Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/28

12 The two lines, or half lines, which make the glory of this extract resemble perfectly, for vigorous grace and that subtle strength of interpretation which transfigures the external nature it explains, the living leader of English poets. Even he has hardly ever given a study of landscape more large and delicate, an effect of verse more exquisite and sonorous. Of the "Spring" we have already said something; but for that poem nothing short of transcription would be adequate. The "Autumn," too, should hardly have been rejected: it contains lines of perfect power and great beauty, though not quite up to the mark of "Spring" or "Summer." From another poem, certainly not worthier of the place it has been refused, we have extracted two lines worth remembering for their terseness and weight of scorn, recalling certain grave touches of satire in Blake's later work:

All that is worth recollection in the little play of "Edward the Third" has been here reproduced with a judicious care in adjusting and rejecting. Blake had probably never seen the praiseworthy but somewhat verbose historical drama on the same subject, generously bestowed upon Shakespeare by critics of that German acuteness which can accept as poetry the most meritorious powers of rhetoric. His own disjointed and stumbling fragment, deficient as it is in shape or plan or local colour, has far more of the sound and savour of Shakespeare's style in detached lines: more indeed than has ever been caught up by any poet except one to whom his editor has seized