"Then all was still, the wave was rough no more, "The river swept as sweetly as before, "The willows wav'd, the moonbeams shone serene, "And peace returning brooded o'er the scene." H. K. WHITE. Gray is scarcely inferior to Milton in his musical versification; indeed so much less important are the subjects of his muse, and consequently so much more easily woven in with soft and musical words, that as regards mere versification he stands unrivalled in the literature of our country. "Now the rich stream of music winds along, "Bright-eyed fancy, hov'ring o'er, "Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, "Now the storm begins to lour, "Now my weary lips I close: "Leave me, leave me to repose." Nothing can be more expressive of weariness than the simple words which compose these two lines. We could scarcely find in our hearts to detain the enchantress who utters them more than once, even were she capable of realizing to our grasp the imaginary dominion of a world. The elegy written in a country churchyard is altogether the most perfect specimen of poetical harmony which our language affords; but like some other good things it has been profaned by vulgar abuse, and many who have been compelled to learn these verses for a task at school, retain in after life a clear recollection of their sound, without any idea of their sense, or any perception of their beauty. Still this elegy contains many stanzas, and one in particular, to which the ear must be insensible indeed if it can listen without delight. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, "The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, "The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, "No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed." Amongst our modern poets, there is not one who possesses a more cxquisite sense of the appropriateness of sound and imagery, than Moore. His charmed numbers flow on like the free current of a melodious stream, whose associations are with the sun beams and the shadows, the leafy boughs, the song of the forest birds, the dew upon the flowery bank, and all things sweet, and genial, and delightful, whose influence is around us in our happiest moments, and whose essence is the wealth that lies hoarded in the treasury of nature. In reading the poetry of Moore, our attention is never arrested by one particular word. His syllables are like notes of music, each composing parts of an harmonious whole; and the interest they excite, divided between the ear and the mind, is a continued tide of gratification, gently but copiously poured in upon the soul. There is scarcely a line of his that would not gratify us by its sound, even were we ignorant of its sense; but the perfect correspondence between both is what constitutes the soul-felt music of his lyre. It would be as useless to select passages from what is altogether harmonious as to point out particular parts in a chain of beauty, whose every link is perfect; but from an almost affectionate remembrance of the delight with which they first struck upon my youthful ear, I am tempted to quote a few examples powerfully illustrative of the poetry of language. "Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own, "In a blue summer ocean far off and alone." "Not the silvery lapse of the summer eve dew." "I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, "A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on; "I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining, "The bark was still there, but the waters were gone." "There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, "And the nightingale sings round it all the day long; "In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream, "To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song." What a picture of innocent enjoyment is here! A picture whose vividness and beauty are recalled in after life as light and colouring only-whose reality is gone with the innocence which gave it birth. In the poet's farewell to his harp, the last temples, rising on the very spots where imagination hertwo lines are exquisitely poetical: "If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover, "Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone; "I was but as the wind passing heedlessly over, "And all the wild sweetness I wak'd was thy own!" A few more passages, quoted at random and without comment, will sufficiently illustrate what is meant by embodying in appropriate words, ideas which are purely poetical. "So fiercely beautiful, in form and eye, "who with heart and eyes "and gave "His soul up to sweet thoughts, like wave on wave "Succeeding in smooth seas, when storms are laid." "still nearer on the breeze, "Come those delicious dream-like harmonies." "Awhile they dance before him, then divide, "Breaking like rosy clouds at eventide "Around the rich pavilion of the sun-" ""Tis moonlight over Oman's sea; "Her banks of pearl and palmy isles "Bask in the night-beam beauteously, "And her blue waters sleep in smiles." "To watch the moonlight on the wings "Of the white pelicans, that break "The azure calm of Maris' lake." "when the west "Opens her golden bowers of rest." "Our sands are rude, but down their slope, "As o'er the marble