Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review

argument of the second book of the "Morte d'Arthur," comprising the pathetic story of the two ill-fated brothers, Sir Balan and Sir Balen. "The Tale of Balen "1 Mr. Swinburne has called his new rendering, which, so far as the story is concerned, is an exact transcript of the old. What has, it may safely be held, commended to him this before other stories, is the fact that it offers him an opportunity of glorifying his native county of Northumberland. “For,” says Malorye of Balin, as he calls him, "he was a good man named of his body, and he was born in Northumberland." It differs from some of the other legends in that there is no direct love interest, though some fine pictures of "fierce war and faithful love" are presented in its course. The story of Sir Balen from the moment when, obscure and in disfavour with Arthur, he draws the sword which none other of the court can release, to that when, through the change of shield forced on him by treachery, he inflicts on his brother Balan the death which he receives at his hand, is told with unswerving fidelity to the original.

MR. SWINBURNE'S TALE OF BALEN.

IN assigning to the story of the two brothers a poetical investiture,

Mr. Swinburne has, as in much of his later work, indulged in a metrical experiment. Mr. Swinburne alone is to be credited with the invention of a larger number of metres than all other English poets put together. In the present instance he has adopted a species of ballad metre, which is, of course, appropriate to the fable. By multiplicity of rhymes he, however, assigns it a gravity and solemnity with which the ballad is rarely endowed. The number of lines in each verse, as in the Spenserian stanza, is nine. In other respects the treatment is wholly different. Lines one, two, three, four rhyme with each other, as do lines six, seven, and eight; while lines five and nine rhyme together, and so vary the form of somewhat wave-like and monotonous beat. The opening verse, which is as fine as any other, will convey the best idea of the nature of the difficulty Mr. Swinburne has faced and the extent of his triumph :

In hawthorn-time the heart grows light,
The world is sweet in sound and sight,

Glad thoughts and birds take flower and flight,

The heather kindles toward the light,

The whin is frankincense and flame.

And be it for strife or be it for love

The falcon quickens as the dove

When earth is touched from heaven above

With joy that knows no name.

The melody here is long-drawn and dreamy rather than fervent, but the epithets have the old Swinburnian loveliness and justice, and the picture of the "whin," which is the northern word for the yellow furze, is exquisite.

BEAUTIES OF THE POEM.

T is impossible within reasonable limits to convey an idea of a poem the main portion of which is narrative. On beauties of description and execution it is possible a short while to dwell. Many of these are such as Mr. Swinburne alone can evoke. Here is a divine description of the land through which Sir Balen travels when going to join King Arthur at Camelot :

Along the wandering ways of Tyne,

By beech and birch and thorn that shine
And laugh when life's requickening wine
Makes night and noon and dawn divine

And stirs in all the veins of spring,
And past the brightening banks of Tees,
He rode as one that breathes and sees
A sun more blithe, a merrier breeze,
A life that hails him king.

In a different style, but splendidly vigorous, is the account of the two bravest knights of Arthur's Court, who strive vainly to wrest from its sheath the fatal sword destined to be Balen's bane :

Then forth strode Launcelot, and laid
The mighty-moulded hand that made
Strong knights reel back like birds affrayed
By storm that smote them as they strayed
Against the hilt that yielded not.
Then Tristram, bright and sad and kind
As one that bore in noble mind

Love that made light as darkness blind,
Fared even as Launcelot.

VERSIFICATION OF THE TALE OF BALEN.

NE more stanza I will quote in full for the purpose of showing the impetuosity of Mr. Swinburne's style in the warlike picture. The following verse depicts the charge upon Sir Balen of Sir Launceor :

As wave on wave shocks, and confounds
The bounding bulk whereon it bounds

And breaks and shattering seaward sounds
As crying of the old sea's wolves and hounds

So steed on steed encountering sheer

Shocked, and the strength of Launceor's spear

Shivered on Balen's shield, and fear

Bade hope within him quail.

At the outset the stanza fails easily or wholly to commend itself. It grows, however, upon us, and when we are steeped in and saturated with it we feel its resurgent strength and beauty. It has a soothing lullaby as of a stormy sea heard from a distance, where the beat of the wave on the iron-bound coast comes drowsily to one in shelter. In some subtle yet designed fashion, moreover, the whole poem has the atmosphere of Northumberland. We feel how, when they see The lovely stormy wings of snow,

The hearts of northern men burn bright
With joy that mocks the joy of spring,
To hear all heaven's keen clarions ring
Music that bids the spirit sing,

And day gives thanks for night.

I must not, however, quote the whole of the noble work, and will furnish only a few separate lines, the beauty of which can be felt even without the context. Such is the picture of youth when

Light and life and spring were one.

Who would not wish to hear

The music of the midnight, soon

To die from darkening star to star?

With which, contrast the time when

The sundawn's hour is nigh,

When rapture trembles through the sea.

Here, again, is a jubilant utterance :—

Only the might of joy in love

Brake forth within him as a fire.

The entire poem overflows with beauty, and is worthy in all respects

of the greatest of living singers.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

“I

AUGUST 1896.

THE SKY-PILOT.

BY MARY S. HANCOCK.

CHAPTER I.

AM the Resurrection and the Life." A voice broke into the pathetic silence of the churchyard with the words of eternal hope and triumph; a lark carolled somewhere out of sight in the summer sky; the glory of revivified Nature was everywhere-in the budding flowers and in the leafy trees. Long grasses began to wave; the branches cast pleasant shadows all around; and in the quiet walk a small procession followed Eleanor Deerhurst to her last lone restingplace. Poor Eleanor Deerhurst !

In the very moment of starting, when with thrilling distinctness the words of endless hope fell on the air, another voice broke in with infelicitous haste:

"When you've done, sir," it said, half aloud, "the corpse's brother wishes to speak to you."

Eleanor Deerhurst had already merged her identity in that of a mere "corpse" to the undertaker, while to her brother she had become, in a wonderfully short space of time, simply "the remains." Alas, poor humanity!

To the man who read the service of solemn committal-" dust to dust"-to the girl who listened, the scene was almost heart-rending. To him who followed it was indescribably perplexing. He had seen so little of Nell since she married Robert Deerhurst and went away with him into another sphere and another "beat" of life.

He was only a man of the hod in those days. Robert Deerhurst was a clerk, who wore a black coat all day long, and talked with