Fairie Queene, Book III. Canto VI.
I must here give a few stanzas from Spenser's description of theBower of Bliss
In which whatever in this worldly stateIs sweet and pleasing unto living sense,Or that may dayntiest fantasy aggrateWas pouréd forth with pleantiful dispence.
The English poet in his Fairie Queene has borrowed a great deal from Tasso and Ariosto, but generally speaking, his borrowings, like those of most true poets, are improvements upon the original.
THE BOWER OF BLISS.
There the most daintie paradise on groundItself doth offer to his sober eye,In which all pleasures plenteously abownd,And none does others happinesse envye;The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye;The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing-space;The trembling groves; the christall running by;And that which all faire workes doth most aggrace,The art, which all that wrought, appearéd in no place.One would have thought, (so cunningly the rude[039]And scornéd partes were mingled with the fine,)That Nature had for wantonesse ensudeArt, and that Art at Nature did repine;So striving each th' other to undermine,Each did the others worke more beautify;So diff'ring both in willes agreed in fine;So all agreed, through sweete diversity,This Gardin to adorn with all variety.And in the midst of all a fountaine stood,Of richest substance that on earth might bee,So pure and shiny that the silver floodThrough every channel running one might see;Most goodly it with curious ymagereeWas over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes,Of which some seemed with lively iolliteeTo fly about, playing their wanton toyes,Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes.
Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound,Of all that mote delight a daintie eare,Such as attonce might not on living ground,Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:Right hard it was for wight which did it heare,To read what manner musicke that mote bee;For all that pleasing is to living eareWas there consorted in one harmonee;Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters all agree:The ioyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces madeTo th' instruments divine respondence meet;The silver-sounding instruments did meetWith the base murmure of the waters fall;The waters fall with difference discreet,Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;The gentle warbling wind low answeréd to all.
The Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto XII.
Every school-boy has heard of the gardens of the Hesperides. The story is told in many different ways. According to some accounts, the Hesperides, the daughters of Hesperus, were appointed to keep charge of the tree of golden apples which Jupiter presented to Juno on their wedding day. A hundred-headed dragon that never slept, (the offspring of Typhon,) couched at the foot of the tree. It was one of the twelve labors of Hercules to obtain possession of some of these apples. He slew the dragon and gathered three golden apples. The gardens, according to some authorities, were situated near Mount Atlas.
Shakespeare seems to have takenHesperidesto be the name of the garden instead of that of its fair keepers. Even the learned Milton in hisParadise Regained, (Book II) talks ofthe ladies of the Hesperides, and appears to make the word Hesperides synonymous with "Hesperian gardens." Bishop Newton, in a foot-note to the passage in "Paradise Regained," asks, "What are the Hesperides famous for, but the gardens and orchards whichthey hadbearing golden fruit in the western Isles of Africa." Perhaps after all there may be some good authority in favor of extending the names of the nymphs to the garden itself. Malone, while condemning Shakespeare's use of the words as inaccurate, acknowledges that other poets have used it in the same way, and quotes as an instance, the following lines from Robert Greene:--
Shew thee the tree, leaved with refined gold,Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat,That watchedthe gardencalled theHesperides.
Robert Greene.
For valour is not love a Hercules,Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Love's Labour Lost.
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touchedFor death-like dragons here affright thee hard.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
Milton, after the fourth line of his Comus, had originally inserted, in his manuscript draft of the poem, the following description of the garden of the Hesperides.
THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES
Amid the Hesperian gardens, on whose banksBedewed with nectar and celestial songsEternal roses grow, and hyacinth,And fruits of golden rind, on whose fair treeThe scaly harnessed dragon ever keepsHis uninchanted eye, around the vergeAnd sacred limits of this blissful IsleThe jealous ocean that old river windsHis far extended aims, till with steep fallHalf his waste flood the wide Atlantic fills;And half the slow unfathomed Stygian poolBut soft, I was not sent to court your wonderWith distant worlds and strange removéd climesYet thence I come and oft from thence beholdThe smoke and stir of this dim narrow spot
Milton subsequently drew his pen through these lines, for what reason is not known. Bishop Newton observes, that this passage, saved from intended destruction, may serve as a specimen of the truth of the observation that
Poets lose half the praise they should have gotCould it be known what they discreetly blot.
Waller.
