H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e2 0 4are brittle. The slightest gust of reality, one feels, would bring this
brittle literary creation toppling to the earth.
Despite the fervour of the feeling, Swinburne’s language is notably
abstract. He uses general nouns like ‘leaf ’, ‘flower’, ‘fruit’ and ‘fire’.
Nothing is seen in close- up. Contrast this with a verse from Amy
Lowell’s poem ‘The Weather- Cock Points South’:
White flower,
Flower of wax, of jade, of unstreaked agate;
Flower with surfaces of ice,
With shadows faintly crimson.
Where in all the garden is there such a flower?
The stars crowd through the lilac leaves
To look at you.
The low moon brightens you with silver.The poet’s eye here is steadily on the object. The lines resonate
with wonder and admiration, but their emotions are kept in check
by the demands of precise description. The poem allows itself a
minor flight of fancy with ‘The stars crowd through the lilac leaves
/ To look at you’, but otherwise it subordinates the imaginative to
the real. ‘The low moon brightens you with silver’ makes it sound
as though the moon is paying homage to the flower, but if this is
fanciful it is also a statement of fact. Swinburne’s poem is full of
hypnotically repetitive rhythms, stringing together phrases with
too many syllables in them, whereas the rhythms of Lowell’s piece
are taut and restrained. There is a control and economy about her
language. Though she is moved by the beauty of the flower, she
refuses to lose her cool. Swinburne’s lines tumble hectically along,
while Lowell weighs and balances every phrase.