  B6S 

Come,  ye  disconsolate   437 

Conceit  begotten  by  the  eyes   194 

Crown  Winter  with  green   54] 

Cupid  and  my  Campaspe  played 151,  204 

De  ma  dame  vxdl  chanter  43 

Dear  Chloe,  how  blubbered  is  that  pretty  face !  340,  507 

Dear,  if  you  change   218 

Dear,  why  should  you  command  me  to  my  rest 163 

Del  mar  Tirreno  alia  sinistra  riva  107 

Disdain  me  not   126  n 

Dormi,  fill,  dormi !   36 

Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes  232,  266,  506 

Dronken,  dronken,  y-dronken   48 

Edi  beo  thu  heuene  queue    49 

En  mai  an  douz  tens  nouvel  33 

Entre  le  boeuf  et  I'Sne  gris  39 

Era  il  giorno    134  n 

Even  such  is  Time  195 

Evermore  in  mine  ears   417 

Far,  far  away,  O  ye.  Halcyons  of  Memory   411 

Farewell !  thou  art  too  dear  157 

Fair  and  fair  200 

Fair  stood  the  wind  for  France  187 

Fayr  and  discrete   93 

For  her  gait   243 

For  love  Apollo  133  n 

Forever  with  the  Lord   494 

Forget  not  yet   125 

Foweles  in  the  frith    49 

Free  love — free  field   451 

Fresh  Spring,  the  herald   165 

From  a  lone  tower  350 

From  Tuscan  came   130  n 

FuU  fathom  five   208 

Gather  ye  rosebuds   330 

Give  me  more  love   2S0 

Give  me  my  scallop  shell  of  quiet   195 

Give  place,  ye  lovers   131 

Give  place  you  ladies   134 

Glory  to  thee,  my  God,  this  night 369 

Go  and  catch  a  falling  star  235 


664  INDEX 

Go,  gOj  quaint  follies  288 

Go  hert,  hurt  witli  adversite   91 

Go,  lovely  rose   305,  306 

Go,  piteous  sighs   95 

Go,  pretty  child 269 

God  is  it  refuge  for  his  saints   370 

God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 373 

Gone  are  my  games  83 

Good  and  great  God  232 

Good  hostess,  lay  a  crab  in  the  fire  116 

Guide  me,  O  thou  great  Jehovah   370 

Gulls  in  an  aery  morrice  533 

Had  I  a.  heart  for  falsehood  framed  366 

Hail,  orient  Conqueror  of  gloomy  night   397 

Hail,  meek-eyed  maiden    363 

Happy  were  he  139 

Hark,  hark,  my  soul  494 

Hark,  hark  the  lark  208,  213 

Hark,  joUy  shepherds  215 

Hark  my  soul !  it  is  the  Lord  372 

HajTnakers,   rakers,   reapers,  and  mowers    205 

Having  this  day  my  horse,  my  hand,  my  lance  519 

Heap  cassia,  sandal-buds  and  stripes    456 

He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek 251,  268 

Help  me  to  seek  136  n 

Hence,  all  you  vain  delights  206 

Here's  to  the  maiden  of  bashfull  sixteen 366 

Highway !  since  you  my  chief  Parnassus  be  155 

His  golden  locks    200 

Holy,  holy,  holy,  Lord  God  Almighty  494 

Home  they  brought  her  warrior  dead  445,  451 

Hope  like  the  taper's  gleamy  light  366 

How  am  I  changed !  My  hopes  were  once  like  fire  411 

How  are  thy  servants  blessed   337 

How  do  I  love  thee 489 

How  doth  the  little  busy  bee   369 

How  happy  could  I  be  with  either   344 

How  happy  is  he  395 

How  hey  I  it  is  none  lese  90 

How  like  an  angel   338 

How   many   bards    430 

How  many  paltry,  foolish  painted  things   163 

How  many  Summers,  love   444 

How  sweet  the  music  echo  makes  449 


INDEX  565 

How  sweet  the  name  of  Jesus  sounds  370 

How  unhappy  a  lover  am  I    318 

Hush,  my  dear,  lie  still 370 

Hyd  Absolon,  thy  gilte  tresses  clere  73 

am  as  lighte  as  any  roe 90 

am  monarch  of  all  I  survey  373 

came,  I  saw,  and  was  undone  310 

care  not  for  those  ladies    319 

did  not  live  until  this  time   339 

faint,  I  perish  with  my  love !   413 

find  no  peace    133 

fled  Him,  down  the  nights   .539 

have  loved  flowers  that  fade  544 

heard  a  linnet  courting   541 

heard  men  upon  the  mould  65 

heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say  494 

know  a  little  garden  close 467 

love  aU  beauteous  things    543 

love  to  hear  that  men  are  bound 417 

might — unhappy  word    153 

ne'er  could  any  lustre  see  366 

never  shall  love  the  snow  again  543 

pant  for  the  music  which  is  divine  413 

pass  all  my  hours    332 

prithee  let  my  heart  alone  363 

prithee  send  me  254,  330 

prithee   spare   me    354 

remember,   I   remember   442 

saw  from  the  beach   437 

saw  my  lady  weep    218 

sing  of  a  maiden   86 

stood  tip-toe  upon  a.  little  hill  277 

strove  with  none   414,  416 

tell  you  hopeless  grief  is  passionless  489 

told  my  love    384 

took  a  hansom  on  to  day  519 

wandered  far  in  the  wold   547 

wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud  394 

wish  I  was  by  that  dim  lake   436  n 

wish  I  were  where  Helen  lies 10 

wonder,  by  my  troth,  what  thou  and  I    336 

would  not  be  a  king  *11 

cham  of  Irlaunde    "^8 

chaue    a   mantel    *8 


666  INDEX 

Ich  em  nu  alder  thene  ich  was  43 

Ichot  a  burde   57 

If  ever  Sorrow  spoke    160 

If  love  vifere  what  the  rose  is   471 

If  there  were  dreams  to   sell   446 

If  thou  must  love  me,  let  it  be  for  me   '. 489 

If  thou  wilt  cure  thine  heart  445 

II  pleure  dans  mon  coeur   451 

In  a  herber  green   117 

In  going  to  my  naked  bed    196 

In  love,  if  love  be  love   451 

In  somer  when  the  shawes  be  sheyne   89 

In  the   bleak   mid-winter    88 

In  the  merry  month  of  May   190 

In  the  white-flowered  hawthorn  brake    468 

Integer  vitae  scelerisque  purus    8 

In  time  the  strong  and  stately  turrets  fall 159 

It   is   a  beauteous  evening    397 

It  is  no  dream  that   I   am  he    418 

It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 230 

It  soars  like  hearts  of  hapless   men    547 

It  was  a'  for  our  rightful  king  430 

It   was    a   lover    207 

I  wish  I  were  a  little  bird   490 

I  will  make  you  brooches  and  toys  for  your  delight  511 

Jentill   butler,    bellamy    89 

Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul    370 

Know   then,  my  brethren    294 

Lady  the  birds   right  fairly    315 

L'aspetto   sacro    104  n 

Lay   a  garland    205 

Lead,  kindly   Light    494 

I,enten  ys  come  with  loue  to  toune  60 

Let  me  not  to  the  marriage  of  true  minds   175 

Like   as   tlie   waves    175 

Like   to  the   clear    189 

Little  Lamb,  who  made  thee   383 

Look,  Delia,  how  we  'steem  the  half  blown  rose  162 

Love  and  harmony  combine   382 

Love  in  my  bosom    189 

I-ove  is  a  sickness  full  of  woes   104,  188 

Love  me  not   for  comely  grace    488 


INDEX  567 

Love  on  my  heart  from  heaven  fell   543 

Love,  that  doth  reign    127 

Love's  but  the  frailty  of  the  mind 320 

Loving  in  truth,  and  fain  in  verse  my  love  to  show .506 

Lutel  wot  it  anymon   62 

Lysteneth,  Lordynges,  a  newe  song   54 

Man  in  the  moon  61,  89 

Many  a  merry  meeting   244 

March,  march,  Ettrick  and  Teviotdale  429 

Mark  where  the  pressing  wind  shoots  j  avelin  like   497 

Martial,  the  things  that  do  attain   128 

Mary  1  I  want  a  lyre  with  other  strings   374 

Memory,  hither  come  382 

Men  call  you  fair   166 

Merie  it  is  while  sumer  ilast  46 

Merie  sungen  the  muneches   19 

Methought  I  saw  my  late  espoused  saint  194,  464 

Mignonne,  allons  voir  si  la  rose    162 

Mihi  est  propositum   57 

Mine  eye  and  heart   176 

Moder  milde,  fiur  of  alle  49 

Mon  ime  a  son  secret 158 

Mon,  wi  seestu  loue  ant  herte   51 

Mortal  man  and  woman   487 

Move  eastward,  happy  earth   450 

Music,  when  soft  voices  die   414 

My  banks  they  are  furnished  with  bees  349 

My  comforts  drop  and  melt   280 

My  darlyng  dere  96 

My  dear  mistress  has  a  heart 326 

My  delight  and  thy  delight   542 

My  eyes  for  beauty  pine  542 

My  galley  charged  with  forgetfulness   123 

My  gentle  bird   146 

My  girl,  thou  gazest  much  143 

My  gostly  f adir,  y  me  confesse   77 

My  heart  is  like  a  singing  bird  493 

My  heart  is  yours   113 

My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold  394 

My  heart,  my  mind,  and  my  whole  power 113 

My  little  pretty  one  114 

My  love's  an  arbutus  57 

My  love  is  of  a  birth  as  rare 274 

My  love  is  like  to  Ice  165 


568  INDEX 

My  lute,  awake  125 

My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is   408 

My  prime  of  youtli  140,  172 

My  silks  and  fine  array 382 

My  soul  is  an  enchanted  boat   413 

My  spotless  love   161 

My  true  love  hath  my  heart   178 

My  wofull  heart    89 

Nearer,  my  God,  to  thee  494 

Nel   dolce   tempo    134  n 

Never  love  unless  you  can   220 

Never  seek  to  teU  thy  love   507 

No,  no,  poor  suffering  heart   318 

Nobly,  nobly  Cape  Saint  Vincent   458 

Not    at   first   sight    152 

Not,  Celia,  that  I  juster  am   324 

Not  here,  O  Apollo    485 

Not  to  know  vice   at  aU    229 

Now  is  the  month  of  maying  215 

Now  springes  the  sprai    66 

Now  that  the  Spring  hath  fiUed  our  veins   243 

Now  that  the  winter's   gone    246 

Now  the  lusty  Spring  is  seen   205 

Now  the   white  violet  blooms    417 

Now   welcom   somer    73 

Now  winter  nights   enlarge    541 

O  do  not  wanton  with  those  eyes 233 

Oh !  for  a  closer  walk  with  God   372 

O  for  a  day  of  Spring  533 

O  June,  O  June,  that  we  desired  so  469 

O  life !  what  lets  thee    193 

O  mistress  mine   207 

O  my  Luve's  like  a  red,  red  rose  387 

O  only  Source  of  all  our  light  480 

Oh  ponder  well !  be  not  severe   344 

O  sacred  head  now  wounded   62 

Oh,  sing  unto  my  roundelay   378 

O  sonno,  o  della  queta  155 

O  stream  descending  to  the  sea  480,  481 

O  that  sad  day   328 

Oh  that  those  lips  had  language   374 

O  that  'twere  possible   452 

O  thou  whose  image  in  the  shrine  480 


INDEX  569 

O  Time !  who  know'st  a  lenient  hand  to  lay  390 

O'er  Cornwall's  cliffs  the  tempests  roared   364 

Of  a  rose,  a  lovely  rose  85 

Of  a'  the  airts    389,  4,37 

Of  beauty  yet  she  passeth  all  114 

Oft  in  the  stilly  night 437 

On  a  poet's  lips  I  slept 413 

On  distant  heaths  beneath  autumnal  skies   349 

On  hire  is  al  my  lif  ilong 51 

One  day  I  wrote  her  name  167 

One  struggle  more  and  I  am  free 405 

Or  ever  the  knightly  years  were  gone    520 

Our  bugles  sang  truce  434 

Our  God,  our  help  in  ages  past   370 

Out   upon   it    255 

Over  hiU,  over  dale    207 

Over  the  hills  and  far  away   320 

Owre  kynge  went  forth   91 

Pack,  clouds,  away   205,  271 

Pan,  leave  piping   331 

Pastime  vrath  good  company  Ill 

Phillis  is  my  only  joy   324 

PhiUis,  men  say  that  all  my  vows   323 

Poichfe  '1  cammin  102  n 

Prayer,  the  Churches  banquet    280 

Princes  that  rule   319 

Pus  vezem  de  novelh  flour   31 

Put  forth  thy  leaf,  thou  lofty  plane  481 

Quando  piu  guardo   210 

Quant  I'erba  f resqu'   26 

Quant  li  estez  27 

Queen  and  huntress   231 

Queen,  for  whose  house  my  fathers  fought   471 

Quel  antiquo  mio  dolce  empio  signore  121 

Questa  nuova  del  ciel  felice  Stella   150  n 

Rarely,  rarely  comest  thou    410 

Reach  with  your  whiter  hands   266 

Reign  in  my  thoughts   1^1 

Remember  me  when  I  am  gone  away  *93 

Rendez  k  I'or  cette  couleur  qui  dore  161 

Restore   thy   treasure    161 

Ring  out  your  bells   1''^^ 


670  INDEX 

Rock   of   Ages    370 

Rough  wind  that  moanest  loud   407 

S'  Amor  non  k   70 

Say  not,  the  struggle  naught  availeth  480 

Scots,  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled  385,  436 

See  how  the  feathered  blossoms  333 

See  where  my  love  214 

Se'l  viver  nostro  136 

Shall  I  wasting  in  despair  244 

She  I  love  (alas  in  vain)   418 

She  is  far  from  the  land  437 

She  walks  in  beauty  like  the  night  405 

She  was  a  phantom  of  delight  515 

Sherwood  in  the  twilight    551 

Si  come  1'  amorosa,  e  vaga  stella  150  n 

Si  k  debile  il  filo  122 

Si  notre  vie  est  moins  qu'une  j  ournde  136 

Sigh  no  more,  Ladies   208 

Since  love  will  needs   126  n 

Since  there's  no  help   164,  462 

Sing  me  a  song  of  a  lad  that  is  gone  511 

Slow,  slow,  fresh  fount  230 

So  cruel  prison   131  n 

So  feeble  is  the  thread  154  n 

Songs  of  Shepherds  332 

Soimd  the  deep  waters   492 

Steer,  hither  steer  your  winged  pines   243 

Stella :  che  degna  ben  vi  dimostrate  150  n 

StiU  to  be  neat  231 

Such  green  to  me  as  you  have  sent  134 

Sumer  is  icumen  in   46,  47 

Summer  set  lip  to  earth's  bosom  bare  525 

Sun  of  my  soul  494 

Sweet  and  low,  sweet  and  low  451 

Sweet  are  the  thoughts  200 

Sweet,  be  not  proud   272 

Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm  280 

Sweetest  love,  I  do  not  go  235,  239 

Sweet  violets.  Love's  Paradise   198 

Tagus,   farewell   126  n 

Take,  O  take  those  lips  away  208,  330 

Tapster,  drynker,  fille  another  ale   89 

Tears,  idle  tears   451 


INDEX  571 

Tell  me  not,  sweet  357    359 

Tempus  adest  floridum  41 

Terly  terlow,  terly  terlow   126 

That  beauty  such  as  thine  548 

That  time  of  year   176 

That  was  my  Joy  92 

The  Assyrian  came  down  like  the  wolf  on  the  fold  406 

The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day 355 

The  day  grows  old   394 

The  door  was  shut  49I 

The  faery  beam  upon  you   266 

The  flower  that  smiles  to-day 411 

The  flude  comes  fleeting 80 

The  glittering  shows   197 

The  glories  of  our  blood  and  state  319 

The  glorious  image  of  the  Maker's  beauty 166 

