ANDREW LANG

(1844)

I count you happy starred; for God,
When He with inkpot and with rod
Endowed you, bade your fortune lead
Forever by the crooks of Tweed,
Forever by the woods of song

And lands that to the Muse belong;

Whether you dwell in March or May;
Or whether treat of reels and rods
Or of the old unhappy gods:

Still like a brook your page has shone,

And your ink sings of Helicon.

R. L. STEVENSON: To Andrew Lang

W. E. HENLEY

(1849)

O thou!

Uprise and take thy pipe. Bid music flow,
Strains by good thoughts attended, like the spring
The swallows follow over land and sea. . .

So is pain cheered, death comforted; the house
Of sorrow smiles to listen.

Once again—

O thou, Orpheus and Heracles, the bard
And the deliverer, touch the stops again!

R. L. STEVENSON: To W. E. Henley

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NOTES

PART I.

2. The great Emathian conqueror': Alexander the Great. 'Sad Electra's poet': Euripides.

8. When the Bard' : supposed to be spoken by the Scottish Muse.

12. Love the poet' this poem is complete, the omission of the asterisk being a printer's error.

13.

14.

'On a poet's lips': supposed to be spoken by a 'Spirit.' 'Where's the Poet?' This is one of a group of undated fragments given at the end of Volume I. of the Life, Letters, etc. (1848).' 15. Bards of Passion and of Mirth': written on a blank page before Beaumont and Fletcher's tragi-comedy, 'The Fair Maid of the Inn.' 18. In connection with these passages from Emerson, note the familiar lines at the head of his essay on 'The Poet':

21.

Olympian bards who sung

Divine ideas below,

Which always find us young,

And always keep us so.

'At last because the time was ripe': Aurora Leigh is the speaker.

23. Verily and thus': spoken by a poet.

26.

Those rare souls': spoken by the Princess.

32. The poet bends above his lyre': partly sung, partly spoken, by the Monk.

33. 'You cannot see in the world' in addition to this distich and the following quatrain (each complete in itself), note the lines in Allingham's Evil May-Day,' part ii., beginning

Words

Have melody and colour, and therewith

The Poet's art can build a lovelier world,

Nay, truer than the common. . .

Note, also, Allingham's 'Poesis Humana,' where it is said of the
Poet:

His gentle magic brings

The mystery of things;

It gives dead substance wings;

It shows in little, much;
And, by an artful touch,
Conveys the hint of all.

35. Song justifies itself': consult, further, Mrs. Pfeiffer's sonnet, begin

ning

Words that are idle with the songless crowd

Are as the poet's ripest deed, the fruit

And flower of all his working days, the suit
He weaves about his soul,

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38. Yes, there was a time,' and 'Poets are all who love': spoken by

39.

Festus.

He, with adoring spirit': spoken by the Muse (this is in Book XVI., not XIV., as misprinted). The poet, like that wall of fire': spoken

by Angela.

40. Bard, to God': spoken by Festus. The poet's pen' and 'Poets, I think': spoken by the Student.

41.

In the morning of the skies': see, also, in Mr. Gilder's 'Lyrics,' 'The Poet's Fame' and 'The Poet and his Master.'

42. Say not the poet dies': compare with this Mr. W. Watson's Lachrymæ Musarum'

The swords of Cæsar, they are less than rust:

The poet doth remain.

47. The Poet gathers fruit from every tree': see, also, the prelude to Mr. W. Watson's ' Poems':

The mighty poets from their flowing store

Dispense like casual aims the careless ore; . .

Reference may here be made to a few passages on poets, for which room could not be found in the text. Thus, there are the lines in George Daniel's 'Vindication of Poesy

Truth speaks of old, the Power of Poesy;

Amphion, Orpheus, Stones and Trees could move;
Men, first by verse, were taught Civility.

In Carew's 'Ingrateful Beauty Threatened'-
Wise poets that wrapt truth in tales,

Knew her themselves through all her veils.

In Browne's Britannia's Pastorals,' Book II., song ii.-
there is hidden in a Poet's name

A Spell that can command the wings of Fame.
In Vaughan's ' Olor Iscanus '-

Poets-like angels-when they once appear
Hallow the place, and each succeeding year
Adds rev'rence to it, such as at length doth give
This aged faith that there their genii live.

