satisfies him as though it were an imaginative conception. And
such combinations of words as
The very hues
Which their conflagrant elements effuse
satisfy him as being effects of appropriate poetic novelty. The _Poems_,
with all their faults, had suggestions of finer possibilities. In
_Sister-Songs_ none of these possibilities is realized. At the most it
is a sort of fantastic world of waters (shall we say, at Thompson's
suggestion?) where,
----like the phantasms of a poet pale,
The exquisite marvels sail:
Clarified silver; greens and azures frail
As if the colours sighed themselves away,
And blent in supersubtile interplay
As if they swooned into each other's arms;
Repured vermilion,
Like ear-tips 'gainst the sun;
And beings that, under night's swart pinion,
Make every wave upon the harbour bars
A beaten yolk of stars.
But where day's glance turns baffled from the deeps,
Die out those lovely swarms;
And in the immense profound no creature glides or
creeps.
Francis Thompson's earlier volume of _Poems_ attracted perhaps an undue
amount of attention on account of its gorgeous and unusual qualities of
diction, and a certain exuberant and extravagant fervor of mood. These
are not indeed the characteristics of the highest kind of poetry, but
they are characteristics which impress uncritical persons as being of
the essence of poetic inspiration. To express a small thought by a large
word is always impressive, and a certain excitement in the manner of it
adds greatly to the effect of the performance. Thus, much writing which
is merely feverish and blustering becomes admired for the quality of its
defects, these defects being taken to be extraordinary merits; while
writing which has all the quietness of true perfection passes unobserved
or unrecognized. In particular it is forgotten that the expression of a
thought should be like a well-fitting suit of clothes, following closely
and gracefully the outlines of the body that informs it. Francis
Thompson, alike in his former work and in the work which he has just
brought out, is never content unless his thought is swathed in fold
after fold of variegated drapery, cut after no recognized fashion and
arranged on no consistent or indeed comprehensible plan. Take this
passage, for instance, on page three of _Sister-Songs_:
Now therefore, thou who bring'st the year to birth,
Who guid'st the bare and dabbled feet of May;
Sweet stem to that rose Christ, who from the earth
Suck'st our poor prayers, conveying them to Him;
Be aidant, tender Lady, to my lay!
Of thy two maidens somewhat must I say,
Ere shadowy twilight lashes, drooping, dim
Day's dreamy eyes from us;
Ere eve has struck and furled
The beamy-textured tent transpicuous,
Of webbed coerule wrought and woven calms,
Whence has paced forth the lambent-footed sun.
This is a fair, indeed a favorable, specimen of Thompson's way of
"Making familiar things seem strange." His vocabulary is for the most
part made up of an ingenious, and really novel, selection from the words
that other people are ignorant of, or perhaps avoid if they know them:
"battailously," for instance, or "illuminate and volute redundance,"
which will be found on a single page. He describes himself as a
Wantoner between the yet untreacherous claws
Of newly-whelped existence;
while on another page he tells us:
The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, sweet!