Page:The Fleshly school of poetry - Buchanan - 1872.djvu/12

viii told. It is delightful as showing the ratio of public intelligence. It appears that these poems of Mr. Rossetti have actually become favourites with that prude of prudes, the British matron; and several gentlemen tell me that their aunts and grandmothers see no harm in them! My own grandmother is not poetical, so I have not sought her opinion. But here I am front to front with the amazing fact that a large section of cultured people read poetry, and enjoy it, without the faintest perception of what it is all about—without the slightest wish to realise the images or the situations—without any more intellectual effort than they use when having their hair brushed! Conceive the mental state of the aunt or grandmother who could read such verses as this—

I was a child beneath her touch—a man When breast to breast we clung, even I and she, A spirit when her spirit looked thro' me— A god when all our life-breath met to fan Our life's-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran, Fire within fire, desire in deity!"—

and merely think them sweetly pretty. It is hard to think ill of one's relations; but the mature females in question must be either very obtuse, or—very, very naughty!

The truth appears to be, that writing, however nasty, will be perfectly sanctified to English readers if it be moral in the legal sense; and thus a poet who describes sensual details may do so with impunity if he labels his poems—"Take notice! These sensations are strictly nuptial; these delights have been sanctioned by English law, and registered at Doctors' Commons!" We have here the reason that Mr. Rossetti has almost escaped censure, while Mr. Swinburne has been punished so severely; for Mr. Rossetti, in