courts of kings." Nor is the prose of this delicious bard less musical than his verse. The very cadence of his sentences would charm us, independent of their meaning, were it possible to listen without understanding; but his choice of words is such, that their mere sound conveys no small portion of their sense. "Seldom, indeed, had Athens witnessed such a scene. The ground that formed the original site of the garden had, from time to time, received continual additions; and the whole extent was laid out with that perfect taste, which knows how to wed Nature with Art, without sacrificing her simplicity to the alliance. Walks, leading through wildernesses of shade and fragrance-glades opening, as if to afford a play-ground for the sunshine self would have called them up; and fountains and lakes, in alternate motion and repose, either wantonly courting the verdure, or calmly sleeping in its embrace -such was the variety of feature that diversified these fair gardens; and, animated as they were on this occasion, by the living wit and loveliness of Athens, it af forded a scene such as my own youthful fancy, rich as it was then in images of luxury and beauty, could hardly have anticipated. "For, shut out, as I was by my creed, from a future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow horizon of this, every minute of delight assumed a mournful preciousness in my eyes, and pleasure, like the flower of the cemetery, grew but more luxuriant from the neighbourhood of death." "Every where new pleasures, new interests awaited me; and though melancholy, as usual, stood always near, her shadow fell but half way over my vagrant path, and left the rest more welcomely brilliant from the contrast." "Through a range of sepulchral grots underneath, the humbler denizens of the tomb are deposited,-looking out on each successive generation that visits them, with the same face and features they wore centuries ago. Every plant and tree that is consecrated to death, from the asphodel flower to the mystic plantain, lends its sweetness or shadow to this place of tombs; and the only noise that disturbs its eternal calm, is the low humming sound of the priests at prayer, when a new inhabitant is added to the silent city." "The activity of the morning hour was visible every where. Flights of doves and lapwings were fluttering among the leaves, and the white heron, which had been roosting all night in some date tree, now stood sunning its wings on the green bank, or floated, like living silver, over the flood. The flowers, too, both of land and water, looked freshly awakened; and, most of all, the superb lotus, which had risen with the sun from the wave, and was now holding up her chalice for a full draught of his light." "To attempt to repeat, in her own touching words, the simple story which she now related to me, would be like endeavouring to note down some strain of unpremeditated music, with those fugitive graces, those felicities of the moment, which no art can restore, as they first met the ear." "The only living thing I saw was a restless swallow, whose wings were of the hue of the grey sands over which he fluttered. "Why (thought I) may not the mind, like this bird, take the colour of the desert, and sympathise in its austerity, its freedom, and its calm!" It would scarcely be possible to exchange any one word in the writings of Moore for another more fitting or appropriate, nor can the young poet be too often reminded that it is appropriateness rather than uniform elevation of diction which he has to keep in view. There are certain kinds of metre to which peculiar expressions are adaptedexpressions which even if the subject were the same, would be extremely out of place elsewhere; and here again Moore is preeminent for the skill with which he maintains (if we may so call it) the proportions of his verse, by keeping the familiar and playful language with which he sports like a child with his rainbow-tinted bubbles, always in their proper degree of subordination; so that they never break in upon the pathos of a sentiment, or check the flow of elevated thought. Lines on the burial of Sir John Moore afford a beautiful instance of what may be called tact in the choice and application of words. It is not the splendour of an excited imagination flashing upon us as we read these lines, which constitutes their fascination; but the entire appropriateness of the words, and the metre, to the scene described. Simple as these verses are throughout simple almost as the language of a child, and therefore to be felt and understood by the meanest capacity, they yet convey ideas of silence, solemnity, and power, such as especially belong to the hour of night, the awful nature of death, and the indignant spirit of the unconquered warrior. Beyond the mere appropriateness of words, poetical language affords a deeper interest, in those rapid combinations of thought and feeling which a few words may convey, by introducing in descriptions of present things allusions to those which are remote, and which from being easily and naturally presented to the mind of the reader, glide in like the shadow of a passing cloud upon the landscape, without obscuring our view, or interrupting our contemplation of the