Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

LITERARY CRITICISM.

The Opening of the Sixth Seal. A Sacred Poem. London; Longman and Co. 1829. 8vo. Pp. 179. The African, a Tale; and other Poems. By D. Moore. Glasgow; Robertson and Atkinson. Pp. 216. Poems, by Thomas Brydson. Glasgow; John Wylie. 1829. Pp. 136.

THERE is something particularly pleasant in having put into one's hands a new volume of poetry, moist from the press-fresh and uncut. Who knows what its future destiny may be? It has not yet gone abroad to the world, and we open it in silent expectation, as if about to look into the secret mechanism of a mind hitherto unexplored. Every one, we suppose, remembers the delightful curiosity and surprise with which, when a child, he first investigated the hidden springs and wheels of a watch, glittering in their golden intricacy, and for ever revolving with a ticking sound, like the voice of a living thing. Somewhat akin to this feeling, is the more matured emotion of the lover of poetry, when he opens the leaves of a book upon which, for aught he can tell, may be written words rife with immortality. The child, it is true, discovers no singing-bird in the chambers of the watch; and rarely indeed are the critic's hopes gratified, if he has ventured to anticipate some higher emanation of the spirit and the energy divine. But, nevertheless, watches will tick, and poets will scribble, to the end of time; and to judge by the number of rhymes we have occasion to see almost every day, there seems to be much less probability of the former going too slow, than of the latter going too quick.

It matters not. Let poets of all shapes and sizes flourish! They are useful members of society, however small. Their lucubrations are the safety-valves by which many a distressed mind is lightened of a thousand idle phantasies. If they did not write, they would die, or go distracted. To them, pen, ink, and paper, afford an intellectual stomach-pump. Nor do we speak it profanely, though perhaps we express it quaintly. There is a substantial relief, and not unfrequently a positive happiness, in being able to embody one's thoughts in words; and of the full extent of this happiness, poets alone are aware. There are poets, no doubt, who exist as poets only to themselves, whose deep feelings have been shut up, like the winds in the cave of Æolus, in the recesses of their own breast, who have walked among other men-" among them, but not of them"and knew not that they were formed differently from the beings by whom they were surrounded,-knew not that the sights and sounds of external nature exercised a far deeper power over their senses,-knew not that they possessed the gift of song, and that were the harp whose notes rung harsh beneath the touch of others, but placed in their hands, they could, without an effort, make it discourse most eloquent music. It is seldom, however,

that talent lies thus dormant. There seems, in most cases, to be something inherent in its very nature, which incites it to spring into a wide arena, and freely, almost recklessly, to fling its trophies to the crowd. Knowledge is power, but it is power of a certain sort; it is power which is respected more than loved. Genius is power, and power of a higher description; for it commands the affections, while it overawes the mind. Knowledge is something different-something apart, as it were-from the man to whom it belongs; genius is not. We may esteem knowledge, but hate its possessor; with genius this distinction never holds good. Knowledge is to be acquired; and, by industry and perseverance, the merest plodder may attain it; genius is innate, and implies a more delicate physical and mental organization. Genius and poetry are synonymes; and the one can hardly exist without the other. But poetry is not always to be looked for in measured lines, or even in written words. It is like beauty, and may be found under many shapes. It glows upon the canvass,-it breathes over the marble,it lightens up the eye of the musician,-it goes forth with the young enthusiast to distant lands,-it gazes with the astronomer upon the midnight planets,-it moves abroad into the sunshine with her who, in her unpretending purity and loveliness, adds fresh lustre to the morning. Poetry is the only visible part of the immaterial soul-the ray that emanates from the glorious essence it encircles.

But we are generalizing too much; and, with coldblooded apathy, are keeping all this time three poets anxiously waiting for our opinion on their respective merits. As they are all very unlike each other, except in the single circumstance that each, no doubt, believes himself possessed of a creditable portion of the divinus afflatus, we must take the liberty of saying a few words of them, separatim et seriatim.

