And in each lofty hall Were blended voices sweet, And sounds of melody, that fall From youthful dancers' feet; And in your streets and highways then And scatter'd stones mark out the tombs 3. Affections deep that dwell In every human breast! Ye too obey my spell, Ye too my power attest;— Proud are ye at your birth! Ye look upon the earth, Where all doth wane and fade, And say ye, "We were made Abiding and Eternal; and our lot Is Immortality, which changeth not!" Forth from the friends ye prized, Before another shrine to kneel, As briefly idolized? Yes! they who oft have plighted Their youth in early years, Whose love was self-requited, Whose tears were common tears How the first wintry day Breaks up their little band, And each is sent his separate way Unto my silent land! The name of him who dies, Is borne to comrades' ear, Who come not to his obsequies, Nor stand around his bier, But questioning if memory's voice be true, Have some conjecture, 'twas a name they knew. 4. Art thou not weary, Life, Of wasting energy, Protracting idle strife, And bootless war with me? All thy creation tending Thy strength to swell my dower! And utter prophecy. No mourner left to grieve, Nor elegy rehearse, O'er the interrèd Universe : All action paralysed, nought seen or heard :Silence my infinite unecho'd Word! LIFE. 5. CREATION! thou hadst birth Once thou wert not, O Earth! Pervading still Eternity, In time unmanifest, In forms that have beginning unexprest. All Nature's varied frame- 6. O Death! before thee disappear The varying shapes I choose to wear;— To thee, whereat thy brain doth grow Thou thinkest I shall die. When unto Genius I do speak, My speech it hears, and utters it in word Which of mine own is repetition weak; Yet such Posterity with joy hath heard, And to her children still doth teach the song; Who to their own again shall hand it down, With praise enduring-such as doth belong To him of Scio, on whose head the crown Of centuries is placed. From age to age, Endeavours profitless, and baffled spells. 71 And meaner things, o'er which thy sway Into nonentity? Do they not rather take New forms and names? Yea, are they not reborn? Water appears when melts the snowy flake, And Night in dying giveth birth to Morn; And in perpetual travail is the earth Die, Matter-Immaterial thou art Winds banish the lake's calm, yet form the wave; Succession is, whene'er aught doth depart; All death vitality, and every grave The veritable record of a birth. In outward forms, I still 8. Reveal my presence glorious; Yet oft doth rebel Will Assert herself victorious, And, with her veil impure, Indwelling light obscure. Then Death! thee forth I send, The imprisoned soul to free, And to thee, for my purpose, lend And self-destroying powers which tend To my triumphant reign; When shall no more remain Aught that hath guile or stain; In symbols mutable, Nor the deific mind Abide the earth-confin'd. 56 CENSUS OF FOREIGN LITERATURE. No. I. CHRISTIAN POETS. LAMARTINE AND NOVALIS. WHEN Heine drew the line of distinction between the classic and the romantic schools,* he made their difference to consist in this: that the images of classic art are altogether identical with the things portrayed, while the images of romantic art are symbols instead of close imitations. "Thus," says Heine, "the Bacchus we see in the Louvre is none other than the graceful son of Semele, with a dash of melancholy in the expression of his eyes, and a sacred voluptuousness in his soft arched lips; while it is otherwise in the romantic school, for there the wanderings of a knight have an exoteric signification, and shadow forth the wanderings of human life; the almond tree, whose scents, spreading afar, are so consoling to the hero, represents the Trinity," and so on. Heine is an open opposer of the romantic, and therefore of the Christian school; for the romantic school is but a species of the genus Christian, and Heine's remark will extend to Christian poetry in general. It will be distinctly understood, that, by the words "Christian poetry," that kind of poetry is alone meant in which Christianity appears as a subject, or at any rate a motive; and that this signification must be by no means extended so as to include any poetry, though written in a Christian country, or by the most pious authors, in which such a characteristic is not found. Our attention is to be confined to Christianity, as manifested in poetry. The remark of Heine, though amounting to a slur on Christian poetry in general, is not only true, but, properly considered, should inspire the Christian poet with none other than pleasurable feelings, as its purport is not that the Christian genius is necessarily inferior to the classic, but merely that it is inadequate to its subject. The fact is, the subject of the Christian's lay is more sublime than that of the Greek; and to this alone is the want of identity between the image and that which is imaged to be ascribed. The poet who confines his song to things temporal, will naturally have an advantage in the closeness of his descriptions, in a kind of sensual fulness: for as the whole mass of temporal objects is not too large for the grasp of his understanding, nor for the cravings of his imagination, he can add image to image without the least chance of falling into indistinctness; but rather, on the contrary, the more active his imagination, the more concrete, and consequently the more rich, will his work be. In this position is Heine's classic poet, whether he be in himself heathen or Christian; and Heine himself asks, whether the figures in Raffaelle's pictures are not equally plastic with those on the walls of Herculaneum. Far otherwise is it with a poet who has to sing of objects of faith, or those of the speculative reason; viz. objects eternal, infinite, and In this paper, the words “romantic school” are expressly confined to signify the German school, so called. supersensual. Here his imagination can but create symbols, not resemblances, or must at once shrink before the vastness of the objects; and the only purport of the poem can be, the expression of the poet's own inability fully to grapple with his subject. This will be the case with the poet of an exclusively Christian character; to him the things of the natural world have only a value as placed on the road leading to an eternal state: he cannot centre all interest in them; but they must have in his work a character merely relational: he is in this curious predicament, that the very creations of his imagination are only valuable so far as they relate to that which is beyond the reach of his imagination altogether. A sneer of Göthe's at the romantic school (vide Eckermann's Conversations) is happy; but, notwithstanding its truth, and its applicability to Christian poetry in general, it need no more annoy the Christian poet than Heine's remark, quoted above. "The classic school," said Göthe, "is healthy; the romantic unhealthy." Necessarily, this unhealthiness is the very characteristic of the Christian character. The mind is in a healthy state when it is perfectly satisfied with all around it; and this is a state purely heathen, namely, a satisfaction in things temporal; for the Christian who constantly feels a craving for things eternal, who regards the affairs of this world as too trifling to engage his whole attention, or to satisfy his desires, this healthy state is impossible; and its absence, far from being an imperfection, is his greatest glory, as it is the plainest manifestation that his treasure is not "on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." Let this discontent with transient matters-this unhealthiness, if so it may be called, be removed, and the whole fabric and foundation of Christianity is destroyed at a blow. The feeling that no present state is sufficient for our desires, is the best practical evidence of a future state; while he that allows himself to be altogether absorbed in the sensual world, "his heart is waxed gross ;" and not only will he not believe in any other state of being, but even a question on the subject will not present itself, until it shall please God to awaken him from his satisfied condition. The subjects of the Christian's song are the fallen state of man, the atonement, and the future state of union with, or separation from, the Deity; and these need not appear in the form of dogmas, but of feelings; the feelings of the unworthiness of man to approach God, the consolations of a faith in Christ, the hopes and fears of a future state, are all of them subjects for lyrical expression. The Christian can scarcely proceed in a style merely epic or historical. True; he may select biblical histories, and give them the form of epic poems; but as long as the personages retain only their temporal characters, they stand forth as mere historical persons, not exhibiting the relation between the Christian and his God, which, if mentioned, must appear either in a didactic form or be expressed by symbols or allegories. Symbols or allegories (both of which are in the same predicament, the former expressing a truth by a partial, the latter by a substituted image) are very well occasionally introduced; but a narrative composed entirely of them has, if long, been invariably found imperfect. Indeed, this imperfection is necessary, not incidental; as a story represents characters N. S.-VOL. I. I |