lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

LYRICALPOETRYillustrate the almost painful elaboration of his art, itsexotic flavour—and it does also show what was hisgreat endeavour in these poems, to combine the natureworship of the poets he loved with Catholic thoughtand sentiment, a difficult task. If Thompson's odesfall short of complete success it is because he hasfailed to integrate the poetic vesture and the thought.We can grasp the main thought and admire, more orless whole-heartedly, the rich imagery and rhythms,but the two are not quite made one even in so fine anode as To the Setting Sun. He comes perhaps nearerin The Night of Forebeing where the underlying themebecomes, as in Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, thepoet's own sorrow and aspiration."I was in all things Pre-Raphaelite," Mr Yeats tellsus, and of his friend and master, Henley, he says: "Idisliked his poetry because he wrote in vers libre andfilled it with unimpassioned description of an hospitalward. ... I wanted the strongest passions that hadnothing to do with observation, sung in metrical formsthat seemed old enough to be sung by men half asleepor riding upon a journey." Later he tells us: " ThoughI went to Sligo every summer I was compelled to liveout of Ireland . . . and was but keeping my mindupon what I knew must be the subject-matter of mypoetry." All that Mr Yeats tells us of his owndevelopment, by far the fullest and most interestingof any of the group, is not easy to follow, but thequotations suggest what seem to an outsider the mainsources of his work. He had no desire to sing theactualities of modern life. "Art for Art's sake" washis Pre-Raphaelitic motto; rhetoric and didactic haveever been his bugbears. But the Pre-Raphaelitesintroduced him to Elake, and it was not for nothing148