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Although hailed by some as a precocious talent in his early years, with especial praise being lavished on My brother's grave, which appeared in The Etonian in 1820, Moultrie does not seem to have been ambitious for fame and fortune as a poet, putting his considerable energies and resources into his ministry as Rector of Rugby. As he himself wrote in a poem addressed to his wife in 1834:
...yet full well
Thou know'st how grave the duties which compel
My mind to other tasks; how vast a weight
Of solemn vows and cares importunate
Lies on the minister of Christ:--
Poems of youth and early manhood include not only the melancholic The hall of my fathers, but two longer works, Godiva and Maimouné, which have no pretensions to seriousness, but are reminiscent of Byron's Don Juan, with light-hearted digressions into all sorts of subjects, and ingenious and far-fetched rhymes.
...and I must confess,
(Being unmarried) that I see no faults in
Ladies, young, lovely, and half-naked, waltzing.
Sir Launfal, one of his Metrical Romances, is similarly irreverent in its mock-heroics.
King Arthur, in the tenth year of his reign,
Fell sick of the blue devils:--by his court
So many a brace of dragons had been slain,
So many giants, with their crimes, cut short,--
So many wrongs avenged, and castles ta'en,
That there began to be a lack of sport.
The realm, in fact, from Cornwall to the border,
Was in a shocking state of peace and order.
Among the Occasional poems are sonnets written in honour of friends such as Dr. Arnold and W. M Praed, and laments for the transience of life, the imminence of death, and for the days that will return no more. Moultrie also writes movingly of the death of his son.
The dream of life is autobiographical, and opens with an echo of Wordsworth's view of childhoodDim and mysterious to the dreamer's eye,
Retracing the first gleams of consciousness,
Is Infancy and Childhood's fairy-land.
Moultrie's recollections were of a happy childhood, schooldays and university career. His married life was contented, marred only by the death of his son, and he relished his calling as a priest, and greatly valued his friendships with Arnold and others. In the last part of The dream he is calmly--even contentedly--resigned to the passage of time and life's transience.
So end my Dream of Life!--for life is now
Less dream-like than it has been;--save, indeed,
That with a swifter and yet swifter course
The years begin and end--their hopes and fears
Blossom and fade--their sorrows and their joys
Are born and buried. While I strive to grasp
What seems the Present, it becomes the Past.
All things appear more fugitive, and yet
Less lovely than they did. The gorgeous hues
In which imagination clothed the world
While life was young, have faded:--what remains
Is, in its proper lineaments, discern'd,
And felt to be precarious--a brief dream,
Without a dream's magnificence:--and yet
To this the heart still cleaves, as in its youth
It clave to Fancy's daintiest imagery
My brother's grave and The three sons are available on this website.
The full text of Selected poetry can also be read online or downloaded free of charge. It is in XHTML format, like this page. Please note the file size is 685kb and it may take some time to open-up if you choose to read it online. Downloading for reading later may be the preferred option and this can be typically achieved by calling up an option box. If you have a mouse and it is configured for left click to select, right clicking the link may give you this option.
Page created 7 January 2003 and last updated
7 January 2003
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