As I have quoted in anearlier pagesome unfavorable allusions to Homer's description of a Grecian garden, it will be but fair to follow up Milton's picture of Paradise, and Tasso's garden of Armida, and Ariosto's Garden of Alcina, and Spenser's Garden of Adonis and his Bower of Bliss, with Homer's description of the Garden of Alcinous. Minerva tells Ulysses that the Royal mansion to which the garden of Alcinous is attached is of such conspicuous grandeur and so generally known, that any child might lead him to it;
For Phoeacia's sonsPossess not houses equalling in aughtThe mansion of Alcinous, the king.
I shall give Cowper's version, because it may be less familiar to the reader than Pope's, which is in every one's hand.
THE GARDEN OF ALCINOUS
Without the court, and to the gates adjoinedA spacious garden lay, fenced all around,Secure, four acres measuring complete,There grew luxuriant many a lofty tree,Pomgranate, pear, the apple blushing bright,The honeyed fig, and unctuous olive smooth.Those fruits, nor winter's cold nor summer's heatFear ever, fail not, wither not, but hangPerennial, while unceasing zephyr breathesGently on all, enlarging these, and thoseMaturing genial; in an endless course.Pears after pears to full dimensions swell,Figs follow figs, grapes clustering grow againWhere clusters grew, and (every apple stripped)The boughs soon tempt the gatherer as before.There too, well rooted, and of fruit profuse,His vineyard grows; part, wide extended, basksIn the sun's beams; the arid level glows;In part they gather, and in part they treadThe wine-press, while, before the eye, the grapesHere put their blossoms forth, there gather fastTheir blackness. On the garden's verge extremeFlowers of all hues[040]smile all the year, arrangedWith neatest art judicious, and amidThe lovely scene two fountains welling forth,One visits, into every part diffused,The garden-ground, the other soft beneathThe threshold steals into the palace courtWhence every citizen his vase supplies.
Homer's Odyssey, Book VII.
The mode of watering the garden-ground, and the use made of the water by the public--
Whence every citizen his vase supplies--
can hardly fail to remind Indian and Anglo-Indian readers of a Hindu gentleman's garden in Bengal.
Pope first published in theGuardianhis own version of the account of the garden of Alcinous and subsequently gave it a place in his entire translation of Homer. In introducing the readers of theGuardianto the garden of Alcinous he observes that "the two most celebrated wits of the world have each left us a particular picture of a garden; wherein those great masters, being wholly unconfined and pointing at pleasure, may be thought to have given a full idea of what seemed most excellent in that way. These (one may observe) consist entirely of the useful part of horticulture, fruit trees, herbs, waters, &c. The pieces I am speaking of are Virgil's account of the garden of the old Corycian, and Homer's of that of Alcinous. The first of these is already known to the English reader, by the excellent versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison."
I do not think our present landscape-gardeners, or parterre-gardeners or even our fruit or kitchen-gardeners can be much enchanted with Virgil's ideal of a garden, but here it is, as "done into English," by John Dryden, who describes the Roman Poet as "a profound naturalist," and "a curious Florist."
THE GARDEN OF THE OLD CORYCIAN.
I chanc'd an old Corycian swain to know,Lord of few acres, and those barren too,Unfit for sheep or vines, and more unfit to sow:Yet, lab'ring well his little spot of ground,Some scatt'ring pot-herbs here and there he found,Which, cultivated with his daily careAnd bruis'd with vervain, were his frugal fare.With wholesome poppy-flow'rs, to mend his homely board:For, late returning home, he supp'd at ease,And wisely deem'd the wealth of monarchs less:The little of his own, because his own, did please.To quit his care, he gather'd, first of all,In spring the roses, apples in the fall:And, when cold winter split the rocks in twain,And ice the running rivers did restrain,He stripp'd the bear's foot of its leafy growth,And, calling western winds, accus'd the spring of slothHe therefore first among the swains was foundTo reap the product of his labour'd ground,And squeeze the combs with golden liquor crown'dHis limes were first in flow'rs, his lofty pines,With friendly shade, secur'd his tender vines.For ev'ry bloom his trees in spring afford,An autumn apple was by tale restor'dHe knew to rank his elms in even rows,For fruit the grafted pear tree to dispose,And tame to plums the sourness of the sloesWith spreading planes he made a cool retreat,To shade good fellows from the summer's heat
Virgil's Georgics, Book IV.
