The moon looks down on oldCronest,
The moon looks down on oldCronest,
is principally in the vicinity of West Point on the Hudson. The plot is as follows. An Ouphe, one of the race of Fairies, has "broken his vestal vow,"
in short, he has broken Fairy-law in becoming enamored of a mortal. The result of this misdemeanor we could not express so well as the poet, and will therefore make use of the language put into the mouth of the Fairy-King who reprimands the criminal.
The Ouphe being in this predicament, it has become necessary that his case and crime should be investigated by a jury of his fellows, and to this end the "shadowy tribes of air" are summoned by the "sentry elve" who has been awakened by the "wood-tick"—are summoned we say to the "elfin-court" at midnight to hear the doom of theCulprit Fay.
"Had a stain been found on the earthly fair" whose blandishments so bewildered the litle Ouphe, his punishment had been severe indeed. In such case he would have been (as we learn from the Fairy judge's exposition of the criminal code,)
Fortunately, however, for the Culprit, his mistress is proved to be of "sinless mind" and under such redeeming circumstances the sentence is, mildly, as follows—
Upon this sin, and upon this sentence, depends the web of the narrative, which is now occupied with the elfin difficulties overcome by the Ouphe in washing away the stain of his wing, and re-illuming his flame-wood lamp. His soiled pinion having lost its power, he is under the necessity of wending his way on foot from the Elfin court upon Cronest to the river beach at its base. His path is encumbered at every step with "bog and briar," with "brook and mire," with "beds of tangled fern," with "groves of nightshade," and with the minor evils of ant and snake. Happily, however, a spotted toad coming in sight, our adventurer jumps upon her back, and "bridling her mouth with a silkweed twist" bounds merrily along
Alighting now from his "courser-toad" the Ouphe folds his wings around his bosom, springs on a rock, breathes a prayer, throws his arms above his head,
Here, however, a host of difficulties await him by far too multitudinous to enumerate. We will content ourselves with simply stating the names of his most respectable assailants. These are the "spirits of the waves" dressed in "snail-plate armor" and aided by the "mailed shrimp," the "prickly prong," the "blood-red leech," the "stony star-fish," the "jellied quarl," the "soldier crab," and the "lancing squab." But the hopes of our hero are high, and his limbs are strong, so
All, however is to no purpose.
So then,
Arrived safely on land our Fairy friend now gathers the dew from the "sorrel-leaf and henbane-bud" and bathing therewith his wounds, finally ties them up with cobweb. Thus recruited, he
At length espying a "purple-muscle shell" upon the beach, he determines to use it as a boat, and thus evade the animosity of the water-spirits whose powers extend not above the wave. Making a "sculler's notch" in the stern, and providing himself with an oar of the bootle-blade, the Ouphe a second time ventures upon the deep. His perils are now diminished, but still great. The imps of the river heave the billows up before the prow of the boat, dash the surges against her side, and strike against her keel. The quarl uprears "his island-back" in her path, and the scallop, floating in the rear of the vessel, spatters it all over with water. Our adventurer however, bails it out with the colen bell (which he has luckily provided for the purpose of catching the drop from the silver bow of the sturgeon,) and keeping his little bark warily trimmed, holds on his course undiscomfited.
The object of his first adventure is at length discovered in a "brown-backed sturgeon," who
From this rainbow our Ouphe succeeds in catching, by means of his colen-bell cup, a "droplet of the sparkling dew." One half of his task is accordingly done—
His wings are pure, for the gem is won.
His wings are pure, for the gem is won.
On his return to land, the ripples divide before him, while the water-spirits, so rancorous before, are obsequiously attentive to his comfort. Having tarried a moment on the beach to breathe a prayer, he "spreads his wings of gilded blue" and takes his way to the elfin court—there resting until the cricket, at two in the morning, rouses him up for the second portion of his penance.
