Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/126

 Grecian goal in "Thyrsis" and the "Harp-player;" none can light as with fires or lull as with flutes of magic the reaches of so full a stream of story as flows round the "Earthly Paradise" with ships of heroes afloat on it. But for height and range and depth, for diversity and perfection of powers, Mr. Rossetti is abreast of elder poets not less surely than of younger. Again I take to witness four singled poems; "The Burden of Nineveh," "Sister Helen," "Jenny," and "Eden Bower." Though there were not others as great as these to cite at need, we might be content to pass judgment on the strength of these only; but others as great there are. If he have not the full effluence of romance or the keen passion of human science that give power on this hand to Morris and on that to Browning, his work has form and voice, shapeliness and sweetness, unknown to the great analyst; it has weight and heat, gravity and intensity, wanting to the less serious and ardent work of the latest master of romance. Neither by any defect of form nor by any default of force does he ever fall short of either mark or fight with either hand "as one that beateth the air." In sureness of choice and scope of interest, in solidity of subject and sublimity of object, the general worth of his work excels the rate of other men's; he wastes no breath and mistakes no distance, sets his genius to no tasks unfit for it, and spends his strength in the culture of no fruitless fields. What he would do is always what a poet should, and what he would do is always done. Born a light-bearer and leader of men, he has always fulfilled his office with readiness and done his work with might. Help and strength and delight and fresh life have long been gifts of his