English poet (1835-1913)
I daresay larks do not find much music in the thunder. But they have the sense to be silent when they hear the roll of that untrembling diapason that makes all things tremble.
ALFRED AUSTIN
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The Bridling of Pegasus
If the love and pursuit of literature do not make a man more independent in character, more disinterested in his reasonings, more elevated in his views, they will not have done for him what I should have expected from them.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
In all ages the disposition of the more prosaic minds—by which term I do not mean minds belonging to persons devoid of feeling, or even of sentiment, but persons destitute of the poetic sense, or of what Poetry essentially is—has been to incline, in works of fiction whether in prose or verse, to Realism pure and simple; and the present Age, thanks to the invention of photography and the dissemination of novels that seek to describe persons and things such as they are or are supposed to be, has a peculiar and exceptional leaning in that direction. The direction is a dangerous one, for the last stage of Realism pure and simple in prose fiction is the exhibition of demoralized man and degraded woman. In poetry, thank Heaven, that operation is impossible. No doubt, it is possible in verse just as it is possible in prose, and perhaps even more so; and there are persons who will tell you that it is Poetry. But it is not, and never can be made such. Poetry is either the idealized Real, the realistic Ideal, or the Ideal pure and simple.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
It is for the best and highest interests of literature that those who love it before all other things, and cherish it beyond all other considerations, should nevertheless take a large and liberal view of what constitutes life.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Politics do not necessarily mean party politics, though in this country, at this moment, the one runs dangerously near to implying the other.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
A poet’s ideals of what women should be, and often are, is shown not only by what he extols, but by what he condemns.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
For nothing is more remarkable in the writings of pessimistic poets than the attention they devote, and that they ask us to devote, to their own feelings. Far be it from me to deny that some very lovely and very valuable verse has been written by poets concerning their personal joys, sorrows, hopes, longings, and disappointments. But then it is verse which describes the joys, sorrows, hopes, longings, and disappointments common to the whole human race, and which every sensitive nature experiences at some time or another, in the course of chequered life, and which are peculiar to no particular age or generation, but the pathetic possession of all men, and all epochs. The verse to which I allude with less commendation, is the verse in which the writer seems to be occupied, and asking us to occupy ourselves, with exceptional states of suffering which appertain to him alone, or to him and the little esoteric circle of superior martyrs to which he belongs, and to some special period of history in which their lot is cast. The sorrows we entertain in common with others never lead to pessimism, they lead to pity, sympathy, pathos, to pious resignation, to courageous hope.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
I should be surprised to find any one doubting that during the last few years a wave of disillusion, of doubt, misgiving, and despondency has passed over the world. We are no longer so confident as we were in the abstract wisdom and practical working of our Institutions; we no longer express ourselves with such certainty concerning the social and moral advantages of our material discoveries; we entertain growing anxiety as to the future of our Commerce; many persons have questioned the very foundations of religious belief, and numbers have taken refuge from conflicting creeds in avowed Agnosticism, or the confession that we know and can know absolutely nothing concerning what it had long been assumed it most behooves us to know. One by one, all the fondly cherished theories of life, society and Empire; our belief in Free Trade as the evangelist of peace, the solution of economic difficulties and struggles, and the sure foundation of national greatness; all the sources of our satisfaction with ourselves, our confidence in our capacity to reconcile the rivalry of capital and labor, to repress drunkenness, to abolish pauperism, to form a fraternal confederation with our Colonies, and to be the example to the whole world of wealth, wisdom, and virtue, are one by one deserting us. We no longer believe that Great Exhibitions will disarm the inherent ferocity of mankind, that a judicious administration of the Poor Law will gradually empty our workhouses, or that an elastic law of Divorce will correct the aberrations of human passion and solve all the problems of the hearth. The boastfulness, the sanguine expectations, the confident prophecies of olden times are exchanged for hesitating speculations and despondent whispers. We no longer seem to know whither we are marching, and many appear to think that we are marching to perdition. We have curtailed the authority of kings; we have narrowed the political competence of aristocracies; we have widened the suffrage, till we can hardly widen it any further; we have introduced the ballot, abolished bribery and corruption, and called into play a more active municipal life; we have multiplied our railways, and the pace of our travel has been greatly accelerated. Telegraph and telephone traverse the land. Surgical operations of the most difficult and dangerous character are performed successfully by the aid of anesthetics, without pain to the patient. We have forced from heaven more light than ever Prometheus did; with the result that we transcend him likewise in our pain. No one would assert that we are happier, more cheerful, more full of hope, than our predecessors, or that we confront the Future with greater confidence. All our Progress, so far, has ended in Pessimism more or less pronounced; by some expressed more absolutely, by some with more moderation; but felt by all, permeating every utterance, and infiltrating into every stratum of thought.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
No first-rate poet ever went mad, or ever committed suicide, though one or two, no doubt, have happened to die comparatively young.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Now on the summit of Love's topmost peak
Kiss we and part; no farther can we go:
And better death than we from high to low
Should dwindle or decline from strong to weak.
