Page:Hesperides Vol 1.djvu/22

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xiv
HESPERIDES.

may"; few, I fear, by comparison, know the yet sweeter and better song, "Ye have been fresh and green". The general monotony of style and motive which fatigues and irritates his too-persevering reader is here and there relieved by a change of key which anticipates the note of a later and very different lyric school. The brilliant simplicity and pointed grace of the three stanzas to Œnone ("What conscience, say, is it in thee") recall the lyrists of the Restoration in their cleanlier and happier mood. And in the very fine epigram headed by the words "Devotion makes the Deity" he has expressed for once a really high and deep thought in words of really noble and severe propriety. His "Mad Maid's Song," again, can only be compared with Blake's; which has more of passionate imagination, if less of pathetic sincerity.

A. C. SWINBURNE.