On the carved western front a flood of light
Streams from the setting sun, and colors bright
Prophets, transfigured Saints and Martyrs brave,
In the vast western window of the nave;
And on the pavement round the tomb there glints
A chequer-work of glowing sapphire tints
And amethyst and ruby....”
Matthew Arnold has certainly made a striking picture in words out of the tomb and its figures, but again the poetry is plastic—that is, fitted for sculpture or painting.
So it is—to repeat and summarize—that the writer with his words shows things picturesque and sculpturesque—inadequately perhaps as compared with the plastic mediums, but nevertheless effectively; but not so the painter with his colors. The brush will not reveal and can scarcely do more than hint at things without form. It is perhaps possible for painting to be as clear-cut and as definite in its ideas as literature, but, as a matter of fact, it seldom is so. More often there is suggestion than realization, and the poetry comes to us in an almost indescribable feeling or sentiment of the painter. Indeed, the greater part of what we have called “pictorial poetry” lies in a glimmering consciousness of beauty, an impression that charms, a feeling that sways, rather than in any exact statement.
Now that word “feeling” is not a cant expression of dilettanteism. It has a distinct meaning in all the arts. In the presence of beauty the artist “feels” that beauty and is emotionally moved by it as you or I might be moved by an heroic action, a splendid sunset, or a fine burst of orchestral music. He responds to the charm and yet is not able to express his whole feeling, not even in words, much less in forms and colors. With all the resources of language and with all his skill in expression Tennyson is not cunning enough to tell the whole passionate tale of Arthur and Launcelot and Guinevere—the three who lived and loved and died so many years ago and now lie “low in the dust of half-forgotten kings.” All the heroism, the nobility, the splendid pathos of those lives, could not be put into words. Tennyson could only summon up a sentiment about them, and deeply imbued with that sentiment, he left a tinge of unutterable sadness in the poem which you and I feel and love, and yet can but poorly describe. We do not know it like a mathematical problem; we feel it.