We have found all, there is no more to seek;
All have we proved, no more is there to know;
And Time could only tutor us to eke
Out rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow.
We cannot keep at such a height as this;
And even straining souls like ours inhale
But once in life so rarified a bliss.
What if we lingered till love's breath should fail!
Heaven of my Earth! one more celestial kiss,
Then down by separate pathways to the vale.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Love's Wisdom", Lyrical Poems
Now, as all forms of feeling, and most forms of thought, are reflected in the magic mirror of Poetry, it is only natural that gloomy views of existence, of the individual life, and of the world’s destiny should from time to time find expression in the poet’s verse. There is quite enough pain in the experience of the individual, quite enough vicissitude in the history of nations, quite enough doubt and perplexity in the functions and mission of mankind, for even the most cheerful and masculine Song to change sometimes into the pathetic minor. What I would ask you to consider with me is if there be not a danger lest poetry should remain for long in this minor key?
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Passing from the pages of Chaucer to those of Spenser is like passing from some cheery tavern where the ale is good and the jokes are excellent, but a trifle coarse, and the company diverting but a little mixed, to the banqueting-hall of some stately palace, where the wines and meats are of the choicest, where all the guests are of high degree, the women all fair, the men all courtly, and where fine manners and dignified speech leave no place for loud lewd laughter or even for homely familiarity.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Sensible men entertain a careful distrust of each, and devise and maintain every possible barrier against the selfish vagaries of both alike.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Surely music is not only the food of love, but of poetry as well.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The French Revolution, as is probably the case with every great political, religious, or social movement, was in its action partly beneficial, partly detrimental. It abolished many monstrous abuses, it propounded afresh some long-neglected or violated truths; and it gave a vigorous impulse to human hope. But it was perhaps the most violent of all the great movements recorded in human annals. Accordingly, it destroyed over much, and it promised over much. In all probability, action and reaction are as nicely balanced in the intellectual and moral world as in the physical, and exaggerated hopes must have their equivalent in correlated and co-equal disappointment. I sometimes think that the nineteenth century now closed will be regarded in the fullness of time as a colossal egotist, that began by thinking somewhat too highly of itself, its prospects, its capacity, its performances, and ended by thinking somewhat too meanly of what I have called things in general, or those permanent conditions of man, life, and society, which no amount of Revolutions, French or otherwise, will avail to get rid of.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
The poet, no doubt, has to learn by suffering, but having learnt, he has then, in my opinion, to help others not to be miserable, but to be happy.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
What may be called the first principles of poetry having thus been propounded, without any necessity for reaffirming them in the investigation of other conclusions yet to be reached, I may move on to what I imagine will be less familiar and perhaps more original in the search for "The Essentials of Great Poetry." If we carefully observe the gradual development of mental power in human beings, irrespectively of any reference to poetry, but as applied to general objects of human interest, we shall find that the advance from elementary to supreme expansion of mental power is in the following order of succession, each preceding element in mental development being retained on the appearance of its successor: (1) Perception, vague at first, as in the newly born, gradually becoming more definite, along with desires of an analogous kind; (2) Sentiment, also vague at first, but by degrees becoming more definite, until it attaches itself to one or more objects exclusively; (3) Thought or Reflection, somewhat hazy in its inception, and often remaining in that condition to the last; (4) Action, which is attended and assisted by the three preceding qualities of Perception, Sentiment, and Thought or Reflection. In other words, human beings perceive before they feel, perceive and feel before they think, perceive, feel, and think before they act, or at least before they act reasonably, though it may be but imperfectly, and though the later or higher stages may in many cases scarcely be reached at all.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus
Hush! or you'll wake her. Softly tread!
She slumbers in her little bed.
What do I see? A coffin! Dead?
Yes, dead at break of morning.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Dead!", At the Gate of the Convent and Other Poems
If Nature built by rule and square,
Than man what wiser would she be?
What wins us is her careless care,
And sweet unpunctuality.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Nature and the Book", At the Gate of the Convent and Other Poems
It will scarcely be doubted, therefore, that there does exist a real and a very grave danger lest Poetry should, in these perplexing and despondent days, not only be closely associated with Pessimism, but should become for the most part its voice and echo.
ALFRED AUSTIN
The Bridling of Pegasus