The "Opening of the Sixth Scal" is a poem in blank verse, founded upon a very sublime passage in "Revelations," descriptive of the final dissolution of the globe. The theme which the author particularly undertakes to illustrate, is the Last Judgment, a theme unquestionably replete with the finest materials of poetry, but which, though frequently attempted, has never been done jus tice to, because finite capacities must ever strive in vain to describe the doings of Him who is infinite. The author of the present poem informs us, in his preface, that he did not peruse Pollok's "Course of Time" until he had "concluded his own task." This declaration we certainly think was necessary to save him from the charge of having borrowed part of his plan from that poem. Not only is there a pretty close resemblance between certain passages in the " Opening of the Sixth Seal," and certain others in the "Course of Time," but the general tone and style of the former are far from being unlike those of the latter. To the author individually, this circumstance, being accidental, cannot be charged as a fault; but as it brings his production into closer comparison with a more comprehensive and powerful work, it certainly is a misfortune.

As we have already hinted, we are inclined to question much whether the mysteries of a future judgment is a subject within the grasp even of a mind of the very highest order,-a Milton's or a Dante's. Neither do we think that different trains of thought, necessarily arising from a choice of different subjects, constitute different degrees of excellence in poetry. There is nothing which proves, a priori, one person to be more of a poet than another, merely because he chooses to write about the sun, moon, and stars, or any of the great convulsions and revolutions of nature, instead of the more familiar and better-understood objects and designs of creation. It is true, that more lofty language must necessarily be used in the one case than in the other; but lofty language is not the proper test of genius, although it is perhaps too often confounded with originality of thought. A thousand powerful emotions must immediately arise, even in the most uninspired bosom, as soon as the idea of a perishing world suggests itself; but as soon as these emotions are put into words, they are found to be almost universal, and consequently are entitled to be considered common-place. In like manner, the sight of a dying flower suggests a train of reflections which nobody would get any credit by claiming as his own, for they are the property of all; and the only distinction between this case and the former is, that dying flowers being more frequently met with than dying worlds, the associations necessarily connected with the one have been more frequently put on paper than those as necessarily connected with the other. But he alone is the true poet to whom associations occur, whether about a flower or a world, which do not occur to ordinary minds. The Omnipresence of the Deity is a sublime subject; but magniloquent truisms regarding it no more constitute poetry than the couplets concerning hearts and darts tacked to a boarding-school girl's loveletter. In short, it is not the subject that makes the poet;-it is the poet who must throw over the subject the mantle of his own genius, by which we mean that he must say something concerning it, which none of the rest of the world would ever have said, but which, as soon as it is said for them, all admit to be true, because it awakens in their own bosoms a chord hitherto untouched.

The iron sceptre over half the world,
Grew great in arms, in wealth, in luxury,
Then perished; at far distant times came forth
One, above all his race pre-eminent,
A moment the frail destinies of man ;-
A mighty master spirit that would sway
A moment o'er the earth destructive stalk,
Lift his proud head, gem crowned, above the dust
That was around him, and then like a dream
Scared by the day-star, fade away; raged wars,
Flamed fires, gleamed swords, smiled death; from age to

[blocks in formation]

