Spare Hours Part 22

"All that have died, the Earth's whole race, repose Where Death collects his Treasures, heap on heap; O'er each one's busy day, the nightshades close; Its Actors, Sufferers, Schools, Kings, Armies-sleep."

The lines in italics are of the highest quality, both in thought and word; the allusion to Him who by dying abolished death, seems to us wonderfully fine-sudden, simple,-it brings to our mind the lines already quoted from Vaughan:-

"But there was One Who search'd it quite through to and fro, And then returning like the Sun, Discover'd all that there is done."

What a rich line this is!

"And pour their woe the loaded air along."

"The insuperable threshold!"

Do our readers remember the dying Corinne's words? _Je mourrais seule-au reste, ce moment se pa.s.se de secours; nos amis ne peuvent nous suivre que jusqu'au_ _seuil de la vie. La, commencent des pensees dont le trouble et la profondeur ne sauraient se confier._

We have only s.p.a.ce for one more-verses ent.i.tled "Heart's-Ease."

HEART'S-EASE.

"Oh, Heart's-Ease, dost thou lie within that flower?

How shall I draw thee thence?-so much I need The healing aid of thine enshrined power To veil the past-and bid the time good speed!

"I gather it-it withers on my breast; The heart's-ease dies when it is laid on mine; Methinks there is no shape by Joy possess'd, Would better fare than thou, upon that shrine.

"Take from me things gone by-oh! change the past- Renew the lost-restore me the decay'd,- Bring back the days whose tide has ebb'd so fast- Give form again to the fantastic shade!

"My hope, that never grew to certainty,- My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire,- My fond ambition, crush'd ere it could be Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire:

"Bring these anew, and set me once again In the delusion of Life's Infancy- I was not happy, but I knew not then That happy I was never doom'd to be.

"Till these things are, and powers divine descend- Love, kindness, joy, and hope, to gild my day, In vain the emblem leaves towards me bend, Thy Spirit, Heart's-Ease, is too far away!"

We would fain have given two poems ent.i.tled "Bessy" and "Youth and Age."

Everything in this little volume is select and good. Sensibility and sense in right measure and proportion and keeping, and in pure, strong cla.s.sical language; no intemperance of thought or phrase. Why does not "V." write more?

We do not very well know how to introduce our friend Mr. Ellison, "The Bornnatural," who addresses his "Madmoments to the Light-headed of Society at large." We feel as a father, a mother, or other near of kin would at introducing an ungainly gifted and much loved son or kinsman, who had the knack of putting his worst foot foremost, and making himself _imprimis_ ridiculous.

There is something wrong in all awkwardness, a want of nature _somewhere_, and we feel affronted even still, after we have taken the Bornnatural[48] to our heart, and admire and love him, at his absurd gratuitous self-befoolment. The book is at first sight one farrago of oddities and offences-coa.r.s.e foreign paper-bad printing-italics broad-cast over every page-the words run into each other in a way we are glad to say is as yet quite original, making such extraordinary monsters of words as these-beingsriddle-sunbeammotes-gooddeed-midjune- summerair-selffavor-seraphechoes-puredeedprompter-barkskeel, &c.

Now we like Anglo-Saxon and the polygamous German,[49] but we like better the well of English undefiled-a well, by the by, much oftener spoken of than drawn from; but to fas.h.i.+on such words as these words are, is as monstrous as for a painter to _compose_ an animal not out of the elements, but out of the entire bodies of several, of an a.s.s, for instance, a c.o.c.k and a crocodile, so as to produce an outrageous individual, with whom even a duck-billed Platypus would think twice before he fraternized-ornithorynchous and paradoxical though he be, poor fellow.

[48] In his Preface he explains the t.i.tle Bornnatural, as meaning "one who inherits the natural sentiments and tastes to which he was born, still artunsullied and customfree."

[49] _ex. gr._-_Konstantinopolitanischerdudelsackspfeifergeselle_.

Here is a word as long as the sea-serpent-but, like it, having a head and tail, being what lawyers call _unum quid_-not an up and down series of infatuated _phocae_, as Professor Owen somewhat insolently a.s.serts. Here is what the Bornnatural would have made of it-

_A Constantinopolitanbagpiperoutofhisapprentices.h.i.+p_.

And yet our Bornnatural's two thick and closely small-printed volumes are as full of poetry as is an "impa.s.sioned grape" of its n.o.ble liquor.

He is a true poet. But he has not the art of _singling_ his thoughts, an art as useful in composition as in husbandry, as necessary for young fancies as young turnips. Those who have seen our turnip fields in early summer, with the h.o.e.rs at their work, will understand our reference. If any one wishes to read these really remarkable volumes, we would advise them to begin with "Season Changes" and "Emma, a Tale." We give two Odes on Psyche, which are as nearly perfect as anything out of Milton or Tennyson.

