The Poetical Works of Edgar Allen Poe

MEMOIR OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.

It would be well for all poets if nothing more were known of their lives than what they themselves infuse into their poetry. Too close a knowledge of the weaknesses and errors of the inspired children of Parnassus, cannot but impair, in some degree, the delicate aroma of their songs. The inner life of the poet, the secrets of his inspiration, the mysterious processes by which his pearls of thought are produced, can never be made known, and the accidents of his daily life have but little more interest than those which fall to common men. Under all circumstances the poet is a mystery, and the utterances of his fancy are but the drapery of the veiled statue which still leaves the figure itself unknown. A dissection of the song-bird gives us no insight into the secret of his melodious notes. Some of the great modern poets have had their whole lives exposed with minute accuracy; but in what are we the wiser for the knowledge we have obtained of them? We only know they lived and suffered like other men, and their inspirations are still a cause of wonder and delight. The subtle secret of their power is still hidden from our search; and though we know more of the daily habits of the men, we know no more of the hidden power of the poet. But there is still a yearning to know how the men lived whose genius has charmed and instructed us, and a vague feeling exists, that in probing the lives of poets we may learn something of the art by which they produced their works. But it is like the useless labour of Reynolds, who scraped a painting by Titian to learn the secret of his colouring.

Of all the poets whose lives have been a puzzle and a mystery to the world, there is no one more difficult to be understood than Edgar Allan Poe. It is impossible to carry in the mind a double idea of a man, and to believe him to be both a saint and a fiend; yet such is the embarrassment felt by those who have first read the poems of this strange being, and then read any of the biographies of him which pretend to anything like an accurate account of his life. Like his own Raven, he is, to his readers, “bird or fiend,” they know not which. But a close study of his works will reveal the fact, which may serve in some degree to remove this embarrassment, that there is nowhere discoverable in them a consciousness of moral responsibility. They are full of the subtleties of passion, of grief, despair, and longing, but they contain nothing that indicates a sense of moral rectitude. They are the productions of one whose religion was a worship of the Beautiful, and who knew no beauty but that which was purely sensuous. There were but two kinds of beauty for him, and they were Form and Colour. He revelled in an ideal world of perfect shows, and was made wretched by any imperfections of art. The Leonore whose loss he deplored was a being fair to the eye, a beautiful creature, like Undine, without a soul. With this key to the character of the poet, there is no difficulty in fully comprehending the strange inconsistencies, the basenesses and nobleness which his wayward life exhibited.

Some of the biographers of Poe have been harshly judged for the view given of his character, and it has naturally been supposed that private pique has led to the exaggeration of his personal defects. But such imputations are unjust; a truthful delineation of his career would give a darker hue to his character than it has received from any of his biographers. In fact, he has been more fortunate than most poets in his historians. Lowell and Willis have sketched him with gentleness and a reverent feeling for his genius; and Griswold, his literary executor, in his fuller biography, has generously suppressed much that he might have given. This is neither the proper time nor place to write a full history of this unhappy genius; those who scan his marvellous poems closely, may find therein the man, for it is impossible for the true poet to veil himself from his readers. What he writes he is.

The waywardness of Poe was an inheritance; though descended from a family of great respectability, his immediate parents were dissolute in their morals, and members of a profession which almost always begets irregularity of habits. The paternal grandfather of the poet was a distinguished officer in the Maryland line during the war of the Revolution, and his great grandfather, John Poe, married a daughter of Admiral McBride, of the British Navy. His father, the fourth son of the Revolutionary officer, was a native of Maryland, and studied for the bar; but becoming enamoured of a beautiful actress named Elizabeth Arnold, he abandoned the law and adopted the stage as a profession. They lived together six or seven years, wandering from theatre to theatre, when they both died within a very short time of each other, in Richmond, Virginia, leaving three children in utter destitution. Edgar, the second child, who was born in Baltimore in January 1811, was a remarkably bright and beautiful boy; and he attracted the attention of a wealthy merchant in Richmond, who had known his parents, and who had no children of his own. Mr. Allan adopted the little orphan, and he was afterwards called Edgar Allan. The precocious child was petted by his adopted parents, who took pride in his forwardness and beauty; he was sent to the best schools, and was regarded as the heir to their property. In 1816 Mr. and Mrs. Allan made a journey to Europe, and Edgar accompanied them. He was placed at the school of the Rev. Dr. Bransby, at Stoke Newington, near London, where he remained some four or five years; but all that we know of him during this period of his life, is what he has himself told us in the tale entitled “William Wilson,” wherein he describes with great minuteness his recollections of his school-days in England, and gives a characteristic picture of the school-house and its surroundings.