The  golden   gift    130  n 

The  greatest  kings  do  least  command  content  137 

The  idle  life  I  lead  542 

The  king  sits  in  Dumferling  toune   10 

The  lark  now  leaves  his  watery  nest  319 

The  little  boy  256 

The  long  love  that  in  my  thought  I  harbour  121 

The  marigold  so  likes  the  lovely  sun  146 

The  merchant's  daughter   197 

The  merry  cuckoo   167 

The  night  her  blackest  sables  wore  346 

The  Nightingale — as  soon  as  April  bringeth  179,  217 

The  nightingale  has  a  lyre  of  gold  522 

The  nightingale,  the  organ  of  delight  215 

The  nymph  that  undoes  me  321 

The  poetry  of  earth  Is  never  dead   424 

The  rushing  rivers  that  do  run   144 

The  sea !  the  sea !  the  open  sea   443 

The  spacious  firmament  on  high  327 

The  swallow  leaves  her  nest  445 

The  ways  of  death  are  soothing  and  serene 518 

The  wisest  scholar  of  the  wight  most  wise  154 

The  world  is  too  much  with  us   173,  397 

The  year's  at  the  spring  457 

The  young  May  moon  is  beaming,  love   43T 

There  be  none  of  Beauty's  daughters  406 

There  is  no  rose  of  swich  vertu 85 

There's  none  without  love  331 

There's  not  a  joy  the  world  can  give  404 


572  INDEX 

There  was  never  nothing  124  n 

There  were  three  ravens  216 

They  flee   from  me    124  n 

This  ae  nighte   20 

This  endris  night  86 

This  mystic  wreath   263 

This  silken  wreath   247 

This  time  when  lovers  77 

Those  eyes  that  set  my  fancy  198 

Thou  yomigest  Virgin-daughter   317 

Through  the  dim  veil  of  evening's  dusky  shade  348 

Thus  I  compleyne  91 

Thus  to  a  ripe,  consenting  maid  320 

Thy  voice  from  inmost  dreamland  calls   548 

Tiger !  Tiger !  burning  bright  383 

To  all  you  ladies  now  on  land  323 

To  laugh,  to  smile    113 

To  one  who  has  been  long  in  city  pent 424 

To  this  moment  a  rebel   326 

Ton  kme  est  un  paysage  choisi   412 

Tout  la  gieus   24 

Touch  us  gently,  Time  444 

Tread  lightly,  she  is  near   513 

Treading  the  path  to  nobler  ends    307 

Trowl  the  bowl  205 

Turn,  Fortune,  turn  thy  wheel   451 

'Twas  but  a  single  rose   266 

'Twas  when  the  seas  were  roaring  344 

'Twas  within  a  furlong  of  Edinborough  town  335 

Twice  or  thrice  had  1  loved  thee  236 

Two  lines  shall  tell  the  grief  144 

Under  the  greenwood  tree 207 

Underneath  this  sable  hearse    268 

View   me.   Lord    220 

Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay 430 

Wassayle,  wassayle    116 

We  are  the  music  makers   499 

We  now  mid  hope  vor  better  cheer  505 

We  saw  the  swallows  gathering  in  the  sky  497 

Weep  no  more,  nor  sigh,  nor  groan  206 

Weep  not,  my  wanton  200 

Were  I  a  king 139 


INDEX  67S 

Wert  thou  a  king , 139 

What  dawn-pulse  at  the  heart  of  heaven  462 

What  should  I  say   126  n 

What  sweet  relief  the  showers 133 

What  was  he  doing,  the  great  god  Pan 488 

What  we,  when  face  to  face  we  see  480 

When  as  the  nightingale   262 

When  all  thy  mercies   337 

When  birds  were  songless 548 

When  by  Zeus  relenting  the  mandate  was  revoked   496 

When,  dearest,  I  but  think  of  thee   256 

When  first  I  met  thee  435 

When  forty  winters  174 

When  I  am  dead,  my  dearest   493 

When  I  behold  a  forest  spread   266 

When  I  do  hear  thy  name  144 

When  I  have  fears  that  I  may  cease  to  be  425 

When  I  have  seen  by  Time's  fell  hand  defaced 175 

When  I  see  winter  return   64 

When  in  disgrace  with  fortune  129  n 

When  Love,  rocked  by  his  mother  436  n 

When  Love  with  unconfined  wings 257 

When  lovely  woman  stoops  to  foUy  365 

When  May  is  in  his  prime   146 

When  raging  love    131  n 

When  Spring  comes  back  to  England 551 

When  the  hounds  of  Spring  472 

When  the  lamp  is  shattered  411 

When  the  winds  whistle  319 

When  thou  must  home   218,  220 

When  to  the  sessions  l^T 

When  we  two  parted  406 

When  you  are  old  518 

Where  griping  grief   1^^ 

Where  she  her  sacred  bower  adorns  320 

Where  the  quiet  coloured  end  of  evening  smiles   458 

Wherever  I  am,  and  whatever  I  do  318 

Whether  on  Ida's  shady  brow 382 

While    History's    Muse    *35 

While  I  listen  to  thy  voice  307 

Whoever  comes   to   shroud  me   236 

Who  is  Sylvia   ^^"^ 

Who  will  believe  my  verse  in  time  to  come   506 

Who  wins  his  love  shall  lose  her   539 


674  INDEX 

Why  art  thou  silent   39S 

Why  dost  thou  shade  thy  lovely  face  325 

Why  so  pale  and  wan  255 

Why  weep  ye  by  the  tide,  ladie   430 

Why  weeps,  alas !  my  lady  love   217 

With  how  sad  steps,  O  Moon  156 

With  margeraln  jentyl  97 

With  what  sharp  checks   154 

Winter  wakeneth  al  my  care  63,  64,  469,  521 

Ye  Gentlemen  of  England  432 

Ye  happy  swains    331 

Ye  living  lamps   274 

Ye  Mariners  of  England   431 

Ye  meaner  beauties  of  the  night   262,  295 

Ye  that  in  love   121  n 

You  are  a  tulip   272 

You  cannot  love,  my  pretty  Heart  163 

You  phrase-tormenting  fantastic  chorus  548 

You  that  have  spent  the  silent  night  142 


INDEX  II 

Titles  of  Lyric,   Naerative  and  Desceiptive  Poems 
Cited  in  the  Text 


[Dramas,   masques,   collections   of   poems,   including   sonnet    sequences, 
are  indexed  in  III.] 


A.  B.  C.  to  the  Virgin,  An 71 

A  Child  my  Choice   193 

Accontius   and  Cydippe    468 

Adieux  k  Marie  Stuart  471 

Ad  seipsum    198 

Aged  Lover  renounceth  Love, 

The      135 

Agincourt    (Anon.)    91 

Agincourt   (Drayton)    187 

Adonais    221,  414 

Albion     156  n 

Alexander's  Feast  316,  359 

All  in  a  garden  fair 197 

Alliance     of     Education     and 

Government,  The    351 

Almae  Matres  539 

Alysoun   55,  60,  65  n 

Amantium  Irae 196 

Amyntor's   Grove    258 

Annus  Mirabilis    315 

Arraignment  of  a  Lover 141 

Ars  Victrix  537  n 

Arthour  and  Merlin 23,  32,  67 

A  se  stesso   107 

As  slow  our  ship   435 

Atli,  Old  Lay  of 14 

At  the  Grave  of  Burns 390  n 

Attila    495 

Aurora  Leigh  486,  487,  528 

Autumnal,  The    548 

Ave  atque  Vale  472 

Ave,  Caesar  518 

Avril   538 

Azalea,  The 502,  503 


BaUad  of  a  Nun,  A   530  n 

Ballad  of  Charity,  The   376 

Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  The 

513,  514  n 
BaUad  in  Blank  Verse  of  the 

Making  of  a  Poet  530 

Ballad  upon  a  Wedding,  A  . . .  256 

Ballade  of  Dead  Ladies  73 

Banished     Wife's     Complaint, 

The    17 

Bard,  The 4,  353 

Battle  of  Brunanburh,  The    ...20 
Battle     of     the     Baltic,     The 

431,  432 

Beauty's   Pageant    462  n 

Bed  in  Summer  511 

Believe    me,    if    all    those   en- 
dearing young  charms    435 

Bell  Buoy,  The  550 

Belle  Dame  sans  merci.  La  . . . 

422,  424,  442 

Beowulf    17,  20 

Bermudas,  The    278 

Birth-Bond,    The    464 

Birthday,   The   493 

Blessed  Damozel,  The  

460,  461,  462,  501,  514 

Boke  of  the  Duchesse,  The 72 

Bonnie  Dundee    428 

Bothie     of    Tober-na-Vuolich, 

The   178,  476,  477 

Bouillabaisse     507 

Bridge  of  Sighs,  The   440 

Bright  Star    425 


676 


INDEX 


Bristowe  Tragedy,  Hie  376 

Britannia     539 

Brook,  The   449 

Bruce    385 

Bugle  Song,  The  449 

Burning  Babe,  The   193 

By  the  Fire  Side   474 

By  the  North  Sea 473,  475 

Campaign,  The   68,  337 

Cane-Bottomed  Chair,  The   . . 

507,  509 

Canonization   240 

Carol,  A  Christmas  88  n 

Carrier  Song,  A   625 

Cathedral  Spire,  The  647 

Cavalier's  Song   428 

Charity  491 

Chanson  du  Vanneur  ....  136,  638 

Child  Jesus  to  Mary,  The   76 

Child's  Laughter,  A  472 

Childe  Harold    405,  406 

Christ    19 

Christabel    398 

Christmas  Day  548 

Ciceroes  Death  133 

Clair  de  Lune 515 

Claribel    449 

Cloud,  The    412 

Collar,  The   280 

Community    238 

Complaint,  Hoccleve's   76 

Compleint  to  his  Lady 72 

Compleynt  of  Venus 72 

Confined  Love 238 

Corinna's  going  a-Maying   . . . 

272,  273,  275 

Corydon  and  Phillida   190 

Cour  de   Paradis,  La   24 

Crossing  the  Bar  416,  452 

Crusade,  The   364 

Cry  of  the  Children,  The  486 

Cuisse  cassfe,  La   140 

Cupid   and  Psyche   468 

Cynthia   (Barnfleld)    ...164,  164  n 


Cynthia   (Raleigh)    355 

Daisy    527 

Dawning    289 

Day  in  Sussex,  A    535 

Death  Bed,  The   442 

Death  of  Zoroas,   The    133 

De  Gustibus 458,  474 

Dejection  398,  400,  401 

De  I'^lection  de  son  Sepulchre 

538 

Deor's  Lament   15,  17 

Departure  502,  503 

Desiderium    539 

Discharged    518 

Dolores  472 

Don  Juan   405,  406,  407 

Dora   475 

Dover   Beach    482 

Down-Hall  343,  373 

Dream,   The    402 

Dream  Pedlary   445 

Dying  Christian  to  his  Soul, 
The    346 

E  Tenebris   513 

Eagle,  The   474 

Earth's  Secret   497 

Easter  Day 289,  513 

Edward  I,  Elegy  on   54 

Edward  IV,  Elegy  on  ....95,  136 
Elegy  on  a  Lady,  whom  grief 
for    the    death    of   her    Be- 
trothed killed  543 

Elegy  to  the  Memory  of  an  un- 
fortunate Lady   348 

Elegy  written  in  a  Country 
Churchyard,  136,  184,  315, 
333,  353,  354-356,  358,  458. 

Elixir,  The    282 

Elysium,  The  Apparition  of 
his  Mistress  calling  him  to  .  .265 

Eloisa  to  Abelard   286  n 

Empedocles  on  Etna  485 

Endymion  .  .374,  419,  423,  425,  426 


INDEX 


577 


Epilogue  to  Asolando  457 

Bpipsychidion   408,  410 

Epistle  of  the  Second  Book  of 

Horace,  The  First  (Pope)  .302n 

Epistle  to  a  friend   404 

Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot   343 

Epistle  to  J.  Lapraik  388 

Epistle  to  James  Smith   389  n 

Epithalamion,  The   ...70,  166, 

181,  183-186,  308,  321,  230. 

Epode  (Jonson)    229 

Erlkonig,  Der 216 

Essay  on  Criticism  

316,  3S6,  357,  545 

Euthanasia    404  n 

Evangeline 178 

Eve  of  Crecy,  The 465  n,  466 

Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  The 425 

Faerie  Queene,  The  130,  140, 
141,  164,  181,  194,  242,  315, 
397,  422. 

Faery   Song    423 

Fair  Elenor 381 

Fair  Helen   10 

Fair  Ines  441 

Fair  Virtue 343 

Fairy  Lough,  The    436 

Fancy,  A  139 

Far-Far-Away  449 

Farewell  to  Poetry  268 

FareweU  to  Sack 267,  268 

Fever,  The 241,  242,  248 

Flowers,   The    550  n 

Flowers  without  Fruit  284  n 

For  my  own  Monument  339 

Forsaken  Merman,  The   485 

Fountain  of  Tears,  The  501 

France   496,  497 

From  Grub  St 529 

Frontier,  The  548 

Garden,  The  (Grimald)    133 

Garden,  The  (Marvell)   

273,  277,  289 


Garland  of  Laurel,  A  94, 95 

Garden  of  Proserpine,  The  ...472 

Garden  Song,  A 538 

Gebir 415 

General  Eclipse,  The  261 

Gertrude  of  Wyoming   431 

GiUiflower  of  Gold,  The   466 

Girl  I  left  behind  me.  The   ..435 

Glimpse,  The   547 

Go,  piteous  sighs  95 

God's  Dominion   and  Decrees 

370  n 
Good  Council  to  a  Young  Maid 

349 

Good  Gossipes  Song,  The   80 

Good-Night,  Babette!    538 

Good-Night  to  the  Season 439 

Government  Clerk,  The    508 

Gratitude 507 

Grave,  The    379 

Grave  of  King  Arthur,  The  ..364 
Green-Gown,  A  Ballad  called 

the   330 

Greensleeves  88,  197 

Groves  of  Blarney,  The  435 

Gwin,  King  of  Norway  381 

Haystack  in  the  Flood,  The   .  .466 

Hayswater  Boat,  The  483 

He  Who  Never  Laughed  Again 

468 

Heart's  Hope  463  n 

Henry  and  Emma 340 

Hero  and  Leander 415 

Hohenlinden    433 

Homeric   Unity   539 

Home-Thoughts   from  Abroad 

458 
Horatian     Ode     upon     Crom- 
well's Return,  An  273,376 

Hound  of  Heaven,  The   527 

House  of  Fame,  The  71 

How   they   brought    the   good 

news   from  Ghent  to  Aix   . .  530 
Hudibras   315 


578 


INDEX 


Hunter's    Song    444 

Husbandman's  Complaint,  The  .55 
Hymn  in  honour  of  Love;  of 
Beauty;   of  Heavenly  Love, 

181,  183,  186,  231,  229 
Hymn  to  Adversity  .  .361,  352,  397 

Hymn  to  Beauty   463 

Hymn  to  Colour  496 

Hymn  to  God,  my  God  241 

Hymn  to   Light    313 

Hynm  to  Proserpine 472 

Hymn  to  the  Supreme  Being 

371  n 
Hunting  of  the  Gods,  The 332 

I   die  alive    193 

I  wish  I  was  by  that  dim  lake 

436  n 

In  a  Gondola  459 

In  a  Lecture  Room  477 

In  Guernsey 474 

In  Hospital 518 

In   Love's   Eternity    501 

In   Memoriam    

291,  448,  452,  456,  496 

In   Prison    466 

In  the  Children's  Hospital   ...448 

Indian  Serenade,  The   411 

Indifferent,  The   238 

Infant  Sorrow   384 

Internal  Harmony   497 

Isolation     485 

Joy  Passing  by   504 

King  Arthur's  Tomb  466 

Knightes  Tale,  The   28 

Kubla  Khan   398 

Lact6e   274  n 

Ladies  of  St.  James,  The  538 

Lady  of  the  Lake,  The   427 

Lady's  Dream,  The   440 

Lak  of  Stedfastnesse  73 

Lalla    Rookh    434 


L' Allegro  11,  190,  295 

Land  East  of  the  Sun,  The  . .  .468 

Lark  Ascending,  The    495 

Last   Chantey,   The    550 

Last  Rhyme  of  True  Thomas, 

The    549 

Last  Ride  Together,  The  . .  100,  457 
Last  Rose  of  Summer,  The  ...  435 

Laus  Veneris   472 

Lay  of  the  Labourer,  The  . .  ..440 
Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  The 

126,  399 

Le  Fils  du  Titien   105  n 

Le  Lac  356 

Legend  of  Good  Women,  The  . .  73 

Letter  from  Italy,  A  337 

Letter  of  Advice,  A 439,  507 

Letter  to  the  Honourable  Lady 

Margaret  Harley 341 

Lie,  The,  179,  194,  199,  208,  244,  440 
Life  and  Death  of  Jason,  The 

466,  467 

Lines  on  Poland 431 

Lines  to  the  Dead  Cardinal  . .  .526 
Litany  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  His 

