Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/26

18 despair at the loss of his happiness seems to enter his mind—he has no consciousness of his voluntary descent into mortality—no apparent knowledge of himself as being more than a man. The whole effect is manqiiihy this curious failure on the part of the poet even to identify his own conception: he would seem either to have forgotten it altogether, or to have felt himself unable to grasp the idea of a loftier nature than that of humanity, or to think of an angel as anything beyond the handsome youth with flowing hair which painters have taken as the type of heavenly existence. Thus, once more, everything that is desirable in life comes to be represented by kisses and languishing looks, by the mutual self-absorption of two beings, who find a somewhat monotonous heaven in each other's arms, and around whom the world may tremble or be convulsed, and all the race of man disappear, without even awakening them from their private raptures. All this, however, let the reader remember, is combined with the most perfect virtue. It is connubiality rendered improper, and domesticity made indecent; but there is no idea of evil in the whole matter; it is virtue, only too sweet, too fond, too loving—maudlin and nasty if you please, but virtue all the same.

We are glad to be able to retire out of this sickly sweetness to the better atmosphere of the fugitive poems, those meditations and harmonies, which, if never reaching the highest level of poetry, are still expressive of many of the gentler feelings of the heart, its languors and sadness, its tender recollections, and that vague melancholy which, there can be little doubt, gives so much of its charm to nature. In this point of view, as a reflective and descriptive poet, giving a harmonious medium of expression to many a gentle, voiceless soul, Lamartine will probably long retain his place in the estimation of his countrymen. His longer poems are, we trust, as dead by this time as they deserve to be, and we feel a personal necessity to remove the sickly odour which they leave behind them by one more return to the native soil which gave him strength, and filled him with an inspiration more wholesome and sweet than sentiment. Here is Milly once more, the beloved home, with all its gentle habits and daily life—but this time in melodious verse, which we venture to put into a very literal English version:—