New-York tribune., 1918-05-18
Swinburne Relics
A Batch of Rejected Poems
Saved From a Uttered Desk

swnsrns sns Edited IL Edmund Sssaa@ Gosse. Sn'1Ss & p
soSn SnS Ihomas Tnn Slams, James Wise. PIP XVI is4 The
one approaches these relics of Swim
purne to be again dazzled, quite as in
those first glad days of discovery and
excitement now years away, by tech
nlque that has seldom known an equal
IN any art. There was nothing With
words that this miraculous virtuoso
could not do-nothing, one is tempted
TO say in the final disappointment of
tnr sn,s volume' save find great thoughts
Tor words to utter. But that is mo-
mentary irritation. We know now,
quite as clearly as we have come to
recognize our dashed hopes of another
shelley, that there are unouestioned
days. in the fifty years of Swinburne
writing, that there are enough great
stanzas IN his many pages, to yield a
sure start down the ages.
1t IS natural that there should be
rev OF these moments in this new
volume. 1t is waste ore that Mr.. Gosse
mas seen fit to smelt-verse that Swim
burne had himself rejected. There is
certainly scant reason in the name of
poetry for the WORT Swinburne nos
sessed the very human trait of allow
ing his desk to become Uttered with
odds and ends of his daily life and
Iaoors. When the point of suffocation
was reached and something had to be
gether and rolled it all up in a news
paper. Probably. like The rest of us,
he planned some day to sort out the
mess mes and destroy the most of it. Also
like the rest of US, that day never
came, and when he died, in 1909. his
room at The Pines in Putney-where
ms older years were passed in the
bosom OF the. much debated Watts
Dunton household-was found to be
crammed with these newspaper bum
oies. stlll neatly tied with string.
mr.. Gosse has united the strings
with discrimination. The volume has a
real justification in the confirmation it
sheds on great mans essential fail
ure. He has been accused of needing
others nspiration-and he was cer
talnly not creator of thought or
movement. Yet he was intensely per
sonal IN his style and utterance; It is
amazing to see how soon his tricks Of
verblage fastened themselves upon him.
Even his interesting Border Ballads.
done with the spirit of a reverent re-
creator of the past, show his unmistak-
abie personality 1t was not person.
ality that failed Swinburne so often.
but mind. great and original poets
mind either of observation or ref1ec-
ton.
Only one attack upon life shows con-
sistent vitality in this volume, and that
IS his lifelong hymns to physical
beauty. Not small item, surely. And
the fact read in connection with a
hint from Mr.. Gosse's introduction sets
one wondering. Mr.. Gosse tells Of
Jowett and Swinburne on a drive and
OF Jowett's remarking afterward. when
asked how Swinburne had behaved:
"Oh, he sang all the way-bad songs
very bad songs" Whereof Mr. Gosse
continues:
"The world is growing less and less
censorious and more and more willing
to be amused. Perhaps future editor
perhaps even we ourselves. NAV one
day venture in this direction, but not
yet" -'''
May that day come soon! Surely wa
have progressed far enough from mid
Vlctorianism to trust Mr. Gosse's taste.
And, recalling the great Swinburne
predilection and his gifts of language
and his relative failure. one cannot
help speculating. Have not stranger
things happened than that here should
perhaps be released poets true self.
and, thus, his greatest poetry? More
speed to Mr.. Gosse's courage and his
venture! G. p.