BOOKS.

THE EARTHLY PARADISE.*

MR. MORRIS has revived the delightful art of dreaming the old dreamy stories in verse, so that' they soothe and charm the ear and fancy without making any of the severe intellectual demands of most of our modern poets on the constructive thought and imagi- nation of the reader. His Earthly Paradise is a book which it is wrong to read with any reviewer's cares upon the brain, or indeed to connect at all with any sc..Ise of responsibility, or any mood but one of dreamy enjoyment. His storied verse throws us back almost into the state of credulous wonder in which we used to read the fairy stories of childhood, and seriously try the expe- dient of throwing a crooked pin into a wishing well, and then wishing for one of the old marvels ;—and yet, besides thus half restoring that vague and wide-eyed childlike credulity by its simple and earnest narrative of wonders, his verse is so full of the • The Earthly Paradise. A Poem. By William Morris, Author of the Life and faith of Jason. London: F. S. Ellis, King Street, Covent Gard= 1861 beauty of the world and of the pity of unsatisfied and disappointed yearnings, that it combines with this innocent simplicity much of the deeper rapture of the eye, and of the fuller pathos of the heart, which belong only to experience. Indeed, we scarcely know whether it has most of that happy freedom from the sense of chains and restraints which belongs to childlike ignorance of the inexor- able intellectual and moral conditions of life, or of that piteous tenderness in recounting human woes which belongs to the age of experience and consequently of regrets. The Earthly Paradise is a big book, to be read slowly, in the intervals of a lazy and leisurely holiday, uot to be read through as one would read a book on the laws of Magnetic currents, or the Irish Church. There is no toil, no effort, no purpose in the verse. Mr. Morris sees the world again as the old childlike poets saw it before the idea of 'law ' had been brought forth with much travail into the world, or even the principles of art consciously developed ; and the beauty which his poem has, is, therefore, the old fresh beauty, sketched without laborious analysis, due to a visionary eye and a lovely uni- verse, not the beauty of metaphysic subtlety or artistic skill. There is nothing more delightful than to escape from the problem-haunted poetry of the day into the rippling narrative of Mr. Morris's fresh and vivid fancy. In some of the loveliest verses we have yet read of his, perhaps the most beautiful he has ever given to the world, Mr. Morris truly describes his poetic function in the big, diversi- fied, brightly coloured tissue of poetic fable which he has wrought together in this volume :— " Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,

I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years,

Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, 'rime idle singer of an empty day.

"But rather, when aweary of your mirth, From full hearts still unsatisfied yo sigh, And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, Grudge every minute as it passes by, Made the more mindful that the sweet days die-

-Remember ma a little then, I pray,

The idle singer of au empty day.

"The heavy trouble, the bewildering care That weighs us down who live and earn our bread, These idle verses have no power to bear ;

So let me sing of names remembered, Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,

Or long time take their memory quite away

From us poor singers of an empty day.

"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to sot the crooked straight ? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

"Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men bzheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December dziy.

"So with this Earthly Paradise it is, If yo will road aright, and pardon me. Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea, Where tossed about all hearts of men must be ; Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,

Not the poor singer of an empty day."

That is a most perfect account of the scope and of the charm of the Earthly Paradise. In form the book has something of the naiveté of the Thousand-And-One nights. Mr. Morris begins with a mediaeval poem on the dreams which led men to seek out Utopias in the west, during the century or two which preceded the actual discovery of the New World. As in the .1;;Ji, and Death of Jason, but in this case, of course, without any of the magic which is of the essence of that delightful poem, Mr. Morris paints the half reasonable, half superstitious hopes which led men just before the daen of modern science to seek new lands free from the thought of death and pain. lie paints with exquisite lightness of touch the deferred hope, the triumphant anticipation, the weary disappointment, the soothing rest, which the long voyage and actual discovery of the lovely barbarism and semi-civilization of tropical America gave rise to in the hearts of the Utopia- seekers. Then lie brings back a weary and dispirited rem- nant to the old country in that stage of life, and that complex mood of gratitude for their return, of self-reproach for their wasted stores of enjoyment and energy, and of pride in their useless achievements, which most ministers to the dreamy

