not the logic of the mere understanding. He reasons about grief, and estrangement, and his tortured heart, and his absence, and his exile. And it is when he does this, and does it sincerely—sincerely, at least, for the moment, which is all that is required—it is then, I say, that his lyrical gift is purest, his phrase most piercing, and his rhythm safest. No matter whether his Thyrza is a real or an imaginary woman. The evidence, on his own word, is that she was real, though we are not sure who she was. Only one, the noblest and most perfect, of his Thyrza poems is very widely known; it is in all the books: “And thou art dead, as young and fair.” It is a masterpiece of thinking about sorrow, and it is in style as pure as anything in Shelley; and it has more shape, it is more definite and plastic, and leaves a deeper dint on the mind, than almost anything in Shelley; though it must lose, no doubt, by the absence of such an aura, or spray of suggestion, as Shelley communicates to his frailest words. There is little of that element in it; nothing is left unsaid; but then, how much is said! I quote, in illustration, from another Thyrza piece, “Without a stone to mark the spot,” which is far less perfect as a whole:
And didst thou not, since Death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart,
Once long for him thou ne’er shalt see,
Who held, and holds thee in his heart?
Oh! who like him had watched thee here?
Or sadly mark’d thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere Death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh,
Till all was past?
This, in tone and temper, is unlike most of our romantic verse. The strain is older, and can, I think, be traced back into the age which is falsely supposed to be unpoetical and dispassionate. It has the finish and the inscriptional effect that we associate with our so-called classical period. Do we not sometimes hear in Byron an echo of Rochester? I have often thought that Byron, at his best, might have written some of Rochester’s best things; although, it is true, Rochester had more to repent of than Byron, and repented more deeply, and his few singing arrows go home more surely than anything of Byron’s; but the affinity is there:
When, weary’d with a world of woe,
To thy safe bosom I retire,
There Love, and Peace, and Truth does flow,
May I contented there expire….
