At the first reading, this sentence against
inconstancy, spoken by one more than inconstant, moves something
like indignation; nevertheless, it is menacingly and obscurely
justified, on a ground as it were beyond the common region of
tolerance and pardon.
THE PULLEY
An editor is greatly tempted to mend a word in these exquisite
verses. George Herbert was maladroit in using the word "rest" in
two senses. "Peace" is not quite so characteristic a word, but it
ought to take the place of "rest" in the last line of the second
stanza; so then the first line of the last stanza would not have
this rather distressing ambiguity. The poem is otherwise perfect
beyond description.
MISERY
George Herbert's work is so perfectly a box where thoughts
"compacted lie," that no one is moved, in reading his rich poetry,
to detach a line, so fine and so significant are its neighbours;
nevertheless, it may be well to stop the reader at such a lovely
passage as this -
"He was a garden in a Paradise."
THE ROSE
There is nothing else of Waller's fine enough to be admitted here;
and even this, though unquestionably a beautiful poem, elastic in
words and fresh in feeling, despite its wearied argument, is of the
third-class. Greatness seems generally, in the arts, to be of two
kinds, and the third rank is less than great.
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