1819.]

On the Lake School of Poetry.

which every now and then take place
of what is concealed beneath them.
It is upon this happy contrast that
the interest of the whole piece chiefly
hinges, and would Mr Coleridge only
take heart, and complete what he has
so nobly begun he would probably
make Christabel the finest exempli-
fication to be found in the English, or
perhaps in any language since Ho-
mer's, of an idea which may be traced
in most popular superstitions.

lightnings." We know not that there
is any English poet who owes so much
to this single element of power as Cole-
ridge. It appears to us that there is
not one of them, at least not one that
has written since the age of Elizabeth,
in whose use of words the most deli-
cate sense of beauty concurs with so
much exquisite subtlety of metaphy-
sical perception. To illustrate this by
individual examples is out of the ques-
tion, but we think a little examination
would satisfy any person who is ac-
customed to the study of language of
the justice of what we have said.-
In the kind of poetry in which he has
chiefly dealt, there can be no doubt
the effect of his peculiar mastery over
this instrument has been singularly
happy-more so than, perhaps, it could
have been in any other. The whole
essence of his poetry is more akin to
music than that of any other poetry
we have ever met with. Speaking
generally, his poetry is not the poetry
of high imagination-nor of teem-
ing fancy-nor of overflowing senti-
ment-least of all, is it the poetry of
intense or overmastering passion.-
If there be such a thing as poetry
of the senses strung to imagination-
such is his. It lies in the senses, but
they are senses breathed upon by ima

In these two poems-we might even say in the extracts we have made from them-the poetical faculties of Coleridge are abundantly exhibited in the whole power and charm of their native beauty. That such exercise of these faculties may have been so far injudicious as not calculated to awaken much of the ordinary sympathies of mankind-but rather addressing every thing to feelings of which in their full strength and sway only a few are capable-all this is a reproach easy to be made, and in a great measure perhaps it may be a well-founded reproach. But nothing surely can be more unfair, than to overlook or deny the existence of such beauty and such strength on any grounds of real or pretended misapplication That the author of these productions is a poet of a most noble class-a poet most origination-having reference to the ima ginal in his conceptions-most masterly in his execution-above all things a most inimitable master of the language of poetry-it is impossible to deny. His powers indeed-to judge from what of them that has been put forth and exhibited-may not be of the widest or even of the very highest kind. So far as they go, surely, they are the most exquisite of powers. In his mixture of all the awful and all the gentle graces of conception-in his sway of wild-solitary-dreamy phantasies in his music of words-and magic of numbers-we think he stands absolutely alone among all the poets of the most poetical age.

In one of the great John Müller's early letters (compositions, by the way, which it is a thousand pities the English reader should have no access to admire) there is a fine passionate disquisition on the power of words-and on the unrivalled use of that power exemplified in the writings of Rousseau." He sways mankind with that delicious might"-says the youthful historian-as Jupiter does with his

gination though they do not reach to it-having a sympathy, not an union, with the imagination-like the beauty of flowers. In Milton there is between sense and imagination a strict union-their actions are blended into one. In Coleridge what is borrowed from imagination or affection is brought to sense-sense is his sphere. In him the pulses of sense seem to die away in sense.

The emotions in which he deals-even the love in which he deals --can scarcely be said to belong to the class of what are properly called passions. The love he describes the best is a romantic and spiritual movement of wonder, blended and exalted with an ineffable suffusion of the powers of sense.

There is more of aerial romance, than of genuine tenderness, even in the peerless love of his Genevieve. Her silent emotions are an unknown world which her minstrel watches with fear and hope-and yet there is exquisite propriety in calling that poem LovE, for it truly represents the essence of that passionwhere the power acquired over the hu

man soul depends so much upon the awakening, for a time, of the idea of infinitude, and the bathing of the universal spirit in one interminable sea of thoughts undefineable. We are aware that this inimitable poem is better known than any of its author's productions and doubt not that many hundreds of our readers have got it by heart long ago, without knowing by whom it was written-but there can be no harm in quoting it, for they that have read it the most frequently will be the most willing to read it again.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,

Beside the ruin'd tower.

The Moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.
I play'd a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not chuse
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined; and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,

Interpreted my own.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That craz'd that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he cross'd the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade.

There came and look'd him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And sav'd from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and claspt his knees;
And how she tended him in vain—
And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain.

And that she nursed him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay.

