MR. PATMORE'S POEMS.*

"WITH this reprint," Mr. Patmore writes, "I believe that I am closing my task as a poet, having traversed the ground and reached the end which in my youth I saw before me. I have written little, but it is all my best ; I have never spoken when I had nothing to say, nor spared time or labour to make my words true. I have respected posterity ; and should there be a posterity which cares for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect me." A preface more dignified than this, or one that expresses more concisely the aspirations of a life-time, could not be written by a poet. From his youth to the present hour, Mr. Patmore has had a clear purpose before him, and these two volumes show how far he has been able to achieve it. We cannot suppose he has altogether reached his ideal. What poet • Prams. By Coventry Patmore. Second Collective Edition. 2 vols. London; George Bell and Son.

ever does reach it P But no one who studies his verse with the attention it deserves will question the assertion that he has spared neither time nor labour to make his words true. A hasty glance, indeed, at "The Angel in the House" might lead the reader to class Mr. Patmore with the fluent versifiers who write easily, and therefore write negligently. A large portion of his poetry is composed in a metre which beyond all others lends itself to carelessness and monotony. We do not generally look for condensation in a story written in octosyllabic verse, and in Mr. Patmore's verse there are passages which, at a first glance, convey the impression of laxity and of over-much familiarity. The reader, if in an unsympathetic mood, may even pronounce such lines as the following, and many similar in character might be quoted, to be worthy of the chit-chat in a third-rate novel :—

" My Housekeeper, my Nurse of yore,

Cried, as the latest oarriage went, Well, Mr. Felix, Sir, I'm sure The morning's gone off excellent !

I never saw the show to pass The ladies in their fine fresh gowns, So sweetly dancing on the grass To music with its ups and downs.

We'd such work, Sir, to clean the plate ; 'Twee just the busy times of old.

The Queen's room, Sir, looked quite like state.

Miss Smythe when she went up, made bold To peep into the Rose Boudoir,

And cried, "How charming ! all quite new

And wondered who it could be for.

All but Miss Honor looked in, too.

But she's too proud to peep and pry.

None's like that sweet Miss Honor, Sir !

Excuse my humbleness, but I Pray Heav'n you'll get a wife like her !

The Poor love dear Miss Honor's ways

Better than money. Mrs. Rouse,

Who ought to know a lady, says No finer goes to Wilton House.'"

If the reader should say that lines like these are unworthy of a poet, we do not care to dispute his judgment ; but we must re-

mark at the same time that they are not to be condemned as careless lines, since they are probably composed with as distinct a purpose as the finest in the volume. Mr. Patmore may some- times mistake commonplace realism for simplicity, but he never ceases to be an artist, and there is, perhaps, no poet of the day who at times has written with more subtle skill. This will be evident to every student of The Unknown Eros, under which title will be found poems less popular than "The Angel in the House," but reschin,g a higher level, and as remarkable for happiness of expression as for nobility and grace of thought. In these odes, Mr. Patmore stands at times upon the mountain-heights of poetry, and the reader feels he is in the presence of a thinker as well as of a singer. Not from The Unknown Eros, however, has the English public formed its opinion of Mr. Patmore as a poet. He has gained his laurels in another, and a less exalted, field of art. Yet if in his method he is a realist, in his aims he is an idealist, and in the harmony of the two we see the secret of his success.

It has been said that the poetry of the age is feminine in character, and the statement has, perhaps, sufficient truth in it to admit of argument. In one sense it will apply to the delightful poetry garnered up in these small volumes. Mr. Patmore's verse is not of the virile order that braces the will and stimulates the intellect; but in the happy mood of mind, or rather susceptibility of heart, that comes to most of us but once in life, it is the most grateful poetry in the world, exquisite in purity, rich in suggestiveness, as full of sweetness as of inspiration. At such a time, the only difference between the reader and his poet is that the love-passion of the one, exorbitant and all-absorbing though it be, is the passion of a season, while the other has been under its influence throughout his life. Mr. Patmore is the poet of lovers, the profound student of woman, and one whose reverence grows by what it feeds on. And although he writes :—