On his return to the United States, in the year 1822, he was placed for a few months at an academy at Richmond, and then was transferred to the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. The students at Charlottesville were noted, at that time, for their reckless and dissolute manner of life, and young Poe was the most dissolute and reckless among them. Though extremely slight in person, and almost effeminate in his manner, he is represented to have been foremost in all athletic sports and games, and there is good testimony to his having performed the almost impossible feat of swimming, for a wager, from Richmond to Warwick, a distance of seven miles, against a current of two or three knots an hour. Notwithstanding his dissolute habits and extravagance at the University, he excelled in his studies, was always at the head of his class, and would, doubtless, have graduated with honour, had he not been expelled on account of his profligacy and wild excesses.

His allowance of money had been liberal at the University, but he quitted it in debt; and when his indulgent friend refused to accept his drafts to meet his gambling losses, Poe wrote him an abusive letter, and quitted the country with the design of offering his services to the Greeks, who were then fighting for their emancipation from the Turks. But he never reached Greece, and all that is known of his career in Europe is, that he found himself in St. Petersburgh, in extreme destitution, where the American Minister, Mr. Middleton, was called upon to save him from arrest, on account of an indiscretion; through the kind offices of this gentleman the young adventurer was sent home to America, and, on his arrival in Richmond, Mr. Allan received him with kindness, forgave him his past misconduct, and procured him a cadetship at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Unfortunately for him, just before he left Richmond for his new appointment, Mrs. Allan, the wife of his benefactor, died. She had always treated him with motherly affection, and he had paid more deference to her than to any one else. At West Point he applied himself with great energy and success for a while to his new course of studies; but the rigid discipline of that institution ill sorted with the irrepressible recklessness of his nature, and after ten months he was ignominiously expelled.

After leaving “the Point” he returned to Richmond, and was again kindly received and welcomed to his home by Mr. Allan. But there was a change in the house where the wayward boy had been a pet. There was a new and a younger mistress. Mr. Allan had taken a second wife, a lady much younger than himself, and who was disposed to treat the expelled cadet as a son. But he soon contrived to quarrel with her, and was compelled to abandon the house of his adopted father, never to return. The cause of the quarrel which led to this final disruption between Poe and his generous patron has been variously stated; the family of Mr. Allan give a version of it which throws a dark shade on the character of the poet; but let it have been as it may, it must have been of a very grave nature, for, on the death of Mr. Allan, shortly after, in 1834, the name of his adopted son, who it was supposed would have inherited all his wealth, was not mentioned in his will.

On leaving the house of his benefactor for the last time, Poe was left without a friend, and thrown upon his own resources. He had published a volume of poems in Baltimore, just after his expulsion from West Point, under the title of “Al Aaraaf” and “Tamerlane,” to which a few smaller poems were added. These were the production of his early years, probably between his fifteenth and sixteenth years, though the exact date of their production cannot be ascertained. The commendations bestowed upon these precocious poems encouraged him to devote himself to literature for a profession. But his first attempts to earn a living by literature must have been discouraging, for soon after publishing his first volume, he was driven by his necessities to enlist as a private soldier in the army. Here he was recognised by officers who had known him at West Point, and who interested themselves to obtain his discharge, and, if possible, a commission. But their kind intentions were frustrated by his desertion. The next attempt he made in literature proved more successful; he had fruitlessly tried to find a publisher for a volume of stories; but on a premium of one hundred dollars, for a tale in prose, and a similar reward for a poem, being offered by the publisher of a literary periodical in Baltimore, Poe obtained both prizes; though he was only allowed to retain the prize for the tale, as it was thought not prudent to give both prizes to the same writer. The tale chosen was the “Manuscript found in a Bottle,” a composition which contains many of his most marked peculiarities of style and invention. The award was made in October 1833, and, fortunately for the young author, there was one gentleman on the committee who made the decision, who had it in his power to render him essential service.

This was John P. Kennedy, the novelist, author of “Horse Shoe Robinson,” and eminent as a lawyer and a statesman. To this gentleman Poe came on hearing of his success, poorly clad, pale, and emaciated; he told his story, and his ambition, and at once gained the confidence and affection of the more prosperous author. He was in utter want, and had not yet received the amount to which he was entitled for his story. Mr. Kennedy took him by the hand, furnished him with means to render him immediately comfortable, and enabled him to make a respectable appearance; and in a short time afterwards procured for him a situation as editor of the “Literary Messenger,” a monthly magazine published in Richmond. In his new place he continued for a while to work with great industry, and wrote a great number of reviews and tales; but he fell into his old habits, and after a debauch quarrelled with the proprietor of the “Messenger,” and was dismissed.

