“As when the seaman sees the Hyades
Gather an army of Cimmerian clouds,
Auster and Aquilon with wingèd steeds,
* * * * *
All fearful folds his sails and sounds the main.”
Spenser, too, loved this luxury of sound, as he shows in such passages
as this:--
“Now was Aldebaran uplifted high
Above the starry Cassiopeia’s chair.”
And I fancy he would have put him there to make music, even had it
been astronomically impossible, but he never strung such names in long
necklaces, as Marlowe and Milton were fond of doing.
Was Marlowe, then, a great poet? For such a title he had hardly range
enough of power, hardly reach enough of thought. But surely he had
some of the finest qualities that go to the making of a great poet;
and his poetic instinct, when he had time to give himself wholly over
to its guidance, was unerring. I say when he had time enough, for he,
too, like his fellows, was forced to make the daily task bring in the
daily bread. We have seen how fruitful his influence has been, and
perhaps his genius could have no surer warrant than that the charm
of it lingered in the memory of poets, for theirs is the memory of
mankind. If we allow him genius, what need to ask for more? And perhaps
it would be only to him among the group of dramatists who surrounded
Shakespeare that we should allow it. He was the herald that dropped
dead in announcing the victory in whose fruits he was not to share.