The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-07-24

THE EyGLIsH LoVE-sONG,
Love-song OF Man 10 the elimination of
the Love- Call OF Beasts and tho
Love-Note OF Birds.

BIRDS culminate in the loye-song Of man.
Indeed, it was with some lOve-intoxicated
aborigine that voice first became language,
and sound, speech; the first word was
loye-token, and the first sentence love
song. Naught but the master passion could
hrst have ayailed 10 loose mans stubborn
tongue to articgla:e uttersnce, and so lift
him above the speechless brute. The phi
lologers may laugh, but here, / venture 10
say, is the long-desired, long ught-for,
secret OF the origin OF language, and so of
literature a. well. From a single root
literature springs as q twin tree whose
diverse stems are prose ana poetry. The
earliest pastoral lOYe-song is this primeval
prose-poetry, this root form OF all literature.
Crude and uncouth as the primitive pastoral
is. IT yet affords the inspiration and model
fof the polished pseudo-pastoTal Of eras Of
refinement and luxury. Theocrtus, Virgil,
Msrlowe, Dryden, Prior, all adapt with
more or less success the sweet ard simple
strains OF the shepherds pipe 70 the full
organ and orchestra OF cultured expression.
The Elizsbethan song-writers attain as high
excellence rs Is possible in this essentially
artificial composition. Narlowe's 'Pas-
sionate Shepherd 70 his Love-" and Raleigb's
"Reply," are well known; and others, less
familiar, are quite rs sweet; for instance,
many of the songs Of Thomas Campton and
Nicholson Breton.
But the sweetness and strength OF the
Elizabethan lyric disappear in the rapid
pastorais Of the school Of Dryden and Pope.
Here We Gnd only stupid petTltcatiOns.
These frigid, conceited Odes and elegles,
these loose yers de socIete are mere hollow
and vain echoes OF echoes. limitations OF
limitations. Pastoral is thoroughly formal
and insipid till we come 10 the greatest Of
British love poets, who was himself rustic,
and whose verse IS the most beautiful and
fluent OF pastOrals. In all the range OF
English poetry the loYe-songs OF Robert
Burns are the simplest and sweetest, the
truest and tenderest. With bird-like force
and freshness they fall upon our ears and
touch our hearts. His best songs, High
land Mary "BOnnie Lesley" JEAN
"Mary Morrison" and score Of others,
represent the purest poetic utterances; that
melOdic expression Of simple emotion which
is the primitive essential Of all poetry. Inc
Pastoral Is the natural expression OF a
simple and rude age. while the Sonnet IL the
characteristic form Of lOye-sOng IN an era OF
culture. Both refined and unreiined emotion
bud and blossom into poetry, each after us
own kind: in the due course Of things we
have not only the Wild Rose, but also the
Jaequeminot. The sonnet is the character
istic and consummate flower Of the Renais-
sance spirit snowy, intricate, luxurious,
heayY-ordored, il stimulates and delights the
intellectual sense, ard by virtue or It's
thorough modern quality IL touches us both
strongly and directly. SDakespeare's SON
nets celebrate love which is so dubious
in its character, and they are 50 over
wrought with reflection, that we cannot
consider them as in any wise taking the
au,fn love that
his plays demand in dramatic literature.
Their closeness Of texture and fullness OF
thought are marvellous, but their condensa-
ton often comes perilously near obscurity,
and their intensity Is too often one OF cold,
and not OF beat. But Spenser Is Of quite
another order. He has not shakespeare
supreme greatness, he is not a mountain
oak in strength and grasp, but he is like the
graceful poplar which shoots high It's slender
spire OF boughs by some quiet stream,
Sponsors love sonnets, his Amoretti as he
calls them, have the same spirituelle senu-
business, the same winsOme grace and re-
fined simplicity which so charm us In the
"Faerie Queene." In them we find the
nayete, not of the rustic but OF the gentle
man.
IL Is a long leap from the Elizabethan to
Mrs. Browning, but the interim contains no
love sonnet of any great merit, with the
possible exception OF Hartley Colerdge's
$40 a Lofty Beauty, from Der poor hins-
man." The most cursoTy historian cannot
but be struck with the great falling on in
genuine and serious l0ye-song during this
half century. Where, for instance, does
TennysOn strike the true lyric love note?
We look in vain for it in Robert Browning,
or in Matthew Arnold. SwinburBe has
given Us some rather morbid loye-yerses
which have the lyric accent, but which he
himself AYERS 10 be merely dramatic; and
Rossetti has left us number OF noble
love poems, yet very few that are purely
lyrical. Among the minor poets and yersi-
fers of this end Of the century, real love
lyrics, true outpourings of heartloye, are
scarcely TO be found though the trivial aud
playful amatory poem, after the AleXan-
drian style is sufficiently common. Among
American poets, also, the loye-lyric Is sin
guarly rare. Longfellow, Bryant and
Whittier scarcely afford a single specimen,
and as for Lowell, You may count them on
YOUR five fingers. The reasons for this TN
happy state OF things are not far 10 seek.
Fierce competition in science and industry
leaves little time for romantic love, and IT
tends 20 become mere incident IN life.
The materialism and sensualism Of the time
also run counter 10 the pure love from which
alone true song can spring. 30 1t Is that
while our life may be, perhaps, not lOyeless,
ii is yet almost quite empty Of true love
song: but we may well believe that in the
next renvenation Of the race, due ere long,
the genuine loye-lyric VIII again HOW In
copious streams Of sweet and sincere song.
Hiram NJ. Stanley, in Arcadia tNlontreal).