later part, as a poet and an ally of Socialism, proved this to be
true. It seems to follow that the peculiarly level, lifeless, decorative
effect of his narratives, which remind us rather of glorious tapestries
than of pictures, was no longer wholly satisfactory to himself. There is
plenty of charmed and delightful reading--"Jason" and the "Earthly
Paradise" are literature for The Castle of Indolence, but we do miss a
strenuous rendering of action and passion. These Mr. Morris had rendered
in "The Defence of Guinevere": now he gave us something different,
something beautiful, but something deficient in dramatic vigour.
Apollonius Rhodius is, no doubt, much of a pedant, a literary writer of
epic, in an age of Criticism. He dealt with the tale of "Jason," and
conceivably he may have borrowed from older minstrels. But the Medea of
Apollonius Rhodius, in her love, her tenderness, her regret for home, in
all her maiden words and ways, is undeniably a character more living,
more human, more passionate, and more sympathetic, than the Medea of Mr.
Morris. I could almost wish that he had closely followed that classical
original, the first true love story in literature. In the same way I
prefer Apollonius's spell for soothing the dragon, as much terser and
more somniferous than the spell put by Mr. Morris into the lips of Medea.
Scholars will find it pleasant to compare these passages of the
Alexandrine and of the London poets. As a brick out of the vast palace
of "Jason" we may select the song of the Nereid to Hylas--Mr. Morris is
always happy with his Nymphs and Nereids:--

"I know a little garden-close
Set thick with lily and with rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy dawn to dewy night,
And have one with me wandering.
And though within it no birds sing,
And though no pillared house is there,
And though the apple boughs are bare
Of fruit and blossom, would to God,
Her feet upon the green grass trod,
And I beheld them as before.
There comes a murmur from the shore,
And in the place two fair streams are,
Drawn from the purple hills afar,
Drawn down unto the restless sea;
The hills whose flowers ne'er fed the bee,
The shore no ship has ever seen,
Still beaten by the billows green,
Whose murmur comes unceasingly
Unto the place for which I cry.
For which I cry both day and night,
For which I let slip all delight,
That maketh