128 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



his harp has never been hushed, has never given forth a 

 tuneless note. In swift succession followed the lawless 

 beauty of " Poems and Ballads," immature in thought, and 

 nowise meet virginihus puerisque, but in execution perfect ; 

 the mingled trumpet-blast and organ-roll of "Songs before 

 Sunrise," and the other poems inspired by the same theme. 

 Scarcely a year has passed since then without fruit of his 

 exhaustless fancy, his wonderful versatility. Powerful 

 dramas, some of them of most portentous length, rhapsodies 

 of the sea, romance of Arthurian legend, echoes from the 

 lutes of old France, revivals of old Border ballad song, 

 marvellous achievements in forms of verse once exotic, but 

 now made English ; the apotheosis of the baby, the Armada's 

 triumph p^an — he has proved his strong pinions in all, and 

 has shown that he has soaring imagination, vigour of 

 expression, and staying power enough for the grandest 

 theme. A little cloyed with sweetness, a little surfeited 

 with melody, a little weary of high-pitched passion, a little 

 impatient of endless roundels and ballades and invocations 

 to his latest idol, the babe, we would fain see him rise from 

 sporting amid flowers and toying with antiques to crown 

 with a worthy wreath the head of that dear England whom 

 he has often hailed with song since eighteen years ago he 

 cried — 



" thou, clothed round with raiment of white waves, 

 Thy brave brows hghtening through the grey wet air, 



Thou lulled with sea-sound of a thousand caves, 

 And lit with sea-shine to thine inland lair, 



Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves, 

 And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare." 



Surely there is inspiration enough in her heroic past, " the 

 centuries of her glorious graves," in the Titan-tasks of her 

 present ; will her noble story not quicken, will the love of 

 her not uplift, a great poet to do for her what Homer did for 

 Hellas, what Virgil did for Kome ? 



When, twenty years ago, the tale of the " Earthly 

 Paradise" followed on that strong sweet poem, the classic 

 romance of " Jason," men became aware that the star of 

 Chaucer was re-risen, that such a poet story-teller had come 

 as England had not known for 500 years. William Morris 

 took the old-time legends of Greece and Italy, of the 

 Orient and the Northland, and married them to immortal 

 verse — verse flowing clear and limpid as an unpolluted 

 river, musical as a mountain stream. His strings were 



