THOU HAST NOT BEEN NOR ART!



There seemed to me a certain inconsistency as between the first and
last lines of this. I tried, with bent brows, to resolve the discord. But I
did not take my failure as wholly incompatible with a meaning in
Soames's mind. Might it not rather indicate the depth of his meaning?
As for the craftsmanship, "rouged with rust' seemed to me a fine stroke,
and "nor not" instead of "and" had a curious felicity. I wondered who the
"young woman" was and what she had made of it all. I sadly suspect
that Soames could not have made more of it than she. Yet even now, if
one doesn't try to make any sense at all of the poem, and reads it just for
the sound, there is a certain grace of cadence. Soames was an artist, in so
far as he was anything, poor fellow!

It seemed to me, when first I read "Fungoids," that, oddly enough,
the diabolistic side of him was the best. Diabolism seemed to be a
cheerful, even a wholesome influence in his life.


NOCTURNE

Round and round the shutter'd Square
I strolled with the Devil's arm in mine.
No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was

there
And the ring of his laughter and mine.
We had drunk black wine.