See, further, A Poet's Epitaph,' by Ebenezer Elliott; 'The Poet's Heart,' by Laman Blanchard; The Solitary' (Part II., stanzas, 2633), by Charles Whitehead Of Poets' (a sonnet), by Thomas Wade; The Poet's Book,' by W. Bell Scott; and The Skylark and the Poet,' by Frederick Tennyson, who says of the latter

He waves the air of Time

With thrills of golden chords,
And makes the world to climb
On linked words.

PART II.

49. HOMER. All realms': see, also, Chapman's address 'To the Reader,' prefixed to his translation of the ' Iliad,' in which he says of Homer

See him over-shine

All other country poets; and trust this,

That whosesoever Muse dares use her wing

When his Muse flies, she will be truss'd by his, ..

See, also, George Daniel's Essay Endeavouring to Ennoble our English Poesy,' and Browne's 'Britannia's Pastorals' (Book I., song v.), in which Homer is characterized as the Prince of Poets." Pope (p. 51) has a reference to Homer in 'The Temple of Fame,'

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and Akenside (p. 52) alludes in his 'Ode xviii.' to 'the generous
fruits of Homer's page,' 'The British Muse' (p. 52): Shakespeare.
'Homer with his nervous arms' figures in Keats's 'Ode to Apollo,'
as striking the twanging harps of war.' A propos of Hartley
Coleridge's sonnet (p. 54), consult his verses Written at Belle-
Vue, Ambleside,' and his sonnet on Wordsworth (No. xvii.).
George Dyer, in Ode xxxvii., says:

I love the bard, whose martial song
Thrills the full-sounding chords along;
How well agree the deep-ton'd strings
To slaughtering heroes, dying kings!

Mr. W. Watson, in his Lachrymæ Musarum,' speaks of Homer's soul as

healthful as the poignant brine,

Wide as his skies and radiant as his seas.

Mr. Andrew Lang, besides devoting sonnets to 'Homer' and to Homeric Unity,' has something to say of the poet in his 'Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope'

How his verses sweep!

Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep;

This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth,

Spurred by the West or smitten by the North,

Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all

Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall,

The next with silver Murmur dies away,
Like Tides that falter to Calypso's Bay!

57. HESIOD.-George Daniel refers to the Ascræan Pipe' in his 'Vindication of Poesy.'

57. SAPPHO.-See Akenside's 'Ode on Lyric Poetry' ('Sappho's melting airs'), G. Dyer's Ode xxxi.' ('the melting strain Of love-sick Sappho '), Mrs. Browning's 'Vision of Poets,' F. T. Palgrave's 'Poet's Euthanasia' ('the sweet lament of Lesbian love'), and Mr. Andrew Lang's Ronsard's Grave.'

58. ALCEUS.-'Alcæus' music clear-Lang, 'Ronsard's Grave.' 59. ANACREON.- Anacreon's song divine-Byron, 'Don Juan,' canto iii. See, also, Allingham's 'Anacreon's Grave' ('Thou dearest fondler of the lyre,' etc.), and Mr. J. H. M'Carthy's Anacreon.' 59. ESCHYLUS.-The other 'shade' is Aristophanes.

62. PINDAR.-Denham, in his 'Progress of Learning,' has an allusion to 'Pindar's lofty flight.' Akenside (p. 63) refers to Pindar in his 'Ode on Lyric Poetry' and 'Hymn to Cheerfulness.' In his 'Midnight George Croly (p. 63) speaks of 'Pindar's eagle wing,' and in his Ode xxxi. George Dyer describes 'Pindar's lyre' as deep-toned and various.'

64. SOPHOCLES.-' Oh, our Sophocles': Mrs. Browning also alludes to Sophocles in her Vision of the Poets.' Mr. Aubrey de Vere has a sonnet on Sophocles.

65. EURIPIDES. -' Pella's Bard' it was at Pella that Archelaus erected the monument to Euripides. G. Dyer, in his 'Ode to Melancholy,' calls Euripides' Pity's Bard.'

66. THEOCRITUS.-See Wordsworth's lines in 'The Prelude,' Book XI, Also, F. T. Palgrave ' On Reading Theocritus '

The soul of the Sicilian lives in song.

Says Mr. Lang, in his 'Ballade to Theocritus in Winter'
Theocritus! thou canst restore
The pleasant years, and over-fleet;
With thee we live as men of yore,
We rest where running waters meet.