Spare Hours Part 14

"Lanely nicht;" how much richer and touching than "darksome." "Feather beds are saft;" "paint.i.t rooms are bonnie;" I would infer from this, that his "dearie," his "true love," was a la.s.s up at "the big house"-a dapper Abigail possibly-at Sir William's at the Castle, and then we have the final paroxysm upon Friday nicht-Friday at the gloamin'! O for Friday nicht!-Friday's lang o' comin'!-it being very likely Thursday before daybreak, when this affectionate _ululatus_ ended in repose.

Now, is not this rude ditty, made very likely by some clumsy, big-headed Galloway herd, full of the real stuff of love? He does not go off upon her eyebrows, or even her eyes; he does not sit down, and in a genteel way announce that "love in thine eyes forever sits," &c. &c., or that her feet look out from under her petticoats like little mice: he is far past that; he is not making love, he is in it. This is one and a chief charm of Burns' love-songs, which are certainly of all love-songs except those wild s.n.a.t.c.hes left to us by her who flung herself from the Leucadian rock, the most in earnest, the tenderest, the "most moving delicate and full of life." Burns makes you feel the reality and the depth, the truth of his pa.s.sion; it is not her eyelashes or her nose, or her dimple, or even

"A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the bottom of a cowslip,"

that are "winging the fervor of his love;" not even her soul; it is herself. This concentration and earnestness, this _perfervor_ of our Scottish love poetry, seems to me to contrast curiously with the light, trifling philandering of the English; indeed, as far as I remember, we have almost no love-songs in English, of the same cla.s.s as this one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either of the genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), or of the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, the finest love-song in our or in any language; the love being affectionate more than pa.s.sionate, love in possession not in pursuit?

"Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee: Or did Misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a', to share it a'.

"Or were I in the wildest waste, Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, The desert were a paradise, If thou wert there, if thou wert there: Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen."

The following is Mr. Chambers' account of the origin of this song:-Jessy Lewars had a call one morning from Burns. He offered, if she would play him any tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, that he would do his best to gratify her wish. She sat down at the piano, and played over and over the air of an old song, beginning with the words-

"The robin cam' to the wren's nest, And keekit in, and keekit in: 'O weel's me on your auld pow!

Wad ye be in, wad ye be in?

Ye' se ne'er get leave to lie without, And I within, and I within, As lang 's I hae an auld clout, To row ye in, to row ye in.'"

Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed, slipping up noiselessly that he might not disturb the thin sleep of the sufferer, saying in to himself-"I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee;" "If thou wert there, if thou wert there;" and though the morning was at the window, he was up by eight, making breakfast for John and Mary.

Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; but love is of G.o.d, and cannot fail.

_ARTHUR H. HALLAM._

"PRaeSENS _imperfectum,-perfectum, plusquam perfectum_ FUTURUM."-GROTIUS.

"_The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep Into my study of imagination; And every lovely organ of thy life Shall come apparelled in more precious habit- More moving delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of my soul, Than when thou livedst indeed._"

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

In the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersets.h.i.+re, rest the mortal remains of Arthur Henry Hallam, eldest son of our great philosophic historian and critic,-and the friend to whom "_In Memoriam_" is sacred.

This place was selected by his father, not only from the connection of kindred, being the burial-place of his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, but likewise "on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with its humble old church, its outlook over the waste of waters, where "the stately s.h.i.+ps go on," was, we doubt not, in Tennyson's mind, when the poem, "Break, break, break," which contains the burden of that volume in which are enshrined so much of the deepest affection, poetry, philosophy, and G.o.dliness, rose into his "study of imagination"-"into the eye and prospect of his soul."[36]

[36] The pa.s.sage from Shakspeare prefixed to this paper, contains probably as much as can be said of the mental, not less than the affectionate conditions, under which such a record as _In Memoriam_ is produced, and may give us more insight into the imaginative faculty's mode of working, than all our philosophizing and a.n.a.lysis. It seems to let out with the fulness, simplicity, and unconsciousness of a child-"Fancy's Child"-the secret mechanism or procession of the greatest creative mind our race has produced. In itself, it has no recondite meaning, it answers fully its own sweet purpose. We are not believers, like some folks, in the omniscience of even Shakspeare. But, like many things that he and other wise men and many simple children say, it has a germ of universal meaning, which it is quite lawful to bring out of it, and which may be enjoyed to the full without any wrong to its own original beauty and fitness. A dew-drop is not the less beautiful that it ill.u.s.trates in its structure the law of gravitation which holds the world together, and by which "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong." This is the pa.s.sage. The Friar speaking of Claudio, hearing that Hero "died upon his word," says,-

"The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparelled in more precious habit- More moving delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she lived indeed."

We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory of the beloved dead, rising upon the past, like moonlight upon midnight,-

"The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme."

