is
primitive; it does not follow that an English poet or a Japanese poet
should attempt only a return to primitive methods of poetry in detail. The
detail is of small moment; the spirit is everything. Parallelism means
simply the wish to present the same idea under a variety of aspects,
instead of attempting to put it forward in one aspect only. Everything
great in the way of thought, everything beautiful in the way of idea, has
many sides. It is merely the superficial which we can see from the front
only; the solid can be perceived from every possible direction, and
changes shape according to the direction looked at.

The great master of English verse, Swinburne is also a poet much given to
parallelism; for he has found it of incomparable use to him in managing
new forms of verse. He uses it in an immense variety of ways--ways
impossible to Japanese poets or to Finnish poets; and the splendour of the
results can not be imitated in another language. But his case is
interesting. The most primitive methods of Finnish poetry, and of ancient
poetry in general, coming into his hands, are reproduced into music. I
propose to make a few quotations, in illustration. Here are some lines
from "Atalanta in Calydon"; they are only parallelisms, but how
magnificent they are!

When thou dravest the men
Of the chosen of Thrace,
None turned him again,
Nor endured he thy face
Close round with the blush of the battle, with light from a
terrible place.

Look again at the following lines from "A Song in Time of Revolution":

There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for
breath;
They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow
of death.

The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of mirth;
As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of the earth.

The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its mouth;
The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of the south.

The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a breath,
In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the deepness
of death.

Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars undone,
The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the sun.

* * * * *

Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in its side,
A wo