By 1889 Rossetti had become an absorbing interest, but Coleridge, in what F. T. calls his Pre-Rossettian days, "had been my favourite poet." Before Coleridge, Shelley.
An early poem not elsewhere printed, written on the anniversary of Rossetti's death, illustrates the closeness of his affection—
This was the day that great, sad heart,
That great, sad heart did beat no more,
Which nursed so long its Southern flame
Amid our vapours dull and frore.
. . . . .
Through voice of art and voice of song
He uttered one same truth abroad,—
Through voice of art and voice of song—
That Love below a pilgrim trod:
He said, through women's eyes, "How long!
Love's other half's with God!"
. . . . .
He taught our English art to gaze
On Nature with a learner's eyes:
That hills which look into the heaven
Have their fair bases on the earth;
God paints His most angelic hues
On vapours of a terrene birth.
May God his locks with glories twine,
Be kind to all he wrought amiss!
May God his locks with glories twine,
And give him back his Beatrice.
This day the sad heart ceased to pine,
I trust his lady's beats at his,
And two beat in a single bliss.
Of all Thompson's lines the second of the sunset-image—
Day's dying dragon lies drooping his crest,
Panting red pants into the West,
has been found the most ludicrous. No critic hesitated in condemning it, and your reader most often splits the line with a laugh, thinking the while of Hope Brothers. But the poet thought upon his own thought and upheld his line in face of the query marks confidently balanced on the margin of his proofs; he remembered Coleridge's—
As if this earth in fast, thick pants were breathing.
"Red" or "thick," there is little for the parodist to choose between them. Much closer borrowing from Coleridge, in which he pronounces the words and rhymes of his master but keeps his voice ringing high with personality, is found at the close of "To my Godchild." It is easy to know with what keen recognition he must have read Coleridge's "Ne Plus Ultra." He borrowed its weakest lines because he dared not borrow the strongest; they would not have become more famous on his hands. Coleridge's poem ends:—
Reveal'd to none of all the Angelic State,
Save to the Lampads Seven[31]
That watched the Throne of Heaven!