mood in which they will recall gladly the old marvels their youth had read or heard of. This is the machinery by which the occasion is obtained for rehearsing the old Greek or Italian or Norse legends which these worn-out mariners have treasured up in their memories. The same old yearning for a condition of life in part removed from the painful incidents of loss and death, or raised above these conditions by supernatural gifts, which had taken the mariners in search of a Utopia in their youth, is per- ceived to determine in great measure the subjects of the tales thus rehearsed. Either they are filled with the Greek idea of a fate overruling all human desires, or they narrate how men specially favoured by the supernatural powers were just enabled to taste the delights which ordinary mortals miss. The thread which con- nects all these poetic fables and gives them a sort of unity, is the im- portunate craving for some special isle of happiness amidst the cares of life, which all the tales more or less express, and the pathetic dis- appointments attaching to which all the tales more or less delineate. There is a profound sense of the glory properly belonging to life in all of them, and of the lamentable liability to see that glory drowned in tears, in all likewise. In one or two of the tales perhaps,—"The Lady of the Land" and " The Writing on the Image" especially, —the human yearning, the Chaucerian pity, is too much lost sight of in mere fairy tale ; and by these two stories at least, this delightful volume might perhaps have fairly been shortened. But generally,—in almost all, —the human joy, love, and pity pre- dominate over mere wonders, and lend to the wonders half their light and beauty. Take, for instance, the story of Apollo's service as a herdsman to King Admetus, and how the god gave Alcestis power to redeem her husband from death by the sacrifice of her own life ;—nothing can be more simply human in its tenderness than the whole story in the form in which Mr. Morris has given it to us. How fine is the description of Apollo in his herdsman's disguise at the opening of the poem :— " Se henceforth did this man at Pherm dwell, And what he set his hand to wrought right well, And won much praise and love in everything, And came to rule all herdsmen of the King ; But for two things in chief his fame did grow ; And first that he was better with the bow Than any 'twixt Olympus and the sea, And then that sweet, heart-piercing melody He drew out from the rigid-seeming lyro, And made the circle round the winter fire More like to heaven than gardens of the May.

So many a heavy thought he chased away From the King's heart, and softened many a hate, And choked the spring of many a harsh debate ; And, taught by wounds, the snatchers of tho welds Lurked round the gates of less well guarded folds.

Therefore Admetus loved him, yet withal, Strange doubts and fears upon his heart did fall ; For morns there were when he the man would meet, His hair wreathed round with bay and blossoms sweet, Gazing distraught into the brightening oast, Nor taking heed of either man or beast, Or anything that was upon the earth. Or sometimes midst the hottest of the mirth, Within the King's hall, would he seem to wake As from a dream, and his stringed tortoise take And strike the chords unbidden, till the hall Filled with the glorious sound from wall to wall, Trembled and seemed as it would melt away, And sunken down the faces weeping lay

That erewhile laughed the loudest; only he

Stood upright, looking forward steadily With sparkling eyes as one who cannot weep, Until the storm of music sank to sleep."

Very sweet and harmonious is the description of the love of peace and the wide love of man shed by Apollo into the heart of Admetus, and of his delight in the peaceful conquests of rich harvests and laborious lives. But the main beauty of the poem is in its close, when, on the death-bed of Admetus, Apollo returns to tell him that he may yet recover if any one will give a life in exchange for his, and his aged wife Alcestis, who is lying by his 'side, silently resolves to give up hers for her husband :—

"'0 me, the bitterness of God and fate !

A little time ago we two were one; I had not lost him though his life was done, For still was he in me—but now alone Through the thick darkness must my soul make moan, For I must die how can I live to bear An empty heart about, the nurse of fear ? How can I live to die some other tide, And, dying, hear my loveless name outcried About the portals of that weary land Whereby my shadowy feet should come to stand ?

"'Alcestis! 0 Alcestis ! hadst thou known That thou one day shonldst thus be left alone, How hadst thou borne a living soul to love ! Hadst thou not rather lifted hands to Jove, To turn thine heart to stone, thy front to brass, That through this wondrous world thy soul might pass, Well pleased and careless, as Diana goes Through the thick woods, all pitiless of those Her shafts smite down ? Alas! how could it be?

Can a god give a god's delights to thee ?

Nay rather, Jove, but give me once again, If for one moment only, that sweet pain Of love I had while still I thought to live ! Ah ! wilt thou not, since unto thee I give My life, my hope ?—But thou—I come to thee. Thou sleepest ; 0 wake not, nor speak to me ! In silence let my last hour pass away.

And men forget my bitter feeble day.'

