GEORGE HENRY BOKER was born in Philadelphia in 1823, and was graduated bachelor of arts at Nassau Hall, Princeton, when nineteen years of age. After travelling some time in Europe, and making himself familiar with contemporaneous literatures among their creators, he settled in his native city, to devote a life of opulent leisure to the cultivation of letters and to the enjoyment of the liberal arts and of society.
His first appearance as an author was in a small volume published in 1847, under the title of "The Lesson of Life, and other Poems." In this were indications of a manly temper and a cultivated taste, but it had the customary faults of youthful compositions in occasional feebleness of epithet, indistinctness, diffuseness, and a certain kind of romanticism that betrays a want of experience of the world. Its reception however by judicious critics, who saw amid its faults the signs of a fine understanding, justified new efforts; and turning his attention to the drama, he produced in the following year" Calaynos, a Tragedy," which gave him large increase of reputation in the best audience of this country. The plot of this play illustrates the hatred of the Moors by the Castilians. CALAYNOS, a nobleman of a sincere and generous nature, whose youth has been passed in the study of philosophy and in acts of kindness, and whose Saracen taint of blood is concealed from his wife, Donna ALDA, until made known in the progress of the history, proposes to leave his retirement for a journey to Seville. There is a superstition among the neighbouring peasants that a visit to Seville is dangerous to the race of CALAYNOS, and OLIVER, his secretary, whose practical sagacity alone is necessary to the perfection of the master's character, has also a presentiment of evil on this occasion, and endeavours to dissuade him from his purpose; upon which CALAYNOS discloses that the principal object of his journey is to see an early friend, Don LUIS, who has become involved in difficulties and whose estates will be sacrificed unless he receives by a certain day considerable assistance in money. Arriving in Seville with OLIVER, CALAYNOS discharges the obligations of Don Luis, who so wins upon his affection that he persuades him to become his guest. The party in the next act are at the castle of CALAYNOS, where Don Luis discovers that CALAYNOS is of Moorish origin, and having fallen in love with the wife of his benefactor, in a secret interview he informs her of her disgrace. It is difficult to appreciate the intensity of the prejudice which made this revelation so important; and it is an objection to the play for acting purposes, that out of Spain and Portugal few audiences could sympathize with it, though the historical student will perceive that Mr. BOKER has not
at all exaggerated it. Donna ALDA, struggling between love and pride, calls upon her husband, faints, and is borne from the scene in the arms of Don Luis; and the act closes with CALAYNOS'S discovery of his friend's ingratitude and his wife's perfidy. In the month which passes before the opening of the last act, CALAYNOS has become old through grief. His secretary, returned from a pursuit of the fugitives, informs him that Donna ALDA had fled from the residence of her seducer; she is discovered, seeking shelter from a storm under the walls of the castle, brought in, recognised, and dies, referring to a written exposure of the villany of Don LUIS. CALAY NOS, convinced of her innocence, hastens to Seville, and slays the destroyer of his happiness in the midst of his debaucheries. This simple story is managed with much skill, and so as to produce a cumulative interest to its close. The characters, besides those already referred to, are some half dozen gentlemen to make side speeches and care about the details of the plot. They are distinctly drawn, in most cases with finely contrasted idiosyncracies (though the hero and heroine converse somewhat too much in the same style), and they are all excellently sustained. The action is less dramatic than the dialogue, which in some parts evinces great power, and, more frequently, those happy turns of expression which disclose a chief element of the dramatic faculty.
"Calaynos" was first enacted at the Saddlers' Wells Theatre in London, in May, 1849, with very decided success, and its merits, both as a play and as a poem, were generally recognised by the English critics.
The next production of Mr. BOKER was "Anne Boleyn, a Tragedy," which in many respects surpasses "Calaynos," evincing more skill in the use of language, more force in the display of passion, and a finer vein of poetical feeling, with the same admirable contrasts of character, and unity and directness of conduct.
