New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-06-29
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
swINBURyEs NEW BOOK

SWINBURNES NEW BOOK.
A crN11rRy OF RoUNDELs. By ALGgRSoN CHARLES ca
swINBuRSE. LOnlen Chasto Whidns 1850
u safe 10 saw that no man whom tho world mas
agreed 10 consider great poet mas ever on.ioU
his Yeaders more extraordinary COLLECTION Oh 'e,so
than Mr.. Swinburhe's "CenturS oil kounde'S MS
"Tristram of LyOnessc and Other foefns' oi i"'O
year. contained Of the nobest INES ne nas e.oi
written. u is true that the Tristram was far 600
,ona We came upop page after page in which the
anthoy abandoned himself to his besetting SIN OF
nonrna ont beautiful words in faultless rhythm
like flood " hich overw helmed us for the moment
nv its sheer force of movement, but at ahe emu Oh
which we caught ourselves asking, "Nhat Is IL al
abouts" and were quite unable TO answer QUIZ own
question But we could forgive many sucn 'h''
when we CHANGED on passage hke these hoDi'' ""-
forgettable lines:
"They have the night vino had like us the DAY
We whom day binds, shall have the ns1' do lucy
We from the letters OF the light unbound,
Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound
All gifts but one the jealous God may keeP
From our SOUP longing, one he cahhoV-sleeP.
This though he grudge all other grace 10 prayer,
Tins grace His closed hand cannot choose but spare
THIS though His ear be sealed TO all tnat la'eu'
Be 1t lightly gwen or lOthly, God must gNe.
We as the men whose name on earth Is none,
We too shall surely pass out OF the sun;
Out of the sound an d eyeleSs nght Oh tnlngs, ;o,
W1de as The sfrech of lifes time-wandering wings,
Wide as the naked world. and shadowless,
And lopg-y as the worlds own WearihesS'
U.s. too when all the fires OF time are cold' IL,
The heights shSll hide us and the depths shall
hold"
In the Century of Roundes" we find no such
moving eloauence as chs and yet these TWO recent
volumes have in one regard more than ordinarily
close connection "Iristram of Lyonesse' MAKES
I'D less than hail of the last years volume; ana
large portion of the remainder is devoted TO that
passion which Mr. Swinburne seems to have su0sti-
of namely
love of children.
unfortunately for his readers Mr.. Swinburne Is
n bachelor and the only vent for what a phrenolo-
e1st would call his enormous organ of phlloprogen-
tiyeness is III song. Commencing with "Herse," III
last years book he pursues various infants through
thirty-two pages of mostly very poor poetry; ana
again. later on returns to his favorlte theme In =
Dark Month";" poem of nearly sixty mortal pages
in which he beIyais absence from home of q child,
understood to be the nephew of his friend Theodore
Watts with whom the poet has resided for the last
few years Tothis child Mr.. Swinburne seems quite
TO have surrendered his heart and no man eOuld
mourn the absence of a wife or sweetheart more
desparingy than our poet laments the worlds
eclipse when the beloved small boy went away on
visit The days of his absence are "thirty-one
pale maidens clad all in mourning dresses He
afrms that he is divided IRON heaven, and derided
pf dreams" lie sings Of
a month without sight of the sun
Rising, reigning, or setting
Through days without use OF the day.
W no calls 1t the month of May
The sense of the name is undOne
And the sound Of 1t lit Tor forgetting"
And again he cries out:
"As poor man hungering stands, with iusatiate
eyes and hands,
Void of bread,
Right in sight of men that feast. while his famine
Here, across the garden wall, can hear strange
Watch them play.
From the Widowed seat above. whence the good
her child love,
Is away"
And in the poem at the end of the volume, enti-
tied Sunrise" he celebrates the return of the same
beloved object.
For the sake Of this child he seems to have taken
all children into his heart; sometimes man
learns to honor all women through loving one. The
feeling is commendabe, though its results are now
and then somewhat ludlcrous, when, for instsnce
he addresses q poem to W. NJ. Il. and l.. X. William
Michael and Lucy RossettD on the birthof Twins"
April, on whose wings
Ride all gracious Things,
Like the star that brings
All things good to man,
Ere his light that yet
Makes the month SHINE, set,
And fair May forget
Whence her birth began, ,,
Brings as heart would choose,
Sound of golden news,
Bright as kindly dews
When the dawn begins;
Tidings clear mirth,
Sweet as air and earth
Now that hail the BIRTH.
Twice thus blest, Of twins'i
And in this fashion he pipes along for thirteen
more stanzas.
of bis own especial darling he writes not only in
"a Dark Month" but in Seven Years Old"
Eight Years Old" "A Child's Laughter" "A
ChIlds Thanks" A Child's Battles" "a Childs
Future" and in a poem called Comparisons"
wherein he maintains that no other child ever has
been or ever can be like this one. 1t certainly
would require an organ of philoprogenitivenessa at
least equal TO the authors carry the reader
patiently through all these rhymes
1t is the recurrence of the frequent theme,
Listarias ~, .,hiah