The story is the well-known one of Psyche and Cupid, told at such length, and with so much beauty and pathos and picturesqueness by Apuleius, in his "Golden a.s.s." Psyche is the human soul-a beautiful young woman. Cupid is spiritual, heavenly love-a comely youth. They are married, and live in perfect happiness, but by a strange decree of fate, he comes and goes unseen, tarrying only for the night; and he has told her, that if she looks on him with her bodily eye, if she tries to break through the darkness in which they dwell, then he must leave her, and forever. Her two sisters-Anger and Desire, tempt Psyche. She yields to their evil counsel, and thus it fares with her:-

ODE TO PSYCHE.

"1. Let not a sigh be breathed, or he is flown!

With tiptoe stealth she glides, and throbbing breast, Towards the bed, like one who dares not own Her purpose, and half shrinks, yet cannot rest From her rash Essay: in one trembling hand She bears a lamp, which sparkles on a sword; In the dim light she seems a wandering dream Of loveliness: 'tis Psyche and her Lord, Her yet unseen, who slumbers like a beam Of moonlight, vanis.h.i.+ng as soon as scann'd!

"2. One Moment, and all bliss hath fled her heart, Like windstole odours from the rosebud's cell, Or as the earthdashed dewdrop which no art Can e'er replace: alas! we learn fullwell How beautiful the Past when it is o'er, But with scal'd eyes we hurry to the brink, Blind as the waterfall: oh, stay thy feet, Thou rash one, be content to know no more Of bliss than thy heart teaches thee, nor think The sensual eye can grasp a form more sweet-

"3. Than that which for itself the soul should chuse For higher adoration; but in vain!

Onward she moves, and as the lamp's faint hues Flicker around, her charmed eyeb.a.l.l.s strain, For there he lies in undreamt loveliness!

Softly she steals towards him, and bends o'er His slumberlidded eyes, as a lily droops Faint o'er a folded rose: one caress She would but dares not take, and as she stood, An oildrop from the lamp fell burning sore!

"4. Thereat sleepfray'd, dreamlike the G.o.d takes Wing And soars to his own skies, while Psyche strives To clasp his foot, and fain thereon would cling, But falls insensate;

Psyche! thou shouldst have taken that high gift Of Love as it was meant, that mystery Did ask thy faith, the G.o.ds do test our worth, And ere they grant high boons our heart would sift!

"5. Hadst thou no divine Vision of thine own?

Didst thou not see the Object of thy Love Clothed with a Beauty to dull clay unknown?

And could not that bright Image, far above The Reach of sere Decay, content thy Thought?

Which with its glory would have wrapp'd thee round, To the Gravesbrink, untouched by Age or Pain!

Alas! we mar what Fancy's Womb has brought Forth of most beautiful, and to the Bound Of Sense reduce the Helen of the Brain!"

What a picture! Psyche, pale with love and fear, bending in the uncertain light, over her lord, with the rich flush of health and sleep and manhood on his cheek, "_as a lily droops faint o'er a folded rose!_"

We remember nothing anywhere finer than this.

ODE TO PSYCHE.

"1. Why stand'st thou thus at Gaze In the faint Tapersrays, With strained Eyeb.a.l.l.s fixed upon that Bed?

Has he then flown away, Lost, like a Star in Day, Or like a Pearl in Depths unfathomed?

Alas! thou hast done very ill, Thus with thine Eyes the Vision of thy Soul to kill!

"2. Thought'st thou that earthly Light Could then a.s.sist thy Sight, Or that the Limits of Reality Could grasp Things fairer than Imagination's Span, Who communes with the Angels of the Sky, Thou graspest at the Rainbow, and Wouldst make it as the Zone with which thy Waist is spanned.

"3. And what find'st thou in his Stead?

Only the empty Bed!

Thou sought'st the Earthly and therefore The heavenly is gone, for that must ever soar!

"4. For the bright World of Pure and boundless Love What hast thou found? alas! a narrow room!

Put out that Light, Restore thy Soul its Sight, For better 'tis to dwell in outward Gloom, Than thus, by the vile Body's eye, To rob the Soul of its Infinity!

"5. Love, Love has Wings, and he Soon out of Sight will flee, Lost in far Ether to the sensual Eye, But the Soul's Vision true Can track him, yea, up to The Presence and the Throne of the Most High: For thence he is, and tho' he dwell below, To the Soul only he his genuine Form will show!"