It is the shadow of the supernatural that hangs over the king, and very
soon it must enshroud him. One of the most subtle and impressive of the
natural portents is that which presents itself to the eyes of Catherine
when the leaguers have first left the chamber, and the moon goes out and
leaves black the royal armorial shield on the painted window-pane:
And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
The window high in the wall,--
Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
Through the painted pane did fall
And gleamed with the splendour of Scotland’s crown
And shield armorial.
But then a great wind swept up the skies,
And the climbing moon fell back;
And the royal blazon fled from the floor,
And nought remained on its track;
And high in the darkened window-pane
The shield and the crown were black.
It has been said that _Sister Helen_ strikes the keynote of Rossetti’s
creative gift; it ought to be added that _The King’s Tragedy_ touches
his highest reach of imagination.
Having in the early part of 1881 brought together a sufficient quantity
of fresh poetry to fill a volume, Rossetti began negotiations for
publishing it. Anticipatory announcements were at that time constantly
appearing in many quarters, not rarely accompanied by an outspoken
disbelief in the poet’s ability to achieve a second success equal to his
first. In this way it often happens to an author, that, having achieved
a single conspicuous triumph, the public mind, which has spontaneously
offered him the tribute of a generous recognition, forthwith gravitates
towards a disposition to become silently but unmistakeably sceptical
of his power to repeat it. Subsequent effort in such a case is rarely
regarded with that confidence which might be looked for as the reward
of achievement, and which goes far to prepare the mind for the ready
acceptance of any genuine triumph. Indeed, a jealous attitude is often
unconsciously adopted, involving a demand for special qualities, for
which, perchance, the peculiar character of the past success has created
an appetite, or obedience to certain arbitrary tests, which, though
passively present in the recognised work, have grown mainly out of
critical analysis of it, and are neither radical nor essential. Where,
moreover, such conspicuous success has been followed by an interval
of years distinguished by no signal effort, the sceptical bias of the
public mind sometimes complacently settles into a conviction (grateful
alike to its pride and envy, whilst consciously hurtful to its more
generous impulses), that the man who made it lived once indeed upon the
mountains, but has at length come down to dwell finally upon the plain.
Literary biography furnishes abundant examples of this imperfection
of character, a foible, indeed, which in its multiform manifestations,
probably goes as far as anything else to interfere with the formation of