scene. Crabbe, who is by no means remarkable for the harmony of his numbers, abounds in passages of this kind; and it is to them that we are mainly indebted for the interest, as well as the power of his poetry. The first instance which occurs to me, is in the introduction to the sad story of the smugglers, and poachers-a story almost unrivalled for the natural and touching pathos with which it is described. "One day is like the past, the year's sweet prime "Like the sad fall, -for Rachel heeds not time; "Nothing remains to agitate her breast, "Spent is the tempest, and the sky at rest; "But while it raged her peace its ruin met, "And now the sun is on her prospects set; "Leave her, and let us her distress explore, "She heeds it not-she has been left before." Here is the story of the sufferer, told at once by a sudden transition from the description of her settled grief, to that which had been the bane of her past life-its melancholy cause. Yet the chain of association so far from being broken acquires tenfold interest from the transition of thought, and we hasten on to learn the particular history of this lonely being, who has experienced the most melancholy fate of womanthat of being "left." Again, towards the conclusion of the same story, when Rachel finds the dead body of her lover, and, as if incapable of comprehending any further grief, takes no note of the intelligence that her husband is dead also. - "But see, the woman creeps "Like a lost thing, that wanders as she sleeps. Here we have three distinct ideas, not necessarily connected with each other, presented to us in quick succession, without any interruption to the interest excited by each individually. First, we see the dead body of the husband, and then "that other dead," with the total abstraction of the mourner, who in her silent grief sees only one, and this proves the strength of her affection, which life might have subdued, but which death reveals in all its overwhelming power; then follows the simple query, "whither will she go?" presenting us at once with a view of her future life, and its utter desolation. Moore has many passages of the same description : "Here too he traces the kind visitings "Of woman's love, in those fair, living things "Of land and wave, whose fate, -in bondage thrown "For their weak loveliness-is like her own!" The reader may, without any flaw in the chain of association, pause here to give one sigh to the fate of woman, and then go on with the poet while he proceeds to describe other fair things, amongst which the stranger was wandering. There is somewhere in the writings of Wordsworth a highly poetical passage, equally illustrative of the subject in question. It is where he describes a mourner whose grief has all the bitterness of self-condemnation: "It was the season sweet of budding leaves, When he leaves the subject which he has so beautifully described, to attest by his own experience, and by his knowledge of human nature, the truth of what he has asserted, our thoughts are not diverted from the original theme, but our feelings are riveted more closely to it by the force of this attestation, which meets with an immediate response from every human bosom. In Gray's description of Milton, where he says: "The living throne, the sapphire blaze, "Where angels tremble while they gaze, "He saw, but, blasted with excess of light, "Clos'd his eyes in endless night." The transition is immediate from what the poet saw, to what he suffered; yet the associations are highly poetical, and so clear as in no way to interfere with each other. its own; hence the strong disposition shown by children to revenge themselves upon whatever has given them pain, and to battle, however vainly, with all that obstructs the gratification of their wishes; and hence those bursts of figurative language with which semi-barbarous people are accustomed to express what they deeply feel. As if to accommodate themselves to the natural tastes and feelings of mankind, originating in the principles of our nature, all good poets have made frequent use of this style, and always, when it is well managed, with great effect. How beautiful is the following passage from Barry Cornwall, where he speaks of the wind murmuring through the pine trees on mount Pelion: "And Pelion shook his piny locks, and talked "Mournfully to the fields of Thessaly." Shakespeare abounds in examples of this kind, in no one instance more touching or powerful than in the lament of Constance, after the French king tells her she is as fond of grief as of her child : "Grief fills the room up of my absent child, The following example from Cowper is remarkable for its elegance and beauty. Alluding to the lemon and the orange trees "The golden boast of Portugal and Western India," It is related of the Emperor Nero, when in the last mental agonies of his wretched life, he sought from others the death he shuddered to inflict upon himself, that finding none who heeded his appeal, he pathetically exclaimed, "What! have I neither a friend nor an enemy?" Although no man could possibly be thinking less of poetry than the he says, they fallen monarch at that moment, yet such is the language which an able poet would have used, to express the three separate ideas of