poet could have written that prose; it is certain no writer of
"poetic prose" could have written Kingsley's poems.

His songs are his best things; they really are songs, not merely
lyric poems. They have the merit of being truly popular, whether
they are romantic, like "The Sands o' Dee," which actually
reproduces the best qualities of the old ballad; or whether they are
pathetic, like the "Doll's Song," in "Water Babies"; or whether they
attack an abuse, as in the song of "The Merry Brown Hares"; or
whether they soar higher, as in "Deep, deep Love, within thine own
abyss abiding"; or whether they are mere noble nonsense, as in
"Lorraine Loree":-


"She mastered young Vindictive; oh, the gallant lass was she,
And kept him straight and won the race, as near as near could be;
But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow tree;
Oh, he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the world to see,
And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine Loree."


The truth about Charles Kingsley seems to be that he rather made a
brave and cheery noise in this night-battle of modern life, than
that he directed any movement of forces. He kept cheering, as it
were, and waving his sword with a contagious enthusiasm. Being a
poet, and a man both of heart and of sentiment, he was equally
attached to the best things of the old world and to the best of the
new world, as far as one can forecast what it is to be. He loved
the stately homes of England, the ancient graduated order of
society, the sports of the past, the military triumphs, the