ABSTRACT
Morris, according to the legend, had the mastery of his instrument. There is the testimony of Richard Watson Dixon to the qualities of his very first composition, The Willow and the Red Cliff, improvised in his twenty-second year, about two years before he met Swinburne: It was a thing entirely new, founded on nothing previous: perfectly original, whatever its value, and sounding truly striking and beautiful, extremely decisive and powerful in execution. He reached his perfection at once. And there is the poet's own remark, Well, if this is poetry, it is very easy to write. Certainly, he has the mastery of his method in that other very early piece: Twas in Church on Palm Sunday, Listening what the priest did say of the kiss that did betray, That the thought did come to me, How the olives used to be Growing in Gethsemane.
