Passing away, saith the World, passing away;
Chances, beauty, and youth sapped day by day;
Thy life never continueth in one stay,
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May;
Thou, root-stricken, shall not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for aye.
Then I answered, Yea.
Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away,
With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play.
Hearken what the past doth witness and say:
Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,
A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day,
Lo! the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay;
Watch, thou, and pray.
Then I answered, Yea.
Passing away, saith my God, passing away;
Winter passeth after the long delay;
New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May.
Though I tarry, wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray,
Arise, come away, night is past, and lo! it is day,
My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.
Then I answered, Yea.
The last-mentioned poem is indeed worthy of a technical remark. It is
written in an irregular dactylic metre, the longer lines having a beat
of five accents, the shorter of three or two; but the whole scheme of
rhyme, all three stanzas--a common form with Miss Rossetti--is actually
built upon one single rhyme throughout. For such a conception one would
be inclined to predicate certain failure; the simplicity is too rude and
daring; but consider the result. For sheer simplicity again note her
"Christmas Carol":
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away,
When He comes to reign.
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay.
Enough for Him whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Throng'd the air,
But only His mother,
In her maiden bliss.
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part;
Yet what can I give Him?
Give my heart.
which, from beginning to end, has the very note of a Tuscan Adoration.
This exquisite felicity did not continue. It could not be expected that
it should. Miss Rossetti had always been capable in her writings of
complete and unexpected failures; in many of her lyrics everything is
there--style, feeling, harmony, but somehow the mood does not quicken
into poetry. In later life she published an immense volume, the _Face of
the Deep_, extending to over 550 pages, a devotional commentary on the
"Apocalypse." This is written in uncouth and shapeless prose, as a rule;
and though it has many suggestive and striking thoughts, and some images
of exquisite beauty, yet it is a singular monument of failure. Scattered
up and down in it are several hundred religious lyrics, which are never
exactly commonplace, but seldom satisfactory. I venture to quote one,
which may serve as a fair sample, p. 119, chap. iii. v. 10:
Wisest of sparrows, that sparrow which sitteth alone
Perched on the housetop, its own upper chamber, for nest.
Wisest of swallows, that swallow which timely hath flown
Over the turbulent sea to the land of its rest;
Wisest of sparrows and swallows, if I were as wise!
Wisest of spirits, that spirit which dwelleth apart,
Hid in the Presence of God for a chapel and nest,
Sending a wish and a will and a passionate heart
Over the eddy of life to that Presence in rest,
Seated alone and in peace till God bids it arise.
One word must, perhaps, be said here on the question of her technical
skill and metrical handling. With characteristic humility, she was
herself of opinion, as appears from a letter to Mr. Gosse, that the
inspiration of her sonnets was wholly derived from her brother. That was
an entire, if affectionate, mistake. There is no real or even apparent
connection. There is none of the intricate scheming, the subtle
inter-weaving of tremulous tones which make D. G. Rossetti's sonnets the
most musical of English sonnets. But the consequence is that Dante
Gabriel's sonnets are not in the least characteristically English. The
sonnets of Milton and Wordsworth may be regarded as the true examples of
English sonnet-writing, stiff, grave, sober, drawing through precise and
even stilted metres to a sonorous and rhetorical close. D. G. Rossetti's
are exotic work essentially. But that is not true of Miss Rossetti's.
They are simple and severe. In such a sequence as "Monna Innominata,"
there is not a trace of the luscious and labyrinthine ecstacies of her
brother's work; they are indeed far more like Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets
from the Portuguese_.
Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke;
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost;
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look,
Unready to forego what I forsook.
This say I, having counted up the cost.
This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such,
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him if I love not you.
This severity is not the same in her lyrics; it will be obvious from the
specimens already quoted, that, if anything, the metrical scheme is not
strict enough. In many lines will be found a deficiency of syllables,
musically compensated for by variety of accent; many of her rhymes are
almost licentious in their vagueness. But for some reason I have found
that they do not offend the critical judgment, as Mrs. Browning's do.
Whether it is that the directness and simplicity of the feeling
overpowers all minute fastidiousness, or whether they are all part of
the careful artlessness of the mood, is hard to determine. But the fact
remains, that none but the most inquisitive of critics would be likely
to hold that the art is thereby vitiated.
Lastly, of all the great themes with which Miss Rossetti deals, she is,
above all writers, the singer of Death. Whether as the eternal
home-coming, or the quiet relief after the intolerable restlessness of
the world, or as the deep reality in which the fretful vanities of life
are merged, it is always in view, as the dark majestic portal to which
the weary road winds at last. True, in one of the earliest and most
beautiful of all her lyrics, the sense of dissatisfied loneliness is
carried on beyond the gate of Death.