Mr. BOKER has been an occasional writer for the periodical miscellanies, and in "The Song of the Earth" and in "The Spirit of Poetry," which are quoted in the following pages, he has displayed a richness of invention, a copiousness of illustration, and a vigour and finish of style, that amply vindicate his right to be classed among the small number of our writers of verses who are poThe attraction of these pieces, like that of his more ambitious performances, consists more in their general cast than in the strength or grace of particular ideas, or a fit elegance of phrase. It is a fault indeed, less conspicuous in his minor poems than in his tragedies, that modelling himself after some of the older masters of English verse, there
is an occasional want of ease in the structure of his sentences, and in his selection of words an insensibility to the more delicate charins of language: a fault that is not likely to outlast the full development of his genius. It would be easy to point out in Calaynos" many passages which are spoiled
by inversions altogether unnecessary to the perfec tion of the rhythm, or by other departures from the rule of nature, which are results of no carelessness, but evidently of an erroneous and it is to be hoped very transient fancy in regard to the effect of a colloquial simplicity in poetical writing.
PRELUDE-CHORUS OF PLANETS.
HARK to our voices, O mother of nations! Why art thou dim when thy sisters are radiant? Why veil'st thy face in a mantle of vapour, Gliding obscure through the depths of the night? Wake from thy lethargy. Hear'st thou our music, Harmonious, that reaches the confines of space? Join in our chorus, join in our jubilee,
Make the day pine with thy far-piercing melody-
Pine that his kingdom of blue sky and sunshine
Never re-echoes such marvellous tones.
No, thou art silent, O mystical sister,
Silent and proud that thou bear'st on thy bosom
The wonderful freight of the God-lighted soul.
We hear thee, we hear thee, beneath thy thick
mantle,
The war of the winds through thy leaf-laden forests,
And round aisles of thy pillar'd and hill-piercing
Caverns sonorous; hear the dread avalanche
Torn from its quivering mountainous summit,
Ribbed with massy rocks, crested with pine-trees,
Thundering enormous upon thy fair valleys;
Hear the dull roar of thy mist-spouting cataracts;
Hear the faint plash of thy salt, seething billows,
Lifting their heads multitudinous, or shoreward
Climbing the cliffs that overhang them with trem-
bling,
And tossing their spray in exultant defiance
Over the weed-bearded guardians of ocean.
Sister, we listen; thy strains are enlinking,
Melodiously blending to ravishing harmony;
Clouds are departing, we see thee, we yearn to thee,
Noblest of planets, creation's full glory!
Bending we hearken, thou mother of nations,
Hark to the sky-rending voice of humanity.
Oh vex me not, ye ever-burning planets; Nor sister call me, ye who me afflict. I am unlike ye: ye may revelling sing, Careless and joyful, roaming sunlit ether, Urged with but one emotion, chanting still Through lapsing time the purpose of your birth, Each with a several passion; but to me Are mix'd emotions, vast extremes of feelingNow verdant in the fruitful smile of Heaven, Now waste and blacken'd in the scowl of Hell. Ye know me not, nor can ye sympathize With one like me, for wisdom is not yours Ye sing for joy; but wisdom slowly comes From the close whispers of o'erburden'd pain. I am alone in all the universe! To me is pain; I can distinguish sin;
But ye with constant though unweeting glance
Rain good or ill, and smile alike at both,
Nor understand the mystery of your natures.
To me is wisdom-wisdom bought with wo,
Ages on ages past, when first I stray'd,
With haughty scorn and self-reliant pride,
From purity and God. For once, like you,
God spoke me face to face, me soulless led
From joy to joy; yet he was mystical-
Too obvious for thought-I knew him not:
But now, through sin, I understand like him
The heart of things-the steep descents of guilt,
And the high pinnacles of heaven-lit virtue.
Bend down, ye stars, bend from your silver thrones,
Ye joyful wanderers of ether bright;
For I, soul-bearer of the universe,
Would teach your ignorance with the lips of song!
O Mercury, hot planet, burying deep
Thy forehead in the sunlight, list to me!
I groan beneath thy influence. Thou dost urge
The myriad hands of Labour, and with toil
Dost mar my features; day by day dost work
Thy steady changes on mine ancient face,
Till all the host of heaven blank wonder look,
Nor know the fresh, primeval-moulded form
That like the Aphrodite, rose from chaos,
Smiling through dews upon the first morn's sun.
The leaf-crown'd mountain's brows thou hurlest
down
Into the dusty valley, and dost still
The free, wild singing of the cleaving streams
To murmurs dying lazily within
The knotted roots of pool-engender'd lilies,
That sluggish nod above the slimy dams.
