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The Poetry of

WOMAN-POET of the first rank is among those things which the world has yet to produce. Even the broken, beautiful strains which float up to us from Lesbos, tell of a singer whose lyre had few strings; whose voice, exquisite as it must have been, but few notes.

Only twice, I think, has Mrs. Browning achieved excellence-in "Sonnets from the Portuguese" and the "Great God Pan; " and when we have

work of so young a poet, they are, indeed, remarkable. Those qualities which stamp the work of her maturitythe quaint yet exquisite choice of words; the felicitous naïveté, more Italian than English; the delicate, unusual melody of the verse; the richness, almost to excess, of imagery-are all apparent in these first-fruits of her muse. And not less apparent are the mysticism and the almost unrelieved melancholy which we associate with Christina Rossetti's better-known poetry. Indeed, there is here to be found that youthful exaggeration of sadness, that perverse assumption of the cypress, to which a half-complacent, half-mournful poet of our own time has alluded—

"Our youth began with tears and sighs,
With seeking what we could not find;
Our verses were all threnodies

more or less.

But if no woman has grown to the stature of a Dante, a Homer, or a Shakespeare, it cannot be denied that, within the narrow limits imposed by her hitherto narrow range of vision, of emotion, of experience and opportunity, woman has produced work which will bear the severest test. The creator of "Come unto these Yellow Sands" need not have been ashamed to acknowledge,

Γέσπερε, πάντα φέρεις, ὅσα φαίνολις ἐσκέδας αύως; nor he who sang "Ye banks and braes of bonnie Doon," to claim as his own the tragedy-lyric of "Auld Robin Gray." If I may be allowed the paradox, there has been no excellent woman-poet, but much woman's poetry of excellence.

The name of Christina Rossetti stands high among the producers, of such poetry. With unusual opportunities of culture, breathing from the first an atmosphere almost uniquely favourable to artistic production, she had never to contend with those obstacles which are apt to confront her sex at the outset of a literary career. On the other hand, steeped as she must have been in strong and peculiar influences, she ran the risk of losing her artistic individuality. These influences, indeed, have left their mark on her work; but it is always her own voice-no echo-her woman's voice, curiously sweet, fantastically sad, which floats up to us as we listen to her singing.

Miss Rossetti was born in London, in 1830, of Italian parents. As in the case of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, her talent was a precocious one, and as early as 1847 she appears as the author of a book of poems, "Verses," dedicated to her mother, privately printed at the press of her grandfather, Mr. Pollidori, at 15, Park Villas East, Regent's Park.

This modest little volume, which may be seen by the curious in the Large Room of the British Museum, is introduced by a preface from the printer, who explains that the poems are printed by his own desire. As the

"The City of the Dead," the most important poem in the "Verses," contains many passages of great beauty, and testifies throughout to the strong imagination of the writer, no less than to her power over her instrument. A little poem, dated as far back as 1842, is interesting; it will, perhaps, be remembered by some that another woman-poet, a sweet singer, as undervalued in our day as she was overvalued in her own-Mrs. Hemans-chose the same subject for her first poetic effort. Here are Miss Rossetti's lines: -

In 1850, our poet, under the name of Ellen Alleyn, contributed several poems to the Germ, that wonderful little periodical whose career, as short-lived as it was glorious, is now a matter of history. Ellen Alleyn's verses have, with one exception, been found worthy a place in the latest edition of Christina Rossetti's poetry. "Repining," the longest, in some ways the most important, though distinctly the least réussi of them all, has never, I believe, been reprinted. Vague, mystic, melancholy, it contains passages stamped with the right stamp. I quote a few lines, which seem to me unmistakable, coming as they do from a poet of twenty :

"What is this thing? Thus hurriedly

Το pass into eternity;

To leave the earth so full of mirth;

To lose the profit of our birth;

To die and be no more; to cease,

Having numbness which is not peace."

The italics are my own.

with volume of poems.

