And when their wondrous march was o'er, A land that drinks the rain of heaven at will, Whose waters kiss the feet of many a vine-clad hill ; "Oft as they watch'd, at thoughtful eve, A gale from bowers of balm Sweep o'er the billowy corn, and heave The tresses of the palm, Just as the lingering Sun had touch'd with gold, "It was a fearful joy, I ween, To trace the Heathen's toil :- The limpid wells, the orchards green The household stores untouch'd, the roses bright "And now another Canaan yields To thine all-conquering ark ;- Ye Paynim shadows dark! Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays, Lo! here the unknown God' of thy unconscious praise! "The olive wreath, the ivied wand, 'The sword in myrtles drest,' Each legend of the shadowy strand As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven, 303 So thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were given, "And these are ours; Thy partial grace The tempting treasure lends: These relics of a guilty race Are forfeit to thy friends What seem'd an idol-hymn now breathes of Thee, "There's not a strain to Memory dear, Nor flower in classic grove, There's not a sweet note warbled here, O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes. There is no light but thine: with Thee all beauty glows." To return to "Thalaba: " it would be a delightful task to follow the course of this remarkable and beautiful poem; but, drawing now towards the close of these lectures, I have learned, by repeated experience, some little of the virtue of forbearance, and the necessity of passing over many more things than the large demands I have made on your patience would lead you to suppose. One or two passages I must allude to. No poem is adorned with a more beautiful love-story than that of Thalaba and Oneiza : "Oneiza call'd him brother, and the youth More fondly than a brother loved the maid; How happily the years Of Thalaba went by ! In deep and breathless tenderness, Oneiza's soul is centred on the youth, "She call'd him brother: was it sister love Round her smooth ankles and her tawny arms As when she trimm'd the lamp And through the veins and delicate skin The light shone rosy? that the darken'd lids That with such pride she trick'd Of Thalaba went by ! Years of his youth, how rapidly ye fled ! " A drear winter was to close over this happy spring,—a tragic ending to this bright promise. The trial of his faith which most heavily crushes the heart of Thalaba is when the angel of death invades the bridal chamber; and then follows that woeful description,—his ghastly wretchedness at Oneiza's grave: "By the tomb lay Thalaba, In the light of the setting eve. The sun, and the wind, and the rain, Had rusted his raven locks; His cheeks were fallen in, His face-bones prominent. THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 305 Reclined against the tomb he lay, And his lean fingers play'd, Unwitting, with the grass that grew beside." When Thalaba's unwearied faith approaches its consummation,-the good fight nearly finished, the race nearly won,—the ministering spirits come closer to his path, and he hears a spiritual welcoming from the angel voice of his lost Oneiza : - "Was there a spirit in the gale That flutter'd o'er his cheek? For it came on him like the new risen sun, Which plays and dallies o'er the night-closed flower, "And woos it to unfold anew to joy? For it came on him as the dews of eve Or liker the first sound of seraph-song Whose latest sense had shudder'd at the groan It gives a vivid impression of the versatility of Southey's genius to turn from a spiritual and wildly-supernatural poem like "Thalaba" to his poetical odes. The finest of these were written during the long strife between his country and Napoleon. I cannot stop to characterize that contest, or to say how far I consider the poet's strain against the adversary to be justified. It is with the poetry, and not the politics, I have to deal. This only let me say that the war with the French Empire is a grand chapter in British history, and that I know not where an American or a republican can find just ground for any sympathy with a military despotism. The trumpet-sounds of Southey's poetry came forth from his mountain dwelling to cheer and fortify the hearts of his countrymen. His heart never lost its faith that there is a moral strength mightier and more enduring than the perishable power of armies. He spake to the nation in the spirit of that noble line which he had spoken to himself in early manhood: -- "Onward in faith, and leave the rest to Heaven!" And it is a grand thing to behold the poet, like his own Thalaba, ever faithful, hopeful alike in seasons of victory and of doubt, and to hear him at last raising the exultant strain of triumph, as over the disastrous retreat from Moscow : "Witness that dread retreat, When God and nature smote X Victorious armies follow'd on his flight; On every side he met The Cossack's dreadful spear; On every side he saw The injured nation rise Invincible in arms. What myriads, victims of one wicked will, Spent their last breath in curses on his head! There where the soldier's blood And nightly the cold moon Saw sinking thousands in the snow lie down Stiff as their icy bed!" The highest and most impetuous of these strains is the ode written during the negotiations with Napoleon in 1814. Since Milton's tremendous imprecation against the Papal tyranny on occasion of the Piedmontese massacre, I know of no piece of political invective equal to it. It is hurled with the force and the fire of a thunderbolt, one burst of indignation following another, and closing with an accumulation of all the deeds of blood identified with the name of him who had been at once the terror and the wonder of Europe. Let me give the opening and ending stanzas of the ode: "Who counsels peace at this momentous hour, Who counsels peace when vengeance, like a flood, When innocent blood, From the four quarters of the world, cries out When Freedom hath her holy banners spread Over all nations, now in one just cause "Woe, woe to England! woe and endless shame, False to her feelings and unspotted fame, THE TALE OF PARAGUAY. "France! if thou lov'st thine ancient fame, of frozen Muscovy; By the bodies which lie all open to the sky, By the prayers which rise for curses on his head,-- Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame! Open thine eyes! Too long hast thou been blind! By those horrors which the night Oh! by the virtuous blood thus vilely spilt, The Villain's own peculiar, private guilt, Open thine eyes! Too long hast thou been blind! 307 From these notes, tuned in tumultuous times, and fit to cope with the tempest's swell, let me further illustrate the varied power of Southey's genius by turning to a passage in his pleasing poem, "The Tale of Paraguay." It is an exquisite specimen of purely pathetic poetry, -full of the truth of feeling and of fancy, the description of the death-bed of a young and innocent female. What can be more beautiful or much touching than the line which actually pictures to your imagination the sweet smile of the dying one ? "Who could dwell Unmoved upon the fate of one so young, So blithesome late? What marvel if tears fell From that good man, as over her he hung, And that the prayers he said came faltering from his tongue? |