"
One has an uneasy feeling that William Morris would have written
something like--
"And the kin of the ill king Bonaparte
Hath a high gallows for all his part."
Rossetti could, for once in a way, write poetry about a real woman and
call her "Jenny." One has a disturbed suspicion that Morris would have
called her "Jehanne."
But all that seems at first more archaic and decorative about Morris
really arose from the fact that he was more virile and real than either
Swinburne or Rossetti. It arose from the fact that he really was, what
he so often called himself, a craftsman. He had enough masculine
strength to be tidy: that is, after the masculine manner, tidy about his
own trade. If his poems were too like wallpapers, it was because he
really could make wallpapers. He knew that lines of poetry ought to be
in a row, as palings ought to be in a row; and he knew that neither
palings nor poetry looks any the worse for being simple or even severe.
In a sense Morris was all the more creative because he felt the hard
limits of creation as he would have felt them if he were not working in
words but in wood; and if he was unduly dominated by the mere
conventions of the mediaevals, it was largely because they were (whatever
else they were) the very finest fraternity of free workmen the world is
ever likely to see.
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