265,  270 

London  (Blake)  384 

London   (Davidson)    531  n 

Looking  Glass,  The  248 

Lost   Cupid,   The    156 

Lost  Days   464 

Lost    Love    539 

Lost  Mistress,   The    507 

Lotos-Eaters,  The  

208,  399,  449,  450,  496 

Love  among  the  Ruins 456,  458 

Love  and  age   444 

Love  in  the  Valley   498 

Love — Sweetness 462  n 

Lover  describeth.  The   197 

Lover  in  great  distress,  The   . .  197 

Lover's  Anger,  A   342 

Love's  Alchemy  238 

Love's  Farewell  307 

Lucifer  In  Starlight   11,  497 


INDEX 


579 


Lullaby  of  a  lover.  The   142 

Lycidas 299,  300,  314,  397 

Lyke-Wake  Dirge,  A    20 

Man    282,  491 

Mannerly  Margery  95 

Mark  Antony  262 

Marmlon   364,  42T 

Master  George  his  sonnet 144 

Match,  A  471 

Maud  252,  496 

May  Queen,  The 448 

May-Queen,  The  World's  551 

Meditation  287 

Meditation  in  a  Grove   369  n 

Mercy  Seat,  The 287 

Milkmaid,  The  538 

Miller's  Daughter,  The 450 

MUton 380 

Mockery  of  Life,  The   535 

Moder  of  God   76 

Monk's  Tale,  The  70 

Monody  on  the  Death  of  Chat- 

terton    375 

Mother's  Dream,  The 503 

Mower   to  the   Glow   Worms, 

The    274 

Music    518 

Music's  Duel   285,  286,  316 

My  bed  is  a  boat  511 

My  Mother's  Grave   438 

My   Neighbour    Rose    509 

My   Star    459 

Napoleon   498 

New  Charon,  The  264 

New  Prince,  new  Pomp   193 

News  from  Rome  252 

Night  of  Frost  in  May,  A   ...495 

Night-Piece   to   Julia    266 

Noctum   518 

Nbe 156  n 

Non  sum  quails  eram   517 

Northern  Farmer,  The 448 

Nosegay,  A  197 


November    469 

Nox  Nocti  Indicat  Sclentiam  .  .293 
Nutbrowne  Maide,  The   ...35,  340 
Nymph    Complaining    for    the 
Death    of    her    Fawn,    The 

273,  277,  451  n 

O,  Patrick,  fly  from  me  435 

Ode,  Armada,  The   472 

Ode  from  the  French.    Water- 
loo     406 

Ode  in  May   546 

Ode  on  a  distant  prospect  of 

Eton  College    351 

Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn 426 

Ode  on  Rural  Elegance   350 

Ode  on  Solitude  346 

Ode  on  the  Approach  of  Sum- 
mer      363  n 

Ode  on  the  Death  of  a  Favour- 
ite Cat    351,  507 

Ode  on  the  Departing  Year  .  .400 
Ode  on  the  First  of  April  ..363n 
Ode    on    the     Intimations    of 

Immortality    

231,  292,  397,  409,  421 
Ode      on      the      Morning      of 

Christ's  Nativity  296 

Ode  on  the  Power  of  Sound  .  .397 
Ode  on  the  Popular  Supersti- 
tions   of   the    Highlands    of 

Scotland   361,  424 

Ode  on  the  Resurrection   313 

Ode  on  the  Spring 351 

Ode  on  Wit  314 

Ode,  Patriotic    345 

Ode  sur  la  Prise  de  Namur  . .  .340 

Ode  to  a  Nightingale 

221,  422,  426 

Ode  to  Athens   472 

Ode  to  Autumn   (Hood)    442 

Ode  to  Autumn  (Keats)  .  .421,  425 

Ode  to  Content   362 

Ode  to  Duty   352,  397 

Ode  to  Evening   360,  362,  413 


680 


INDEX 


Ode  to  Fancy 362 

Ode   to  Fear   361 

Ode  to  France  400 

Ode  to  Health 362 

Ode  to  Liberty   (CoUins)    358 

Ode  to  Liberty  (SheUey)  409,  410 
Ode  to  Liberty  (J.  Warton)  ..362 

Ode  to  Master  Stafford   262 

Ode  to  Memory    453 

Ode  to  Napoleon   406 

Ode  to  Nothing 326 

Ode  to  Simplicity  360 

Ode  to  Sorrow  426 

Ode  to  the  Departing  Year  . . .  221 

Ode  to  the  Evening 381,  413 

Ode   to  the   memory   of  Mrs. 

KiUigrew   316 

Ode   to  the  Memory  of  Gary 

and  Morison,  A  Pindaric   ..230 

Ode  to  the  Royal  Society 313 

Ode   to   the   West  Wind,  The 

412,  413 

Ode  upon  Liberty 311 

Of  a'  the  airts   389,  437 

Ogier  the  Dane  467 

Old  Familiar   Faces,  The    507 

Old  Pictures  in  Florence   456 

Old  Song  ended,  An 461 

On  God  Ureisun  of  Ure  Lefdi 

44,  45 

On  a  Dead  Child   543 

On  a  Drop  of  Dew   273 

On  a  Fair  Beggar 327 

On  First  Looking  into  Chap- 
man's Homer  424 

On  Going  beyond  the  Seas   . . .  257 
On     Midsummer     Days     and 

Nights 518 

On    Observing   a    Blossom    on 

the  First  of  February,  1796 

375  n 
On  Reading  the  memoirs  of  M. 

D'Artagnan     535 

On    this    day    I    complete   my 

Thirty-sixth  Year    405  n 


One  Hope,  The  464 

One  long  Whitsun  holiday   ..334n 

Operation    518 

Ornament,   The    289 

Our  Ball   439 

Owl,  The   449 

Ozymandias   173,  407 

Paddy  Whack    435 

Pancharis     231 

Paracelsus     456 

Paradise  Lost  ..296,  300,  463,  541 
Parlement  of  Foules,  The  . . . 

71,  74  n 

Pastoral  Ballad,  A  349,  350 

Passions,  The  359 

Pause,  The   493 

Pearl,  The  74, 75 

Pfelerinage  de  I'Ame,  Le 71 

Penseroso,  II,  11,  358,  359,  360,  362 

Pharsalia   171 

Pilgrim  of  Glencoe,  The 431 

Pleasures  of  Hope,  The   431 

Pleasures  of  Melancholy,  The,  363 

Plorata  Veris  Lachrymis  504 

Plowman's  Song,  The 170 

Poema  Morale    43,  44 

Poppy,  The  525 

Power  of  Russia,  The  431 

Praise  of  my  Lady   466 

Prayer    289 

Pretty   girl  milking   her   cow. 

The    435 

Princess,  The  3,  449,  451 

Progress  of  Poesy,  The   

7,  313,  353,  354 

Prospice   416,  457 

Prothalamion,    The,    70,     181, 

183-186,  221,  228,  297,  317,  426 

Proud  Maisie 427,  431 

Psalms,  The 393,  528 

Puck's   Song    550  n 

Pulley,  The  289 

Pursuit,  The  289 


INDEX 


581 


Quiet  Work    484 

Quip,  The  280,  389 

Rabbi  Ben  Ezra 291 

Rape  of  Lucrece,  The  253 

Rape  of  the  Lock,  The  . .  .361,  363 

Raven,  The  461 

Rebel  Scot,  The 261 

Recessional   550 

Relapse,  The    263 

Requiem 512 

Requiescat 513 

Resolution   and   Independence 

375  n 

Resolve,  The 260 

Resurrection    533  n 

Retreat,  The   291,  292 

Review  in  Rhyme,  A  536  n 

Revolutionary  Relic,  A 538  n 

Richmond,  Earl  of,  Elegy  on,    130 
Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner, 

The,  105,  392,  398,  399,  400,  415 

Ring  and  the  Book,  The 495 

Ritter  Bann,  The  431 

River,  The   SO,  501 

Rizpah    448 

Roman  de  la  Rose,  ou  de  Guil- 

laume  de  Dole   24  n 

Rose,  The   257 

Rose  Aylmer   418 

Rosalynde 188,  463 

Rosamund   337 

Runnable  Stag,  A 530 

Sage     Enamoured     and     the 

Honest  Lady,  The 495 

Saint  Agnes'  Eve  453 

Sally  in  our  Alley 345 

Scholar  Gipsy,  The  485,  486 

Scholar's    Relapse,  The    348 

Scythe  Song   539 

Sea  and  the  HiUs,  The   550 

Sea  of  Death,  The 4,42 

Seafarer,   The    16 

Sea- Wife,  The 550  n 


Scrutiny,  The   358  n 

Seasons,  The  344 

Secretary,  The  339 

Self-Dependence    484 

Sensitive  Plant,  The 410 

Session  of  the  Poets,  A   

249  n,  353,  264 

Shepherd's  Calendar,  The 

145,  180,  180  n,  221,  343 

Shepherd's  Hunting,  The 343 

Shepherd's  Oracle,  The  294 

Shepherd's  Sirena,  The  ...187,  525 

Sick  Child,  The  511 

Sick  Rose,  The   384 

Silent  Noon  464,  474 

Silent  Voices,  The   452 

Sinner's  Complaint,  A  139 

Sir    Giles'    War-Song    466 

Sir  Peter  Harpdon's  End   466 

Sister  Songs 536 

Skylark,  To  a   413 

Sleep  at  Sea   493 

Sluys,  Song  on  fight  at   68 

Snow  333 

Soldier's  Dream,  The    433 

Son-Days   388 

Song  for  St.  Cecilia's  Day 337 

Song  in  the  Songless 497 

Song  of  Palms  501 

Song  of  the  Four  Seasons,  A  .  .538 

Song  of  the  Road,  A   511 

Song  of  the  Shirt,  The   440 

Song  to  David,  A 371 

Song  to   his   Mistress    348 

Song  to  the  Lute,  A 538 

Soul's  Beauty  464 

Spectre  of  the  Past,  The   501 

Spirit  of  Shakespeare,  The  ...497 

Spring,  The 246 

St.   George's  Day    185  n 

St.   Valentine's   Day    535 

Stanzas      from      the     Grande 

Chartreuse  483 

Stanzas  to  Augusta   404 

Stanzas   written   in   Dejection 


INDEX 


near  Naples   411 

Sublime,  The    534 

Sudden   Light    461 

Summer  Night,  A   484,  485 

Summum   Bonum    459 

Sunday   280,  289 

Sweet  and  Low    451 

Sweet    William's    Farewell    to 

Black-eyed  Susan   343 

Swing,  The    511 

Tables  Turned,  The   507 

Testament   of  a   Man   Forbid, 

The    532 

Thallasius    475 

Thanksgiving  to   God   for   his 

House   269 

Threnodia  Augustalis 315 

Thyrsis    314,  476,  485 

Tintern  Abbey 9,  392 

To   a  Daisy    389 

To  a   Fieldmouse   389 

To  Althea  from  Prison   .  .257,  259 

To   Anthea    268 

To  a  child  of  quality  . . .  .324,  341 

To  a  Girdle  306 

To   Blossoms    271 

To   Celia    .....324 

To  Cupid  292 

To  Daffodils    271,  394 

To-Day  and  To-Morrow 493 

To    Dianeme    507 

To  Edward  Dowden    544  n 

To  his  Coy  Love    187 

To  his    Coy   Mistress    275 

To  his  Saviour,   a  Child    81 

To  Lucasta   ....257,  259,  323,  507 

To  Mary   374 

To  Meadows    268,  507 

To  Night   413,  415 

To  CEnone  268 

To  Primroses   271 

To  Spring   381 

To  the  Evening  Star 381 

To  the  Lady  A.  L 258 


To  the  Muses  381,  507 

To  the  Winds    327 

Tom    BowUng    367 

Toyokuni  Colour  Print,  A 518 

Toys,    The     503 

Trionfo  d'Amore,  II  32 

Triple     Roundel    of    Merciles 

Beaute,  A    73 

Tristesse  d'Olympio   356 

Tristram   and   Iseult    484 

Troilus   and  Criseyde    70 

Troubadour,   The    438 

Truth     73n 

Two  in  the  Campagna 456 

Two    Red    Roses    across    the 

Moon     466 

Unknown   God,    The    546 

Up-hiU      492 

Upon  Appleton  House  273 

Upon  the  Image  of  Death   . . .  193 

Valediction    260  n 

VaUey  lay  smiling  before  me, 

The    435 

Venus  and  Adonis   146 

Verse     in     praise     of     Lord 

Henry   Howard    129  n 

Vigil   518 

Virginian   Voyage,   The    186 

Virtue  280,  282,  491 

^'isit   from  the  Sea,  A    511 

Vita  Nuova    545 

Voie  Lact^e,  La   274 

Von  Ewiger  Liebe 216 

Wanderer,  The 17 

Water  Lady,  The   442 

When  first  I  met  thee  435 

Where   go   the   Boats    511 

While  History's  Muse  435 

White-Hall    244 

White  Horses,  The    550 

Widow's  Mite,   The    508 

Widsith    14,  15  n 


INDEX 


58S 


Wind  at  the  Door,  The   504 

Wishes  to  his   supposed   Mis- 
tress    269,  285 

Without  Her   464 

Woodland  Peace  497 

Woodspurge,  The   461 

Wordsworth's  Grave 545 

Work  without  Hope  400 

Workhouse  Clock,  The   440 


World,  The    288,  290 

Wounded  Hussar,  The 433 

Ye  Gentlemen  of  England 432 

Ye  Mariners  of  England  .  .431,  432 
Youth  and  Love 511 

Zapolya,  Song   from   400 


INDEX     III 

General  Index 

Abelard     171 

A  cademy.  The    232  n 

Achilles   (Gay)    344 

Adams,  S.  F 494 

Addison,  Joseph 68,  143,  146,  335,  336,  337-338,  345,  352 

Aelfric     20 

Aella    (Chatterton)    377 

Aeschylus 8 

Alamanni,    Luigi    110 

Alcaeus  2  n,  7 

Aitken,  G.  A.,  Poems  of  Andrew  Marvell,  274  n,  275  n,  276  n,  277  n,  278  n 

Alcibiades    (Otway)    319 

Alden,   R.   M.,  English    Verse,   555,   557;   Introduction   to   English 

Poetry,  555,   556. 

Alenfon,  Due  d'  168 

Alfieri     459 

Alfred    18 

Altenglische  Dichtungen  des  MS.  Harl.  2253.    See  Boddeker. 
AUfranzoaische  Romanzen  u  Pcistourellen.    See  Bartsch. 

Amoretti    (Spenser)     164-167 

Anacreon 227,  265 

Anacreontics  (Cowley)   313 

Analecta  Hymnia  Medii  Aevi.    See  Dreves. 

Anatomy  of  Melancholy  (Burton)   35 

Andresen,  H.,  Maistre  W ace's  Roman  de  Rou  22  n 

Angel  in  the  House,  The   (Patmore)    502 

Anglade,  J.,  Les  Troubadours   28  n,  29  n 

Anglia  44  n,  48  n,  113  n,  114  n,  138  n 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle    20 

Anjou,  Due  d'  168 

Annales.    See  Tacitus. 

Anne,  Queen  336,  338 

Antidote  against  Melancholy,  An  330 

Antigone    (Sophocles)     145 

Appel,  C,  Provenzalische  Chrestomathie  26  n 

Apollo  Club,  The   224 

Arbeit  u.  Rhythmus.    See  Biicher. 

Arber,   E.,   126  n,   138  n,   145  n,   146  n,   147,   147  n;   English   Oamer, 

149  n,  151  n,  152  n,  153  n,  154  n,  155  n,  156  n,  157  n,  158  n,  159  n, 

160  n,  162  n,  163  n,  164  n,  165  n,  166  n,  167  n;  English  Scholars' 

Library,  197  n;  Castara  (Habington),  292,  293  n. 


INDEX  586 

Arcadia,   The    (Sidney)    148,   178 

Archer,  W.,  Poetg  of  the  Younger  Generation  559 

Archiv  fiir  das  Studivm  der  Neueren  Sprachen  u.  Literaturen 93  n 

Areopagus,  The    177 

Aretino    14,1 

Ariosto   118,  141,   159 

Aristotle  1,  2,  5,  106,  154 

Aristotle's  Poetics.    See  Bouchler. 

Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Pine  Arts.    See  Butcher. 

Armada,  The   245 

Arminius    14 

Arnold,  Matthew,  2,  106,  395,  424,  443,  447,  470,  476,  477,  478,  48I- 
486,  544,  546,  547,  551;  Poems,  481  n,  482  n. 

Arnold,  Thomas  476,  481 

Arraignment  of  Paris,  The  (Greene) 200 

Art  of  English  Poesy,  The.    See  Puttenham. 
Arthour  and  Merlin.    See  Kolbing. 