That fatal morn, as it was wont, arose Cloudless and beautiful; the balmy breath Of vernal zephyrs, floating o'er the earth, And mid the flowrets wantoning, with balm Came laden, stealing on the burning cheek That rose to look upon its sweetness ;-far Where in their verdant canopy they sate, And wide the concert melody of birds, Hymned to the rising sun; bright dew gems stood On every grassy spear, and leaf, and bough, And early choristers to Him above Poured their shrill matins. In the meadows green The fleecy flock to restless echoes flung Their murmuring voices, and the lowing herd Delighted hailed the coming of the day. And the sun rose in beauty;-not in blood Deep-dyed, nor half eclipsed, nor blotted o'er With fearful spots, huge, black, and ominous, On his attendant planets, and his smile But with unsullied splendour, ardent smiled Hills, vales, and mountains, with wild notes of joy ;Gladdened all nature; rung the forest shades, The flowret raised its little azure head, Which night had kissed to sleep, to look on him, And its pale leaf pictured the blushing hue, Glowing with lustre not its own; so came That morn upon one half the world. And men From gentle sleep as wont awaking rose, If we apply this criterion to the "Opening of the And to their many labours, with swift step Sixth Seal," (and the test though just, is certainly Went heedlessly; none thought of coming death, somewhat severe,) we are afraid that in many respects His fervid rays down-scattering, rode on Or thinking, dared believe ;-the unsullied sun, it will be found wanting. The author's abilities are unHis course undimmed, then wherefore coming death? questionably respectable, but not of that high and ori-So they went on their way. ginal sort necessary to give a new and unhackneyed chaThe merchant then, racter to his theme. We have had, before now, a thousand descriptions of the fallen state of man's nature, of the approach of a final reckoning, of the disentombment of the dead, of the millions congregated around the throne of an almighty judge, of the sentence passed upon them, and of the agony of the wicked and the joy of the good. Among our recent poets Pollok has dwelt upon these topics with most force and success. They are again recurred to in the "Opening of the Sixth Seal," and in it Pollok, so far as we can see, is no where surpassed. It is but justice, however, to this later author to state our opinion, that he in several instances comes very near his prototype. In proof of this statement, we quote the following passages:

So man, engulphed in sin, from age to age,
Went on his fearful course, and vengeance slept,
By Mercy soothed to rest; unchanging still,
The seasons in their ceaseless dance went round,
And the earth yielded up her increase; man
Restless alone, laboured incessantly

To find a change-for he sought out new lands,
Explored new regions, wandered on the seas,
Encreased in knowledge much, in science much,
And in sin more. Nations arose in might,
Gloried a while above their fellows, waved

The figured page revolving o'er and o'er,
Numbered his freighted argosies, and marked
What day they should return. The poet wrapt
In his bright day-dreams, wooed the bashful muse,
Pouring his spirit's energy in song ;-
And, as he wove the tale of hapless maid
Blighted in her affections, or the haunts
In the pale moon-beam, by the trembling swain
Of fairy things, satyrs, and rustic elves,
Beheld at dead of night, in his mind's eye,
Gazed he upon his fame in after years
When listening nations should applaud his song,
And millions echo forth his deathless name.
Then on his watch-tower sitting, far up-raised
From earth, the sage astronomer looked up
Where many an eye hath gazed, and many a thought
In its wild wanderings struggled to approach ;-
And, with strain'd vision, through the optic tube
Stedfastly gazing, in his pride survey'd
The lamp of day, and many times turn'd he,
And computations strange and intricate
Made frequent, oft rejoicing to unfold
How, on some certain moment, there would be
A great eclipse, how comets would appear
Roaming in ether, and to vulgar souls
Bring doubt, and dread, and fear; oft noted he
The path where planetary orbs would roll

In future years, and glorying in his skill,
Thought he his name immortal.

Then youth and virgin innocence went forth
To look upon the vernal morn, and smile,
Because all nature smiled, and oft rejoiced
In its own loveliness;-with fairy step
Over the meadow green the maiden swept
Heedless and guileless, and her blue eye gazed
Upon the azure vault more deeply dyed,
And for a while drank in the soften'd hue
Of what it look'd upon; o'er her fair cheek,
With many a dimpling smile array'd, the blush
Of morning stole, and yet a deeper glow
Flung on its beauties. In her spirit's joy,
And youth and health delighted she, and breathed
Melodious strains that charm'd the listening ear,
And with the general concert went to Heaven.
But some there were,-a solitary few,
For the last moment waiting, and in prayer,
And watch, and fasting, look'd they for the Lamb
When he should come in Glory; and they saw
The cloudless sun and gladsome morn arise,
With faith unshaken, for believers knew

His word would never fail.-And still they watch'd,
And prayed, and fasted, and with trembling hope
Awaited their Redeemer.

