e artless graces of a child seem mincing affectations in
a grown-up woman. But the poetry of this age has amply made up for any
lack of innocence by its sumptuous fulness, its variety, its magnificent
accomplishment, its felicitous response to a multitude of moods and
apprehensions. It has struck out no new field for itself; it still
remains where the romantic revolution of 1798 placed it; its aims are
not other than were those of Coleridge and of Keats. But within that
defined sphere it has developed a surprising activity. It has occupied
the attention and become the facile instrument of men of the greatest
genius, writers of whom any age and any language might be proud. It has
been tender and fiery, severe and voluminous, gorgeous and marmoreal, in
turns. It has translated into words feelings so subtle, so transitory,
moods so fragile and intangible, that the rough hand of prose would but
have crushed them. And this, surely, indicates the great gift of
Victorian lyrical poetry to the race. During a time of extreme mental
and moral restlessness, a time of speculation and evolution, when all
illusions are tested, all conventions overthrown, when the harder
elements of life have been brought violently to the front, and where
there is a temptation for the emancipated mind roughly to reject what is
not material and obvious, this art has preserved intact the lovelier
delusions of the spirit, all that is vague and incorporeal and illusory.
So that for Victorian Lyric generally no better final definition can be
given than is supplied by Mr. Robert Bridges in a little poem of
incomparable beauty, which may fitly bring this essay to a close:--_

_"I have loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet immemorial scents:
A joy of love at sight,--
A honeymoon delight,
That ages in an hour:--
My song be like a flower._

_"I have loved airs that die
Before their charm is writ
Upon the liquid sky
Trembling to welcome it.
Notes that with pulse of fire
Proclaim the spirit's desire,
Then die, and are nowhere:--
My song be like an air."_

Edmund Gosse.

Victorian Songs

"Short swallow-flights of song"

TENNYSON

[Decoration]

HAMILTON AIDE.

1830.

_REMEMBER OR FORGET._

I.

I sat beside the streamlet,
I watched the water flow,
As we together watched it
One little year ago;
T