Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/133



But that does not contain all the thought on the matter. He tells in a sonnet of that young Italian bride, lovely, gaily garmented, who, perishing in an accident, was found to wear a robe of sackcloth next her "smooth white skin."

Again, we are told in the Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoon, the poet is to tell of Life's movement; all of it from source to close. It is Life's movement which fascinates the poets. But it is too much for them to bear or to tell. Only a gleam of it here and there can they see, only now and then can they hear a murmur of it; not the whole light, not the full music. A few,