Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/113

 Every touch of real detail and minute colour in the study serves to heighten and complete the finished picture which remains burnt in upon the eyes of our memory when the work is done. The clock ticking, the bird waking, the scratched pier-glass, the shaded lamp, give new relief as of very light and present sound to the spiritual side of the poem. How great and profound is the scope and power of the work on that side, I can offer no better proof than a reference to the whole; for no sample of this can be torn off or cut out. Of the might of handiwork and simple sovereignty of manner which make it so triumphant a witness of what English speech can do, this one excerpt may stand in evidence:—

Except when there may rise unsought Haply at times a passing thought Of the old days which seem to be Much older than any history That is written in any book; When she would lie in fields and look Along the ground through the blown grass, And wonder where the city was, Far out of sight, whose broil and bale They told her then for a child's tale.

"Jenny, you know the city now. A child can tell the tale there, how Some things, which are not yet enrolled In market-lists, are bought and sold Even till the early Sunday light, When Saturday night is market-night Everywhere, be it dry or wet, And market-night in the Haymarket."

The simple sudden sound of that plain line is as great and rare a thing in the way of verse, as final and superb a proof of absolute poetic power upon words, as any