His equipments are now an "acorn helmet," a "thistle-down plume," a corslet of the "wild-bee's" skin, a cloak of the "wings of butterflies," a shield of the "shell of the lady-bug," for lance "the sting of a wasp," for sword a "blade of grass," for horse "a fire-fly," and for spurs a couple of "cockle seed." Thus accoutred,
In the Heavens he has new dangers to encounter. The "shapes of air" have begun their work—a "drizzly mist" is cast around him—"storm, darkness, sleet and shade" assail him—"shadowy hands" twitch at his bridle-rein—"flame-shot tongues" play around him—"fiendish eyes" glare upon him—and
Still our adventurer is nothing daunted.
and the Elfin makes no stop, until he reaches the "bank of the milky way." He there checks his courser, and watches "for the glimpse of the planet shoot." While thus engaged, however, an unexpected adventure befalls him. He is approached by a company of the "sylphs of Heaven attired in sunset's crimson pall." They dance around him, and "skip before him on the plain." One receiving his "wasp-sting lance," and another taking his bridle-rein,
A glowing description of the queen's beauty follows; and as the form of an earthly Fay had never been seen before in the bowers of light, she is represented as falling desperately in love at first sight with our adventurous Ouphe. He returns the compliment in some measure, of course; but, although "his heart bent fitfully," the "earthly form imprinted there" was a security against a too vivid impression. He declines, consequently, the invitation of the queen to remain with her and amuse himself by "lying within the fleecy drift," "hanging upon the rainbow's rim," having his "brow adorned with all the jewels of the sky," "sitting within the Pleiad ring," "resting upon Orion's belt," "riding upon the lightning's gleam," "dancing upon the orbed moon," and "swimming within the milky way."
The queen, therefore, contents herself with bidding the Fay an affectionate farewell—having first directed him carefully to that particular portion of the sky where a star is about to fall. He reaches this point in safety, and in despite of the "fiends of the cloud" who "bellow very loud," succeeds finally in catching a "glimmering spark" with which he returns triumphantly to Fairy-land. The poem closes with an Io Pæan chaunted by the elves in honor of these glorious adventures.
It is more than probable that from among ten readers of theCulprit Fay, nine would immediately pronounce it a poem betokening the most extraordinary powers of imagination, and of these nine, perhaps five or six, poets themselves, and fully impressed with the truth of what we have already assumed, that Ideality is indeed the soul of the Poetic Sentiment, would feel embarrassed between a half-consciousness that theyoughtto admire the production, and a wonder that theydo not. This embarrassment would then arise from an indistinct conception of the results in which Ideality is rendered manifest. Of these results some few are seen in theCulprit Fay, but the greater part of it is utterly destitute of any evidence of imagination whatever. The general character of the poem will, we think, be sufficiently understood by any one who may have taken the trouble to read our foregoing compendium of the narrative. It will be there seen that what is so frequently termed the imaginative power of this story, lies especially—we should have rather said is thought to lie—in the passages we have quoted, or in others of a precisely similar nature. These passages embody, principally, mere specifications of qualities, of habiliments, of punishments, of occupations, of circumstances &c., which the poet has believed in unison with the size, firstly, and secondly with the nature of his Fairies. To all which may be added specifications of other animal existences (such as the toad, the beetle, the lance-fly, the fire-fly and the like) supposed also to be in accordance. An example will best illustrate our meaning upon this point—we take it from page 20.
We shall now be understood. Were any of the admirers of theCulprit Fayasked their opinion of these lines, they would most probably speak in high terms of theimaginationthey display. Yet let the most stolid andthe most confessedly unpoetical of these admirers only try the experiment, and he will find, possibly to his extreme surprise, that he himself will have no difficulty whatever in substituting for the equipments of the Fairy, as assigned by the poet, other equipments equally comfortable, no doubt, and equally in unison with the preconceived size, character, and other qualities of the equipped. Why we could accoutre him as well ourselves—let us see.
The truth is, that the only requisite for writing verses of this nature,ad libitum, is a tolerable acquaintance with the qualities of the objects to be detailed, and a very moderate endowment of the faculty of Comparison—which is the chief constituent ofFancyor the powers of combination. A thousand such lines may be composed without exercising in the least degree the Poetic Sentiment, which is Ideality, Imagination, or the creative ability. And, as we have before said, the greater portion of theCulprit Fayis occupied with these, or similar things, and upon such, depends very nearly, if not altogether, its reputation. We select another example from page 25.