There is considerable power also in the lines which follow on the subject of dreams :

Oh! have ye never, in the mid-watch hour,
When leaden sleep lies heavy on the brow,
And the blood, fever'd, through the throbbing pulse
Rushes convulsively, some dreary dream
Pictured in the night glooms all dim and dull,
Yet seeming terrible,-when thought hath glanced,
While the frame slumbereth, to another sphere,
But not of bliss, and wandereth up and down
A dark and desolate void, where never light
Speedeth, and where the wanderings never end.
Then the sleep-woven spectre of the soul,
After long struggling, wingeth from the void,
To seek new horrors, and far off ye see
Strange visionary forms, that not of earth
Nor of heaven be, and they all noiseless flit
Before, behind, above, beneath ye there,
A host, innumerable as the ocean-sands;-
Their spectral hues flame-painted, and the glare
Of their fire-flashing eyes, most fearfully
Rack the hag-haunted breast, till from her sleep
Nature upstarteth with the agony,
And, shuddering, ye recall the unearthly forms,
And ponder on their hues, sickening the soul,
Till ye look on them as the things that were.

These specimens will suffice to show that the "Opening of the Sixth Seal" is far from being a very milkand-water production. Indeed, had Pollok never written, we think it not unlikely that it would have attracted much of that attention which has been bestowed on him; but we are afraid he has pre-occupied the field, and that he deserves to remain in possession of it. Several minor poems are added to the "Opening of the Sixth Seal," which it would have been better if the author had omitted, for they are of an inferior character.

We come now to speak of "The African and other Poems." The "African" is a tale in the Spenserian stanza, and is the production of Mr Dugald Moore of Glasgow. We are beginning to entertain a considerable respect for the genius of Glasgow, for this is neither the first nor the second poet we have already met with

since the commencement of our labours, who has started up in that city. The present volume contains, we believe, the primitia of Mr Moore's pen; and we have formed from them so favourable an opinion of its powers, that we hope its first fruits will not be its last. The leading characteristic of Mr Moore's style is its strength, or a certain hard and forcible manner of expressing the ideas he wishes to convey to his reader. His leading fault is, that he seems scarcely capable of giving soft

ness and polish to his thoughts and versification by the occasional introduction of a more tender and delicate train of ideas. The poem of the "African," which is not so much narrative as descriptive, illustrates the truth of this remark. A bridal party of Africans are surprised one summer evening in the midst of their festival by the unexpected appearance of a troop of Spaniards who have just landed. An affray immediately takes place, (why is not explained,) and Zemma, the bride of the African chief, is mortally wounded. She is carried during the night farther into the country, where she dies in the arms of her betrothed. At sunrise, the Africans, headed by their bereaved prince, return to renew the fight with the Spaniards, and inspired by the courage which a desire for vengeance prompts, their foes are massacred to a man. Zarrum then goes back to the grave of Zemma, and puts an end to his existence at the spot where she is buried. These are all the incidents of the three cantos; but meagre as they are, one would think they afforded scope for considerable pathos. It is in the stormier part of the story, however, that our author excels,-in the heat of battle, and in the stern breathings of despair and hate. It may be that we are prejudiced enough not to be able to sympathise so much as we ought to do in the woes of a pair of sable lovers; but we also suspect that Mr Moore does not know exactly how to touch the right chord. The feelings are somewhat different from the passions; and it is with the latter that our author seems principally conversant. Here and there, however, he succeeds even in his appeal to the former. The following stanzas, descriptive of the state of Zarrum's sentiments, after the Spaniards have been defeated, appear to us natural, without being common-place:

Lone, as a shadowy being of the grave,"

The chieftain lingered on the uplands gray; He stood in silence, gazing on the wave

That mingled with the broad sky, far away; The foe that stemm'd it in their proud array, Were lying lifeless on its sandy plain; Nought meets his aching eyeballs, while they stray, But those dull ranks that ne'er shall wake again, And his dark warrior host re-mingling with the slain. Weeds which the vulture in his flight had sown On the dark cliffs, some thousand years ago, Nursed now by time, like spectres, waved alone Their solitary branches to and fro, They seemed to wail his spirit's overthrow! Beneath their mournful shade he took his stand; Yet e'er he parted from this world of woe, He bent one look upon his fathers' landOne long, one farewell glance, upon his kindred band, Sonie, he saw wandering with restless foot Among the gory corses of the dead; While others lean'd upon their falchions, mute, As if they thought on some dear object fled; And lovers rush'd, all ecstacy, to shed

Their souls into each other. As he gazed, He thought upon his virgin's dreary bed ;

His morning shrine, where love's first incense blazed,
Death's desolating hand had to its ashes razed!

