"where only woods and waves could hear our kiss," and who, as an awful result, bare him three children, Love, Song—
"Whose hair
Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath,
And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair."[1]
Nearly as absurd, but less subtle and harassing, is the passage in Drummond's "Hymn to the Fairest Fair," wherein we have the following incarnate metaphor of no less shadowy a shape than "Providence!"—
"With faces two, like sisters, sweetly fair,
Whose blossoms no rough autumn can impair,
Stands Providence, and doth her looks disperse
Thro' every corner of the universe."
Nor must it be hastily concluded that Mr. Rossetti's "apples meet for the mouth" simile is quite original. Drummond in one passage calls his mistresses' hearts
"Fruits of Paradise,
Celestial cherries that so sweetly smell;"
and in another—the following sonnet—comes tremendously close upon the best modern manner, minus the "lipping" and the "munching:"—
"Who hath not seen into her saffron bed
The morning's goddess mildly her repose,
Or her of whose pure blood first sprang the rose
Lull'd in a slumber by a myrtle shade?
Who hath not seen that sleeping white and red
Makes Phœbe look so pale, which she did close
In that Ionian hall to ease her woes,
Which only lives by her dear kisses fed?
Come but and see my lady sweetly sleep,
- ↑ It is perhaps needless to remark the utter confusion of metaphor which makes a love-act with Life as Lady precede the birth of Love, &c. The language of this school will not bear a moment's serious investigation.