Here again the faculty of Comparison is alone exercised, and no mind possessing the faculty in any ordinary degree would find a difficulty in substituting for the materials employed by the poet other materials equally as good. But viewed as mere efforts of the Fancy and without reference to Ideality, the lines just quoted are much worse than those which were taken from page 20. A congruity was observable in the accoutrements of the Ouphe, and we had no trouble in forming a distinct conception of his appearance when so accoutred. But the most vivid powers of Comparison can attach no definitive idea to even "the loveliest form of light," when habited in a mantle of "rolled purple tied with threads of dawn and buttoned with a star," and sitting at the same time under a rainbow with "beamlet" eyes and a visage of "lily roon."
But if these things evince no Ideality in their author, do they not excite it in others?—if so, we must conclude, that without being himself imbued with the Poetic Sentiment, he has still succeeded in writing a fine poem—a supposition as we have before endeavored to show, not altogether paradoxical. Most assuredly we think not. In the case of a great majority of readers the only sentiment aroused by compositions of this order is a species of vague wonder at the writer'singenuity, and it is this indeterminate sense of wonder which passes but too frequently current for the proper influence of the Poetic power. For our own parts we plead guilty to a predominant sense of the ludicrous while occupied in the perusal of the poem before us—a sense whose promptings we sincerely and honestly endeavored to quell, perhaps not altogether successfully, while penning our compend of the narrative. That a feeling of this nature is utterly at war with the Poetic Sentiment, will not be disputed by those who comprehend the character of the sentiment itself. This character is finely shadowed out in that popular although vague idea so prevalent throughout all time, that a species of melancholy is inseparably connected with the higher manifestations of the beautiful. But with the numerous and seriously-adduced incongruities of the Culprit Fay, we find it generally impossible to connect other ideas than those of the ridiculous. We are bidden, in the first place, and in a tone of sentiment and language adapted to the loftiest breathings of the Muse, to imagine a race of Fairies in the vicinity of West Point. We are told, with a grave air, of their camp, of their king, and especially of their sentry, who is a wood-tick. We are informed that an Ouphe of about an inch in height has committed a deadly sin in falling in love with a mortal maiden, who may, very possibly, be six feet in her stockings. The consequence to the Ouphe is—what? Why, that he has "dyed his wings," "broken his elfin chain," and "quenched his flame-wood lamp." And he is therefore sentenced to what? To catch a spark from the tail of a falling star, and a drop of water from the belly of a sturgeon. What are his equipments for the first adventure? An acorn helmet, a thistle-down plume, a butterfly cloak, a lady-bug shield, cockle-seed spurs, and a fire-fly horse. How does he ride to the second? On the back of a bull-frog. What are his opponents in the one? "Drizzly mists," "sulphur and smoke," "shadowy hands" and "flame-shot tongues." What in the other? "Mailed shrimps," "prickly prongs," "blood-red leeches," "jellied quarls," "stony star fishes," "lancing squabs" and "soldier crabs." Is that all? No—Although only an inch high he is in imminent danger of seduction from a "sylphid queen," dressed in a mantle of "rolled purple," "tied with threads of dawning gold," "buttoned with a sparkling star," and sitting under a rainbow with "beamlet eyes" and a countenance of "lily roon." In our account of all this matter we have had reference to the book—and to the book alone. It will be difficult to prove us guilty in any degree of distortion or exaggeration. Yet such are the puerilities we daily find ourselves called upon to admire, as among the loftiest efforts of the human mind, and which not to assign a rank with the proud trophies of the matured and vigorous genius of England, is to prove ourselves at once a fool, a maligner, and no patriot.7
7A review of Drake's poems, emanating from one of our proudest Universities, does not scruple to make use of the following language in relation to theCulprit Fay. "It is, to say the least, an elegant production, the purest specimen of Idealitywe have ever met with, sustaining in each incident a most bewitching interest. Its very title is enough," &c. &c. We quote these expressions as a fair specimen of the general unphilosophical and adulatory tenor of our criticism.
As an instance of what may be termed the sublimely ridiculous we quote the following lines from page 17.