All day the axe I hear rending through trunks,
Moss-grown and reverend, of cluster'd oaks.
All day the circling scythe sweeps off
The ruddy bloom of vain-aspiring fields,
Clipping to stubbles grim the vernal flowers.
Thou portionest my meadows, and dost make
Each fruitful slope a spot for sweaty toil.
Thou tearest up my bosom; far within
My golden veins the grimed miner's pick
Startles the babbling echoes. Ancient rocks,
My hardy bones, are rent with nitrous fire,
To rear thy marts, to bridge the leaping streams,
Or to usurp the ocean's olden right,
That selfish trade may dry-shod walk to power.
The very ocean, grim, implacable,
Thou loadest with the white-wing'd fleets of com
Crossing, like wheeling birds, each other's tracks;
Until the burden'd giant, restless grown,
Bounds from his sleep, and in the stooping clouds
Nods his white head, while splinter'd navies melt
To scatter'd fragments in his sullen froth!
Malignant star, I feel thy wicked power;
My children's busy thoughts are full of thee:
Thou'st chill'd the loving spirit in their hearts,
And on their lips hast placed the selfish finger-
They dare not know each other. All that is,
All that God bless'd my teeming bosom with,
Is priced and barter'd; ay, the very worth
Of man himself is weigh'd with senseless gold-
Therefore I hate thee, bright-brow'd wanderer!
Daughter of the sober twilight,
Lustrous planet, ever hanging
In the mottled mists that welcome
Coming morning, or at evening
Peeping through the ruddy banners
Of the clouds that wave a parting,
From their high aerial summits,
To the blazing god of day-
"Tis for thee I raise my pœan,
Steady-beaming Venus! kindler,
In the stubborn hearts of mortals,
Of the sole surviving passion
That enlinks a lost existence
With the dull and ruthless present.
Far adown the brightening future,
Prophetess, I see thee glancing-
See thee still amid the twilight
Of the ages rolling onward,
Promising to heart-sick mortals
Triumph of thy gracious kingdom;
When the hand of power shall weaken,
And the wronger right the wronged,
And the pure, primeval Eden
Shall again o'erspread with blossoms
Sunny hill and shady valley.
'Tis to thee my piny mountains
Wave aloft their rustling branches,
"Tis to thee my opening flowerets
Send on high their luscious odours,
"T is to thee my leaping fountains
Prattle through their misty breathings,
And the bass of solemn ocean
Chimes accordant in the chorus.
Every fireside is thy altar,
Streaming up its holy incense;
Every mated pair of mortals,
Happily link'd, are priest and priestess,
Pouring to thee full libations
From their overbrimming spirits.
Clash the loud-resounding cymbals,
Light the rosy torch of Hymen;
Bands of white-robed youths and maidens
Whirl aloft the votive myrtle!
Raise the choral hymn to Venus-
Young-eyed Venus, ever youthful,
Ever on true hearts bestowing
Pleasures new that never pall!
Brightest link 'tween man and Heaven,
Soul of virtue, life of goodness,
Cheering light in pain and sorrow,
Pole-star to the struggling voyager
Wreck'd on life's relentless billows,
Fair reward of trampled sainthood,
Beaming from the throne Eternal
Lonely hope to sinful mankind-
Still among the mists of morning,
Still among the clouds of evening,
While the years drive ever onward,
Hang thy crescent lamp of promise, Venus, blazing star of Love!
O Mars, wide heaven is shuddering 'neath the stride
Of thy mail'd foot, most terrible of planets;
I see thee struggling with thy brazen front
To look a glory from amid the crust
Of guilty blood that dims thy haughty face:
The curse of crime is on thee.-Look, behold!
See where thy frenzied votaries march;
Hark to the brazen blare of the bugle,
Hark to the rattling clatter of the drums,
The measured tread of the steel-clad footmen!
Hark to the labouring horses' breath,
Painfully tugging the harness'd cannon;
The shrill, sharp clank of the warriors' swords,
As their chargers bound when the trumpets sound
Their alarums through the echoing mountains!
See the flashing of pennons and scarfs,
Shaming the gorgeous blazon of evening,
Rising and falling mid snowy plumes
That dance like foam on the crested billows!
