SWINBURNE’S NEW POEM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4172, 4 August 1874, Page 3

SWINBURNE’S NEW POEM.

(From the New York Ifwdld % June 7.) London, May 20. I have received an early copy of Mr. Swinburne’s new poem, “ Bothwell,” but in order to catch the mail I have no time to enter into elaborate critical detail, and can only give you a skeleton notion of the work and certain extracts from it. Mary, Queen of Scots, is, according to Mr. Swinburne’s idea, an embodiment of all that is evil—a fierce lover, a bitter hater, politic in her manipulation of those about her, but blinded by passion. Pace , Mr. Swinburne, there is no doubt of her love for Bothwell or of her concern in Darnley’s death. The poem is in five acts. It commences with Damley plotting Rizzio’s death, and concludes with Mary’s flight to England, after her escape from Loch Leven Castle. The dramatic force of the poem is intense, and in his love scenes Mr. Swinburne is as impassioned and, one may say, as repulsive as ever. There are fine passages on every page, the diction is severe and simple, and never dull. Here are some extracts. Mary has been ill at Jedburgh, and the Bishop of Ross has come to confess her. She says : I would have absolution ere I die. But of what sins I have not strength to say Nor hardly to remember. Ido think I have done God some service, holding fast Faith, and His Church’s fear ; and have loved well His name and burden set on me to serve, To bear his part in the eye of this thwart world, And witness of His cross : yet know myself To be but as a servant without grace Save of His Lord’s love gift; I have sinned in pride. Perchance, to be his servant first and fight, In face of all men’s hate and might, alone Here, sitting single-sceptred, and compel For all its many mouthed inveteracy The world with bit and bridle like a beast Brought back to serve him, and bound down to mo Whose hand should take and hale it by the mane And bend its head to worship as I bade, I, first among His faithful; so I said, And foolishly ; for I was high of heart; And now, behold, I am in God’s sight and man’s, Nothing : but though I have not so much grace To bind again this people fast to God, I have held mine own faith fast, and with my lips Have borne him witness if my heart were whole. Bishop of Ross—Therefore shall He forget not in your hour Not for his child reject you; and shall make The weight and color of your sins on earth More white and light than wool may be or snow. Queen.—Yea, so my trust is of Him; though as Scarce having in me breath or spirit of speed), I make not long confession, and my words, Through faintness of my flesh, lack form; yet pray you. Think it but sickness and my body’s fault That comes between me and my will, who fain Would have your eye look on my naked soul And read what writing there should be washed out With mine own heart’s tears and with God’s dear blood, Who sees me for his penitent; for surely My sins of wrath and of light-mindedness And waste of wanton will and wandering eyes, Call on me with dumb tongues for penitence. Which, I beseech you, let not God reject For lack of words that I lack strength to say ; For hero, as I repent and put from me In perfect hope of pardon all ill thoughts. So I remit all faults against me done, Forgive all evil towards me of all men, ]>eed or device to hurt me; yea, T would not There were one heart unreconciled with mine When mine is cold ; I will not take death's hand With any soul of hate or wrath or wrong About me, but, being friends with this past world. Pass from it in the general peace of love. One of her outbursts against Damley ; By heaven, I had rather death had leave than he. What comes he for ? to vex me quick or dead With bis lewd eyes and sodden sidelong face That I may die again with loathing of him ? „ By God, as God shall look upon my soul, I will not see him. Bid him away, and keep Far off as Edinburgh may hold him hence Among his fellows of the herded swine That not for need but love he wallows with To expend his patrimony of breath and blood In the dear service of dishonoring days. Darnley’s dream : . I dreamed this bed here was a boat adrift ' Wherein one sat with me who played and sang, Yet of his cittern I could hear no note Nor in what speech he sang inaudibly, But watched his working fingers and quick lips A.s with a passionate and loathing fear, And could not speak nor smite him ; and methought That this was David ; and he knew my heart, How fain I would have smitten him,’’and laughed As ’twere to mock my helpless hands and hate. So drove wo toward a rock whereon one sat Singing, that all the highest air of Heaven Was kindled into light therewith, and shone As with a double dawn; stars east and west Lightened with love to hear her, and the sky Brake in red bloom as leaf buds.break in Spring. But these bore fires for blossoms; then awhile My heart, too, kindled and sprang up and sang And made sweet music in mo, to keep time With that swift singing ; then as fires drop down Dropped, and was quenched, and in joy’s stead I felt Fear ache in me like hunger, and 1 saw Those were not stars nor over head was Heaven, But a blind vault more thick and gross than earth, The nether firmament that roots in hell, And those hot lights were of lost souls, and this The sea of tears and fire below the world That still must wash and cleanse not of one curse The far foul strands with all its wandering brine; And as wo drove I felt the shallop’s sides, Sapped by the burning water, plank from plank Severing : and fain I would have cried on God, But that the rank air took me by the throat ; And ever she that sat on the sea rock Sang, and about her all the reefs were white With bones of men whose souls were turned to fire ; And if she were or were not what I thought, Mescened we drew not near enough to know; For ere we came to split upon that reef The sundering planks opened, and through their breach Swarmed in the dense surf of the dolorous sea With hands that plucked and tongues thrust out at us, And fastened on me flame-like, that my flesh Was molten as with earthly fire, and dropped From naked bone and sinew; but mine eyes The hot surf seared not, nor put out my sense; Eor I behold and heard out of the surge Voices that shrieked and heads that rose, and knew Whose all they wore, and whence their wrath at mo ; For all these cried upon mo that mine ears Rang, and my brain was like as beaten brass, Vibrating; and the froth of that foul tide Was as their spittle shot in my full face That burnt it; and with breast and flanks distent I strained myself to curse them back, and lacked Breath ; the sore surge throttled my tongueless speech, Though its weight buoyed my dipping chin, that sank No lower than where my lips were burnt with brine And my throat clenched fast of the strangling sea,; Till I swam short with sick strokes, as one might Whoso hands were maimed; then mine ill spirit of sleep Shifted, and showed me as a garden walled, Wherein I stood naked, a shipwrecked man, Stunned yet and staggered from the sea, and soiled With all the weed and scurf of the gross wave Whose breach had cast me broken on that shore: And one came like a god in woman’s flesh And took mine eyes with hers, and gave me fruit , As red us Are, but full of worms within That crawled and gendered ; and she gave me wine, But in the cup a toad was ; and she said, “ Eat,” aud I ate, and “ Drink,” and I did drink, And sickened : then came one with spur on heel Red from his horse o’erriden, smeared with dust, And took my hand to lead me as to rest. Being bruised yet from the sea breach ; and his hand Was as of molten iron wherein mine Was as a brand in fire ; and at his feet The earth split, and I saw within the gulf. As in clear water mine own writhen face, Eaten of worms and living; then I woke. John Knox inveighs against the Queen : Nay, then in God’s name, If that false word fell unfulfilled of mine, Hoed ye not now nor hear mo when I say That for the woman’s sake shall God cut off . The hand that spares her as the hand that shieHs, And make their memory who take part with her As their’s who stood for Baal against the Lord With Ahab’s daughter. “Bothwell” wall raise Mr. Swinburne’s reputation, but will make him detested by those who espoused Queen Mary’s cause.