Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 056.djvu/638

636 had already taught that God is the "sole vision" of all of us; and therefore, if that theory be correct, she has failed to assign to the poet of the Fall any distinctive attribute which distinguishes him from other men. "Cowley" is well characterized. "Burns" ought to have been better. "Byron" pleases us, "Coleridge" has very considerable merit.

As a contrast to the preceding sketches of the true poets' (many of which, however, we have omitted, and we may also remark, in parenthesis, that none of our living poets are meddled with,) we now pass before the e ~es of the reader a panorama of pretenders. We shall make no remarks on the expression of their features, leaving Miss Barrett to brand them as they deserve with her just scorn and indignation—

" One dull'd his eyeballs as they ached,

With Homer's forehead—though he lack'd

An inch of any! And one rack'd

" His lower lip with restless tooth—

As Pindar's rushing words forsooth

Were pent behind it. One, his smooth

" Pink cheeks, did rumple passionate,

Like Æschylus tried to prate

On trolling tongue, of fate and fate!

" One set her eyes like Sappho's—or

Any light woman's! one forbore

Like Dante, or any man as poor

" In mirth, to let a smile undo

His hard shut lips. And one, that drew

Sour humours from his mother, blew

" His sunken cheeks out to the size

Of most unnatural jollities,

Because Anacreon looked jest-wise.

" So with the rest—It was a sight

For great world-laughter, as it might

For great world-wrath, with equal right.

" Out came a speaker from that crowd,

To speak for all—in sleek and proud

Exordial periods, while he bow'd

" His knee before the angel.—'Thus,

O angel! who hast call'd for us,

We bring thee service emulous,—

" 'Fit service from sufficient soul—

Hand-service, to receive world's dole—

Lip-service, in world's ear to roll

" 'Adjusted concords—soft enow

To hear the winecups passing through,

And not too grave to spoil the show.

" 'Thou, certes, when thou askest more,

O sapient angel! leanest o'er

The window-sill of metaphor.

" 'To give our hearts up! Fie!—That rage

Barbaric, antedates the age!

It is not done on any stage.

" 'Because your scald or gleeman went

With seven or nine-string'd instrument

Upon his back—must ours be bent!

" 'We are not pilgrims, by your leave,

No, nor yet martyrs! if we grieve,

It is to rhyme to...... summer eve.

" 'And if we labour, it shall be

As suiteth best with our degree,

In after-dinner reverie.

" More yet that speaker would have said—

Poising between his smiles fair-fed,

Each separate phrase till finished:

" But all the foreheads of those born

And dead true poets flash'd with scorn

Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn—

" Ay, jetted such brave fire, that they,

The new-come, shrank and paled away,

Like leaden ashes when the day

" Strikes on the hearth! A spirit-blast,

A presence known by power, at last

Took them up mutely—they had pass'd! "

"Lady Geraldine's Courtship" is a poem of the Tennysonian school. Some pith is put forth in the passionate parts of the poem; but it Is deficient throughout in that finished elegance of style which distinguishes the works of the great artist from whom it is imitated. Bertram, a peasant-born poet falls in love with the Lady Geraldine, a woman of high rank and very extensive possessions. He happens to overhear the lady address the following words to a suitor of the same rank with herself, and whose overtures she is declining—