It was one of the strange peculiarities of Poe to make humble and penitent appeals for forgiveness and reconciliation to those he had offended by his abuse and insolence, and he was no sooner conscious of his error in quarrelling with the publisher of the “Messenger” than he endeavoured to regain the position he had lost. He was successful; and though he often fell into his old habits, yet he retained his connexion with the work until January, 1837, when he abandoned the “Messenger” and left Richmond for New York. During his last residence in Richmond, while working for a salary of ten dollars a week, he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a young, amiable, and gentle girl, without fortune or friends, and as ill-calculated as himself to buffet the waves of an adverse fortune. In New York he wrote for the literary periodicals, but soon removed to Philadelphia, where he was employed as editor of “Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine;” he continued but a year in his post, and after several quarrels with the proprietor of the magazine, left him to establish a magazine of his own. To have a magazine of his own, which he could manage as he pleased, was always the great ambition of his life. He had invented a title, selected a motto, written an introduction, and made the entire plans for the great work, which was to be called the “Stylus;” it was the chimera which he nursed, the castle in the air which he longed for, the rainbow of his cloudy hopes. But he did not succeed in establishing it then, and was soon installed as editor of “Graham’s Magazine.” As a matter of course he quarrelled with Graham, and then went to New York, where he engaged as a sub-editor on the “Mirror,” a daily paper, of which his friend Willis was editor. But he did not remain long at this employment, which was wholly unsuited to him, and he left the “Mirror” without quarrelling with the proprietor. During his engagements with these different periodicals, he had written some of his finest prose tales, had published an anonymous work in the style of Robinson Crusoe, entitled the “Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym,” and a collection of his tales in a volume, which he called “Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque,” and gained another prize by his story of the Gold Bug. He was beginning to be known as a fierce and terrible critic, rather than as a poet or a writer of tales, when the publication of his poem of the Raven in the “American Review,” a New York monthly magazine, first attracted the attention of the literary world to his singular and powerful genius. Up to the appearance of this wild fantasy, he had not been generally recognised as a poet, and had known nothing of society. But he became at once a lion, and his writings were eagerly sought after by publishers. The prospect lay bright before him; he abandoned for awhile the vices which so fearfully beset him; he was living quietly in a pleasant rural neighbourhood in Westchester, near the city, with his delicate wife and her mother, and a brilliant future appeared to be in store for him. But he could never keep clear from magazine editing, and he joined Mr. C. F. Briggs in publishing the “Broadway Journal,” a literary weekly periodical; but the inevitable quarrel ensued, and this project was abandoned at the end of a year. It was while editing the “Broadway Journal” that he engaged in furious onslaught upon Longfellow, whom he accused of plagiarising from his poems, and, at the same time, involved himself in numberless disputes and quarrels with other authors. But he also gained the affection and admiration of many estimable literary people, some of whom he alienated by appearing before them when in a state of intoxication. He delivered a lecture on poetry, but attracted no hearers, and he was so chagrined by his disappointment, that he fell again into his old habits, and disgusted his new friends by his gross misconduct; he involved himself in another quarrel with some of the literati of Boston, and to show his contempt for them, went there and delivered a poem in public, which he pretended to have written in his tenth year. On his return to New York he was again reduced to great straits; and in 1848 he advertised a series of lectures, in order to raise sufficient means to put into execution his long-cherished plan of a magazine; but he delivered only one lecture on the Cosmogony of the Universe, which was afterwards published under the title of “Eureka, a Prose Poem.” His wife had died the year previously, and during her illness he was reduced to such extremities that public appeals, which were generously responded to, were made in his behalf by the papers of New York.

Not long after the death of his wife he formed an intimacy with an accomplished literary lady of Rhode Island, a widow, and was engaged to be married to her. It was to her that he addressed the poem “Annabel Lee;” the day was appointed for their marriage; but he had, in the meantime, formed other plans; and, to disentangle himself from this engagement, he visited the house of his affianced bride, where he conducted himself with such indecent violence that the aid of the police had to be called in to expel him. This, of course, put an end to the engagement. In a short time after he went to Richmond, and there gained the confidence and affections of a lady of good family and considerable fortune. The day was appointed for their marriage, and he left Virginia to return to New York to fulfil some literary arrangements previous to the consummation of this new engagement. He had written to his friends that he had, at last, a prospect of happiness. The Lost Lenore was found. He arrived in Baltimore on his way to the north, and gave his baggage into the charge of a porter, intending to leave in an hour for Philadelphia. Stepping into an hotel to obtain some refreshments, he met some of his former companions, who invited him to drink with them. In a few moments all was over with him. He spent the night in revelry, wandered out into the street in a state of insanity, and was found in the morning literally dying from exposure, and a single night’s excesses. He was taken to a hospital, and, on the 7th October, 1849, at the age of thirty-eight, he closed his troubled life. Three days before he had left his newly-affianced bride to prepare for their nuptials. He lies in a burying-ground in Baltimore, his native city, without a stone to mark the place of his last rest.

In person Edgar Allan Poe was slight, and hardly of the medium height; his motions were quick and nervous, his air was abstracted, and his countenance generally serious and pale. He never laughed, and rarely smiled; but in conversation he was vivacious, earnest, and respectful; and though he appeared generally under restraint, as though guarding against a half-subdued passion, yet his manners were engaging, and he never failed to win the confidence and kind feelings of those with whom he conversed for the first time; and there were a few who knew him long and intimately who could never believe that he was ever otherwise than the pleasant, intelligent, respectful, and earnest companion he appeared to them. Though he was at times so reckless and profligate in his conduct, and so indifferent to external proprieties, he was generally scrupulously exact in everything he did. He dressed with extreme neatness and perfectly good taste, avoiding all ornaments and everything of a bizarre appearance. He was painfully alive to all imperfections of art; and a false rhyme, an ambiguous sentence, or even a typographical error, threw him into an ecstasy of passion. It was this sensitiveness to all artistic imperfections, rather than any malignity of feeling, which made his criticisms so severe, and procured him a host of enemies among persons towards whom he never entertained any personal ill-will. He criticised his own productions with the same severity that he exercised towards the writings of others; and all his poems, though he sometimes represented them as offsprings of a sudden inspiration, were the work of elaborate study. His handwriting was always neat and singularly uniform, and his manuscripts were invariably on long slips of paper about four inches wide, which he never folded, but always made into a roll. Nothing he ever did had the appearance of haste or slovenliness, and he preserved with religious care every scrap he had ever written, and every letter he ever received, so that he left behind him the amplest materials for the composition of his literary life. At his own request these remnants of his existence were entrusted to Doctor Griswold, a gentleman with whom he had quarrelled, and had lampooned in his lectures; Doctor Griswold, in a generous spirit, accepted the charge, and produced from the papers entrusted to him, the best biography of the strange being that has been published, which was appended to the collection of his works in four volumes issued in New York.

June, 1857.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. — THE RAVEN. — LENORE. — A VALENTINE. — THE COLISEUM. — TO —— ——. — TO HELEN. — AN ENIGMA. — ULALUME. — TO ——. — TO MY MOTHER. — THE BELLS. — THE CONQUEROR WORM. — ANNABEL LEE. — THE VALLEY OF UNREST. — ISRAFEL.⁠ [1] — SILENCE. — TO ZANTE. — TO F——S S. O——D. — BRIDAL BALLAD. — THE HAUNTED PALACE. — EULALIE. — TO F——. — TO ONE IN PARADISE. — DREAM-LAND. — HYMN. — THE SLEEPER. — FOR ANNIE. — ELDORADO. — A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. — THE CITY IN THE SEA.

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever!

Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;

And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or never more!

See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!

Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—

A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

retches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!

How shall the ritual, then, be read?—-the requiem how be sung

By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—

For her, the fair and débonnaire, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes—

The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes.

“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days!

Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnèd Earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—

From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—

From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”

or her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

Brightly expressive as the twins of Lœda,

Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies

Upon the page enwrapped from every reader.

Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure

Divine—a talisman—an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure—

The words—the syllables! Do not forget

The trivialest point, or you may lose your labour!

And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot.

Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

Eyes’ scintillating soul, there lie perdus

Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet’s, too.

Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—

Still form a synonym for Truth.—Cease trying!

You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

To translate the address, read the first letter of the first line in connexion with the second letter of the second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth of the fourth, and so on to the end. The name will thus appear.

ot long ago, the writer of these lines,

In the mad pride of intellectuality,

Maintained “the power of words”—denied that ever

A thought arose within the human brain

Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:

And now, as if in mockery of that boast,

Two words—two foreign soft dissyllables—

Italian tones, made only to be murmured

By angels dreaming in the moon-lit “dew

That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,”—

Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,

Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,

Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions

Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,

(Who has “the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures,”)

Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.

The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.

With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,

I cannot write—I cannot speak or think—

Alas, I cannot feel; for ’tis not feeling,

This standing motionless upon the golden

Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,

Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,

And thrilling as I see, upon the right,

Upon the left, and all the way along,

Amid unpurpled vapours, far away

To where the prospect terminates—thee only.

I saw thee once—once only—years ago:

I must not say how many—but not many.

It was a July midnight; and from out

A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,

Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,

There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,

With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,

Upon the upturn’d faces of a thousand

Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,

Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe—

Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses,

That gave out, in return for the love-light,

Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death—

Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses

That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted

By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

lad all in white, upon a violet bank

I saw thee half reclining; while the moon

Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,

And on thine own, upturn’d—alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—

Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow)

That bade me pause before that garden-gate,

To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?

No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,

Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!—oh, God!

