Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.», sayfa 11
Perhaps we have fixed the standard too high, and forced a renewal of the exclamation in Rasselas, "Thou hast convinced me that no man can ever be a poet" – or, at least, the poet thus described. But nothing, we are persuaded, is in the imagination which may not be in the fact. Had we defined a Shakspeare ere he arose, "impossible" had been the cry. It must, too, be conceded that hitherto we have no rising, or nearly-risen poet, who answers fully to our ideal. Macaulay and Aytoun are content with being brilliant ballad-singers – they never seek to touch the deeper spiritual chords of our being. Tennyson's exquisite genius is neutralized, whether by fastidiousness of taste or by morbidity of temperament – neutralized, we mean, so far as great future achievements are concerned. Emerson's undisguised Pantheism casts a cold shade over his genius and his poetry. There is something odd, mystical, and shall we say affected, about both the Brownings, which mars their general effect – the wine is good, but the shape of the cyathus is deliberately queer. Samuel Brown is devoted to other pursuits. Marston's very elegant, refined, and accomplished mind, lacks, perhaps, enough of the manly, the forceful, and the profound. Bailey of "Festus," and Yendys of the poem before us, are the most likely candidates for the vacant laurel.
That Bailey's genius is all that need be desired in the "coming poet," will be contested by few who have read and wondered at "Festus" – at its fire of speech, its force of sentiment, its music of sound, its Californian wealth of golden imagery; the infinite variety of its scenes, speeches, and songs; the spirit of reverence which underlies all its liberties, errors, and extravagances; and the originality which, like the air of a mountain summit, renders its perusal at first difficult, and almost deadly, but at last excites and elevates to absolute intoxication. It has, however, been objected to it, that it seems an exhaustion of the author's mind – that its purposeless, planless shape betrays a lack of constructive power – that it becomes almost polemical in its religious aspect, and gives up to party what was meant for mankind – that it betrays a tendency toward obscure, mystical raptures and allegorizings, scarcely consistent with healthy manhood of mind, and which seems growing, as is testified by the "Angel World" – that there is a great gulf between the powers it indicates, and the task of leading the age – and that, on the whole, it is rather a prodigious comet in the poetical heavens, than either a still, calm luminary, or even the curdling of a future fair creation.
Admitting the force of much of this criticism, and that Bailey's art and aptitude to teach are unequal to his native power and richness of mind, we are still willing to wait for a production more matured than "Festus," and less fragmentary and dim than the "Angel World;" and till then, must waive our judgment as to whether on his head the laurel crown is transcendently to flourish.
But meanwhile a young voice has suddenly been uplifted from a provincial town in England, crying, "Hear me – I also am a poet; I aspire, too, to prove myself worthy of being a teacher I aim at no middle flight, but commit myself at once to high, difficult, and daring song, and that, too, of varied kinds." Nor has the voice been despised or disregarded. Some of the most fastidious of critical journals have already waxed enthusiastic in his praise. Many fine spirits, both young and old, have welcomed him with acclamation, as his own hero was admitted, for the sake of one song, into the society of a band of experienced bards. Even the few who deny – unjustly and captiously, as it appears to us – the artistic, admit the poetical merit of his work And we have now before us, not the miserable drudgery of weighing a would-be poet, but the nobler duty of inquiring how far a man of undoubted genius, and great artistic skill, is likely to fulfill the high-raised expectations of the period. The scene of the "Roman" is in Italy. The hero is a patriot, filled and devoured by a love for the liberation of Italy, and for the re-establishment of the ancient Roman Republic – "One, entire, and indivisible." To promote this purpose, he assumes the disguise of a monk; and the history of his progress – addressing now little groups, now single individuals, and now large multitudes of men – at one time captivating, unwittingly, a young and enthusiastic lady, by the fervor of his eloquence, who delivers him from death by suicide – and at another, shaking the walls of his dungeon, through the power and grandeur of his predictions and dreams – till at last, as, after the mockery of a trial, he is led forth to death, he hears the shout of his country, rising en masse– is the whole story of the piece. But around this slender thread, the author has strung some of the largest, richest, and most resplendent gems of poetry we have seen for years.
