His
chief claim to recognition lies in his lyrics. Here, as in the dramatic
studies, his attitude is nearly always affected. He studiously strives
to reproduce the form and spirit of the early poets. Being a Londoner,
he naturally sings much of rural English life, but his England is the
England of two or three centuries ago. He has a great deal to say about
the "falcon," but the poor bird has the air of beating fatigued wings
against the bookshelves of a well-furnished library! This well-furnished
library was--if I may be pardoned a mixed image--the rock on which Barry
Cornwall split. He did not look into his own heart, and write: he looked
into his books.
A poet need not confine himself to his individual experiences; the world
is all before him where to choose; but there are subjects which he had
better not handle unless he have some personal knowledge of them. The
sea is one of these. The man who sang,
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, _the ever free!_
(a couplet which the Gifted Hopkins might have penned), should never
have permitted himself to sing of the ocean.
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