Arundel,  Earl  of 168 

Arvers    158 

Asolani  108 

Asser    18 

Asser's  Life  of  King  Alfred.    See  Cook. 

Astrophel  and  Stella  (Sidney)    147-156,  159 

At  the  Sign  of  the  Lyre.    See  Dobson. 

Atalanta  in  Calydon  (Swinburne)    469,  472,  473 

A  thencBum,  The   243  n 

Attila  14 

Attraverso  il  Cinquecento.    See  Graf. 

Aubrey,  John    304 

Audelay,  J.,  83;  Carols  by,  see  Chambers. 

Austen,   Jane    489 

Avril,  see  BeUoc,  H. 

Ayres,  Philip,  3,  327 ;  Lyric  Poems,  3  n. 

Ayres  and  Dialogues   (John  Gamble)    263 

Bach     62 

Bacon,  Sir  Francis  224,  427,  455 

Baif,  Jean-Antoine  de  136 

Bale,  John  116 

Ballads,  Old  EngUsh  10-11,  89,  135 

Ballads  of  Policeman  X  (Thackeray)    508 

Ballads  and  Songs.    See  Davidson. 
Ban  and  Arriire  Ban.    See  Lang. 

Bannistre,  Gilbert    ^^ 

Banquet  of  Music  (Playford)    333 


686  INDEX 

Barbour,  John   385 

Barnes,  Barnabe 156-158,  159 

Barnes,  William,  504-506;  Select  Poems,  see  Hardy,  T. 

Barnfield,   R 164 

Baron,   Robert    256  n 

Barrack  Room  Ballads  (Kipling)    367,  549 

Bartsch,  K.  Altfranzosische  Romanzen  n.  Pastourellen,  33  n,  34  n, 
556 ;  Chrestomathie  de  I'ancien  franqaU,  26  n,  36  n,  556. 

Bassus    113  n 

Batista  della  Palla    109 

Beattie,  James    433 

Beddoes  (T.  L.),  444-446;  Poems,  see  R.  CoUes. 

Beck,  Jean,  La  Musique  des  Troubadours  556 

Bede   18,  18  n,  19 

B^dier,   J 25  n 

Beeching,  H.  C,  The  Sonnets  of  Shakespeare   558 

Beedome,  Thomas  287 

Beers,  H.  A.,  377;  A  History  of  English  Romanticism  in  the 
XVIII th  Century,  348  n,  350  n,  559;  in  the  XlXth  Century,  559; 
Points  at  Issue,  558. 

Beethoven    470 

Beggar's  Opera,  The   (Gay)   343,  344,  345  n 

Beginnings  of  Poetry,  The.    See  Gummere. 

Bell,  Songs  from  the  Dramatists   82  n,  204  n,  208  n 

Belleau,  Remi 538 

Belloc,  H.,  Avril    557 

Bembo   108,  149 

Benoit  de  Sainte-More   31 

Benson,  A.  C,  Rossetti  460  n 

Beowulf    20 

Berdan,  J.  M.,  Poems  of  John  Cleveland  262  n 

Berger,  P.,  William  Blake:  Mysticisme  et  Poisie   384 n 

Bibliographical  Account  of  Musical  Works.    See  Rimbault. 
Bibliothek  der  angelsdchischen  Poesie.    See  Wlilcker. 

Bismarck  448 

Blake,  William,  12,  191,  370,  375,  378-385,  388,  393,  429,  458,  504,  507, 
511,  540;  WilKcmi  Blake,  see  Berger;  Lyrical  Poems;  The  Poeti- 
cal Works,  see  Sampson;  Letters  of,  see  Russell. 
Blunt,  W.  S.,  5SS-535;  Esther,  Love  Lyrics  and  Natalia's  Resurrec- 
tion, 533  n.;  Love  Sonnets  of  Proteus,  534  n,  535  n,  536  n;  Poetry 
of,  see  Henley. 

Boccaccio    141,    385 

Boddeker,  K.,  AUenglische  Dichtungen   des  MS.  Harl.   S^5S,  S3n, 

65  n,  112,  368,  556. 
Boileau,  Despr^aux    303,  340 


INDEX  587 

Bolle,  W.,  Die  gedruckten  engl.  Liederbilcher  bis  1600,  313  n,  213  n, 
558. 

Bonar,    Horatius    494 

Bonduca  (PurceU).     See  Rimbault,  E.  F. 

Bonifacio,   Dragonetto    309 

Bonnefons,  Jean  331 

Born,  Bertrand  de    26 

Boswell,  James    235 

Botticelli    105,   184 

Bouchier,  E.  S.,  Aristotle's  Poetics  In 

Bowles,  W.  L.,  S90-391;  Sonnets  and  other  Poems  391  n 

Bradley,  A.  C,  425;  Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry  425  n 

Brahms,  Von  Ewiger  Liebe    216 

Brakelmann,  J.,  Les  plus  anciens  chansonniers  frangais,  27  n,  28  n, 

30  n,  556. 
Breton,  Nicholas,  190-191,  197,  199,  200;  Works,  see  Grosart. 

Brett,  C,  Minor  Poems  of  Michael  Drayton  187  n 

Bridges,  Robert,  432,  434,  435,  540-544;  Poetical  Works,  540,  541  n, 
543  n,  543  n,  544  n;  Poems  of  John  Keats,  424  n. 

Britannia's  Pastorals  (Wm.  Browne)    242,  305 

Brome,    Alexander     S60-^61 

Bronson,  W  C,  Poems  of  William  Collins 357  n,  359  n,  360  n,  361  n 

Bronte,  Charlotte,  406;  Life  of,  see  Gaskell. 

Bronte,   Patrick    376 

Brooke,  Stopford  A ^ 410 

Brown,  Ford   Maddox   460 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas    524 

Brown,  T.   E 475 

Browne,  William,  $4^-^43,  368,  305;  Poems  of,  see  Goodwin,  G. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  B.,  486-489;  Poetical  Works    487  n 

Browning,  Robert      3,  13,  100,  170,  291,  407,  416,  447,  450,  454-459, 
463,  470,  480,  495,  507,  530. 

Bruce    (Barbour,  J.)    385 

Brunetifere,  8,  9;   L'tivolution  de   la   poisie   lyrique   en  France   au 
dix-neuviime  siicle,  9  n,  556. 

Bruno,  De  gV  heroici  furori  181 

Buchanan,   Robert    464 

Bucher,  K.  W.,  Arbeit  u.  Bhythmus   4  n 

Bucke,  G 1*5 

Bull,  John  (organist  at  Antwerp)    212 

BuUen,  A.  H.,  186;  Songs  from  the  Elizabethan  Dramatists,  82  n, 
204  n;   Longer  Elizabethan  Poems,    164  n;  Lyrics   from   Eliza- 
bethan Romances,  189  n,  190  n,  200  n;  reprint  of  Poetical  Rhap- 
sody, 199  n. 
Bume-Jones,   Sir   Edward    465 


588  INDEX 

Burnet,   Bishop    325 

Burns,  Robert,  30,  157,  259,  260,  335,  338,  S85-390,  391,  392,  403, 
412,    424,  436,  437,  443,  505,  517,  545;  Poetry  of,  see  Henley. 

Burton,  Robert  35 

Butcher,  S.  H.,  Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Arts,  7n; 

Harvard  Lectures  on  Greek  Subjects,  1  n. 

Butler,  Samuel    294,  322 

Byron,  Lord,    336,  390,  395,  4OS-407,  408,  410,  412,  414,  418,  419,  434, 

437,  447,  454  478,  549;  Poetical  Works,  404  n,  405  n. 
Byrd  William,  Psalms,  Sonnets  and  Songs  of-  Sadness  and  Piety,  211, 

216. 

Caedmon    18 

Caesar,  Julius 154 

Calthorp,  H.  C.  Holway,  Petrarch,  His  Life  and  Times 557 

Cambridge,  92,  94,  223,  251,  261,  262,  263,  273,  283,  296,  298,  309,  338, 

351,  371,  393,  451. 

Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature    86  n 

Camden,  Wm 223,  224 

Campbell,   Thomas,   427,    431-434,    439,    444;    Poetical    Works,    see 

Robertson. 
Campion,  Thomas,  178,  199,  212,  S19-S20,  336,  430,  540,  541;  Works, 

see  Vivian. 

Canterbury   Tales    (Chaucer) 71 

Carew,  Thomas,    217,  246-261,  252,  253,  254,  255,  256,  260,  263,  268, 

287,  295,  302,  303,  330,  346,  368;  Poems,  see  Vincent. 
Carey,  Henry,  345,  518;  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,  345  n. 

Carey,  Lady   Elizabeth   166  n 

Cariteo     162 

Carlyle,  Thomas   403 

Carmina  Burana.     See  Schtneller. 

Carols   83-88 

Carols,  Specimens  of  Old  Christmas,  see  Wright;  Ancient  English 

Christmas  Carols,  see  Rickert;  English  Folk-Carols,  see  Sharp, 

C.  J. ;  The  Story  of  the  Carol,  see  Crowest,  F.  J. 

Carpaccio     181 

Cartwright,  William  260 

Cary,  I^ucius.     See  Falkland. 

Casa,  Giovanni  della 155,  162 

Cassola,  Luigi    309 

Casson,  T.  E 390  n 

Castara  (Wm.  Habington).    See  Arber. 

Castelvetro    1 

Castiglione,  II  Cortegiano    209 

Cato    (Addison)    336 

Catullus    265 


INDEX  589 

Cavalcanti,  Guido  98 

Cavalier  Songs  and  Ballads  of  England.    See  Mackay. 

Cavallo,  M 150  n 

Caxton,  WilUam   94 

Celebration  of  Charts,  A.  (Jonson)   213  n 

Cellini,  Benvenuto    109 

Cenci,  The   (Shelley)    407 

Century  Magazine  129  n 

Chalmers,  A.,  The  Works  of  the  English  Poets,  129  n,  143  n,  144  n, 

323  n,  324  n,  362  n. 
Chambers,  E.  K.,  Poems  of  John  Donne,  253  n,  236  n,  237  n,  238  n, 

239  n,  240  n,  241  n;  Poems  of  Henry   Vaughan,  Silurist,  287  n, 

288  n,  289  n,  290  n,  291  n,  293  n. 
Chambers,  E.  K.,  and  Sidgwick,  F.,  Early  English  Lyrics,  46  n,  49  n, 

SO  n,  66  n,  87  n,  90  n,  91  n,  93  ii,  111  n,  112  n,  557;  Fifteenth 

Century  Carols  by  John  Audelay,  83  n. 

Champneys,  Basil,  Poems  by  Coventry  Patmore  501  n,  503  n 

Champany,  M.  de   212 

Chansons  populaires  du  fays  de  France.    See  Weckerlin. 
Chanson  populaire  en  Prance,  Mistoire  de  la.    See  Tiersot. 
Chansonniers  franqais,  Les  plus  anciens.     See  Brakelmann. 

Chappell,  W.,  Popular  Music  of  the  Olden  Time   214  n 

Charles  I 244,  246-246,  304 

Charles  II  315,  332,  334 

Charles  d'Orleans,  76-78,  98,  536;  Poems  in  English  by,  see  Taylor. 
Chatterton,  Thomas,  234,  S76-S78,  419;  Poetical  Works,  see  Skeat. 

Chatterton    (De   Vlgny)    375 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,    28,  69-74,  75,  76,  78,  127,  180,  368,  376,  385,  466,  468 
Chaucer,  Studies  in.    See  Lounsbury. 

Child's  Oarden  of  Verses  (Stevenson)   511,  512 

Chloris    (Smith)    167 

Chrestien   de   Troies    29 

Chrestomathie  de  I'ancien  frangais.     See  Bartsch. 

Christ  (Cynewulf )    18  n,  19,   19  n 

Cinquecento,  II.    See  Flamini. 

Cinthio,  G , 387 

Clarendon,   Edward,   Lord    229 

Clarissa  Harlowe   (Richardson)    355,  403,  435 

Cl^dat,  L.,  La  Po4sie  lyrique  et  satirique  en  France  au  moyen  dge  .  .25  n 

Cleomenes    (Dryden)     318  n 

Cleveland,  John,  261,  262;  Poems,  see  Berdan. 

Clough,  A.  H.,  178,  476-481,  485,  547;  Poetical  Works,  see  Palgrave. 

Cnut    18,   19 

Coelia  (Percy)    159,  160 


S90  INDEX 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  105,  161,  286,  390,  393,  S98-402,  444,  455 ;  Coleridge's 

Literary  Criticism,,  see  Mackail. 
Collection  de  choeurs,  etc.,  see  Gevaert. 

Collection  of  all  the  New  Songs,  A    333 

Collection  of  Royal  Songs  written  against  the  Btunp  Parliament  .  .251  n 
Colles,  R.,  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  George  Darley,  444  n;  The 

Poems  of  Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes,  446  n. 

Collier,  J.  P.,  Reprints    197  n,   198  n 

CoUins,  William,  9,  357-361,  362,  363,  366,  368,  381,  413,  424,  436,  545 ; 

Poems,  see  Bronson. 

Colonna,   Giacomo    102,    123 

Colvin,  Sidney,  Selections  from  the  writings  of  Landor  419  n 

Comparative  Literature.    See  Posnett. 

Complete  Angler,  The    (Walton)    307 

Comus    (Milton)    295 

Conaro,    Marco    ISO  n 

Congreve,  William,  254,  364,  312,  320,  352;  Essays  and  Plays,  312  n. 

Conquest  of  Grenada,  The  (Dryden)    318  n 

Constable,  Henry,  159,  160;  Diana,  159,  160. 

Cook,  A.  S.,  Asser's  Life  of  King  Alfred,  18  n;  Christ  of  Cynewulf, 

The,  18  n. 
Cook,  A.  S.,  and  Tinker,  C.  B.,  Select  Translations  from  old  English 

Poetry,  15  n,  16  n,  17  n,  18  n,  19  n,  556. 
Cornwall,  Barry.     See  Proctor. 

Corson,  H.,  A  Primer  of  English  Verse   555 

Cortegiano.     See  Castiglione. 

Cotton,  Charles  337,  338,  518 

Couci,  Chatelain  de   27 

Courthope,  W.  J.,  A   History  of  English  Poetry   557 

Cowley,  Abraham,  309-S14,  316,  326,  339,  349,  354,,  369,  397;  Poems; 

Essays  and  Plays,  see  Waller,  A.  R. 
Cowley,  A.,  Life  of.    See  Johnson,  S. 
Cowper,   William,   343,   371,   S7S-374,   386,   507;    Complete   Poetical 

Works,  see  Milford. 
Cox,   F.  A.,  English  Madrigals  in  the   time  of  Shakespeare,  215  n, 

317  n,  318  n,  558. 
Crashaw,  Richard,     193,  368,  378,  380,  S8S-^87,  393,  293,  294,  303, 

303  n,  314,  316,  369,  464,  503,  525,  527 ;  Poems,  see  Waller,  A.  R. 

Crescimbeni     310 

Croiset,  A.  and  M.,  Histoire  de  la  littirature  grecque  3  n,  8  n,  555 

Croiset,  A.,  La  Po4sie  de  Pindare  et  les  lois  du  lyrisme  grec,  6  n,  7  n, 

8  n,  555. 

Cromwell,  Oliver  276,  296,  303,  448 

Cromwell.    See  Hugo. 

Crowest,  F.  J.,  The  Story  of  the  Carol  556 


INDEX  591 

Crump,  C.  G.,  Poems,  Dialogues  in  Verse  and  Epigrams  by  Walter 

Savage  Landor  416  n,  417  n,  418  n 

Cunliffe,  J.  W.,  The  Posies  of  George  Oascoigne 141  n,  142  n,  143  n 

Cunningham-Gifford,  The  Works  of  Ben  Jonson,  223  n,  225  n,  226  n, 
227  n,  328  n,  229  n,  230  n,  231  n,  232  n,  233  n. 

Cymbeline   (Shakespeare)    213,  361,  389 

Cynewulf   18,   19 

Cynthia    (Barnfield)    164 

Cynthia's  Revels   (Ben  Jonson) 230  n,  231  n 

Dabney,  J.  B.,  The  Musical  Basis  of  Verse  555 

Daniel,  Samuel,     104,  160-161,  163,   170,   188,  219,  225,  368;  DeUa, 

159,  162  n ;  Works,  see  Grosart. 

Danielle,   Bemadino    136 

Dante  98,  106,  118,  171,  414,  420 

Darley,  George,  444;  Poetical  Works,  see  CoUes. 