Those sights were not for him-he turned away
To worship sorrow in the solitude;
He left the mountain's brink, and moon-lit ray,
Now by that solitary heap he stood,
And plunged into the darkness of the wood;

While o'er the midnight desert of his mind
Crept all the tenderness of woman's mood-
Those tears dissolved the ties that long had joined
His proud but gentle soul to live with human kind.
A page or two farther on, the two lovers are thus spo-
ken of:

Soon will the desert know them not; their home
Is in the narrow house;-yet where they lie

The broad blue heaven is their unsullied dome,

And where is church that with such vault may vie? The snowy mountains, glittering cold and high, Will look like marble pillars of the aislesThe stars, those wanderers of eternity,

The gorgeous lamps to light the arch-the while Ocean uplifts his voice, like organ, through the pile. There is a general resemblance, we may observe, between the style of the "African" and Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming," and the day may perhaps come when the author of the former may produce a poem worthy to rank beside the latter.

More than two-thirds of the volume are occupied with miscellaneous poems, none of which are bad, but some not good enough to deserve a place among the rest. Here, also, we find intellectual vigour much more predominant than pathos or sentiment. Take, for example, the following verses

TO THE SUN.

Thou look'st upon the stars as little children
Playing about thy fiery fount of light,
Their silver eye-balls with thy rays bewildering.
When thou putt'st on thy morning garments bright,
Who dares to eye thee boldly sight to sight?.

No! thou alone art monarch of the heaven,
The moon herself but glimmers in thy might!

Unmoved, though storms are round thy temples driven,
Thou stand'st like holy peace, to soothe creation riven.

Thy charms depart not with the night! thy face
To other worlds, when ours is sleeping, gleams;
Time cannot steal from thee one sparkling grace!
No! let me scorn all philosophic dreams
Of comets journeying to restore thy beams;

Thy path is where our thoughts can never go-
Through heaven's far wonders; and each planet seems
Proud of thy beauty, while they round thee bow,
Or crowd about thy breast to share thy deathless glow.

And thou dost wander through the universe,

The tempest sweeping far beneath thy feet;
At thy command, his blackest clouds disperse—
He cannot quench thy bright and living heat;
Methinks the Eternal keeps in thee his seat,
Borne by the whirlwind on thy flaming car,
Rolling athwart the mighty concave fleet,

That he may see each vast and distant star, And fling his living light o'er all his realms afar. We are still more pleased with the following poem, which, both in conception and execution, we consider spirited and original :

[blocks in formation]

While roused creation madly groans

As ruin clasps the world! The mighty eagles that have flown, For many a day, now weary grown,

With their strong pinions furl'd, Fall screaming in that ocean's roar, Whose billows roll without a shore.

Hell laughs at Heaven, whose lightning sears The millions such as I,

Who never dream'd, in happier years,

In the wild deep to die!
Their countless forms float past me now,
With faded cheek and ghastly brow,

With dim and blood-shot eye,
Fix'd where is heard Jehovah's voice,
In thunder bidding death rejoice!

Thou ocean! thunder yet, and flash
Above the highest hill;

But there is none to hear thee dash-
The soul of life is still!
None but those dwellers of the Ark
Can list, from their sky-guarded bark,
The Great Eternal's will:

Yet can they lift the voice of praise,
Lone, in the earth of their young days,
(The Ark passes by.)

Drift on, proud bark of God!-drift on,
I seek no home in thee;

I could not live when there are none
To taste life's cup with me!

