There is a long and gruesome ballad called "The Berkshire Tragedy,"
about a murder committed by a jealous sister, for the consummation
of which a wicked miller is hanged, and the chorus (which should
come in a kind of burst) runs:
"And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me."
The very reasonable arrangement here suggested is introduced,
I think, as a kind of throw back to the normal, a reminder that even
"The Berkshire Tragedy" does not fill the whole of Berkshire.
The poor young lady is drowned, and the wicked miller (to whom
we may have been affectionately attached) is hanged; but still
a ruby kindles in the vine, and many a garden by the water blows.
Not that Omar's type of hedonistic resignation is at all the same
as the breezy impatience of the Berkshire refrain; but they are
alike in so far as they gaze out beyond the particular complication
to more open plains of peace. The chorus of the ballad looks past
the drowning maiden and the miller's gibbet, and sees the lanes
full of lovers.
This use of the chorus to humanize and dilute a dark
story is strongly opposed to the modern view of art.
Modern art has to be what is called "intense." It is not easy
to define being intense; but, roughly speaking, it means saying
only one thing at a time, and saying it wrong. Modern tragic
writers have to write short stories; if they wrote long stories
(as the man said of philosophy) cheerfulness would creep in.
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