Page:The Poetry of Dante Rossetti by Hall Caine.pdf/6

 thought; and, last, that variety of cadence should run through it and sustain it. There are eleven songs in Rossetti, and judged by the standards I have indicated they rise in aerial sweetness, richness, variety and truth to the level of the songs in Shakspere. Listen to the sad swell of "A Little While," the murmur and sinking sadness of whose third and last lines fall on the ear like the roll of a receding tide under the grey light of a low November moon:— "A little while a little love The scattering Autumn hoards for us Whose bower is not yet ruinous Nor quite unleaved our songless grove. Only across the shaken boughs We hear the flood-tides seek the sea, And deep in both our hearts they rouse One wail for thee and me." "The Song of the Bower" is, amongst Mr. Rossetti's songs, all sensuously exquisite, the most peerless piece of perfection. It is a creature of the air, an unbodied joy. The first four lines have wandered somehow out of the Tempest, where they hold their heart's heart's kindred. "Say, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower, Thou whom I long for, who longest for me! Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis Love's hour, Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free." Mark the change of tone to the slow, solemn note of the second stanza, and again the change to the full flood and fervid outburst of "What wore my prize, could I enter thy bower, This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn? Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower, Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn. Kindled with love-breath, (the sun's kiss is colder!) Thy sweetness all near me, so distant to-day; My hand round thy neck and thy hand on my shoulder, My mouth to thy mouth as the world melts away." But no methods of science I can apply can analyse the ultimate elements of Mr. Rossetti's great gift of song. The pungency of sudden phrase, the trick of rhyme, the flashing mastery of hand belong to that realm of the undefinable in art of which criticism can give only a feeble and lifeless suggestion.

Narrative poetry requires lyric finish, added to a flood of incident that has neither break nor pause. Fancy must give place to imagination, and sweetness to force. And where is the sweep of story stronger, music richer, or imagination more Rh