'You are my well-loved earth, forever fresh,
Forever prodigal, forever fond,
As, from the sweet fulfilment of the flesh,
I reach beyond.'"
Noting that Warble was still awake, Petticoat discoursed:
"In the first line, we note the influence of Swinburne. There could be no
better start out. The Swinburne collocation of delicate bosom and death
is both arrestive and interesting. The third and fourth lines denote the
influence of Poe. To be sure, 'a warm Elysium' sounds like a new and
appetizing soft drink, but that is not what is meant; and the sea is
indubitably the one that sounded around the tomb of Miss Annabel Lee.
"The second stanza opens under pure Tennysonian influences. This may not be
clear at first to the beginner in influence tracing, but it is unmistakably
so to the expert. The recurring sibilants, the sound without sense, the
fine architectural imagery, all point to the great Lady Alfred. The latter
half of this stanza is due entirely to the strong influence of D. W.
Griffith. The poem was, without doubt, written after the poet had been to
see 'Broken Blossoms,' and the liberal hand from which that production
was flung to a waiting world left its ineffaceable finger-prints on his
polished mind.
"Now we come to stanza three.
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