the helplessness of Nero's situation, his pitiful appeal to the kindness of his people, and his internal consciousness that if he had not a friend, he had at least done enough to deserve the stroke of an enemy in his last hour. Personification is another figure of speech by which poetical associations are powerfully conveyed. It seems to be peculiarly in accordance with the infant mind-infant either in experience or in civilization, to identify every thing possessed of substance, motion, form, or power, with an intelligence of "Peep through the polished foliage at the storm, "And seem to smile at what they need not fear." The next figure of speech noticed by Blair is metaphor, of immense importance to the poet, because, if for one moment he loses the chain of association, an image wholly out of place is introduced, the charm of his metaphor is destroyed, and his verse becomes contemptible. From Lord Bolingbroke, whose writings abound in beauties of this kind, Blair has selected one example of perfect metaphor. The writer is describing the behaviour of Charles the First to his parliament. "In a word," says he, "about a month after their meeting, he dissolved them; and, as soon as he had dissolved them, he repented; but he repented too late of his rashness. Well might he repent, for the vessel was now full, and this last drop made the waters of bitterness overflow." The works of Ossian abound with beautiful and correct metaphors; such as that on a hero: "In peace, thou art the gate of spring; in war, the mountain storm." Or this on woman: "She was covered with the light of beauty; but her heart was the house of pride." Young, in speaking of old age, says, "It should "Walk thoughtful on the silent solemn shore Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon." In the following lines Prior gives us an example of allegory, which may be regarded as continued metaphor. "Did I but purpose to embark with thee Beyond these figures of speech, there yet remain hyperbole, apostrophe, comparison, and a variety of others, which the young poet would do well to study, and which are scientifically described in books expressly devoted to the purpose; I shall therefore pass on to the colloquial language of the Irish-the simple, unsophisticated, genuine, Irish, which has always appeared to me particularly imaginative, powerful and pathetic; but unfortunately for the writer, it is only heard in moments of excitement, of which the feelings alone keep a record, and this record being one of impressions rather than words, it is difficult to recall the precise expressions which, striking the chords of sympathy, produce a momentary echo to the music of the soul. Mrs C. Hall, in an Irish story, illustrative of the strong and metaphorical language of the Irish peasantry, makes this observation proceed from the mouth of a poor man, who had listened to the recital of the misfortunes of one who was brave, just and virtuous. ries of the Irish Peasantry, that we are chiefly indebted for our knowledge of what is peculiarly national and characteristic in his native language. He gives us a spirited and amusing chapter upon Irish swearing, by no means confined to those malevolent wishes which it would be a painful task to transcribe, but which, as they issue from the impassioned lips of the Irishman, have something of that sentimental nature (though far deeper in its character) triumphantly displayed by Acres before his friend. "May the grass grow before your door," conveys a striking picture of desolation and ruin. "May you melt off the earth like the snow off the ditch," is another figure of the same description. If positive good had the power to neutralize evil, we might comfort ourselves in reading such expressions as these, with what the author goes on to tell us, that the Irish have a superstitious dread of the curse of the pilgrim, mendicant, or idiot, and of the widow and the orphan. And so high is his idea of the duty he owes to these, that his heart is ever open to their complaint, and his hand ready to assist them. Thus it is not uncom mon for them to say of a man whose affairs do not prosper, "He has had some poor body's curse;" and a woman who unexpectedly receives a guest, welcome in no way except that she was a stranger and a wanderer without a home, is described as exclaiming, "The blessing o' goodness upon you, dacent woman." or sorrow. The frequent recurrence of the word heart in its unlimited capacity, gives a warmth and fervency to their expressions of tenderness "The beloved fair boy of my heart." "Father! son of my heart! thou art dead from me!" "Heavy and black was his heart." "The world's goodness is in your heart." "Light of my eyes, and of my heart;" but above all, "Cushla machreethe pulse of my heart," is most expressive of that deep-toned affection which the heart alone can understand. What can exceed the following words for refined yet genuine and fervent sympathy, such as those who have been intimately acquainted with suffering alone can feel; and hence it is that the Irish derive their pathos, But it is to the author of Traits and Sto- for what strain of human misery can be "The gardener pierces the vine even to bleeding, and suffers the bramble to grow its own way." |