The verses here italicized, if considered without their context, have a certain air of dignity, elegance, and chastity of thought. If however we apply the context, we are immediately overwhelmed with the grotesque. It is impossible to read without laughing, such expressions as "It was a strange and lovely sight"—"He seemed an angel form of light"—"And sitting at the fall of even, beneath the bow of summer heaven" to a Fairy—a goblin—an Ouphe—half an inch high, dressed in an acorn helmet and butterfly-cloak, and sitting on the water in a muscle-shell, with a "brown-backed sturgeon" turning somersets over his head.
In a world where evil is a mere consequence of good, and good a mere consequence of evil—in short where all of which we have any conception is good or bad only by comparison—we have never yet been fully able to appreciate the validity of that decision which would debar the critic from enforcing upon his readers the merits or demerits of a work by placing it in juxta-position with another. It seems to us that an adage based in the purest ignorance has had more to do with this popular feeling than any just reason founded upon common sense. Thinking thus, we shall have no scruple in illustrating our opinion in regard to whatis notIdeality or the Poetic Power, by an example of whatis.8We have already given the description of the Sylphid Queen in theCulprit Fay. In theQueen Mabof Shelley a Fairy is thus introduced—
and thus described—
8As examples of entire poems of the purest ideality, we would cite thePrometheus Vinctusof Æschylus, theInfernoof Dante, Cervantes'Destruction of Numantia, theComusof Milton, Pope'sRape of the Lock, Burns'Tam O'Shanter, theAuncient Mariner, theChristabel, and theKubla Khanof Coleridge; and most especially theSensitive Plantof Shelley, and theNightingaleof Keats. We have seen American poems evincing the faculty in the highest degree.
In these exquisite lines the Faculty of mere Comparison is but little exercised—that of Ideality in a wonderful degree. It is probable that in a similar case the poet we are now reviewing would have formed the face of the Fairy of the "fibrous cloud," her arms of the "pale tinge of even," her eyes of the "fair stars," and her body of the "twilight shadow." Having so done, his admirers would have congratulated him upon hisimagination, not taking the trouble to think that they themselves could at any momentimaginea Fairy of materials equally as good, and conveying an equally distinct idea. Their mistake would be precisely analogous to that of many a schoolboy who admires the imagination displayed inJack the Giant-Killer, and is finally rejoiced at discovering his own imagination to surpass that of the author, since the monsters destroyed by Jack are only about forty feet in height, and he himself has no trouble in imagining some of one hundred and forty. It will be seen that the Fairy of Shelley is not a mere compound of incongruous natural objects, inartificially put together, and unaccompanied by anymoralsentiment—but a being, in the illustration of whose nature some physical elements are used collaterally as adjuncts, while the main conception springs immediatelyor thus apparently springs, from the brain of the poet, enveloped in the moral sentiments of grace, of color, of motion—of the beautiful, of the mystical, of the august—in short ofthe ideal.9
9Among things, which not only in our opinion, but in the opinion of far wiser and better men, are to be ranked with the mere prettinesses of the Muse, are the positive similes so abundant in the writings of antiquity, and so much insisted upon by the critics of the reign of Queen Anne.
It is by no means our intention to deny that in theCulprit Fayare passages of a different order from those to which we have objected—passages evincing a degree of imagination not to be discovered in the plot, conception, or general execution of the poem. The opening stanza will afford us a tolerable example.
There is Ideality in these lines—but except in the case of the words italicized—it is Idealitynot of a high order. We have it is true, a collection of naturalobjects, each individually of great beauty, and, if actually seen as in nature, capable of exciting in any mind, through the means of the Poetic Sentiment more or less inherent in all, a certain sense of the beautiful. But to view such natural objects as they exist, and to behold them through the medium of words, are different things. Let us pursue the idea that such a collection as we have here will produce, of necessity, the Poetic Sentiment, and we may as well make up our minds to believe that a catalogue of such expressions as moon, sky, trees, rivers, mountains &c., shall be capable of exciting it,—it is merely an extension of the principle. But in the line "the earth is dark,butthe heavens are bright" besides the simple mention of the "dark earth" and the "bright heaven," we have, directly, the moral sentiment of the brightness of the sky compensating for the darkness of the earth—and thus, indirectly, of the happiness of a future state compensating for the miseries of a present. All this is effected by the simple introduction of the wordbutbetween the "dark heaven" and the "bright earth"—this introduction, however, was prompted by the Poetic Sentiment, and by the Poetic Sentiment alone. The case is analogous in the expression "glimmers and dies," where the imagination is exalted by the moral sentiment of beauty heightened in dissolution.
