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TABLE TALK
June 7. 1824
ОглавлениеLORD BYRON'S VERSIFICATION, AND DON JUAN
How lamentably the art of versification is neglected by most of the poets of the present day!—by Lord Byron, as it strikes me, in particular, among those of eminence for other qualities. Upon the whole, I think the part of Don Juan in which Lambro's return to his home, and Lambro himself, are described, is the best, that is, the most individual, thing in all I know of Lord B.'s works. The festal abandonment puts one in mind of Nicholas Poussin's pictures.19
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Mr. Coleridge particularly noticed, for its classical air, the 32d stanza of this Canto (the third):—
"A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers,
While, peaceful as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,
Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again."
But Mr. C. said that then, and again, made no rhyme to his ear. Why should not the old form agen be lawful in verse? We wilfully abridge ourselves of the liberty which our great poets achieved and sanctioned for us in innumerable instances.—ED.
