Its images are rich rather in physical than in moral
beauty. And this tendency in Song is the true one. It is chiefly, if
we are not mistaken- it is chiefly amid forms of physical loveliness
(we use the word forms in its widest sense as embracing
modifications of sound and colour) that the soul seeks the realisation
of its dreams of BEAUTY. It is to her demand in this sense especially,
that the poet, who is wise, will most frequently and most earnestly
respond.
"The Children of the Lord's Supper" is, beyond doubt, a true and
most beautiful poem in great part, while, in some particulars, it is
too metaphysical to have any pretension to the name. We have already
objected, briefly, to its metre- the ordinary Latin or Greek
Hexameter-dactyls and spondees at random, with a spondee in
conclusion. We maintain that the hexameter can never be introduced
into our language, from the nature of that language itself. This
rhythm demands, for English ears, a preponderance of natural spondees.
Our tongue has few. Not only does the Latin and Greek, with the
Swedish, and some others, abound in them; but the Greek and Roman
ear had become reconciled (why or how is unknown) to the reception
of artificial spondees- that is to say, spondaic words formed partly
of one word and partly of another, or from an excised part of one
word.
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