THE POETRY OF MELANCHOLY.

TT is perhaps curious, but it is, we think, almost certainly

true, at least in England, that the lyrical poetry which gives most pleasure in any age is the poetry which expresses best the melancholy of that age. Which of Milton's lyrical poems is as well-loved as " Lycidas "? Certainly not even " Il Penseroso," for " Il Penseroso " hardly expresses melan- choly at all,—rather a grave and sedate tranquillity. Which of Gray's poems is as popular as the " Elegy " and the lines " On a Distant Prospect of Eton. College," both poems of melan- choly Which of Keats's lyrics is as widely admired as his " Ode to the Nightingale," or of Shelley's as his " Lines Written in Dejection at Naples," or of Tennyson's as his "Break, break, break," or "Tears, idle tears"? It is not true, we think, of Wordsworth ; but Wordsworth's genius was unique in every way, and the buoyancy which he displayed even when the flood which lifted him high on its waves would have over- whelmed any other poet, was one of his most singular charac- teristics. Nor, perhaps, is it true of Clough, who had much of the buoyancy of Wordsworth in him, and gave a final turn even to the most pathetic of his lyrics which saves them from the strictly elegiac tone. But it is certainly true of Matthew Arnold, though he loved to give a proud turn to the dejection he expressed so exquisitely,—a turn which seemed to declare that the poet towered above his mood, as Jaman, " delicately tall above his sun-crowned firs," towers over the gloomy valley of Mont- bovon and the steep slopes above Chilton and Montreux. And it is true of a poet whom we may fairly call a disciple of Matthew

Arnold,—Mr. Truman, who has just collected from Mac- millan's Magazine, and reprinted in a thin quarto pamphlet, a few fine studies in verse which display ideals very like those of Matthew Arnold, though nothing like the same wealth of imagination and fancy,—the same intellectual refinement, the same anxiety to keep judgment clear from the bias of feeling, the same tender patronage of Christianity, with something less, perhaps, of estrangement from it, the same deep delight in " wet, bird-haunted, English lawns," thesame love of mountain solitudes, and, above all, the same half-satisfaction in realising that in a world of much beauty, he remains unsatisfied. Mr. Truman quotes with just pride Mr. Arnold's eulogium on the few fine lines written at Elleray, once the residence of Christopher North on Windermere. They deserved the poet's praise at once for their truth and tenderness, and we will quote them here as giving a very adequate conception of the character of the mind that has possessed itself of so much of Matthew Arnold's intellectual fidelity and delicate sym- pathies ELLERAY.

Along the upward winding paths I went, In the wood shadows at sweet Elleray,

And in my mind a noble image lay,

The image of a man magnificent, A theme for human love and wonderment, Grand in his sadness and his merriment.

And as I walked and pondered, one did say, `Here have I seen him in his palmier day, The long gold locks loose floating in the wind, And the sublime, wild, earnest eyes of him, Drawn to the amber melting on the rim Of westward mountains ; or maybe inclined Lovingly on the lovely lake's repose ; Or haply with deep human feeling dim.' Better for us, had that potential mind Been somewhat more to deathless feats addrest ; Alas for mental splendours unexprest !

A few pale poems and some worthier prose

Make up the meagre sum which the world knows Of what was working in that brain and breast : The vague, eternal kingdoms have the rest."

No one could come nearer to Matthew Arnold except Matthew Arnold himself. " The vague, eternal kingdoms have the rest," is even too near to him, for we have evidence, we think, in Mr. Truman's poems that to him " the eternal kingdoms " are not quite so vague as they were to the poet who wrote of death as the- " Stern law of every mortal lot,

Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, And builds himself I know not what Of second life, I know not where."

No doubt Mr. Truman finds a certain satisfaction in mini- mising his sympathy with the positive creed of the Christian Church. He describes "the Broadest Church" as something which, we suspect, never would have had, and never will have the power to constitute a Church at all :— " THE BROADEST CHURCH.

A weather-beaten minster old, 'Mid seaward-looking hills deep set Where prayers were said, and death-bells tolled, In times of Kings Plantagenet.

