for Arnold. The power over him of this influence
was the secret at once of his weakness and of his
strength. It made him, on the whole, an eminently
sound and safe thinker, a classicist in literature, and
in morality what we may call a Catholic of the
higher and broader kind. But it left him also
limited and lacking of the highest reaches in his
craft a critic with a fastidious horror of all vagrant
developments, a Catholic who had not rid himself of
that last infirmity of Catholicism-the hatred and
the misunderstanding of dissent.
R. A.
TWO SONNETS.
I.
CHAUCER.
SINGER of spring, sun-flooded songster thou,
In what far fields dost rove, thy book in hand,
With eyes that beam love-light across the land?
Who held all hearts alive, who, dead, canst bow
All hearts to honour; never may'st thou know
The weary weight the long rolled ages bring
On folk and country thou wert apt to sing;
So will no shade of sorrow gloom thy brow.
Do young flowers freshen, Chaucer, now for thee?
Do shy buds burst and grasses grace the earth?
What birds in May make music to thy mirth?
Rest, lifeless, lightless, so thou shalt not see
With wild-wo'ed eyes the desolation we
Have wrought upon the England of thy birth.
II.
'CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY."
D. G. R.
WHO erst made music for thy sister's sleep
(She parting presence here one Christmas Eve),
Passed from our praises now, thyself dost leave
Thy fields part gathered, part yet ripe to reap:
On that glad day, when one immortal leap
Burst the tomb's bonds, nor stayed the sky to cleave,―
Which those deem bright myth, these blest birth believe,
Night's death-shade chilled thee on earth's upland steep.
Poet, whose first fair song-flower bloomed for death,
Whose eyes oft strove to pierce that cloudland grey,
Through which, too swift, thou wing'st unwavering way,
Won at dear dowry of thy cherished breath;
Hast caught at length the words the sea-song saith,
And found in night the secret shunned of day.
J. Pringle Nichol.
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty.
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty.
