The Poets and the Poetry of the Century
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The Poets and the Poetry of the Century Alfred H. Miles *a*^. Southern Branch of the of University California ; Los Angeles Form L I V.Q, 'JUL 2 9 1984 Form L9-15/(<-10,'25 The POETS and the POETRY of the CENTURY The POETS and the POETRY of the CENTURY William Morris to Robert Buchanan Edited by ALFRED H. MILES HUTCHINSON & CO. 25, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON '" /^' r> ') i> •'5 .* ^, ^ n PREFATORY. This volume contains selections from the works of poets who were born during the fourth decade of the century,— poets, who at the time of this writing, are in most in cases the prime of life, and in the full vigour of their working powers ;—poets from whom much has been received, and from whom more may " yet be expected, whose names are as familiar in our ears as household words," and whose v.-ork has exercised more influence over the poetic literature of the latter part of the Victorian era, than that of any others, excepting only the work of Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. The Editor's obligations in this connection are numerous and heavy. The high courtesy he has experienced at the hands of Mr. William Morris and Mr. Swinburne, would hardly find, in the delicacy and grace of the one or the torrent-force of the other, an adequate verbal equivalent. His sense of indebtedness to Mr. Theodore Watts, one of whose sonnets in this appears volume for the first time, be recorded but may not expressed. Dr. Garnett, the Hon. Roden Noel, Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Alfred Mr. Austin, W. S. Blunt, Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, Lord de Table\', Mr, John Addington Symonds, and Mr. Herman Merivale, have all shown him a generosity which he can' appreciate if he cannot iv PREFATORY. acknowledge. His special thanks are also due to Mr. Buxton Forman for very valuable service, and to Mr. Robert Buchanan for the special favour whereby his poems are included in this volume. Cheerful reference is also due to the kindness of the several firms of publishers whose books are so largely represented. Messrs. Reeves & Turner, who are the publishers of Mr. William Morris's works ; Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co., who publish the several volumes of Hon. Roden Noel, Mr. Austin Dobson, and Blunt Messrs. Bell held the Mr. W. S. ; & Sons, who of the of the late Ashe copyrights works Thomas ; Messrs. Smith & Elder, who are the publishers of the works of Mr. John Addington Symonds; Messrs. Macmillan, who publish the poems of Mr. Alfred Messrs, Chatto are the Austin ; & Windus, who publishers of Mr. Swinburne's works, as well as those of Mr. Robert Buchanan ; and Mr. Elkin Matthews, the publisher of Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse's charming volume, "Corn and Poppies," Probably no volume was ever weighted with larger obligations to poets and publishers than the present one, and it is issued with the hope that it may be found worthy of the confidence and generosity which have made it possible, A. H. M. INDEX. PAGE 1 WILLIAM MORRIS (1834) . H. Buxton Forman Shameful Death iS The Eve of Crecy 17 The Haystack in the Floods . 19 Sir Peter Harpdon's End (Scenes II. and III.) . 25 The Earthly Paradise— I. An Apology 33 II. Atalanta's Race 33 Love is Enough— 60 I. The First Lyric II. The Concluding Lyric 60 The Story of Sigurd the Volsung— " " 62 Then in the grave-mound's darkness . Chants for Socialists— The March of the Workers 69 A Death Song 72 The House of the Wolfings— The Tale of the Hauberk 73 The Roots of the Mountains— " " 77 I. Song : In hay-tide II. A Lay of Time past 78 81 HON. RODEN NOEL (1834) /. Addiiigton Syiuonds A Vision of THE Desert 89 The Waternymph and the Boy . 97 A Little Child's Monument— I. Lament i°4 II. The King and the Peasant . .105 III. Music and the Child 107 " " IV. That they all may be one . • "3 vi INDEX. Love Lyrics— page " 1. "The Pity of It "4 II. Early Love iiS III. Love Hiding "7 " ii8 London (from A Lay of Civilisation ") . Beethoven 123 Thalatta 126 Byron's Grave i3S The Modern Faust— I. Pan 137 II. Ragnarok (a selection) 14S ALFRED AUSTIN (1835) . Walter Whyte 147 A Night in June ^5^ Primroses ^53 The Last Night ^57 The Last Redoubt ^^^ Sonnets— I. Love's Blindness 164 II. Love's Wisdom 164 RICHARD GARNETT (1835) . Cosmo Monkhouse 165 Poems— I, A Nocturn . 