115

120

'He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
Then will I lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve

My pride, and let me speak.

'Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls

Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:

125 And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.

130

135

140

'There will I ask of Christ the Lord

Thus much for him and me:

Only to live as once on earth

With Love, only to be,

As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.'

She gazed and listened and then said,

Less sad of speech than mild,

'All this is when he comes.' She ceased.

The light thrilled towards her, fill'd

With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil❜d.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)

According to Hall Caine, Poe's "The Raven" caused this poem to be written. Contrast the central idea in "The Raven" with that in this ballad: the power of immortal, human passion vs. the power of mortal, immortal divine love. The sainted maiden Poe's Lenore is seeking to remove the shadow on the floor that will depart nevermore. Compare the damozel's disappointment with the surprise-sorrow which came to the feminine angel in Hay's "A Woman's Love."

Like Dante, who humanly loved his Beatrice while spiritually she was translating him to Paradise, is Rossetti who by his blessed damozel would be lifted beside the mystic tree of life and the blazing, smoky mount wherein God's censers are ever burning. Note the keen pathos protrayed by means of wild longings which produce a confessed shame that makes impossible his passing through the ten spheres to the empyreal walls of Heaven. 66 'Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!" Rossetti has idealised the fleshly beauty of the madonnas of the cathedral ages; he has interfused spiritual beauty with the imperfect beauty of the human body so that we may worship it. Cf. Spenser's "An Hymne In Honour Of Beautie":

"For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;

For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make."

WILLIAM MORRIS

1834-1896

No writer since Chaucer has displayed so masterly a power of continuous narrative, or has rested his fame so completely upon the arts of simplicity and lucidity.-W. J. Dawson.

Optional Poems

The Defence Of Guenevere.

The Earthly Paradise.

The Life And Death Of Jason.

The Day Of Days.

Drawing Near The Light.

The Day Is Coming.

Phrases

And underneath his feet the moonlit sea
Went shepherding his waves disorderly. . . .

The Story Of Cupid And Psyche.

AN APOLOGY

(From "The Earthly Paradise")

Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
5 Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.

But rather, when aweary of your mirth, From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, 10 And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,

Grudge every minute as it passes by,

Made the more mindful that the sweet days die
- Remember me a little then I pray,

The idle singer of an empty day.

15 The heavy trouble, the bewildering care

That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;

So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,
20 Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an empty day.

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
25 Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate

To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

Folk say, a wizard to a northern king

30 At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring,

And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, 35 Piped the drear wind of that December day.

So with this Earthly Paradise it is,

If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,

40 Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;

Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,

Not the poor singer of an empty day.

(1-7) These lines refer to the epical singing of Virgil, Dante, and Milton. Herrick lyrically says:

"I write of hell; I sing, (and ever shall)

Of heaven, and hope to have it after all."

It is otherwise with Morris, who, throughout his " Apology," expresses the purpose of poetry as consisting of amusement which makes mortals forgetful of Hell and Heaven. In factory frowning cities, the "too much " of fashionable row is as tragical as the "too little" of poverty flat. And, for relief of this ennui "of an empty day," Morris presents his "Earthly Paradise" in the manner of him who during the reign of Richard II. whiles away our time for fifty-six miles on the road to Canterbury with stories representing the palace of the courtier and the hut of the peasant. (15-28) In 1868 Morris was not fascinated by the hopeless social problem, but in later life all his poetic powers were given to it: this is regrettable, since by it his poetry suffers from the artistic point of view, however much his ear is solicitously placed over the hearts of those "who live and earn our bread," whose times are crooked, and may never be set straight. He is a finer poet when dealing with a hero in myth than he is when portraying the hero of the slums. (25-28) In Spenser's "Faërie Queene," I. 1, stanzas 40-41, what explains "the ivory gate" and "the sleepy region"? (29–35) Morris like an enchanter possesses power in the month of December of presenting kaleidoscopically spring, summer, and autumn. (36-42) Morris possesses that power which Shakespere's Gaunt would give his son Bolingbroke, who at the hands of Richard II. is about to tread a path of exile to the continent, -the power of making things as he likes and as you like them in spite of drear wind and steely winter seas. Cf. 66 Richard II.," Act I. 3:

"Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st:
Suppose the singing-birds musicians,

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more

Than a delightful measure or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light."