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Algernon Charles

Swinburne.

M

R. SWINBURNE, son of Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne, and grandson of Sir John Edward Swinburne, sixth baronet, was born in 1838, and educated first at Eton, and afterwards at Oxford.

Despite his ancient pedigree, his aristocratic connections, and his university education, the early writings of Mr. A. C. Swinburne, both in prose and verse, were coloured by Radical opinions of the most advanced description. Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Southey commenced thus, with results which should have taught him how unwise it is for a poet, who wishes to be widely read, to descend into the heated atmosphere of political strife.

The Undergraduate Papers, published by Mr. Mansell, Oxford, 1857-8, contained some of Mr. Swinburne's earliest poems, these were followed by "Atalanta in Calydon," "Chastelard," and "Poems and Ballads."

It will be readily understood that only a few brief extracts can be given from Mr. Swinburne's poems, sufficient merely to strike the key notes of the Parodies.

THE CREATION OF MAN.

BEFORE the beginning of years
There came to the making of man

Time, with a gift of tears;

Grief, with a glass that ran ;

Pleasure, with pain for leaven!
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite :
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,

And life the shadow of death.
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand

From under the feet of the years : And froth and drift of the sea;

And dust of the labouring earth; And bodies of things to be

In the houses of death and of birth; And wrought with weeping and laughter, And fashioned with loathing and love.

With life before and after,

And death beneath and above,

For a day and a night and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow,

The holy spirit of man.

For the winds of the north and the south
They gathered as into strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,

They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labour and thought,

A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;

With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,

In his eyes foreknowledge of death; He weaves, and is clothed with derision; Sows, and he shall not reap; His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

A. C. SWINBURNE.

AMERICAN PARODY. BEFORE the beginning of years, There went to the making of man Nine tailors with their shears, A coupe and a tiger and span, Umbrellas and neckties and canes, An ulster, a coat, and all thatBut the crowning glory remains, His last best gift was his hat.

And the mad hatters took in hand
Skins of the beaver, and felt,
And straw from the isthmus land,
And silk and black bear's pelt:
And wrought with prophetic passion,
Designed on the newest plan,
They made in the height of fashion
The hat for the wearing of man.

A POET'S VALENTINE.

BEFORE the beginning of post

There came to the making of love Rhyme and of follies a host; Ducks with a dart and a dove ;

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This passage was thus parodied by Mr. Austin Dobson:"For Mayfair's balls and ballets are over, And all the 'Season' of drums and dins;

The maids dividing lover and lover,

The wight that loses, the knight that wins; And last month's life is a leaf that's rotten, And flasks are filled and game bags gotten, And from green underwood and cover Pheasant on Pheasant his flight begins."

-:0:

The peculiar metre in which "Dolores" and the Dedication of the "Poems and Ballads" Volume are written, although it invites parody, is difficult to imitate successfully. The ending line of each stanza abruptly cut short is a trick in composition which few but Mr. Swinburne himself have thoroughly mastered.

The following stanzas from the Dedication will enable readers to perceive how closely they have been parodied by Mr. Pollock.

THE sea gives her shells to the shingle,

The earth gives her streams to the sea;
They are many, but my gift is single,

My verses, the first-fruits of me.

Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf,
Cast forth without fruit upon air;

Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf
Blown loose from the hair.

Though the world of your hands be more gracious
And lovelier in lordship of things,

Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious
Warm heaven of her imminent wings;
Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting,
For the love of old loves and lost times,
And receive in your palace of painting
This revel of rhymes.

Though the many lights dwindle to one light,
There is help if the heaven has one;
Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight,
And the earth dispossessed of the sun,
They have moonlight and sleep for repayment
When refreshed as a bride, and set free,
With stars and sea-winds in her raiment,
Night sinks on the sea.

"DEDICATION TO J. S."

This parody, dedicated to the notorious "John Stiles," of the old law-books, was written by Mr. Pollock, and originally appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette. It has since been included in a small volume (published by Macmillan & Co, London, 1875) entitled "Leading Cases done into English," by an apprentice of Lincoln's Inn.

WHEN waters are rent with commotion

Of storms, or with sunlight made whole,
The river still pours to the ocean
The stream of its effluent soul;
You, too, from all lips of all living

Of worship disthroned and discrowned,
Shall know by these gifts of my giving
That faith is yet found:

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