Froudes Essays in Literature and History | Page 9

surf in the bay. We went up
the beach, by the sandy down, Where the sea-stocks bloom to the
white-walled town, Through the narrow paved streets where all was
still, To the little gray church on the windy hill. From the church came
a murmur of folk at their prayers; But we stood without in the cold
blowing airs.
We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, And we
gazed up the aisle, through the small leaded panes. She sate by the
pillar, we saw her clear. 'Margaret! hist! come, quick, we are here!'
'Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone.' 'The sea grows stormy, the little
ones moan.' 'But, ah, she gave me never a look, For her eyes were
sealed to the holy book. Loud prays the priest, shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more. Come away, come down, call no
more.' Down, down, down, Down to the depths of the sea. She sits at
her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she
sings: 'Oh, joy! oh, joy! For the humming street, and the child with its
toy; For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where
I spun, And the blessed light of the sun.' And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully, Till the shuttle falls from her hand, And the
whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the
sand, And over the sand at the sea, And her eyes are set in a stare, And
anon there breaks a sigh, And anon there drops a tear, From a
sorrow-clouded eye, And a heart sorrow-laden, A long, long sigh, For
the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden, And the gleam of her
golden hair."
Not less excellent, in a style wholly different, was A.'s treatment (and
there was this high element of promise in A. that, with a given story to
work upon, he was always successful) of the AEgyptian legend of
Mycerinus, a legend not known unfortunately to general English
readers, who are therefore unable to appreciate the skill displayed in
dealing with it. We must make room for one extract, however, in
explanation of which it is only necessary to say that Mycerinus, having

learnt from the oracle that being too just a king for the purposes of the
gods, who desired to afflict the AEgyptians, he was to die after six
more years, made the six years into twelve by lighting his gardens all
night with torches, and revelled out what remained to him of life. We
can give no idea of the general conception of the poem, but as a mere
piece of description this is very beautiful.
"There by the river bank he wandered on, From palm grove on to palm
grove, happy trees, Their smooth tops shining sunwards, and beneath
Burying their unsunned stems in grass and flowers; Where in one
dream the feverish time of youth Might fade in slumber, and the feet of
joy Might wander all day long, and never tire: Here came the king,
holding high feast at morn, Rose-crowned: and even when the sun went
down, A hundred lamps beamed in the tranquil gloom, From tree to
tree, all through the twinkling grove, Revealing all the tumult of the
feast, Flushed guests, and golden goblets foamed with wine, While the
deep burnished foliage overhead Splintered the silver arrows of the
moon."
Containing as it did poems of merit so high as these, it may seem
strange that this volume should not have received a more ready
recognition; for there is no excellence which the writer of the passages
which we have quoted could hereafter attain, the promise of which
would not be at once perceived in them. But the public are apt to judge
of books of poetry by the rule of mechanism, and try them not by their
strongest parts but by their weakest; and in the present instance (to
mention nothing else) the stress of weight in the title which was given
to the collection was laid upon what was by no means adequate to
bearing it. Whatever be the merits of the "Strayed Reveller" as poetry,
it is certainly not a poem in the sense which English people generally
attach to the word, looking as they do not only for imaginative
composition but for verse;--and as certainly if the following passage
had been printed merely as prose, in a book which professed to be
nothing else, no one would have suspected that it was composed of an
agglutination of lines.
"The gods are happy; they turn on all sides their shining eyes, and see

below them earth and men. They see Tiresias sitting staff in hand on
the warm grassy Asopus