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This was

It was not till fifteen years after the printing of the "Verses" that Miss Rossetti came before the public "Goblin Market, and other Poems," appeared in 1862, a dainty little book enriched by two beautiful designs from the pencil of her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. followed, in 1866, by "The Prince's Progress, and other Poems," also with two designs from the same hand, and, in 1872, by "Sing Song," a charming book of rhymes for children; and, in 1881, by "A Pageant, and other Poems." Besides the little masque of the months, which gives its name to the book, this last volume contains many poems of considerable interest, including a series of Petrarchian sonnets, written from the point of view of an imaginary Laura.

"Had the great poetess of our own day," says Miss Rossetti, "been unhappy instead of happy, her circumstances would have invited her to bequeath us, in lieu of the Portuguese Sonnets, an inimitable donna innominata, drawn, not from fancy, but from feeling, and worthy to occupy a niche beside Beatrice and Laura." Few of us, I think, would wish to have reversed the decree of Fate in this respect.

The list of Christina Rossetti's works includes, besides those mentioned, two volumes of prose tales, and several volumes of devotional pieces in both prose and verse. But it is with her poetry alone, and moreover with her best poetry, that I have to deal. This latter is undoubtedly contained in the two volumes of her maturity -"Goblin Market" and "The Prince's Progress." These, with but few additions or alterations, have been reprinted in one volume; and with this volume the general reader who wishes to make acquaintance with Christina Rossetti's poetry may content himself.

"Goblin Market," which occupies the first twenty pages of the book, is a whimsical fairy fancy, full of beauties, yet curiously unequal. Here and there, as in other productions of the poet, we are reminded of the magic notes which rang out for us in "Christabel" and "Kubla Khan;" though, indeed, the sweet music of our minstrel, weird, exotic, vaguely fascinating as it is, tinkles faintly within sound of those mighty strains.

For "The Prince's Progress," a vaguely allegorical poem of some length, there is not much to be said as a work of sustained imagination; it contains, however, occasional felicities, and concludes with a passage of such rare beauty that I cannot do better than quote some of it here. The Prince, who has been variously tempted to linger unconscionably long on his journey to his betrothed, arrives at last at the palace to find the Princess dead— worn out by waiting. Her maidens reproach him—

"Too late for love, too late for joy,

Too late, too late!

You loitered on the road too long,
You trifled at the gate:

The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate. . .
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate;
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.

"Is she fair now as she lies?
Once she was fair;

Meet queen for any kingly king,
With gold-dust in her hair.
Now these are poppies in her locks,
White poppies she must wear;
Must wear a veil to shroud her face,
And the want graven there;
Or is the hunger fed at length,
Cast off the care?

"We never saw her with a smile,
Or with a frown;

Her bed seemed never soft to her,
Though tossed of down;

She little heeded what she wore,
Kirtle, or wreath, or gown;

We think her white brows often ached
Beneath her crown. . . .

"Her heart sat silent through the noise And concourse of the street; There was no hurry in her hands,

No hurry in her feet;

There was no bliss drew nigh to her

That she might run to meet.

'You should have wept her yesterday, Wasting upon her bed:

But wherefore should you weep to-day That she is dead?"

But it is, perhaps, when she is least mystic, least involved when she is simplest, most direct, most human, that Christina Rossetti is at her best.

"A Royal Princess," while retaining all the writer's indescribable charm of manner, glows throughout with genuine passion;

"Shows a heart within, blood-tinctured of a veined humanity."

It is terribly appropriate reading for these days, the tale of the luxuriously-reared Princess whose castle is attacked by the starving mob. I quote, with reluctance

-for no quotation can give an idea of the beauty of this poem-the last stanzas :

"Sit and roast there with your meat, sit and bake there with your bread,

You who sat to see us starve,' one shrieking woman said; 'Sit on your throne and roast with your crown upon your head.'

"Nay, this thing will I do, while my mother tarrieth,

I will take my fine spun gold, but not to sew therewith,
I will take my gold and gems and rainbow fan and wreath;

"With a ransom in my lap, a king's ransom in my hand,

I will go down to this people, will stand face to face, will stand

Where they curse king, queen, and princess of this cursed land.

"They shall take all to buy them bread, take all I have to give; I, if I perish, perish; they to-day shall eat and live;

I, if I perish, perish; that's the goal I half conceive."

In "Maude Clare" is again apparent the dramatic power which gives life to "A Royal Princess." This little poem is worthy to take a place in our balladliterature, the traces of whose influence it so deeply shows. In a few vivid verses we are told how the

stately Maude Clare followed her faithless lover and his bride to the church, overwhelming the one with reproaches, the other with taunts :

"Take my share of a fickle heart,

Mine of a paltry love :

Take it or leave it as you will,

I wash my hands thereof.'

"And what you leave,' said Nell, 'I'll take; And what you spurn, I'll wear;

For he's my lord for better and worse,
And him I love, Maude Clare.

"Yea, though you're taller by the head,
More wise, and much more fair,
I'll love him till he loves me best,
Me best of all, Maude Clare.'"

which have been made familiar to us by their musical setting. Nor must it be forgotten that Miss Rossetti has been among the numerous writers of our day who have ventured frequently within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground. Many of her sonnets are good, but none, I think, of that supreme excellence which gives to such productions their raison-d'être.

There is a fatal fascination about sonnet-writing, to which too many of our poets have succumbed. The critic who objected to sonnets on the ground that they looked like bricks, was undoubtedly a crude person, but not altogether without his perceptions. Certain dramatic and descriptive qualities notwithstanding, it is as a lyric poet that Miss Rossetti must be classified; that is to say, if we are to occupy ourselves with terms and labels in the matter. Hers is, at best, a poetic personality difficult to grasp, difficult to classify. As with Shelley and Coleridge, she is at one moment intensely human, intensely personal; at another, she paddles away in her rainbow shell, and is lost to sight as she dips over the horizon-line of her halcyon sea.

A fervid human spirit; a passionate woman's heart; an imagination deep and tender; a fancy vivid and curious; is it to be wondered at that the poet in whom such qualities are met should elude the hard and fast measurements of the critic? Her muse personifies itself for us, an elfin sprite with iridescent wings, and eyes that startle us with their mournful human gaze.

I hesitate to pronounce what should seem to be meant for a verdict on Christina Rossetti's poetry, still less to indulge in prophecy as to its power of resisting the action of the waves of Time. If, indeed, the art be not always worthy of the artist; if the vessel, at times, obscure the flame within; if manner grow here and there to mannerism, naïveté to bathos, subtlety to thinness; it must be remembered how delicate, how fine, how unique is that art at its best. Christina Rossetti stands alone, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti stood alone. From the branches of a wondrous tree, transplanted by chance to our clime, we pluck the rare, exotic fruit, and the unfamiliar flavour is very sweet. It is not here the place for criticism of the author of "The House of Life." But of Christina Rossetti let it be said that if she is not great, at least, artistically speaking, she is good. AMY LEVY.

MANUTE the Great" (George Bell and Sons), by Michael Field, is in many respects a really remarkable work of art. Its tragic element is to be found in life, not in death; in the hero's psychological development, not in his moral declension or in any physical calamity; and the author has borrowed from modern science the idea that in the evolutionary struggle for existence the true tragedy may be that of the survivor. Canute, the rough generous Viking, finds himself alienated from his gods, his forefathers, his very dreams. With centuries

of Pagan blood in his veins, he sets himself to the task of becoming a great Christian governor and lawgiver to men; and yet he is fully conscious that, while he has abandoned the noble impulses of his race, he still retains that which in his nature is most fierce or fearful. It is not by faith that he reaches the new creed, nor through gentleness that he seeks after the new culture. The beautiful Christian woman whom he has made queen of his life and lands teaches him no mercy, and knows nothing of forgiveness. It is sin and not suffering that