An excellent Scottish poet--Allan Ramsay--a true and unaffected describer of rural life and scenery--seems to have had as great a dislike to topiary gardens, and quite as earnest a love of nature, as any of the best Italian poets. The author of the "Gentle Shepherd" tells us in the following lines what sort of garden most pleased his fancy.
ALLAN RAMSAY'S GARDEN.
I love the garden wild and wide,Where oaks have plum-trees by their side,Where woodbines and the twisting vineClip round the pear tree and the pineWhere mixed jonquils and gowans growAnd roses midst rank clover growUpon a bank of a clear strand,In wrimplings made by Nature's handThough docks and brambles here and thereMay sometimes cheat the gardener's care,Yet this to me is Paradise,Compared with prim cut plots and nice,Where Nature has to Act resigned,Till all looks mean, stiff and confined.
I cannot say that I should wish to see forest trees and docks and brambles in garden borders. Honest Allan here runs a little into the extreme, as men are apt enough to do, when they try to get as far as possible from the side advocated by an opposite party.
I shall now exhibit two paintings of bowers. I begin with one from Spenser.
A BOWER
And over him Art stryving to compayreWith Nature did an arber greene dispied[041]Framéd of wanton yvie, flouring, fayre,Through which the fragrant eglantine did spredHis prickling armes, entrayld with roses red,Which daintie odours round about them threwAnd all within with flowers was garnishédThat, when myld Zephyrus emongst them blew,Did breathe out bounteous smels, and painted colors shewAnd fast beside these trickled softly downeA gentle streame, whose murmuring wave did playEmongst the pumy stones, and made a sowne,To lull him soft asleepe that by it layThe wearie traveiler wandring that way,Therein did often quench his thirsty headAnd then by it his wearie limbes display,(Whiles creeping slomber made him to forgetHis former payne,) and wypt away his toilsom sweat.And on the other syde a pleasaunt groveWas shott up high, full of the stately treeThat dedicated is t'Olympick Iove,And to his son Alcides,[042]whenas heeIn Nemus gaynéd goodly victoreeTheirin the merry birds of every sorteChaunted alowd their cheerful harmonee,And made emongst themselves a sweete consórtThat quickned the dull spright with musicall comfórt.
Fairie Queene, Book 2 Cant. 5 Stanzas 29, 30 and 31.
Here is a sweet picture of a "shady lodge" from the hand of Milton.
EVE'S NUPTIAL BOWER.
Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'dOn to their blissful bower. It was a placeChosen by the sov'reign Planter, when he framedAll things to man's delightful use, the roofOf thickest covert was inwoven shade,Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grewOf firm and fragrant leaf, on either sideAcanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,Fenced up the verdant wall, each beauteous flowerIris all hues, roses, and jessamine,Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wroughtMosaic, under foot the violet,Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlayBroider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stoneOf costliest emblem other creature here,Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none,Such was their awe of man. In shadier bowerMore sacred and sequester'd, though but feign'd,Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor nymphNor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess,With flowers, garlands, and sweet smelling herbs,Espoused Eve deck'd first her nuptial bed,And heavenly quires the hymenean sung
I have already quoted from Leigh Hunt's "Stories from the Italian poets" an amusing anecdote illustrative of Ariosto's ignorance of botany. But even in these days when all sorts of sciences are forced upon all sorts of students, we often meet with persons of considerable sagacity and much information of a different kind who are marvellously ignorant of the vegetable world.
In the just published Memoirs of the late James Montgomery, of Sheffield, it is recorded that the poet and his brother Robert, a tradesman at Woolwich, (not Robert Montgomery, the author of 'Satan,' &c.) were one day walking together, when the trader seeing a field of flax in full flower, asked the poet what sort of corn it was. "Such corn as your shirt is made of," was the reply. "But Robert," observes a writer in theAthenaeum, "need not be ashamed of his simplicity. Rousseau, naturalist as he was, could hardly tell one berry from another, and three of our greatest wits disputing in the field whether the crop growing there was rye, barley, or oats, were set right by a clown, who truly pronounced it wheat."
Men of genius who have concentrated all their powers on some one favorite profession or pursuit are often thus triumphed over by the vulgar, whose eyes are more observant of the familiar objects and details of daily life and of the scenes around them. Wordsworth and Coleridge, on one occasion, after a long drive, and in the absence of a groom, endeavored to relieve the tired horse of its harness. After torturing the poor animal's neck and endangering its eyes by their clumsy and vain attempts to slip off the collar, they at last gave up the matter in despair. They felt convinced that the horse's head must have swollen since the collar was put on. At last a servant-girl beheld their perplexity. "La, masters," she exclaimed, "you dont set about it the right way." She then seized hold of the collar, turned it broad end up, and slipped it off in a second. The mystery that had puzzled two of the finest intellects of their time was a very simple matter indeed to a country wench who had perhaps never heard that England possessed a Shakespeare.
James Montgomery was a great lover of flowers, and few of our English poets have written about the family of Flora, the sweet wife of Zephyr, in a more genial spirit. He used to regret that the old Floral games and processions on May-day and other holidays had gone out of fashion. Southey tells us that in George the First's reign a grand Florist's Feast was held at Bethnall Green, and that a carnation named after his Majesty wasKing of the Year. The Stewards were dressed with laurel leaves and flowers. They carried gilded staves. Ninety cultivators followed in procession to the sound of music, each bearing his own flowers before him. All elegant customs of this nature have fallen into desuetude in England, though many of them are still kept up in other parts of Europe.
Chaucer who dearly loved all images associated with the open air and the dewy fields and bright mornings and radiant flowers makes the gentle Emily,
That fairer was to seeneThan is the lily upon his stalkie greene,
rise early and do honor to the birth of May-day. All things now seem to breathe of hope and joy.
Though long hath beenThe trance of Nature on the naked bierWhere ruthless Winter mocked her slumbers drearAnd rent with icy hand her robes of green,That trance is brightly broken! Glossy trees,Resplendent meads and variegated flowersFlash in the sun and flutter in the breezeAnd now with dreaming eye the poet seesFair shapes of pleasure haunt romantic bowers,And laughing streamlets chase the flying hours.
D.L.R.
The great describer of our Lost Paradise did not disdain to sing a
SONG ON MAY-MORNING.
Now the bright Morning star, Day's harbinger,Comes dancing from the east, and leads with herThe flowery May, who from her green lap throwsThe yellow cowslip and the pale primroseHail bounteous-May, that dost inspireMirth and youth and warm desire;Woods and groves are of thy dressing,Hill and dale do boast thy blessing.Thus we salute thee with our early song,And welcome thee and wish thee long.
Nor did the Poet of the World, William Shakespeare, hesitate to
Do observance to a morn of May.
He makes one of his characters (inKing Henry VIII.) complain that it is as impossible to keep certain persons quiet on an ordinary day, as it is to make them sleep on May-day--once the time of universal merriment-- when every one was wont "to put himself into triumph."
'Tis as much impossible,Unless we sweep 'em from the doors with cannonsTo scatter 'em,as 'tis to make 'em sleepOn May-day Morning.
Spenser duly celebrates, in his "Shepheard's Calender,"
Thilke mery moneth of MayWhen love-lads masken in fresh aray,
when "all is yclad with pleasaunce, the ground with grasse, the woods with greene leaves, and the bushes with bloosming buds."
Sicker[043]this morowe, no longer agoe,I saw a shole of shepeardes outgoeWith singing and shouting and iolly chere:Before them yode[044]a lustre tabrere,[045]That to the many a hornepype playdWhereto they dauncen eche one with his mayd.To see those folks make such iovysaunce,Made my heart after the pype to daunce.Tho[046]to the greene wood they speeden hem allTo fetchen home May with their musicall;And home they bringen in a royall throneCrowned as king; and his queene attone[047]Was LADY FLORA.
Spenser.
This is the season when the birds seem almost intoxicated with delight at the departure of the dismal and cold and cloudy days of winter and the return of the warm sun. The music of these little May musicians seems as fresh as the fragrance of the flowers. The Skylark is the prince of British Singing-birds--the leader of their cheerful band.
LINES TO A SKYLARK.