169 II. Fading-leaf and Falling-leaf. .169 III. The Ballad of the Boat 170 IV. The Violet to the Nightingale . .172 v. The Diver's Story i73 VI. The Lyrical Poem i75 VII. The Didactic Poem i7S VIII. The Sicilian Octave 175 IX. The Fair Circassian 176 Sonnets— I. Age 177 II. Dante i77 Epigrams 178 Iphigenia in Delphi (a selection) . .181 INDEX. vii PAGE LORD DE TABLEY (1835) . Alfred H. Miles 183 Shorter Poems— I. At Evening 187 II. Daffodils 187 III. A Frosty Day 188 IV. The Knight in the Wood .... 189 V. Misrepresentation 190 An Ode 191 Daphne 194 A Hebrew Lament AFTER Defeat. 197 The Count of Senlis at His Toilet . 201 Jael 206 An Ocean Grave 215 THOMAS ASHE (1836— 1889) . Havelock Ellis 219 Earlier Poems— I. Ettie 225 II. Avice Ethel 228 III. Sympathy 230 Pictures of Psyche (hi.—vi.) . .231 Later Poems— I. Aoede 241 II. No and Yes 244 III. Lost Eros 24s IV. To Two Bereaved . ... 246 v. Apologia 246 Marit— Cest un songe que d'y penser .... 247 At Altenahr- Meet we no Angels, Pansie ? .... 248 Betiws-y-Coed— Chide not the Poet 249 London Lyrics— I. Prologue 25' II. A Vision of Children zSi III. The City Clerk 252 IV. A Machine Hand 253 V. Old Jane 253 VI. Epilogue 254 viii INDEX. PAGE THEODORE WATTS (1836) . Mackenzie Bell 255 Sonnets— The Rosy Scar 258 The Three Fausts 259 Ode to Mother Carey's Chicken . .263 Mabel's Dream. Part 1 267 Sonnets— I. Natura Maligna 272 II. Natura Benigna 272 III. A Starry Night at Sea 273 IV. The First Kiss 273 V. The Heaven that was 274 VI. A Dream 274 VII. Australia's Mother 275 VIII. John the Pilgrim 275 IX. The Shadow on the Window Blind . 276 X. Dickens returns on Christmas Day . 276 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837) Arthur Symo 277 Atalanta in Calydon— The Death of Meleager 285 Poems and Ballads— Hymn to Proserpine 293 Itylus 300 The Garden of Proserpine 302 Songs before Sunrise— Super Flumina Babylonis 304 Erechtheus— Storm and Battle 311 Poems and Ballads (Second Series)— Winter in Northumberland .... 319 A Forsaken Garden 32S Ex-Voto 331 At Parting 335 A Midsummer Holiday— On the Verge 336 INDEX. IX Tristram of Lyonesse— page I. Dedicatory Sennet 339 II. Selection from "The Sailing of the Swallow" 340 " III. Selection from "The Maiden Marriage . 341 " IV. Selection from The Last Pilgrimage . 344 Herse 349 " " Sonnet: Hope and Fear 352 A Century of Rondels— I. To Catullus 353 II. In Guernsey 353 DAVID GRAY {1838— 1861) . James Ashcroft Noble 355 Empedocles 357 The LuGGiE — Winter (a selection) 361 The Yellow-Hamher 365 October (a selection) 367 The Harebell 368 In the Shadows— Sonnets I., II., and III 369 My Epitaph 37° HERMAN CHARLES MERIVALE (1839)/. A. Blaikie 371 The White Pilgrim— The Speech of Death 375 Sonnets— I. The Sunset Winter 378 II. Thaisa's Dirge 378 .SiTATE XIX. ........ 379 Old AND New Rome 381 "Across THE Estuary" 387 A Lost Morning 389 AUSTIN DOBSON (1840) . Alfred II. Miles 391 Old-World Idylls— I. A Dead Letter 395 II. The Ballad of Beau Brocade . 400 Proverbs in Porcelain— "Good Night, Babette" 408 INDEX. Vignettes in Rhyme— page The Idyll of the Carp 411 At the Sign of the Lyre— A Fancy from Fontenelle 416 Miscellaneous Poems— I. A Song: of the Four Seasons . 417 II. The Paradox of Time 418 HI. To a Greek Girl 419 Fables of Literature and Art— The Poet and the Critics 421 Essays in Old French Forms— A Ballad of Prose and Rhyme .... 423 " " In After Days 424 WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT (1840) Richard le Gallienne 425 Sonnets and Songs— I. In the Night 431 II. Sonnets—The Sublime 434 HI. At a Funeral 435 The Love-Sonnets of Proteus— I. To Manon, comparing; Her to a Falcon . 439 II. To Juliet, exhorting Her to Patience . 439 " III. Farewell to Juliet : Lame, Impotent Con- " clusion 440 " IV. Farewell to Juliet : Farewell then ". 440 V. Laughter and Death 441 VI. On the Shortness of Time .... 441 In Vinculis— Sonnets " " I. to Pilate I From Caiaphas was sent . 442 " " II. There are two voices with me in the night 442 III. has its . "My prison pleasures" . , 443 IV. dark "Farewell, gaol" 443 A New Pilgrimage Sonnets " I. "Ah Paris, Paris! . , . 444 II. there is "To-day no cloud upon thy face" . 444 " hi. "For thus it is. You flout at king's to-day 445 " " IV. Gods, what a moral ! Yet in vain I jest 445 V. "How strangely now I come, a man of sorrow" r ••:•.. 446 INDEX. Xi The Idler's Calendar— page I- April 447 II. November 448 From the Arabic— The Camel-Rider 449 COSMO MONKHOUSE (1840) Richard le Galliemie 453 The Chief Ringer's Burial 457 The Night Express 459 Posthumous . 462 Any Soul to Any Body 463 Her Face 465 A Dead March 469 Under the Oak 472 To A New Born Child 475 A Song of the Seasons 477 To the Sea 478 Violet 478 JOHN ADDINGTON SYJWONDS (1S40) T.