Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/36

 so full of light and storm, of high action and high passion, as is ours. For his hand has never been firmer, his note more clear than now;

and in these bitter and tragic pages there is a sweetness surpassing that of love-songs or songs of wine, a sweetness as of the roll of the book spread before Ezekiel, that was written within and without, "and there was written there in lamentations, and mourning, and woe.—Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness."

It would be well that all students of this book should read together with it, as complement at once and commentary, the memorable collection, "Actes et Paroles, 1870-1871-1872." By the light of that precious record, and by this light alone, can it be properly read. There all who will may see by what right even beyond the right of genius the greatest poet of his great nation speaks now to us as a prophet to his people: by what right of labour, by what right of sorrow, by what right of pity and of scorn, by what right of indignation and of love. None of those disciples who most honoured him in his time of banishment could have anticipated for their master a higher honour or a heavier suffering than those nineteen years of exile; but in his own country there was reserved for him a brighter crown of honour, with a deeper draught of suffering. To defend Paris against Versailles and against itself, and to behold it wasted on the one hand with fire which was quenched on the other hand in blood: to cast from him the obloquy of men who refused to hear his