13.07.2015 Views

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

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

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

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Tennyson, Sw<strong>in</strong>burne, Meredith 189Arden, Through you to <strong>the</strong> highest. Only through you! ThroughyouThe mark I may atta<strong>in</strong> is visible,And I have strength to dream of w<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g it.You are <strong>the</strong> bow that speeds <strong>the</strong> arrow: youThe glass that br<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>the</strong> distance nigh. My worldIs lum<strong>in</strong>ous through you, pure heavenly,But hangs upon <strong>the</strong> rose's outer leaf,• Not next her heart. Astraea! my own beloved!Astraea. We may be excellent friends. And I have faults.Arden.Astraea.Name <strong>the</strong>m: I am hunger<strong>in</strong>g for more to love.I waver very constantly; I haveNo fixity of feel<strong>in</strong>g or of sight.I have no courage: I can often dreamOf dar<strong>in</strong>g: when I wake I am <strong>in</strong> dread.I am <strong>in</strong>constant as a butterfly,And shallow as a brook with little fish!Strange little fish, that tempt <strong>the</strong> small boy's net,But at a touch straight dive!I am anyone's, and no one's! I am va<strong>in</strong>.Praise of my beauty lodges <strong>in</strong> my ears.The lark reels up with it; <strong>the</strong> night<strong>in</strong>galeSobs bleed<strong>in</strong>g; <strong>the</strong> flowers nod; I could believeA poet, though he praised me to my face....Meredith has here forged a verse all his own, and all hisplay's own, too. It is light and swift and sparkl<strong>in</strong>g, avehicle for wit as well as emotion. It is eloquent butnever orotund. It has artifice enough to keep it <strong>in</strong> keywith <strong>the</strong> rest of <strong>the</strong> play, with <strong>the</strong> Sentimentalists and<strong>the</strong>ir preciosities, never so much as to rob it of romance.He avoids <strong>the</strong> tempt<strong>in</strong>g error of <strong>the</strong> rhymed couplet,which would have seemed too calculated. The sceneis, <strong>in</strong> fact, as <strong>the</strong> play is, for all of its <strong>in</strong>completeness,someth<strong>in</strong>g unique <strong>in</strong> English Literature.What Meredith lost <strong>in</strong> los<strong>in</strong>g this medium of <strong>the</strong><strong>the</strong>atre is very obvious. He speaks of Moliere writ<strong>in</strong>g' purely, <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> simplest language, <strong>the</strong> simplest of Frenchverse'; of his wit aslike a runn<strong>in</strong>g brook, with <strong>in</strong>numerable fresh lights on it at everyturn of <strong>the</strong> wood, through which its bus<strong>in</strong>ess is to f<strong>in</strong>d a way. It

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!