The Germ Part 17

"Now the king charged us secretly: 'Stoned must he be: the law stands so: Yet, if he seek to fly, give way; Forbid him not, but let him go.'

"So saying, the king took a stone, And cast it softly: but the man, With a great joy upon his face, Kneeled down, and cried not, neither ran.

"So they whose lot it was cast stones, That they flew thick and bruised him sore: But he praised Allah with loud voice, And remained kneeling as before.

"My lord had covered up his face: But, when one told him, 'He is dead;'

Turning him quickly to go in, 'Bring thou to me his corpse,' he said.

"And truly, while I speak, oh king, I hear the bearers on the stair.

Wilt thou they straightway bring him in?-- Ho! enter ye who tarry there."--pp. 39-43.

The Vizier counsels the king that each man's private grief suffices him, and that he should not seek increase of it in the griefs of other men. But he answers him, (this pa.s.sage we have before quoted,) that the king's lot and the poor man's is the same, for that neither has his will; and he takes order that the dead man be buried in his own royal tomb.

We know few poems the style of which is more unaffectedly without labor, and to the purpose, than this. The metre, however, of the earlier part is not always quite so uniform and intelligible as might be desired; and we must protest against the use, for the sake of rhyme, of _broke_ in lieu of _broken_, as also of _stole_ for _stolen_ in "the New Sirens." While on the subject of style, we may instance, from the "Fragment of an Antigone," the following uncouth stanza, which, at the first reading, hardly appears to be correctly put together:

"But hush! Hoemon, whom Antigone, Robbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon's laws, Polynices, Robs of a loved bride, pale, imploring, Waiting her pa.s.sage, Forth from the palace hitherward comes."--p. 30.

Perhaps the most perfect and elevated in tone of all these poems is "The New Sirens." The author addresses, in imagination, a company of fair women, one of whose train he had been at morning; but in the evening he has dreamed under the cedar shade, and seen the same forms "on sh.o.r.es and sea-washed places," "With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands."

He thinks how at sunrise he had beheld those ladies playing between the vines; but now their warm locks have fallen down over their arms.

He prays them to speak and shame away his sadness; but there comes only a broken gleaming from their windows, which "Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom." He asks them whether they have seen the end of all this, the load of pa.s.sion and the emptiness of reaction, whether they dare look at life's latter days,

"When a dreary light is wading Thro' this waste of sunless greens, When the flashing lights are fading On the peerless cheek of queens, When the mean shall no more sorrow, And the proudest no more smile; While the dawning of the morrow Widens slowly westward all that while?"

And he implores them to "let fall one tear, and set him free." The past was no mere pretence; it was true while it lasted; but it is gone now, and the East is white with day. Shall they meet again, only that he may ask whose blank face that is?

"Pluck, pluck cypress, oh pale maidens; Dusk the hall with yew."

This poem must be read as a whole; for not only would it be difficult to select particular pa.s.sages for extraction, but such extracts, if made, would fail in producing any adequate impression.

We have already quoted so larely from the concluding piece, "Resignation," that it may here be necessary to say only that it is in the form of speech held with "Fausta" in retracing, after a lapse of ten years, the same way they had once trod with a joyful company.

The tone is calm and sustained, not without touches of familiar truth.

The minor poems comprise eleven sonnets, among which, those "To the Duke of Wellington, on hearing him mispraised," and on "Religious Isolation," deserve mention; and it is with pleasure we find one, in the tenor of strong appreciation, written on reading the Essays of the great American, Emerson. The sonnet for "Butler's Sermons" is more indistinct, and, as such, less to be approved, in imagery than is usual with this poet. That "To an Independent Preacher who preached that we should be in harmony with nature," seems to call for some remark. The sonnet ends with these words:

"Man must begin, know this, where nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends; Fool, if thou canst not pa.s.s her, rest her slave."

Now, as far as this sonnet shows of the discourse which occasioned it, we cannot see anything so absurd in that discourse; and where the author confutes the Independent preacher by arguing that

"Nature is cruel; man is sick of blood: Nature is stubborn; man would fain adore: Nature is fickle; man hath need of rest:"

we cannot but think that, by attributing to nature a certain human degree of qualities, which will not suffice for man, he loses sight of the point really raised: for is not man's nature only a part of nature? and, if a part, necessary to the completeness of the whole?

and should not the individual, avoiding a fact.i.tious life, order himself in conformity with his own rule of being? And, indeed, the author himself would converse with the self-sufficing progress of nature, with its rest in action, as distinguished from the troublous vexation of man's toiling:--

"Two lessons, Nature, let me learn of thee, Two lessons that in every wind are blown; Two blending duties harmonised in one, Tho' the loud world proclaim their enmity."--p. 1.

