Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o’er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
’Tis something better not to be.
One has only to let one’s memory begin to fetch passages from Byron
striking the same note as that passage from Llywarch Hen, and she will
not soon stop. And all Byron’s heroes, not so much in collision with
outward things, as breaking on some rock of revolt and misery in the
depths of their own nature; Manfred, self-consumed, fighting blindly and
passionately with I know not what, having nothing of the consistent
development and intelligible motive of Faust,—Manfred, Lara, Cain, what
are they but Titanic? Where in European poetry are we to find this
Celtic passion of revolt so warm-breathing, puissant, and sincere; except
perhaps in the creation of a yet greater poet than Byron, but an English
poet, too, like Byron,—in the Satan of Milton?
. . . What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome.
There, surely, speaks a genius to whose composition the Celtic fibre was
not wholly a stranger!
And as, after noting the Celtic Pindarism or power of style present in
our poetry, we noted the German flatness coming in in our hymns, and
found here a proof of our compositeness of nature; so, after noting the
Celtic Titanism or power of rebellious passion in our poetry, we may also
note the Germanic patience and reasonableness in it, and get in this way
a second proof how mixed a spirit we have. After Llywarch Hen’s:—
How evil was the lot allotted to Llywarch, the night when he was
brought forth—
after Byron’s:—