Davenant,   Sir  William    319 

David  and  Bethsabe  (Peele,  G.)    200 

Davidson,  John,  185,  529-533,  542;  Ballads  and  Songs,  530  n,  531  n; 

Holiday  and  Other  Poems,  530  n;  In  a  Music  Hall  and  Other 

Poems,  530  n. 

Davison,  Francis,  Poetical  Rhapsody   199 

Death's  Jest  Book  (Beddoes,  T.  L.)   444 

Defence  of  Guinevere,  The  (Morris)   465 

DeguiUeville    71 

De  Heredia 451 

Dekker,  Thomas   205,  366 

Delia.    See  Daniel. 

Deir  infinitd,  d'Amore  109 

Demosthenes    427 

Deor   15 

De  Profundis   (Wilde)    512 

De  Sanctis,  100,  101,  103;  Saggio  Critico  sul  Petrarca  103  n,  557 

Desportes  136,  159,  162,  165,  189,  226 

Devereux,   Penelope    148-153,   178 

Devereux,  Robert,  Earl  of  Essex 139,  140,  148,  245 

Devil  is  an  Ass,  The  (Jonson)   231  n 

Diana.    See  Constable. 

Dibdin,  Charles,  366-367;  Songs,  see  Hogarth. 

Diella.    See  Linche. 

Diodati,  Charles    299 

Discoveries   (Ben  Jonson)    224,  228 

Divine  Songs  for  Children  (Watts)    370 

Dobell,  Bertram,  328;  The  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Traherne   ..329n 


592  INDEX 

Dobson,   Austin,  340,  342,  517,  SS6-BS8,  539;   At   the  Sign   of   the 

Lyre,  538  n;  Old  World  Idylls,  537  n;  Selections  from  Prior,  340. 

Dodsley,  J.,  A   Collection  of  Poems   368  n 

Dodsley,  Robert,  115;  see  Hazlitt. 

Dolce,  L ISO  n,  189 

Domenichi     108 

Don  Carlos  168 

Donne,  John,    123,  194,  208,  222,  226,  Z3S-Z4H,  247,  248,  253,  255,  258, 

263,  267,  273,  274,  275,  279,  287,  304,  309,  329,  346,  415,  446,  463, 

525,  527,  548;  Poems,  see  Chambers. 
Dorset,  Charles,  Earl  of  . .  .258,  294,  311,  32S-323,  325,  326,  338,  346,  372 
Dowden,  Edward,  415;  The  Sonnets  of  William  Shakespeare,  558. 

Dowland,  John,  First  Book  of  Songs  and  Airs  211-212 

Dowson,  Ernest,  512,  614-617,  535;  Poems,  see  Symons. 

Drake,  Sir  Francis   245 

Drama  of  Exile,  A   (E.  B.  Browning)    487 

Dramatis  Persona  (R.  Browning)  / 170 

/  Drayton,  Michael,     159,  160,  162-164,  186-188,  199,  242,  326,  368,  462, 

525 ;  Idea,  159,  162,  163  n. 

Dreves,  G.  M.,  Analecta  Hymnia  Medii  Aevi   40  n 

Droeshout    126 

Drolleries   Windsor;  Epsom;  Norfolk;   Westminster   331 

Drummond,  William,  of  Hawthornden  223,  225,  226,  228,  233,  385 

Drury,  G.  T.,   The  Poems   of  Edmund   Waller,  304  n,  305  n,  306  n, 

307  n,  308  n. 
Dryden,  John,     293,  302,  305,  308,  S14-S19,  322,  329,  336,  346,  354, 

359,  420;  Works,  see  Scott-Saintsbury ;  Age  of,  see  Garnett. 

Du  Bartas   156  n,  226 

Du  BeUay 136,  145  n,  161,  226,  538 

Dublin  Book  of  Irish  Verse,  The  437 

Duchess  of  Malfi  (Webster,  J.) 

Duenna,    The    (Sheridan)     366 

Dugdale,  Sir   William    364 

Du  M6ril,  E.  P.,  PoSsies  populaires  latines  antirieures  au  douzi^me 

siicle    36  n 

Dunstan  18,  18n 

D'Urfey,  Thomas,     262,  334-335,  343,  346;   Wit  and  Mirth  or  Pills 

to  Purge  Melancholy,  331  n,  334  n,  335  n. 
Dyce,  A.,   The  Poetical   Works  of  John   Skelton,  95  n,   96  n,  97  n; 

Works  of  Greene  and  Peele,  201  n,  212  n. 
Dyer,  Sir  Edward  139,  177,  219 

Early  Bodleian  Music.    See  Stainer. 

Early  English  Literature  to  Wiclif.    See  Ten  Brink. 

Early  English  Lyrics.    See  Chambers. 


INDEX  693 

Early  English  Text  Society,  44  n,  45  n,  46  n,  49  n,  SO  n,  51  n,  52  n,  76  n, 

79  n,  80  n,  81  n,  83  n. 
Early  Sixteenth  Century  Lyrics.    See  Padelford. 

Earthly  Paradise,  The  (Morris)   466,  467,  468 

Ebsworth,  J.  W.,   Westminster  Drolleries    (reprint)    331  n,  333  n 

Edwards,   Richard   196 

Eglogs,  Epytaphes,  and  Sonnettes.    See  Googe. 

Eighteenth  Century  Literature,  390  n ;  see  also  Gosse,  Perry. 

Einfiihrung  in  das  Studium  der  Altfranzosischen  Lit.    See  Voretzsch. 

Eleanor  of  Poitou   31 

Elizabeth,  Queen,    138,  139,  141,  147,  168,  171,  221,  232,  315,  355,  542; 

Poems,  see  FlUgel;  Courtships  of,  see  Hume. 
Elizabethan  Literature.    See  Saintsbury. 
Elizabethan  Sonnets.    See  Lee. 

EUis,  G.,  Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Poets  333  n 

Eloisa     171 

Elwin  and  Courthope,  The  Works  of  A lexander  Pope 286n 

Emaux  et   Camies    (Gautier)    541 

Encyclopidie  du  dix-neuviim,e  siScle  39 

England's  Helicon   198  n,  199 

English  Garner.    See  Arber. 

English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  (Thackeray)    342  n 

English  Melodies  from  the  13th  to  the  18th  Century.    See  Jackson. 

English  Men  of  Letters   149  n 

English  Miracle  Plays,  Moralities  and  Interludes.    See  Pollard. 

English  Poets,  The  Works  of  the.    See  Chalmers. 

English  Romantic  Movement,  The  Beginnings  of  the.    See  Phelps. 

English  Songs  and  other  small  poems.    See  Procter. 

English  Verse.    See  Alden. 

English  Versification,  A  History  of.    See  Schipper. 

Englische  Studien  556 

Epic,  the  Oldest  English.    See  Gummere. 

Erasmus  94,  110 

Eric  of  Sweden   168 

Erlkonig.     See  Schubert. 

Erskine,  John,  The  Elizabethan  Lyric  212  n,  556,  557 

Essay  on  Satire  (Dryden)    308  n 

Essex,  Earl  of.    See  Devereux,  R. 

Esther   (Blunt)    533,  534 

Etheredge,  Sir  George,  321 ;  Works,  see  Verity. 

Euripides "^ 

Every  Man  in  his  Humor  ( Jonson)   225 

Faber,  F.  W *^* 

Fables   (Gay)    ^*^ 


5H  INDEX 

Faguet     172 

Fairfax,    Edward    ; 305 

Fairfax,   Robert    : 92 

Fairfax,  Lord  (Thomas),  273;  Life  of,  see  Markham. 

Fair    Virtue    (Wither)     243 

Falkland,  Lord   (Lucius  Cary)    224,  3H 

Farquhar,   George    320 

Fasciculus  Florum,  or  a  Nosegay  of  Flowers   304 

Faust    (Goethe)    398 

Fehr,    B 93  n 

Ferrabosco,    Alphonso    212 

Ferrar,    Nicholas    278 

Ficino,   Marsilio    181 

Fidessa    (Griffin)    167 

Finze,  G.,  Petrarca 100  n,  557 

Fitzgerald,  Edward    448,  472,  496 

Flamini,  F.,  Varia,  105  n,  109  n,  119  n;  II  Cinquecento,  107  n;  Studi  di 

Storia  Letteraria  Italiana  e  Straniera,  109  n. 
Flatman,  Thomas,  327 ;  Poems  and  Songs,  328  n. 

Fleet  Street  Eclogues   (Davidson)   185  n,  532 

Fleshly   School   of  Poetry,   The    (Buchanan)    464 

Fletcher,   Giles    159 

Fletcher,  John   160,  205,  206,  302,  443 

Fletcher,  J.  B.,  The  Religion  of  Beauty  in  Woman  148  n,  181  n 

Flugel,  E.,  N euenglisches  Lesebuch,  92  n,  111  n,  557;  Oedichte  der 

Konigin  Elizabeth,  138  n. 

Fontainebleau      109 

Forest,  The   (Jonson)    265 

Forman,  H.  B.,  The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Keats,  420  n,  424  n; 

The  Poetical  Works  and  other  Writings  of  John  Keats,  420  n, 

422  n,  423  n. 

Four    Elements,    The    116 

Fournier,  E 39  n 

Four  P's,  The  (John  Heywood)    115 

Frangois   I    109 

Frazer's   Magazine    265  n 

French  Influence  in  English  Literature.    See  Upham. 

Fulwell,   Ulpian    116 

Gamble,  John,  Ayres  and  Dialogues   263 

Garnett,  R.,  The  Age  of  Dryden 558 

Gascoigne,  G.,  132  n,  Ifyl-lfyS,  190;  The  Posies  of  Oeorge  Oascoigne, 
see  Cunliffe. 

Gaskell,  E.  C,  Life  of  Charlotte  Brontd  376  n 

Gatti,  Alessandro   240 


INDEX  695 

Gautier  D'Espinal   30 

Gautier,  Th^ophile   488,  537 

Gay,  J.,  339,  347,  S42SU;  Poetical  Works,  see  Underbill. 

Gayley,  C.  M.,  and  Scott,  F.  N.,  An  Introduction  to  the  Methods  and 

Materials   of   Literary   Criticism    555 

Oemma  Ecclesiastica  47 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  The   264,  358,  368 

George  I   338 

Georgian  Era,  Literature  of.    See  Minto. 

Geraldine,  Lady   130 

Germ,    The 460 

Germania.     See  Tacitus. 

Germanic  Origins.    See  Gummere. 

Gevaert,  F.   A.,   Collection   de   chceurs  sans   accompagnement   pour 

servir  a  I'itude  du  chant  d'en^emhle  40  n 

Gibson,   L 197 

Gildas    18 

Gildersleeve,   B.   L.,  Pindar    312  n 

Giraldus  Cambrensis   47 

Glapthorne,  Henry  244 

Giusto  de  Conti   123 

Godley,   A.   D.,   Poetical    Works    of   Thomas   Moore,   437  n,   438  n ; 

Select  Poems  of  Winthrop  Mackworth  Praed,  438  n,  439  n. 

Godwin,  Mary  410 

Goethe    403 

Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics.     See  Palgrave. 

Goldsmith,    GUver    365 

Goodere,  Anne  162 

Goodwin,  Gordon,  Poems  of  William  Browne  242  n,  243  n 

Googe,  Barnabe,  144,  177;  Poems,  see  Chalmer's  English  Poets. 

Gorgeous  Gallery  of  Gallant  Inventions   196-197 

Gosse,   Edmund,   238,   250,   269,   294,   306,   464,   503,   517;   Coventry 

Patmore,   464  n ;    Eighteenth    Century    Literature,    558 ;    Seven- 
teenth Century  Studies,  558. 

Graf,  A.,  Attraverso  il  Cinquecento   106  n 

Grandison,  Sir  Charles    (Richardson)    100 

Granson    72 

Grass  of  Parnassus  (Lang)   536  n 

Gray,  Thomas,    4,  7,  136,  184,  224,  313,  315,  333,  348,  S50-357,  358, 

362,  366,  368,  397,   507,  545;   Selections  from   the  Poetry   and 

Prose  of,  see  Phelps. 

Greene,  Robert   199-200,  429,  446 

Grein,  C.  W.  M.    See  Wiilcker. 

GreviUe,  Fullse    139 

Grieg     ' ^1^ 


596  INDEX 

Griffin     167 

Grimald,   N 133-133 

Oriselda   ( Boccaccio)    385 

Grosart,  A.  B.,  Works  of  Nicholas  Breton,  190  n;  Complete  Works 
of  Samuel  Daniel,  188  n;  Complete  Works  in  Prose  and  Verse 
of  Francis  Quarles,  294  n;  Complete  Poems  of  Robert  South- 
well, 191  n,  192  n,  193  n;  Poems  of  Vaux,  Oxford,  etc.,  140  n; 
Occasional  Issues,  159  n. 

Guarini  209,  327 

Guillaume   d' Amiens    36 

Guillaume  de  Poitou 30,  31,  57,  83 

Guiney,  L.  I.,  Thomas  Stanley 263  n 

Gumraere,  F.  B.,  5,  IS;  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  The,  4  n,  19  n,  20  n, 
556;  Germanic  Origins,  14  n,  17  n,  20  n,  556;  The  Oldest  English 
Epic,  15  n;  ^  Handbook  of  Poetics,  556. 

Gunnar     14 

Gustavus  Adolphus  249,  252 

Oypsies  Metamorphosed,  The  (Jonson)   266 

Habington,    William    292-293 

Hall,  J.,  Poems  of  Lawrence  Minot 68  n,  69  n 

Hale,  E.  E.,  Jr.,  Selections  from  the  Poetry  of  Robert  Herrick  ....558 

HaUam,  Henry   176 

Hals,    Franz    173 

Hamlet  (Shakespeare),  103,  169,  194,  196,  197,  356,  404,  415,  452,  484, 

500,  535,  548. 

Handel     11 

Handful  of  Pleasant  Delights   197 

Hanmer,    Sir    Thomas    357 

Hannah,  J.,  Poems  of  Walton,  Raleigh,  etc.   . .  139  n,  194  n,  195  n,  355  n 

Hardy,  T.,  Select  Poems  of  William  Barnes  505  n 

Harrington,   Sir   John    143 

Harrison,  J.  S.,  Platonism  in  English  Poetry  of  the  16th  and  17th 

Centuries     181  n 

Hartlib     1 

Harvard  Lectures  on  Greek  Subjects.    See  Butcher. 

Harvey,  Christopher   287 

Harvey,  Gabriel  177,  178 

Hassler    62 

Hawthorn  and  Lavender.     See  Henley. 
Hawthornden,  385.     See  Drummond. 

Hayley     380 

Hazlitt,  W.  C,  Dodsley's  Select  Collection  of   Old  English  Plays, 

lis,  llSn,  116  n,  117  n. 
Heber,    Reginald    494 


INDEX.  597 

^""e,   H 214,   523 

Mekatompathia    (T.   Watson)     145 

Hellas    (SheUey)    407,   408 

Henderson,  M.  Sturge,  George  Meredith  495  n 

Henderson,  T.  F.,  Scottish  Vernacular  Literature,  385  n;  see  Henley. 
Henley,   W.   E.,     387,   483,  517-623,  531,  534,  547,  551;   Hawthorn 

and  Lavender,  484  n;    Works,  518  n,  519  n,  520  n,  521  n,  532  n, 

523  n;  Poetry  of  Wilfrid  Blunt,  534  n. 
Henley,  W.  E.  and  Henderson,  T.  F.,  The  Poetry  of  Robert  Burns, 

387  n,  388  n. 

Henrietta  Maria,  Queen    252 

Henry  VI    92 

Henry   VII    94 

Henry  VIII   94,  110-111,  126 

Herbert,   George,     232,  268,  21&-283,  284,   287,  289,  390,  291,   292, 

296,  302,  328,  372,  480,  491,  493;  Works,  see  Palmer,  G.  H. 
Herricls,  Robert,     81,  85,  190,  232,  233,  S6S-27S,  287,  302,  307,  308, 

330,  394,  399,  417,  421,  446,  490,  507,  512,  513,  537,  640,  541,  552; 

Works,  see  PoUard;  Selections  from,  see  Hale,  E.  E.,  Jr.;  Her- 

rick,  see  Moorman. 

