The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-13
And souls of men whose death

Was light to her and breath
Send word Of love yet living to the living mother.
1t is pity that Mr.. Swinburne should have
ushered in such lines with the following dog
gerel, which is about worthy of the grave
stone poet among the Fenians;-
Day to day, man to mao
Flights love republican.
He had few pages before given us:-
Light OF the light OF man,
Reborn republican,
and we were not SO we'll pleased with the jim
gle as to wish to have it repeated
Though there are not a few other passages
besides the two we have quoted above where
Mr.. Swinburne shows that he can write with
great beauty and great vigor, we cannot but
look upon the whole composition as food of
''efiluent" words Ito quote his own language),
''effused and shed" on the public. If Mr..
Swinburne has been at the seat of war-fill-
ing, for instance, the part of special corres-
pondent to the Telegraph during Mr.. Sala's
unfortunate arrest-we can excuse him great
deal. Many a man s brain has been turned
with less excitement before now. We should
be glad to find that he has had some such ex-
cuse as this for the following lines:-
All the lights of Il sweet heaven that sing together,
All the years of the green earth that bare man
Rays and lghtnngs of the fierce or tender weather,
Heights and lowlands, wastes and headlands OF
Dawns and sunsets, hours that hold the world in
Be our witnesse and seals OF things to be-
Lo, the mother, the Republic universal,
Hands that hold time FAST hands feeding men
Lips that sing the song of the EARTH that make re-
OF all seasons and the sway of day with night;
Eyes that see as from mountain the dispersal,
The huge ruin of things evil, and the flght
Large eXulting limbs and bosom godlike moulded
Where the man-child hangs, and womb wherein
Very lie that could it die would leave the soul
Face whereat all fears and forces flee away,
Breath that moves the world as winds fower-bell
Feet that, trampling the gross darkness, beat out
day.
In the first place, we cannot but think that
Mr.. Swinburne, though doubtlessly quite un-
consciously, borrows one, if not two, of his
rhymes from Mr.. Browning. The first and
fifth lines remind us somewhat too strongly
of the beginning of "The Grammarian's
Funeral, where ''singing together" ends the
second line and "each in its tether," the
fourth. If Mr.. Swinburne had contented
himself with merely borrowing from Mr..
Browning, we should not have raised much
objection. His meaning would have been no
doubt rather obscure, but with patient study
might have been found out The more, how
ever, we study the lines we have quoted, the
less can we guess what they mean. Is the
time that is held fast by the hands Of the uni
versal Republic, the same as the hours that
hold the world in tether? If so, we can only
suppose that it is somewhat involved way
of saying that the universal Republic holds
the world in tether; for if the Republics
hands holds the hours fast, and the hours
hold the world, it would seem to follow
that the Republic holds the world.
But, then, why should these hours that are
held fast be SO solemnly invoked to be wit
nesses and seals that they are held fast
And what about the hands feeding men with
might? 1t would seem to be the case that
the Republic universal caught the hours hold
ing the world of men in tether, and naturally
coming to the rescue arrested the hours with
one hand, and with the other fed the poor ex-
hausted world. Justice Shadows ''little
quiver fellow" could not beat this and we
wouldback up Mr.. Swinburne to say ''bounce"
against him or any one else in the world.
Happily for France, English words cannot
flood her quite so easily as Prussian soldiers.
Otherwise, in the straits to which the French
are reduced, we should expect to see Mr..
Swinburne's ode received with the same cries
that interrupted the States-General in 77S9-
''Du pain; pas tant de longs discours"