Let us present our readers with a few passages, selected almost at random. Take the "Song of the Dancers" for its music:
"Dancers. Sing lowly, foot slowly, oh, why should we chase
The hour that gives heaven to this earthly embrace?
To-morrow, to-morrow, is dreary and lonely;
Then love as they love who would live to love only!
Closer yet, eyes of jet – breasts fair and sweet!
No eyes flash like those eyes that flash as they meet!
Weave brightly, wear lightly, the warm-woven chain,
Love on for to-night if we ne'er love again.
Fond youths! happy maidens! we are not alone!
Bright steps and sweet voices keep pace with our own,
Love-lorn Lusignuolo, the soft-sighing breeze,
The rose with the zephyr, the wind with the trees.
While heaven blushing pleasure, is full of love notes,
Soft down the sweet measure the fairy world floats."
P. I, 2.
Take the Monk's Appeal to his "Mother, Italy," for its eloquence:
"By thine eternal youth,
And coeternal utterless dishonor —
Past, present, future, life and death, all oaths
Which may bind earth and heaven, mother, I swear it
We know we have dishonored thee. We know
All thou canst tell the angels. At thy feet,
The feet where kings have trembled, we confess,
And weep; and only bid thee live, my mother,
To see how we can die. Thou shalt be free!
By all our sins, and all thy wrongs, we swear it
We swear it, mother, by the thousand omens
That heave this pregnant time. Tempests for whom
The Alps lack wombs – quick earthquakes – hurricanes
That moan and chafe, and thunder for the light,
And must be native here. Hark, hark, the angel!
I see the birthday in the imminent skies!
Clouds break in fire. Earth yawns. The exulting thunder
Shouts havoc to the whirlwinds. And men hear
Amid the terrors of consenting storms,
Floods, rocking worlds, mad seas, and rending mountains,
Above the infinite clash, one long great cry,
Thou shalt be free!"
P. 14, 15.
Take the few lines about "Truth," for their depth:
"Truth is the equal sun,
Ripening no less the hemlock than the vine.
Truth is the flash that turns aside no more
For castle than for cot. Truth is a spear
Thrown by the blind. Truth is a Nemesis
Which leadeth her belovèd by the hand
Through all things; giving him no task to break
A bruisèd reed, but bidding him stand firm
Though she crush worlds."
P. 21, 22.
Take, for its harrowing power, blended with beauty, the description of a "Lost Female," symbolizing the degradation of Italy, and addressed to the heroine of the tale:
"Or, oh, prince's daughter, if
In some proud street, leaning 'twixt night and day
From out thy palace balcony to meet
The breeze – that tempted by the hush of eve,
Steals from the fields about a city's shows,
And like a lost child, scared with wondering, flies,
From side to side in touching trust and terror,
Crying sweet country names and dropping flowers —
Leaning to meet that breeze, and looking down
To the so silent city, if below,
With dress disordered, and disheveled passions
Streaming from desperate eyes that flash and flicker
Like corpse-lights (eyes that once were known on high
Morning and night, as welcome there as thine),
And brow of trodden snow, and form majestic
That might have walked unchallenged through the skies.
And reckless feet, fitful with wine and woe,
And songs of revel that fall dead about
Her ruined beauty – sadder than a wail —
(As if the sweet maternal eve for pity
Took out the joy, and, with a blush of twilight,
Uncrowned the Bacchanal) – some outraged sister
Passeth, be patient, think upon yon heaven,
Where angels hail the Magdalen, look down
Upon that life in death, and say, 'My country!'"
