To requote Alfred
Noyes, the poet knows that ideal love must be
Far off, beyond me, otherwise no star.
[Footnote: Marlowe.]
In _Sister Songs_ Francis Thompson asserts that such remoteness is
essential to his genius:
I deem well why life unshared
Was ordained me of yore.
In pairing time, we know, the bird
Kindles to its deepmost splendour,
And the tender
Voice is tenderest in its throat.
Were its love, forever by it,
Never nigh it,
It might keep a vernal note,
The crocean and amethystine
In their pristine
Lustre linger on its coat.
[Footnote: Possibly this is characteristic only of the male singer.
Christina Rossetti expresses the opposite attitude in _Monna Innominata_
XIV, mourning for
The silence of a heart that sang its songs
When youth and beauty made a summer morn,
Silence of love that cannot sing again.]
Byron, in the _Lament of Tasso_, causes that famous lover likewise
to maintain that distance is necessary to idealization. He sighs,
Successful love may sate itself away.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214