Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/102

 and gracious radiance of the poem have been praised by those who have not known or noted all the noble care spent on it in rejection and rearrangement of whatever was crude or lax in the first cast; but the breadth and sublimity which ennoble its brightness and beauty of fancies are yet worthier of note than these. What higher imagination can be found in modern verse than this?

From the fixed place of heaven she saw Time like a pulse shake fierce Through all the worlds."

This grandeur of scale and sweep of spirit give greatness of style to poetry, as well as sweetness and brightness. These qualities, together with the charm of fluent force and facile power, are apparent in all Mr. Rossetti's work; but its height of pitch and width of scope give them weight and price beyond their own.

Another poem, based like this on the Christian sentiment of woman-worship, is worthy of a place next it. In the hymn headed "Ave" the finest passage is that on the life of the Virgin after the death of Christ; a subject handled by the painter as well as by the poet. Indeed, of the two versions, that in colour is even the lovelier and more memorable to all who may have seen it for gentle glory of treatment—for the divine worn face of the Mother, seen piteously sacred in the light struck by the beloved disciple, as the thick purple twilight steeping the city roofs and the bare hill-side which saw the stations of the cross fills with pale coloured shadows the still small chamber where she sits at work for her Son's poor. The soft fervour and faultless keeping of the poem give it that