Wanderer through the wilds of air!Freely as an angel fairThou dost leave the solid earth,Man is bound to from his birthScarce a cubit from the grassSprings the foot of lightest lass--Thouupon a cloud can'st leap,And o'er broadest rivers sweep,Climb up heaven's steepest height,Fluttering, twinkling, in the light,Soaring, singing, till, sweet bird,Thou art neither seen nor heard,Lost in azure fields afarLike a distance hidden star,That alone for angels brightBreathes its music, sheds its lightWarbler of the morning's mirth!When the gray mists rise from earth,And the round dews on each sprayGlitter in the golden ray,And thy wild notes, sweet though high,Fill the wide cerulean, sky,Is there human heart or brainCan resist thy merry strain?But not always soaring high,Making man up turn his eyeJust to learn what shape of love,Raineth music from above,--All the sunny cloudlets fairFloating on the azure air,All the glories of the skyThou leavest unreluctantly,Silently with happy breastTo drop into thy lowly nest.Though the frame of man must beBound to earth, the soul is free,But that freedom oft doth bringDiscontent and sorrowing.Oh! that from each waking vision,Gorgeous vista, gleam Elysian,From ambition's dizzy height,And from hope's illusive light,Man, like thee, glad lark, could brookUpon a low green spot to look,And with home affections blestSink into as calm a nest! D.L.R.
I brought from England to India two English skylarks. I thought they would help to remind me of English meadows and keep alive many agreeable home-associations. In crossing the desert they were carefully lashed on the top of one of the vans, and in spite of the dreadful jolting and the heat of the sun they sang the whole way until night-fall. It was pleasant to hear English larks from rich clover fields singing so joyously in the sandy waste. In crossing some fields between Cairo and the Pyramids I was surprized and delighted with the songs of Egyptian skylarks. Their notes were much the same as those of the English lark. The lark of Bengal is about the size of a sparrow and has a poor weak note. At this moment a lark from Caubul (larger than an English lark) is doing his best to cheer me with his music. This noble bird, though so far from his native fields, and shut up in his narrow prison, pours forth his rapturous melody in an almost unbroken stream from dawn to sunset. He allows no change of season to abate his minstrelsy, to any observable degree, and seems equally happy and musical all the year round. I have had him nearly two years, and though of course he must moult his feathers yearly, I have not observed the change of plumage, nor have I noticed that he has sung less at one period of the year than another. One of my two English larks was stolen the very day I landed in India, and the other soon died. The loss of an English lark is not to be replaced in Calcutta, though almost every week, canaries, linnets, gold- finches and bull-finches are sold at public auctions here.
But I must return to my main subject.--The ancients used to keep the great Feast of the goddess Flora on the 28th of April. It lasted till the 3rd of May. The Floral Games of antiquity were unhappily debased by indecent exhibitions; but they were not entirely devoid of better characteristics.[048]Ovid describing the goddess Flora says that "while she was speaking she breathed forth vernal roses from her mouth." The same poet has represented her in her garden with the Florae gathering flowers and the Graces making garlands of them. The British borrowed the idea of this festival from the Romans. Some of our Kings and Queens used 'to go a Maying,' and to have feasts of wine and venison in the open meadows or under the good green-wood. Prior says:
Let one great dayTo celebrate sports and floral playBe set aside.
But few people, in England, in these times, distinguish May-day from the initial day of any other month of the twelve. I am old enough to rememberJack-in-the-Green. Nor have I forgotten the cheerful clatter--the brush-and-shovel music--of our little British negroes--"innocent blacknesses," as Lamb calls them--the chimney- sweepers,--a class now almostswept awaythemselves bymachinery. One May-morning in the streets of London these tinsel-decorated merry- makers with their sooty cheeks and black lips lined with red, and staring eyes whose white seemed whiter still by contrast with the darkness of their cases, and their ivory teeth kept sound and brilliant with the professional powder, besieged George Selwyn and his arm-in-arm companion, Lord Pembroke, for May-day boxes. Selwyn making them a low bow, said, very solemnly "I have often heard ofthe sovereignty of the people, and I suppose you are some of the young princes in court mourning."
