SWINBURNE'S POSTHUMOUS POEMS.*

THIS selection from Swinburne's posthumous poems, which, as we gather from Mr. Gossc's Preface, is not necessarily final, if not calculated to enhance his reputation, at least contains very little to depress it, when the circumstances of composition are taken into account. Swinburne was throughout his life largely dependent upon the advice of his friends in regard to publication, and, so for as the more literary quality of his work went, their advice was sound enough. But he was not lacking in self-criticism, and in some instances the withholding of certain poems was the result of deliberate and independent decision. At any rate, this applies to what in some ways is the finest of the longer poems included in this collection—that on the death of Sir John Franklin, whieh failed to gain the Newdigate Prize in 1858. We now loam for the first time that this was Swinburnc's second attempt at the academic laurel. Mr. Gesso tells us that he competed in 1857 when the prize was awarded to Philip Worsley, who afterwards achieved distinction by his admirable translation of the Odyssey in the Spenserian stanza. The subject was " The Temple of Janus," and Swinburnc's poem has entirely disappeared. The failure of the examiners to recognize the merits of his second effort roused the indignant surprise of his friends, and would, indeed, be almost incredible but for the fact, of which Mr. Goose reminds us, that by the will of Sir Roger Newdigate the only metre permissible was the heroic couplet, and that, as Swinburne disregarded this instruction, it is quite possible that the examiners did not even read it. In the parallel case of Tennyson's " Timbuctoo " the Cambridge examiners showed a wiser latitude. " To win the prize in anything but rhymed heroics was an innovation," we read in his son's Memoir. But it seems to have been a tradition rather than an explicit instruction to competitors. Anyhow, Swinburnc's disappointment was acute, and contributed to the implacable resentment with which he regarded academic Oxford to the end of his life. In a sense it might be re- garded as creditable to him that he suppressed a poem the printing of which was so eminently designed to confound his judges ; but it is more probable that his motive was to cover up all traces of an episode which spelt rejection and defeat, though it was in reality a moral • Posthumous Poems by Algernon Charles Strinburne. Edited by 'Edmund Come, C.B., and Thomas James Wise. London : W. Heinemann. Os. net.]

victory. Mr. Gosse speaks of " the extraordinary merits of the poem, its melody, its high strain of feeling, its patriotism and dignity." The praise is not excessive, and he might have added that the poem is in the main free of the diffuseness which marred his later work. One might search the whole list of successful Newdigates in vain for any passage comparable to the following :- " What praise shall England give these men her friends ?

For while the bays and the large channels flow, In the broad sea between the iron ends Of the poised world where no safe sail may be, And for white miles the hard ice never blends

With the chill washing edges of dull sea—

And while to praise her green and girdled land

Shall be the same as to praise Liberty—

So long the record of these men shall stand, Because they chose not life but rather death, Each side being weighed with a most equal hand, Because the gift they had of English breath

They did give back to England for her sake,

Like those dead seamen of Elizabeth And those who wrought with Nelson or with Blake

To do great England service their lives long—

High honour shall they have ; their deeds shall make Their spoken names sound sweeter than all song.

This England hath not made a better man, More steadfast, or more wholly pure of wrong Since the large book of English praise began.

For out of his great heart and reverence, And finding love too large for life to span, He gave up life, that she might gather thence The increase of the seasons and their praise.

Therefore his name shall be her evidence, And wheresoever tongue or thought gainsays Our land the witness of her ancient worth She may make answer to the later days That she was chosen also for this birth, And take all honour to herself and laud, Because such men are made out of her earth."

The puzzle of the non-publication of the Ode to Mazzini—in view of Swinburne's lifelong devotion to the great Italian—is satisfac- torily explained by Mr. Gosse. Internal evidence points to its having been written early in 1857 in the hour of suspense immediately before Mazzini's return to Italy, when the tide of history was running so fast that Swinburne's wild and vague aspirations " were soon left high and dry on the shore of time. . . . The interest of his Ode was temporary and its political purpose had ceased to exist." Moreover, the form of the Ode, irregular and " Pinder- esque,- was later abandoned by Swinburne in favour of a more disciplined type. We accept the explanation and respect Swin- burne's decision, but the Ode deserves publication for its fervour and eloquence, though it exhibits characteristic defects from which the poem on Sir John Franklin, written in the following year, is remarkably free.

While the collection is in the main arranged in chronological order, an exception is made in favour of the eleven " primitive " Border Ballads, which were discovered among the MSS. bought from Mr. Watts-Dunton in 1909. These were apparently written in the early " sixties " ; they were the direct outcome of his study of Scott's Border Minstrelsy, and, as Mr. Gosse interprets them, frankly challenged the traditional view, to which weight had been lent by the authority of Leyden and Scott, that the true Border ballad was a thing too rough for direct imitation. But the tradition or prejudice as Mr. Gosse prefers to call it, was strong enough to induce Swinbume to withhold these ballads in his life- time, supported as it seems to have been by the view of Rossetti, and probably Morris, that they were " too rough and bare for publication." Only those which " possessed a pre-Raphaelite colouring or costume were permitted to pass the ordeal," and appeared in the volumes of 1866 and 1889. Mr. Gosse finds in these rugged, savage pieces more of the aboriginal Northumbrian accent than in any other " imitative " Border ballad, and they are certainly remarkable as tours de force ; but " imitations " they are, and as such can never rank in the same category as poems inspired by a poet's direct personal experience. The musical treatment of folk-songs furnishes an instructive parallel, but we refrain from enter- ing on a subject on which expert opinion is acutely divided. We may content ourselves with observing that the ballads of Rossetti, and those of Swinburne published in his lifetime, in which, as Mr. Gosse says, a great deal of the simplicity of the originals is preserved

• along with " a literary preoccupation, and something of what Sir Walter Scott meant by elegance of sentiment,' " find a musical analogy in Korbay's settings of Hungarian melodies.

The remaining poems included in the collection reflect various aspects of Swinburne's genius and character. None is devoid of interest, some are curious, and several are beautiful. Swinburne's genius for friendship with people from whom he differed widely is happily displayed in the lines " To a Leeds Poet," in which he comes near the laconic elegance of his hero, Lander :— " If far beyond the shadow of the sleep A place there be for goals without a stain ; Where peace is perfect and delight more deep . Than seas or skies that change and shine again, There, none of all unsullied souls that live • May hold a surer station, none may lend More light to Hope or Memory's lamp, nor give More joys than Thine to those that called Thee Friend."

The version of " Dies Ira° " has the merit that it does not read like a translation, but the paraphrase is often loose and lacks the resonant grandeur of the original. " King Bari,", an Arthurian fragment,- has more points of divergence from than contact with Tennyson. The lines on Shelley's Centenary are a fine tribute to one with whom, as he once wrote to his sister, he had so much in common that " it was funny, not to say uncanny."