Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/107

Without the date appended, we might have guessed that the little cabinet poem called "My Sister's Sleep" was an early study. It has the freshness and clearness of first youth, with something of the hardness of growing outlines; the bodily form of verse has not yet learnt to melt and flow by instinct into the right way; yet with this slight sharpness and crudity there is a grace of keen sincerity and direct force which gives proof of no student's hand, but a workman's recognisable as born into the guild of masters. The fourth and three following stanzas have a brightness and intensity of truth, a fine and tender vigour of sentiment, admirable at any age; and the last have an instant weight of pathos and clear accuracy of beauty, full of prophecy and promises. In the same short-lived magazine into which the first flowerage of many eminent men's work was cast with such liberal and fruitful hands, there was another early poem of this their leader's and best man which he might as well have gathered into his harvest; a delicate and subtle study of religious passion, with the colour and perfume in it of the choral air of a cathedral, lit with latticed glories of saints, and tremulous with low music of burning prayers; the mystery of sense and ardour of soul in an hour made drunken with the wine of worship were wrought into expression of bright and sensitive words, full of the fiery peace of prayer and sightless vision of faith. This little sacred picture of the Father Hilary should have been here reframed, if only for the fine touches of outer things passing by as a wind upon the fervent spirit in its dream. Besides, it has its place and significance among the author's studies in the Christian style, near some of those