My Native readers in Bengal can form no conception of the delight with which the British people at home still hail the spring of the year, or the deep interest which they take in all "the Seasons and their change"; though they have dropped some of the oldest and most romantic of the ceremonies once connected with them. If there were an annual fall of the leaf in the groves of India, instead of an eternal summer, the natives would discover how much the charms of the vegetable world are enhanced by these vicissitudes, and how even winter itself can be made delightful. My brother exiles will remember as long as life is in them, how exquisite, in dear old England, is the enjoyment of a brisk morning walk in the clear frosty air, and how cheering and cosy is the social evening fire! Though a cold day in Calcutta is not exactly like a cold day in London, it sometimes revives the remembrance of it. An Indian winter, if winter it may be called, is indeed far less agreeable than a winter in England, but it is not wholly without its pleasures. It is, at all events, a grateful change--a welcome relief and refreshment after a sultry summer or amuggyrainy season.
An Englishman, however, must always prefer the keener but more wholesome frigidity of his own clime. There, the external gloom and bleakness of a severe winter day enhance our in-door comforts, and we do not miss sunny skies when greeted with sunny looks. If we then see no blooming flowers, we see blooming faces. But as we have few domestic enjoyments in this country--no social snugness,--no sweet seclusion--and as our houses are as open as bird-cages,--and as we almost live in public and in the open air--we have little comfort when compelled, with an enfeebled frame and a morbidly sensitive cuticle, to remain at home on what an Anglo-Indian Invalid calls a cold day, with an easterly wind whistling through every room.[049]In our dear native country each season has its peculiar moral or physical attractions. It is not easy to say which is the most agreeable--its summer or its winter. Perhaps I must decide in favor of the first. The memory of many a smiling summer day still flashes upon my soul. If the whole of human life were like a fine English day in June, we should cease to wish for "another and a better world." It is often from dawn to sunset one revel of delight. How pleasantly, from the first break of day, have I lain wide awake and traced the approach of the breakfast hour by the increasing notes of birds and the advancing sun- light on my curtains! A summer feeling, at such a time, would make my heart dance within me, as I thought of the long, cheerful day to be enjoyed, and planned some rural walk, or rustic entertainment. The ills that flesh is heir to, if they occurred for a moment, appeared like idle visions. They were inconceivable as real things. As I heard the lark singing in "a glorious privacy of light," and saw the boughs of the green and gold laburnum waving at my window, and had my fancy filled with images of natural beauty, I felt a glow of fresh life in my veins, and my soul was inebriated with joy. It is difficult, amidst such exhilarating influences, to entertain those melancholy ideas which sometimes crowd upon, us, and appear so natural, at a less happy hour. Even actual misfortune comes in a questionable shape, when our physical constitution is in perfect health, and the flowers are in full bloom, and the skies are blue, and the streams are glittering in the sun. So powerfully does the light of external nature sometimes act upon the moral system, that a sweet sensation steals gradually over the heart, even when we think we have reason to be sorrowful, and while we almost accuse ourselves of a want of feeling. The fretful hypochondriac would do well to bear this fact in mind, and not take it for granted that all are cold and selfish who fail to sympathize with his fantastic cares. He should remember that men are sometimes so buoyed up by the sense of corporeal power, and a communion with nature in her cheerful moods, that things connected with their own personal interests, and which at other times might irritate and wound their feelings, pass by them like the idle wind which they regard not. He himself must have had his intervals of comparative happiness, in which the causes of his present grief would have appeared trivial and absurd. He should not, then, expect persons whose blood is warm in their veins, and whose eyes are open to the blessed sun in heaven, to think more of the apparent causes of his sorrow than he would himself, were his mind and body in a healthful state.
With what a light heart and eager appetite did I enter the little breakfast parlour of which the glass-doors opened upon a bright green lawn, variegated with small beds of flowers! The table was spread with dewy and delicious fruits from our own garden, and gathered by fair and friendly hands. Beautiful and luscious as were these garden dainties, they were of small account in comparison with the fresh cheeks and cherry lips that so frankly accepted the wonted early greeting. Alas! how that circle of early friends is now divided, and what a change has since come over the spirit of our dreams! Yet still I cherish boyish feelings, and the past is sometimes present. As I give an imaginary kiss to an "old familiar face," and catch myself almost unconsciously, yet literally, returning imaginary smiles, my heart is as fresh and fervid as of yore.
