The Pilgrims of the Rhine Part 1

The Pilgrims Of The Rhine.

by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

TO HENRY LYTTON BULWER.

ALLOW me, my dear Brother, to dedicate this Work to you. The greater part of it (namely, the tales which vary and relieve the voyages of Gertrude and Trevylyan) was written in the pleasant excursion we made together some years ago. Among the a.s.sociations--some sad and some pleasing--connected with the general design, none are so agreeable to me as those that remind me of the friendship subsisting between us, and which, unlike that of near relations in general, has grown stronger and more intimate as our footsteps have receded farther from the fields where we played together in our childhood. I dedicate this Work to you with the more pleasure, not only when I remember that it has always been a favourite with yourself, but when I think that it is one of my writings most liked in foreign countries; and I may possibly, therefore, have found a record destined to endure the affectionate esteem which this Dedication is intended to convey.

Yours, etc.

E. L. B. LONDON, April 23, 1840.

PREFACE.

WITH the younger cla.s.s of my readers this work has had the good fortune to find especial favour; perhaps because it is in itself a collection of the thoughts and sentiments that const.i.tute the Romance of youth. It has little to do with the positive truths of our actual life, and does not pretend to deal with the larger pa.s.sions and more stirring interests of our kind. It is but an episode out of the graver epic of human destinies. It requires no explanation of its purpose, and no a.n.a.lysis of its story; the one is evident, the other simple,--the first seeks but to ill.u.s.trate visible nature through the poetry of the affections; the other is but the narrative of the most real of mortal sorrows, which the Author attempts to take out of the region of pain by various accessories from the Ideal. The connecting tale itself is but the string that binds into a garland the wild-flowers cast upon a grave.

The descriptions of the Rhine have been considered by Germans sufficiently faithful to render this tribute to their land and their legends one of the popular guide-books along the course it ill.u.s.trates,--especially to such tourists as wish not only to take in with the eye the inventory of the river, but to seize the peculiar spirit which invests the wave and the bank with a beauty that can only be made visible by reflection. He little comprehends the true charm of the Rhine who gazes on the vines on the hill-tops without a thought of the imaginary world with which their recesses have been peopled by the graceful credulity of old; who surveys the steep ruins that overshadow the water, untouched by one lesson from the pensive morality of Time.

Everywhere around us is the evidence of perished opinions and departed races; everywhere around us, also, the rejoicing fertility of unconquerable Nature, and the calm progress of Man himself through the infinite cycles of decay. He who would judge adequately of a landscape must regard it not only with the painter's eye, but with the poet's.

The feelings which the sight of any scene in Nature conveys to the mind--more especially of any scene on which history or fiction has left its trace--must depend upon our sympathy with those a.s.sociations which make up what may be called the spiritual character of the spot. If indifferent to those a.s.sociations, we should see only hedgerows and ploughed land in the battle-field of Bannockburn; and the traveller would but look on a dreary waste, whether he stood amidst the piles of the Druid on Salisbury plain, or trod his bewildered way over the broad expanse on which the Chaldaean first learned to number the stars.

To the former editions of this tale was prefixed a poem on "The Ideal,"

which had all the worst faults of the author's earliest compositions in verse. The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) has been entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, than that which it replaces.

THE IDEAL WORLD

I.

THE IDEAL WORLD,--ITS REALM IS EVERYWHERE AROUND US; ITS INHABITANTS ARE THE IMMORTAL PERSONIFICATIONS OF ALL BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS; TO THAT WORLD WE ATTAIN BY THE REPOSE OF THE SENSES.

AROUND "this visible diurnal sphere"

There floats a World that girds us like the s.p.a.ce; On wandering clouds and gliding beams career Its ever-moving murmurous Populace.

There, all the lovelier thoughts conceived below Ascending live, and in celestial shapes.

To that bright World, O Mortal, wouldst thou go?

Bind but thy senses, and thy soul escapes: To care, to sin, to pa.s.sion close thine eyes; Sleep in the flesh, and see the Dreamland rise!

Hark to the gush of golden waterfalls, Or knightly tromps at Archimagian Walls!

In the green hush of Dorian Valleys mark The River Maid her amber tresses knitting; When glow-worms twinkle under coverts dark, And silver clouds o'er summer stars are flitting, With jocund elves invade "the Moone's sphere, Or hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear;"*

Or, list! what time the roseate urns of dawn Scatter fresh dews, and the first skylark weaves Joy into song, the blithe Arcadian Faun Piping to wood-nymphs under Bromian leaves, While slowly gleaming through the purple glade Come Evian's panther car, and the pale Naxian Maid.

* "Midsummer Night's Dream."

Such, O Ideal World, thy habitants!

All the fair children of creative creeds, All the lost tribes of Fantasy are thine,-- From antique Saturn in Dodonian haunts, Or Pan's first music waked from shepherd reeds, To the last sprite when Heaven's pale lamps decline, Heard wailing soft along the solemn Rhine.

II.

