Far up the dim twilight fluttered
Moth-wings of vapour and flame:
The lights danced over the mountains,
Star after star they came.
The lights grew thicker unheeded,
For silent and still were we;
Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
Our eyes could never see.
_Stephen Phillips_
Born in 1868, Stephen Phillips is best known as the author of _Herod_
(1900), _Paola and Francesca_ (1899), and _Ulysses_ (1902); a poetic
playwright who succeeded in reviving, for a brief interval, the blank
verse drama on the modern stage. Hailed at first with extravagant and
almost incredible praise, Phillips lived to see his most popular
dramas discarded and his new ones, such as _Pietro of Siena_ (1910),
unproduced and unnoticed.
Phillips failed to "restore" poetic drama because he was, first of
all, a lyric rather than a dramatic poet. In spite of certain moments
of rhetorical splendor, his scenes are spectacular instead of
emotional; his inspiration is too often derived from other models. He
died in 1915.