Hervey,    Wm 314 

Hesperides   (Robert  Herrick)    263,  264,  268,  269,  270,  541 

Hessey    420 

Hewes,  W 140 

Heywood,  John    (?)    134 

Heywood,  Thomas   203,  205,  272,  443 

Hieroglyphics    (Quarles)    294 

Hill,   Robert    308  n 

History  of  the  English  People,  A  Literary,  see  Jusserand,  J. 
History  of  English  Poetry  (T.  Warton),  364;  see  also  Courthope. 
History  of  English  Prosody.    See  Saintsbury. 
History  of  English  Romanticism,  A.    See  Beers. 
History  of  English  Versification,  A.    See  Schipper. 
History  of  French  Versification,  A.    See  Kastner. 

Hoccleve  45-46,  75-76,  78 

Hogarth,  G.,  The  Songs  of  Charles  Dibdin  367  n 

Holiday  and  other  Poems.    See  Davidson. 

Homer  265,  420,  538 

Honour  Military  and  Civil.     See  Segar. 

Hood,  Thomas,  439-44S,  486;  Poetical  Works,  see  Jerrold. 

Horace 1,  3,  8,  145,  226,  227,  229,  364  n,  265,  338,  358,  362,  536 

Horce  Lyricw   (Watts)    369,  369  n 

Horstmann,  C,  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole  75  n 

Hoskins,   J 1*0 

House  of  Life,  The  (D.  G.  Rossetti) 460,  461,  463,  464,  466,  489 


598  INDEX 

Howell,  James,  97,  277;  Familiar  Letters  of,  see  Jacobs. 

Hubatsch,  O.,  Die  Lateinischen  Vagantenlieder  des  Mittelalters  ...  .40  n 

Hugo,  Victor,  208,  347,  356,  448,  471 ;  Cromwell,  5  n. 

Hume,  M.  A.  S.,  Courtships  of  Queen  Elizabeth   168  n 

Hunt,   Holman    460 

Hunterian  Club,  Complete  Works  of  Thomas  Lodge   189  n 

Hutchinson,   T.,    The    Complete   Poetical    Works    of   Percy   Bysshe 

Shelley   411  n,  413  n 

Hymen's  Triumph  (Daniel)  188 

Hymns  45,  49-52,  61-62,  368-372,  493-494 

Idea   (Drayton)    159,  162,   163  n 

Idylls  of  the  King  (Tennyson)   448,  484 

In  a,  Music  Hall.    See  Davidson. 
In  the  Key  of  Blue.    See  Symonds. 

Indian  Emperor,  The    (Dryden)    319  n 

Ingram,  J.  H.,  Christopher  Marlowe  and  his  Associates   201  n 

Inner  Temple,   The   242 

Introduction  to  English  Poetry.    See  Alden. 

Introduction  to  Methods  and  Materials  of  Literary  Criticism.     See 
Gayley. 

lophon    7 

Irish  Melodies   (Moore)    7,  434,  437 

Irving,  Washington   264 

Italian  Madrigals  Englished  147  n 

Ivanhoe   (Scott)    364 

Jackson,  V.,  English  Melodies  from  the  13th   to  the  18th  Century, 

llln,  218  n,  558. 
Jacobite  Ballads  of  Scotland,  The.    See  Mackay. 

Jacobs,  J.,  Familiar  Letters  of  James  Howell   97 

Jacobs,  Giles,  Political  Register  264 

James  I  139,  233,  244,  245 

James  II   334 

Jane  Eyre  (C.  Bront6)   486,  487,  488 

Jeanroy,  A.,  Les  origines  de  la  poisie  lyrique  en  France  au  moyen 

dge,  34  n,  556. 

Jerrold,  M.  P.,  Petrarca,  Poet  and  Humanist   557 

Jerrold,  W.,  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Hood   441  n 

Jonson,  B.,  The  Poems  of  Thomas  Love  Peacock   444  n 

Jonson,  Ben,     130,  156  n,  193,  222,  223-2SS,  237,  242,  243,  244,  247, 

249,  250,  258,  262,  263,  264,  265,  266,  267,  279,  285,  302,  303,  304, 

311,  329,  346,  376,  443,  506;  Works,  see  Cunningham-Gifford. 
Johnson,  Samuel,     241,  299,  304,   309,  325,  336,  365,  369;  Life   of 


INDEX  699 

Cowley,  241  n;  Lives  of  the  English  Poets,  335,  558;  Poems,  see 

Ward. 

Jordanes    14 

Journal  of  Oermanic  Philology   147  n 

Journal  des  Savants   23  n,  35  n 

Judgment  of  Paris,  The  (Congreve)    320 

Juvenal   226,  358 

Jusserand,  J.,  A  Literary  History  of  the  English  People 558 

Kastner,  L.  E.,  A  History  of  French  Versification,  555;  articles  on 

sonnets,  558. 
Keats,  John,     175,  208,  221,  234,  277,  298,  375,  377,  419-4S7,  442, 

447,  448,  454,  455,  464,  624,  545;  Poems,  see  Bridges;  Poetical 

Works,  see  Forman. 

Keble,  John   494 

Ken,  Thomas  369,  372 

Kennedy.    See  Ten  Brink. 

Kiel,  H.,  Ueber  die  engUschen  Marienklagen  556 

King,  Edward    299 

King,  Henry,  Bishop  of  Chichester  260 

King   John    (Bale)    116 

KipUng,  Rudyard,    367,  517,  513,  648-551;  Puck  of  Pooks  Hill,  550  n; 

The  Seven  Seas,  549  n,  550  n. 

Koeppel,    E 155  n 

Kolbing,  E.,  Arthour  and  Merlin  23  n,  67  n 

Kulturproblem  des  Minnesangs,  Das.    See  Wechssler. 

La   Fontaine    343 

Lamartine    356 

Lamb,  Charles    ISO,  275,  507 

La  Musa  Madrigalesca.    See  Oliphant,  T. 

Lambert,    d'Arras    37 

Landor,  W.  S.,  224,  414-419;  Poems,  see  Crmnp. 

Lang,   Andrew,   508,   536,   538-540;   Ballades   and   Rhymes,   539   ii, 

540  n;  Ban  and  Arriire  Ban,  539  n,  540  n;  Orass  of  Parnassus, 

536  n,  539  n. 

Languet    1*8 

Laumonier,   Paul,  Ronsard  PoHe  Lyrique    173  n 

Laura    99-107,    146 

Lawes,  Henry  254,  307,  330 

Lea,   Sir   Henry    200 

Leconte  de  Lisle    501 

Lee   Sidney,  149,  IS?;  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  149  n,  151  n,  159  n,  163  n, 

163  n,  165  n,  166  n,  167  n,  179  n,  180  n,  557;  French  Renaissance 

in  England,  557;  Life  of  Shakespeare,  558;  Sonnets,  558. 


600  INDEX 

Leicester,  Earl  of   147,  168,  306 

Lemaitre    539 

Leominster  Abbey   53 

Leonard,  R.  M.,  A  Book  of  Light  Verse   507  n 

Leopardi    107 

Letters  to  Dead  Authors   (Lang)    508 

Levi,  Eugenia,  Lirica  Italiana    98 

Lewes,  Battle  of  53 

Lewis,  C.  M.,  16;  The  Principles  of  English  Verse,  555. 

Licia   (Giles  Fletcher)    159 

Light  Verse,  A  Book  of.    See  Leonard. 

Like  will  to  Like    (FulweU)    116 

Linche,    Diella    167 

Lincoln,   Abraham    448 

Lincoln's    Inn    66 

Linnel,  John    380,  383 

Littirature  grecque,  Histoire  de  la.     See  Croiset. 

Lirica  Italiana.     See  Levi. 

Literature  of  the  Victorian  Era.     See  Walker,  H. 

Lives  of  the  most  famous  English  Poets.     See  Winstanley. 

Livy    237 

Locker-Lampson,  F.,  508-509 ;  London  Lyrics,  508,  508  n,  509  n. 

Lodge,  Thomas  159,  170,  188-189,  197,  199,  319,  463 

London    (Magazine)    517 

London  Lyrics.     See  Locker-Lampson. 

London  Times  88  n 

London  Voluntaries  (Henley)    519 

Long,   P.   W 166  n 

Longer  Elizabethan  Poems.     See  BuUen. 

Longfellow,   H.   W 178 

Longueville,  T.,  Rochester  and  other  Literary  Rakes  of  the  Court 

of  Charles  II   559 

Louis  XIV  of  France   257 

Lounsbury,  T.  R.,  Studies  in  Chaucer   70,  70  n 

Love  is  Enough    (Morris)    467 

Love  Sonnets  of  Proteus   (Blunt)    533,  534 

Lovelace,  Richard,  256-260,  264,  302,  304,  330,  368,  432,  507;  Poems, 

257  n,  258  n,  259  n. 

Lowell,  J.  R 184,  360,  353,  354,  361 

Lucan   171 

Lucas,  Sir  Charles   240 

Lxicasta   (Lovelace)    257,  264 

Lucrece,  Rape  of  (Th.  Heywood)    203 

Lusty    Juventus    116 

Lydgate,  John    75-76,  78 


INDEK  601 

Lyly,  John   151,  204,  368 

Lyra  Elegantiarum  (Locker-Lampson)   506 

Lyric,  The  Elizabethan.    See  Erskine. 

Lyric,  The  French,  its  origins,  ^S-S4i  early  forms,  troubadour  and 

trouvere  lyrics,  S5-SS,  55-66,  60,  101;  lyric  of  the  po6sie  popu- 

laire,   S2-S6;    noels,   S6-4O,   83-84;   Anglo-Norman   lyric,   64-66; 

Pl^iade,  136-137;  modern  imitations  of,  517-518,  538.     See  also 

Ronsard,  Desportes. 

Lyric,  The   Greek   1-3,   5-8 

Lyric,  The  Italian.    See  Petrarch. 

Lyric  Poems  made  in  Imitation  of  the  Italians  (Ayres)   327 

Lyric  Poetry,  Specimens  of.     See  Wright,  T. 

Lyrical  Ballads  (Wordsworth  and  Coleridge)   132,  331,  390,  393,  398 

Lyrical  Ballads,  Essay  supplementary  to  Preface  of   169  n 

Lyrics,  A   Book  of  Elizabethan;  A   Book  of  Seventeenth  Century, 

see  Schelling. 
Lyrics  from  Elizabethan  Romances.    See  Bullen,  A.  H. 
Lyrik  und  Lyriker.    See  Werner. 
Lyte,  H.  F 494 

Macbeth   (Shakespeare)    155 

MacCracken,   H.   N 76 

Mackail,  J.   W.,  Coleridge's  Literary   Criticism,  286  n ;   Select  Epi- 
grams from  the  Greek  Anthology,  417  n. 
Mackay,   C,    Cavalier   Songs    and   Ballads    of   England,   558;    The 
Jacobite  Ballads  of  Scotland,  558. 

McKerrow,   Works  of  Th.  Nashe    303  n 

Madrigals,  discussed    S09-S13 

Magazine  of  Art  519 

Mahn,  C.  A.  L.,  Die  Werke  der  Troubadours   31  n 

Maiden  Queen,  The   (Dryden)    318  n 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas   447,  448 

Manfredi,  M 209 

Mangan,  J.  C 437 

Manual  of  English  Prosody,  Historical.    See  Saintsbury. 

Manual  of  Prayers  for  use  of  Winchester  scholars   (Ken)    369 

Mant,  Richard,   The  Poetical   Works   of   the   late  Thomas   Warton, 
363  n,  364  n,  365  n. 

Mapes,   Walter    ^"^ 

Marienhymnfus ,  Der  Aelteste  Englische.    See  Marufke. 
Marienklagen,  Veber  die  englische.    See  Kiel. 

Markham,  C.  R.,  A  Life  of  the  Great  Lord  Fairfax  240  n 

Marignano    ^"^ 

Marlowe,  Christopher  ^01,  335,  305,  415,  419,  443,  545 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  and  his  Associates.    See  Ingram,  J.  H. 


602  INDEX 

Marot,  Clement 110,  119,  226,  538 

Martelli    189 

Martial  128,  226,  229,  265,  358,  415 

Marufke,  W.,  Der  Aelteste  Engliache  Marienhymnus    44  n 

Marvell,  Andrew,  273-^78,  289,  346,  442,  510,  S12;  Poems,  see  Aitken, 

G.  A. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots   138,  213 

Masque   of  Alfred    (Thomson)    345 

Matthews,  B.,  A  Study  of  Versification 555 

Mazzoni    1 

Measure  for  Measure    (Shakespeare)    500 

Medwin    410 

Meleager  415,  417 

Melin  de  Saint-Gelais   110,  136,  240 

Meredith,  George  11,  409,  472,  494-499,  517,  535 

Meredith,  Qeorge.    See  Henderson,  M.  S. 

Meres,   Francis    170 

Merry  Drollery  or  a  Collection  of  Jovial  Poems   331 

Metrik,  Englische.    See  Schipper. 

Metrists,  English,  in  the  Eighteenth  and  Nineteenth  Centuries.    See 

Omond. 

Meunier,  G.,  La  Poisie  de  la  Renaissance  557 

Meynell,    Alice    524 

Meynell,  Wilfrid,  524;  Selected  Poems  of  Francis  Thompson,  524  n, 

525  n,  526  n,  537  n. 
Middle  English  Penitential  Lyric,  The.    See  Patterson. 
Milford,  H.  S.,  The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  William  Cowper, 

372  n,  373  n,  374  n. 

MiUais,  Sir  J.  E 460 

Milton,  John,    1,  2,  11,  70,  160,  167,  194,  224,  228,  264,  273,  286,  287, 

H95-S00,  313,  336,  346,  354,  358,  361,  363,  381,  389,  390,  396,  405, 

409,  414,  420,  422,  446,  454,  459,  464,  497,  529,  541,  644,  545. 
Minot,  L.,  68-69;  Poems,  see  Hall. 
Minor  Poets  of  the  Caroline  Period.    See  Saintsbury. 

Minto,  W.,  The  Literature  of  the  Georgian  Era  559 

Mistress,  The   (Cowley)    309,  310,  311 

Modern   Language  Notes    87  n,  267  n 

Modern  Language  Review  67  n,  83  n,  166  n,  557 

Modern  Love  (Meredith)   495,  496,  497,  535 

Modern  Philology 86,  556 

Monasticon   (Dugdale)    364 

Monna  Innominata  (C.  Rossetti)    491 

Montgomery,   James    494 

Moore,  Thomas,     7,  219,  278,  335,  366,  433,  434-488,  443,  444,  449; 

Poetical  Works,  see  Godlev,  A.  D. 


INDEX 

Moorman,    F.    W.,    Robert   Hernck,   A    Biographical   and   Critical 

Study    558 

Morality  of  Wisdom 79 

Morality  plays.  Lyrics  in  73-8^,  115-117 

More,  Anne    238 

More,  P.   E.,  Shelburne  Essays   538  n 

Morel,  L.,  James  Thomson  345  n 

Morison    3X1 

Morley,  Canzonets   213-215,  338 

Morris,  R.,  The  Complete  Works  of  Edmund  Spenser 178  n 

Morris,  William  4,06,  464,  465-469 

Morris,  W.    See  Noyes. 

Moschus     156 

MS.  Add.  5465  93  n 

MS.   Add.   5665    93  n 

MS.  Add.  18753  114  n 

MS.  Ashmolean   191    91 

MS.   Fairfax    92 

MS.  Barleian  68S    76 

MS.  Harleian  3S5S.    See  Boddeker. 

Mulberry  Garden,   The    (Sedley)    234 

Musarum  Delicioe.    Wit  Restored 251  n,  264 

Music  and  Moonlight.    See  O'Shaughnessy,  A. 
Musica  Transalpina.    See  Yonge,  Nicholas. 
Musical  Basis  of  Verse,  The.    See  Dabney. 
Musique  des  Troubadours,  La.    See  Beck. 

Musset,  Alfred  de   105,  501 

Mystery  plays.  Lyrics   in    78-82 

Mystery  Plays,  York.    See  Smith,  L.  T. 

Naps  upon  Parnassus    264 

Nashe,  Thomas    126,   Wl-SOS 

Nageotte,  E.,  Histoire  de  la  po4sie  lyrique  grecque   2  n,  555 

Naylor,  E.  W.,  An  Elizabethan  Virginal  Book  558 

Neuenglisches  Lesebuch.     See  Fliigel. 

New  Court  Songs  and  Poems    332 

Newcastle,  Earl  of   224 

New  Inn,    The    (Jonson)    227 

Newman,  Cardinal    284,  494 

New  Pilgrimage,  A   (Blunt)   534 

New  Review,   The   517 

Newton,  John   370,  372,  494 

Nineteenth  Century  Literatu/re.    See  Saintsbury. 