This is its simple meaning-the statement of a truth, the utterance of personal feeling. But observe its hidden abstract significance-it is the revelation of what goes on in the depths of the soul, when the dead elements of what once was, are laid before the imagination, and so breathed upon as to be quickened into a new and higher life. We have first the _Idea of her Life_-all he remembered and felt of her, gathered into one vague shadowy image, not any one look, or action, or time-then the idea of her life _creeps_-is in before he is aware, and SWEETLY creeps,-it might have been softly or gently, but it is the addition of affection to all this, and bringing in another sense-and now it is in his _study of imagination_-what a place! fit for such a visitor. Then out comes the _Idea_, more particular, more questionable, but still ideal, spiritual-_every lovely organ of her life_-then the clothing upon, the mortal putting on its immortal, spiritual body-_shall come apparelled in more precious habit, more moving delicate_-this is the transfiguring, the putting on strength, the _poco piu_-the little more which makes immortal,-_more full of life_, and all this submitted to-_the eye and prospect of the soul_.

"Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

"O well for the fisherman's boy That he shouts with his sister at play!

O well for the sailor lad That he sings in his boat on the bay!

"And the stately s.h.i.+ps go on To their haven under the hill!

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

"Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me."

Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, and sounding as the sea, as out of a well of the living waters of love, flows forth all _In Memoriam_, as a stream flows out of its spring-all is here. "I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,"-"the touch of the vanished hand-the sound of the voice that is still,"-the body and soul of his friend. Rising as it were out of the midst of the gloom of the valley of the shadow of death,-

"The mountain infant to the sun comes forth Like human life from darkness;"

and how its waters flow on! carrying life, beauty, magnificence,-shadows and happy lights, depths of blackness, depths clear as the very body of heaven. How it deepens as it goes, involving larger interests, wider views, "thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affections, but still retaining its pure living waters, its unforgotten burden of love and sorrow. How it visits every region! "the long unlovely street,"

pleasant villages and farms, "the placid ocean-plains," waste howling wildernesses, grim woods, _nemorumque noctem_, informed with spiritual fears, where may be seen, if shapes they may be called-

"Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow;"

now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the College bells, and the vague hum of the mighty city. And overhead through all its course the heaven with its clouds, its sun, moon, and stars; but always, and in all places, declaring its source; and even when laying its burden of manifold and faithful affection at the feet of the Almighty Father, still remembering whence it came,-

"That friend of mine who lives in G.o.d, That G.o.d which ever lives and loves; One G.o.d, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves."

It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January, 1834, that he refers in poem XVIII. of _In Memoriam_.

"'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land.

"'Tis little; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest Among familiar names to rest, And in the places of his youth."

And again in XIX.:-

"The Danube to the Severn gave The darken'd heart that beat no more; They laid him by the pleasant sh.o.r.e, And in the hearing of the wave.

"There twice a day the Severn fills, The salt sea-water pa.s.ses by, And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills."

Here, too, it is, LXVI.:-

"When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest, By that broad water of the west; There comes a glory on the walls:

"Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o'er the number of thy years."

This young man, whose memory his friend has consecrated in the hearts of all who can be touched by such love and beauty, was in nowise unworthy of all this. It is not for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad privilege to know, all that a father's heart buried with his son in that grave, all "the hopes of unaccomplished years;" nor can we feel in its fulness all that is meant by

"Such A friends.h.i.+p as had mastered Time; Which masters Time indeed, and is Eternal, separate from fears.

The all-a.s.suming months and years Can take no part away from this."

But this we may say, we know of nothing in all literature to compare with the volume from which these lines are taken, since David lamented with this lamentation: "The beauty of Israel is slain. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was wonderful." We cannot, as some have done, compare it with Shakspeare's sonnets, or with _Lycidas_. In spite of the amazing genius and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-involving reiteration of pa.s.sionate attachment, the idolatry of admiring love, the rapturous devotedness, displayed in these sonnets, we cannot but agree with Mr.

Hallam in thinking, "that there is a tendency now, especially among young men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these remarkable productions;" and though we would hardly say with him, "that it is impossible not to wish that Shakspeare had never written them,"

giving us, as they do, and as perhaps nothing else could do, such proof of a power of loving, of an amount of _attendriss.e.m.e.nt_, which is not less wonderful than the bodying forth of that myriad-mind which gave us Hamlet, and Lear, Cordelia, and Puck, and all the rest, and indeed explaining to us how he could give us all these;-while we hardly go so far, we agree with his other wise words:-"There is a weakness and folly in all misplaced and excessive affection;" which in Shakspeare's case is the more distressing, when we consider that "Mr. W. H., the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets," was, in all likelihood, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a man of n.o.ble and gallant character, but always of licentious life.