he is of all the more weight, on account of his connexion with the former. This point may be proved at once in his own language.
Yes, poetry, I know thee, and thou art
The harbinger of faith; thou should'st controul,
Thou genius of all good, man's fleshly heart,
Fitting it for a spiritual soul.
Ah, wherefore art ye two so long apart?
But now, e'en now at length, into one whole
Be blent each wild poetic melody,
Full streaming in a deep religious harmony.
Making one truth of many phantasies,
Of many various colours one pure light-
One soul of many sensibilities-
One high-throned reason to rule all aright,
That peace and joy may crown man's destinies,
And glory be to God in heaven's height;
A righteous consummation!"
We prefer dealing in the first instance, with the purely poetical part of this production.
A Family Scene.
Duty well done
Is joy well earned; and a glad wife was she,
When, her devotion o'er, she rose again,
To do whate'er her husband's hungry need
Demanded done: for not till now had she spread
Her board, as loth his presence to presume,
And rue him so, being absent, all the more :
For disappointment with a viperous scourge
Scores out the account of hope; and love is still
A fearful prophet. But now all being ripe,
And expectation substanced into bliss ;
Her nimble spirits ran through every act,
O'erquickening the delay; serving each need,
With fairy-skilful noiseless ministry:
The work prompt as the will: what though the fiend
Of gluttony bestrode not their slight board
With heavy oppression: though no sweltering spilth
Were there, to drown the spiritual soul,
And choak the throat of utterance: no lamps
Drunk with their oily swill, flaring away
Above the guests, in rival bravery:
Yet had they all that happiness would have,
And fail not having it: plenty, and peace,
And comfort. Parent brows smoothed in that warmth.
And childish faces gazing on the fire,
E'en as its fascination held them fast,
Smiling they knew not why; as the young smile,
And the old despond. Anon the kettle breathed
Its invitation to familiar rites;
First gently murmuring with rise and fall
And stop, as who preludes before he plays :
Then blowing a more moody and deeper blast,
As summoning its strength, till at the last,
Brooking no more delay, it boils amain
Impatient, as the enthusiast Pythoness,
Of its hot fumes. The housewife heard well pleased
That challenge, and forthwith gave to flow forth
Its rash tumultuous incontinence
Into a vessel of more richer art,
Silver-a precious stuff and wrought to a price.-
Yet costlier than its own-her grandsire's gift,
When on her bridal day he sent her forth,
Enriched with this, and with his blessing more,
Could it have been: a gift memorial
Of happier years and wealthier circumstance,
Not to be known again-or only when
Those artful leaves and tendril luxuries,
Outvying truth with curious mockery,
Shall bud to very fruit! the sudden steam,
Breathing a breath too hot for purity,
Dimmed the bright vase: meantime that careful dame,
The purifying influence outpoured,
In every cup, passing from each to each,
Lustration due-then from the cupboard nook
Produced a chest whose odorous potency
Might shame the cedar's boast-its lid disclosed,
Forth flew the fragrant spirit on airy wing,
Joyous and free. Then did the wife dole qut
Her chary herbage, pondering, spoon by spoon,
As prizing right its precious quality,
To the vase's gaping void-stooping anon
To scent its pleasantness, incense as sweet
As ever breathed to heaven: this done, on the heap, Piled in her present joy higher than wont,
She poured the liquid penetrative heat
Once, and again renewed-then a short pause
By talk made shorter ere she 'gan dispense
Her gracious drink; that gracious drink transfused
Into its cognate cups of far Cathay,
And blended there with cream, soft temperature,
Its virgin harshness changed to a gentler kind,
Inviting taste-nor needed urgency
To strain the invitation; as when erst
Mad revelry, with stress that more beseems
The hangman's office and the poisoned cup,
Would force its swilling potion down the throat
Of the abject drunkard. Hail, thou blessed plant!
Sacred to comfort and complacency,
Gentle refreshment! sure some providence,
Wiser than Pallas and more loving far,
Created thee to countervail the curse
Of that luxurious vine, whose first effect
(Type of its proofs in all futurity,)
Redounded to its Patriarch Author's shame;
Perverting reverence and pious dues
To ribald leer and rank obscenity,
Clean against nature. Then must grace go out
When riot rules: but thou dost still repress
Each passion in its dark cell of the brain,
There to lie still; whispering in the ear
Of mad distemperature a voice of calm,
Rebuking all misrule. Sure it was thou,
Though strangely named, didst once reform the crew
Of old Ulysses to humanity
From bestial lewdness, so reclaiming back
By thy mild potency those haggard souls ;
And rendering them to their reason again,
Forgotten and foregone. Then was joy rife,
'Neath that poor thatch-and the minutes winged their
Like a glad dream-sportive as fairy sprites
Dancing at eve with feet that but provoke
The springy grass to rise against their tread,
Leaving no trace. Their joy blazed as a star,
Needing nought else to feed it-from each brow
To each reflected, glancing eye from eye,
Well had it lustred every nook of the room,
Though light beside were none. Howled the fierce storm,
Shaking the stanchions, beating 'gainst the door,
Like to a maniac: aye howl away
In frustrate fury, for that din the more
Endears our warm security within ;
To think what we might be, doubles the bliss
Of what we are. So did their mirth long hold
Its holiday, for childish revelry,
Once kindled, lightly finds whereon to feed;
Finds, or else fancies it. But age hath cares,
And cares will cloud the brow; as they did then
That man's-and as the fire he gazed upon,
Subsided from its blaze to a darkling heap;
So did his temperature and pitch of soul
Fall from its height; nor did she not take note—
That loving anxious wife, of what she saw,
But nothing, yet spoke not her sense of it,
As hoping well that cloud, haply chance-strayed,
Across his light, might pass as quickly away,
And all be clear. So she essayed awhile
By matter new and question manifold,
Graced with her lively cheer, to give the spur
To his sinking spirit-but vainly-for the cloak
Discloses not what it conceals within,
To the gentle lamp that doth solicit it.