Noble   Numbers    (Herrick)     268,   269 

Nodier    ^^ 

Noels,   Vieux   37  n,  38  n 


601^  INDEX 

Nolhac,  P.  De,  Petrarch  et  I'hvmianism  557 

Northumberland,  Duke  of,  Elegy  on    95 

Nowveau  Recueil  de  divers  Rondeaux  618 

Nouvelle  Httcfise,  La  (Rousseau)   403 

Noyes,  Alfred,  469,  518,  551;   William  Morris,  469  n. 

Odes,  Arnold,  485-486;  Coleridge,  400-401;  Collins,  358-361;  Cowley, 
309,  311;  Drayton,  186;  Gray,  351-354;  Keats,  425-436;  Mere- 
dith, 498;  Patmore,  328,  502;  Shelley,  409;  Swinburne,  473-475; 
Tennyson,  453;  Warton,  T.,  363;  Wordsworth,  397. 

Old  Bachelor,   The    (Congreve)    320 

Old  Wives  Tale,  The   (G.  Peele)    200 

Old  World  Idylls.    See  Dobson. 

Oliphant,  T.,  La  Musa  Madrigalesca  190  n,  315  n,  317  n,  558 

Oliver     148 

Olivier  de  Magny  136 

Olney  Hymns,  The   (Cowper)    373 

Olor  Oscanus  (H.  Vaughan)    287 

O'Neill,  Moira   436 

Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry.    See  Bradley. 

Oxford,  Edward  Vere,  Earl  of   139 

Ovid    265 

Otway,  Thomas   319 

Omar,  Khayyam    472 

Oratario,  The  Captivity  (Goldsmith)    366 

Orphan,   The    (Otway)    319 

Omond,  T.  S.,  English  Metrists  in   the  Eighteenth  and  Nineteenth 

Centuries,  555;  A  Study  of  Metre,  555. 
O'Shaughnessy,  Arthur,  499-501;  Music  and  Moonlight,  499  n,  501  n. 

Othello   (Shakespeare)    169,  213,  336 

Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse  20  n,  204  n,  360  n,  261,  364,  371  n 

Oxford,  92,  94,  145,  148,  161,  333,  342,  390,  408,  414,  421,  465,  469, 
476,  515. 

Padelford,  F.  M.,  Early  Sixteenth  Century  Lyrics 138  n,  557 

Palmer,  G.  H.,  English  Works  of  George  Herbert 380  n,  381  n,  282  n 

Paper  Money  Lyrics   (Peacock,  T.  L.)    444 

Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices   195-196,  197 

Palgrave,  F.   T.,  9,  11,  261,  286,  374,  443,  452,  476,  477,  499,  500; 
Golden  Treasury  of  Songs  and  Lyrics,  11,  364,  374  n,  461,  500, 
555;  Second  Series,  453  n;  The  Treasury  of  Sacred  Song,  370  n; 
Poetical  Works  of  Clough,  476  n,  477  n,  478  n,  479  n,  480  n. 
Paris,  Gaston,  22,  34,  25,  35;  Poisie  du  moyen  dge,  La,  31  n. 

Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe  (B.  Barnes)    156,  156  n,  157  n 

Pascale     189 


INDEX  605 

Patmore,  Coventry,  328,  464,  601-50S;  Poems,  see  Champneys,  B. 
Patmore,  C.    See  Gosse. 

Patterson,  F.  A.,  The  Middle  English  Penetential  Lyric   556 

Pauly,  Real-Encyclopddie  der  Class  Alter   2  n 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  410,  444;  Poems,  see  Jonson,  B. 

Peele,   George    200-201 

Pembroke,  Earl  of  243 

Pencilings  by  the  Way.    See  Willis. 

Pepys,   Samuel    322,    330 

Percy,  Thomas,  368;  Beliques  of  Ancient  Poetry,  368,  376. 

Percy,    William    159 

Percy  Society  Publications   53  n,  84  n 

Perry,  T.  S.,  English  Literature  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  559 

Person,    Martin    200 

Petrarca,  see  Finze;  Jerrold;   Suttina;  Saggio   critico   sul,   see  De 

Sanctis. 
Petrarch,  32,  70,  95,  98,  99-110,  118,  119,  121,  122,  123,  136,  129,  130, 

134,  134  n,  135,  141,  145,  145  n,  146,  149,  150,  161,  155  n,  156,  168, 

209,  225,  298,  300,  303,  327,  459;  Petrarch,  see  Holway-Calthorp ; 

P.  De  Nolhac. 
PUrarquisme,  Le,  en  France  au  XVI^^  siicle.     See  Vianey. 

Ph(Bdrus    (Plato)    108,   181 

Pharsalia    (Lucan)    171 

PhiUp  II   of  Spain   168 

Phillips,  Edward   190,  264 

Philips,   Katherine   329 

Phillis  (Lodge)    159 

Philostratus    232 

Phcenix  Nest,  The  197-198 

Phelps,  W.  L.,  The  Beginnings  of  the  English  Romantic  Movement, 

351  n,  559;  Selections  from  the  Poetry  and  Prose  of  Thomas 

Gray,  351  n,  354  n. 

Pickering,  Sir  William  168 

Picks,  P 197 

Pico  da  Mirandola    9* 

Pilkington    214 

Pills  to  Purge  Melancholy  (D'Urfey)   335 

Pindar.    See  Gildersleeve,  B. 

Pindar  2  n,  6,  7,  8,  227,  311,  312,  352,  358 

Pindare,  La  Poisie  de,  et  les  lois  du  lyrisme  grec.    See  Croiset,  A. 
Pindaric  Ode,  The,  230,  311-313,  315-317,  340,  352-355,  358,  369,  397; 

Discourse  on  the  (Congreve),  312  n. 

Planctus  Mariw  *3.  52,  82 

Plato 108.  1*3,  154,  181,  229,  214 


606  INDEX 

Platonism  in  English  Poetry  of  the  16th  and  17th  Centuries.     See 

Harrison,  J.  S. 

Playford,  John   330,  333 

Plays,  A  Select  Collection  of  Old  English.    See  Hazlitt. 

Pl^ade  136 

Pocula  Castalia  (Robert  Baron)   256  n 

Poe,  E.  A 10,  411,  418,  431,  441,  461,  501 

Poems  and  Ballads    (Swinburne)    469 

Poems  and  Songs  (Flatman)   328 

Poems  Divine  and  Human  (Thomas  Beedome)   287 

Poems  of  Rural  Life    (W.  Barnes)    504 

Poems  of  Vaux,  Oxford,  etc.    See  Grosart. 

Poems  on  Several  Occasions  (Cotton)   327 

Poisie  du  moyen  dge.  La.    See  Paris. 

Poisie  lyrique  grecque,  Histoire  de  la.    See  Nageotte. 

PoMe  lyrique  en  France  au  dix-neuviime  si^cle,  L'Evolution  de  la. 

See  Brunetifere. 
Poisie  lyrique  en  France  au  moyen  dge,  Les  Origines  de  la.     See 

Jeanroy. 
Poisie  lyrique  et  satiriqite  en  France  au  moyen  dge.  La.    See  Cl^dat. 
Poisies  populaires  latines  antirieures  au  douziime  si^cle.     See  Du 

M^ril. 

Poetaster,  The   ( Jonson)    130 

Poetic  Theory,  The  (Poe)    10 

Poetics,  A  Handbook  of.    See  Gummere. 

Poetical  Blossoms   (Cowley)   309 

Poetical  Register.    See  Jacobs,  Giles. 
Poetical  Rhapsody.    See  Davison,  F. 

Poetical  Sketches   (Blake)    379,  381 

Poetry,  The  Nature  and  Elements  of.    See  Stedman. 

Points  at  Issue.    See  Beers. 

Pollard,  A.  W.,  English  Miracle  Plays,  Moralities   and  Interludes, 

80  n,  116  n;   Herrick's   Works,  266  n,  268  n,  269  n,  270  n,  371  n, 

272  n,  373  n. 

Polly  (Gay)   344 

Pope,  A.,    95,  128,  183,  196,  231,  254,  282,  286,  296,  302,  303,  303  n, 

305,  306,  308,  316,  337,  341,  342,  343,  346,  348,  351,  352,  356,  357, 

363,  545;  Works,  see  Elwin  and  Courthope. 

Pope,  Essay  on   (Joseph  Warton)    362 

Posnett,  H.  M.,  Comparative  Literature  5  n 

Praed,  W.  M.,  434,  4S8-4S9,  444,  507,  537;  Select  Poems,  see  Godley. 

Pratinas  8 

Primer  of  English  Verse,  A.    See  Corson. 

Prince  d'Amour,  or  the  Prince  of  Love  330 

Principles  of  English  Verse,  The.    See  Lewis. 


INDEX  607 

Prior,  Matthew,  364,  307,  321,  323,  324,  336,  S38-S4S,  343,  346,  349, 
351,  372,  373,  386,  507,  510,  536,  537;  Dialogues  of  the  Dead,  see 
Waller,  A.  R.;  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,  see  Waller,  A.  R.; 
Selections  from,  see  Dobson. 

Procter,  Bryan  Waller,  44^-444;  English  Songs  and  other  small 
poem^,  444  n. 

Prometheus  Unbound  (Shelley)    409,  413 

Provenzalische  Chrestomathie.    See  Appel. 

Prout,  Father  (F.  S.  Mahony)    332 

Prudhomme,   Sully    274  n 

Psyche  (Shadwell) 321 

Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  77  n 

Purcell,  Henry,  330,  334;  see  also  Rimbault,  E.  F. 

Puttenham,  George,    118,  126,  138;  The  Art  of  English  Poesy,  138  n. 

Quarles,  Francis,  243,  284,  S9S-S95,  303;  Works,  see  Grosart. 

Quarterly  Review,  The   265  n 

Quiller-Couch,  Sir  A.  T.   443 

Quintillian 226 

Rabelais  9 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  179,  190,  194-195,  197,  199,  208,  244,  330,  355, 
368,  440. 

Ramsay,  AUan    388 

Randolph,  Thomas   S62-26S 

Reading  of  Life,  A   (Meredith)    494 

ReaUEncyclopadie  der  Glass.  Alter.     See  Pauly. 

Recruiting   Officer,   The    (Farquhar)     320 

Reed,  E.  B 243  n,  267  n 

Religio  Medici  (Sir  Thomas  Browne)    284 

Religion  of  Beauty  in  Woman,  The.    See  Fletcher,  J.  B. 
Reliques  of  Ancient  Poetry.     See  Percy. 
Renaissance,  La  Poisie  de  la.    See  Meunier,  G. 
Renaissance  in  England,  The  French.    See  Lee. 

Revue  de  Deux  Mondes,  La   25  n 

Reynolds    4,20 

Rich,  Lady.     See  Devereux,  Penelope. 

Rich,    Lord    148,    153 

Richard  III    (Shakespeare)    169 

Richard   of   Bury    *0 

Richard  Coeur  de  Lion   32,  57 

Richardson,  C.  F.,  A  Study  of  English  Rhyme  555 

Richardson,  Samuel  100,  355,  403 

Rickert,  E.,  Ancient  English  Christmas  Carols  557 


60S  INDEX 

Rimbault,  E.  F.,  ed.  Purcell's  Bonduca,  204  n;  Bibliographical  Mis- 
cellany, 209  n;  A  Bibliographical  Account  of  Musical  Works, 
etc.,  558. 

Rime  Diverse    108,   150  n 

Rinieri  150  n 

Riquier,   Guiraut    32 

Ritson,  Joseph,  10,  55;  A  Select  Collection  of  English  Songs  .  .11  n,  261  n 

Rival  Ladies,  The   (Dryden)    308  n 

Rizzio,    David    213 

Robertson,  J.  L.,  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Thomas  Campbell, 
432  n,  433  n,  434  n;  The  Poetical  Works  of  Walter  Scott,  428  n, 
429  n,  430  n,  431  n. 

Robinson  Crusoe   (Defoe)   475 

Rochester,  John,   Earl  of,     294,  304,  311,  322,  SZ5-SZ7,  328  n,  330, 

347;  Works,  326  n. 
Rochester.    See  LongueviUe. 

Rodin    517 

Rokeby   (Scott)    428,  430 

Rolle,  Richard   74-76,  284 

Rolle,  Richard  of  Hampole.    See  Horstmann. 

Roman  de  la  Rose  ou  de  Ouillaume  de  Dole.    See  Servois. 

Romanische  Forschungen   155  n 

Romantic  Movement  in  England,  The.     See  Symons. 

Romeo  and  Juliet  (Shakespeare)   35  n,  196 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de 136,  145,  156,  159,  162,  165,  172,  226,  311,  538 

Ronsard  PoMe  Lyrique.  See  Laumonier. 
Ronsard  and  the  PUiade.  See  Wyndham. 

Roots  of  the  Mountains ,  The  (Morris)   467 

Rosalynde   (Lodge)    188 

Roscommon,   Earl  of    305 

Rosi,  M.,  Saggio  sui  tratti  d'amore  del  Cinquecento 557 

Rossetti,  Christina,  88,  489-49S;  Poetical  Works,  see  Rossetti,  W.  M. 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  164,  396,  414,  447,  459-465,  468,  470,  474,  499,  514,  535. 
Rossetti,  D.  G.    See  Benson,  A.  C. 

Rossetti,   Gabriele    459 

Rossetti,  W.  M.,  489;  The  Poetical  Works  of  Christina  Rossetti, 
490  n,  491  n,  492  n,  493  n. 

Rosseter,   Philip    212 

Rou,  Roman  de   22  n 

Rousseau   403 

Rowley,  Thomas    375 

Royal  Shepherdess,  The   (Shadwell)    321 

Ruskin,  John   8 

Russell,  A.  G.  B.,  The  Letters  of  William  Blake 379  n,  380  n,  381  n 


INDEX  609 

Sacharissa  306 

Sackville,  Earl  of  Dorset.    See  Dorset. 

Saint  Amant  156  n 

St.  Bernard 43 

8t.  Dunstan,  Memorials  of.    See  Stubbs. 

Saint  George   181 

Saintsbury,  G.,  339,  398,  428,  442,  451,  456;  A  History  of  English 

Prosody,  120  n,  442  n,  555;  Minor  Poets  of  the  Caroline  Period, 

327  n,  329 ;  Historical  Manual  of  English  Prosody,  555 ;  Elizor- 

bethan  Literature,  557,  558;  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,  559. 
Sampson,  J.,    The  Poetical   Works   of   William  Blake,  379  n;    The 

Lyrical  Poems  of  William  Blake,  382  n,  383  n,  384  n. 

Samson  Agonistes  (Milton)   9 

Sannazzaro 110,  123,  156 

Sappho    2  n,  7 

Sargent,  John  502 

Sarto,   Andrea   del    109 

Schve,  Maurice 136 

Schelling,  F.  E.,  A  Book  of  Elizabethan  Lyrics,  555,  557;  A  Book  of 

Seventeenth  Century  Lyrics,  558. 
Schipper,    J.,    A    History    of    English     Versification,    312  n,    555 ; 

Englische  Metrik,  555. 

Schmeller,  J.  A.,  Carmina  Burana  40  n,  42  n 

School  for  Scandal,  The  (Sheridan)    366 

Schubert,  214;  Erlkonig,  216. 

Schumann    214 

Scots  Observer,  The  517 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  69,  126,  187,  260,  353,  364,  378,  385,  416,  4117-431, 

439,  444,  455 ;  Poetical  Works,  see  Robertson. 

Scott-Saintsbury,  John  Dryden's   Works    318  n,  319  n 

Scott,  F.  N.    See  Gayley. 

Scottish  Vernacular  Literature.    See  Henderson. 

Sedley,  Sir  Charles,    258,  304,  311,  322,  S2S-S2S,  326,  330,  347,  348, 

349;  Works,  324  n,  325  n,  326  n,  327  n. 

Segar,  Honour  Military  and  Civil 201  n 

Segr^,  C,  Studi  Petrarchesci   S57 

Selden,  John  224 

Select  Epigrams  from  the  Greek  Anthology.    See  Mackail. 

Select  Musical  Ayres  and  Dialogues   (Playford)    330 

Selections  from  the  writings  of  Landor.    See  Colvin. 

de   Selincourt,   Basil    495 

Selkirk,  A 3'I'3 

Semele  (Congreve)   320 

Serafino 105,  110,  119,  119  n,  123,  145,  209 

Servois,  G.,  Le  Roman  de  la  Rose  ou  de  OuilloMme  de  Dole  24  n 


610  INDEX 

Seventeenth  Century  Studies.    See  Gosse. 

Seymour,  Thomas,  Earl  of 168 

Shadwell,  Thomas,  320 ;  Dramatic  Works,  321  n. 