OUR DREAMS BELONG TO THE IDEAL.--THE DIVINER LOVE FOR WHICH YOUTH SIGHS NOT ATTAINABLE IN LIFE, BUT THE PURSUIT OF THAT LOVE BEYOND THE WORLD OF THE SENSES PURIFIES THE SOUL AND AWAKES THE GENIUS.--PETRARCH.--DANTE.

Thine are the Dreams that pa.s.s the Ivory Gates, With prophet shadows haunting poet eyes!

Thine the belov'd illusions youth creates From the dim haze of its own happy skies.

In vain we pine; we yearn on earth to win The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream.

The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been, Save in Olympus, wedded! As a stream Gla.s.ses a star, so life the ideal love; Restless the stream below, serene the orb above!

Ever the soul the senses shall deceive; Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows!

And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows!

We seek to make the moment's angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found amid the bowers of earth.*

* According to a belief in the East, which is a.s.sociated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superst.i.tions, the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth, and its nest is never to be found.

Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring, Than sate the senses with the boons of time; The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing, The steps it lures are still the steps that climb; And in the ascent although the soil be bare, More clear the daylight and more pure the air.

Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, He mourns the Laura but to win the Muse.

Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice Awaiting h.e.l.l's dark pilgrim in the skies, s.n.a.t.c.hed from below to be the guide above, And clothe Religion in the form of Love?*

* It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, he allegorizes Religious Faith.

III.

GENIUS, LIFTING ITS LIFE TO THE IDEAL, BECOMES ITSELF A PURE IDEA: IT MUST COMPREHEND ALL EXISTENCE, ALL HUMAN SINS AND SUFFERINGS; BUT IN COMPREHENDING, IT TRANs.m.u.tES THEM.--THE POET IN HIS TWO-FOLD BEING,--THE ACTUAL AND THE IDEAL.--THE INFLUENCE OF GENIUS OVER THE STERNEST REALITIES OF EARTH; OVER OUR Pa.s.sIONS; WARS AND SUPERSt.i.tIONS.--ITS IDENt.i.tY IS WITH HUMAN PROGRESS.--ITS AGENCY, EVEN WHERE UNACKNOWLEDGED, IS UNIVERSAL.

Oh, thou true Iris! sporting on thy bow Of tears and smiles! Jove's herald, Poetry, Thou reflex image of all joy and woe, _Both_ fused in light by thy dear fantasy!

Lo! from the clay how Genius lifts its life, And grows one pure Idea, one calm soul!

True, its own clearness must reflect our strife; True, its completeness must comprise our whole; But as the sun trans.m.u.tes the sullen hues Of marsh-grown vapours into vermeil dyes, And melts them later into twilight dews, Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies; So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe, So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin, Doth its warm light in rosy colours wreathe Its playful cloudland, storing balms within.

Survey the Poet in his mortal mould, Man, amongst men, descended from his throne!

The moth that chased the star now frets the fold, Our cares, our faults, our follies are his own.

Pa.s.sions as idle, and desires as vain, Vex the wild heart, and dupe the erring brain.

From Freedom's field the recreant Horace flies To kiss the hand by which his country dies; From Mary's grave the mighty Peasant turns, And hoa.r.s.e with orgies rings the laugh of Burns.

While Rousseau's lips a lackey's vices own,-- Lips that could draw the thunder on a throne!

But when from Life the Actual GENIUS springs, When, self-transformed by its own magic rod, It snaps the fetters and expands the wings, And drops the fleshly garb that veiled the G.o.d, How the mists vanish as the form ascends!

How in its aureole every sunbeam blends!

By the Arch-Brightener of Creation seen, How dim the crowns on perishable brows!

The snows of Atlas melt beneath the sheen, Through Thebaid caves the rushing splendour flows.

Cimmerian glooms with Asian beams are bright, And Earth reposes in a belt of light.

Now stern as Vengeance shines the awful form, Armed with the bolt and glowing through the storm; Sets the great deeps of human pa.s.sion free, And whelms the bulwarks that would breast the sea.

Roused by its voice the ghastly Wars arise, Mars reddens earth, the Valkyrs pale the skies; Dim Superst.i.tion from her h.e.l.l escapes, With all her shadowy brood of monster shapes; Here life itself the scowl of Typhon* takes; There Conscience shudders at Alecto's snakes; From Gothic graves at midnight yawning wide, In gory cerements gibbering spectres glide; And where o'er blasted heaths the lightnings flame, Black secret hags "do deeds without a name!"

Yet through its direst agencies of awe, Light marks its presence and pervades its law, And, like Orion when the storms are loud, It links creation while it gilds a cloud.

By ruthless Thor, free Thought, frank Honour stand, Fame's grand desire, and zeal for Fatherland.

The grim Religion of Barbarian Fear With some Hereafter still connects the Here, Lifts the gross sense to some spiritual source, And thrones some Jove above the t.i.tan Force, Till, love completing what in awe began, From the rude savage dawns the thoughtful man.

* The gloomy Typhon of Egypt a.s.sumes many of the mystic attributes of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and everlasting youth.

Then, oh, behold the Glorious comforter!

Still bright'ning worlds but gladd'ning now the hearth, Or like the l.u.s.tre of our nearest star, Fused in the common atmosphere of earth.