Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets Part 27

_The Task_, Book i.

At this point of view you find the poet's praises of the scenery more fully justified than any where else. The park here has a solemn, solitary, splendidly wooded air, and spreads its green slopes, and gives hints of its secluded dells, that are piquant to the imagination. And still the walk, of a mile or more, to the ancient chase, is equally impressive. The vast extent of the forest which stretches before you gives a deep feeling of silence and ancient repose. You descend into a valley, and Kilwick's echoing wood spreads itself before you on the upland. You pa.s.s through it, and come out opposite to a lonely farm-house, where, in the opening of the forest, you see the remains of very ancient oaks standing here and there. You feel that you are on a spot that has maintained its connection with the world of a thousand years ago; and amid these venerable trees, you soon see the one which by its bulk, its hollow trunk, and its lopped and dilapidated crown, needs not to be pointed out as the YARDLEY OAK. Here Cowper was fond of coming, and sitting within the hollow boll for hours; around him stretching the old woods, with their solitude and the cries of woodland birds. The fame which he has conferred on this tree has nearly proved its destruction. Whole arms and great pieces of its trunk have been cut away with knife, and ax, and saw, to prepare different articles from.

The Marquis of Northampton, to whom the chase belongs, has had mult.i.tudes of nails driven in to stop the progress of this destruction, but finding that not sufficient, has affixed a board bearing this inscription: "Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of Northampton is particularly desirous of preserving this oak.

Notice is hereby given, that any person defacing, or otherwise injuring it, will be prosecuted according to law." In stepping round the Yardley Oak, it appeared to me to be, at the foot, about thirteen yards in circ.u.mference.

Every step here shows you some picture sketched by Cowper:

"I see a column of slow rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild.

A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle slung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel--flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or at best of c.o.c.k purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race!

They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which kindled with dry leaves just saves unquenched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the pedigree they claim."

We are now upon

"The gra.s.sy sward, close cropped by nibbling sheep, And skirted thick with intermixture firm Of th.o.r.n.y boughs."

The old wild chase opens its glades, discovers its heaths, startles us with its abrupt cries of birds, or plunges us into the gloom of thick, overshadowing oaks. It is a fit haunt of the poet. Such are the haunts of Cowper in this neighborhood. Amid these he led a secluded, but an active and most important life. How many of those who bustle along in the front of public life can boast of a ten-thousandth part of the benefit to their fellow-men which was conferred, and for ages will be conferred, by the loiterer of these woods and fields? In no man was his own doctrine ever made more manifest, that

"G.o.d gives to every man The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordained to fill."

He says of himself,

"I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since. With many an arrow deep infixed My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There was I joined by one who had himself Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

With gentle force soliciting the darts, He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live.

Since then, with few a.s.sociates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene, With few a.s.sociates, and not wishing more."

Thus he began; but soothed by the sweet freshness of nature, strengthened by her peace, enlightened to the pitch of true wisdom by her daily converse, spite of all his griefs and fears, he ended by describing himself, in one of the n.o.blest pa.s.sages of modern poetry, as the happy man.

"He is the happy man whose life e'en now Shows somewhat of that happier life to come; Who, doomed to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleased with it; and, were he free to choose, Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content, indeed, to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home.

The world o'erlooks him in her busy search Of objects, more ill.u.s.trious in her view; And, occupied as earnestly as she, Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.

She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain.

He can not skim the ground like summer birds Pursuing golden flies; and such he deems Her honors, her emoluments, her joys.

Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be revealed.

Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed, And censured oft as useless. Silent streams Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird That flutters least is longest on the wing."

_The Task_, Book vi.

Quitting these scenes in quest of health, both the poet and his dear friend Mary Unwin died at Dereham, in Suffolk, she in 1796, and he in 1800. "They were lovely in their lives, and in death they are not divided."

MRS. TIGHE, THE AUTHOR OF PSYCHE.

Perhaps no writer of merit has been more neglected by her own friends than Mrs. Tighe. With every means of giving to the public a good memoir of her, I believe no such is in existence; at all events, I have not been able to find one. The following brief particulars have been furnished by a private hand: "Mrs. Tighe was born in Dublin in 1774. Her father, the Rev. Wm. Blachford, was librarian of Marsh's library, St.