"With that she laid her down upon the bed, And nestling to him, kissed his weary head, And laid his wasted hand upon her breast,

Yet woke him not ; and silence and deep rest

Fell on that chamber. The night wore away Mid gusts of wailing wind, the twilight grey Stole o'er the sea, and wrought his wondrous change On things unseen by night, by day not strange, But now half seen and strange; then came the sun, And therewithal the silent world and dun Waking, waxed many-coloured, fall of sound, As men again their heap of troubles found, And woke up to their joy or misery.

"But there, unmoved by aught, those twain did lie, Until Admetus' ancient nurse drew near Unto the open door, and full of fear

Beheld them moving not, and as folk dead ;

Then, trembling with her eagerness and dread, She cried, 'Admetus ! art thou dead indeed ?

Alcestis ! livest thou my words to heed ?

Alas, alas, for this Thessalian folk !'

"But with her piercing cry the King awoke, And round about him wildly 'gan to stare, As a bewildered man who knows not where He has awakened : but not thin or wan His face was now, as of a dying man,

But fresh and ruddy ; and his eyes lone clear,

As of a man who much of life may bear.

And at the first, but joy and great surprise Shone out from those awakened, new-healed eyes ; But as for something more at last he yearned, Unto his love with troubled brow he turned, For still she seemed to sleep : alas, alas! Her lonely shadow even now did pass Along the changeless fields, oft looking back, As though it yet had thought of some great lack. And here, the hand just fallen from off his breast Was cold ; and cold the bosom his hand pressed. And even as the colour lit the day The colour from her lips had waned away ; Yet still, as though that longed-for happiness Had come again her faithful heart to bless, Those white lips smiled, unwrinkled was her brow, But of her eyes no secrets might be known, For, hidden by the lids of ivory, Had they beheld that death a-drawing nigh."

The description here of the morning breaking over the aged pair, in one of whom life had been renewed, and in the other at her own prayer extinguished, is, in its gentle way, as sweet and touch- ing as anything in modern poetry, though it has not all the lustre of one or two of the descriptive passages in other poems where the beauty of the external world flashes through the veil of overflowing emotion. For mere lyrical beauty of this sweet and shining kind the passage describing Perseus and Andromeda, after the sea monster has been destroyed, and the fears of the maiden have given place to happy love, is perhaps the most brilliant in the book :— " Then on a rock smoothed by the washing sea They sat, and eyed each other lovingly. And few words at the first the maiden said, So wrapped she was in all the goodlihead Of her new life made doubly happy now : For her alone the sea breeze seemed to blow, For her in music did the white surf fall, For her alone the wheeling birds did call Over the shallows, and the sky for her Was set with white clouds, far away and clear ; E'en as her loco, this strong and lovely one Who held her hand, was but for her alone."

There is, too, quite a Herodotean simplicity and good faith in the manner in which Mr. Morris g.?.cribes the various marvels of his old tales. Instead of the covert satire of the modern style, or even the irresponsible historical _manner which tells only what it has heard for as much as it may be worth, and no more, Mr. Morris narrates with a circumstantial precision of eye which never even raises the question of evidence at all. For instance, when Psyche is alone in the palace of Love, you hear the very splash of the water in her golden bath, and see her startled eyes as she beholds her own image and hears "the loud splashing in that lonely place." No child would doubt any detail of the story, if not prematurely trained in scientific scepticism :—

"So to the place where she had heard them sing She came again, and through a little door Entered a chamber with a marble floor, Open a-top unto the outer air, Beneath which lay a bath of water fair, Paved with strange stones and figures of bright gold, And from the steps thereof could she behold The slim-leaved trees against the evening sky Golden and calm, still moving languidly.

So for a time upon the brink she sat, Debating in her mind of this and that, And then arose and slowly from her cast Her raiment, and adown the steps she passed Into the water, and therein she played, Till of herself at last she grew afraid, And of the broken image of her face, And the loud splashing in that lonely place."

It is this combination between the simple credulity of a seeing and trustful imagination, and a tender human love and pity that enter into all the hopes and fears of Mr. Morris's various wonderful heroes and heroines, which makes these narrative poems so charming. The story uniformly slides along with the simplest grace ; every now and then a passage of rare sweetness and pathos occurs which leaves a light in the memory long after we have passed it by ; and so the book gives us, on the whole, a volume of the most delight- ful and varied poetic legend which ever entranced the schoolboy, or amused the weary brain of toiling man.