Adventures in Criticism

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Somebody—I forget for the moment who it was—compared Poetry with Antæus, who was strong when his feet touched Earth, his mother; weaker when held aloft in air. The justice of this criticism I have no space here to discuss; but the difference is patent enough between poetry such as this of Herrick—

"When as in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes."

Or this, of Burns—

"The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith,
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry,
The boat rides by the Berwick-law,
And I maun leave my bonny Mary."

Or this, of Shakespeare—

"When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight."

Or this, of Milton—

"the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb,
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno...."

And such lines as these by Mr. Swinburne—

"The dark dumb godhead innate in the fair world's life
Imbues the rapture of dawn and of noon with dread,
Infects the peace of the star-shod night with strife,
Informs with terror the sorrow that guards the dead.
No service of bended knee or of humbled head
May soothe or subdue the God who has change to wife:
And life with death is as morning with evening wed."