Moore, on the contrary, was a born erotic poet, of the type of our (Danish) Christian Winther. What the majority of love-poets are possessed by is the erotic passion; Moore's distinguishing characteristic is erotic fancy. He loves everything that is beautiful, exquisite, delicate, soft, and bright, for its own sake, without requiring any background to throw it into relief. He never tells any eventful story, never sets off by any strong contrast, never undermines by deep brooding. He loves the blossoms of the tree, not its roots. The objects which fascinate him, fascinate with the first impression; they are beautiful and bright; they dazzle the senses; they enthral the eye and the ear more than the heart; they are exchanged for other objects possessing the same qualities—there is a constant gleam and flutter. But all essentially erotic poets have butterfly natures. In this matter no more striking contrast can be imagined than that between Wordsworth and Moore. The former deliberately chooses themes which in themselves are insignificant, or unattractive, or even ugly, in order to endow them with a moral or spiritual beauty; the latter detests the sordid details of human life, recoils from all its adversities, and evades every moral with a Wieland-like smile and bow. When he is forced to give the ugly a place, he cannot resist casting a soft, glittering veil over it. His style has been blamed for its overweight of gorgeous adjectives, its propensity to let every passion lose itself in a simile, and its restless glitter and gleam. It has been called artificial in comparison with Wordsworth's. "Artificial!" cries one of his Irish admirers, "when every human being can enjoy Moore's poetry, whilst a new taste has to be created to enable one to enjoy Wordsworth's!" Is it really the case, then, we are led to ask, that study and a cultivated taste are required for the enjoyment of the natural, whilst only ordinary feeling is demanded for the enjoyment of artificial beauty? Wordsworth and Coleridge were poets for a cultivated, literary public; Moore was the poet for a nation. The faults with which he may fairly be charged are the consequences of his natural limitations, of his being a musician and a colourist, but not a draughtsman; he is incapable of drawing or describing a whole object, what he does is to paint the separate attributes of beautiful objects. He devotes verse after verse to the praises of a blush, a smile, the melody of a voice; instead of beautiful outlines he gives us a list of beauties. Employing Voltaire's clever definition of love—"nature's cloth, which imagination has embroidered"—it must be confessed that in Moore's love-poetry the embroidery is often so gorgeous and abundant that it hardly permits the cloth to appear at all. But the cloth is there, and is nature's.
And it is only fair to add that in Moore's best and most beautiful poems the over-abundance of imagery has disappeared. Where the true Irish melancholy has taken possession of his soul, it has blown away all the tinsel and found expression in imperishable language. The style of "Take back the virgin page" and "The last rose of summer" is as simple as their metre is perfect. There is not a simile in either of them. Nor is there a single simile in the beautiful little song which, in spite of its brevity, has for Ireland all the significance of a national epic—the simple song of the lovely young girl who, though adorned with precious jewels and with a beauty still more alluring, went without fear from one end of Ireland to the other, knowing that Erin's sons, "though they love woman and golden store," love honour and virtue more. ("Rich and rare were the gems she wore.") Of the man who wrote such a song Byron might safely assert: "Moore's Irish Melodies will go down to posterity with their music; and both will last as long as Ireland or as music and poetry."
Moore's was a happy life. At the age of thirty-one he married a beautiful and amiable girl, Miss Bessy Dyke; and their married life was a most harmonious one. He was not always in good circumstances, but after his fame was established, his works provided him with a handsome income. Though in the Grand Dinner of Type and Co. he makes the rich publishers (in the manner of the legendary warriors who after death drank mead out of the skulls of their enemies) drink their wine out of the skulls of poor authors, he himself had no reason to complain of his publisher, who offered him £3000 for Lalla Rookh before seeing a line of it, and gave him £4200 for his excellent Life of Lord Byron. Moore was held in equal honour by the Irish and English. In 1818 he was entertained at a banquet in Dublin by all the most famous literary and public men of the country, and when he went to Paris in 1822 he was fêted by the British nobility there. It was not till he grew old that misfortunes came upon him. Then he lost his health and had severe trials with his children. He died in 1842.
[XIV]
THE BRITISH SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
The poet Thomas Campbell, descended from an ancient Highland family, and born and brought up in Scotland, was, like Scott, an ardent Scottish patriot; he also felt warm sympathy for Ireland, and, like Moore, sang her national memories and sorrows; but he combined love of the two subordinate countries with an ardent and martial British patriotism.
He was, however, not only a national poet in the sense in which Wordsworth was one, but also, from his youth to his death, an enthusiastic lover of liberty. His epic poems and his ballads are not superior to corresponding productions of Wordsworth's; but he had true lyric genius. He is the Tyrtæus or Petöfi of the Naturalistic School. To him the cause of his country and the cause of liberty are one and the same thing, and in his best verse there is a spirit, a swinging march time, and a fire, that entitle him, if only for the sake of half-a-dozen short pieces, to a place among great poets.
His poem The Battle of the Baltic is, naturally, little calculated to make a favourable impression on Danes. His pride in the victory Nelson won over a force so much weaker than his own, but which the poem magnifies into the same size as England's, is the very extravagance of patriotism. But, side by side with this poem, and written at the same time, we have Ye Mariners of England, a masterpiece, in the rhythm of which we seem to hear the gale rattling among English sails. Here the true son of the Queen of the Sea, singing of the British sailor, celebrates his mother's praises.
Notice the rushing, sweeping force and exultation compressed into the last four lines of this stanza:—