No More Learning

EDMUND GOSSE COBIOLANUS SAPPHO OLYMPIC GAMES VENUS
ATHENS
Frontispiece
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THE APPKECIATON OF POETEY
Bt Edmund Gossb
Theee never was a time when it was more essential than it is to day to keep clearly before us the sovereign value of the best poetry, and to comprehend what the basis of its supremacy is. We are invaded by an enormous flood of cheap and commonplace literature, prepared to attract, and, for a few moments, to amuse tens of thousands of undisciplined readers, who cultivate on such food an appetite for more and more entertainment of the same kind. The traditional barriers of good taste, which made the many who did not appreciate the best bow to the judgment of the few who did, are broken down. It is quite customary to find people of finer instincts so disheartened in the face of all the gaudy trash that is circulated by the million in cheap newspapers and cheaper magazines, that they are prepared to give up the struggle. The time, they say, in which really admirable literature was a power, is over. This is the age of charlatanry and shoddy, they tell us, and it is useless to kick against the pricks. The human race has decided that the noblest things offer too great a strain to its weari ness, and for the future it means to be comfortable with what is base and common. The era of poetry, these melancholy people declare to us, is over for ever.
This pessimistic view I hold to be as false as it is cowardly. As long as two people could be brought together who would read Milton or Keats, in unison, with the old rapture, the era of poetry would not be over. Indeed, even these two might be submerged,
and a materialistic vulgarity engulph the entire world for a genera- xiil
xiv THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
tion, and yet the poetic instinct would revive, because it is based on an essential requirement of human nature. But this dismal conception of what we are drifting towards, with our growing disposition for the cheap and trumpery, contains one element of valuable truth. It emphasises the fact that the best poetry is absolutely out of sympathy with, is diametrically opposed to, what is common, false, and ignoble. The croakers are perfectly right so far, that if the entire world were brought down to the level of taste for which the threepenny-halfpenny magazine caters, there would there and then ensue, for the time being, an end of the influence of poetry, because poetry cannot breathe in the baser element. But, fortunately, vulgarity can never absolutely invade an entire race ; there must always be some —even if only a few, yet a few,—who are striving after the higher truth and the higher seriousness which Aristotle names as the qualities that distinguish poetry.
Nearly twenty years ago, in a famous essay, Matthew Arnold endeavoured to define what were meant by " truth " and " serious ness" in this respect. Suggestive as his introduction to poetry was, it does not entirely meet the requirements of those who ask in what great poetry consists. Arnold deals too exclusively with ideas, and with brief arrangements of words judged in relation to the ideas they express. What he says, and what he quotes, in this connection are valuable, but he is found to be confining himself to the quality of poetry ; it will also be found that there are but few of his remarks which might not be directly adapted to examples of the highest prose. In the course of this essay, Matthew Arnold appears unwilling to speak of the art of verse, and yet the almost plastic characteristics of execution which essentially distinguish verse from prose must be considered in any really useful attempt to define the nature of the pleasure which poetry gives us. Perhaps, like several great poets, and Tennyson in particular, Matthew Arnold thought this should be kept a mystery, and not discussed in any way with the world at large. But nowadays it is useless to try to exclude the curious from any of the habits of the man of genius.
The poet, then, is distinguished by writing in verse or metre.
THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY XV
This is his medium, as oil or water-colour is the medium of a painter, and clay or marble that of a sculptor. Even those who break up prosody, and desire to resist the rules of verse, like Walt Whitman or the latest French and Belgian experimentalists, produce something in its place which forms a medium of the same kind as verse. It would be convenient if the word " poet " had remained exclusively in use for the practice of the art of verse, as " painter " and " sculptor " for that of their respective arts ; but it has come to take a sentimental as well as a technical sense, and to mean a man of exalted and imaginative ideas. So that even Sir Philip Sidney, encouraging this heresy three hundred years ago, says, " It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet. " If he meant it in the sense in which he might have said, It is not brushes and a palette that make a painter, we can fully endorse his dictum, but if he meant that a man could be a poet and not write in verse, he uttered a dangerous although a common paradox.
The poet therefore writes in verse, and this is an artificial arrangement of words which must be taken into consideration first of all when we are discussing the magic of great poetry. Ehyme is an ornament suited to certain forms of song in certain languages, but it is far from being universal. Metre, on the other hand, is absolutely essential to our conception of civilised poetry, and even in races so far removed from our intellectual sympathy as the Japanese we find that from earliest times there have been obeyed rules of prosody which we can perfectly comprehend. The technical skill in verse which gives predominance in this department of poetry has been unequally distributed among the
Milton, for instance, had a more delicate ear and a more far-spreading mastery over the instrument of verse than any other man who ever lived. Byron, on the other hand, was so weak in this respect that he has frequently been surpassed, as a metrical artist, by versifiers of the third or fourth rank. This does not settle the whole question of the relative value of poets, but it is an element in the final decision. Milton is such an adept in blank verse that he can bewitch us with a mere list of
great poets.
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THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
proper names or a string of places, The pleasure which we receive from the melody of
From Auran eastward to the royal towers Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings, Or where the sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar,
is not a moral and is scarcely an intellectual one, but is sensuous, and founded on the exquisite art with which the greatest virtuoso in verse who has ever lived arranged the stops of his blank verse.
So, also, in the daintier parts of lyrical poetry, the senses are deliciously stirred by the alternations of rhyme in the songs of Shelley or Tennyson, or by the mellifluous assonances and alliter ations of Poe. These are the legitimate and the necessary, although not the loftiest, concomitants of great poetry. The poets, with marked adroitness, introduce these appeals to the ear into some of their most abstruse meditations, as Mr. Swinburne relieves the dry thought of a very transcendental lyric with such pure melody as—
By rose-hung river and light-foot rill
There are who rest not ; who think long
Till they discern as from a hill,
At the sun's hour of morning song,
Known of souls only, and those souls free, The sacred spaces of the sea.
To scorn those beauties which form the basis of poetic pleasure because of their limitations, is unphilosophic ; and those who under rate metrical execution have a difficulty in explaining to us why it is that the great poets have, with very rare exceptions, been marvellous technical artists in verse. One very obvious advantage which Shakespeare possesses over all his contemporaries is the variety, melody, and richness of his verse-effects. In all the great writers — it would be difficult to say why — a thought is found to gain splendour and definition by the mere fact of its being set in a verse-arrangement of perfect beauty. That everything in the order of nature is subservient to the human race, for instance, is not a very rousing idea, until Dryden clothes it in his organ-melody —
THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
From harmony, divinest harmony
This universal frame began :
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man,
xvii
and then we perceive and then we accept, with deep emotion, the majestic intelligence.
Wordsworth has observed that " the young, who in nothing can escape delusion, are especially subject to it in their intercourse with Poetry. " That is to say, inexperienced persons are par ticularly liable to be deceived as to what is a good and what a bad poem. For this reason, I think the definite criterion of prosody a very valuable one in the training of the imagination. Before we attempt to deal with images and ideas, the ear of a child may be so delicately taught to respond to the intricacies and melodies of verse that it may start with a tendency in the right direction. If a young person is conscious of the enchantment of mere sound in " Lycidas " or in " The Lotus Eaters," there is already made a sensible advance towards his or her appreciation of the greatest poetry. The fact that really fine verse-writing rarely fails to dis tinguish the master-poets tends to give the tentative reader confidence. He finds a passage magnificently composed, and he is justified in expecting to find it not less splendidly supplied with thought and passion.
After metre, or its equivalents, the most radical part" of poetry is the diction. Common speech transfers our meaning to our interlocutors with as little parade as possible ; written prose has a more starched and self-conscious air, yet it aims at a straight forward statement of fact, without embroidery. But in poetry, the art of diction becomes essential. It is no longer purely what is said that is of moment, but how it is said is also of prime import ance. The language of the poet is not that of ordinary life, and yet he is capable of error no less in boldly pushing too far beyond the common-place, than in timidly hugging the shore of it. In. certain ages, as for instance in the eighteenth century, what the
poets aimed at was a strenuous clearness and precision of diction ; VOL. 8. -2
THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
their danger was to become prosaic in the effort of their reserve. Towards the middle of the seventeenth, as now at the close of the nineteenth century, the poets wished to dazzle us by the violent brilliance of their language ; the snare of such an effort is that the poetry may become gaudy and unintelligible. Here, then, comes in the second requirement in one who studies verse, —he must learn to discriminate in questions of diction. He must be able to distinguish the virginal delicacy of an ode by Collins from the clay-cold dulness of one by Akenside ; and he must be fired by the gorgeous parts of one of Crashaw's rhapsodies, without condon ing the faults and ugliness of the merely grotesque passages.
One of the first lessons a reader will endeavour to learn with regard to poetry is the paramount value of a pure style. Purity may be allied to an extreme simplicity, to an intricate variety of thoughts and illustrations, or to a sublime magnificence of orna ment. Hence in Chaucer, in Browning, in Milton alike we observe a genuine purity of style, yet expressed in forms so widely divergent that the beginner is apt to think them incompatible. Without this element, no expenditure of wit or intellect or learn ing or audacious force of literary character can ever suffice to keep a poet's writings vivid. The most extraordinary instance of this is John Donne, who probably brought to the service of poetry a greater array of qualities than any other man, outside the very highest class, has done in England. He was a complete heretic as to purity of style, and only began to reform when the briskness of his genius had evaporated. Consequently, when he writes such lines as—
or
O more than Moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere !
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born,
being driven by stress of poetical passion into the momentary adoption of a pure style, he is comparable in these with Shakespeare or Coleridge; but such passages are mere islands, now, in a sea made turbid with radical offences against taste and reasonableness.
THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY xix
It may be questioned whether, at the present moment, there are not one or two flagrant Donnes flourishing on the English Parnassue.
It is absolutely necessary for the reader of the great poetry of the world to realise the solemnity of the poet's mission. He bends to entertain and even to divert us, but this is only in his easier moments. In him some of the old prophetic spirit lingers; he does not approach the public cap in hand, but he pronounces august truths, involved in forms of perennial beauty, which are
just as beautiful, and just as true, whether mankind appreciates them or not. The poet emphasises the charm and mystery of nature, but he himself is more than any scenery—
He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own ;
he takes the elements of the material world, and acts with them, not as an analyser, but as a maker, since
Out of these, create he can
Forms more real than living man, Nurselings of immortality.
The reader, therefore, sincerely desirous of being affected by the poets, submits his emotions and his intelligence to their prophetic teaching. He allows them to excite and uplift hiTM ; he does not resist the afflatus. Borne along upon the stream of melody, enraptured by the ceaseless pleasure produced by felicitous diction, the reader subjects his own spirit to that of the poet. Thus, not grudgingly, but eager to be pleased and blessed, he places himself in that passive and receptive condition which renders him open to the impressions of what Coleridge calls " the aggregative and asso ciative power " of poetic fancy working in a perfectly favourable medium It is because the maturity of youth is especially free from accidents which disturb this complete communion with the creative arts that young men and women, in their early prime, are particularly apt students of the best poetry. They are hindered neither by the ignorance of childhood nor the prejudice of age from submitting with an absolute suppleness of temperament to the
XX THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
magic of the poet ; and they arrive at the condition which Shake speare describes in himself,
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see description of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
becoming, in the trance of fancy, himself a portion of this enchanting and shadowy procession.
For this purpose, a study of the best models is notoriously efficacious. But how are the best models to be discovered ? Here an essentially modern heresy is surely to be guarded against. The fashion of to-day is to take no standard of taste, but what is called " the personality " of the reader. That is to say, the latter is to choose his poets as he chooses his flowers, because their colours and their perfumes are agreeable to him, or his fruits, because his palate approves of their flavours. But this is to place far too much confidence in the rude and untaught instinct. The perfectly naive and ignorant person will not choose poetry successfully. In the first place, until the movement of metre and the exactitude of rhyme are taught, these are not healthily perceived by the ear. In the second place, a jingle will be preferred to a harmony, and an ambling narrative in ballad-measure to a masterpiece of concen trated lyrical passion. The natural man in his savage state — and he is none the less savage because semi-educated at a board-school —cannot be trusted to form a single instinctive impression of poetry.
The beauty of poetry, and the criterion by which that beauty can be discerned and weighed, have to be learned ; this art does not appeal by instinct to the average sensual person. It is an initiation ; it is a religion ; and its rites are to be mastered only by a humble subjection to authority. Authority tells the young man that certain ancient productions are of extraordinary beauty. He is to believe that in Chaucer, in Spenser, in Milton, in Burns, in Shelley, in Keats, are to be found the masses of poetic substance, differing in specific character, but all generically one in their absolute excellence. The reader must take this at first on faith.
/THE APPKECIATION OF POETRY xxi
He may, in his inmost heart, find The Knight's Tale dull, be unable to understand Epipsychidion, be bewildered and affronted by the dry light of Paradise Regained. But he must understand that there are only two horns to his dilemma ; it must either be that he has not a natural aptitude for appreciating poetry, or that sympathy and care are required to reveal to him the significance of these particular works. He must never suppose that a third horn exists, namely, that, because he does not find himself exhilar ated by these particular poems, therefore they are not good. Meanwhile, if he is modest, tradition whispers to him that there are easier steps to an appreciation of Milton and Shelley and Chaucer than those upon which he has too ambitiously started.
The definition of poetry by Matthew Arnold, as " a criticism of life " has been widely objected to. It was, perhaps, not very happily expressed, but Arnold's meaning has been miscomprehended. He tried to condense in a neat formula an idea which cannot, it may be, find its adequate expression in so few words. Yet that idea is the basis of a just appreciation of what the best poetry is and should be to us. " Well may we mourn," says Arnold himself in another
when the head Of a sacred poet lies low
In an age which can rear them no more ! The complaining millions of men
Darken in labour and pain ;
But he was a priest to us all
Of the wonder and bloom of the world, Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad. He is dead, and the fruit-bearing day
Of his race is past on the earth ;
And darkness returns to our eyes.
Shelley has left us a definition which is more precise, although more transcendental than Arnold's. He says, in that Platonic " Defence of Poetry " which is too seldom studied, —" A poem is the very image of life expressed in its external truth. " In other words, the great poet creates in his art a reflection of the forms of human nature, which remain there by a miracle after the actions which inspired them have passed away, as though the bosom of a little
place —
ixii THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
lake in the mountains should preserve the reflected splendours of the sunrise untarnished through long hours of the common light of day. The principle of life is ceaseless procession, ceaseless revolution ; the deeds and days of man hurry away, and are pushed into oblivion by their successors. But, since the beginning of civilisation, poetry has selected for preservation certain typical relations, combined shapes of beauty and pathos caught in the ever-revolving kaleidoscope. It is in this sense that poetry as Matthew Arnold felt to be, criticism of life itself.
The soul kept alive by incessant reminders of the existence of its two great inspiring forces, the Heavenly and the Earthly Beauty. All that we call good and wise and desirable, moves under the sway of the imagination. Virtue itself not passive, but active, and the direct result of the identification of the soul with what beautiful. No impulse of moral value can be followed, no work of passion or comprehension executed, without an appeal to the imaginative faculty. This faculty, however, would in many respects be vague in us, and would certainly be liable to heresies and vacillations to much greater degree than happily now were not for Art, and particularly for Poetry, the divinest of the arts. The more intense the impression of moral beauty, the more impassioned will be the appreciation of the purest and most perfect verse. Nor this axiom belied by the accident that some of the most virtuous of men and women are congenitally deprived of appreciation of the plastic forms of poetry.
It however, to be sincerely regretted that there should be any, in whom the interior and spiritual light burns, who are deprived of the external and, as we may say, physical consolations of poetry. In all such cases, probable that the lack of enjoy ment comes from neglect of the best models and of guidance in taste at the early stages of mental development. There less and less excuse for any one who endures the lack of these advantages. The best school, nay, the only wholesome school, for the appreciation of poetry the reading of poetry. Let the student assure himself that he provided with what the tradition of criticism has found to be the very noblest, and let him read that carefully and eagerly,
is
is
is
is
is
it is,
a
a
is,
it
is
it
is
it a is
is
is
is,
THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY xxiii
if possible aloud, to himself and then to others, with a humble enthusiasm; it is strange, indeed, if the mysterious sources of poetical pleasure are not opened to him. Eead the best, will be our final charge,—only the best, but the best over and over and over again.
EGERIA AND NUMA. By LORD BYRON.
Egekia ! sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting place so fair
As thine ideal breast ; whate'er thou art Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, The nympholepsy of some fond despair ;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,
Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring"; — whatsoe'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.
The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water drops ; the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep,
Fantastically tangled ; the green hills
Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills
Of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass ; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ;
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,
Kissed by the breath of heaven seems colored by its skies.
25
26
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ;
The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ?
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamored Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle!
And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, Blend a celestial with a human heart ;
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, Share with immortal transports ? could thine art Make them indeed immortal, and impart
The purity of heaven to earthly joys, — Expel the venom and not blunt the dart
The dull satiety which all destroys —
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ?
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
L
By LTVT.
[For biographical sketch, see page 368, Vol. 2. ]
The Tarquins had fled to Lars Porsena, king of Clusium. There, mixing advice with their entreaties, they sometimes besought him not to suffer them, who were descended from the Etrurians, and of the same blood and name, to live in exile and poverty; at other times they advised him not to let this com mencing practice of expelling kings pass unpunished. That liberty has charms enough in itself ; and unless kings defend their crowns with as much vigor as the people pursue their liberty, that the highest must be reduced to a level with the lowest; there will be nothing exalted, nothing distinguished above the rest; and hence there must be an end of regal gov ernment, the most beautiful institution both among gods and men. Porsena, thinking that it would be an honor to the Tus cans both that there should be a king at Rome, and especially one of the Etrurian nation, marched towards Rome with a hos
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE. 27
tile army. Never before on any other occasion did so great terror seize the senate; so powerful was the state of Clusium at the time, and so great the renown of Porsena. Nor did they only dread their enemies, but even their own citizens, lest the common people, through excess of fear, should, by receiving the Tarquins into the city, accept peace even if purchased with slavery. Many conciliatory concessions were therefore granted to the people by the senate during that period.
Some parts [of Rome] seemed secured by the walls, others by the interposition of the Tiber. The Sublician bridge well-nigh afforded a passage to the enemy, had there not been one man, Horatius Codes (that defense the fortune of Rome had on that day), who, happening to be posted on guard at the bridge, when he saw the Janiculum taken by a sudden assault, and that the enemy were pouring down from thence in full speed, and that his own party, in terror and confusion, were abandoning their arms and ranks, laying hold of them one by one, standing in their way, and appealing to the faith of gods and men, he declared, that " their flight would avail them nothing if they deserted their post; if they passed the bridge and left it behind them, there would soon be more of the enemy in the Palatium and Capitol than in the Janiculum; for that reason he advised and charged them to demolish the bridge, by their sword, by fire, or by any means whatever; that he would stand the shock of the enemy as far as could be done by one man. " He then advances to the first entrance of the bridge, and being easily distinguished among those who showed their backs in retreating from the fight, facing about to engage the foe hand to hand, by his surprising bravery he terrified the enemy.
Two indeed a sense of shame kept with him, Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius, men eminent for their birth, and renowned for their gallant exploits. With them he for a short time stood the first storm of the danger, and the severest brunt of the battle. But as they who demolished the bridge called upon them to retire, he obliged them also to withdraw to a place of safety on a small portion of the bridge still left. Then casting his stern eyes round all the officers of the Etrurians in a threat ening manner, he sometimes challenged them singly, sometimes reproached them all; "the slaves of haughty tyrants, who, re gardless of their own freedom, came to oppress the liberty of others. " They hesitated for a considerable time, looking round one at the other, to commence the fight; shame then put the
28 HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
army in motion, and a shout being raised, they hurl their weapons from all sides on their single adversary; and when they all stuck in the shield held before him, and he with no less obstinacy kept possession of the bridge with firm step, they now endeavored to thrust him down from it by one push, when at once the crash of the falling bridge, at the same time a shout of the Romans raised for joy at having completed their purpose, checked their ardor with sudden panic. Then Codes says, " Holy father Tiberinus, I pray that thou wouldst receive these arms, and this thy soldier, in thy propitious stream. " Armed as he was, he leaped into the Tiber, and amid showers of darts hurled on him, swam across safe to his party, having dared an act which is likely to obtain more fame than credit with posterity.
The state was grateful towards such valor; a statue was erected to him in the comitium, and as much land was given to him as he plowed around in one day. The zeal of private individuals also was conspicuous among the public honors. For, amid the great scarcity, each person contributed something to him according to his supply at home, depriving himself of his own support.
n.
By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
[For biographical sketch, see Vol. 2, p. 387. ]
There can be little doubt that among those parts of early Roman history which had a poetical origin was the legend of Horatius Codes. We have several versions of the story, and these versions differ from each other in points of no small im portance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, heard the tale recited over the remains of some consul or praetor descended from the old Horatian patricians; for he introduces it as a specimen of the narratives with which the Romans were in the habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It is remarkable that, according to him, Horatius defended the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. According to the chronicles which Livy and Dionysius followed, Horatius had two companions, swam safe to shore, and was loaded with honors and rewards.
These discrepancies are easily explained. Our own litera
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE. 29
ture, indeed, will furnish an exact parallel to what may have taken place at Rome. It is highly probahle that the memory of the war of Porsena was preserved by compositions much resembling the two ballads which stand first in the " Relics of Ancient English Poetry. " In both those ballads the English, commanded by the Percy, fight with the Scots, commanded by the Douglas. In one of the ballads the Douglas is killed by a nameless English archer, and the Percy by a Scottish spearman : in the other, the Percy slays the Douglas in single combat, and is himself made prisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery is shot through the heart by a Northumbrian bowman : in the latter he is taken, and exchanged for the Percy. Yet both the ballads relate to the same event, and that an event which prob ably took place within the memory of persons who were alive when both the ballads were made. One of the minstrels says : —
Old men that knowen the grounde well yenoughe Call it the battell of Otterbuxn :
At Otterburn began this spume
Upon a monnyn day.
Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean : The Perse never went away.
The other poet sums up the event in the following lines : —
Thys fraye bygan at Otterbome Bytwene the nyghte and the day : Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, And the Percy was lede away.
It is by no means unlikely that there were two old Roman lays about the defense of the bridge ; and that, while the story which Livy has transmitted to us was preferred by the multi tude, the other, which ascribed the whole glory to Horatius alone, may have been the favorite with the Horatian house.
The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and twenty years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of the military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of factions, and much given to pining after good old times which had never really existed. The allusion, however, to the partial manner in which the public lands were allotted could proceed only from a plebeian ; and the allu sion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks the date of the poem, and shows that the poet shared in the general discontent with
30 HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
which the proceedings of Camillus, after the taking of Veii, were regarded.
Niebuhr's supposition that each of the three defenders of the bridge was the representative of one of the three patrician tribes is both ingenious and probable, and has been adopted in the following poem.
Hobatius.
a lay hade about the year of the city ccclx.
X.
Lars Porsena of Clusium
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.
East and west and south and north The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome.
ni.
The horsemen and the footmen Are pouriug in amain
From many stately market place From many fruitful plain
From many a lonely hamlet, Which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine
rv.
From lordly Volaterrae,
Where scowls the far-famed hold
;
a a
;
it,
;
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old;
From seagirt Populonia, Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain tops Fringing the southern sky ;
T.
From the proud mart of Pisae, Queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia's triremes Heavy with fair-haired slaves ;
From where sweet Clanis wanders Through corn and vines and flowers ;
From where Cortona lifts to heaven Her diadem of towers.
vx
Tall are the oaks whose acorns Drop in dark Auser's rill ;
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs Of the Ciminian hill ;
Beyond all streams Clitumnus Is to the herdsman dear ;
Best of all pools the fowler loves The great Volsinian mere.
TO.
But now no stroke of woodman Is heard by Auser's rill ;
No hunter tracks the stag's green path Up the Ciminian hill ;
Unwatched along Clitumnus Grazes the milk-white steer ;
Unharmed the waterfowl may dip In the Volsinian mere.
VIII.
The harvests of Arretium,
This year, old men shall reap, This year, young boys in Umbro
Shall plunge the struggling sheep; And in the vats of Luna,
This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome.
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
There be thirty chosen prophets, The wisest of the land,
Who alway by Lars Porsena
Both morn and evening stand :
Evening and morn the Thirty Have turned the verses o'er,
Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore.
x.
And with one voice the Thirty
" Have their glad answer given :
Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena ; Go forth, beloved of Heaven ;
Go, and return in glory
To Clusium's royal dome ;
And hang round Nurscia's altars The golden shields of Kome. "
And now hath every city Sent up her tale of men ;
The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten.
Before the gates of Sutrium Is met the great array.
A proud man was Lars Porsena Upon the trysting day.
XII.
For all the Etruscan armies Were ranged beneath his eye,
And many a banished Roman, And many a stout ally ;
And with a mighty following To join the muster came
The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name.
XIII.
But by the yellow Tiber Was tumult and affright :
From all the spacious champaign To Rome men took their flight.
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
A mile around the city,
The throng stopped up the ways ;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through two long nights and days.
XIV.
For aged folks on crutches, And women great with child,
And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled,
And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves,
And troops of sunburned husbandmen With reaping hooks and staves,
xv.
And droves of mules and asses Laden with skins of wine,
And endless flocks of goats and sheep, And endless herds of kine,
And endless trains of wagons
That creaked beneath the weight
Of corn sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate.
XVI.
Now, from the rock Tarpeian, Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages Red in the midnight sky.
The Fathers of the City, They sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came With tidings of dismay.
XVII.
To eastward and to westward Have spread the Tuscan bands ; Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote
In Crustumerium stands. Verbenna down to Ostia
Hath wasted all the plain ; Astur hath stormed Janiculum,
And the stout guards are slain. vol. in. —3
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
XVIII.
I wis, in all the Senate,
There was no heart so bold,
But sore it ached, and fast it beat, When that ill news was told.
Forthwith uprose the Consul, Uprose the Fathers all ;
In haste they girded up their gowns, And hied them to the wall.
XIX.
They held a council standing Before the River Gate ;
Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate.
Out spake the Consul roundly :
"The bridge must straight go down;
For, since Janiculum is lost, Naught else can save the town. "
xx.
Just then a scout came flying,
" All wild with haste and fear : To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul:
Lars Porsena is here. "
On the low hills to westward
The Consul fixed his eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.
XXI.
And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come ;
And louder still and still more loud, From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet's war note proud,
The trampling, and the hum. And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears, Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark blue light, The long array of helmets bright,
The long array of spears.
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
XXII.
And plainly and more plainly, Above that glimmering line, Now might ye see the banners
Of twelve fair cities shine ; But the banner of proud Clusium
Was highest of them all, The terror of the Umbrian,
The terror of the Gaul.
XXIII.
And plainly and more plainly Now might the burghers know,
By port and vest, by horse and crest, Each warlike Lucumo.
There Cilnius of Arretium
On his fleet roan was seen ;
And Astur of the fourfold shield,
Girt with the brand none else may wield, Tolumnius with the belt of gold,
And dark Verbenna from the hold
By reedy Thrasymene.
XXIV.
Fast by the royal standard, O'erlooking all the war,
Lars Porsena of Clusium Sat in his ivory car.
By the right wheel rode Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name ;
And by the left false Sextus,
That wrought the deed of shame.
xxv.
But when the face of Sextus Was seen among the foes,
A yell that rent the firmament From all the town arose.
On the house tops was no woman But spat towards him and hissed,
No child but screamed out curses, And shook its little fist
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
XXVI.
But the Consul's brow was sad,
And the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall " And darkly at the foe.
Their van will be upon us Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge, What hope to save the town ? "
XXVII.
Then outspake brave Horatius, " The Captain of the Gate :
To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods,
XXVIII.
"And for the tender mother Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses His baby at her breast, And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame, To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame ?
XXIX.
" Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me ? "
Then outspake Spurius Lartius ; A Kamnian proud was he :
" Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, And keep the bridge with thee. "
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
And outspake strong Herminius ; Of Titian blood was he:
" I will abide on thy left side,
And keep the bridge with thee. "
XXXI.
" Horatius," quoth the Consul, "As thou say est, so let it be. "
And straight against that great array Forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome's quarrel Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, In the brave days of old.
XXXII.
Then none was for a party ; Then all were for the state ;
Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great :
Then lands were fairly portioned ; Then spoils were fairly sold : The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high, And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction, In battle we wax cold :
Wherefore men fight not as they fought In the brave days of old.
xxxrv.
Now while the Three were tightening Their harness on their backs,
The Consul was the foremost man To take in hand an ax :
And Fathers mixed with Commons Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, And smote upon the planks above,
And loosed the props below.
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
XXIV.
Meanwhile the Tuscan army, Right glorious to behold
Came flashing back the noonday light, Rank behind rank, like surges bright
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread, And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head,
Where stood the dauntless Three.
xxxvi.
The Three stood calm and silent, And looked upon the foes,
And a great shout of laughter From all the vanguard rose :
And forth three chiefs came spurring Before that deep array ;
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, And lifted high their shields, and flew
To win the narrow way ;
XXXVII.
Aunus from green Tifernum, Lord of the Hill of Vines ;
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves Sicken in Ilva's mines ;
And Picus, long to Clusium Vassal in peace and war,
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers
From that gray crag where, girt with towers, The fortress of Nequinum lowers
O'er the pale waves of Nar.
XXXVIII.
Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus Into the stream beneath :
Herminius struck at Seius, And clove him to the teeth :
At Pious brave Horatius Darted one fiery thrust ;
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms Clashed in the bloody dust.
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
XXXIX.
Then Ocnus of Falerii
Rushed on the Roman Three ;
And Lausulus of Urgo, The rover of the sea ;
And Aruns of Volsinium,
Who slew the great wild boar,
The great wild boar that had his den Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen,
And wasted fields, and slaughtered men,
Along Albinia's shore.
XL.
Herminius smote down Aruns : Lartius laid Ocnus low :
Right to the heart of Lausulus Horatius sent a blow.
"Lie there," he cried, "fell pirate! No more, aghast and pale,
From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark The track of thy destroying bark.
No more Campania's hinds shall fly
To woods and caverns when they spy
Thy thrice accursed sail. "
XLI.
But now no sound of laughter Was heard among the foes.
A wild and wrathful clamor From all the vanguard rose.
Six spears' length from the entrance Halted that deep array,
And for a space no man came forth To win the narrow way.
XLII.
But hark ! the cry is Astur : And lo ! the ranks divide ;
And the great Lord of Luna Comes with his stately stride.
Upon his ample shoulders
Clangs loud the fourfold shield,
And in his hand he shakes the brand Which none but he can wield.
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
xxm.
He smiled on those bold Romans A smile serene and high ;
He eyed the flinching Tuscans, And scorn was in his eye.
Quoth he, " The she-wolf's litter Stand savagely at bay :
But will ye dare to follow, If Astur clears the way? "
XXIV.
Then, whirling up his broadsword With both hands to the height,
He rushed against Horatius, And smote with all his might. With shield and blade Horatius
Right deftly turned the blow.
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh ; It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : The Tuscans raised a joyful cry
To see the red blood flow.
XLV.
He reeled, and on Herminius
He leaned one breathing space ;
Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds, Sprang right at Astur's face.
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet So fierce a thrust he sped,
The good sword stood a handbreadth out Behind the Tuscan's head.
XL VI.
And the gTeat Lord of Luna Fell at that deadly stroke, As falls on Mount Alvernus
A thunder-smitten oak. Far o'er the crashing forest
The giant arms lie spread ;
And the pale augurs, muttering low,
Gaze on the blasted head.
XLVH.
On Astur's throat Horatius Right firmly pressed his heel,
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
And thrice and four times tugged amain, Ere he wrenched out the steel.
"And see," he cried, "the welcome, Fair guests, that waits you here !
What noble Lucumo comes next To taste our Roman cheer ? "
XXVIII.
But at his haughty challenge A sullen murmur ran,
Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dread, Along that glittering van.
There lacked not men of prowess, Nor men of lordly race ;
For all Etruria's noblest
Were round the fatal place.
XLIX.
But all Etruria's noblest
Felt their hearts sink to see
On the earth the bloody corpses,
In the path the dauntless Three :
And, from the ghastly entrance Where those bold Romans stood, All shrank, like boys who unaware,
Ranging the woods to start a hare, Gome to the mouth of the dark lair Where, growling low, a fierce old bear
Lies amidst bones and blood.
L.
Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack :
But those behind cried "Forward! " And those before cried " Back ! "
And backward now and forward Wavers the deep array ;
And on the tossing sea of steel, To and fro the standards reel ; And the victorious trumpet peal
Dies fitfully away.
LI.
Yet one man for one moment Stood out before the crowd ;
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
Well known was he to all the Three, " And they gave him greeting loud. Now welcome, welcome, Sextus !
Now welcome to thy home !
Why dost thou stay, and turn away ?
Here lies the road to Borne. " LII.
Thrice looked he at the city ; Thrice looked he at the dead ;
And thrice came on in fury,
And thrice turned back in dread :
And, white with fear and hatred, Scowled at the narrow way
Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, The bravest Tuscans lay.
un.
But meanwhile ax and lever Have manfully been plied ;
And now the bridge hangs tottering " Above the boiling tide. "
Come back, come back, Horatius ! Loud cried the Fathers all.
"Back, Lartius! back, Herminius! Back, ere the ruin fall ! "
LIV.
Back darted Spurius Lartius ; Herminius darted back :
And, as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack.
But when they turned their faces, And on the farther shore
Saw brave Horatius stand alone,
They would have crossed once more
LV.
But with a crash like thunder Fell every loosened beam,
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck Lay right athwart the stream :
And a long shout of triumph Rose from the walls of Rome,
As to the highest turret tops
Was splashed the yellow foam.
IIORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
LVI.
And, like a horse unbroken When first he feels the rein,
The furious river struggled hard, And tossed his tawny mane,
And burst the curb, and bounded, Rejoicing to be free,
And whirling down, in fierce career, Battlement, and plank, and pier,
Rushed headlong to the sea.
LVII.
Alone stood brave Horatius, But constant still in mind ;
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, And the broad flood behind.
"Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, With a smile on his pale face.
"Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, " Now yield thee to our grace. "
LVIII.
Round turned he, as not deigning Those craven ranks to see ;
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, To Sextus naught spake he }
But he saw on Palatinus
The white porch of his home ;
And he spake to the noble river That rolls by the towers of Rome.
MX.
"Oh, Tiber! father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms," Take thou in charge this day !
So he spake, and speaking sheathed
The good sword by his side, And with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong in the tide.
LX.
No sound of joy or sorrow
Was heard from either bank ;
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank ;
And when above the surges They saw his crest appear,
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer.
IiXL
But fiercely ran the current, Swollen high by months of rain :
And fast his blood was flowing ; And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armor,
And spent with changing blows : And oft they thought him sinking,
But still again he rose.
LXII.
Never, I ween, did swimmer, In such an evil case,
Struggle through such a raging flood Safe to the landing place :
But his limbs were borne up bravely By the brave heart within,
And our good father Tiber Bore bravely up his chin.
"am
"Curse on him ! quoth false Sextus; "Will not the villain drown ?
But for this stay, ere close of day " We should have sacked the town !
" Heaven help him ! " quoth Lars Porsena, " And bring him safe to shore ;
For such a gallant feat of arms Was never seen before. "
LXIV.
And now he feels the bottom ; Now on dry earth he stands ;
Now round him throng the Fathers To press his gory hands ;
And now, with shouts and clapping, And noise of weeping loud,
IIORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.
He enters through the Kiver Gate, Borne by the joyous crowd.
LXV.
They gave him of the corn land, That was of public right,
As much as two strong oxen
Could plow from morn till night ;
And they made a molten image, And set it up on high,
And there it stands unto this day To witness if I lie.
lxvi.
It stands in the Comitium Plain for all folk to see ;
Horatius in his harness, Halting upon one knee : And underneath is written,
In letters all of gold,
How valiantly he kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.
LXVII.
And still his name sounds stirring Unto the men of Rome,
As the trumpet blast that cries to them To charge the Volscian home ;
And wives still pray to Juno For boys with hearts as bold
As his who kept the bridge so well In the brave days of old.
IiXVTII.
And in the nights of winter,
When the cold north winds blow, And the long howling of the wolves
Is heard amidst the snow ; When round the lonely cottage Roars loud the tempest's din,
And the good logs of Algidus Boar louder yet within ;
THE POET'S FUNCTION.
LXIX.
When the oldest cask is opened, And the largest lamp is lit ;
When the chestnuts glow in the embers, And the kid turns on the spit ;
When young and old in circle Around the firebrands close ;
When the girls are weaving baskets, And the lads are shaping bows ;
LXX.
When the goodman mends his armor, And trims his helmet's plume ;
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom ;
With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.
THE POET'S FUNCTION. x.
By ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY.