can be fairly condemned. They often impart a crispness
to the expressions in which they occur.

The contriving spirit of the poet's language often results
in great complexity of construction. Complexity of construction
may be a fault, and it may not. It may be justified by the complexity
of the thought which it bears along. "Clear quack-quack
is easily uttered." But where an author's thought is nimble,
far-reaching, elliptical through its energy, and discursive,
the expression of it must be more or less complex or involved;
he will employ subordinate clauses, and parentheses, through which
to express the outstanding, restricting, and toning relations
of his thought, that is, if he is a master of perspective,
and ranks his grouped thoughts according to their relative importance.

The poet's apostrophe to his wife in the spirit-world, which closes
the long prologue to `The Ring and the Book' (vv. 1391-1416),
and in which he invokes her aid and benediction, in the work
he has undertaken, presents a greater complexity of construction
than is to be met with anywhere else in his works; and of this passage
it may be said, as it may be said of any other having
a complex construction, supposing this to be the only difficulty,
that it's hard rather than obscure, and demands close reading. But,
notwithstanding its complex structure and the freight of thought
conveyed, the passage has a remarkable LIGHTSOMENESS of movement,
and is a fine specimen of blank verse. The unobtrusive,
but distinctly felt, alliteration which runs through it,
contributes something toward this lightsomeness. The first two verses
have a Tennysonian ring: --