Gruff was dame Church in those grim days, Pinching the fast, if gross the feast, List here a well-bred hum obeys The smooth cue of the dainty priest.

I ask for faith, stale forms I find, Submission pliant and weak-kneed, Blind following of leaders blind, A jargon of plethoric creed.

I love no better this dead rite, Than science, which no more adores. Let me seek Christ's way infinite, Where reverence into freedom soars."

But is " soaring " the sort of motion that takes reverence into freedom? It might be truly said, we- think, that freedom sometimes soars into reverence, but hardly that reverence soars into freedom. All true reverence must be and is free by the essential nature of reverence, for reverence under any

sort of compulsion is not reverence, only the imitation of it.

But freedom does not necessarily involve reverence, as rever- ence does freedom, and certainly in "Christ's way infinite" reverence claimed from the very first to set man free from that galling yoke of self which only grew the heavier, the more sedulously it was worked.

What interests us most in Mr. Truman's verse is the happy art with which he catches the note of stately melancholy, so finely embodied in his favourite poet's best work, and catches,

too, the note of subdued elation with which the elegiac refrain is poured forth. Matthew Arnold had always the art of making you feel sorry for your generation, and yet conscious that while he, sympathetically at least, shared its illusions, he rather condescended to share them than was a victim to them. Is not exactly the same effect given by these beautiful lines on " What the Robin said in December " ?— " Gray, like age, the world has grown,

Wrecked in Autumn's golden throne, Silence through the air is sent, Vapours hide the woods of Kent ; Seems but now these ways undone, Waved with leaves and flashed with sun, Lifted glance enchanted went To the wooded ridge of Kent, And this hillside all day long Bubbled o'er with life of song ; Cuckoos called from far and nigh, Larks were jubilant on high, Throstles' ringing warble loud Pealed through all the quiring crowd, Blackbirds piped as day was born, (Minstrels liquid like the morn,) Latest, 'neath night's dusky veil, Torrent of the nightingale, Rushing, rich, tumultuous, bright, Shook the dark glade with delight.

Now, as voice of birds is dumb, Pained hush on the heart has come ; Some have vanished whom we knew, Souls of knighthood, fast and true, Eyes of light, and helping hand, Brows of power that ' nobly planned,'

Touch that heartened—faded all—

Tones of love electrical Stilled are, as we soon shall be, Quenched in sad eternity.

ith ! What note is that I hear, Soft, inquisitive, and clear ?

Wistful music trembling shed,

Poet, from thy breast of red—

Robin fair, by Shirley Church, Marble headstone for a perch !

`Man of dolour, wait awhile—

See the morns of April smile, Mist shall pass, and skies be blue, May shall roof these woods anew, Pave them with unfolding fern, June's long sunsets through them burn, And this leafy realm be stirred With the joy of every bird, Mounts the ether, haunts the glen, Making glad the hearts of men.

Time is but prefiguring sign-

Buried-seed, of worlds divine,

Can aught here seem wondrous fair, And no answer echo there ?

Shall Spring brighten earthen sod

And no life be—nearer God ?'

This, and more, the Robin said, As he sang where rest the dead In the stillness round the church, Marble headstone for a perch."

We venture to say that had these lines preceded or followed "Poor Matthias" in Matthew Arnold's poems, everybody would have thought them worthy of the same author; while had they been published anonymously, acute critics would have declared that no one but Matthew Arnold would have thought of reduplicating in that peculiarly Arnoldian fashion the de- scription of the robin's post " in the stillness round the Church. marble headstone for a perch." There is a liquidness and vivacity in the description, both of the nightingale and the robin, of which Matthew Arnold himself would not have been ashamed; while the reproof to the "man of dolour" is given in just such clear and peremptory accents as Arnold loved. Probably he would not have been nearly so hopeful as Mr. Truman is of the articulate answer from the eternal world : but it is in tones just so clear, just so sad, just so peremptory, and just so disguised with a kind of tender gaiety, that Matthew Arnold would have treated such a subject. It is not so much by falling short of his lighter notes, but by not attempting his more exalted efforts, that Mr. Truman shows this difference between his own poetic range and that of his model.