His dying words-but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faultering voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
The music, and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherish'd long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love, and virgin-shame :
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heav'd-she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look'd up,
And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly Love, and partly Fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin-pride,
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

We shall take an early opportunity of offering a few remarks on Mr Coleridge's efforts in tragedy-and in particular on his wonderful translation, or rather improvement of the Wallenstein. We shall then, perhaps, be able still more effectually to carry our readers along with us when we presume to address a few words of expostulation to this remarkable man on the strange and unworthy indolence which has, for so many years, condemned so many of his high gifts to slumber in comparative uselessness and inaction. "A cheerful soul is what the muses loveA soaring spirit is their prime delight."

THE MISSIONARY; A POEM.

NEVER were any two poets more unlike each other than Bowles and Coleridge; and we believe that the associating principle of contrast has now recalled to our remembrance the author of so many beautiful strains of mere human affection and sensibility, after we have been indulging ourselves in the wild and wonderful fictions of that magician. Coleridge appears before us in his native might, only when walking through the mistiness of preternatural fear; and even over his pictures of ordinary life, and its ordinary emotions, there is ever and anon the "glimmer and the gloom" of an imagination that loves to steal away from the earth we inhabit, and to bring back upon it a lovelier, and richer, and more mysterious light, from the haunts of another world. Bowles, on the contrary, looks on human life with delighted tenderness and love, and unreservedly opens all the pure and warm affections of the most amiable of hearts, to all those impulses, and impressions, and joys, and sorrows, which make up the sum of our mortal happiness or misery. He is, beyond doubt, one of the most pathetic of our English poets. The past is to him the source of the tenderest inspirations; and while Coleridge summons from a world of shadows the imaginary beings of his own wild creation, to seize upon, to fascinate, and to enchain our souls in a pleasing dread, -Bowles recalls from death and oblivion the human friends whom his heart loved in the days of old-the human affections that once flowed purely, peacefully, and beautifully between them-and trusts, for his dominion over the spirits of his readers, to thoughts which all human beings may recognise, for they are thoughts which all human beings must, in a greater or less degree, have experienced. Coleridge is rich in fancy and imagination-Bowles in sensibility and tenderest passion. The genius of the one would delight to fling the radiance or the mists of fiction over the most common tale of life-that of the other would clothe even a tale of fic

tion with the saddest and most mourn-
ful colours of reality. Fear and won-
der are the attendant spirits of Cole-
We have
ridge-pity and sadness love to walk
by the side of Bowles.
heard-indeed they themselves have
told us-that these poets greatly ad-
mire the genius of each other; nor
is it surprising that it should be so;
for how delightful must it be for
Bowles, to leave, at times, the "quiet
homestead" where his heart indulges
its melancholy dreams of human life,
and to accompany the "winged bard"
on his wild flights into a far-off land!
—and how can it be less delightful to
Coleridge to return from the dreary
shadowiness of his own haunted re-
gions, back into the bosom of peace,
tenderness, and quiet joy!

We intend, on an early occasion,
to take a survey of all Mr Bowles'
poetical works; for some of them are,
we suspect, not very generally known,
and even those which are established
in the classical poetry of this age, are
not so universally familiar as they
ought to be to our countrymen in
Scotland. Mr Bowles was a popular
poet before any one of the great poets
of the day arose, except Crabbe and
and Rogers; and though the engross-
ing popularity of some late splendid
productions has thrown his somewhat
into the shade, yet, though little
talked of, we are greatly mistaken if
they are not very much read-if they
have not a home and an abiding in
the heart of England. The extreme
grace and elegance of his diction, the
sweetness and occasional richness of
his versification, and his fresh and
teeming imagery, would of themselves
be sufficient to give him a respectable
and permanent station among our
poets; but when to these qualities are
added a pure, natural, and unaffected
pathos, a subduing tenderness, and a
strain of genuine passion, we need not
scruple to say that Mr Bowles possess-
es more of the poetical character than
some who enjoy a more splendid re-
putation, and that while they sink
with sinking fashion and caprice, he
will rise with rising nature and truth.

• London, John Murray. 1816.

At present we shall content ourselves with quoting a few passages from Mr Bowles' last poem, the Missionary-not that we think it, with all its manifold beauties, by any means his best, but because we suspect that it is the least known of all his productions.

Never to hear the summer cocoa wave,
Or weep upon thy father's distant grave."

We can conceive nothing more natural, nor more affectingly beautiful than the following description of the children of Atacapac, the mountainchief.

In other days, when, in his manly pride,
Two children for a father's fondness vied,
Oft they essay'd, in mimic strife, to wield
His lance, or laughing peep'd behind his shield.

We give the author's words in his
preface, in order to explain the ground- oft in the sun, or the magnolia's shade,
work of the subject.

"The circumstance on which this poem is founded, that a Spanish commander, with his army, in South America, was destroyed by the Indians, in consequence of the treachery of his page, who was a native, and that only a priest was saved, is taken from history."

The poem opens with the following fine description of the scenery of South America:

Beneath aerial cliffs, and glittering snows,
The rush-roof of an aged Warrior rose,
Chief of the mountain tribes: high, overhead,
The Andes, wild and desolate, were spread,
Where cold Sierras shot their icy spires,

And Chillan trail'd its smoke and smould'ring fires,
A glen beneath-a lonely spot of rest-
Hung, scarce discover'd, like an eagle's nest.
Summer was in its prime;-the parrot-flocks
Darken'd the passing sunshine on the rocks;
The chrysomel and purple butterfly,
Amid the clear blue light, are wand'ring by;
The humming-bird, along the myrtle bow'rs,
With twinkling wing, is spinning o'er the flow'rs,
The woodpecker is heard with busy bill,
The mock-bird sings-and all beside is still.
And look! the cataract that bursts so high,
As not to mar the deep tranquillity,
The tumult of its dashing fall suspends,
And, stealing drop by drop, in mist descends;
Through whose illumin'd spray and sprinkling dews,
Shine to the adverse sun the broken rainbow hues.

Check'ring, with partial shade, the beams of noon,
And arching the gray rock with wild festoon,
Here, its gay net-work, and fantastic twine,
The purple cogul threads from pine to pine,
And oft, as the fresh airs of morning breathe,
Dips its long tendrils in the stream beneath.
There, through the trunks, with moss and lichens
white,

The sunshine darts its interrupted light,
And, 'mid the cedar's darksome boughs, illumes,
With instant touch, the Lori's scarlet plumes.

So smiles the scene:-but can its smiles impart
Aught to console yon mourning Warrior's heart?
He heeds not now, when beautifully bright,
The humming-bird is circling in his sight;
Nor e'en, above his head, when air is still,
Hears the green woodpecker's resounding bill;
But gazing on the rocks and mountains wild,
Rock after rock, in glittering masses pil'd
To the volcano's cone, that shoots so high
Gray smoke whose column stains the cloudless sky,
He cries, "Oh! if thy spirit yet be fled
To the pale kingdoms of the shadowy dead,-
In yonder tract of purest light above,
Dear long-lost object of a father's love,
Dost thou abide? or like a shadow come,
Circling the scenes of thy remember'd home,
And passing with the breeze? or, in the beam
Of evening, light the desert mountain stream?
Or at deep midnight are thine accents heard,
In the sad notes of that melodious bird,
Which, as we listen with mysterious dread,
Brings tidings from our friends and fathers dead?
"Perhaps, beyond those summits, far away,
Thine eyes yet view the living light of day;
Sad, in the stranger's land, thou may'st sustain
A weary life of servitude and pain,
With wasted eye gaze on the orient beam,
And think of these white rocks and torrent-stream,

Lightsome of heart as gay of look, they play'd,
Brother and sister: She, along the dew,
Blithe as the squirrel of the forest flew;

Blue rushes wreath'd her head; her dark brown hair
Fell, gently lifted, on her bosom bare;

Her necklace shone, of sparkling insects made,
That flit, like specks of fire, from sun to shade;
Light was her form; a clasp of silver brac'd
The azure-dyed ichella round her waist;
Her ankles rung with shells, as, unconfin'd,
She danc'd, and sung wild carols to the wind.
With snow-white teeth, and laughter in her eye,—
So beautiful in youth, she bounded by.

Yet kindness sat upon her aspect bland,-
The tame Alpaca stood and lick'd her hand;
She brought him gather'd moss, and lov'd to deck
With flow'ry twine his tall and stately neck,
Whilst he with silent gratitude replies,
And bends to her caress his large blue eyes.

