It is at once a tune that escapes and an inscription
that remains. Thus, alone among the reckless and romantic verses that
first rose in Coleridge or Keats, it preserves something also of the wit
and civilisation of the eighteenth century. Lines like "a Muezzin from
the tower of darkness cries," or "Their mouths are stopped with dust"
are successful in the same sense as "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane"
or "Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways." But--
"Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before
I swore; but was I sober when I swore?"
is equally successful in the same sense as--
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer."
It thus earned a right to be considered the complete expression of that
scepticism and sensual sadness into which later Victorian literature was
more and more falling away: a sort of bible of unbelief. For a cold fit
had followed the hot fit of Swinburne, which was of a feverish sort: he
had set out to break down without having, or even thinking he had, the
rudiments of rebuilding in him; and he effected nothing national even in
the way of destruction.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165