P. 36.
Take, for its wondrous pathos and truth, the description of "Infancy:"
"Thou little child,
Thy mother's joy, thy father's hope – thou bright
Pure dwelling where two fond hearts keep their gladness —
Thou little potentate of love, who comest
With solemn sweet dominion to the old,
Who see thee in thy merry fancies charged
With the grave embassage of that dear past,
When they were young like thee – thou vindication
Of God – thou living witness against all men
Who have been babes – thou everlasting promise
Which no man keeps – thou portrait of our nature,
Which in despair and pride we scorn and worship."
P. 71, 72.
But time would fail us to quote, or even indicate a tithe of the beautiful, melting, and magnificent passages in this noble "Roman." We would merely request the reader's attention to the whole of the sixth scene; to the ballad, a most exquisite and pathetic one, entitled the "Winter's Night;" to the "Vision of Quirinus," a piece of powerful and condensed imagination; and, best of all, to the "Dream of the Coliseum," in scene viii. – a dream which will not suffer by comparison with that of Sardanapalus.
But it is not the brilliance of occasional parts and passages alone, which justifies us in pronouncing the "Roman" an extraordinary production. We look at it as a whole, and thus regarding it, we find – first, a wondrous freedom from faults, major or minor, juvenile or non-juvenile; wondrous, inasmuch as the author is still very young, not many years, indeed, in advance of his majority. There is exaggeration, we grant, in passages, but it is exaggeration as essential to the circumstances and the characters as Lear's insane language is to his madness, or Othello's turbid tide of figures to his jealousy. The hero – an enthusiast – speaks always in enthusiastic terms; but of extravagance we find little, and of absurdity or affectation none. Diffusion there is, but it is often the beautiful diffusion of one who dallies with beloved thoughts, and will not let them go till they have told him all that is in their heart. And ever and anon we meet with strong single lines and separate sentences, containing truth and fancy concentrated as "lion's marrow."
Take a few specimens. Of Italy he says:
"She wraps the purple round her outraged breast,
And even in fetters cannot be a slave."
Again, she
"Stands menacled before the world, and bears
Two hemispheres – innumerable wrongs,
Illimitable glories."
"The soul never
Can twice be virgin – the eye that strikes
Upon the hidden path to the unseen
Is henceforth for two worlds."
"To both worlds
– The inner and the outer – we come naked,
The very noblest heart on earth, hath oft
No better lot than to deserve."
"Before every man the world of beauty,
Like a great artist, standeth night and day
With patient hand retouching in the heart
God's defaced image."
"Rude heaps that had been cities clad the ground
With history."
"Strange fragments
Of forms once held divine, and still, like angels,
Immortal every where."
"The poet,
In some rapt moment of intense attendance,
The skies being genial, and the earthly air
Propitious, catches on the inward ear
The awful and unutterable meanings
Of a divine soliloquy."
"The very stars themselves are nearer to us than to-morrow."
"The great man … is set
Among us pigmies, with a heavenlier stature,
And brighter face than ours, that we must leap
Even to smite it."
"Great merchants, men
Who dealt in kingdoms; ruddy aruspex,
And pale philosopher, who bent beneath
The keys of wisdom."
"The Coliseum … stood out dark
With thoughts of ages: like some mighty captive
Upon his death-bed in a Christian land,
And lying, through the chant of Psalm and Creed
Unshriven and stern, with peace upon his brow,
And on his lips strange gods."
Our readers must perceive from such extracts, that our author belongs more to the masculine than to the mystic school. Deep in thought, he is clear in language and in purpose. Since Byron's dramas, we have seldom had such fiery and vigorous verse. He blends the strong with the tender, in natural and sweet proportions. His genius, too, vaults into the lyric motion with very great ease and mastery. He is a minstrel as well as a bard, and has shown power over almost every form of lyrical composition. His sentiment is clear without being commonplace, original, yet not extravagant, and betokens, as well as his style, a masculine health, maturity, and completeness, rarely to be met with in a first attempt. Above all, his tone of mind, while sympathizing to rapture with the liberal progress of the age, is that of one who feels the eternal divinity and paramount power of the Christian religion; that what God has once pronounced true can never become a lie; that what was once really alive may change, but can never die; that Christianity is a fact, great, real, and permanent, as birth or death; and that its seeming decay is only the symptom that it is putting off the old skin, and about to renew its mighty youth.