Sepulchre, in that city. Her mother, Theodosia Tighe, was one of a family whose seat has been, and is, Rosanna, county Wicklow. In 1793, Miss Blachford, then but nineteen, married her cousin, Henry Tighe, of Woodstock, M.P. for Kilkenny in the Irish Parliament, and author of a County History of Kilkenny. Consumption was hereditary in Mrs. Tighe's family, and its fatal seeds ripened with her womanhood. She was constantly afflicted with its attendants, languor, depression, and want of appet.i.te. With the profits of Psyche, which ran through four editions previous to her death, she built an addition to the Orphan Asylum in Wicklow, thence called the Psyche Ward. She died on the 24th of March, 1810, and was buried at Woodstock, in Kilkenny, beneath a monument chiseled by Flaxman from the finest marble of Italy. Mrs. Hemans, Banim, and Moore have done homage to her genius, or lamented over its eclipse.

North, in the Noctes Ambrosianae, with the a.s.sistance of Mr. Timothy Tickler, has paid her a very high compliment. But her abilities, her beauty, and her virtue have not, as yet, been adequately pictured in any biographical notice of her that I have seen. The 1813 edition of Psyche contains some affecting allusions to her, in the preface written by her husband, who soon after followed her to the grave."

How little is known of Mrs. Tighe, when so short an account is the best that a countryman of hers can furnish! and even in that there are serious errors. So far from her monument being of the finest marble of Italy, it is of a stone not finer than Portland stone, if so fine. So far from her husband soon following her to the grave, Mrs. Tighe died in 1810, and her husband was living at the time of Mrs. Hemans's visit to Woodstock in 1831. He must have survived her above twenty years. In Mrs.

Hemans's own account of her visit to Woodstock, she speaks of it as the place where "Mrs. Tighe pa.s.sed the latest years of her life, and near where she is buried;" yet in the same volume with Psyche (1811 edition, p. 306) there is a "Sonnet, written at Woodstock, in the county of Kilkenny, the seat of William Tighe, June 30, 1809," _i. e._, but nine months before her death. For myself, I confess myself ignorant of the facts which might connect these strangely-clashing accounts of a popular poetess, of a wealthy family, and who died little more than thirty years ago. I hoped to gain the necessary information on the spot, which I made a long journey to visit purposely. Why I did not, remains to tell.

The poem of Psyche was one which charmed me intensely at an early age.

There was a tone of deep and tender feeling pervading it, which touched the youthful heart, and took possession of every sensibility. There was a tone of melancholy music in it, which seemed the regretful expression of the consciousness of a not far-off death. It was now well known that the young and beautiful poetess _was_ dead. The life which she lived--crowned with every good and grace that G.o.d confers on the bright ones of the earth, on those who are to be living revelations of the heaven to which we are called, and to which they are hastening, youth, beauty, fortune, all glorified by the emanations of a transcendent mind, was s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and there was a sad fascination thrown over both her fate and her work. The delicacy, the pathos, the subdued and purified, yet intense pa.s.sion of the poem, were all calculated to seize on the kindred spirit of youth, and to make you in love with the writer. She came before the imagination in the combined witchery of brilliant genius and the pure loveliness of a seraph, which had but touched upon the earth on some celestial mission, and was gone forever. Her own Psyche, in the depth of her saddest hour, yearning for the restoration of the lost heaven and the lost heart, was not more tenderly beautiful to the imagination than herself.

Such was the effect of the Psyche on the glowing, sensitive, yet immature mind. How much of this effect has, in many cases, been the result of the quick feelings and magnifying fancy of youth itself! We have returned to our idol in later years, and found it clay. But this is not the case with Psyche. After the lapse of many years, after the disenchanting effects of experience, after the enjoyment of a vast quant.i.ty of new poetry of a splendor and power such as no one age of the world ever before witnessed, we return to the poem of Mrs. Tighe, and still find it full of beauty. There is a graceful fluency of diction, a rich and deep harmony, that are the fitting vehicle of a story full of interest, and scenery full of enchantment. Spite of the incongruity of ingrafting on a Grecian fable the knight-errantry of the Middle Ages, and the allegory of still later days, we follow the deeply-tried Psyche through all her ordeals with unabating zest. The radiant Island of Pleasure, the more radiant Divinity of Love, the fatal curiosity, the weeping and outcast Psyche wandering on through the forests and wildernesses of her earthly penance, the mysterious knight, the intrepid squire of the starry brow, are all sketched with the genuine pencil of poetry, and we follow the fortunes of the wanderers with ever-deepening entrancement. None but Spenser himself has excelled Mrs. Tighe in the field of allegory. Pa.s.sion in the form of the lion subdued by the knight; Psyche betrayed by Vanity and Flattery to Ambition; the Bower of Loose Delight; the Attacks of Slander; the Castle of Suspicion; the Court of Spleen; the drear Island of Indifference; and the final triumph and apotheosis of the gentle soul--all are vigorously conceived, and executed with a living distinctness. The pleasure with which she pursued her task is expressed in the graceful opening stanzas of the fifth canto.