Earth's young and beautiful are dead,
Her glorious millions perished-

Their grave is in the sea:

Then be my home, where death has hurl'd
The joys of an extinguish'd world!

(He springs off the rock, and the Ark passes on)

Mr Moore is one of those who deserves to be better known, and his present volume opens up for him a fair prospect, if he will pay due attention to candid and impartial criticism, and determine to profit by it to the best of his ability.

"Poems by Thomas Brydson" have also come to us from Glasgow. Mr Brydson is, in most respects, entirely the reverse of Mr Moore. He wants the vigour which Moore possesses, and possesses the susceptibility in which Moore is deficient. His great fault is, that he is too often feeble and tame, but this is atoned for, to a certain extent, by frequent touches of poetical feeling, which prove him to be gifted with a soul alive to the finer impulses of our nature. We fear Mr Brydson will never become a great poet, nor will ever be able to turn his poetical effusions to much account; but he will, nevertheless, have his reward, for he is able to look with a more refined vision upon the loveliness of creation, and there is that within him which will whisper consolation in many of the trials and difficulties of life. We do not speak hastily, or without our reckoning, as the unpre tending sweetness of the following sonnets will prove

FALLING LEAVES.

Down fall the leaves; and, o'er them as we tread,
'Tis strange to think they were the buds of spring,
Whose balm-breath met us on the zephyr's wing,
When mirth and melody were round us spread,
And skies in placid brightness overhead,

And streams below with many a dimpled ring!
'Tis strange to think, that when the bee did sing
Her sunny song, on summer's flowery mead,

They were the locks that waved on summer's brow! But stranger far, to think, that the white bones We tread upon, among the church-yard stones,

Once moved about, as we are moving now In youth, in manhood, and in hoary age Oh! then, let time and change our thoughts engage!

[ocr errors]

THE GIPSIES.

It is the night-and ne'er from yonder skies,
High-piled amid the solitudes of time,
And based on all we vainly call sublime,
Did she look lovelier with her starry eyes:-
The music of the mountain-rill comes down,
As if it came from heaven with peace to earth,

And from yon ruined tower, where ages gone
Have left their footseps-hark! the voice of mirth :
The gipsy wanderers, with their little band
Of raven-tressed boys and girls, are there;

And when the song of that far distant land,
From whence they sprung, is wafted through the air,
I dream of scenes where towers the mystic pile-
The Arab and his wastes-the rushings of the Nile!

RETROSPECTION.

We look upon ourselves of other days,

As if we looked on beings that are gone;
For fancy's magic ray hath o'er them thrown
A glory, that grows brighter as we gaze!
Then, then, indeed, was pleasure's mirthful maze
Our own, and happiness no shade as now:
We met her on the mead, and on the brow
Of the unpeopled mountain, and her ways
Were where our footsteps wander'd. Still we see
Her phantom form, that flits as we pursue
O'er the same scenes, where jocund once and free,
And all unsought, she with our young thoughts grew!
So, to the parting sailor, evermore

She seems to linger on his native shore.

A REMEMBERED SPOT.

There is a spot in flowery beauty lying,
Clasp'd in the silver arms of a small stream,
Flowing from hill-tops, where, when day was dying,
I've seen the 'distant cities like a dream;
That spot was unfrequented, I did deem,
Save by myself, the wild bird, and the bee.
Far off, the ring-dove, from her forest tree,
Told the wide reign of solitude. Here came,
Sweet Shakspeare! first, thy visions, to my mind-
Around me were thy woods-Miranda's isle,
And circling waters were my own the while;
And Juliet's woes would voice the moonlight wind,
Bidding me to my home. That lonely spot,
By me can never-never be forgot!

We now bid adieu to our three poets, with all kindly and uncritic-like feelings. Whatever their success may be, they have dared nobly, and deserve a better fate

than Phaeton.

Letters from the Egean. By James Emerson, Esq

2 vols. London. Henry Colburn. 1829.