How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)

Save only thee and me. I paused—I looked—

And in an instant all things disappeared.

(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

The pearly lustre of the moon went out:

The mossy banks and the meandering paths,

The happy flowers and the repining trees,

Were seen no more: the very roses’ odours

Died in the arms of the adoring airs.

All—all expired save thee—save less than thou:

Save only the divine light in thine eyes—

Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.

I saw but them—they were the world to me.

I saw but them—saw only them for hours—

Saw only them until the moon went down.

What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten

Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!

How dark a woe! yet how sublime a hope!

How silently serene a sea of pride!

How daring an ambition! yet how deep—

How fathomless a capacity for love!

ut now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,

Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;

And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees

Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained.

They would not go—they never yet have gone.

Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,

They have not left me (as my hopes have) since.

They follow me—they lead me through the years.

They are my ministers—yet I their slave.

Their office is to illumine and enkindle—

My duty, to be saved by their bright light,

And purified in their electric fire,

And sanctified in their elysian fire.

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),

And are far up in heaven—the stars I kneel to

In the sad, silent watches of my night;

While even in the meridian glare of day

I see them still—two sweetly scintillant

Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

eldom we find,” says Solomon Don Dunce,

”Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.

Through all the flimsy things we see at once

As easily as through a Naples bonnet—

Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it?

Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff—

Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff

Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it.”

And, veritably, Sol is right enough.

The general tuckermanities are arrant

Bubbles—ephemeral and so transparent—

But this is, now,—you may depend upon it—

Stable, opaque, immortal—all by dint

Of the dear names that lie concealed within ’t.

ecause I feel that, in the heavens above,

The angels, whispering to one another,

Can find, among their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of “Mother,”

Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—

You who are more than mother unto me,

And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you

In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.

My mother—my own mother, who died early,

Was but the mother of myself; but you

Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew

By that infinity with which my wife

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

III.

ear the loud alarum bells—

Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire.

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour,

Now—now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the besom of the palpitating air!

Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—

Of the bells—

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!

o! ’tis a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

  A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Woe!

That motley drama—oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore,

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And the angels sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

And the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy “Man,”

And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

NCE it smiled a silent dell

Where the people did not dwell;

They had gone unto the wars,

Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

Nightly, from their azure towers,

To keep watch above the flowers,

In the midst of which all day

The red sun-light lazily lay.

Now each visitor shall confess

The sad valley’s restlessness.

Nothing there is motionless—

Nothing save the airs that brood

Over the magic solitude.

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees

That palpitate like the chill seas

Around the misty Hebrides!

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven

That rustle through the unquiet heaven

Uneasily, from morn till even,

Over the violets there that lie

In myriad types of the human eye—

Over the lilies there that wave

And weep above a nameless grave!

They wave:—from out their fragrant tops

Eternal dews come down in drops.

They weep:—from off their delicate stems

Perennial tears descend in gems.

here are some qualities—some incorporate things,

That have a double life, which thus is made

A type of that twin entity which springs

From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.

There is a two-fold Silence—sea and shore—

Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,

Newly with grass o’ergrown; some solemn graces,

Some human memories and tearful lore,

Render him terrorless: his name’s “No More.”

He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!

No power hath he of evil in himself;

But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)

Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,

That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod

No foot of man), commend thyself to God!

hou wouldst be loved?—then let thy heart

From its present pathway part not!

Being everything which now thou art,

Be nothing which thou art not.

So with the world thy gentle ways,

Thy grace, thy more than beauty,

Shall be an endless theme of praise,

And love—a simple duty.

he ring is on my hand,

And the wreath is on my brow;

Satins and jewels grand

Are all at my command,

And I am happy now.

And my lord he loves me well;

But, when first he breathed his vow,

I felt my bosom swell—

For the words rang as a knell,

And the voice seemed his who fell

In the battle down the dell,

And who is happy now.

But he spoke to reassure me,

And he kissed my pallid brow,

While a reverie came o’er me,

And to the church-yard bore me,

And I sighed to him before me,

Thinking him dead D’Elormie,

“Oh, I am happy now!”

And thus the words were spoken,

And thus the plighted vow;

And though my faith be broken,

And though my heart be broken,

Behold the golden token

That proves me happy now!

Would God I could awaken!

For I dream I know not how,

And my soul is sorely shaken

Lest an evil step be taken,—

Lest the dead who is forsaken

May not be happy now.

eloved! amid the earnest woes

That crowd around my earthly path—

(Drear path, alas! where grows

Not even one lonely rose)—

My soul at least a solace hath

In dreams of thee, and therein knows

An Eden of bland repose.