"Delightful visions of my lonely hours!

Charm of my life and solace of my care!

Oh! would the muse but lend proportioned powers, And give me language equal to declare The wonders which she bids my fancy share, When rapt in her to other worlds I fly; See angel forms unutterably fair, And hear the inexpressive harmony That seems to float in air, and warble through the sky.

"Might I the swiftly-glancing scenes recall!

Bright as the roseate clouds of summer eve, The dreams which hold my soul in willing thrall, And half my visionary days deceive, Communicable shape might then receive, And other hearts be ravished with the strain; But scarce I seek the airy threads to weave, When quick confusion mocks the fruitless pain, And all the airy forms are vanished from my brain.

"Fond dreamer! meditate thine idle song!

But let thine idle song remain unknown; The verse which cheers thy solitude, prolong; What though it charm no moments but thy own, Though thy loved Psyche smile for thee alone, Still shall it yield thee pleasure, if not fame; And when, escaped from tumult, thou hast flown To thy dear silent hearth's enlivening flame, Then shall the tranquil muse her happy votary claim!"

Moore has recorded his admiration of Psyche in a lyric, of which these stanzas are not the least expressive:

"Tell me the witching tale again, For never has my heart or ear Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain, So pure to feel, so sweet to hear.

"Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame, When the high Heaven itself was thine.

When piety confessed the flame, And even thy errors were divine!

"Did ever muse's hand so fair A glory round thy temple spread?

Did ever life's ambrosial air Such perfume o'er thine altars shed?"

Mrs. Hemans had always been much struck with the poetry of Mrs. Tighe.

She imagined a similarity between the destiny of this pensive poetess and her own. She had her in her imagination when she wrote The Grave of a Poetess; and the concluding stanzas are particularly descriptive of Mrs. Tighe's spirit.

"Thou hast left sorrow in thy song.

A voice not loud, but deep!

The glorious bowers of earth among, How often didst thou weep!

"Where couldst thou fix on mortal ground, Thy tender thoughts and high?

Now peace the woman's heart hath found, And joy the poet's eye!"

It was certainly among earth's glorious bowers that Mrs. Tighe pa.s.sed her days. Rosanna, in Wicklow, is said to have been her princ.i.p.al residence after her marriage. The whole country round is extremely beautiful, and calculated to call forth the poetic faculty where it exists. All the way from Dublin to Rosanna is through a rich and lovely district. As you approach Rosanna the hills become higher, and your way lies through the most beautifully wooded valleys. At the inn at Ashford Bridge you have the celebrated Devil's Glen on one hand, and Rosanna on the other. This glen lies a mile or more from the inn, and is about a mile and a half through. It is narrow, the hills on either hand are lofty, bold, craggy, and finely wooded; and along the bottom runs, deep and dark over its rocky bed, the River Vartree. This river runs down and crosses the road near the inn, and then takes its way by Rosanna.

Rosanna is perhaps a mile down the valley from the inn. The house is a plain old brick house, fit for a country squire. It lies low in the meadow near the river, and around it, on both sides of the water, the slopes are dotted with the most beautiful and luxuriant trees. The park at Rosanna is indeed eminently beautiful with its wood. The trees are thickly scattered, and a great proportion of them are lime, the soft, delicate foliage of which gives a peculiar character to the scenery. The highway, for the whole length of the park as you proceed toward Rathdrum, is completely arched over with magnificent beeches, presenting a fine natural arcade. On the right the ground ascends for a mile or more, covered with rich ma.s.ses of wood. In fact, whichever way you turn, toward the distant hill, or pursuing your way down the valley, all is one fairy land of beauty and richness. It is a region worthy of the author of Psyche, worthy to inspire her beautiful mind; and we rejoice that so fair, and gentle, and good a spirit had there her lot cast. In her poems she addresses one to the Vartree:

"Sweet are thy banks, O Vartree! when at morn Their velvet verdure glistens with the dew; When fragrant gales, by softest zephyrs borne, Unfold the flowers, and ope their petals new.

"And sweet thy shade, at noon's more fervid hours, When faint we quit the upland gayer lawn, To seek the freshness of thy sheltering bowers, Thy chestnut glooms, where day can scarcely dawn.

"Beneath the fragrant lime, or spreading beech, The bleating flocks in panting crowds repose; Their voice alone my dark retreat can reach, While peace and silence all my soul compose."

In her sonnets, too, she alludes to her favorite Rosanna, and to her "chestnut bower," which, I believe, still remains. Indeed, Rosanna will always be interesting to the lovers of gentle female virtue and pure genius, because here Psyche was written; here the author of Psyche lived, loved, and suffered.