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SENTENCE-STRUCTURE
27
nate clauses abound; these subordinate clauses he
masterfully unites according to the old figures of rhetoric, among
which polysyndeton, parallelism and climax prevail over
asyndeton and antithesis; finally, as a factor of the greatest
importance we have to take into account the aim at
word-music.
The formation of a clause and the formation of a
sentence closely agree with each other in Swinburne. Just
like the clause, the sentence is never allowed to run its
own and ’natural’ course. Partly for the effects of
word-music, partly by reason of classical influence, and partly
because this was his very nature, Swinburne has an
all-pervading tendency to long sentences, and even abnormally
long sentences.
For instance, in II, 114, a sentence with its
preliminary clauses runs over more than a page: the principal
clause consists of six words: Why hast thou done this thing?
Similar instances occur II, 175-177; III, 101-103. In the
poem Thalassius, one of the gems of Swinburne’s work,
and in no wise intentionally imitating any foreign style,
we get a splendid example of the forms that are taken by
Swinburne’s imagination when bursting forth with its
greatest strength.
Ill, 305, And as when all the world of earth was wronged
And all the host of all men driven afoam
By the red hand of Rome,
Round some fierce amphitheatre overthronged
With fair clear faces full of bloodier lust
Than swells and stings the tiger when his mood
Is fieriest after blood
And drunk with trampling of the murderous must
That soaks and stains the tortuous close-coiled wood
Made monstrous with its myriad-mustering brood,
Face by fair face panted and gleamed and pressed,
And breast by passionate breast
Heaved hot with ravenous rapture, as they quaffed
The red ripe full flume of the deep live draught,
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