Part 48 (1/2)

And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea.

and:

I love all thou lovest, Spirit of Delight; The fresh earth in new leaves dressed, And the starry night, Autumn evening and the morn When the golden mists are born.

I love snow and all the forms Of the radiant frost; I love waves and winds and storms-- Everything almost Which is Nature's, and may be Untainted by man's misery.

To Goethe, Byron, and Sh.e.l.ley, this pantheism, universal love, sympathy with Nature in all her forms, was the base of feeling; but both of England's greatest lyrists, dying young, failed to attain perfect harmony of thought and feeling. There always remained a bitter ingredient in their poetry.

Let us now turn to France.

LAMARTINE AND VICTOR HUGO

Rousseau discovered the beauty of scenery for France; St Pierre portrayed it poetically, not only in _Paul and Virginia_, but in _Chaumiere Indienne_ and _Etudes de la Nature_. The science which these two writers lacked, Buffon possessed in a high degree; but he had not the power to delineate Nature and feeling in combination: he lacked insight into the hidden a.n.a.logies between the movements of the mind and the phenomena of the outer world. Chateaubriand, on the contrary, had this faculty to its full modern extent. It is true that his ego was constantly to the fore, even in dealing with Nature, but his landscapes were full of sympathetic feeling. He had Rousseau's melancholy and unrest, and cared nothing for those 'oppressive ma.s.ses,' mountains, except as backgrounds; but he was enthusiastic about the scenery which he saw in America, the virgin forests, and the Mississippi--above all, about the sea. His Rene, that life-like figure, half-pa.s.sionate, half-_blase_, measuring everything by himself, and flung hither and thither by the waves of pa.s.sion, shewed a lover's devotion to the sea and to Nature generally.[15] 'It was not G.o.d whom I contemplated on the waves in the magnificence of His works: I saw an unknown woman, and the miracle of his smile, the beauties of the sky, seemed to me disclosed by her breath. I would have bartered eternity for one of her caresses. I pictured her to myself as throbbing behind this veil of the universe which hid her from my eyes. Oh! why was it not in my power to rend the veil and press the idealized woman to my heart, to spend myself on her bosom with the love which is the source of my inspiration, my despair, and my life?'

In subjectivity and dreaminess both Chateaubriand and Lamartine were like the German romanticists, but their fundamental note was theism, not pantheism. The storm of the French Revolution, which made radical changes in religion, as in all other things, was followed by a reaction. Christianity acquired new power and inwardness, and Nature was unceasingly praised as the mirror of the divine idea of creation.

In his _Genie du Christianisme_, Chateaubriand said:

The true G.o.d, in entering into His Works, has given his immensity to Nature... there is an instinct in man, which puts him in communication with the scenes of Nature.

Lamartine was a sentimental dreamer of dreams, a thinker of lofty thoughts which lost themselves in the inexpressible. His _Meditations_ shew his ardent though sad wors.h.i.+p of Nature; his love of evening, moonlight, and starlight. For instance, _L'Isolement_:

Ici gronde le fleuve aux vagues ec.u.mantes, Il serpente et s'enfonce en un lointain obscur: La le lac immobile etend ses eaux dormantes O l'etoile du soir se leve dans l'azur.

An sommet de ces monts couronnes de bois sombres, Le crepuscule encore jette un dernier rayon; Et le char vaporeux de la reine des...o...b..es Monte et blanchit deja les bords de l'horizon.

_Le Soir_:

Le soir ramene le silence....

Venus se leve a l'horizon; A mes pieds l'etoile amoureuse De sa lueur mysterieuse Blanchit les tapis de gazon.

De ce hetre au feuillage sombre J'entends frissonner les rameaux; On dirait autour des tombeaux Qu'on entend voltiger une ombre, Tout-a-coup, detache des cieux, Un rayon de l'astre nocturne, Glissant sur mon front taciturne, Vient mollement toucher mes yeux.

Doux reflet d'un globe de flamme Charmant rayon, que me veux-tu?

Viens-tu dans mon sein abattu Porter la lumiere a mon ame?

Descends-tu pour me reveler Des mondes le divin mystere, Ces secrets caches dans la sphere Ou le jour va te rappeler?

In the thought of happy past hours, he questions the lake:

Un soir, t'en souvient-il, nous voguions en silence; On n'entendait au loin, sur l'onde et sous les cieux, Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence Tes flots harmonieux.

O lac! rochers muets! grottes! foret obscure!

Vous que le temps epargne ou qu'il peut rajeunir Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature, Au moins le souvenir!...

Que le vent qui gemit, le roseau qui soupire Que les parfums legers de ton air embaume, Que tout ce qu'on entend, l'on voit, ou l'on respire, Tout dise: 'ils out aimes!

_La Priere_ has:

Le roi brillant du jour, se couchant dans sa gloire, Descend avec lenteur de son char de victoire; Le nuage eclatant qui le cache a nos yeux Conserve en sillons d'or sa trace dans les cieux, Et d'un reflet de pourpre inonde l'etendue.

Comme une lampe d'or dans l'azur suspendue, La lune se balance aux bords de l'horizon; Ses rayons affaiblis dorment sur le gazon, Et le voile des nuits sur les monts se deplie.

C'est l'heure, ou la nature, un moment recueillie, Entre la nuit qui touche et le jour qui s'enfuit S'eleve au createur du jour et de la nuit, Et semble offrir a Dieu dans son brillant langage, De la creation le magnifique hommage.

Voila le sacrifice immense, universelle!

L'univers est le temple, et la terre est l'autel; Les cieux en sont le dome et ses astres sans nombre, Ces feux demi-voiles, pale ornement de l'ombre, Dans la voute d'azur avec ordre semes, Sont les sacres flambeaux pour ce temple allumes...

Mais ce temple est sans voix...