She saw and knew, and thus in winning wise-'
The measure here changes to lyrical metres, specimens of which we shall by and bye quote. At present, we remain with the descriptive portions, as in them we can best separate the poetic from the religious feeling.
A Description of Natural Phenomena :
Had climbed the ascent of heaven, and there paused,
Rejoicing in his power, as one glad
To look from his height on lowly happiness,
And feel the warm reflection of his beams,
Thrown back upon himself from the wide world,
That he did bless. But Hermann suddenly
Made pause, as he who hunted long by cares
Unto exhaustion, stands at length a-bay :-
And sat him down upon a little knoll,
Planted with five tall trees and ever green,
Both with the cool protection of their shade,
And the refreshment of a secret fount,
That had its birth there in the depth below,
And gave that verdant token of its life,
Unseen but not unfelt. Thence was he wont,
Erewhile, what haste soe'er might urge him on,
To look with silent pleasure on the scene
That spread before him its rich amplitude
Far as the eye could reach: stealing her thoughts
From the tired soul, and lending in their stead
Such images as sweeten solitude.
There in that vale, loosely stretched out at length,
Dame Nature lay, as on her genial couch,
Soliciting the due of husbandry
To quicken her rich womb, and the far hills
So graciously opposed their boundary,
As who should say, Look there and sate your sense, Where wonderment may well exhaust itself,
There was the village spire,
Pointing to Heaven in high significance,
For those, the few, who see with other eyes
Than those of sense; and there the church-yard lay,
Sloping so gently and so sunnily,
It seemed to say, "Come take your rest with me,
And make the grave your pillow"- all alike,
Meadow and wood, and the clear sky above
Was blended in an harmony of joy,
Save where perchance man's spirit mixed itself,
To jar the glad accord with its own grief.
O manhood, what a fallen thing thou art!
The crowning glory, the great miracle,
Of the creator's hand, added o'er all
For the accomplishment of blessedness,
And the perfection of the glorious work,
Thou dost but mar the whole, sad is the truth;
And none e'er felt its sadness trulier,
Than did that lonely youth. He looked and saw,
And wished his sight seared to the very quick,
So he might see no more. That golden light
Served but to show his gloom yet gloomier,
E'en as the sun, startling the murderer
With his own shadow; oftimes was he wont,
When that his haste had reached where then he stood,
And but an eye-shot kept him from his home,
To stay fond gazing; and send on his sight
To gather in the first fruits of his joy,
And fill his heart. There was the homely thatch,
The orchard and small garden, and rude porch,
Whereon the climbing rose and eglantine,
Like artless flowers upon a village maid,
Did show more sweet decking rusticity:
And there they stood gladsome and smilingly,
As was their wont-nor to their loveliness,
Did there lack aught save the glad radiance,
That the beholder's soul should minister,
Consenting with them. Alas! where that should be,
Was but a void-a dreary void-for there,
The sum of all his joy was swallowed up,
To be no more-his spirit drooped to the earth;
And in that selfsame bias droopingly,
He laid his weary body down at length.
A Fancy touching Prometheus :
"Sure he who erst,
As fables tell us, fabling haply a truth,
Stole fire from heaven to animate our clay
Was but a scanty thief, who having spent
His daring on that danger, lacked at last
The spirit to stretch forth his hand for the prize,
And fled dispurposed by preposterous fear,
Leaving his work half done, and bringing down
But some sad ashes where all fire was dead,
And only a poor lingering warmth o'erlived,
To be our being's soul: else had that fire
Been but itself, and held its quality,
O what a thing were man! surpassing all,
He aspires in hope or feels in consciousness,
Far as the star that glorifies all heaven,
Excels the marshborn vaporous meteor.
But truly whoso first devised that tale
Told it not for a memory of things done,
But for a hope of what remains to do:
That so regret of an old dream might prompt
A new desire to compass the thing dreamt:
Pointing to nature what she needeth most,
Not what she hath-that man so stirred might rise,
Aspiringly, up to the height of heaven,
And hath the spirit he lacks, by exercise
Of Heavenly visions high contemplative,
Such as draw down by their communion,
The holy flame to his soul, the flame that erst
Prophets did use, and patriots must use now,
Or die in the dark; themselves and all their hopes
And the Commonwealth of man. But why this waste
Of wholesome words? Sooner shall the dull earth
That we do walk, ourselves as dull and dead,
Pause in its ceaseless and most eager whirl,
To list the holy music of the spheres,
Than man in the moil and hurry of this life
Give wisdom but a moment's audience,
Though but to show her high credentials
The God she came from. No-each man doth tread
The path his father trod long ages back,
So wearing for themselves a track so deep
That they can see nought else save the dull mound,
That bars them in; so ever at the heels
Of use and old example, a damned pair,
Plodding their weary life, hopeless of good,
Endless of ill-nor thinking once to turn
Aside, and well consider the sure chart,
That wisdom from its height contemplative
Viewing at large, sets forth to save their pains,
And expedite their end-but thereto first,
Needs rectitude of soul and counsel too,
And next, such stirring fiery temperature
As may enforce that visionary right
To a reality.-Book iv.
Rural Sketches by the Hand of a Master :
"In such thought,
More cheerful since his soul had taken wing
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