Bright is the glitter of burnish'd steel,
Stirring the clamour of martial music;
The clank of arms has a witchery
That wakes the blood in a youthful bosom;
And who could tell from this pleasant show,
That flaunts in the sun like a May-day festal,
For what horrid rites are the silken flags,
For what horrid use are the gleaming sabres,
What change shall mar, when the battles join,
This marshall'd pageant of shallow glory?
For then the gilded flags shall be rent,
The sabres rust with the blood of foemen,
And the courteous knight shall howl like a wolf,
When he scents the gory steam of battle.
The orphan's curse is on thee, and the tears
Of widow'd matrons plead a fearful cause.
Each thing my bosom bears, that thou hast touch'd,
Is loud against thee. Flowers and trampled grass,
And the long line of waste and barren fields,
Erewhile o'erflowing with a sea of sweets,
Look up all helpless to the pitying heavens,
Showing thy bloody footprints in their wounds,
And shrieking through their gaunt and leafless trees,
That stand with imprecating arms outspread-
They fiercely curse thee with their desolation;
Each cheerless hearthstone in the home of man,
Where Ruin grins, and rubs his bony palms,
Demands its lost possessor. Thou hast hurl'd
Man's placid reason from its rightful throne,
And in its place rear'd savage force, to clip
Debate and doubt with murder. Therefore, Mars,
I sicken in thy angry glance, and loathe
The dull red glitter of thy bloody spear!
I know thy look, majestic Jupiter!
I see thee moving mid the stars of heaven,
Girt with thy train of ministering satellites.
Proud planet, I confess thy influence:
My heart grows big with gazing in thy face;
Unwonted power pervades my eager frame;
My bulk aspiring towers above itself,
And restless pants to rush on acts sublime,
At which the wondering stars might stand agaze,
And the whole universe from end to end,
Conscious of me, should tremble to its core !
Spirit heroical, imperious passion,
That sharply sets the pliant face of youth,
That blinds the shrinking eyes of pallid fear,
And plants the lion's heart in modest breasts-
I know that thou hast led, with regal port,
The potent spirits of humanity
Before the van of niggard Time, and borne,
With strides gigantic, man's advancing race
From power to power; till, like a host of gods,
They mock my elements, and drag the secrets
Of my mysterious forces up to light,
Giving them bounds determinate and strait,
And of their natures, multiform and huge,
Talking to children in familiar way.
The hero's sword, the poet's golden string,
The tome-illuming taper of the sage,
Flash 'neath thy influence; from thee alone,
Ambitious planet, comes the marvellous power
That in a cherub's glowing form can veil
A heart as cold as Iceland, and exalt
To deity the demon Selfishness.
O planet, mingle with thy chilling rays,
That stream inspiring to the hero's soul,
One beam of love for vast humanity,
And thou art godlike. Must it ever be,
That brightest flowers of action and idea
Spring from the same dark soil of selfish lust?
Must man receive the calculated gifts
Of shrewd Ambition's self-exalting hand,
And blindly glorify an act at which
The host of heaven grow red with thoughtful shame?
Shall Knowledge hasten with her sunny face,
And weeping Virtue lag upon the path?
Shall man exultant boast advance of power,
Nor see arise, at every onward stride,
New forms of sin to shadow every truth?
Roll on, roll on, in self-supported pride,
Prodigious influence of the hero's soul;
I feel thy strength, and tremble in thy glare!
O many-ringed Saturn, turn away
The chilling terrors of thy baleful glance!
Thy gloomy look is piercing to my heart-
I wither 'neath thy power! My springs dry up,
And shrink in horror to their rocky beds;
The brooks that whisper'd to the lily-bells
All day the glory of their mountain homes,
And kiss'd the dimples of the wanton rose,
At the deed blushing to their pebbly strands,
Cease their sweet merriment, and glide afraid
Beneath the shelter of the twisted sedge.
The opening bud shrinks back upon its shell,
As if the North had puff'd his frozen breath
Full in its face. The billowing grain and grass,
Rippling with windy furrows, stand becalm'd;
Nor 'mong their roots, nor in their tiny veins,
Bestirs the fruitful sap. The very trees,
Broad, hardy sons of crags and sterile plains,
That roar'd defiance to the Winter's shout,
And battled sternly through his cutting sleet,
Droop in their myriad leaves; while nightly birds,
That piped their shrilling treble to the moon,
Hang silent from the boughs, and peer around,
Awed by mysterious sympathy. From thee,
From thee, dull planet, comes this lethargy
That numbs in mid career meek Nature's power,
And stills the prattle of her plumed train.
