Page:Four Victorian poets; a study of Clough (IA fourvictorianpoe00broorich).pdf/17

 furious love, and both are as intellectual as they are sensual. His hand rarely weakens as he draws her; there is scarcely a line which does not add a fresh touch to the portraiture. Moreover, she is set off by the sketch of her attendant, who is a gracious and tender woman, as unlike her mistress as a primrose of the spring is to the crimson rose of summer. The scene with Joseph is managed with reticent dexterity, and the fidelity of Joseph is saved from the awkwardness of the situation by the nob1noble [sic] ideals, both intellectual, moral, and personal, which Wells, following the story, has given to the character of this leader of men.

To read the whole drama is to wonder why the poet wrote so little. Had he been justly praised he might have done higher work, but total silence greeted his effort, and he also went into silence. This proves that he had not that genius which cannot rest without production, on which public indifference has no influence, and public blame none except fresh impelling. Wells was not of that great crew. He put so much into this poem that he exhausted his genius in it. There are those who, like the fabled aloe, only flower once. Moreover, it is a characteristic of such persons that they have not enough of art to stay their hand when they have said enough. Wells begins and continues the various parts of his subject with power, but the power fails into a certain weakness when he closes them. Thoughts and impressions thin out, not only in weight but in imagination, and the verse itself,