lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

LYRICALPOETRYeasily forgotten once they are heard. Their note isnot that of pure, ecstatic song or chant. The tone isthat of the orator, even in song, of one whose wordsvibrate with intensity of feeling, but a feeling thatnever quite wins through to the magic and music ofperfect expression.For the greatest singer after Blake among theRomantics is Shelley. Unlike Blake, his best songs arenot the earliest. He never knew or sang the ecstasyof joy and innocence as Blake recaptured it in an imaginativeinterpretation of childhood. Blake's song issweeter, his tone more human, but his notes were few;his voice too soon lost its finest accents, or recoveredthem only in occasional snatches. Shelley's song is themore piercing, and to the end his art is ever growingfiner. The ecstasy that quickens his greatest songs isnot joy, but the ecstasy of sorrow and longing. Hissong is sweetest when, like the nightingale, he leanshis breast against a thorn and pours forth his woes andaspirations. Behind Blake's anger and sorrow is alwaysthe vision, the faith in a joy that will be made perfect:Hast thou truly longed for me,And am I thus sweet to thee ?Sorrow now is at an end,O my Lover and my Friend.The Shelleyan note is different:I sang of the dancing stars,I sang of the dcedal earth,And of Heaven and the giant wars,And Love, and Death, and Birth,—And then I changed my pipings,—Singing how down the vale of MaenalusI pursued a maiden and clasp'd a reed,Gods and men we are all deluded thus!It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed :46