Keble, says Principal Shairp, was, when tested by his own theory, a primary poet—that is, his impulse and treatment were alike original. The former of these statements may be granted with certain reservations: The Christian Year is an original book. The idea was an original one and a happy one, though Heber had made a similar attempt. To assign to each of the seasons of the Church a devotional commentary; to enrich the austere and narrow melody of the ecclesiastical tone—running, like its own plain-song, with a severe and plaintive monotony—with chord upon chord of rich and suggestive philosophy, was no ignoble thought. Indeed, the most apt comparison that can be found for Keble is to consider him as a skilful musician, embroidering and enlarging with intricate harmonies, a series of strict and uniform subjects. It is not, indeed, the highest form of art, but it gives scope for the exercise of a wide and tender skill. But Keble had no really original impulse; he required to have his ground-bass found for him, and he could construct a descant of admirable softness and delicacy, while underneath moved the solemn and measured music of the ancient tradition.
As to the originality of the form which he employed, it is impossible to agree with Principal Shairp; indeed, he vitiates his whole case by comparing Keble to George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. Was ever a more inapt comparison made? To begin with, Keble was neither a mystic nor even a symbolist. With George Herbert, and even more with Henry Vaughan, the outward sign, the ordinance, the ornaments of religion were weak and faint foreshadowings of some distant glory, some vast truth dimly understood. But to Keble the form, the ceremony, the material detail of service and sacrament were far too real and desirable. An instance of this is to be found in the poem on Holy Baptism.
Where is it mothers learn their love?
In every church a fountain springs,
O'er which the Eternal Dove
Hovers on softest wings.
What a failure of human perception! It is said that Wordsworth, once reading with admiration the above-mentioned poem, stumbled at the lines I have quoted—the statement that mothers learn their love at the font. "No, no," said the old poet, "it is from their own maternal hearts." Henry Vaughan could never have been betrayed into so intimately unreal a statement as this.
Again, as to technical treatment and form, it would be difficult to select two poets so utterly and radically unlike as George Herbert and Keble. The only point of resemblance is that they are both sometimes unnecessarily obscure; but in George Herbert's case this arises from a curious elaboration of expression, an intensity of compression, an omission of logical steps, a tendency to cram a sentence into a word; while in Keble's case, his obscurity arises from a kind of indefinite garrulity, a tendency to divergence on side issues, a vapid displacement of language.
The eye in smiles may wander round,
Caught by earth's shadows as they fleet,
But for the soul no help is found
Save Him who made it, meet.
What could be more inartistic than the disarrangement of the last two lines? No, the strength of Keble lies in the gentle lucidity of many of his finest poems, never in the arresting force of his epithets, never in intricate and ingenious conceits of language.
The real prototypes of Keble in English literature are Gray and Wordsworth. Keble on more than one occasion echoes the stately and majestic cadence of Gray. Could such a stanza as the following have been written without the example of the "Elegy"?
Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has will'd, we die?
Not even the tenderest heart and next our own
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.
And again, from the "Second Sunday after Easter":