|
|
Sonnets - To N. D. Stenhouse, Esq.
By Henry Kendall
Dark days have passed, but you who taught me then
To look upon the world with trustful eyes,
Are not forgotten! Quick to sympathise
With noble thoughts, I’ve dreamt of moments when
Your low voice filled with strains of fairer skies!
Stray breaths of Grecian song that went and came,
Like floating fragrance from some quiet glen
In those far hills which shine with classic fame
Of passioned nymphs and grand-browed god-like men!
I sometimes fear my heart hath lost the same
Sweet sense of harmony; but this I know
That Beauty waits on you where’er you go,
Because she loveth child-like Faith! Her bowers
Are rich for it with glad perennial flowers.
Extra Info:
Let me here endeavour to draw the fair distinctions between the great writers, or some of the great writers, of Scott’s day; borrowing at the same time a later name. I shall start with that strange figure, Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was too subjective to be merely a descriptive poet, too metaphysical to be vague, and too imaginative to be didactic. As Scott was the most dramatic, Wordsworth the most profound, Byron the most passionate, so Shelley was the most spiritual writer of his time. Scott’s poetry was the result of vivid emotion, Wordsworth’s of quiet observation, Byron’s of passion, and Shelley’s of passion and reflection. Scott races like a torrent, Byron rolls like a sea, Wordsworth ripples into a lake, Tennyson flows like a river, and Shelley gushes like a fountain. As Tennyson is the most harmonious, so Shelley is the most musical of modern bards. I fear to touch upon that grand old man, Coleridge; he appears to me so utterly apart from his contemporaries. He stands, like Teneriffe, alone. Can I liken him to a magnificent thunder-scorched crag with its summits eternally veiled in vapour? - H.K.
|
|
Printable Page
Add Your Thoughts on this poem.
This page viewed 638 times.
|
|