A lapse of fifteen years, and a distance of fifteen thousand miles, and the glare of a tropical sky and the presence of foreign faces, need not make an Indian Exile quite forgetful of home-delights. Parted friends may still share the light of love as severed clouds are equally kindled by the same sun. No number of miles or days can change or separate faithful spirits or annihilate early associations. That strange magician, Fancy, who supplies so many corporeal deficiencies and overcomes so many physical obstructions, and mocks at space and time, enables us to pass in the twinkling of an eye over the dreary waste of waters that separates the exile from the scenes and companions of his youth. He treads again his native shore. He sits by the hospitable hearth and listens to the ringing laugh of children. He exchanges cordial greetings with the "old familiar faces." There is a resurrection of the dead, and a return of vanished years. He abandons himself to the sweet illusion, and again
Lives over each scene, and is what he beholds.
I must not be too egotistically garrulous in print, or I would now attempt to describe the various ways in which I have spent a summer's day in England. I would dilate upon my noon-day loiterings amidst wild ruins, and thick forests, and on the shaded banks of rivers--the pic-nic parties--the gipsy prophecies--the twilight homeward walk--the social tea-drinking, and, the last scene of all, the "rosy dreams and slumbers light," induced by wholesome exercise and placid thoughts.[050]But perhaps these few simple allusions are sufficient to awaken a train of kindred associations in the reader's mind, and he will thank me for those words and images that are like the keys of memory, and "open all her cells with easy force."
If a summer's day be thus rife with pleasure, scarcely less so is a day in winter, though with some little drawbacks, that give, by contrast, a zest to its enjoyments. It is difficult to leave the warm morning bed and brave the external air. The fireless grate and frosted windows may well make the stoutest shudder. But when we have once screwed our courage to the sticking place, and with a single jerk of the clothes, and a brisk jump from the bed, have commenced the operations of the toilet, the battle is nearly over. The teeth chatter for a while, and the limbs shiver, and we do not feel particularly comfortable while breaking the ice in our jugs, and performing our cold ablutions amidst the sharp, glass-like fragments, and wiping our faces with a frozen towel. But these petty evils are quickly vanquished, and as we rush out of the house, and tread briskly and firmly on the hard ringing earth, and breathe our visible breath in the clear air, our strength and self- importance miraculously increase, and the whole frame begins to glow. The warmth and vigour thus acquired are inexpressibly delightful. As we re-enter the house, we are proud of our intrepidity and vigour, and pity the effeminacy of our less enterprising friends, who, though huddled together round the fire, like flies upon a sunny wall, still complain of cold, and instead of the bloom of health and animation, exhibit pale and pinched and discolored features, and hands cold, rigid, and of a deadly hue. Those who rise with spirit on a winter morning, and stir and thrill themselves with early exercise, are indifferent to the cold for the rest of the day, and feel a confidence in their corporeal energies, and a lightness of heart that are experienced at no other season.
But even the timid and luxurious are not without their pleasures. As the shades of evening draw in, the parlour twilight--the closed curtains-- and the cheerful fire--make home a little paradise to all.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And while the bubbling and loud hissing urnThrows up a steamy column, and the cupsThat cheer but not inebriate wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful evening in
Cowper.
The warm and cold seasons of India have no charms like those of England, but yet people who are guiltless of what Milton so finely calls "a sullenness against nature," and who are willing, in a spirit of true philosophy and piety, to extract good from every thing, may save themselves from wretchedness even in this land of exile. While I am writing this paragraph, a bird in my room, (not the Caubul songster that I have already alluded to, but a fine little English linnet,) who is as much a foreigner here as I am, is pouring out his soul in a flood of song. His notes ring with joy. He pines not for his native meadows--he cares not for his wiry bars--he envies not the little denizens of air that sometimes flutter past my window, nor imagines, for a moment, that they come to mock him with their freedom. He is contented with his present enjoyments, because they are utterly undisturbed by idle comparisons with those experienced in the past or anticipated in the future. He has no thankless repinings and no vain desires. Is intellect or reason then so fatal, though sublime a gift that we cannot possess it without the poisonous alloy of care? Must grief and ingratitude inevitably find entrance into the heart, in proportion to the loftiness and number of our mental endowments? Are we to seek for happiness in ignorance? To these questions the reply is obvious. Every good quality may be abused, and the greatest, most; and he who perversely employs his powers of thought and imagination to a wrong purpose deserves the misery that he gains. Were we honestly to deduct from the ills of life all those of our own creation, how trifling, in the majority of cases, the amount that would remain! We seem to invite and encourage sorrow, while happiness is, as it were, forced upon us against our will. It is wonderful how some men pertinaciously cling to care, and argue themselves into a dissatisfaction with their lot. Thus it is really a matter of little moment whether fortune smile or frown, for it is in vain to look for superior felicity amongst those who have more "appliances and means to boot," than their fellow-men. Wealth, rank, and reputation, do not secure their possessors from the misery of discontent.
