R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

The Poetry of the 'Seventies 109ever loosely it was employed, a poetic power of deeporiginality, The City of Dreadful Night puts beyondquestion. There is, perhaps, no long poem in the periodunder consideration that is more clearly marked by individualgenius. The accomplishment is uneven, the designrather precarious, and the pervading gloom of thepoem often seems to lack the bracing air of tragic art.Nevertheless, the work is made memorable by fitfulgleams of intense though, as Professor Saintsbury hasobserved, somewhat sinister emotion. With all its defects,it could no more have been written by anyone butits author than the Song to David could have been writtenby anyone but Christopher Smart. It is in many respectsan unsatisfactory poem to read as a whole, and yet itsmerits can be realised in no other way. It would be uselessto support by brief quotation the opinion that TheCity of Dreadful Night is a very decided asset in the poetryof the 'seventies.There remains only to mention a few poets whosenames, for one reason or another, cannot be quite disregardedin taking leave of our subject. William Allingham,whose epical Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland, publishedin 1864, is a meritable poem of which Dr Johnson mighthave said, as he did of Congreve's early novel, that hewould rather praise than read it, wrote freely throughour period. His lyrics, including the celebrated fairypiece, Up the airy mountain, have a grace and sometimesa poignancy that hold the attention, but they hardly everachieve the originality of which we have spoken. ' Sentimental' is a dangerous word, and a snare to criticism, butAllingham is a poet who almost compels the use of it.But we may at least allow that he turned sentiment tovery pretty uses, and his gift may be epitomised in afragment that could be disliked only by a very grudgingtemper: