Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Beside the poems already mentioned, Montgomery has written a version of the Psalms, published under the title of "Songs of Zion," and a large number of short poetical pieces with some prose works. Among the former, "The Grave," "Night" "Prayer," "A good man's Monument," and many others are deservedly celebrated and popular.

Montgomery is peculiarly the poet of feeling and imagination, the energies of his mind are suffered to flow in their natural channels; he obeys the best impulses of his warmest affections, and most ennobling passions, and embodies in his verse the eloquence of a tenderly susceptible heart. Affliction has often broken the chords of the lyre, yet its tones though plaintive are not desponding; their melancholy sweetness, soothes the irritation of his troubled bosom, and although it may not charm the woes of memory to forgetfulness, it gives them a less agonizing character, and imparts a sentiment of confidence in the great Arbiter of our destinies, which must ever prove a consolation in the most poignant affliction.]

EXTRACTS FROM MONTGOMERY.

THE GRAVE.

There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found,-
They softly lie and sweetly sleep

Low in the ground.

The storm that wrecks the winter sky
No more disturbs their deep repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh

That shuts the rose.

I long to lay this painful head
And aching heart beneath the soil,—
To slumber in that dreamless bed,

From all my toil.

For misery stole me at my birth,
And cast me helpless on the wild :
I perish! O my mother earth

Take home thy child!

On thy dear lap these limbs reclined,
Shall gently moulder into thee;

Nor leave one wretched trace behind

Resembling me.

Hark! a strange sound affrights mine ear;
My pulse, my brain runs wild,—I rave:
Ah! who art thou whose voice I hear?

"I AM THE GRAVE!

EE

[blocks in formation]

"Lash'd by the furies of the mind,

From wrath and vengeance would'st thou flee? Ah! think not, hope not, fool, to find

A friend in me:

"By all the terrors of the tomb,-
Beyond the power of tongue to tell :
By the dread secrets of my womb;
By death and hell

"I charge thee LIVE! repent and pray,
In dust thine infamy deplore:
There yet is mercy,-go thy way,

And sin no more.

"Art thou a WANDERER ?-hast thou seen O'erwhelming tempests drown thy bark? A shipwreck'd sufferer, hast thou been

Misfortune's mark?

"Art thou a MOURNER ?-hast thou known The joy of innocent delights;

Endearing days for ever flown,

And tranquil nights?

[blocks in formation]

"Though long of winds and waves the sport,
Condem'd in wretchedness to roam;

LIVE! thou shalt reach a sheltering port,-
A quiet home.

"TO FRIENDSHIP didst thou trust thy fame, And was thy friend a deadly foe,Who stole into thy breast, to aim

A surer blow?

"LIVE!—and repine not o'er his loss,

A loss unworthy to be told:

Thou hast mistaken sordid dross

For friendship's gold.

"Seek the true treasure, seldom found,
Of power the fiercest griefs to calm;
And soothe the bosom's deepest wound
With heavenly balm.

"Did WOMAN's charms thy youth beguile,-
And did the fair one faithless prove?
Hath she betray'd thee with a smile,

And sold thy love?

"LIVE! 'Twas a false bewildering fire;
Too often Love's insidious dart

Thrills the fond soul with wild desire,-
But kills the heart.

"Thou yet shalt know how sweet, how dear,
To gaze on listening Beauty's eye;
To ask, and pause in hope and fear
Till she reply.

"A nobler flame shall warm thy breast,-
A brighter maiden faithful prove;
Thy youth, thine age, shall yet be blest
In woman's love.

[blocks in formation]

"Now, traveller in the vale of tears,
To realms of everlasting light,

Through Time's dark wilderness of years
Pursue thy flight.

"There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found;
And while the mouldering ashes sleep
Low in the ground,

"The Soul, of origin divine,

God's glorious image, freed from clay,
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine
A star of day.

"The SUN is but a spark of fire,—
A transient meteor in the sky:
The SOUL, immortal as its Sire,

SHALL NEVER DIE!"

FRIENDS.

Friend after friend departs;

Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts,
That finds not here an end:
Were this frail world our only rest,-
Living or dying, none were blest.

Beyond the flight of time,

Beyond this vale of death,-
There surely is some blessed clime,
Where life is not a breath;
Nor life's affections transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upward to expire.

There is a world above,

Where parting is unknown,-
A whole eternity of love,

Form'd for the good alone;
And faith beholds the dying here
Translated to that happier sphere.

Thus star by star declines,
Till all are pass'd away,

As morning high and higher shines
To pure and perfect day;

Nor sink those stars in empty night,

They hide themselves in heaven's own light.

COLERIDGE.

THE POET AND HIS POETRY.

[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, was born in the year 1772, and was the youngest son of the Reverend John Coleridge, Vicar of Ottery St. Mary, in the county of Devon. He received the earlier part of his education at Christ's Hospital, and at the age of eighteen, was removed to Jesus College, Cambridge. He left the university full of generous enthusiasm, and, carried away by the feeling which possessed a great portion of Europe, in the period immediately preceding the French Revolution of 1789; he conceived, in conjunction with Mr. Southey and some of his other friends, a remarkable scheme for regenerating human society. Their design was to form a community in some of the uninhabited parts of America, in the management of which, every voice should be equally listened to, and of course all distinctions of rank should be excluded. They went to Bristol with the intention of embarking, but from some cause or other altered their minds. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Coleridge married, and took up his abode in a retired cottage, near Nether Stowey in Somersetshire. As he had very slender finances and no settled occupation, he would have become speedily embarrassed by the charges of an increasing family, if it had not been for the kind assistance of Mr. Thomas Wedgwood, by which he was enabled to take a trip to Germany, for the purpose of studying the German language and literature, in company with Mr. Wordsworth. On his return to his native land, he was for a while editor of the Morning Post newspaper, and subsequently went to Malta, in the capacity of secretary to the governor, Sir Alexander Ball. When he finally returned to England, he resided at Keswick, a near neighbour to his old friends, Wordsworth and Southey; and subsequently removed to Highgate, where he died in 1832.

The poetry of Coleridge is marked by great vigour of genius and intellect, an intense earnestness of feeling and of thought, such as resulted, and could alone result, from the conviction that true poetry was not a mere amusement but a most effective mode of teaching the grandest and most comprehensive truths. This distinguishes all he ever wrote; but in those particulars which depend on imagery and forms of expression, there is a great difference between his earlier and later productions. The first collection of poems he published, appeared about the time of his leaving the university; his language then was burdened with an excess of epithets and compound epithets, so as to convey a thick crowd of images, which, not having room to expand, cramped each others beauties. While he resided at Nether Stowey, his close intimacy with Wordsworth, without doubt, had a great influence over his mind, and served to teach him the value of that simple and reverential regard to nature and natural modes of expression which so remarkably distinguished his illustrious friend. In the poems which he wrote at that place and immediately after leaving it, the operation of that influence may be distinctly seen, though still associated with some of his youthful faults.

« AnteriorContinua »