HORACE AS A POET.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—A single passage, Odes IV. I. 33-40, is a sufficient refutation of Mr. St. Loe Strachey's denial to Horace of the true poetic gift ;—
" Sed cur hen, Ligurine, cur,
Manat ram meas lacrima per genas I Cur facunda parum decoro
Inter verba eadit lingua silcntio Noeturnis ego somniis
lam captum teneo, lam voluerem sequor Te per gramina Marta
Campi, te per aquas, dure, volubiles."
Surely we have here emotion, the exactly right words and the exactly right rhythm fused into eight lines of exquisite poetry. Who but Horace could fill words so few, so simple, so unerringly chosen with Virgilian pensiveness and all the elusiveness of a dream ?
A modern analogue may be found. Mr. Kipling, who is very Horatian on one side of his multiform genius, has been denied high poetical rank for the same reason that he has given himself to a philosophy of life rather than to poetry per se. But his perfectly lovely lyric, "The Way through the Woods," is a full vindication even if he had written nothing else.—I am, Sir, &c.,
GEORGE ENGLEIIEART.
Previous page