It would, perhaps, be hard to say why the expression of a stately melancholy like the melancholy of Milton's " Lycidas," or the melancholy of Gray's " Elegy," or the melancholy of Arnold's " Thyrsis," has so great a fascination for the lovers of poetry in every age. Some would say that it is only an illustration of the cynical remark how very easy it appears to be to bear the misfortunes of other people;

but that would be an untrue explanation, for he must be a very miserable creature who is stimulated by the misfortunes of others into keener enjoyment, and it is certain that such poems as we have named do give a very real stimulus to the intellectual and spiritual enjoyments of their readers. Per- haps the truth is, that in melancholy of this at once subdued and exalted kind, the best mind of an age is more adequately expressed than in any other lyrical poetry, whether sentimental or exultant. Even faith is better expressed, for poetical pur-

poses, in a kind of chiaro-oacuro than by direct assertion ; and where, as probably in Gray's and certainly in Matthew Arnold's

case, it was much easier to hint the mood which gave a tone of exaltation to the poet's regret, than to explain directly any grounds for confidence in the contents of the unopened volume of the future, the air of undismayed resignation, of sad ac- quiescence, of dauntless resolve, serves to suggest indirectly a much higher attitude of mind than anything that the poet could venture positively to affirm. Thus, Mr. Truman condescends, much as Mr. Arnold might have done, to smile benignantly on the story of Our Lord's " Star in the East," and leaves it doubtful,—not very doubtful, perhaps,—how he regards it ; but still, the drift of his little poem is sym- pathetic, not scornful, and leaves the impression of a dubious melancholy hope rather than of a blank denial. The narrative may be suffused with mist, but through the mist there is a glow, such as sometimes deceives one on a day of persistent rain, a glow of radiant light behind, which just fails to pierce its cloudy envelope :—

"Looking forth on eve of frost, Ere day's ruddy lights be lost, High in the blue East I see Planet of Epiphany.

Stood the Star, authentic sign, In the nights of Palestine ? Or is it but legend fair

Born in memory's teeming air, And by loyal hearts of old Dowered with magic manifold ?

Very God, or highest man, Brother cosmopolitan— Naught it boots to such as find Touch of his inspiring mind, The main matter is that we Catch that life's sublimity, And in sacramental mood, Eat the flesh and drink the blood Of his moral lonelihood."

The melancholy there is almost lost in the sublimation of Christian discipleship into a sedate type of spiritual Stoicism.

Had that poem come anonymously into the world, and had literary critics been asked to identify its authorship as art critics are sometimes asked to identify an old picture, they would have undoubtedly described it as, " School of Matthew

Arnold,—perhaps a genuine example of the master." And would not they have said the same of this lovely little con- cluding poem, which contains a couplet of which we believe that Matthew Arnold himself would have been proud :—

"THE BIRD OF DAWNING.

These morns of March, In the still dark before the break of day, A Blackbird comes to pipe his deep-toned lay, Safe in the citadel of lime or larch.

That lonely note !

It murmured in the river of my dream, Like the faint undersong within the stream, A call familiar from a realm remote.

Waking I heard, Mellow and loud, the minstrel of the tree

Scattering the gold of liberal melody—

The kingly exultation of the Bird.

When all is o'er, From life's blind slumber shall I wake to hear, The loved, the silenced voices, close and clear, Tormented with desire and doubt no more ?"

The last couplet of the last verse but one is worthy of the great poet who described the " wet, bird-haunted, English lawn," and the whole has in it that air of wistful and yet statuesque melancholy in which the Oxford poet loved to show his "sad lucidity of soul." Poetic melancholy of this kind is so fascinating, chiefly, we think, because it expresses more of that part of the human soul which will bear the light without ostentation and without immodesty, than any other kind of lyric can succeed in expressing. The lyric of love, for in- stance, expresses a very much minuter part of man,—and that not the part which is most suitable for a public audience,— than the lyric of subdued and stately melancholy.