Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/93

 the first delicate detail to the last. The simple agony of memory inflames every line with native colour. A boyish patriot in hiding from the government finds a child forsaken in time of famine by her parents, saves and supports her, sets his heart towards hers more and more with the growth of years, to find at last the taint upon her of a dawning shame, of indifference and impurity—the hard laugh of a harlot on her lips, and in her bearing the dull contempt of a harlot for love and memory. Stabbed and stung through by this sudden show of the snake's fang as it turns upon the hand which cherished it, he slays her; and even in his hour of martyrdom, dying of wounds taken in a last fight for Italy, is haunted by the lovely face and unlovely laugh of the girl he had put out of reach of shame. But the tender truth and grace, the living heat and movement of the tragedy through every detail, the noble choice and use of incident, make out of this plain story a poem beyond price. Upon each line of drawing there has been laid the strong and loving hand of a great artist—and specially a supreme painter of fair women. In the study of the growing girl the glories of sculpture and painting are melted into one, and every touch does divine service;

"The underlip Sucked in as if it strove to kiss itself;"

the face, pale "as when one stoops over wan water;" the "deep-serried locks," the rounded clinging fingertips, and great eyes faint with passion or quivering with hidden springs of mirth,