And thus thy memory is to me

Like some enchanted far-off isle

In some tumultuous sea—

Some ocean throbbing far and free

With storms—but where meanwhile

Serenest skies continually

Just o’er that one bright island smile.

y a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, named Night,

  On a black throne reigns upright,

  I have reached these lands but newly

  From an ultimate dim Thule—

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,

  Out of Space—out of Time.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,

And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,

With forms that no man can discover

For the dews that drip all over;

Mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore;

Seas that restlessly aspire,

Surging, unto skies of fire;

Lakes that endlessly outspread

Their lone waters—lone and dead,—

Their still waters—still and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread

Their lone waters, lone and dead,—

Their sad waters, sad and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily,—

By the mountains—near the river

Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—

By the grey woods,—by the swamp

Where the toad and the newt encamp,—

By the dismal tarns and pools

Where dwell the Ghouls,—

By each spot the most unholy —

In each nook most melancholy,—

There the traveller meets aghast

Sheeted Memories of the Past—

Shrouded forms that start and sigh

As they pass the wanderer by—

White-robed forms of friends long given,

In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion

’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—

For the spirit that walks in shadow

’Tis—oh, ’tis an Eldorado!

t morn—at noon—at twilight dim—

Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!

In joy and woe—in good and ill—

Mother of God, be with me still!

When the Hours flew brightly by,

And not a cloud obscured the sky,

My soul, lest it should truant be,

Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;

Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast

Darkly my Present and my Past,

Let my Future radiant shine

With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

hank Heaven! the crisis—

The danger is past,

And the lingering illness

Is over at last—

And the fever called “Living”

Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know

I am shorn of my strength,

And no muscle I move

As I lie at full length—

But no matter!—I feel

I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,

Now, in my bed,

That any beholder

Might fancy me dead—

Might start at beholding me,

Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,

The sighing and sobbing,

Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing

At heart:—ah, that horrible,

Horrible throbbing!

The sickness—the nausea—

The pitiless pain—

Have ceased, with the fever

That maddened my brain—

With the fever called “Living”

That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures

That torture the worst

Has abated—the terrible

Torture of thirst

For the naphthaline river

Of Passion accurst:—

I have drunk of a water

That quenches all thirst:—

SCENES FROM “POLITIAN;”

AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA.

I.

ROME.—A Hall in a Palace. Alessandra and Castiglione.

II.

III.

An Apartment in a Palace. Politian and Baldazzar.

IV.

The Gardens of a Palace—Moonlight.
Lalage and Politian.

V.

The Suburbs. Politian alone.

POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH. — AL AARAAF.⁠ [2] — PART I. — PART II. — SONNET—TO SCIENCE. — TO THE RIVER ——. — TAMERLANE. — TO ——. — A DREAM. — ROMANCE. — FAIRY-LAND. — THE LAKE. — SONG. — TO M. L. S——. — TO HELEN.

pirit! that dwellest where,

In the deep sky,

The terrible and fair

In beauty vie!

Beyond the line of blue—

The boundary of the star

Which turneth at the view

Of thy barrier and thy bar—

Of the barrier overgone

By the comets who were cast

From their pride, and from their throne

To be drudges till the last—

To be carriers of fire

(The red fire of their heart)

With speed that may not tire

And with pain that shall not part—

Who livest—that we know—

In Eternity—we feel—

But the shadow of whose brow

What spirit shall reveal?

Tho’ the beings whom thy Nesace,

Thy messenger hath known,

Have dreamed for thy Infinity

A model⁠[12] of their own—

Thy will is done, O God!

The star hath ridden high

Thro’ many a tempest, but she rode

Beneath thy burning eye;

And here, in thought, to thee—

In thought that can alone

Ascend thy empire and so be

A partner of thy throne—

By winged Fantasy,⁠[13]

My embassy is given,

Till secrecy shall knowledge be

In the environs of Heaven.”

She ceased—and buried then her burning cheek

Abashed, amid the lilies there, to seek

A shelter from the fervour of His eye;

For the stars trembled at the Deity.

She stirred not—breathed not—for a voice was there

How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear

Which dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”

Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call

“Silence”—which is the merest word of all.

All Nature speaks, and e’en ideal things

Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings—

But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high

The eternal voice of God is passing by,

And the red winds are withering in the sky!

“What tho’ in worlds which sightless⁠[14] cycles run,

Linked to a little system, and one sun—

Where all my love is folly, and the crowd

Still think my terrors but the thunder-cloud,

The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath—

(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)

What tho’ in worlds which own a single sun

The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,

Yet thine is my resplendency, so given

To bear my secrets thro’ the upper heaven.

Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,

With all thy train, athwart the moony sky—

Apart—like fire-flies⁠[15] in Sicilian night,

And wing to other worlds another light!

