It was certainly heathenish to put a church to such uses, and Cupid never played a wilder trick than when he first kindled two hearts, and then laid them on "this reverend building as on a gridiron. The poet now breaks out into a rapture. "O what is love, young Love, what liquid fire, A lively imagination certainly presents young love under a strange variety of aspects, making it appear, at one and the same moment, as "liquid fire," as an undiscovered fur nace, which would be in itself a very remarkable object, - and as a "mirror in our breasts." That"faint look," also, must needs have been a very holy look, if it was "more worthy to be worshipped" than things divine. But young Henry, as we shall see, had some rather peculiar notions of theology. The sound of the Sabbath bell, we are told, often sent a thrill of fear through his heart, "Lest Hester might not be at church that day. How utterly vain and hollow was the Creed We fear the poor youth had been very imperfectly instructed both in logic and the Catechism. If he went to church only to see Hester, it was a very proper punishment for him that she should stay away, and in her absence that he should be delivered over to Satan. He seems to have been a feebleminded youth, for he never told his love, and never came "nearer lovely Hester's form," than when in church, or when "He paced the quiet street where Hester lived." The story is very short, for this is the whole of it, the poet probably thinking that brevity is the soul of pathos, no less than of wit. We learn, however, that "The ancient Church still holds the sacred form, And hollow ghosts stalk through the gloomy aisles, They ought to have joined company with the other ghosts, and continued to stalk through the aisles for at least a century. But they have fled, and may peace go with them; for they were a rare couple. Paulo majora canamus; let us now pass to the "Ode," the only one in the volume, and see how our poet succeeds in the lyric strain. As most of it is written in the second person, it is apparently addressed to somebody, or to something, we know not what; for the poet does not condescend to inform us. It is evidently written in imitation of Mr. Emerson, for one stanza is quite as intelligible as another, or when standing alone as in company with its fellows. It is, therefore, quite convenient for quotation. "The circles of thy Thought, shine vast as stars, No glass shall round them, No plummet sound them, They hem the observer like bright steel wrought bars, Or as bright waters run From the cold fountain of the Alpine springs, Or diamonds richly set in the King's rings." It is often said that the stars shine bright; but we never heard that they shone "vast" before. This must be the effect of the poet's imagination, which is a very lively one, as it can find a similarity between "circles of thought" and "steel wrought bars." "The pins of custom have not pierced through thee, Thy shining armor A perfect charmer; Even the hornets of Divinity, Allow thee a brief space, And thy Thought has a place, Upon the well-bound Library's chaste shelves, Where man of various wisdom rarely delves." We are a little staggered by "the hornets of Divinity," as it is not quite clear what the poet means. Is it an allusion to the text in Exodus, "And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the - No. 135. VOL. LXIV. 36 Hittite, from before thee"? Then the person here addressed must be one of the heathen. As Mr. Emerson has written quite a long poem on Mount Monadnoc, it was quite natural that Mr. Channing should indite another of equal length on Mount Wachusett. While on the summit, having gained what it is the fashion to call a "deeper insight into the heart of things," though we never could tell what this phrase means, he improves the opportunity to discourse about politics and religion. "Society is leagued against the poor, The poet must have thought the universe was in a very bad way indeed, when he undertook to physic it with such lines as these. His couplet about industry reminds us of another, which we first heard in our undergraduate days, as an illustration of the straits to which college poets were sometimes reduced for a rhyme. "Father built a well-sweep, And wind blew it down; sheep." Mr. Channing, or as he here styles himself, a non studendo," the Student," evidently thinks that the Christian religon, as well as Mr. Murray's grammar, is an arbitrary imposition of rules, which ought to be resisted by all freemen. "The Student said, — If all this, truly so, Recording the fantastic miracles Done in that day, which read like jugglers' spells, Which later editors might crib away." He thinks quite as poorly of the ordinances as the doctrines. "How cold to me the worn church-service is, I wonder that some people do not hiss." We wonder too, considering that geese are quite as able to hiss as to cackle. Thus far we have seen the poet occupied with reflections which might have occurred to him in the cupola of Boston State House quite as appropriately as on the top of Mount Wachusett. But he now proceeds to discourse on topics which might really have been suggested by the genius loci. The impressive sound of the wind rushing through a vast forest has been compared to many things; it has been said to ripple, to wash, to howl, to whistle, and to roar; Mr. Channing, determined to be original, goes to the barn-yard for an illustration, and for the first time in our lives we hear that the wind crows! "I hear the rustling plumes of these young woods, A kind of autumn smoke or blaze.” If our readers think this is the most astounding comparison to be found in print, they are quite mistaken. To invert and apply the fine remark of Pascal, we may say that nature itself ceases to furnish objects of wonder, before Mr. Channing's imagination fails to supply fit images to illustrate them. "on some faint-drawn hill-sides fires are burning, The far blue smoke their outlines soft in-urning, And now half-seen the Peterboro' hills, Peep out like black-fish, nothing but their gills." Very remarkable hills those must be in the good town of Peterboro', though we are not quite sure whether they resemble the whole of the black-fish, or "nothing but their gills "; as these last four words stand in glorious grammatical isolation. The following passage shows that the poet is quite as happy in describing colors as shapes and sounds. "Out-bursts the sun, turns villages to gold, Blazons the cold lake, burns the near cloud's fold, And at an apple-green divinely hints." The languishing and ecstatic admiration so happily expressed in this last line reminds us of a subject on which we have the misfortune to differ from the members of that * It inay be as well to inform our readers, that we are not responsible for the punctuation of these extracts. The printer's rule in such cases is to "follow the copy." school of which Mr. Emerson and Mr. Channing are the brightest ornaments. Hard-hearted critics as we are, we can sympathize with Cowper, in his hearty love of the sights and sounds of the external world. He could truly say, "Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjured up, To serve occasions of poetic pomp." We can walk with him under his "favorite elms," and enjoy his visits to "the timorous hare," "Grown so familiar with her frequent guest," and to "the stock-dove unalarmed," that "sits cooing in, Of flavor or of scent in fruit or flower, In nature, from the broad, majestic oak, To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, But a later race of poets have so profaned these beauties of the outward universe by their puling raptures, their indiscriminate and idolatrous worship, and their heathenish philosophy, that we almost sicken at any allusion to them in verse. One of these modern bards, hovering between mysticism and silliness in his lackadaisical ecstasies, cannot be more aptly hit off than by Dame Quickly, in her account of the fat knight's death-bed "After I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields." Mr. Wordsworth has the questionable honor of leading the way to this exaggerated and fantastic manner, and of perverting the love of nature from its proper tendency to see everywhere "the unambiguous footsteps of a God" into a mere cover and pretence for some paltry dreams drawn from the old Pythagorean philosophy. He has carried the "worship" of nature to an unreasonable and ridiculous excess, and fallen into "dizzy raptures," not only over what is beautiful and grand in the outward world, but over low and disgusting objects, which no poetry can elevate above their intrinsic meanness and vulgarity. Still, he |
