القرن التاسع عشر ، رقم ١٨٢، أبريل ١٨٩٢ [و‎‎٤‎٢] (٢٤٤/٨٨)

1892 LORDLYTTON'S RANK 573
R ubies anb P earls
1
All I had to give, I gave her. First my kisses, then my tears.
But the little one would have them not. ' What use are they ? ' she said.
Sad I went away, and dwelt among the tombs where days are years.
With the witch that gathers herbs there, and her children who are dead.
2
They and I became companions ; and their dusty shrouds were wet
With my flowing tears, and warm beneath my kiss their white lips burned,
Till the witch, whose grave-yard gatherings rare miracles beget.
Wrought my kisses into rubies, and my tears to pearls she turned.
3
But she drained into each ruby's heart from mine a drop of blood,
And a purity my spirit lost with every pearl that fell.
Then she laughed, ' Good pearls thy tears are now, thy kisses rubies good,
And the proper use of precious stones thy little one knows well.'
4
So I took my pearls and rubies to the little one I love,
She that loves me not. And, when her pretty eyes beheld them, wild
Beat her little heart with eagerness its pride in them to prove.
And she kissed and kissed me, weeping tears of pleasure like a child.
6
Still she wears them, still she shows them to her lovers with delight,
And her little heart would break, I think, if one of them were lost;
For the sweetest of its pleasures is the envy they excite,
And 'tis spoilt by no suspicion of the price that they have cost.
Heine miglit have written this, but surely no other poet of our
time or country.
Of Lord Lytton's place permanently in literature I desire to say
a word before closing this notice of his latest work. I would ask
myself, What is his true poetic rank ? How will he stand in history
among the singers of his generation, the poets of the Victorian age ?
Will his name be quoted as representative of these and of English
letters ? Will his work live ? Does it deserve to live ?
In answering these questions, I would say at the outset that,
while generally sceptical about the future of modern taste in most
arts, I have with regard to the art poetic a very fair confidence that
the critical faculty of the intelligent few (and these alone in our time
read poetry) is being developed in the right direction, and that its
judgments are sound. It happens of course, now and then, that mis
takes are made. Critics in the press are hardly ever quite candid or
quite unbiassed about their living contemporaries. Writers of an
inferior order are sometimes puffed for a while if they are personally
liked, and there is a not unnatural reverence for great living names
which carries even their worst work through the press in a chorus of
V ol . XXXI—N O . 182 EE