In one or two shorter passages of theCulprit Faythe poet will recognize the purely ideal, and be able at a glance to distinguish it from that baser alloy upon which we have descanted. We give them without farther comment.
The poem "To a Friend" consists of fourteen Spenserian stanzas. They are fine spirited verses, and probably were not supposed by their author to be more. Stanza the fourth, although beginning nobly, concludes with that very common exemplification of the bathos, the illustrating natural objects of beauty or grandeur by reference to the tinsel of artificiality.
In theExtracts from Leon, are passages not often surpassed in vigor of passionate thought and expression—and which induce us to believe not only that their author would have succeeded better in prose romance than in poetry, but that his attention would have naturally fallen into the former direction, had the Destroyer only spared him a little longer.
This poem contains also lines of far greater poetic power than any to be found in theCulprit Fay. For example—
10The expression "woven air," much insisted upon by the friends of Drake, seems to be accredited to him as original. It is to be found in many English writers—and can be traced back to Apuleius who calls fine draperyventum textilem.
Niagarais objectionable in many respects, and in none more so than in its frequent inversions of language, and the artificial character of its versification. The invocation,
is ludicrous—and nothing more. In general, all such invocations have an air of the burlesque. In the present instance we may fancy the majestic Niagara replying, "Most assuredly I will roar, whether, worm! thou tellest me or not."
The American Flagcommences with a collection of those bald conceits, which we have already shown to have no dependence whatever upon the Poetic Power—springing altogether from Comparison.
Let us reduce all this to plain English, and we have—what? Why, a flag, consisting of the "azure robe of night," "set with stars of glory," interspersed with "streaks of morning light," relieved with a few pieces of "the milky way," and the whole carried by an "eagle bearer," that is to say, an eagle ensign, who bears aloft this "symbol of our chosen land" in his "mighty hand," by which we are to understand his claw. In the second stanza, the "thunder-drum of Heaven" is bathetic and grotesque in the highest degree—a commingling of the most sublime music of Heaven with the most utterly contemptible and common-place of Earth. The two concluding verses are in a better spirit, and might almost be supposed to be from a different hand. The images contained in the lines,
are of the highest order of Ideality. The deficienciesof the whole poem may be best estimated by reading it in connection with "Scots wha hae," with the "Mariners of England," or with "Hohenlinden." It is indebted for its high and most undeserved reputation to our patriotism—not to our judgment.
The remaining poems in Mr. Dearborn's edition of Drake, are three Songs; Lines in an Album; Lines to a Lady; Lines on leaving New Rochelle; Hope; A Fragment; To ——; Lines; To Eva; To a Lady; To Sarah; and Bronx. These are all poems of little compass, and with the exception of Bronx and a portion of the Fragment, they have no character distinctive from the mass of our current poetical literature. Bronx, however, is in our opinion, not only the best of the writings of Drake, but altogether a lofty and beautiful poem, upon which his admirers would do better to found a hope of the writer's ultimate reputation than upon theniaiseriesof theCulprit Fay. In theFragmentis to be found the finest individual passage in the volume before us, and we quote it as a proper finale to our Review.
Halleck's poetical powers appear to us essentially inferior, upon the whole, to those of his friend Drake. He has written nothing at all comparable toBronx. By the hackneyed phrase,sportive elegance, we might possibly designate at once the general character of his writings and the very loftiest praise to which he is justly entitled.
