Part 49 (1/2)
Beyond the wild haunts of the mockers-- Far in the distance and gray, Floateth that sorrowful spirit Away, and away, and away.
Pale phantoms fly past it, like shadows: Dim eyes that are blinded with tears; Old faces all white with affliction-- The ghosts of the wasted dead years!
”Soul that hath ruined us, s.h.i.+ver And moan when you know us,” they cry-- ”Behold, I was part of thy substance!”-- ”And I”--saith another--”and I!”
Drifting from starless abysses Into the ether sublime, Where is no upward nor downward, Nor region nor record of Time!
Out of the Body for ever No refuge--no succour nor stay-- Floated that sorrowful Spirit Away, and away, and away.
Sonnets
To N. D. Stenhouse, Esq.
Dark days have pa.s.sed, but you who taught me then To look upon the world with trustful eyes, Are not forgotten! Quick to sympathise With n.o.ble thoughts, I've dreamt of moments when Your low voice filled with strains of fairer skies!
Stray breaths of Grecian song that went and came, Like floating fragrance from some quiet glen In those far hills which s.h.i.+ne with cla.s.sic fame Of pa.s.sioned nymphs and grand-browed G.o.d-like men!
I sometimes fear my heart hath lost the same Sweet sense of harmony; but _this_ I know That Beauty waits on you _where'er_ you go, Because she loveth child-like Faith! Her bowers Are rich for it with glad perennial flowers.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A lofty Type of all her s.e.x, I ween, My English brothers, though your wayward race Now slight the Soul that never wore a screen, And loved too well to keep her n.o.ble place!
Ah, bravest Woman that our World hath seen (A light in s.p.a.ces wild and tempest-tost), In every verse of thine, behold, we trace The full reflection of an earnest face And hear the scrawling of an eager pen!
O sisters! knowing what you've loved and lost, I ask where shall we find its like, and when?
That dear heart with its pa.s.sion sorrow-crost, And pathos rippling, like a brook in June Amongst the roses of a windless noon.
Sir Walter Scott
The Bard of ancient lore! Like one forlorn, He turned, enamoured, to the silent Past; And searching down its mazes gray and vast, As you might find the blossom by the thorn, He found fair things in barren places cast And brought them up into the light of morn.
Lo! Truth, resplendent, as a tropic dawn, s.h.i.+nes always through his wond'rous pictures! Hence The many quick emotions which are born Of an Imagination so intense!
The chargers' hoofs come tearing up the sward-- The claymores rattle in the restless sheath; You close his page, and almost look abroad For Highland glens and windy leagues of heath.
Let me here endeavour to draw the fair distinctions between the great writers, or some of the great writers, of Scott's day; borrowing at the same time a later name. I shall start with that strange figure, Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley.
He was too subjective to be merely a descriptive poet, too metaphysical to be vague, and too imaginative to be didactic.
As Scott was the most dramatic, Wordsworth the most profound, Byron the most pa.s.sionate, so Sh.e.l.ley was the most spiritual writer of his time. Scott's poetry was the result of vivid emotion, Wordsworth's of quiet observation, Byron's of pa.s.sion, and Sh.e.l.ley's of pa.s.sion and reflection. Scott races like a torrent, Byron rolls like a sea, Wordsworth ripples into a lake, Tennyson flows like a river, and Sh.e.l.ley gushes like a fountain.
As Tennyson is the most harmonious, so Sh.e.l.ley is the most musical of modern bards. I fear to touch upon that grand old man, Coleridge; he appears to me so utterly apart from his contemporaries. He stands, like Teneriffe, alone. Can I liken him to a magnificent thunder-scorched crag with its summits eternally veiled in vapour?--H.K.