chorus in "Atalanta" the words have swallowed not the thought only but
the imagery. The poet's grievance is that the pleasant streams flow into
the sea. What would he have? The streams turned loose all over the
unfortunate country? There is, it is true, the river Mole in Surrey. But
I am not sure that some foolish imagery against the peace of the
burrowing river might not be due from a poet of facility. I am not
censuring any insincerity of thought; I am complaining of the insincerity
of a paltry, shaky, and unvisionary image.

Having had recourse to the passion of stronger minds for his provision of
emotions, Swinburne had direct recourse to his own vocabulary as a kind
of "safe" wherein he stored what he needed for a song. Claudius stole
the precious diadem of the kingdom from a shelf and put it in his pocket;
Swinburne took from the shelf of literature--took with what art, what
touch, what cunning, what complete skill!--the treasure of the language,
and put it in his pocket.

He is urgent with his booty of words, for he has no other treasure. Into
his pocket he thrusts a hand groping for hatred, and draws forth "blood"
or "Hell"--generally "Hell," for I have counted many "Hells" in a quite
short poem. In search of wrath he takes hold of "fire"; anxious for
wildness he takes "foam," for sweetness he brings out "flower," much
linked, so that "flower-soft" has almost become his, and not
Shakespeare's. For in that compound he labours to exaggerate
Shakespeare, and by his insistence and iteration goes about to spoil for
us the "flower-soft hands" of Cleopatra's rudder-maiden; but he shall not
spoil Shakespeare's phrase for us. And behold, in all this fundamental
fumbling Swinburne's critics saw only a "mannerism," if they saw even
thus much offence.