Page images
PDF
EPUB

Finds Fame in London

67

VI

wrote them. "I am the writer of those poems", he replied with tears in his eyes.

There was, of course, nothing to be done after this marvellous discovery but instantly to carry off the prize to Rossetti. They found him in his studio quite absorbed working from a model. He just looked up as they entered, gave a sharp little nod, and went on painting.

Allingham, however, walked up to him and said, "I have brought you the poet of Hazeldell bodily."

Rossetti dropped his brush, and with a face glowing with excitement cried, "You don't say so!"

He quite overwhelmed the bashful stranger with his joyous acclamations, adding, "How delighted Woolner would be, for he prizes your poems as I do!" In the midst of the jubilation Holman Hunt entered.

Now, Read had a most intense desire to see Leigh Hunt, and this being divulged to the two pre-Raphaelites, who were busy, they deputed Allingham to carry their visitor to Leigh Hunt and see that he was treated with

due honor. Leigh Hunt, however, was out: so they returned to Rossetti and Holman Hunt, and spent a grand evening together2.

VII

"The next time Buchanan Read came to us," Miss Howitt says, "we had perused his fresh and invigorating poems, and were delighted to see him again. And now, the ice being broken, we found him to be a very generous, grateful young man, possessing much original power and fine discrimination of art. He had been painting in Rossetti's studio, and in constant intercourse with his host, William Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Woolner. As the day of his departure to Düsseldorf approached, a great gathering of all the P. R. B.'s took place, to commemorate his last evening in their midst. They read aloud his poetry, made much of him, and told such capital stories that some of them rolled on the carpet with laughter. But although they remained together until four or five o'clock in the morning, they could not part with him. He prolonged his stay, and, as he absented himself in their company from his lodgings at Mr. Chap

Coventry Patmore's Criticism

69

man's in the Strand, it was reported that the pre-Raphaelites had carried off Read in a chariot of fire."

VIII

In the North British Review of this year Coventry Patmore, then in the height of his reputation as a poet and a critic, spoke of him as the most promising of living transatlantic poets, and declared that with the doubtful exception of Poe he knew of no one who had so much real feeling as was shown in some of Read's verses. His feeling was not very profound or masculine, but was real, and presented a refreshing contrast with the cold and clever manufactures which the most of his temper were imposing upon the world as expressions of feeling. He had a very high sense of natural beauty, and in proof of this the writer quoted "The Closing Scene", which was, he said, worth a whole album of "Excelsiors" and "Psalms of Life", and merited the fame which Gray's "Elegy" had attained without deserving it nearly so well.

IX

THE CLOSING SCENE

Within his sober realm of leafless trees

The russet year inhaled the dreamy air:

Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.

The gray barns looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a greeting to the mills,

On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

All sights were mellowed and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed farther and the streams sang low,
As in a dream the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.
The embattled forests, erewhile armed in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old,

Withdrawn afar in time's remotest blue.

On slumbrous wings the vulture held his flight;
The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint,
And like a star slow drowning in the light,

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

The sentinel-cock upon the hill side crew

Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,Silent till some replying warder blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.

Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young,
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,
By every light wind like a censer swung ;-

Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves,
The busy swallows, circling ever near,

The Closing Scene

Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes,

An early harvest and a plenteous year ;—

71

Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast, Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn, To warn the reaper of the rosy east,

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn.

Alone from out the stubble piped the quail, And croaked the crow through all the dreamy gloom;

Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale,

Made echo to the distant cottage loom.

There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers;
The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by
night;

The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers,
Sailed slowly by, passed noisless out of sight3.

X

Coventry Patmore died in 1896 almost forgotten, and the early work of the poet whom he lifted so high above Longfellow is little remembered.

In appearance what first struck a visitor was his size, or his lack of it. He was hardly five feet tall, and his wife was still smaller, so that their guests often felt as though they were taking part in a doll party. He was unconventional in his way, and Mr. Stoddard says of him:

« PreviousContinue »