"
"To all the dear-bought nations this redeeming name."
A later poet--Coventry Patmore--wrote a far longer line than even
these--a line not only speeding further, but speeding with a more
celestial movement than Cowley or Crashaw heard with the ear of
dreams.
"He unhappily adopted," says Dr. Johnson as to Cowley's diction,
"that which was predominant." "That which was predominant" was as
good a vintage of English language as the cycles of history have
ever brought to pass.
TO LUCASTA
Colonel Richard Lovelace, an enchanting poet, is hardly read,
except for two poems which are as famous as any in our language.
Perhaps the rumour of his conceits has frightened his reader. It
must be granted they are now and then daunting; there is a poem on
"Princess Louisa Drawing" which is a very maze; the little paths of
verse and fancy turn in upon one another, and the turns are pointed
with artificial shouts of joy and surprise. But, again, what a
reader unused to a certain living symbolism will be apt to take for
a careful and cold conceit is, in truth, a rapture--none graver,
none more fiery or more luminous. But even to name the poem where
these occur might be to deliver delicate and ardent poetry over to
the general sense of humour, which one distrusts. Nor is Lovelace
easy reading at any time (the two or three famous poems excepted).
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