We have thus found many, if not all, the qualities of our ideal poet united in the author of the "Roman," and are not ashamed to say that we expect more from him than from any other of our rising "Sons of the Morning." But he must work and walk worthy of his high vocation, and of the hopes which now lie upon him – hopes which must either be the ribbons of his crown or the cords of his sacrifice. He must discard his tendency to diffusion, and break in that demon-steed of eloquence, who sometimes is apt to run away with him. He must give us next, not scattered scenes, but a whole epic, the middle of which shall be as obvious as the beginning or the end. He should, in his next work, seek less to please, startle, or gain an audience, than to tell them in thunder and in music what they ought to believe and to do. Thus acting, he may "fill his crescent-sphere;" revive the power and glory of song; give voice to a great dumb struggle in the mind of the age; rescue the lyre from the camp of the Philistines, where it has been but too long detained; and render possible the hope, that the day shall come when again, as formerly, the names "of poet and of prophet are the same."
[From Sharpe's London Magazine.]
RECOLLECTIONS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL
In his intercourse with society, Campbell was a shrewd observer of those often contradictory elements of which it is composed. Adverting to the absurd and ludicrous, he had the art or talent of heightening their effect by touches peculiarly his own; while the quiet gravity with which he related his personal anecdotes or adventures, added greatly to the charm, and often threw his unsuspecting hearers into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Nor was the pathos with which he dilated on some tale of human misery less captivating; it runs through all his poetry, and in hearing or relating a story of human wrongs or suffering, we have often seen him affected to tears, which he vainly strove to conceal by an abrupt transition to some ludicrous incident in his own personal history. As an example, which has not yet found its way to the public, we may relate the following, which he told one evening in our little domestic circle where he was a frequent visitor, and where the conversation had taken, as he thought, a somewhat too serious turn:
"In my early life, when I resided in the island of Mull, most of those old feudal customs which civilization had almost banished from the Lowlands, were still religiously observed in the Hebrides – more especially those of a social and festive character, which it was thought had the effect of keeping up old acquaintance, and of tightening the bonds of good fellowship. Rural weddings and "roaring wakes" were then occasions for social rendezvous, which were not to be overlooked. Both these ceremonies were accompanied by feasting, music, dancing, and that liberal enjoyment of the native browst which was too often carried to excess. I was in general a willing and a welcome guest at these doings; for, smitten as I often was with melancholy in this dreary solitude, I was glad to avail myself of any occasion that promised even temporary exhilaration. Well, the first of these meetings at which I was present one evening, happened to be a dredgee, a term which I need only explain, by saying that it was got up for the sake of a young widow, who had just put on her weeds, and stood much in need of friendly sympathy, and consolation. At first it was rather a dull affair, for the widow looked very disconsolate, and every look of her fair face was contagious. But as the quaigh was active, and the whisky went its frequent round, the circle became more lively; until at last, to my utter astonishment, the bagpipes were introduced; and after a coronach or so – just to quiet the spirit of their departed host – up started a couple of dancers, and began jigging it over the floor with all the grace and agility peculiar to my Hebridean friends. This movement was infectious: another and another couple started up – reel followed upon reel, until the only parties who had resisted the infection," continued the poet, "were the widow and myself, she, oppressed with her own private sorrow, and I, restrained by feelings of courtesy from quitting her side. I observed, however, that she 'kept time' with her hand – all unconsciously, no doubt – against the bench where we sat, while her thoughts were wandering about the moorland Cairn, which had that very morning received her husband's remains. I pitied her from my very heart. But, behold, just as I was addressing to her one of my most sympathizing looks, up came a brisk Highlander, whose step and figure in the dance had excited both admiration and envy; and, making a low bow to the widow, followed by a few words of condolence, he craved the honor of her hand for the next reel. The widow, as you may well suppose, was shocked beyond measure! while I starting to my feet, made a show as if I meant to resent the insult. But she, pulling me gently back, rebuked the kilted stranger with a look, at which he instantly withdrew. In a few minutes, however, the young chieftain returned to the charge. The widow frowned, and wept, and declared that nothing on earth should ever tempt her to such a breach of decorum. But the more she frowned, the more he smiled, and pressed his suit: 'Just one reel,' he repeated, 'only one! Allan of Mull, the best piper in the Isles, was only waiting her bidding to strike up.' The plea was irresistible. 'Weel, weel,' sighed the widow, rising, and giving him her hand, 'what maun be, maun be! But, hech, sirs, let it be a lightsome spring, for I hae a heavy, heavy heart!' The next minute the widow was capering away to a most 'lightsome' air – hands across – cast off – down the middle, and up again. And a merrier dredgee," concluded the poet, "was never seen in Mull."
