Pater Earthly

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Transcript of Pater Earthly

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, ,erc' Christa bel' s. Here again IS an

,,:,: .. ::J ,till t11c palace grew, , a:oe! 011 her drew

,\ \\' ,dkt slllall

hcrsdf withal, passed

,,'<JJ~" until at last w:ltcrgate,

:, '\' ,k' op.:ned straight, i,::!,' hO,lt,

':,', to Boat '. ,::, i1:,[ kndcr hands

·::,Lr of all lands, .:.rb gmt;' night.

, i :,;;.1115111 relieved against the ", lhd'l1lotive of The Earthly ','.1 t::rc,lc!S of sentiment arc

:' ,c,:\',iHllfCrs sets out fro111-.-- ' . , ',';;:.f;: l,lan lle is rao-ino­,0 b~'

.. " cury tile sacrament to - '. # ." . i" ','Ilh SlUlChcs of the sweet

::;: \'1111ething of Hellenic blithe­::: -' L,[,\' coast of France, through

<lils of the middle age, l ;:'cc·c'c'. \\'11icll by some oiw

,---- ,". age. There the t _ __~ ~

:: " iZ ',' l •.trLlIl,l' cGming across the .:,.::: .'t t:lc' cross and drinking Rhine : 'c'n:ll;lCllt arc confi'onted. ,>:,'rJt;' ,lIlci concentration in some

.• : It i, C,l,y to mistake the lengthiness .,. ~:' IlL!" is itself the first condition of

,''':J.''phnic eflects, The water is not ".,' \'irtues. because a tew drops of it

:1I1d swim in. The songs 'The ::<:-interludes, especially those of April

. detach themselves bv their ~\:-::c.e dunce,

THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

Cc)llcentrated s\veetness from the rest of the book. Partly because in :'(rf..'Ct story-telling like this the manner rises and falls with the story

'Atalanta's Race,' 'The Man born to be King,' 'The Story of Cupid and Psyche,' and in 'The Doom of King Acrisius,' the episode "f Danae and the shower of gold, have in a pre-eminent degl"~ \\'hat :' characteristic of the whole book, the loveliness of things newly \\' with fresh water; and this clarity and chasteness, mere mnlities :lcrc' of an exquisite art, remind one tb~t the eflectual presery ,~, cf all ruriry is pertect taste.

One characteristic of the pagan spirit these new poems hayc' \-.l1ich ;, on their surt.lcc-the continual suggestion, pensivc or p""j,y"te, of :iIc shortness oflife; this is contrasted with the bloom of the \\,),'\i and ;::i\'Cs new seduction to it; the sense of death and the desire or' b.\\uty; ;he desire of beauty quickened by the sense death.' Arri.rJ you say, 'here in a tangible form we have the defect of all poetry l:'~~' this. The modern world is in possession of truths; what but a passin; smile CJn it havc a kind of poetry \\·hich, asslIming artistic k.,my of :~mn to an end in itselt~ passes those truths and the Ii\' in­",Tests ,vhich arc connected with them, to spend a thousand ,'.ires ill

lIing once more these pagan t.lbles as if it had but to chOOSe' ktween ,1 more and a bealltifi.ll shadow?' I t is a str:lllge transition the ",Jrthly paradise to the sad-co\~urc·d \\'orId abstLlct . But Lt us accept the challClwe'; let lIS 'Cc' \\. lllOJLTIl it is sincere, really "'say about hlll1Llll life and tlll' truti: \'.',' em

.1tuin in it, and the rclation of this to thc desire of beauty.

T c) regard all things and principles of things as inconstant llh)des or f1shions has morc and 1110re become the tendency of modern thc1ugllt. Ll't us begin with that which is withollt,-our physical life. Lx upon It in one of its more exquisite intervals-the momcnt, l!lSUltCe, delicious recoil the Hooel of water in S1Il1l11H'[ heat. \Yh"t is the wholL' physical life in that moment but a combination ():' !1.]cural c1clllents to which science giyes their l1:l111eS' But thos,' l:;,'::ldltS,

l'hu,phorus and lime, amI delicatc fibres, are present Ilot in t11: human l'c)dy alone; we detrct them in phces most remote from ;', Our })i1picallitc is a perpetual motion of them-the passage of blood, the wasting and repairing of the lenses of the eye, the llloditiction of the' tissues of the brain by every ray of light and sOlJnd -pr0cesses \\ llich science reduces to simpler and more clementary forc('\, L:ke the l·Llllc'nts of which wc arc composed, the action of these forces extends

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