O icy Saturn, proud in ignorance,
Father of sloth, dark, deadening influence,
That dims the eye to all that's beautiful,
And twists the haughty lip with killing scorn
For love and holiness from thee alone
Springs the cold, crushing power that presses down
The infinite in man. From thee, dull star,
The cautious fear that checks the glowing heart,
With sympathetic love world-wide o'erfreighted,
And sends it panting back upon itself,
To murmur in its narrow hermitage.
The boldest hero staggers in thy frown,
And drops his half-form'd projects all aghast:
The poet shrinks before thy phantom glare,
Ere the first echo greets his timid song;
The startled sage amid the embers hurls
The gather'd wisdom of a fruitful life.-
Oh, who may know from what bright pinnacles
The mounting soul might look on coming time,
Had all the marvellous thoughts of genius-
Blasted to nothingness by thy cold sneer-
Burst through the bud and blossom'd into fruit!
Benumbing planet, on our system's skirt,
Whirl from thy sphere, and round some lonely sun,
Within whose light no souls their ordeals pass,
Circle and frown amid thy frozen belts;
For I am sick of thee, and stately man
Shrinks to a pigmy in thy fearful stare!
FINALE-CHORUS OF STARS.
Heir of Eternity, mother of souls,
Let not thy knowledge betray thee to folly!
Knowledge is proud, self-sufficient, and lone,
Trusting, unguided, its steps in the darkness.
Thine is the learning that mankind may win,
Glean'd in the pathway between joy and sorrow;
Ours is the wisdom that hallows the child,
Fresh from the touch of his awful Creator,
Dropp'd, like a star, on thy shadowy realm,
Falling in splendour, but falling to darken.
Ours is the simple religion of faith,
The wisdom of trust in Gon who o'errules us-
Thine is the complex misgivings of thought,
Wrested to form by imperious Reason.
We are forever pursuing the light-
Thou art forever astray in the darkness.
Knowledge is restless, imperfect, and sad-
Faith is serene, and completed, and joyful.
Chide not the planets that rule o'er thy ways;
They are Gon's creatures; nor, proud in thy reason,
Vaunt that thou knowest his counsels and him:
Boaster, though sitting in midst of the glory,
Thou couldst not fathom the least of his thoughts.
Bow in humility, bow thy proud forehead,
Circle thy form in a mantle of clouds,
Hide from the glittering cohorts of evening
Wheeling in purity, singing in chorus;
Howl in the depths of thy lone, barren mountains,
Restlessly moan on the deserts of ocean,
Wail o'er thy fall in the desolate forests,
Lost star of paradise, straying alone!
-ALL the shatter'd links of thought were knit In one long chain where each part seem'd design'd To bind together the harmonious whole.
And thus not dreaming of an alien ear-
Rang through the wood the poet's lofty song:
SPIRIT of beauty and harmonious power,
Who next th' Eternal's throne, with folded wings,
Didst sit while chaos wrapp'd this universe,
And muse on things to be! Thou, at the Word,
Didst spring on outspread wings, co-mate of Love,
And from thy glittering plumes shookst golden dew
Upon the rising forms that woke from slumber,
And o'er the globe their wondrous fretwork threw;
Thou who didst harmonize and bless our earth,
And add a glory to its meanest shape,
So that He smiled who gave thy mission power,
And seal'd thy mandates with his awful voice;
Thou who above this ever-changing world
Still rul'st supreme, with undiminish'd love,
Preserving still, by reproductive power,
Its forms as fresh as at creation's dawn-
Perennial youth, whence shall I summon thee,
Whence call thy wings, thou all-pervading spirit?
Each thing is full of thee; thou 'rt everywhere.
I see thee heralding the morning sun;
Thou rid'st in splendour on the thronging mists,
That with a royal pomp, strew golden dust
Along the pathway of their coming king.
I see thee poised upon the lowest flower,
Shaking thy beauty from its nodding cup.
