The Life of Thomas Hardy
hardly be said, however, to have attempted to carry on the Byronic tradition, despite his diabolical predilections for the things that seem bizarre and shocking to the sensibilities of modern society. Nothing could be more foreign to his nature as a poet than that air of the swashbuckling poseur so skilfully and successfully assumed by Byron. His temper was very different: very rarely indeed did he throw dignity and seriousness to the winds, and sincerity was his very breath of life.
His revolt against the optimism and superficial sweetness of his age reminded Mr. Gosse of Swinburne's similar attitude, but his reaction against convention and insincerity was, if anything, exceeded by his renunciation of the sensuousness so freely indulged in by Swinburne and the "fleshly school." Note what qualities in Swinburne he singled out for particular admiration in the tribute he wrote in 1909 (A Singer Asleep—in Satires of Circumstance):
When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay
Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes,
I walked and read with a quick glad surprise
New words, in classic guise,—
Fraught with hot sighs, sad laughters, kisses, tears;
Fresh-fluted notes, yet from a minstrel who
Blew them not naively, but as one who knew
Full well why thus he blew.
In poetic execution, also, these two poets exhibit the greatest possible contrast, Swinburne's delight in the
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