Page:Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 40 1834.pdf/5

 and it is occasionally almost too painful to behold the high-minded Tasso, recognized by his country as superior with the sword and the pen to all men, struggling in so ignoble an arena, and finally overpowered by so unworthy an antagonist. This world is, indeed, "too much with us," and but too powerful is often its withering breath upon the ethereal natures of love, devotion, and enthusiasm, which in other regions

Yet who has not known victorious moments, in which the lightly-armed genii of ridicule have quailed— the conventional forms of life have shrunk as a shrivelled scroll before the Ithuriel touch of some generous feeling, some high and overshadowing passion suddenly aroused from the inmost recesses of the folded soul, and striking the electric chain which mysteriously connects all humanity? We could have wished that some such thrilling moment had been here introduced by the mighty master of Germany; something to relieve the too continuous impression of inherent weakness in the cause of the vanquished; something of a transmuting power in the soul of Tasso, to glorify the clouds which accumulate around it,—to turn them into "contingencies of pomp" by the interpenetration of its own celestial light. Yet we approach with reverence the work of a noble hand; and, whilst entering upon our task of translation, we acknowledge, in humility, the feebleness of all endeavour to pour into the vase of another language the exquisitely subtle spirit of Goethe's poetry,—to transplant and naturalize the delicate felicities of thought and expression by which this piece is so eminently distinguished.

The visionary rapture which takes possession of Tasso upon being crowned with laurel by the Princess Leonora d'Este, the object of an affection which the youthful poet has scarcely yet acknowledged to himself, is thus pourtrayed in one of the earlier scenes:—

"Let me then bear the burden of my bliss To some deep grove, that oft hath veil'd my grief;— There let me roam in solitude: no eye Shall then recall the triumph undeserved. And if some shining fountain suddenly On its clear mirror to my sight should give The form of one who, strangely, brightly crown'd, Seems musing in the blue reflected heaven As it streams down through rocks and parted trees,— Then will I dream that on the enchanted wave I see Elysium pictured! I will ask, Who is the blest departed one?—the youth From long-past ages with his glorious wreath? Who shall reveal his name?—who speak his worth? Oh, that another and another there Might press, with him to hold bright communing! Might I but see the minstrels and the chiefs Of the old time on that pure fountain-side For evermore inseparably link'd As they were link'd in life! Not steel to steel Is bound more closely by the magnet's power Than the same striving after lofty things Doth bind the Bard and Warrior. Homer's life Was self-forgetfulness: he pour'd it forth, One rich libation to another's fame; And Alexander through th' Elysian grove