In a land of sand and ruin and gold
There shone one woman, and none but she.
You see that Provence is the merest point of diffusion here. Swinburne defines the place by the most general word, which has for him its own value. “Gold,” “ruin,” “dolorous”: it is not merely the sound that he wants, but the vague associations of idea that the words give him. He has not his eye on a particular place, as
Li ruscelletti che dei verdi colli
Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno....
It is, in fact, the word that gives him the thrill, not the object. When you take to pieces any verse of Swinburne, you find always that the object was not there—only the word. Compare
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
with the daffodils that come before the swallow dares. The snowdrop of Swinburne disappears, the daffodil of Shakespeare remains. The swallow of Shakespeare remains in the verse in Macbeth; the bird of Wordsworth
Breaking the silence of the seas