The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer Part 33

"His path is on the mountain waves, His home is on the deep."

No words in Scripture are so strange to him as these, "There shall be no more sea." The course of his voyage in the Shipwreck, brings him past lands the most famous in the ancient world for arts and arms, for philosophy, patriotism, and poetry. And sore does he labour to lash himself into inspiration as he apostrophizes them; but in vain--the result is little else than furious feebleness and stilted bombast. But when he returns to the element, the impatient, irregular, changeful, treacherous, terrible ocean--and watches the night, winged with black storm and red lightning, sinking down over the Mediterranean, and the devoted bark which is helplessly struggling with its billows, then his blood rises, his verse heaves, and hurries on, and you see the full-born poet--

"High o'er the p.o.o.p the audacious seas aspire, Uproll'd in hills of fluctuating fire: With labouring throes she rolls on either side, And dips her gunnells in the yawning tide.

Her joints unhinged in palsied langour play, As ice-flakes part beneath the noontide ray; The gale howls doleful through the blocks and shrouds, And big rain pours a deluge from the clouds.

From wintry magazines that sweep the sky, Descending globes of hail incessant fly; High on the masts with pale and lurid rays, Amid the gloom portentous meteors blaze!

The ethereal dome in mournful pomp array'd, Now buried lies beneath impervious shade,-- Now flashing round intolerable light, Redoubles all the horrors of the night.

Such terror Sinai's trembling hill o'erspread, When Heaven's loud trumpet sounded o'er its head.

It seem'd the wrathful angel of the wind, Had all the horrors of the skies combined; And here to one ill-fated ship opposed, At once the dreadful magazine disclosed."

This is n.o.ble writing. "Deep calleth unto deep." It reminds us of Pope's translation of that tremendous pa.s.sage in the 8th Book of the Iliad, where Jove comes forth, and darts his angry lightnings in the eyes of the Grecians, and repels and appals their mightiest; Nestor alone, but with his horse wounded by the dart of Paris, sustaining the divine a.s.sault.

Lord Byron, in his letter to Bowles in defence of Pope, alludes to Falconer's Shipwreck, and cites it in proof of the poetical use which may be made of the works of art. But it has justly been remarked by Hazlitt, in his very masterly reply, published in the 'London Magazine', that the finest parts of the Shipwreck are not those in which he appears to versify parts of his own Marine Dictionary, or in which he makes vain efforts to describe the vestiges of Grecian grandeur, but those in which, as in the above pa.s.sage, he mates with the sublime and terrible 'natural' phenomena he meets in his voyage--the gathering of the storm--the treacherous lull of the sea, breathing itself like a tiger for its fatal spring--the ship, now walking the calm waters of the gla.s.sy sea, and now wrestling like a demon of kindred power and fury with the angry billows--the last fearful onset of the maddened surge--and the secret stab given by the a.s.sa.s.sin rock from below, which completes the ruin of the doomed vessel, and scatters its fragments o'er the tide, growling in joy--these, as the poet describes them, const.i.tute the poetical glory of "The Shipwreck," and these have little connexion with art, and much with nature.

Lord Byron was better at emulating than at criticising Falconer's 'chef-d'oeuvre'. We have already once or twice alluded to 'his'

Shipwreck--surely the grandest and most characteristic effort of his genius, in its demoniac force, and demoniac spirit. As we have elsewhere said, "he describes the horrors of a shipwreck, like a fiend who had, invisible, sat amid the shrouds, choked with laughter--with immeasurable glee had heard the wild farewell rising from sea to sky--had leaped into the long-boat as it put off with its pale crew--had gloated o'er the cannibal repast--had leered, unseen, into the 'dim eyes of those shipwreck'd men'--and with a loud and savage burst of derision had seen them at length sinking into the waves." The superiority of his picture over Falconer's, lies in the simplicity and strength of the style, in the ease of the narrative, in the variety of the incidents and characters, and in certain short masterly touches, now of pathos, now of infernal humour, and now of description, competent only to Byron and to Shakspeare. Such are,--

"Then shriek'd the timid and stood still the brave."

"The bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony."

"For he, poor fellow, had a wife and children, Two things to dying people quite bewildering,"--

and the inimitable description of the rainbow, closing with,--

"Then changed like to a bow that's bent, and then-- Forsook the dim eyes of these shipwreck'd men."

The technicalities introduced are fewer; and are handled with greater force, and made to tell more on the general effect. You marvel, too, at the versatility of the writer, who seems this moment to be looking at the scene with the eye of the melancholy Jacques; the next, with the philosophical aspect of the moralizing Hamlet; the next, with the rage of a misanthropical Timon; and the next, with the bitter sneer of a malignant Iago: and yet, who, amidst all these disguises, leaves on you the impression that he is throughout acting the part, and displaying the spirit, of a demon--a deep current of mockery at man's miseries, and at G.o.d's providence, running under all his moods and imitations. We read it once, when recovering from an illness, and shall never forget the withering horror, and the shock of disgust and loathing, which it gave to our weakened nerves.

Since Falconer's time, besides Byron, Scott, in the Pirate, and Cooper, there has not, as we hinted, been much of the poetical extracted from the sea. The subject suggested in Boswell's Johnson, by General Oglethorpe, as a n.o.ble theme for a poem--namely, "The Mediterranean," is still unsung, at least by any competent bard. Mrs Hemans has one sweet strain on the "Treasures of the Deep." Allan Cunningham's "Wet Sheet and Flowing Sea," and Barry Cornwall's "The Sea, the Sea," are in everybody's mouth. We remember a young student at Glasgow College, long since dead--George Gray by name--a thin lame lad, with dark mild eyes, and a fine spiritual expression on his pale face, handing in to Professor Milne of the Moral Philosophy cla.s.s, some lines which he read to his cla.s.s, and by which they, as well as the old, arid, although profound and ingenious philosopher, were perfectly electrified. We shall quote all we remember of them, and it will be thought much, when we state that twenty-five years have elapsed since we read them. They began--

"The storm is up; the anchor spring, And man the sails, my merry men; I must not lose the carolling Of ocean in a hurricane; My soul mates with the mountain storm, The cooing gale disdains.

Bring Ocean in his wildest form, All booming thunder-strains; I'll bid him welcome, clap his mane; I'll dip my temples in his yeast, And hug his breakers to my breast; And bid them hail! all hail, I cry, My younger brethren hail!

The sea shall be my cemetery Unto eternity.

How glorious 'tis to have the wave For ever dashing o'er thee;-- Besides that dull and lonesome grave, Where worms and earth devour thee.

My messmates, when ye drink my dirge, Go, fill the cup from ocean's surge; And when ye drain the beverage up, Remember Neptune in the cup.

For he has been my _brawling host_, Since first I roam'd from coast to coast; And he my _brawling_ host shall be-- I love his ocean courtesy-- His _boisterous_ hospitality."

These lines, to us at least, seem to echo the rough roar of the breakers, as they rush upon an iron-bound coast. Poor G. Gray! He now sleeps, not in the bosom of that old Ocean he loved so dearly, but, we think, in the kirkyard of Douglas, in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire,--a light early quenched,--but whose memory this notice and these lines may, perhaps, for a season, preserve! The SEA still lies over, after all written in prose or rhyme regarding it, as the subject for a great poem; and it will task all the energies of even the truest poet.

FALCONER'S POEMS.

THE SHIPWRECK.

IN THREE CANTOS.

THE TIME EMPLOYED IN THIS POEM IS ABOUT SIX DAYS.

Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi, Et quorum pars magna fui.

VIRG. aeN. lib. ii.

INTRODUCTION TO THE POEM.

While jarring interests wake the world to arms, And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms, While Albion bids the avenging thunder roll Along her va.s.sal deep from pole to pole; Sick of the scene, where War with ruthless hand Spreads desolation o'er the bleeding land; Sick of the tumult, where the trumpet's breath Bids ruin smile, and drowns the groan of death; 'Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern h.o.a.r, That stands all lonely on the sea-beat sh.o.r.e, 10 Far other themes of deep distress to sing Than ever trembled from the vocal string: A scene from dumb oblivion to restore, To fame unknown, and new to epic lore; Where hostile elements conflicting rise, And lawless surges swell against the skies, Till hope expires, and peril and dismay Wave their black ensigns on the watery way.