As happiness then depends upon the right direction and employment of our faculties, and not on worldly goods or mere localities, our countrymen might be cheerful enough, even in this foreign land, if they would only accustom themselves to a proper train of thinking, and be ready on every occasion to look on the brighter side of all things.[051]In reverting to home-scenes we should regard them for their intrinsic charms, and not turn them into a source of disquiet by mournfully comparing them with those around us. India, let Englishmen murmur as they will, has some attractions, enjoyments and advantages. No Englishman is here in danger of dying of starvation as some of our poets have done in the inhospitable streets of London. The comparatively princely and generous style in which we live in this country, the frank and familiar tone of our little society, and the general mildness of the climate, (excepting a few months of a too sultry summer) can hardly be denied by the most determined malcontent. The weather is indeed too often a great deal warmer than we like it; but if "the excessive heat" did not form a convenient subject for complaint and conversation, it is perhaps doubtful if it would so often be thought of or alluded to. But admit the objection. What climate is without its peculiar evils? In the cold season a walk in India either in the morning or the evening is often extremely pleasant in pleasant company, and I am glad to see many sensible people paying the climate the compliment of treating it like that of England. It is now fashionable to use our limbs in the ordinary way, and the "Garden of Eden"[052]has become a favorite promenade, particularly on the evenings when a band from the Fort fills the air with a cheerful harmony and throws a fresher life upon the scene. It is not to be denied that besides the mere exercise, pedestrians at home have great advantages over those who are too indolent or aristocratic to leave their equipages, because they can cut across green and quiet fields, enter rural by-ways, and enjoy a thousand little patches of lovely scenery that are secrets to the high-road traveller. But still the Calcutta pedestrian has also his gratifications. He can enjoy no exclusive prospects, but he beholds upon an Indian river a forest of British masts--the noble shipping of the Queen of the Sea--and has a fine panoramic view of this City of Palaces erected by his countrymen on a foreign shore;--and if he is fond of children, he must be delighted with the numberless pretty and happy little faces--the fair forms of Saxon men and women in miniature--that crowd about him on the green sward;--he must be charmed with their innocent prattle, their quick and graceful movements, and their winning ways, that awaken a tone of tender sentiment in his heart, and rekindle many sweet associations.
SONNETS,
WRITTEN IN EXILE.
I.Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never;--And while the soul's internal cell is bright,The cloudless eye lets in the bloom and lightOf earth and heaven to charm and cheer us ever.Though youth hath vanished, like a winding riverLost in the shadowy woods; and the dear sightOf native hill and nest-like cottage white,'Mid breeze-stirred boughs whose crisp leaves gleam and quiver,And murmur sea-like sounds, perchance no moreMy homeward step shall hasten cheerily;Yet still I feel as I have felt of yore,And love this radiant world. Yon clear blue sky--These gorgeous groves--this flower-enamelled floor--Have deep enchantments for my heart and eye.II.Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never,Though to the sullen gaze of grief the sightOf sun illumined skies mayseemless bright,Or gathering clouds less grand, yet she, as ever,Is lovely or majestic. Though fate severThe long linked bands of love, and all delightBe lost, as in a sudden starless night,The radiance may return, if He, the giverOf peace on earth, vouchsafe the storm to stillThis breast once shaken with the strife of careIs touched with silent joy. The cot--the hill,Beyond the broad blue wave--and faces fair,Are pictured in my dreams, yet scenes that fillMy waking eye can save me from despair.III.Man's heart may change, but Nature's glory never,--Strange features throng around me, and the shoreIs not my own dear land. Yet why deploreThis change of doom? All mortal ties must sever.The pang is past,--and now with blest endeavourI check the ready tear, the rising sighThe common earth is here--the common sky--The common FATHER. And how high soeverO'er other tribes proud England's hosts may seem,God's children, fair or sable, equal findA FATHER'S love. Then learn, O man, to deemAll difference idle save of heart or mindThy duty, love--each cause of strife, a dream--Thy home, the world--thy family, mankind.