I hear thy footstep in the faint-voiced brook;
And now thou'rt trampling down the cataract,
Shouting thy song above the water's roar.
Mid songs of birds, and sounds of insects' wings,
I hear another tone, and it is thine
The thunder booms, the split and riven oak
Crumbles to splinters 'neath the burning bolt-
Still art thou there. The rent and quivering earth
Foams like a billow, and the smoking land
Staggers and sobs beneath the earthquake's shock;
Great cities, with their fanes and monuments,
Their battled walls, and their deep-founded towers,
Are ground to powder; while mad Terror reigns,
And with her doubtful words the burghers calls,
Now here, now there, where ruin thickest showers,
And red-eyed Death their frenzied souls dismays!
Above, in ecstasy, I hear thy wing.
Beating the trembling air; for change thou lov'st,
And reproduction is thy endless task.
With noiseless night thou com'st: the banded stars,
And the great planets, and the peerless moon,
But swell thy pageantry and crowd thy train.
Bewildering spirit, from the viewless mind,
Fil'd with its apprehensions of thy worth,
Shall I invoke thee? for I feel thee there,
Floating serene amid the God-breathed essence
That from destruction saves our intellect.
Come! for no deed of mine shall e'er distain
The pure translucence of thy rainbow wings;
I will not use the might which thou bestow'st,
Save to unfold thy wondrous beauties more;
No earth-born thought shall mingle with thy voice:
Oh! long ago did I forget myself,
And lose distinctive being, gulf'd in theeIn love for thee-in a deep, burning love, Which purifies, like fire, when thou art near.
I feel that thou art present. Thou art she
Who,'fore the Chian's inward eyes, didst rank
The battled lines that leaguered ancient Troy-
The Grecian heroes, gods and demigods,
Threatening old PRIAM's towers with brazen front.
Trojan and Greek thou mingledst in the fray,
And shookst the smoky field when HECTOR led
His glittering squadrons full upon the foe,
While o'er the plain his scythe-arm'd chariots swept,
Scattering destruction from their bloody wheels.
And thou didst mourn with PRIAM, when afar
He saw the fiery steeds ACHILLES yoked,
Tear up the valley with their blood-wet hoofs,
As close behind the car his HECTOR's locks
Swept the base dust, and left a gory trail
That three times circled wailing Ilium's walls!
And thou the royal sage of Ithaca
Didst lead undaunted o'er the sterile sea,
While his chaste bride her endless web still wove,
And stain'd its colours with her joyless tears.
Oh, thou art she who over SHAKSPERE bent,
And laugh'd, and wept, and wonder'd at thyself;
Thou, from the misty realm of vague ideas,
Didst summon shapes which awed thee when they
And gav'st to them an immortality
That shames the fabled fire Promethean.
Thou, through the inner mysteries of heaven,
Nearer to Gon than mortal ever drew,
Didst lead great MILTON blindfold; thou didst fly
Close by his side, to guide his dizzy course
Through all the printless ways of upper air,
When, with thy spirit burning in his breast,
His haughty wing essay'd the deep serene.
Thou didst in mercy seal his earthly orbs,
But fit for earth, whose feeble sense had quail'd,
And wither'd into naught, before the glory
That from the Throne outleaps like myriad suns.
What mortal eye might see the cherubim
Clash their eternal arms in angry fight,
When, from the corners of tumultuous heaven,
The shining band, with all their glory on,
Rush'd 'gainst the swarthy fiend, as Morning hurls
Its glittering lances on the shield of Night!
What mortal eye might pierce the black profound,
Where fell the routed rebels, host on host,
Rolling with batter'd arms and sullied plumes
Upon a slough whose fumes benumb'd like death!
Come, mighty spirit! point for me a path:
My mind is pausing, like a restless bird,
With outspread wings, and eager for the flight,
Yet doubtful hangs nor knows what course to choose.
Come, Poesy! I'll woo thee like a lover;
I ask not fame; but thee alone I seek;
Thou art thy own reward, exceeding price.
With thee I'll sit and smile at Envy's sneer-
Smile at the galling love of pitying friends,
And kiss the wrinkled brow of Jealousy,
So thou wilt bless me. I have loved thee long;
My memory holds no niche where thou art not,
Crown'd with perennial laurel by my hand.
I seek thy glory; let me fade and die-
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