Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters Part 14

"But, from the arms of silence,--list, O list!-- The music bursteth into second life; The notes luxuriate, every stone is kiss'd By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife."

_Eccle. Son., Pt. iii_. 43, 44.

"The towering headlands, crown'd with mist, Their feet among the billows, know That Ocean is a mighty harmonist."

_Power of Sound_.

"Whate'er I saw, or heard, or felt, was but a stream That flow'd into a kindred stream; a gale Confederate with the current of the soul, To speed my voyage."

"Past and Future are the wings On whose support harmoniously conjoin'd Moves the great spirit of human knowledge."

_Prelude, Book vi_.

"Child of loud-throated War! the mountain Stream Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest Is come, and thou art silent in thy age."

"What art thou, from care Cast off,--abandon'd by thy rugged Sire, Nor by soft Peace adopted?"

"Shade of departed Power, Skeleton of unflesh'd humanity, The chronicle were welcome that should call Into the compa.s.s of distinct regard The toils and struggles of thy infant years!"

_Kilchurn Castle_.

"Advance,--come forth from thy Tyrolean ground, Dear Liberty! stern Nymph of soul untam'd; Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the mountains nam'd!

Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound, And o'er th' eternal snows, like Echo, bound; Like Echo, when the hunter-train at dawn Have rous'd her from her sleep; and forest-lawn, Cliffs, woods, and caves her viewless steps resound, And babble of her pastime!"

"Ye Storms, resound the praises of your King!

And ye mild Seasons--in a sunny clime, Midway on some high hill, while father Time Looks on delighted--meet in festal ring, And long and loud of Winter's triumph sing!

Sing ye, with blossoms crown'd, and fruits, and flowers, Of Winter's breath surcharg'd with sleety showers, And the dire flapping of his h.o.a.ry wing!

Knit the blithe dance upon the soft green gra.s.s; With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain; Whisper it to the billows of the main, And to th' aerial Zephyrs as they pa.s.s, That old decrepit Winter--_He_ hath slain That Host which render'd all your bounties vain."

_Son. to Lib., Pt. ii_. 10, 35.

In the foregoing pa.s.sages, the imagery of course loses more or less of its force and beauty from being cut out of its proper surroundings; for Wordsworth's poetry, too, is far from being mere gatherings of finely-carved chips: as a general thing, the several parts of a poem all rightly know each other as co-members of an organic whole. Far more must this needs be the case in the pa.s.sages that follow, inasmuch as these are from the most dramatic of all writing; so that the virtue of the imagery is inextricably bound up with the characters and occasions of the speakers:

"Look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."

_Rom. and Jul., iii_. 5.

"Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there."

"Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial Death is amorous; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour?"

_Ibid., v_. 3.

"My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music."

_Midsum. Night's D., ii_. 1.

"Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow Upon the valleys, whose low va.s.sal seat The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon."

_King Henry V., iii_. 5.

"His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and k.n.o.bs, and flames of fire; and his lips plows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue, and sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire is out." _Ibid., iii_. 6.

"O, then th' Earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex'd By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldame Earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth, Our grandam Earth, having this distemperature, In pa.s.sion shook."

1 _King Henry IV., iii_. 1.

"Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's hand Keep the wild flood-confin'd! let order die!

And let this world no longer be a stage To feed contention in a lingering act; But let one spirit of the first-born Cain Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set On b.l.o.o.d.y courses, the rude scene may end, And darkness be the burier of the dead!"

2 _King Henry IV., i_. 1.

"An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

O thou fond many! with what loud applause Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, Before he was what thou would'st have him be!

And being now trimm'd in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.

So, so, thou common dog, did'st thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up, And howl'st to find it."

_Ibid., i_. 3.

"But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."

_Hamlet, i_. 1.

"So, haply slander-- Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison'd shot--may miss our name, And hit the woundless air."

_Ibid., iv_. 1.

"Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it."

_Macbeth, ii_. 1.

"O thou day o' the world, Chain mine arm'd neck; leap thou, attire and all, Through proof of harness to my heart, and there Ride on the pants triumphing!"

_Ant. and Cleo., iv_. 8.

"For his bounty, There was no Winter in't; an Autumn 'twas That grew the more by reaping: his delights Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above The element they liv'd in: in his livery Walk'd crowns and crownets."

_Ibid., v_. 2.

"The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below Fails in the promis'd largeness: checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd."

"Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away."

_Troil. and Cres., i_. 3.

"Be as a planetary plague, when Jove Will o'er some high-vie'd city hang his poison In the sick air."

"Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes; Whose proof, nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, Shall pierce a jot."

"Common mother, thou, Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast, Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle, Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd.

Engenders the black toad and adder blue, The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm; Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate, From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!"

"What, think'st That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, Will put thy s.h.i.+rt on warm? will these moss'd trees, That have outliv'd the eagle, page thy heels, And skip where thou point'st out? will the cold brook.

Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste, To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit?"

"O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce 'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!

Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer, Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible G.o.d, That solder'st close impossibilities, And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue, To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!

Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue Set them into confounding odds, that beasts May have the world in empire!"

_Timon of Athens, iv_. 3.

Shakespeare's boldness in metaphors is pretty strongly exemplified in some of the forecited pa.s.sages; but he has instances of still greater boldness. Among these may be named Lady Macbeth's--

"Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of h.e.l.l, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry _Hold, hold_!"

Here "blanket of the dark" runs to so high a pitch, that divers critics, Coleridge among them, have been staggered by it, and have been fain to set it down as a corruption of the text. In this they are no doubt mistaken: the metaphor is in the right style of Shakespeare, and, with all its daring, runs in too fair keeping to be ruled out of the family. Hardly less bold is this of Macbeth's--