Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/94

.

passed freely in the market. Mr. Longfellow’s poems wore read with interest, if not with avidity. Their high tocrit secured them an instant reputation. Their surcess was unexampled. Men, who had seen other excellent poets left in obscurity, wondered at this, and cried out that the days of the miracles had returned. But they did not compchend the causes which led to this sudden popularity. The merit of these poems will not alone explain their success, ‘They had several qualitice~apart from their poetic worth—-which recommended them to the public taste. They were strongly imbued with the romantic spirit. They were comfortably short. They wero condensed. They had an occasional conceit amounting almost to quaintness, which stimulated dull folks and auited people who were rummaging for novele ties, These things pleased the taste of the day, and secured the popularity of the poems, But they had nothing to do with the real merit of the poetry.

They commended it to this generation, but will they commend it to all time? We think not, ‘The august simplicity which ia occasionally seen in Longfellow, will indeed always command applause; but the affectation, involution and strained metaphor which as often appear in his poctry will find little favor with posterity, Ho has written too much after a school to continne to enjoy a reputation as great as that which he now enjoys, That which commends him to this generation will detract frora his merit in the next, His extravagance, which, from its novelty, adds to his popularity, will share the same fate as the quirks of the poets who wrote for the palled courtiera of Charles the Second. A purer taste ‘will arise, and these mneretricious ornaments will be dis- carded as worthless. But he will still be immortal. His extravagance is only occasional. He has written many fine poems. His productions, moreover, increase in merit as he grows older.

The second volume of Longfellow is eupetior to his first, inasmuch as it has less of these merctricious adorn ments, The original poems which it contains are supe- rior to thoae in “The Voices of the Night,” displaying « progressive excellence which justifies our opinion of the high genius of Mr. Longfellow. Let us he understood. We find fault with much of what Mr. Longfellow has written, for we regard him as capable of better things; and in all his works we see glimpses rather of what he might be, than of what ho i We look on the divinity but we do not hear his voice. Yet we believe Mr. Longfellow to be as conscious of his faulle as we are ourselves; and wo happen to know that he will listen fasorably to honest criticise,

Our limite will not allow us to go into a detailed examination of the poems which have appeared in Mr. Longfellow’s two volumes. Nor is it necessary that we should. The public is already familiar with his finest pieces, and it would be a work of supererogation to

3 7

quote largely from the volumos on our table. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with a single apecimen from the volume first published, But of the contenta of its successor we shall avail oursclves more frecly, The poem we shall sclect from “The Voices of the Night” is one which has already been extensively quoted; but we insert it here because it is, porhaps, the best specimen of the peculiat merits and demerits which we commented on as characterising Longfellow’ enrlier pocms. «The Hymn to the Night” may be taken os a type of the earlier volume,

er rable skirts all From the celestial

3!

T felt hot prosenco, by its spell of Night Stoop o'er ine from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one T love.

T heard th

iines iambers of the Night thy:

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air ‘My spirit drank reposn;

The funtain of perpetual perce fows there— From those deep cisterns flows,

© holy Night! from thee I learn to bear ‘What man hax borne before!

‘Thou Invest thy finger on the lips of care, And they complain no snore.

Peace! Prace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! Descend with broad winged fizht,.

The weleome, the thrice prayed for, the most fair, "The best-loved Night.

‘The opening of this poom is inexpressihly grand, and comes actoss the sou! like a strain of solemn music heard unexpectedly in a “dim cathedral aisle,” ‘There is « son- sation of aweawakened in the mind hy the twa first verscs, which clings to us throughout the whole poem,

From the other volume on our table we shall quote mote largely, both because the poems are better, and because they are less generally known, Before, how- ever, we proceed to those which are our expecial favore ites, wo have a wonl or two to say on some of the metaphors of Mr. Longfellow. For instance in a fine poem to the River Charles wo have the following :

“More than thie;—thy name reminds me ‘Of three friends, all true and tried ;

And that name, tike mazie binds me Clover, closer to thy side.

Friends my son! with jay remembers! Hoo like quivering flames they start, When J fan the living embers On the hearth-stone of my heart!”

Now these three lines which we have italicised have been beld up, by moro than one critic, as the finest in the pocm, and the metaphor contained in them has been the theme of much applause. To all this we enter our caveat. There is too much of conceit in the inetaphor �