"But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle! A husband, and a father! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all O native Britain! O my Mother Isle ! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy Have drunk in all my intellectual life, All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, "May my fears, "But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad And now, beloved Stowey! I behold Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms And close behind them, hidden from my view, Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light And solitary musings, all my heart Is softened, and made worthy to indulge Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind." "Reflections on having left a tree Bower my Prison"-and the Place of Retirement"-" the Lime Nightingale "-are all full of the same delight in nature-a delight which grew more and more creative of beauty-making the food it fed on, and devoutly worshipping the only true-that is, the imaginary world. In these and other compositions of equal and kindred excellence, the poet's heart and imagination minister to each other; emotions and images come upon us with united power; and even when metaphysical, more than seems safe in the poetry of passion, there is such a warmth and glow in the winged words, wheeling in airy circles not inextricably involved, that Mind or Intellect itself moves us in a way we should not have believed possible, till we experience the pleasure of accompanying its flights-or_rather of being upborne and wafted on its dove-like but eagle-strong wings. The law of association is illustrated in the "Nightingale" more philosophically than by Hartley or Brown-and how profound to the understanding heart is the truth in that one line-sure as Holy Writ— were man but faithful to his Maker, "In nature there is nothing melancholy." In not one of the poems we have yet quoted or mentioned, can it be truly said that there is any approach to the sublime. Indeed, only in the "Fears in Solitude" might we be justified in expecting such a strain-and the subjects of some of the other pieces necessarily exclude both sentiment and imagery of that charac ter. In the "Fears in Solitude" there is, as we have seen, much stately and sustained beauty; and we are not only roused, but raised by the pealing music. In the happiest passages, even on reflection, we miss little that might or should have been there-though something; and it would be ungrateful to criticise in our cooler moments what so charmed us in our glow, or to doubt the potency of the spell that had so well done its master's work. In much of what we have not quoted-though the whole is above pitch and reach of common powers. there is a good deal of exaggeration, and we fear some untruth-as if sense were sometimes almost sacrificed to sound -and the poet's eyes blinded with the dust raised by the whirlwind of passion, carrying him along the earth, and not up the ether. But in one poem, Coleridge, in a fit of glorious enthusiasm, has reached the true sublime. Out of the Bible, no diviner inspiration was ever worded than the "Hymn before sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni." We doubt if there be any single strain equal to it in Milton or Wordsworth. If there be, it is Adam's Hymn in Paradise. The instantaneous Impersonation of Mount Blanc into a visible spirit, brings our whole capacity of adoration into power, and we join mighty Nature in praise and worship of God. As the hymn continues to ascend the sky, we accompany the magnificent music on wings up the holy mountain, till in its own shadow it disappears, and "We worship the invisible alone." That trance is broken, and the Earthen Grandeur reappears, clothed with all attributes of beauty and of glory, by words that create and kindle as they flow, as if language were omnific. "Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, "Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! "Awake, my soul! not only passive praise "Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale! "And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, And who commanded (and the silence came,) Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest? "Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain— Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, "Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! "Thou, too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, To rise before me- Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth! We do not know that there is a truly great ode in our language; but there are many noble ones, and among them must be placed one of the three odes of Coleridge. Laud to the skies, ye who choose, the odes of Dryden and Pope; but to our eyes they are lost before they reach the lower strata of clouds. Were we to liken them to balloons, we should say that the silk is well inflated, and better painted; but that the aeronauts, on taking their seats, are too heavy for the power of ascension, so that luckily the cords are not cut, and the globes are contented to adhere to the dædal earth. Gray's odes are far finer, and, though somewhat too formal, perhaps, the Welsh bard is full of Greek fire. Some of Mason's choruses are sonorous, and swing along not unmajestically; and Tom War ton caught no small portion of the true lyrical spirit-witness his Kilkerran castle song. But Collins far surpassed them all-and his odes are all exquisitely beautiful-except his Ode to Freedom, and it is sublime. Let us call it, then, and contradict ourselves, the only truly great ode in the English language. Wordsworth's Ode on the Immortality of the Soul is pervaded by profoundest thought-philosophical in its spirit throughout-in many parts poetical in his very finest vein-and in some, more than is usual with him, impassioned; but the poet does not carry, much less hurry, us along with him-the movements are sometimes too slow and laborious, though stately and majestic and though often many of the transitions are lyrical-nay, though, as a whole, it is a grand lyrical poem, it is not an Ode, and nobody will call it so who has read Pindar. His "Dion" is an Ode, but is deficient in impetuosity; and that Image of the Swan on Locarno's wave, beautiful as it is in itself, is too elaborate for its place, nor yet enough original to open with such pomp such an ambitious strain. But we shall have an article on Odes in an early Number-in which we hope to make good all we have said, and far more-and shall not then forget Campbell, who, in our estimation, stands next to Collins. Coleridge has written three Ódes "Dejection," "France," "The Departing Year." We have already quoted part of "Dejection;"-and perhaps the finest part of what is all good-nor have we room for more except a wild passage about the Wind, which nobody would have thought of writing, or could have written, but Coleridge. But, strangely touching in itself, it not only occupies too much space in the Ode, but is too quaint for a composition of such high and solemn character. "Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers, 'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds— And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans and tremulous shudderings-all is over- And temper'd with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way, And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear." The transition from this fanciful rather than imaginative dallying with the midnight wind, to an invocation to gentle Sleep, whom he prays to visit his beloved, "While all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as if they watched the sleeping is very tender and very beautiful; made Upon the strings of this Eolian lute, Surely that is, if not affected, far from being easy language-and, to our ear, the very familiar exclamation "Well!" is not in keeping with the character of what is-or ought to be-that of an ode. What follows is even less to our mind. "For, lo! the new moon, winter bright! wrought picture, (and in his poetry nothing is underwrought-for he was only at times too lavish of his riches), to that of the verse he expands from" the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens!" "Late, late yestreen, I saw the new moon, In the ballad, the "deadly storm " is predicted from one omen, and in the fewest possible words-and in as few is told the sinking of the ship. In the ode, the meteorological notions, though true, and poetically worded, are got up with too much care and effort-and the storm pass. ed, and played the part of Much-ado about Nothing, among cliff-caves and tree tops that soon returned to their former equanimity. 'Tis an ingenious and eloquent exercitation of the fancy-touched, as we have seen, and more than touched-in parts embued with the breath of a higher power-but it wants that depth, truth, and sincerity of pas. sion, without which there can be no great ode." This Ode deals with dreams-day dreams and night dreams-and dreams are from Jove-thoughts and feelings glanced back from heaven on earth-for on earth was their origin and first dominion-but on their return to earth they are of higher and How inferior the effect of this over- holier power-because etherialized; |