Stripped and scourged, she ejaculates, in horror and shame at the recollection, to her husband: 'And yet no earthquake came to swallow me; Eyes, eyes, which scorched my limbs like burning flame, Until my brain seemed bursting from my brow; His loan-He needed it; and after that even crucifixion itself-for that was by her bridegroom's side: 'I crawled to you, And kissed your bleeding feet, and called aloud- Her one desire, her prayer to God, is, that strength may be spared the gibbeted preacher to cry from the very cross: 'Words which may wake the dead!' In ages to come, she predicts, they would know his worth: ' And crown him martyr; and his name will ring If they must couple my poor name with his, The payment I deserved for such a sin? English poetry, from Chaucer to Tennyson, has been rich in examples of wifely, womanly patience, devotion, self-sacrifice. But, many and noble as they are, I think Santa Maura ought to rank among the best. I value the rhapsody not the less highly for the human element of hero-worship blended with the more purely celestial exaltation. I only hope that the austere preacher of the Gospel, even as imagined by Kingsley, merited it all. I had thought, and have not dared, to set beside the Three the Ode, admirable in itself, to the North-East Wind. As simple singing, in its exultant, generous insolence, it deserves all honour; What's the soft South-Wester? 'Tis the ladies' breeze, Bringing home their true-loves Out of all the seas: But the black North-Easter, Through the snow-storm hurled, Come, as came our fathers, Heralded by thee, I feel, however, a spiritual want in the brave, blustering breeze, which shuts against it the region of immortal grief or bliss, where those other strains are entitled to have their dwelling. The Three are lovely conceptions; and we should have to ransack a library of poetry before discovering superiors in their own class. I do not suppose, nevertheless, that greatness could justly be attributed to their writer as a poet. For that a man's best poetical work ought to suggest that it is supreme in quality because it flows from a fountain of inspiration in himself which is perennially full and deep. It is impossible to question Kingsley's inspiration any more than his genius. It is permissible to believe that he held it at the general service of the wide circle of his life's work. His romances, his histories and essays are coloured by it; even his sermons; and it elevates them all. Never was there a nature, an intelligence, more generously cultivated, more sympathetic, more pervious to all the informing influences, to the entire spirit, of its race, rank, and age, throughout which more constantly breathed an independent element, the poetic. But inspiration to constitute distinctively a poet, and not a mere occasional singer, insists upon exclusiveness in the vocation. punishes disobedience by relegating the offender to a mixed grade; and disobedience was thus punished here. Howbeit, of this at least I have no doubt-whatever Kingsley's personal status among poets-that, however jealous the principle on which a poetical anthology may be framed, verses of his are sure to be numbered in it. It Andromeda and Other Poems, by Charles Kingsley, Rector of Eversley. London: John W. Parker & Son, 1858. Also Collected Edition. Macmillan, 1872. 1 Andromeda, vv. 106-11. 2 Ibid., vv. 391-3. 11 Santa Maura, A. D. 304, vv. 58-9, 129-38, 194-204, 225, 232-42. Life of Alexander Macmillan, by M. G. Graves, 1910. 12 Ode to the North-East Wind, vv. 53-68. RALPH WALDO EMERSON 1803-1882 EMERSON in the opinion of his own generation ranked next to Carlyle as a thinker. As a thinker he still is held, and justly, to be profound. The larger part in bulk of his literary life was devoted to the composition of essays and lectures. To a great number even of his admirers he is unknown as a poet. Yet I should be much surprised to learn that he did not value himself as a poet chiefly. If so, fallible as are authors on the proportionate value of their works, I believe he would in his preference have judged wisely. He might be, probably has already been, replaced as a philosopher; he could scarcely be as a poet. Literature would less easily do without Woodnotes, Forerunners, Bacchus, Saadi, Monadnoc, than historical and critical science without Representative Men or Nature. Deliberately he vowed himself to poetry, with a full sense of the obligations, even the divinity, of the calling. He became a voice with a message from the higher Powers. The poet must be mute until they unseal his mouth; they had opened, and had shut; they must reopen : Ye taught my lips a single speech, And a thousand silences.1 He need not sail the seas, or search humanity for sages. to instruct him. At the destined moment a Teacher is at hand: Behold he watches at the door! |