Alnwick Castleis an irregular poem of one hundred and twenty-eight lines—was written, as we are informed, in October 1822—and is descriptive of a seat of the Duke of Northumberland, in Northumberlandshire, England. The effect of the first stanza is materially impaired by a defect in its grammatical arrangement. The fine lines,
are of the nature of an invocation, and thus require a continuation of the address to the "Home, &c." We are consequently disappointed when the stanza proceeds with—
The objects of allusion here vary, in an awkward manner, from the castle to the Lion, and from the Lion to the towers. By writing the verses thus the difficulty would be remedied.
The second stanza, without evincing in any measure the loftier powers of a poet, has that quiet air of grace, both in thought and expression, which seems to be the prevailing feature of the Muse of Halleck.
There are one or two brief passages in the poem evincing a degree of rich imagination not elsewhere perceptible throughout the book. For example—
and,
The commencement of the fourth stanza is of the highest order of Poetry, and partakes, in a happy manner, of that quaintness of expression so effective an adjunct to Ideality, when employed by the Shelleys, the Coleridges and the Tennysons, but so frequently debased, and rendered ridiculous, by the herd of brainless imitators.
The tone employed in the concluding portions of Alnwick Castle, is, we sincerely think, reprehensible, and unworthy of Halleck. No true poet can unite in any manner the low burlesque with the ideal, and not be conscious of incongruity and of a profanation. Such verses as
may lay claim to oddity—but no more. These things are the defects and not the beauties ofDon Juan. They are totally out of keeping with the graceful and delicate manner of the initial portions ofAlnwick Castle, and serve no better purpose than to deprive the entire poem of all unity of effect. If a poet must be farcical, let him be just that, and nothing else. To be drolly sentimental is bad enough, as we have just seen in certain passages of theCulprit Fay, but to be sentimentally droll is a thing intolerable to men, and Gods, and columns.
Marco Bozzarisappears to have much lyrical without any high order ofidealbeauty.Forceis its prevailing character—a force, however, consisting more in a well ordered and sonorous arrangement of the metre, and ajudicious disposal of what may be called the circumstances of the poem, than in the truematerielof lyric vigor. We are introduced, first, to the Turk who dreams, at midnight, in his guarded tent,
He is represented as revelling in the visions of ambition.
In direct contrast to this we have Bozzaris watchful in the forest, and ranging his band of Suliotes on the ground, and amid the memories, of Platœa. An hour elapses, and the Turk awakes from his visions of false glory—to die. But Bozzaris dies—to awake. He dies in the flush of victory to awake, in death, to an ultimate certainty of Freedom. Then follows an invocation to Death. His terrors under ordinary circumstances are contrasted with the glories of the dissolution of Bozzaris, in which the approach of the Destroyer is
The poem closes with the poetical apotheosis of Marco Bozzaris as
It will be seen that these arrangements of the subject are skilfully contrived—perhaps they are a little too evident, and we are enabled too readily by the perusal of one passage, to anticipate the succeeding. The rhythm is highly artificial. The stanzas are well adapted for vigorous expression—the fifth will afford a just specimen of the versification of the whole poem.
Granting, however, toMarco Bozzaris, the minor excellences we have pointed out, we should be doing our conscience great wrong in calling it, upon the whole, any thing more than a very ordinary matter. It is surpassed, even as a lyric, by a multitude of foreign and by many American compositions of a similar character. To Ideality it has few pretensions, and the finest portion of the poem is probably to be found in the verses we have quoted elsewhere—
The verses entitledBurnsconsist of thirty eight quatrains—the three first lines of each quatrain being of four feet, the fourth of three. This poem has many of the traits ofAlnwick Castle, and bears also a strong resemblance to some of the writings of Wordsworth. Its chief merit, and indeed the chief merit, so we think, of all the poems of Halleck is the merit ofexpression. In the brief extracts fromBurnswhich follow, our readers will recognize the peculiar character of which we speak.
Wyomingis composed of nine Spenserian stanzas. With some unusual excellences, it has some of the worst faults of Halleck. The lines which follow are of great beauty.
The poem, however, is disfigured with the mere burlesque of some portions of Alnwick Castle—with such things as
and
mingled up in a pitiable manner with images of real beauty.
The Field of the Grounded Armscontains twenty-four quatrains, without rhyme, and, we think, of adisagreeable versification. In this poem are to be observed some of the finest passages of Halleck. For example—
And again—