THE MENTOR, No. 44,
Famous English Poets

FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

By HAMILTON W. MABIE, Author and Critic.

JOHN KEATS

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Modern English poetry is rich not only in its quality, but in its variety, both of theme and of manner. The exuberant imagination and splendid profusion of Swinburne are in striking contrast with the restraint and clearness of style of Matthew Arnold; the fluency and narrative faculty of William Morris, with the strongly etched and powerfully phrased work of Francis Thompson and Henley. The classical dignity of Landor, the humor of Hood, the seriousness of mood of Clough (kluff), the pictorial genius of Rossetti, the fresh invention of Stevenson and Kipling, suggest the range of poetic production of an age not matched in wealth of genius since the age of Shakespeare. Among the throng of poets who made lasting contributions to English literature during the nineteenth century, six may be regarded as most representative.

Byron died ninety-one years ago; but, although there has been a great change in the way poets look at life and in their way of writing verse, he holds his place as one of the greater poets, not only in reputation, but in popular regard; and for two reasons,—he was one of the born singers to whom men will always stop to listen, and he was also a poet of revolt. He is not read in this country as Browning and Kipling are read; nor, on the other hand, is he neglected as Milton and Landor are neglected. His stormy nature and his tempestuous career add an element of personal interest to the claims of his poetry upon the attention of reading people today, and he is one of those men of genius about whom it is difficult to be judicial: those who like his work become his partizans, those who dislike him charge him with insincerity and immorality.

It must be frankly confessed that Byron had moments of insincerity, and that he often posed; but he was largely the victim of his temperament. Mr. Symonds has said of him that he was well born and ill bred. He had noble impulses, and he had the strong passions that give energy of feeling and vitality of imagination to many of the greatest men and women; but he had neither clearness of moral vision nor steadiness of purpose. He had great genius; but he was neither intellectually nor morally great. And yet he had such force of mind and eloquence that Goethe, (gay´-te) who was the greatest critic of his time, if not of all time, declared that the English could show no poet to be compared with him.

BYRON’S PLACE AMONG POETS

NEWSTEAD ABBEY

Byron’s Home.

BYRON’S MOTHER

From the painting by Thomas Stewardson in possession of John Murray.

What ground was there for an estimate which gave Byron a place by himself among English poets? “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” was a telling satire written by a confident boy of genius, effective in “hits” which the time understood, but defective in critical insight; “Childe Harold,” the early stanzas of which appeared after travel had inspired him, was a splendid piece of rhetoric which often attains a very noble eloquence. “The Giaour” (jow´-er), “Manfred,” the “Corsair,” “Lara” (lah´-rah), stirred an age which was in revolt against rigid and often artificial conventions. “Don Juan” (hoo-ahn´), like “Childe Harold,” is a poetic journal which lacks dramatic unity, but contains descriptions of compelling beauty. Some of the shorter pieces, like the “Prisoner of Chillon,” “When We Two Parted,” “She Walks in Beauty,” have the power of deep feeling when it becomes eloquent; while such stanzas as “The Isles of Greece,” scattered through “Childe Harold,” make history as moving as poetry.

LADY BYRON

The wife of the poet.

LORD BYRON

From the engraving by Lupton after the painting by Thomas Phillips.

Byron had richness of imagination rather than wealth of thought; he had a full-throated, operatic voice rather than purity of tone; he had splendor rather than clarity of mind; he had great natural force of genius rather than command of the resources of art. He was generous in impulse, enthusiastic in temper, and he loved liberty. It was the presence of these qualities in his nature, and his spirit of revolt, that led Mazzini (maght-see´-nee), to predict, “The day will come when Democracy will remember all that it owes to Byron.”

SHELLEY

SHELLEY’S BIRTHPLACE

Here the poet was born August 4, 1792.

SHELLEY AS A CHILD

From a copy by Reginald Easton of the Duc de Montpensier’s miniature of Shelley, in the Bodleian Library.

Shelley, too, was a lover of freedom; but of a freedom that was the breath of the soul rather than social or political liberty. He lacked humor, he bore no yoke in his youth, his father was a matter-of-fact and eccentric tyrant, and the boy of genius lost his way in a world which nobody helped him to understand. When one reads the story of his brief and confused career, of the shabby and immoral things he did, it must be remembered that he discovered how to fly, but nobody taught him how to walk. He was always a splendid, wayward child, to whom visions were more real than facts. He died at thirty, and his life was only beginning.

But what a splendid prelude it was! “Alastor,” the “Stanzas Written in Dejection,” the “Ode to the West Wind,” “The Cloud,” the immortal lines “To a Skylark,” are flights of poetry which reflect the splendor of the sky under which they seem to move as if impelled by wings. “Prometheus Unbound,” “The Revolt of Islam,” and other long poems show his hatred of tyranny, whether human or divine, his ardent passion for humanity. He was only at times a great artist: his verse often lacks substance and reality, and has the beauty and remoteness of cloud pictures. His critical faculty was obscured by the spontaneity and facility of his creative moods; but he had the power of