The short lyric poem, "To Fausta" has a Sh.e.l.leian spirit and grace in it. & "The Hayswater Boat" seems a little _got up_, and is scarcely positive enough. This remark applies also, and in a stonger degree, to the "Stanzas on a Gipsy Child," which, and the "Modern Sappho,"

previously mentioned, are the pieces least to our taste in the volume. There is a something about them of drawing-room sentimentality; and they might almost, without losing much save in size, be compressed into poems of the cla.s.s commonly set to music. It is rather the basis of thought than the writing of the "Gipsy Child,"

which affords cause for objection; nevertheless, there is a pa.s.sage in which a comparison is started between this child and a "Seraph in an alien planet born,"--an idea not new, and never, as we think, worth much; for it might require some subtlety to show how a planet capable of producing a Seraph should be alien from that Seraph.

We may here notice a few cases of looseness, either of thought or of expression, to be met with in these pages; a point of style to be particularly looked to when the occurrence or the absence of such forms one very sensible difference between the first-rate and the second-rate poets of the present times.

Thus, in the sonnet "Shakspear," the conclusion says,

"All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow, Find their sole _voice_ in that victorious brow;"

whereas a brow's voice remains to be uttered: nor, till the nature of the victory gained by the brow shall have been pointed out, are we able to hazard an opinion of the precise value of the epithet.

In the address to George Cruikshank, we find: "Artist, whose hand with horror _winged_;" where a similar question arises; and, returning to the "Gipsy Child," we are struck with the unmeaningness of the line: "Who ma.s.sed round that slight brow these clouds of doom?"

Nor does the following, from the first of the sonnets, "To a Republican Friend," appear reconcileable with any ideas of appropriateness:

----"While before me _flow_ The _armies_ of the homeless and unfed."

It is but right to state that the only instance of the kind we remember throughout the volume have now been mentioned.

To conclude. Our extracts will enable the reader to judge of this Poet's style: it is clear and comprehensive, and eschews flowery adornment. No particular model has been followed, though that general influence which Tennyson exercises over so many writers of this generation may be traced here as elsewhere. It may be said that the author has little, if anything, to unlearn. Care and consistent arrangement, and the necessary subordination of the parts to the whole, are evident throughout; the reflective, which appears the more essential form of his thought, does not absorb the due observation or presentment of the outward facts of nature; and a well-poised and serious mind shows itself in every page.

_Published Monthly, price 1s._

This Periodical will consist of original Poems, Stories to develope thought and principle, Essays concerning Art and other subjects, and a.n.a.lytic Reviews of current Literature--particularly of Poetry. Each number will also contain an Etching; the subject to be taken from the opening article of the month.

An attempt will be made, both intrinsically and by review, to claim for Poetry that place to which its present development in the literature of this country so emphatically ent.i.tles it.

The endeavour held in view throughout the writings on Art will be to encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity of nature; and also to direct attention, as an auxiliary medium, to the comparatively few works which Art has yet produced in this spirit. It need scarcely be added that the chief object of the etched designs will be to ill.u.s.trate this aim practically, as far as the method of execution will permit; in which purpose they will be produced with the utmost care and completeness.

No. 3. (_Price One Shilling_.) MARCH, 1850.

With an Etching by F. Madox Brown.

Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature Conducted princ.i.p.ally by Artists.

When whoso merely hath a little thought Will plainly think the thought which is in him,-- Not imaging another's bright or dim, Not mangling with new words what others taught; When whoso speaks, from having either sought Or only found,--will speak, not just to skim A shallow surface with words made and trim, But in that very speech the matter brought: Be not too keen to cry--"So this is all!-- A thing I might myself have thought as well, But would not say it, for it was not worth!"

Ask: "Is this truth?" For is it still to tell That, be the theme a point or the whole earth, Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

London: d.i.c.kINSON & Co., 114, NEW BOND STREET, AND AYLOTT & JONES, 8, PATERNOSTER ROW.

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CONTENTS.

Cordelia--_W. M. Rossetti_ 97 Macbeth 99 Repining.--_Ellen Alleyn_ 111 Sweet Death--_Ellen Alleyn_ 117 Subject in Art, No. II 118 Carillon.--_Dante G. Rossetti_ 126 Emblems.--_Thomas Woolner_ 127 Sonnet.--_W. B. Scott_ 128 From the Cliffs.--_Dante G. Rossetti_ 129 Fancies at Leisure.--_W. M. Rossetti_ 129 Papers of "The M. S. Society," Nos. I. II. & III 131 Review, Sir Reginald Mohun.--_W.M. Rossetti_ 137