"A woman is a foreign land, Of which, though there be settle young, A man will ne'er quite understand The customs, politics, and tongue,"—

we are persuaded that if ever man was born who can understand these customs and these politics, Mr. Patmore is that man. And his treatment of the theme is neither morbid nor sentimental,— that is to say, not from the lover's standing-point. To him, falling in love is the profoundest truth in life ; and so it is to the poet, who has gauged every variety of the complaint, and finds in this knowledge his richest inspiration. The true English girl—who, thank Heaven ! is all that the so-called "girl of the period" is not—has her faithful knight in Mr. Patmore, who has done more for her by his gift of song than ever knight achieved for distressed maiden by force of arms. The theme is neces- sarily monotonous to the worldly minds of men who have left their youth behind them, but even for them it is not seldom redeemed from insipidity by delicacy of thought and by charm of expression. Justly does Mr. Ruskin say that "The Angel in the House" is "a most finished piece of writing, and the sweetest analysis we possess of quiet, modern, domestic feeling."

Mr. Patmore touches the simplest incidents of home life, and without apparent eff nt lifts them into the sphere of poetry. At the risk of quoting lines with which our readers may be already familiar, we will give an illustration of this art. The bare facts in the poem from which we quote are homely enough. A wife persuades her husband, over-fond, perhaps, of home, to go out one evening and meet people whom he ought to know ;— "And I,

Who inly murmured, will try Some dish more sharply spiced than this Milk-soup men call domestic bliss,' Took, as she laughing bade me take,

Oar eldest boy's brown wide-awake

And straw box of cigars, and went Where, like a careless parliament Of gods olympio, six or eight Authors and else, reputed great, Were met in council jocular On many things, pursuing far Troth, only for the chase's glow, quick as they caught her letting go, Or, when at fault the view-halloo,

Playing about the missing clue. And coarse jests came. But gods are coarse,'

Thought I, yet not without remorse, While memory of the gentle words, Wife, Mother, Sister, flash'd like swords.

And so, after two hours of wit, That burnt a hole where'er it hit, I said I would not stay to sup,

Because my Wife was sitting up ; And walked home with a sense that I Was no match for that company.

Smelling of smoke, which, always kind, Amelia said she did not mind.

I sipped her tea, saw Baby scold And finger at the muslin fold, Through which be pushed his nose at last, And choked and chuckled, feeding fast ;

And he asleep and sent upstairs,

She rang the servants in to prayers;

And after heard what men of fame Had urged 'gainst this and that. For shame !'

She said, but argument show'd not.

If I had answered thus, I thought

'Twould not have pass'd for very wise.

But I have not her voice and eyes !

Howe'er it be, I'm glad of home, Yea, very glad at heart to come, And lay a happy head to rest

On her unreasonable breast."

There are lines here of the baldest simplicity, and yet we are much mistaken if the voice of a poet is not heard throughout. It may not be easy to explain how this effect is reached, but it is impossible not to be conscious of it. And the emotion caused by the poet's inspiration is felt still more strongly in another short poem, wholly free from what we are accustomed to regard as poetical diction, while full of the pathos that can find due expression in verse alone. This poem is called "The Toys :"—

" My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes, And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,

Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With bard words and unkiss'd, His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, And found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had pat, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone,

A piece of glass abraded by the beach, And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said:

Ah, when at last we lie with trance I breath,

Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast mouldod from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say,

'I will be sorry for their childishness.' "

Mr. Patmore's work has been before the public for thirty years, and again and again it has passed through the ordeal of criticism. There is little new, therefore, to be said about it; but this, after so long an experience, may be said with confidence, that the reputation of the poet, so far from diminishing, has strengthened with the years. It would be rash to prophesy as to the place posterity will assign to him among the singers of our century. Yet we may venture to observe that if that place is not among the highest, the cause will be due not so much to deficiency of genius, as to choice of subject. The land which Mr. Patmore has selected for his territory is rich in beauty and one in which all poets have loved to wander, but its range is restricted, and the air is not sufficiently bracing for a permanent residence. The poet who makes love his sole theme is in danger, especially when unmoved by strong passion, of conveying a one- sided or a false view of life. There is much in Mr. Patmore's verse which the man of mature age rejects, not because it is not true, but because for him it has necessarily lost its charm. On the other hand, young men and maidens will delight in its revelations, and more than tolerate its weaknesses. We may

add that there is no reader who honours what is lovely and of good report who will not rejoice to possess this attractive

edition of a poet whose Muse has "uttered nothing base."