These children danc'd together in the shade,
Or stretch'd their hands to see the rainbow fade;
Or sat and mock'd, with imitative glee,
The paroquet, that laugh'd from tree to tree;
Or through the forest's wildest solitude,
From glen to glen, the marmozet pursued;
And thought the light of parting day too short,
That call'd them, ling'ring, from their daily sport.
In that fair season of awak'ning life,
When dawning youth and childhood are at strife;
When on the verge of thought gay boyhood stands
Tiptoe, with glist ning eye and outspread hands;
With airy look, and form and footsteps light,
And glossy locks, and features berry-bright,
And eye like the young eaglet's, to the ray
Of noon, unblenching, as he sails away;
A brede of sea-shells on his bosom strung,
A small stone hatchet o'er his shoulders slung,
With slender lance, and feathers, blue and red,
That, like the heron's crest, wav'd on his head,-
Buoyant with hope, and airiness, and joy,
Lautaro was the loveliest Indian boy:
Taught by his sire, ev'n now he drew the bow,
Or track'd the jagguar on the morning snow;
Startled the Condor on the craggy height;
Then silent sat, and mark'd its upward flight,
Lessening in ether to a speck of white.

But when th' impassion'd Chieftain spoke of war,
Smote his broad breast, or pointed to a scar,-
Spoke of the strangers of the distant main,
And the proud banners of insulting Spain,-
Of the barb'd horse and iron horseman spoke,
And his red Gods, that wrapt in rolling smoke.-
Roar'd from the guns-the Boy, with still-drawn
breath,

Hung on the wond'rous tale, as mute as death;
Then rais'd his animated eyes, and cried,
"O let me perish by my father's side!"

The Warrior blesses his young son, and the family retire to repose, when their slumbers are suddenly broken by the attack of a fierce band of Spaniards, who, notwithstanding the desperate resistance of the distracted father, bear off, as their prize, his young son Lautaro.

Sev'n snows had fall'n, and sev'n green summers
pass'd,

Since here he heard that son's lov'd accents last.
Still his beloved daughter sooth'd his cares,
While time began to strew with white his hairs.
Oft as his painted feathers he unbound,
Or gaz'd upon his hatchet on the ground,
Musing with deep despair, nor strove to speak,
Light she approach'd, and climb'd to reach his cheek,

1819.]

Held with both hands his forehead, then her head
Drew smiling back, and kiss'd the tear he shed,
But late, to grief and hopeless love a prey,
She left his side, and wander'd far away.
Now in this still and shelter'd glen that smil'd
Beneath the crags of precipices wild,
Wrapt in a stern yet sorrowful repose,
The Warrior half forgot his country's woes,-
Forgot how many, impotent to save,
Shed their best blood upon a father's grave;
How many, torn from wife and children, pine
In the dark caverns of the hopeless mine,"
Never to see again the blessed morn-

Slaves in the lovely land where they were born;
How many, at sad sun-set, with a tear,
The distant roar of sullen cannons hear,
Whilst evening seems, as dies the sound, to throw
A deadlier stillness on a nation's woe!

The Chief is interrupted in his me-
lancholy musing by the call of his
countrymen to arms, and their apply
His ad-
ing to him as their leader.
dress to the sun is, we think, very
poetical, and the concluding lines are
characterized by Mr Bowles' usual
pathos.

The Mountain-chief essay'd his club to wield,
And shook the dust indignant from the shield.
Then spoke:-

"O Thou! that with thy ling'ring light
Dost warm the world, till all is hush'd in night;
I look upon thy parting beams, O Sun!
And say, Ev'n thus my course is almost run.'
"When thou dost hide thy head, as in the grave,
And sink to glorious rest beneath the wave,
Dost thou, majestic in repose, retire,
Below the deep, to unknown worlds of fire?
Yet, tho' thou sinkest, awful, in the main,
The shadowy moon comes forth, and all the train
Of stars, that shine with soft and silent light,
Making so beautiful the brow of night.
Thus, when I sleep within the narrow bed,
The light of after-fame around shall spread;
The sons of distant Ocean, when they see
The grass-green heap beneath the mountain tree,
And hear the leafy boughs at evening wave,
Shall pause and say, There sleep in dust the brave!'
"All earthly hopes my lonely heart have fled!
Stern Gurcabu, angel of the dead,

Who laughest when the brave in pangs expire,
Whose dwelling is beneath the central fire
Of yonder burning mountain; who hast pass'd
Oer my poor dwelling, and with one fell blast
Scatter'd my summer-leaves that cluster'd round,
And swept my fairest blossoms to the ground;
Angel of dire despair, O come not nigh,
Nor wave thy red wings o'er me where I lie;
But thou, O mild and gentle spirit, stand,
Angel of hope and peace, at my right hand,
(When blood-drops stagnate on my brow) and guide
My pathless voyage o'er the unknown tide,
To scenes of endless joy-to that fair isle,
Where bow'rs of bliss, and soft savannahs smile;
Where my forefathers oft the fight renew,
And Spain's black visionary steeds pursue;
Where, ceas'd the struggles of all human pain,
I may behold thee-thee-my son, again."

