that they possess also a musical value. George Whitefield, it is said, could bring an audience to tears by his pronunciation of the word Mesopotamia. Poets likewise know the human ear and the capabilities of the language. In each of the following lists of female names, the very essence of the author's melody is accurately reflected: Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores, Félise and Yolande and Juliette. From "Dedication," by Algernon Charles Swinburne Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret and Rosalys. From "The Blessed Damosel," by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Milton is, of course, the classic example. Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is one of the supreme English masterpieces of subtle melody. The last two lines are often compared with the passage already quoted from Emerson's "The Rhodora" and with the opening lines of Keats's own Endymion, A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Though almost purely lyric, the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is far removed from the simplicity of the song; it relies not only upon rime and rhythm but upon sound-harmony or tone-color. To enjoy the poem fully, one must visualize the antique urn upon which some forgotten genius told his story not in words but in design. With reference to sight and sound, Keats's "Ode on and "Ode to a Nightingale" bear to each other a relation similar to that which exists between Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely" and "The Solitary Reaper." Grecian Urn" ODE ON A GRECIAN URN Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Temple or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed For ever piping songs for ever new; For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe There is sometimes a close kinship between a poem and an example of some other art. The historic and fundamental relation between poetry and music has been discussed in the chapter on the Song. Though these sister arts have in the main followed divergent paths, they are still often associated. In the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, for instance, airs and lyrics are happily blended. The relation of poetry to sculpture has been suggested by Noyes's "Niobe," the conception of which seems to have been largely derived from the Uffizi statue. The figured 4 Grecian urn, supposedly a copy of an original by Scopas, comes a step nearer to painting; Keats, endowed with a high pictorial quality, is, in Browning's "Popularity," described as the one who fished up the murex, the shell-fish which yields royal purple. The picture quality of poetry reached its culmination in Rossetti, who, like Blake, was a painter as well as a poet and often expressed the same idea in each of the two arts. The Imagists of the twentieth century aim at painting pictures with words. Tennyson, a poetic heir of Keats, wrote many poems expressive of color and form. From "The Lady of Shalott," for instance, J. W. Waterhouse and George H. Boughton each drew the subject for a painting. Although Tenny wrote "The Splendor Falls" "after hearing the echoes of Killarney in 1848," the poem is even more pictorial than suggestive of sounds. THE SPLENDOR FALLS The splendor falls on castle walls Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, When a word within a line rimes with one at the end Although the quatrain of iambic tetrameters riming abba had been used previously, it remained for Tennyson to give the meter a great poem. In Memoriam has since given the name to the stanza in which it is written. The following passage is often sung as a Christmas carol. RING OUT, WILD BELLS Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: |