Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/137

 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 28«J just published his first book, his mystical and transcendental poem of " The Year of the World." This seems to have fallen under Rossetti's notice, for on November 25, 1847, he wrote to the author, a perfect stranger to himself, a letter of warm sympathy and acknowledgment. Mr. Scott was living in Newcastle, and, instead of meeting, the young poets at first made acquaintance with each other by correspondence. Rossetti soon mentioned, of course, his own schemes and ambitions, and he sent, as a sample of his powers, his poems of " The Blessed Damozel," and " My Sister's Sleep," which he had written about eigh- teen months before. Mr. Scott tells me that his first feeling on receiving these poems, written in English by an Italian boy of eighteen, was one of amazement. I cannot wonder at it. If the " Blessed Damozel," when it was published a quarter of a century later, seemed a masterpiece to those who had, in the meanwhile, read so much that was vaguely inspired by it, what must it have been in 1846? Certain pieces in Tennyson's " Poems," of 1842, and a few fragments of Browning's " Bells and Pomegranates " were the only English poems which can be supposed to have given it birth, even indirectly. In its interpretation of mystical thoughts by con- crete images, in its mediseval fervor and consistence of fancy, in its peculiar met- rical facility, it was distinctly new — original as few poems except those by the acknowledged masters of the craft can ever be. " The sun was gone now ; the curled moon Was like a little feather Fluttering far down the gulf ; and now She spoke through the clear weather. Her voice was like the voice the stars Had when they sang together." This was a strange accent in 1846. Miss Barrett and Mr. Tennyson were then the most accepted poets. Mr. Browning spoke fluently and persistently, but only to a very little circle ; Mr. Home's " Orion " and Mr. Bailey's " Festus" were the recent outcomes of Keats and Goethe ; the Spasmodic School, to be presently born of much unwise study of " Festus," was still unknown ; Mr. Clough, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and Mr. Patmore were quite unapparent, taking form and voice in solitude ; and here was a new singer, utterly unlike them all, pouring out his first notes with the precision and independence of the new- fledged thrush in the woodland chorus. In painting, the process was somewhat different. In this art, no less than in poetry, Rossetti understood at once what it was that he wished to do himself, and what he desired to see others doing ; but the difficulties of technique were in his way. He had begun to write in childhood, but he had taken up design late in his youth, and he had undergone no discipline in it. At the present day, when every student has to pass a somewhat stringent examination in design, Rossetti, at eighteen, could not have entered the schools of the Royal Academy. He did so, however, yet without ever advancing to the Life School. The soul of 19