Immortal train! who guide the maze of song, To whom all science, arts, and arms belong; 20 Who bid the trumpet of eternal fame Exalt the warrior's and the poet's name, Or in lamenting elegies express The varied pang of exquisite distress; If e'er with trembling hope I fondly stray'd In life's fair morn beneath your hallow'd shade, To hear the sweetly-mournful lute complain, And melt the heart with ecstasy of pain, Or listen to the enchanting voice of love, While all Elysium warbled through the grove: 30 Oh! by the hollow blast that moans around, That sweeps the wild harp with a plaintive sound; By the long surge that foams through yonder cave, Whose vaults remurmur to the roaring wave; With living colours give my verse to glow, The sad memorial of a tale of woe!

The fate in lively sorrow to deplore Of wanderers shipwreck'd on a leeward sh.o.r.e.

Alas! neglected by the sacred Nine, Their suppliant feels no genial ray divine: 40 Ah! will they leave Pieria's happy sh.o.r.e To plough the tide where wintry tempests roar?

Or shall a youth approach their hallow'd fane, Stranger to Phoebus, and the tuneful train?

Far from the Muses' academic grove 'Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove; Alternate change of climates has he known, And felt the fierce extremes of either zone: Where polar skies congeal the eternal snow, Or equinoctial suns for ever glow, 50 Smote by the freezing, or the scorching blast, 'A ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,' [1]

From regions where Peruvian billows roar, To the bleak coasts of savage Labrador; From where Damascus, pride of Asian plains, Stoops her proud neck beneath tyrannic chains, To where the Isthmus, [2] laved by adverse tides, Atlantic and Pacific seas divides: But while he measured o'er the painful race In fortune's wild illimitable chase, 60 Adversity, companion of his way, Still o'er the victim hung with iron sway, Bade new distresses every instant grow, Marking each change of place with change of woe: In regions where the Almighty's chastening hand With livid pestilence afflicts the land, Or where pale famine blasts the hopeful year, Parent of want and misery severe; Or where, all-dreadful in the embattled line, The hostile ships in naming combat join, 70 Where the torn vessel wind and waves a.s.sail, Till o'er her crew distress and death prevail.

Such joyless toils in early youth endured, The expanding dawn of mental day obscured, Each genial pa.s.sion of the soul oppress'd, And quench'd the ardour kindling in his breast.

Then censure not severe the native song, Though jarring sounds the measured verse prolong, Though terms uncouth offend the softer ear, Yet truth and human anguish deign to hear: 80 No laurel wreath these lays attempt to claim, Nor sculptured bra.s.s to tell the poet's name.

And, lo! the power that wakes the eventful song Hastes. .h.i.ther from Lethean banks along: She sweeps the gloom, and rushing on the sight, Spreads o'er the kindling scene propitious light.

In her right hand an ample roll appears, Fraught with long annals of preceding years, With every wise and n.o.ble art of man, Since first the circling hours their course began: 90 Her left a silver wand on high display'd, Whose magic touch dispels oblivion's shade: Pensive her look; on radiant wings that glow Like Juno's birds, or Iris' flaming bow, She sails; and swifter than the course of light Directs her rapid intellectual flight: The fugitive ideas she restores, And calls the wandering thought from Lethe's sh.o.r.es; To things long past a second date she gives, And h.o.a.ry time from her fresh youth receives; 100 Congenial sister of immortal Fame, She shares her power, and Memory is her name.

O first-born daughter of primeval time!

By whom transmitted down in every clime The deeds of ages long elapsed are known, And blazon'd glories spread from zone to zone; Whose magic breath dispels the mental night, And o'er the obscured idea pours the light: Say on what seas, for thou alone canst tell, What dire mishap a fated ship befell, 110 a.s.sail'd by tempests, girt with hostile sh.o.r.es?

Arise! approach! unlock thy treasured stores!

Full on my soul the dreadful scene display, And give its latent horrors to the day.

[Footnote 1: 'A ship-boy,' &c.: Shakspeare's 'Henry the Fourth,' act iii.]

[Footnote 2: 'Isthmus:' of Darien.]