Sale, in the poem "To Cecilia," p. 81. Again, at Bell" Israfel comes again. "Bessie But Virginalia," Phila.: 1853, contains the crowning appropriation of Poe's idea: "Out of the lute-strings of her heart she wove, Like Israfel in Heaven, with her sweet singing, A subtle web of Poesy, which Love Around my heart then wound, wherewith upspringing, She to the Mount of Fame her way with me went winging." Again: Una, p. 15. My knowledge comes to thee down-flowing, Like Israfel in Heaven, thy heartstrings are a lute." The "Song of Seralim," dated 1836, is a direct imitation of Poe's Israfel, and the heart-strings motif reappears again at p. 62. The influence of Poe on Chivers in this one poem " Israfel" was profound, almost ludicrous, for Chivers goes on with his " Israfelia" (actually the name of one of his poems the adjective "Israfelian" also occurring) after Poe is dead, in Eonchs of Ruby and Virginalia," dated respectively 1851 and 1853. The Greek quotation “ Αυτό καθ' αυτο μεθ' αυτού, μονο είδες αιει ον page of rella." 66 (sic), (from Plato), which is found on the titleVirginalia," is taken from Poe's "MoPoe has poems to " Eulalie," and "To One in Paradise ; so has Chivers. The reader may judge for himself of the Poeän echoes in the following stanzas from the collections of 1851 and 1853: ISADORE. "I approach thee I look dauntless into thine eyes. The soul that loves can dare all things. Shadow, WHILE the world lay round me sleeping, Patient Vigils lonely keeping! Some one said to me while weeping, Why this grief forever more?" And I answered, "I am weeping Then the Voice again said, "Never God from thee thy love did sever Wherefore then her loss deplore ? Thou shalt live in Hell forever! Heaven now holds thine Isadore! Like two spirits in one being, Were our souls, dear Isadore! Every object singly seeing In all things, like one, agreeing Up in Heaven, dear Isadore! Myriad Voices still are crying Day and night, dear Isadore! Come, come to the Pure Land lying Far up in the sky undying There to rest forever more! Purified, redeemed, undying Come to Heaven to Isadore! Adon-ai! God of Glory! Who dost love mine Isadore! Who didst hear her prayerful story In this world when she was sorry Gone to Heaven forever more! Adon-ai! God of Glory! Take me home to Isadore! Eonchs of Ruby, p. 97. BESSIE BELL. [Second version, from Virginalia: Phila., 1855.] Do you know the modest Maiden, Pretty, bonny Bessie Bell, Queen of all the flowers of Aiden, Whom my heart doth love so well? Ah! her eyelids droop declining On her soft cerulean eyes, Like an unbought Beauty's, pining For the Harem's Paradise. All her soul seemed full of blisses Like Heaven manna from above. Sought, the young Fawn in her wildness Is not wilder in the Dell; Unapproached, the Dove in mildness Is not mild as Bessie Bell. Like the sweetest of Heaven's singers, Music smote her lily-fingers From her Heavenly Heptachord. You should know this modest Maiden. Pretty, bonny Bessie Bell, Queen of all the flowers of Aiden, Like some sorrowing soul atoning Queen of all the flowers of Aiden, Like the psychical vibration Of the Butterfly's soft wings, Dallying with the rich Carnation Played her fingers with the strings. Israfelian in its clearness All her heart's deep love to tell Fell the voice of Bessie Bell. Chivers indeed was a poet run mad with the sense of rhythm it made no difference to him whether his combinations made sense or not, if only there were an exquisite mellifluence of sound. His peculiar crotchet was the feminine rhyme the melodious terminations in—ing, ―ation, combined with a passion for vocalisms open vowel sounds - and for luxurious alliterations. All this he shared with Poe, though he did not share with Poe the artistic selfrestraint necessary to make these crude elements of poetry a success. On all the moon-struck sea of Chivers there sails not a barque that has survived his whirlwind of words. 1,500 pages of verse! We might mention as graceful and musical the BoatSong," "Bessie Bell," "Invocation to Spring,' "Serenade,' "The Poet of Love," "The Comforter, "The New Moon," "The Angelus,' "Euthanasia," "The Heavenly Reaper," "Avalon," "Mary's Lament for Shelley," "The Wife's Lament for the Husband lost at Sea;" "The Soaring Swan," is highly poetical, and Neah-Emathla " 66 a is deeply pathetic and beautiful in parts; but the general run of the thousands of lines is a wild orgy of words mere protoplasm, not proto-Poe jellied unintelligibility, without form and void: such poems a sea-squib might write, shooting its ink into inarticulate speech. Whatever Poe did, Chivers thought he must at least try thus Poe's Queen-Mablike "Al Aaraaf" |