Divulge the secrets of thy embassy

To the proud orbs that twinkle—and so be

To ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban

Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!”

cience! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,

Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

n visions of the dark night

I have dreamed of joy departed—

But a waking dream of life and light

Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day

To him whose eyes are cast

On things around him with a ray

Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream—that holy dream,

While all the world were chiding,

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam

A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro’ storm and night,

So trembled from afar—

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth’s day-star?

omance, who loves to nod and sing,

With drowsy head and folded wing,

Among the green leaves as they shake

Far down within some shadowy lake,

To me a painted paroquet

Hath been—a most familiar bird—

Taught me my alphabet to say—

To lisp my very earliest word

While in the wild wood I did lie,

A child—with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years

So shake the very heaven on high

With tumult as they thunder by,

I have no time for idle cares

Through gazing on the unquiet sky.

And when an hour with calmer wings

Its down upon my spirit flings—

That little time with lyre and rhyme

To while away—forbidden things!

My heart would feel to be a crime

Unless it trembled with the strings.

TO ——.

saw thee on thy bridal day—

When a burning blush came o’er thee,

Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light

(Whatever it might be)

Was all on Earth my aching sight

Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame—

As such it well may pass—

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,

When that deep blush would come o’er thee,

Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee.

f all who hail thy presence as the morning—

Of all to whom thine absence is the night—

The blotting utterly from out high heaven

The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee

Hourly for hope—for life—ah! above all,

For the resurrection of deep-buried faith

In Truth—in Virtue—in Humanity—

Of all who, on Despair’s unhallowed bed

Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen

At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”

At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled

In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes—

Of all who owe thee most—whose gratitude

Nearest resembles worship—oh, remember

The truest—the most fervently devoted,

And think that these weak lines are written by him—

By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think

His spirit is communing with an angel’s.

elen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicéan barks of yore

That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,

The weary way-worn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece,

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,

The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

Are holy-land!

NOTES TO AL AARAAF.

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE.

In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By “minor poems” I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, “a long poem,” is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags—fails—a revulsion ensues—and then the poem is, in effect and in fact, no longer such.

There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the “Paradise Lost” is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity—its totality of effect or impression—we read it (as would be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical pre-judgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book—that is to say, commencing with the second—we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned—that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity:—and this is precisely the fact.

In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason, for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of Art. The modern epic is of the supposititious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem were popular in reality—which I doubt—it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again.

That the extent of a poetical work is, cœteris paribus, the measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition sufficiently absurd—yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly considered—there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of the sublime—but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material grandeur of even “The Columbiad.” Even the Quarterlies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet, they have not insisted on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollok by the pound—but what else are we to infer from their continual prating about “sustained effort?” If, by “sustained effort,” any little gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the effort—if this indeed be a thing commendable—but let us forbear praising the epic on the effort’s account. It is to be hoped that common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art, rather by the impression it makes—by the effect it produces—than by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of “sustained effort” which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another—nor can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.

On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. De Béranger has wrought innumerable things, pungent and spirit-stirring; but, in general, they have been too imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention; and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the wind.

A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem—in keeping it out of the popular view—is afforded by the following exquisite little Serenade:

Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines—yet no less a poet than Shelley is their author. Their warm yet delicate and ethereal imagination will be appreciated by all—but by none so thoroughly as by him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved, to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

One of the finest poems by Willis—the very best, in my opinion, which he has ever written—has, no doubt, through this same defect of undue brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the than in the popular view.

In this composition we find it difficult to recognise the Willis who has written so many mere “verses of society.” The lines are not only richly ideal, but full of energy; while they breathe an earnestness—an evident sincerity of sentiment—for which we look in vain throughout all the other works of this author.

While the epic mania—while the idea that, to merit in poetry, prolixity is indispensable—has, for some years past, been gradually dying out of the public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity—we find it succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which, in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to have accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of The Didactic. It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea; and we Bostonians, very especially, have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true Poetic dignity and force:—but the simple fact is, that, would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem—this poem per se—this poem which is a poem and nothing more—this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.

With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man, I would, nevertheless, limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation. I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation. The demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in Song, is precisely all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a flaunting paradox, to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth, we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical and chasmal differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.

Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which, in the mind, it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme; but from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the virtues themselves. Nevertheless, we find the offices of the trio marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful while the Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with displaying the charms:—waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her deformity—her disproportion—her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious—in a word, to Beauty.

An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly, a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odours, and sentiments amid which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of these forms, and sounds, and colours, and odours, and sentiments, a duplicate source of delight. But this mere repetition is not poetry. He who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of description, of the sights, and sounds, and odours, and colours, and sentiments, which greet him in common with all mankind—he, I say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us—but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry—or when by Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic moods—we find ourselves melted into tears—we weep then—not as the Abbaté Gravina supposes—through excess of pleasure, but through a certain, petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.

The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness—this struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted—has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic.

The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes—in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance—very especially in Music—and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the composition of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has regard only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music, in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected—is so vitally important an adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles—the creation of supernal Beauty. It may be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and then, attained in fact. We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight, that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which cannot have been unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in the Union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the widest field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers had advantages which we do not possess—and Thomas Moore, singing his own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.

To recapitulate, then:—I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect or with the Conscience, it has only collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with Truth.

A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation, or excitement, of the soul, which we recognise as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. I make Beauty, therefore—using the word as inclusive of the sublime—I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of Art, that effects should be made to spring as directly as possible from their causes:—no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least most readily attainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion, or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they may subserve, incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work:—but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.

I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your consideration, than by the citation of the Pröem to Mr. Longfellow’s “Waif.”

With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective. Nothing can be better than—

The idea of the last quartrain is also very effective. The poem, on the whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful insouciance of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments, and especially for the ease of the general manner. This “ease,” or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard as ease in appearance alone—as a point of really difficult attainment. But not so:—a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never meddle with it—to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that the tone, in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt—and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the fashion of “The North American Review,” should be, upon all occasions, merely “quiet,” must necessarily, upon many occasions, be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be considered “easy,” or “natural,” than a Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the wax-works.

Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one which he entitles “June.” I quote only a portion of it:—

The rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptuous—nothing could be more melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the poet’s cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul—while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,

The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full of brilliancy and spirit as the “Health” of Edward Coote Pinkney:—

It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists, by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing called “The North American Review.” The poem just cited is especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces, we must refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet’s enthusiasm. We pardon his hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.

It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves. Boccalini, in his “Advertisements from Parnassus,” tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book:—whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all the chaff for his reward.

Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics—but I am by no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood. Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an axiom, which need only be properly put, to become self-evident. It is not excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:—and thus, to point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that they are not merits altogether.

Among the “Melodies” of Thomas Moore, is one whose distinguished character as a poem proper, seems to have been singularly left out of view. I allude to his lines beginning—“Come, rest in this bosom.” The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the all in all of the divine passion of Love—a sentiment which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more passionate, human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words:

It has been the fashion, of late days, to deny Moore Imagination, while granting him Fancy—a distinction originating with Coleridge—than whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there a greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet. In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more profoundly—more weirdly imaginative, in the best sense, than the lines commencing—“I would I were by that dim lake”—which are the composition of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.

One of the noblest—and, speaking of Fancy, one of the most singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His “Fair Ines” had always, for me, an inexpressible charm:

“The Haunted House,” by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever written—one of the truest—one of the most unexceptionable—one of the most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution, It is, moreover, powerfully ideal—imaginative. I regret that its length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it, permit me to offer the universally appreciated “Bridge of Sighs.”

The vigour of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem.

Among the minor poems of Lord Byron, is one which has never received from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:—

Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea, that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of Fate while, in his adversity, he still retains the unwavering love of woman.

From Alfred Tennyson—although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived—I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen. I call him, and think him the noblest of poets—not because the impressions he produces are, at all times, the most profound—not because the poetical excitement which he induces is, at all times, the most intense—but because it is, at all times, the most ethereal—in other words, the most elevating and the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long poem, “The Princess:”

Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavoured to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is, strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the Soul—quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart—or of that Truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade, rather than to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary—Love—the true, the divine Eros—the Uranian, as distinguished from the Dionæn Venus—is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth—if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth, we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience, at once, the true poetical effect—but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest.

We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements which induce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect. He recognises the ambrosia which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs that shine in Heaven—in the volutes of the flower—in the clustering of low shrubberies—in the waving of the grain-fields—in the slanting of tall, Eastern trees—in the blue distance of mountains—in the grouping of clouds—in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks—in the gleaming of silver rivers—in the repose of sequestered lakes—in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds—in the harp of Æolus—in the sighing of the night-wind—in the repining voice of the forest—in the surf that complains to the shore—in the fresh breath of the woods—in the scent of the violet—in the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth—in the suggestive odour that comes to him, at eventide, from far-distant, undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts—in all unworldly motives—in all holy impulses—in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman—in the grace of her step—in the lustre of her eye—in the melody of her voice—in her soft laughter—in her sigh—in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments—in her burning enthusiasms—in her gentle charities—in her meek and devotional endurances—but above all—ah, far above all—he kneels to it—he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty—of her love.

Let me conclude—by the recitation of yet another brief poem—one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called “The Song of the Cavalier.” With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathise with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the soul of the old cavalier.

LONDON:—PRINTED BY RICHARD CLAY,
BREAD STREET HILL