On another occasion, when he presented a copy of some verses, which he had just finished, to a lady of our family, he described their origin as follows: "Many long years ago, while I was sealed up in the Hebrides, I became intimate with a family who had a beautiful parrot, which a young mariner had brought from South America, as a present to his sweetheart. This happened long before my arrival in Mull; and Poll for many years had been a much-prized and petted favorite in the household. He was a captive, to be sure, but allowed at times to be outside his cage on parole; and, always observing good faith and gratitude for such indulgences, they were repeated as often as appeared consistent with safe custody. The few words of Gaelic which he had picked up in his voyage to the north, were just sufficient, on his arrival, to bespeak the good-will of the family, and recommend himself to their hospitality; but his vocabulary was soon increased – he became a great mimic – he could imitate the cries of every domestic animal – the voices of the servants: he could laugh, whistle, and scold, like any other biped around him. He was, in short, a match even for Kelly's renowned parrot: for although he could not, or would not, sing 'God save the King,' he was a proficient in 'Charlie is my Darling,' and other Jacobite airs, with which he never failed to regale the company, when properly introduced.
"Poll was indeed a remarkable specimen of his tribe, and the daily wonder of the whole neighborhood. Years flew by: and although kind treatment had quite reconciled him to his cage, it could not ward off the usual effects of old age, particularly in a climate where the sun rarely penetrated within the bars of his prison. When I first saw him, his memory had greatly failed him; while his bright green plumage was vast verging into a silvery gray He had but little left of that triumphant chuckle which used to provoke such laughter among the younkers; and day after day he would sit mute and moping on his perch, seldom answering the numerous questions that were put to him regarding the cause of his malady. Had any child of the family been sick, it could hardly have been treated with greater tenderness than Poll.
"At last, one fine morning, just as the vernal equinox had blown a few ships into harbor, a stranger was announced, and immediately recognized by the master of the house as a 'Don' something – a Spanish merchant, whose kindness to a young member of the family had been often mentioned in his letters from Mexico. One of his own ships, a brig, in which he had made the voyage, was then in the bay, driven in by stress of weather, for Mull was no market for Spanish goods. But that was not my business; he would most likely pay a visit to Greenock, where, in the present day at least, Spanish cargoes are rife enough.
"No sooner had their visitor exchanged salutations with the master of the house and his family, than the parrot caught his eye; and, going up to the cage, he addressed the aged bird in familiar Spanish. The effect was electric: the poor blind captive seemed as if suddenly awakened to a new existence; he fluttered his wings in ecstasy – opened his eyes, fixed them, dim and sightless as they were, intently on the stranger; then answered him in the same speech – not an accent of which he had ever heard for twenty years. His joy was excessive – but it was very short; for in the midst of his screams and antics, poor Poll dropped dead from his perch."
Such was the incident upon which Campbell composed the little ballad entitled "The Parrot." It had taken strong hold of his memory, and, after the lapse of forty years,19 found its way into the pages of the "New Monthly," and is now incorporated with his acknowledged poems.
