form. It may be difficult, perhaps it is impossible, to fix the measure of license which a poet may allow himself in such matters, but it is at least certain that the greatest poets are those who have allowed themselves the fewest of such liberties: in art as in morals, and as in everything which man undertakes, true greatness is the most ready to recognize and most willing to obey those simple outward laws which have been sanctioned by the experience of mankind, and we suspect the originality which cannot move except on novel paths.
This is but one of several reasons which explain the apathy of the public on A.'s first appearance. There was large promise, but the public require performance; and in poetry a single failure overweighs a hundred successes. It was possible that his mistakes were the mistakes of a man whose face was in the right direction --who was feeling his way, and who would ultimately find it; but only time could decide if this were so; and in the interval, the coldness of his reception would serve to test the nature of his faculty.
So far we have spoken with reserve, for we have simply stated the feelings with which we regarded this little volume on first reading it; but the reserve is no longer necessary, and the misgivings which we experienced have not been justified. At the close of last year another volume was published, again of miscellaneous poems, which went beyond the most sanguine hopes of A.'s warmest admirers. As before with "The Strayed Revellers," so again with "Empedocles on AEtna," (Empedocles on AEtna, and other Poems. By A. London: 1852) the piece de resistance was not the happiest selection. But of the remaining pieces, and of all those which he has more recently added, it is difficult to speak in too warm praise. In the unknown A., we are now to recognize a son of the late Master of Rugby, Dr. Arnold. Like a good knight, we suppose he thought it better to win his spurs before appearing in public with so honoured a name; but the associations which belong to it will suffer no alloy from him who now wears it. Not only is the advance in art remarkable, in greater clearness of effect, and in the mechanical handling of words, but far more in simplicity and healthfulness of moral feeling. There is no more obscurity, and no mysticism; and we see everywhere the working of a mind bent earnestly on cultivating whatever is highest and worthiest in itself; of a person who is endeavouring, without affectation, to follow the best things, to see clearly what is good, and right, and true, and to fasten his heart upon these. There is usually a period in the growth of poets in which, like coarser people, they mistake the voluptuous for the beautiful; but in Mr. Arnold there is no trace of any such tendency; pure, without effort, he feels no enjoyment and sees no beauty in the atmosphere of the common passions; and in nobleness of purpose, in a certain loftiness of mind singularly tempered with modesty, he continually reminds us of his father. There is an absence, perhaps, of colour; it is natural that it should be so in the earlier poems of a writer who proposes aims such as these to himself; his poetry is addressed to the intellectual, and not to the animal emotions; and to persons. of animal taste, the flavour will no doubt be oversimple; but it is true poetry--a true representation of true human feeling. It may not be immediately popular, but it will win its way in the long run, and has elements of endurance in it which enable it to wait without anxiety for recognition.
Among the best of the new poems is "Tristram and Iseult." It is unlucky that so many of the subjects should be so unfamiliar to English readers, but it is their own fault if they do not know the "Mort d'Arthur." We must not calculate, however, on too much knowledge in such unpractical matters; and as the story is too long to tell in this place, we take an extract which will not require any. It is a picture of sleeping children as beautiful as Sir Francis Chantrey's.
But they sleep in sheltered rest, Like helpless birds in the warm nest On the castle's southern side, Where feebly comes the mournful roar Of buffeting wind and surging tide, Through many a room and corridor. Full on the window the moon's ray Makes their chamber as bright as day. It shines upon the blank white walis, And on the snowy pillow falls. And on two angel heads doth play, Turn'd to each other: the eyes closed, The lashes on the cheek reposed. Round each sweet brow the cap close set Hardly lets peep the golden hair; Through the soft opened lips the air Scarcely moves the coverlet. One little wandering arm is thrown At random on the counterpane, And often the fingers close in haste, As if their baby owner chased The butterflies again. This stir they have and this alone, But else they are so still-- Ah, you tired madcaps, you lie still; But were you at the window now, To look forth on the fairy sight Of your illumined haunts by night, To see the park glades where you play Far lovelier than they are by day, To see the sparkle on the eaves, And upon every giant bough Of those old oaks whose wan red leaves Are jewelled with bright drops of rain-- How would your voices run again! And far beyond the sparkling trees, Of the castle park, one sees The bare heath spreading clear as day, Moor behind moor, far far away, Into the heart of Brittany. And here and there locked by the land Long inlets of smooth glittering sea, And many a stretch of watery sand, All shining in the white moonbeams; But you see fairer in your dreams."
This is very beautiful; a beautiful description of one of the most beautiful objects in nature; but it is a description which could never have been composed except by a person whose mind was in tune with all innocent loveliness, and who found in the contemplation of such things not merely a passing emotion of pleasure but the deepest and most exquisite enjoyment.
Besides "Tristram and Iseult," we select for especial mention out of this second volume, "A Farewell," "Self-Dependence," "Morality "; two very highly-finished pieces called "The Youth of Nature," and "The Youth of Man," expressing two opposite states of feeling, which we all of us recognize, and yet which, as far as we know, have never before found their way into language; and "A Summer Night," a small meditative poem, containing one passage, which, although not perfect--for, if the metre had been more exact, the effect would, in our opinion, have been very much enhanced--is, nevertheless, the finest that Mr. Arnold has yet written.
And I. I know not if to pray Still to be what I am, or yield and be Like all the other men I see. For most men in a brazen prison live, Where in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their minds to some unmeaning taskwork give, Dreaming of nought beyond their prison wall; And as, year after year, Fresh products of their barren labour fall From their tired hands, and rest Never yet comes more near, Gloom settles slowly down over their breast, And while they try to stem The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, Death in their prison reaches them Unfreed, having seen nothing still unblest.
And the rest, a few, Escape their prison, and depart On the wide ocean of life anew. There the freed prisoner, where'er his heart Listeth, will sail; Nor does he know how there prevail, Despotic on life's sea, Trade winds that cross it from eternity. Awhile he holds some false way, undebarred By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him, and between The lightning bursts is seen Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguished face and flying hair, Grasping the rudder hard, Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false impossible shore. And sterner comes the roar Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom, Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom."
In these lines, in powerful and highly-sustained metaphor, lies the full tragedy of modern life.
"Is there no life but these alone, Madman or slave, must man be one?"
We disguise the alternative under more fairly-sounding names, but we cannot escape the reality; and we know not, after all, whether there is deeper sadness in a broken Mirabeau or Byron, or in the contented prosperity of a people who once knew something of noble aspirations, but have submitted to learn from a practical age that the business of life is to make money, and the enjoyments of it what money can buy. A few are ignobly successful; the many fail, and are miserable; and the subtle anarchy of selfishness finds its issue in madness and revolution. But we need not open this painful subject. Mr. Arnold is concerned with the effect of the system on individual persons; with the appearance which it wears to young highly sensitive men on their entry upon the world, with the choice of a life before them; and it is happy for the world that such men are comparatively rare, or the mad sort would be more abundant than they are.
We cannot but think it unfortunate that this poem, with several others of the highest merit, have been omitted in the last edition, while others find a place there, for which comparatively we care little. Uniformity