Shall pass to leave thee purer than before. O Mother of a fated fleeting host Conceived in the past days of sin, and born Each new discernment of the undying ones, Not whirling in their narrow rings of foam, Now may'st thou gather humankind in fee: And bleeding lead us thro' the troubles of the sea. THE EARL OF LYTTON [EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON, first Earl of Lytton, son of the well-known Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron. Born 1834; educated at Harrow and Bonn; married 1864 Edith, eldest daughter of the Hon. Edward Villiers; died suddenly in Paris, 1891. From 1862 onwards he held many diplomatic appointments; was Viceroy of India 1876, and Ambassador in Paris from 1887 till his death. Published in 1855 Clytemnestra and other Poems (this and some other volumes under the name "Owen Meredith"); 1857, The Wanderer; at intervals, Lucile, Fables in Song, King Poppy, and in 1885 Glenaveril, in two volumes.] The first Earl of Lytton is an example of a combination rare in modern times-that of the politician, diplomatist, and administrator with the poet and man of letters. Such combinations were common three centuries ago, but in our day union of such different functions is apt to make people sceptical as to a man's fitness for either. So, as Lord Lytton's daughter, Lady Betty Balfour, points out in her introduction to a selection from his poems, when he was made Viceroy of India some critics doubted whether a poet could govern, and others doubted whether a ruler could be a good poet. We are not here called upon to declare for or against his success as administrator and ambassador; our concern is with his poetry alone. It is true, however, as his daughter remarks, that the circumstances of his career were in some respects against him as a poet. It is not easy for an exile to keep in touch with his home audience; if he is a man of books, books come more and more to be his substitute for the realities of life, as they, and meditation upon them, certainly did in Lord Lytton's case. Hence his later poems, and especially the too long Glenaveril, had far less success than those volumes which "Owen Meredith" had published twenty or thirty years before. But faulty as they were, these later works contained many memorable lines, and they were, what the early works had not always been, original. Here we touch upon the objection which used to be commonly laid against the volumes previous to Fables in Song. Mrs. Browning, in a letter to the author, wrote, "You sympathise too much"; meaning thereby that he thought and wrote as others had done before him. Indeed, he depended too largely in these days upon George Sand, Victor Hugo, Browning, and many others; and what shall we say of a modern poet who could borrow the bestknown line of Marlowe and make Aegisthus cry out to Clytemnestra, 66 Make me immortal with one costly kiss "? But this fault he soon outgrew, and all the poems of middle and later life are free from it. Had our space permitted, we should have included in our selection a poem which throws a rather sad light upon the poetstatesman's view of the two careers between which his life had been divided. This poem, The Prisoner of Provence, is an adaptation of the story of The Man in the Iron Mask to Lord Lytton's own case; and, written as it was a few weeks before his death, it seems to show that he valued the outward glory of State positions as but little in comparison with what had been denied him— acceptance as a distinguished poet at the hands of the experts first, and afterwards of the reading public throughout the empire. [From The Wanderer] THE PORTRAIT I Midnight past! Not a sound of aught EDITOR. Thro' the silent house, but the wind at his prayers. I sat by the dying fire, and thought Of the dear dead woman upstairs. II A night of tears! for the gusty rain Had ceased, but the eaves dripping yet; III Nobody with me, my watch to keep, But the friend of my bosom, the man I love: In the chamber up above. IV Nobody else, in the country place All round, that knew of my loss beside, But the good young Priest with the Raphael-face Who confess'd her when she died. V That good young Priest is of gentle nerve, And my grief had moved him beyond control; For his lip grew white, as. I could observe, When he speeded her parting soul. VI I sat by the dreary hearth alone: I thought of the pleasant days of yore: I said "the staff of my life is gone: The woman I love is no more. VII "Gem-clasped on her bosom my portrait lies, VIII And I said "the thing is precious to me: They will bury her soon in the churchyard clay: It lies on her heart, and lost must be, If I do not take it away.” IX I lighted my lamp at the dying flame, And crept up the stairs that creak'd for fright, Till into the chamber of death I came, Where she lay all in white. X The moon shone over her winding sheet. Seven burning tapers about her feet, XI As I stretch'd my hand, I held my breath; I knew where to find her heart. XII I thought, at first, as my touch fell there, XIII 'Twas the hand of a man, that was moving slow O'er the heart of the dead,—from the other side; And at once the sweat broke over my brow, "Who is robbing the corpse?" I cried. XIV Opposite me, by the tapers' light, The friend of my bosom, the man I loved, XV "What do you here, my friend?" The man Look'd first at me, and then at the dead. "There is a portrait here . . ." he began; "There is. It is mine," I said. XVI Said the friend of my bosom, "Yours, no doubt, XVII "This woman, she loved me well," said I. He answer'd . |