IT is right and fitting that works which speak of Greece, of its ancient glory, its present condition, and its future prospects, should frequently be laid before the British public. Let the political relations of European states be what they may, let all the plottings and counter-plottings of diplomacy, succeed or fail,-let the Russian triumph over the Turk, or the Turk beat back the Russian even to the gates of St Petersburg,-Greece, if not as a living nation, at least as a dead country, haloed in the memory of its buried greatness, must ever remain an object of deep interest to the enlightened and well-regulated mind. It is a healthy and a generous feeling which prompts a sympathy for its fortunes, and which induces an anxiety to participate in its struggles, and to advance its happiness. It is true, that Greece, like Rome, "non è piu come era prima," and that amidst the rude concussions of mightier dynasties, which a new order of things successively reared and overthrew, her beauty has been trampled in the dust, her noble insti

tutions, her high heroic character, her hereditary genius, have been swept away as rose-leaves before the blast. The earthquake that has torn the mountains from their foundations has choked up the lake that lay sparkling in the valley. But we do not the less love that land from which, as from an intellectual sun, the light of literature and the arts first emanated, because a cloud has come upon its brightness, because the purple bloom of its early summer has faded into the more melancholy tints of autumn, and all the charms that are left suffice but to tell of the beauty that is gone. It may be difficult to love the dead as we have loved the living; but do we not regard them with emotions not less intense, and in all probability far more holy? Ofttimes, too, there is a loveliness even in decay, that seems as if it syllabled itself into words, and said audibly-" Lo! she is not dead, but sleepeth."

But even although we were to lay classical associations aside altogether, although we were to forget (which we trust to Heaven we never shall) that the brightest visions of our boyhood and youth were full of Marathon and Thermopylæ, that the first pulses of exalted ambition vibrated to our heart at the names of Leonidas, Miltiades, and Epaminondas, that poetry awoke within us, and lighted its never-dying lamp with a flame communicated from the Delphian shrine, that Pericles and Aristides first taught us the splendour and the moral excellence of life, and Socrates the triumphant sublimity of a good man's death,-even although we were to for. get all these things, there is a still abiding and existing attraction in the "land of the sun," which would win our attention to it even as we find it at present, and There is a softness of though memory were a blank. climate, a blueness of sky, a blushing profusion of all the fairest fruits, odours, and colours of nature, scattered over the "clime of the East," which, of themselves, invest as with a spell the very names of the Cyclades, the Ægean, and all the Archipelago. It may be a delusion, but it is one which may be safely cherished, for it will refine the heart, and can never weaken the intellect. It is delightful to dream of a land for ever smiling in sunshine, and odoriferous with blossoms! It is delightful to let the imagination escape from the drizzling mists and chilling blasts of a less genial latitude, and stray uncontrolled through those gardens of the world where "the voice of the nightingale never is mute!" Where is the ardent spirit who has not, in the heyday and buoyancy of early life, longed, with a deep and impassioned feeling, as he lay upon his sleepless couch, or wandered through the solitary wood, or climbed the breezy hill,-where is he, of finer susceptibilities and higher aspirations than the vulgar crowd, who has not prayed for the wings of the dove, that he might flee away to the golden orient? coming life in too many instances, throws her leaden mantle over the joyous enthusiast, and, as years roll on, the pictures that used to glow before his fancy in the brightness of the morning, assume a greyer and more sombre tone ;-it is true, that the circle in which he moves,-the limited sphere to which he ultimately finds himself condemned,-the petty paltry cares necessary to the ensuring of his everyday comforts, sadden and distract his thoughts, and like the early mist, or the summer dew, the far-off pageantries he once could conjure into such bright reality, vanish into thin air, or return at long intervals, dimly as the shadow of a dream. But, if philosophy teaches that life's realities are stale and unprofitable, why should not even grey-bearded wisdom cherish, with clinging earnestness, the innocent, though There is perhaps delusive pictures of imagination ? surely enough that is mean, and dull, and sorrowful, passing continually before our eyes; and the slender consolation may at least be left to us of believing, that elsewhere humanity is placed under happier influences, and that where the dumb things of creation flourish in

It is true, that

« PředchozíPokračovat »