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4
INTRODUCTION
opaline of verse peculiarly his own; his mannerism in
diction and style is chiefly a thing of his fascination with
these elementary phases of matter and sensation which are
more abstractions of motion, hue and luminousness than
simple objects of sight and hearings
As is well known, it is above all the sea to which
Swinburne’s poetry for ever returns for inspiration. He
has sung of the sea in all its moods and in every form
of motion and colour; and his poetry may almost be said
to have arisen out of its foam. It is particularly from two
points of view, however, that he places it highest of all
the things that he loves: when he describes the swimmer
and the sea, and when he sings of the sea as the mother
of England’s greatness and liberty. His patriotism and his
love of the sea are indissolubly and inseparably united.
The time of Elizabeth, when the Spanish Armada was
annihilated, and the first sea-victories of England won, is also
to him England’s greatest and happiest time, whose praise
he sings over and over again in the < Songs before
Sunrises, and particularly in the third series of «Poems and
Ballads» [1889]. — A rather interesting thing may be
mentioned here. When Shakespeare is aiming at some higher
or statelier effect he very often ends the scene with a
couple of rhymed lines; and just in the same way it seems
as if Swinburne in these cases was very fond of choosing
the sea as his last rhyme. Thus we find this to be the
case, not only in the sea-poems themselves, but also in
the Dedications of «Poems and Ballads I» and «Songs
before Sunrise»; further in the Armada of «Poems and
Ballads III», in Thalassius, «Tristram of Lyonesse», and very
many others.
The fourth principal subject of Swinburne’s poetry,
love, is intimately connected with his passion for the
elementary forces of life and nature. Love, with him, is not
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