SAINT PAUL.*

Tins little poem is a very remarkable production ; remarkable both for the degree and for the kind of excellence which it attains, though that excellence is not of the highest order. Mr. Myers does not seem to us to show any promise of becoming a great poet. We find in his work no evidence of a really creative imagination, trui poetic insight, intuition, inspiration (or whatever word we 'choose to express the mysterious faculty of opening up a new world of beauty). Nor has he a rapid and subtle play of thought and fancy ; his ideas are, for the most part, common-place, and developed rather than suggested. But if not a poet in the highest sense of the word, Mr. Myers is a poetical rhetorician of very unusual power ; it is rare to find a writer who combines to such an extent the faculty of communicating feeling with the 'faculty of euphonious expression. His control of language and rhythm we might fairly call consummate, if he had the ars celare artem ; if he could avoid excessive or obtrusive elaboration, and an occasionally extravagant usage of certain euphonic artifices. His arrangement of words is governed by an exquisite suscepti- bility not only to their sound, but to those more subtle harmonies that depend on their associations ; and he shows a skill rarely surpassed in using simple materials to produce complex effects of rhythm. He has chosen a new stanza, striking and fasci- nating at first, but, from its pair of double rhymes, ex- tremely difficult to maintain ; and, as the basis of a long poem, open to obvious objections. It has an irresistible tendency to a rhythm so strongly accentuated that it almost inevitably wearies the ear after a time, and distracts the attention unpleasantly from substance to form. Mr. Myers' manner bears a strong reaem- blance to Mr. Swinburne's in one or two points, though it is so peculiar that to call it an imitation of the latter would convey a wrong idea. But he certainly has adopted, and even gone beyond, Mr. Swinburne's practice of alliteration. Of course it is difficult to draw the line between use and abuse of this or any other trick of euphony : the trick will probably give pleasure up to the point at which it becomes offensive ; and that point will vary indefinitely with the reader. Mr. Swinburne (and Mr. Myers after him) seem to regard alliteration as a part of the machinery of melodious composition, as regular and universal as rhyming ; and there seems no reason why it should not become so, as of the two it is intrinsically the more subtle and refined method of gratifying our sense of harmony. Yet from habit, though alliterative words are no doubt more easy to find than rhymes, especially double rhymes, the former are much more likely than the latter to suggest that the phrase has been modified to introduce them. When this is once suggested, the trick, discovered to be a trick, of course -defeats its own end.

The faults of Mr. Myers' style are brought into special promi- nence by the nature of his ilubject. The poem is a monologue or rhapsody supposed to be uttered by St Paul. Now, in an expres- sion of religious feeling we peculiarly require simplicity and sin- cerity of tone, a rigid subordination of form to matter. The deliberate mellifluousness of Mr: Myers occasionally jars upon us in the more impassioned outbursts, and produces somewhat of the effect of a Ritualist conscious, in the midst of the most solemn ceremony, of the exquisite cut of his chasuble. Still this only

* Saint Past. By F. W. H. 31yeln. London : 3194nuillan.

happens occasionally, because Mr. Myers possesses in a high degree the power of communicating feeling. He can fuse his careful con- structions of words and rhythms which would otherwise be too individually noticeable into one stream of glowing and passionate utterance. We have said that his poetical ideas are common- place, but they almost produce the effect of originality from the intensity with which they are apprehended, and the subtle and anxious fidelity with which this apprehension is expressed. The following simile will afford an illustration of this :-

"Lo as some bard on isles of the Aegean

Lovely and eager when the earth was young, Burning to hurl his heart into a paean,

Praise of the hero from whose loins he sprung ;—

" He, I suppose, with such a care to carry, Wandered disconsolate and waited long, Smiting his breast, wherein the notes would tarry, Chiding the slumber of the seed of song:

"Then in the sudden glory of a minute Airy and excellent the proem came, Rending his bosom, for a god was in it,

Waking the seed, for it had burst in flame."

[fere there is little originality of idea, and too much expansion ; still, the more we examine it, the more we see that every word is made to tell, and that doubly, both in sound and sense.

The title and plan of the poem show a certain want of dramatic or historical faculty. The rhapsody is not, in substance, very much more appropriate to St. Paul than to any other passionate mystic. Indeed, in some respects it is less appropriate ; as the devotion of St. Paul, however intense and fervent, has always self- restraint, and if we may use the term, manliness ; whereas there is a feminine tenderness and effusion in these sentiments which seem to belong to a mystic of a different type,, St. Francis of Assisi, for example. Putting this aside, we think, Mr. Myers has followed and rendered the various moods of mysticism, the dia- pason of religious hope, fear, joy, and anguish with equal fidelity and force.

The rich, warm colouring which he has shed over his subject forms a not unpleasing contrast with the subdued grey tone in which religious sentiment is usually expressed among us. The latter treatment seems more natural and, therefore, more sugges- tive of depth and sincerity ; but the passionate, ecstatic feeling forms a better motive of lyrical poetry.

The poem is attractive from its patient evenness of work and unobtrusive variety of movement. It has none of the faults of immaturity except excess of artifice ; none of the crudeness, obscurity, inequality, the impatient carelessness, the self-defeating effort that usually mark the beginnings of a new poetic style. The following is a fair specimen of this elaborate and grandilo- quent, yet highly effective manner :—

" East the forefront of habitations holy Gleamed to Engedi, shone to Eneglaim ; Softly thereout and from thereunder slowly

Wandered the waters, and delayed, and came.

"Then the great stream, which having seen he showeth, Hid from the wise but manifest to him, Flowed and arose, as when Euphrates floweth, Rose from the ankles till a man might swim.

"Even with so soft a surge and an increasing, Drunk of the sand and thwarted of the clod, Stilled and astir and checked and never-ceasing Spreadeth the great wave of the grace of God ;

" Bears to the marisbes and bitter places

Healing for hurt and for their poisons balm, Isle after isle in infinite embraces

Floods and enfolds and fringes with the palm."

Some of these lines show an unusual power of compelling the broken and monosyllabic utterance of English to continuous flexi- bility. Mr. Myers can also command a more braced and rapid movement, as in the following :-

"What can we do, o'er whom the unbeholdon Hangs in a night with which we cannot cope? What but look sunward, and with faces golden Speak to each other softly of a hope ?

Can it be true, the grace He is declaring?

Oh let us trust Him, for his words are fair!

Man, what is this, and why art thou despairing?

God shall forgive thee all but thy despair."

The close is conventionally triumphant ; but the motive of the triumph is fine and unconventional, not the prospect of heavenly happiness, but the contemplation of the long line of saints and religious heroes, shining like stars before the dawn.