The next image presented is the re-
pose of the Spanish general's army,
and the reflections that employed him
even in sleep, contrasted with the sad
feelings of his page, Lautaro.

On the broad ocean, where the moonlight slept,
Thoughtful he turn'd his waking eyes, and wept,
And whilst the thronging forms of mem'ry start,
Thus holds communion with his lonely heart:

Land of my Fathers, still I tread your shore,
And mourn the shade of hours that are no more;
Whilst night-airs, like remember'd voices, sweep,
And murinur from the undulating deep.
Was it thy voice, my Father?-thou art dead-
The green rush waves on thy forsaken bed.

as it thy voice, my Sister-gentle maid,
Thou too, perhaps, in the dark cave art laid;
Perhaps, ev'n now, thy spirit sees me stand
Ahomeless stranger in my native land;

Perhaps, ev'n now, along the moonlight sea,
It bends from the blue cloud, rememb'ring me.
"Land of my Fathers, yet-O yet forgive,
That with thy deadly enemies I live.
The tenderest ties (it boots not to relate)
Have bound me to their service and their fate;
Yet whether on Peru's war-wasted plain,
Or visiting these sacred shores again,
Whate'er the struggles of this heart may be,
Land of my Fathers, it shall beat for thee!"
The supposed
appearance of the
Genius of the Andes, which opens the
second canto, is extremely well-con-
ceived, and the imagery which dis-
misses the Spirit possesses great beau-
ty. The military preparations of Val-
divia are described in the same style
of grandeur-in particular the war-
horse and dress of the general and
his page Lautaro.

The sun ascended to meridian height,
And all the northern bastions shone in light;

with hoarse acclaim the gong and trumpet rung,

The Moorish slaves aloft their cymbals swung,-
When the proud victor, in triumphant state,
Rode forth, in arms, through the port-cullis gate.
With neck high-arching, as he smote the ground,-
And restless pawing to the trumpets' sound,-
With mantling mane, o'er his broad shoulders
spread,-

And nostrils blowing, and dilated red,-
The coal-black steed, in rich caparison
Far-trailing to the ground, went proudly on:
Proudly he tramp'd, as conscious of his charge,
And turn'd around his eye-balls, bright and large,
And shook the frothy boss, as in disdain;
And toss'd the flakes, indignant, of his mane;
And, with high-swelling veins, exulting press'd
Proudly against the barb his heaving breast.

The fate of empires glowing in his thought,→
Thus arm'd, the tented field Valdivia sought.
On the left side his poised shield he bore,
With quaint devices richly blazon'd o'er;
Above the plumes, upon his helmet's cone,
Castile's imperial crest illustrious shone;
Blue in the wind th' escutcheon'd mantle flow'd
O'er the chain'd mail, which tinkled as he rode.
The barred vizor rais'd, you might discern
His clime-chang'd countenance, tho' pale, yet stern,
And resolute as death,-whilst, in his eye
Sat proud Assurance, Fame, and Victory.
Lautaro, now in manhood's rising pride,
Rode, with a lance, attendant, at his side,
In Spanish mantle gracefully array'd:
Upon his brow a tuft of feathers play'd:
His glossy locks, with dark and mantling grace,
Shaded the noon-day sun-beams on his face.
Though pass'd in tears the day-spring of his youth,
Valdivia lov'd his gratitude and truth:
He, in Valdivia, own'd a nobler friend;
Kind to protect, and mighty to defend.
So, on he rode: upon his youthful mien
A mild but sad intelligence was seen:
Courage was on his open brow, yet Care
Seem'd like a wand'ring shade, to linger there;
And though his eye shone, as the eagle's, bright,
It beam'd with humid, melancholy light.

In the exultation of the hour, Valdivia addresses the attendant youth, asking if he thought it possible that the Indians could withstand such an army as was now before them. The following is the answer of Lautaro:

"Forgive!"-the Youth replied, and check'd a