English poet (1835-1913)
That politicians pure and simple are becoming less imbued with the literary spirit is, I think, certain, and it is to be regretted, because polite Politics are almost as much to be desired as polite Literature.
ALFRED AUSTIN
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The Bridling of Pegasus
When held up to the window pane,
What fixed my baby stare?
The glory of the glittering rain,
And newness everywhere.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"A Birthday", Lyrical Poems
Passing from the pages of Chaucer to those of Spenser is like passing from some cheery tavern where the ale is good and the jokes are excellent, but a trifle coarse, and the company diverting but a little mixed, to the banqueting-hall of some stately palace, where the wines and meats are of the choicest, where all the guests are of high degree, the women all fair, the men all courtly, and where fine manners and dignified speech leave no place for loud lewd laughter or even for homely familiarity.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The tendency of the times is to encourage writers, whether in prose or verse, to deal with this particular theme and to deal with it too frequently and too pertinaciously. Moreover, there is always a danger that a subject, in itself so delicate, should not be quite delicately handled, and indeed that it should be treated with indelicacy and grossness. That, too, unfortunately, has happened in verse; and when that happens, then I think the Heavenly Muse veils her face and weeps. It must have been through some dread of poetry thus dishonoring itself that Plato in his ideal Republic proposed that poets should be crowned with laurel, and then banished from the city.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Politics do not necessarily mean party politics, though in this country, at this moment, the one runs dangerously near to implying the other.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Now on the summit of Love's topmost peak
Kiss we and part; no farther can we go:
And better death than we from high to low
Should dwindle or decline from strong to weak.
We have found all, there is no more to seek;
All have we proved, no more is there to know;
And Time could only tutor us to eke
Out rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.
We cannot keep at such a height as this;
And even straining souls like ours inhale
But once in life so rarified a bliss.
What if we lingered till love's breath should fail!
Heaven of my Earth! one more celestial kiss,
Then down by separate pathways to the vale.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Love's Wisdom", Lyrical Poems
There are despotisms that are corrupt, or what is equally bad, vulgar and servile, without being brilliant; and I am not alone in entertaining the fear lest unadulterated Democracy—that is to say, the passions, interests, and power of a homogeneous majority, acting without any regard to the passions and interests that exist outside of it, and purged of all respect for intellect that does not provide it with specious reasons and feed it with constant adulation—should inflict upon us a despotism under which, again, there will be no room in the domain of politics for men of letters who respect themselves.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Though my verse but roam the air
And murmur in the trees,
You may discern a purpose there,
As in music of the bees.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"A Birthday", Lyrical Poems
Is the conclusion then that a pessimistic criticism of life necessarily makes a poet greater than another poet who criticizes it from an optimistic point of view? Not in the least. The consideration—we do not say to the positive philosopher, to the historian, to the moralist, but—to the disinterested lover of poetry, is simply irrelevant.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
For what is it that renders Hamlet so great and so powerful? Is it single lines of beautiful poetry? Is it detached passages of profound and elevated thought presented in poetic guise? These go for much, more especially when we consider them in connection with that of which they are the drapery. But what would they be, and what should we think of them, detached from the conception of the drama itself, without the plot, action, and progress of the piece, without the invention and unfolding of its characters, without its varied and forcible situations, without its wit, its irony, its humor? What should we think of Hamlet if divested of the panorama of moving human passions, of its merciless tragedy, and, finally, of its utter absence of moral so complete, that moralists have been for a hundred years wrangling what the moral is? These are the qualities, and these alone, which make great poetry and great poets.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The French Revolution, as is probably the case with every great political, religious, or social movement, was in its action partly beneficial, partly detrimental. It abolished many monstrous abuses, it propounded afresh some long-neglected or violated truths; and it gave a vigorous impulse to human hope. But it was perhaps the most violent of all the great movements recorded in human annals. Accordingly, it destroyed over much, and it promised over much. In all probability, action and reaction are as nicely balanced in the intellectual and moral world as in the physical, and exaggerated hopes must have their equivalent in correlated and co-equal disappointment. I sometimes think that the nineteenth century now closed will be regarded in the fullness of time as a colossal egotist, that began by thinking somewhat too highly of itself, its prospects, its capacity, its performances, and ended by thinking somewhat too meanly of what I have called things in general, or those permanent conditions of man, life, and society, which no amount of Revolutions, French or otherwise, will avail to get rid of.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
No first-rate poet ever went mad, or ever committed suicide, though one or two, no doubt, have happened to die comparatively young.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
But the decisions which men have to make in this world are not, as a rule, presented to them with the definiteness that gives artistic charm, as well as moral meaning, to a well-known masterpiece in the Palazzo Borghese. Between Sacred and Profane Love, between the love of literature and the pursuit of politics, the line is not, in practice, drawn so hard and fast as in the beautiful apologue immortalized by Titian. Loves that are altogether sacred and in no degree profane, are not, I imagine, frequently offered to any one; and though loves wholly profane and in no measure sacred, are, perhaps, not so uncommon, they are not likely in that absolutely coarse form to exercise enduring attraction over the finer spirits. It is the curious and inextricable amalgam of the two that constitutes the embarrassment.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The poet, no doubt, has to learn by suffering, but having learnt, he has then, in my opinion, to help others not to be miserable, but to be happy.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
I daresay larks do not find much music in the thunder. But they have the sense to be silent when they hear the roll of that untrembling diapason that makes all things tremble.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Hush! or you'll wake her. Softly tread!
She slumbers in her little bed.
What do I see? A coffin! Dead?
Yes, dead at break of morning.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Dead!", At the Gate of the Convent and Other Poems
Most patriotic verse, however spirited, is verse only, nothing or little more.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
What may be called the first principles of poetry having thus been propounded, without any necessity for reaffirming them in the investigation of other conclusions yet to be reached, I may move on to what I imagine will be less familiar and perhaps more original in the search for "The Essentials of Great Poetry." If we carefully observe the gradual development of mental power in human beings, irrespectively of any reference to poetry, but as applied to general objects of human interest, we shall find that the advance from elementary to supreme expansion of mental power is in the following order of succession, each preceding element in mental development being retained on the appearance of its successor: (1) Perception, vague at first, as in the newly born, gradually becoming more definite, along with desires of an analogous kind; (2) Sentiment, also vague at first, but by degrees becoming more definite, until it attaches itself to one or more objects exclusively; (3) Thought or Reflection, somewhat hazy in its inception, and often remaining in that condition to the last; (4) Action, which is attended and assisted by the three preceding qualities of Perception, Sentiment, and Thought or Reflection. In other words, human beings perceive before they feel, perceive and feel before they think, perceive, feel, and think before they act, or at least before they act reasonably, though it may be but imperfectly, and though the later or higher stages may in many cases scarcely be reached at all.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The permanent passions of mankind--love, religion, patriotism, humanitarianism, hate, revenge, ambition; the conflict between free will and fate; the rise and fall of empires--these are all great themes, and, if greatly treated, and in accordance with the essentials applicable to all poetry, may produce poetry of the loftiest kind.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
In Shakespeare, as we might have expected, the masculine note and the feminine note are heard in perfect harmony.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus