Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Omnipresence principally takes up the sublime; its purport is to display the pleasures of contemplative elevation of mind; the feelings of thrilling fear at Almightiness constantly present, with their purifying: and ennobling effects. The subject ascends to the highest regions of imagination: it is a loftier walk of poetry than that of either Rogers or Campbell; and requires a more sinewy and constantly unwearied wing. If all the demands which such a subject exacts from the poet be satisfactorily met,-if the poem be complete, and worthy of the subject in sentiment and diction, the task which he has achieved must be pronounced greater than that of either of those bards. And this notwithstanding slight faults; which, in. reality, are as imputable to them as to him. It cannot be disputed, that, taking the Omnipresence singly, he is inferior to Rogers, in placid sweetness, in steady outline, and philosophical grouping; and often inferior to Campbell in chastened polish, in mellifluous logic, and some of the fascinating graces of minor ornament and detail. He is superior to them, however, in grand simplicity of design and massy sublimity of effect. Campbell has few instances of unmixed. sublimity; Rogers, I think, none-a placid correctness, and agreeable beauty of thought and style, pervade the whole of his poem. The Omnipresence, under this point of view, may be likened to the solemn sternness of a gigantic Egyptian temple—as compared with the elegant ornament and polished gracefulness of a

Grecian fane. But I know of no four consecutive lines in this work, that can excel the melting sweetness, and accurate illustration of this short passage in Rogers-notwithstanding the triple alliteration in the last line, which I fear the critics would have pronounced fatal in Montgomery.

Lighter than air, Hope's summer visions fly,
If but a transient cloud obscure the sky;
If but a ray of sober reason play,

Lo! Fancy's fairy frostwork melts away.

The six gossamer lines, however, which follow, beginning, 'But can the wiles of art,' and close the book, disappoint both the ear and mind by their unsubstantial dilation.

Nor does Montgomery rival the flowery luxuriancy, the dreamy but pure voluptuousness, and soothing pathos, of the following passage in Campbell's Pleasures of Hope:

Auspicious HOPE! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a balm for every woe:
Won by their sweets in nature's languid hour,
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower;
There, as the wild-bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms th' Eolian organ play,

And sweep the furrow'd lines of anxious thought away.

While instituting a comparison, I quote passages with which few readers are unfamiliar, in order fairly to recall, in this first stage of the inquiry, the peculiar beauties of sentiment and diction which characterize

the brother bards. Correct metaphor and tender associations form the mental charm of the preceding mellifluous passages in Rogers and Campbell; vivid portraiture, united with delicious cadence, of the succeeding passages from Montgomery :

See! not a cloud careers yon pensile sweep—
A waveless sea of azure, still as sleep;
Full in her dreamy light the Moon presides,
Shrined in a halo, mellowing as she rides;
And far around, the forest and the stream
Bathe in the beauty of her emerald beam.
Again-

Thrice has the sun upon his green-wav'd bed,
'Mid rosy clouds his vesper radiance shed;
And thrice the moon from out the ocean rose
Like pale-eyed beauty waking from repose;
As oft beneath, the melancholy wave
Murmur d o'er many a seaman's weedy grave.

Again

Sublimely sad! to linger in some aisle,

Where, through the blazon'd panes, the vesper

smile

With pallid radiance quivers in the gloom,
Or crowns, like seraph light, the inspiring tomb.

In the subjoined landscape, the image of the 'rainbow dropping on the distant hill,' is conceived in the purest spirit of poetry :—

First comes the Sun, unveiling half his face;
While dark clouds, skirted with his slanting ray,
Roll, one by one, in azure depths away,
Till pearly shapes, like molten billows, lie
Along the tinted bosom of the sky :

Next breezes murmur with harmonious charm,
Panting and wild, like orphans of the storm;
Now sipping flowers, now making blossoms shake,
Or weaving ripples on the grass-green lake ;
And thus the Tempest dies; and bright, and still,
The rainbow drops upon the distant hill.

Nor are the energetic phrases, in the following scene of horror, less impressed with the true mint-mark of genuine poetry

No more the tocsin for the carnage tolls,

No death-piled tumbril from the slaughter rolls;
The blood has dried upon the wither'd plain,
And brave La Vendée blooms in peace again.

The next passage will remind the reader of Campbell's defects, though it is still distinguished by Montgomery's forcible peculiarity of diction; for example, the pictural idiom, unrolls the thunder.' The suc

6

ceeding line, unfurls the whirlwind, and upheaves the world,' is, however, an inflated imitation of Campbell's great fault-his balanced inflation.

Far as the fancy flies, or life-stream flows,

From Georgia's deserts to the Greenland snows,
Where space exists, Thine eyes of mercy see,—
Creation lives, and moves, and breathes in Thee!

[blocks in formation]

Conducts each vapour, and commands each sea,
Beams in each ray, bids whirlwinds be unfurl'd,
Unrolls the thunder, and upheaves a world!

Again a specimen of the objectionable resemblance with a redeeming difference.

Some wear out life in smiles, and some in tears,
Some dare with hope, while others droop with fears,

Some gaily vanish to an unfear'd grave,

Fleet as the sun-flash o'er a summer wave.

The following passages, descriptive of a Vagrant and a Captive, exhibit the author's differences from and resemblances to Campbell, in character, sentiment, and diction. In these and other beautiful descriptions, a loose phrase, now and then provokingly occurring, induces the inference, that the author, with the impatience of genius, has not rigidly corrected his proofs. The thrice corrected MSS. of paper-saving' Pope, and the thrice elaborated revises of the nervously fastidious Canning, should have taught him the saving virtue of correction.

6

THE VAGRANT.

At wintry eve, when warring night-winds blow,
Pierce his cold cheek, and drift his locks of snow,
As oft the vagrant shivers through the street,
No voice to pity, and no hand to greet,
With many a pause he marks that window-pane,
Whose cheering blaze recalls his home again;
The friend and face, the music and the mirth,
And social magic of his evening hearth,
Awaked by mem'ry, warm his widow'd heart,
Till real woes in fancied bliss depart;

And one by one, as happier days appear,

To each he pays the homage of a tear;

Though homeless, still he love's home's joyous glare,
Looks up to heaven, and feels his home is there.

THE CAPTIVE.

Within a dungeon, mildew'd by the night,
Barr'd from salubrious air and cheering light,
Lo! the pale captive pines in hostile lands,
Chain'd to his doom by adamantine bands.

« ZurückWeiter »