Shakespeare,  WiUiam,  15,  35  n,  70,  106,  124,  126,  129,  129  n,  132,  144, 
154,  155,  157,  159,  161,  164,  167;  sonnets,  169-176,  189,  197,  204, 
205;  songs  in  dramas,  W6-208,  214;  223,  246,  253,  264,  298,  302, 
306,  313,  330,  336,  354,  358,  361,  385,  387,  389,  396,  398,  412,  420, 
431,  422,  424,  425,  440,  443,  445,  446,  454,  462,  485,  500,  506. 
For  editions  of  sonnets,  see  Beeching,  Dowden,  Lee. 

Sharp,  C.  J.,  English  Folk-Carols    557 

Sharp,  William,  462.    Sonnets  of  this  Century,  129  n,  168,  462  n. 
SheUey,  P.  B.,  143,  156,  156  n,  173,  185,  241,  285,  389,  390,  393,  395, 
400,  401,  402,  m-4U,  4.18,  419,  421,  434,  437,  445,  447,  454,  455, 
469,  473,  475,  544,  545;  Poetical  Works,  see  Hutchinson. 

Shelley,  Life  of  (Medwin)    410 

Shelburne  Essays.    See  More. 

Shenstone,  William,  S48-S50,  387,  552;  Poetical  Works,  348  n,  349  n,  350  n 

Shepherd's  Calendar   (Spenser)    221,  243 

Shepherd's  Bunting,  The  (G.  Wither)    243 

Shepherd's  Week,  The  (Gay)   343 

Sheridan,  R.  B 366 

Shirley,  James   319,  368 

Siddal,   Elizabeth    460 

Sidgwick,  F.    See  Chambers. 

Sidgwick,    Henry    448 

Sidney,  Dorothy  306,  326 

Sidney,  Sir  PhiUp,  123,  135,  139,  140,  147-158,  156  n,  172,  177,  178- 
180,  199,  217,  219,  243,  250,  257,  469,  506,  519. 

Silent  Woman,  The  (Jonson)    231  n 

Silex  Scintnians  (H.  Vaughan)    288 

Simonides  2  n 

Skeat,  W.   W.,   The  Poetical   Works  of   Thomas   Chatterton,  376  n, 

377  n,  378  n. 
Skelton,  John,  64,  9.^-97,  141,  236,  242,  370;  Poetical  Works,  see  Dyce. 
Smart,  Christopher,  371 ;  Poems  of  the  late  Christopher  Smart,  The, 
371. 

Smith,  J.  H.,  The  Troubadours  at  Home   31  n,  556 

Smith,  L.  T.,  York  Mystery  Plays  82  n 

Smith,  Richard    132 

Smith,  WiUiam   167 

Sociiti  des  anciens  textes  frangais    24  n 

Socrates   470 

Songs,  A  Select  Collection  of  English.     See  Ritson. 

Songs  of  Experience  (Blake)    379,  383,  384 

Songs  of  Innocence  (Blake)   379 


INDEX  611 

Songs  from  the  Dramatists.    See  Bell. 
Songs  from  the  Elizabethan  Dramatists.    See  BuUen. 
Le  Sonnet  en  Italie  et  en  France  au  XF/me  sUcle.    See  Vaganay. 
Sonnet,  The  English,  9,  119-1^0,  129-130,  133  n,  133-134;  chapter  IV, 
section  III ;  298-299,  356-357,  364-365,  374,  396-397,  424-425,  461- 
464,  484-485,  488-489,  493,  497,  512-513,  633-535,  541,  545. 
Sonnets  of  this  Century.    See  Sharp. 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  (E.  B.  Browning)    488,  493 

SouthweU,  Robert,  139,  140,  190,  191-19S,  279;  Works,  see  Grosart. 

Sophocles 7 

Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Poets.    See  Ellis. 

Spectator,  The  (Addison)   143,  337,  337  n,  338,  338  n 

Spedding,  James    455 

Spenser,  Edmund,  70,  130,  145,  145  n,  148,  164-167,  170,  177,  178,  180- 
186,  199,  208,  221,  226,  229,  230,  234,  237,  246,  285,  297,  300,  308, 
313,  346,  352,  358,  359,  363,  376,  397,  420,  427,  448,  463,  496,  525, 
527,  549;  Works,  see  Morris,  R. 

Sprat,   Thomas    309 

Stainer,  Sir  John,  Early  Bodleian  Music  .  .43  n,  46  n,  49  n,  51  n,  91  n,  556 

Stanley,  Thomas   g63 

Stationers'  Register,   The    209 

Stedman,  E.  C,  443;  The  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry,  555. 

Steen,  Jan    96 

Steevens,  G 169 

Stella.     See  Devereux,  Penelope. 

SteUa   (Mrs.  Jonson)    341 

Sterne,  Lawrence   403 

Stemhold,   Thomas    368 

Stevenson,  R.  A.  M 517 

Stevenson,  R.  L 383,  498,  510-51S,  518 

Stoddard,  R.  H 443 

Stone,  Christopher,  War  Songs  69  n 

Strada    285 

Strafford,  Earl  of   252 

Strozzi,  The    209 

Stubbs,  W.,  Memorials  of  St.  Dunstan  18n 

Studi  di  Storia  Letteraria  Italiana  e  Straniera.    See  Flamini. 

Studi  Petrarchesci.    See  Segr6. 

Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse.    See  Symons. 

Study  of  English  Rhyme,  A.    See  Richardson,  C.  F. 

Study  of  Metre,  A.    See  Omond. 

Study  of  Versification,  A.    See  Matthews. 

Sucltling,  Sir  John,  248,  Z51-S56,  257,  260,  264,  288,  304,  307,  330,  330, 

368,  386;  Works,  see  Thompson,  A.  H. 
Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament  (Nashe)   201-203 


612  INDEX 

Surrey,  94,  97,  118,  1Z6-1S2,  133-136,  518,  552;  Poems,  128  n,  131  n. 
Suttina,  Luigi,  Bibliographie  delle  Opere  a  Stampa  intorno  a  Frarir- 

cesco  Petrarca,  esistente  nella  Biblioteca  Rossettiana  di  Trieste, 

557. 

Swift,   Jonathan    336,   337,   339,   341,   402 

Swinburne,  A.  C,     233,  285,  341,  406,  409,  414,  447,  448,  450,  457, 

464,  469-475,  476. 

Sylvester,    Joshua    226 

Sylvia   (Darley)    444 

Sylvia    (Etheredge)     331 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  148;  In  the  Key  of  Blue  and  other  Prose  Essays, 

558 ;  Sidney,  149  n ;  Wine,  Women  and  Song,  42  n. 
Symons,  Arthur,  514.     Poems  of  Ernest  Dowson,  with  u  Memoir, 

515  n,  516  n,  517  n;  The  Romantic  Movement  in  England,  427  n, 

559;  Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse,  559. 

Symposium    (Plato)     108,    181 

Synagogue     (Harvey)     287 

Tacitus,  13,  14,  16,  21,  227;  Annates,  14  n;  Oermania,  13  n,  16  n. 

Taine    95,  396 

Tasso    1,    148,   247,   305 

Tassoni    327 

Tatham    380 

Taylor,   G.    W.,   Poems   written   in   English    by    Charles,   Duke    of 

Orleans     78 

Teares  of   Pancie    (Watson)    147 

Tebaldeo  110,  123 

Tempest,  The   (Shakespeare)    319 

Temple,  The   (Herbert)    278,  279,  282,  283,  287,  288,  292,  372 

Ten  Brinlc,  60;  Early  English  lAterature  to  Wiclif,  60  n. 

Teniers     386 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  3,  21,  208,  290,  317,  406,  407,  414,  416,  445, 

441-453,  455,  470,  471,  473,  474,  475,  496,  498,  499,  500,  544,  545, 

548. 
Tennyson,  A.,  The  Centenary  of.    See  Warren,  T.  H. 

Terbourg   386 

Thackeray,  W.  M 200,  342,  447,  507-508,  537 

Theatre    for    Worldings,    The    145  n 

Theatre  of  Music   (Playford)    333 

Theatrum  Pcetarum  Anglorum  (E.  Phillips)    .  .  .  ;,■ 264 

Theocritus    145,  365 

Theresa  of  Avila,  Saint 283,  284,  285,  286 

Thomas   de   Hales    50 

Thomson,  James   344,  361,  387 

Thomson,  James.    See  Morel. 


INDEX  618 

Thompson,  A.  H.,  Works  of  Sir  John  Suckling,  252  n,  253  n,  254  n, 

255  n,  256  n. 
Thompson,  Francis,  6SS-6S9;  Selected  Poems,  see  MeyneU,  W. 

Tichborne    140,   171 

Tiersot,  J.,  Histoire  de  la  chanson  populaire  en  France   42  n 

Tinker,  C.  B.    See  Cook. 

Tolstoi     470 

Toplady,  A 370 

Tottel's  Miscellany   126  n,  132,  1SS-1S6,  144,  195,  197,  368 

Tourneur,  Cyril  444 

Traherne,  Thomas,  328;  Poetical  Works,  see  DobeU. 
Translations  from  Old  English  Poetry.    See  Cook. 
Treasury  of  Sacred  Song,  The.    See  Palgrave. 

Tristram  Shandy   (Sterne)    403 

Les  Trophies  (De  Heredia)   451 

Troubadours  at  Home,  The.    See  Smith. 
Troubadours,  Die  Werke  der.    See  Mahn. 
Troubadours,  Les.    See  Anglade. 

Tudor     92 

Tullia   of   Aragon    109 

Turbervllle,  George,  128,  US,  144,  177;  Poems,  see  Chalmers. 

Turges    92 

Tyard,  Pontus  de   136 

Underbill,  J.,  The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Gay  343  n,  344  n 

Underwoods   ( Jonson)    225  n,  265 

Underwoods   (Stevenson)    511,  512 

Unknown  Eros,  The   (Patmore)    502 

Unwin,  Mary  374 

Upham,  A.  H.,  The  French  Influence  in  EngUsh  Literature  from  the 

accession  of  Elizabeth  to  the  Restoration  557 

Vaganay,   H.,   107;  Le   Sonnet   en  Italie   et  en  France   au  XF/me 

Steele,  107  n,  557. 
Vagantenlieder  des  Mittelalters ,  Die  lateinischen.    See  Hubatsch. 

Vanbrugh,  Sir  John    320 

VanDyck  171,245,253 

Varchi    109 

Varia.    See  Flamini. 

Vaughan,   Henry,   268,   278,   284,   287-^9^,   328,  369,  389,  442,   511; 

Poems,  see  Chambers,  E.  K. 

Vaux,  Lord    ^^^ 

Venice  Preserved    (Otway)    319 

Ventadorn,  Bernart  de   26,  27,  31 

Vere,  Edward.     See  Oxford,  Earl  of. 


614  INDEX 

Verity,  A.  W.,  The  Works  of  Sir  George  Etheredge  331  n 

Verlaine,  Paul  413,  451,  515,  516 

Veronese    149 

Vianey,  J.,  Le  P^trarquisme  en  France  au  XVIme  slide   ....  136  n,  557 

Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The   (Goldsmith)    365 

Victorian  Poets,  The    (Stedman,  E.   C.)    443 

Vigny,  Alfred   de    375 

Villon,  Francois   73,  98,  538,  539 

Vincent,  Arthur,  Poems  of  Thomas  Carew,  346  n,  247  n,  348  n,  249  n, 
350  n,  251  n. 

Virgil   227,  247,  308,  358 

Virginal  Book,  An  Elizabethan.    See  Naylor. 

Vision  of  Mirzah,  The   (Addison)    352 

Visions  (Du  Bellay)    242 

Visions   (Spenser)    343 

Vivian,  P.,  Campion's  Works 230  n 

Viviani,  Emilia   408 

Volpone  ( Jonson)  130 

Voretzsch,  C,  Einfuhrung  in  das  Studium  der  altfan.  Lit 33  n,  556 

Wace,  23.    See  Andresen. 

Wagner    470 

Walker,  E.,  A  History  of  Music  in  England 211  n,  558 

Walker,  Hugh,  478,  537 ;  Literature  of  the  Victorian  Era,  478  n,  559. 
Waller,  A.  R.,  Essays  and  Plays  of  Abraham  Cowley,  309  n,  312  n; 

Poems   of   Abraham   Cowley,  309  n,   310  n,   311  n,   313  n,   314  n; 

Poems  by  Richard  Crashaw,  284  n,  385  n,  387  n;  Prior,  Dialogues 

of  the  Dead  and  other  works  in  prose  and  verse,  339  n,  341  n; 

Prior,  Poems  on  Several  Occasions,  339  n,  340  n. 
Waller,  Edmund,  304-308,  309,  313,  330,  330,  346,  373;  Poems,  see 

Drury. 

Walsingham,  Frances    148 

Walton,  Isaac  334,  361,  280,  282,  295,  307,  337,  543,  548 

War  Songs.    See  Stone. 

Ward,  T.  M.,  The  Poems  of  Johnson,  Goldsmith,  Oray  and  Collins, 

365  n,  366  n. 

Warren,  F.  M 35  n 

Warren,  T.  H.,  The  Centenary  of  Tennyson  498  n 

Warton,  Joseph,  361,  363,  552;  Poems,  362  n. 

Warton,  Thomas  (Senior),  362;  Poems,  363  n. 

Warton,  Thomas,  361,  362-365,  368,  378,  423,  552;  Poetical  Works, 

see  Mant. 

Watson,  T 145-1^7,  169,  199 

Watson,  William,  351,  627,  544-548;  Poems,  545  n,  546  n,  547  n,  548  n; 

iVew  Poems,  547  n,  548  n. 


INDEX  615 

Watteau    343 

Watts,  Isaac   369-370,  372,  494 

Watts-Dunton,  T 120,  555 

Way  of  the  World,  The  (Congreve)  254,  320 

Webster,  John    206,  444,  445 

Wechssler,  E.,  Kulturproblem  des  Minneeangs,  Das 24  n,  29  n 

Weckerlin,  J.  B.,  Chansons  populaires  du  pays  de  Prance 37  n,  40  n 

Werner,  R.  M.,  Lyrik  und  Lyriker  556 

Werther  (Goethe)    403 

Wesley,   Charles    370 

Wesley,   John    370 

West,  Richard   ; 356 

Westbrook,    Harriet    408 

Westminster 309,  338 

Westminster  Drolleries.    See  Ebsworth. 

What  d'ye  call  it.  The  (Gay)    344 

Whitman,  W 523,  549 

Whythorne,  Thomas,  Songs  composed  and  made  by  209 

Widsith  14,  15 

Wilde,  Oscar,  612-514;  Poems,  512  n,  513  n. 

Wilhelm  Meister  (Goethe)    398 

Wilmot,  John.    See  Rochester. 

WilUams,  Jane    421 

WilUams,  W 370 

WiUis,  N.  P.,  434 ;  Pencilings  by  the  Way,  435  n. 

Wilton,  Jack   (Nashe)    126 

Wine,  Women  and  Song.    See  Symonds. 

Winstanley,  Lives  of  the  most  famous  English  Poets   257 

Winstanley,  L.,  Edmund  Spenser:  The  Powre  Hymnes  181  n 

Wither,  George  S43-ZU,  251 

Wolsey,  Cardinal 94 

Wood,   Anthony    293 

Wolfe,  James   354 

Wordsworth,  William,  9,  106,  169,  173,  176,  221,  277,  292,  352,  357, 

373,  375,  385,  390,  391,  392-398,  401,  402,  406,  407,  408,  409,  411, 

418,  421,  434,  444,  463,  477,  483,  484,  490,  507,  512,  515,  531,  644, 

545,  546. 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  139,  262,  296,  330,  368;  Poemw,  see  Hannah. 
Wright,  T.,  Specimens  of  Lyric  Poetry,  53  n,  64  n,  65  n;  Specimens 

Old  Christmas  Carols,  84  n,  85  n,  86  n. 
Wiilcker,   R.  P. — C.  W.  M.  Grein,  Bibliothek  der  angelsdchsischen 

Poesie    IS  n 

Wyatt,   78,    94,  97,   118-126,   127-128,   130,    132-136,    149,   518,   552; 

Poetical  Works,  121  n,  122  n,  124  n,  125  n,  126  n. 
Wycherley 320 


616  INDEX 

Wyndham,  G.,  Bonsard  and  the  PUiade   557 

Wynkyn  de  Worde  113  n,  209 

Yonge,  Nicholas,  Musica  Transalpina 211 

Zassetsky,  Madame  510 

Zola  386,  552 

Zepheria  (Anon.)    159,  160