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James Russell Lowell. Poems. By James Hu...
Though , to be sure , we confess that , as Englishmen , we could , not pretend to assign a writer , by his style , to his particular city . It would puzzle us to discern the peculiarity , as much as the moderns are puzzled to determine the real nature of the " Patavinity " attributed to Livy . The first work of Lowell ' s which was reprinted here was a volume of " Conversations on the Old Poets , " wanting dramatic reality as a book of colloquies , certainly ; and , indeed , not pretending to that species of excellence ; but it contains a great deal of good , fresh , criticism—a hearty warmth of appreciation for the Elizabethans throughout—with a strong tincture , by the hye , of Emersonian philosophy . It was a book evidently written under the influence of all the " newest views " about literature in general , and distinguished by a particularly high appreciation of Keats . We suppose it was an early book of the writer ' s , for the style had the faults of youth . There was an almost absurd redundancy of metaphors ,
and all the more brilliant parts of rhetoric , about it ; every point of criticism was sent whizzing into you feathered by a trope . Each paragraph reminded you of a boy ' s sprig of thorn , tipped at every prickle with a daisy . There were passages of high poetic beauty , too ; yet these were so rhetorically formed , that knowing , as we have all reason to know now-a-days , the difference between ' poetic writing and writing poetry , you could not help anticipating that the author would write poems with some apprehension . Well , he has published " Poems " in the orthodox form , and of these , two separate editions have been published in this country . In America he ranks high as a poet , and very high as a man of letters . He has published two other works since his poems , the "Fable for Critics " and the " Biglow Papers , " neither of which , we believe , has been reprinted here , though highly deserving of English types . But first , of his " Poems . " Are they entirely satisfactory ? Can we introduce him to our readers as an original Singer ?
It is no easy matter to draw the line , and very hard to explain the law by which you feel yourself compelled to draw it , which separates a literary artist of poetic mind and taste , from a poet proper . Who would deny poetic merit to a great deal of Bulwer ' s prose ?—Yet still fewer could read his professed poems with genuine gusto . It is the case with many eminent and , in their own way , excellent writers . We don't speak of the common herd , of course—those who give us huge bulk with little value , — works , like a lump of the old currency of Sparta , weighing a wagon-load ,
and worth only a few pounds , —but of fine-minded , able men . You admire their poems , perhaps , yet are far from enjoying in them the true delight , the peculiar joy , the something which , like true love , is one and one only , counterfeit it what may ! Is Lowell ( w ith whatever reluctance ) to be classed with these last-mentioned writers , who are only gods by the half-blood , and mortal , according to the _dejtiny of the mortal parent?—Let us open his volume . T'i 1 v _^ _n _-m _^ C _^ _-.-.-v . _r- _~ _J-l- _~~ _^ _c-. « -. 1 _~^^ v _^ _c- -- A T _„ _~ A _~ t The long of there is long —is " A end of
, - , „ _„ _~ , poem— course a poem . Leg Brittany , " a feudal story of a knight , who first seduces and then murders a girl of ineffable beauty . A very sad story , indeed , crowned at last , too , with a climax of supernatural terror , and the death of the false lover . It is told in the ottava rima . Here is a stanza , wherein we hear of the beauty of poor Margaret , the heroine : — " None looked upon her but he straightway thought Of all the greenest depths of country cheer , And into each one ' s heart was freshly brought What was to him the sweetest time of year _r So was her every look and motion fraught With out-of-door delights and forest lere ; Not the first violet on a woodland lea Seemed a more visible gift of spring than she . " Surely a graceful damsel—dewy and alluring enough!—Listen to a note or two moro ; we have" Flooded , ho seemed , with bright delicious pain , As if a star had burst within his brain . " and we hear of— " golden bees , Drowsily humming in the orange-trees . " but when wc havo fallen into the low , melancholy musical swing of the narrative , recognising a thoughtful , feeling mind , with a perception of the beautiful , we exclaim , presently , that we " have heard the nightingale herself . " There is too strong a likeness to Keats here , —a pervading air of imitation which resembles Keats , as you will sometimes see a not very good-looking boy resemble a beautiful ' mother . We see it in the best parts , and still more in turns of transition , and the order of arrangement , — not , to mention in " drizzly murmurs , " and distinct quaintnesses of expression . We do not say that Mr . Lowell is an imitator—a fashioner ah extra of materials , in deliberate and conscious imitation of other poets . We onl y say that , in his collection , there is so strong an evidence of the effect of Iheir mindH upon one so intensely appreciative , that you aro too much _reminded of them . Perceiving the poetic mind fo be 'his , and that in any < 'ase lie must , have written poetry , we yet have sometimes too clear an evidence of tho of reel ; of bis studies . The honey smells of the particular '¦ 'lowers ; or , rather , lie gives you , every now and then , in the midst of Poems original in treatment , a distinct glimpse of some poetic face , which , by force of sheer love , ho has come , to resemble in his own , as Lavator tells you you will , in time , resemble the face dear fo you . iio Juts evidently been a , good deal formed by Tennyson . The " Fountain" ih a , pleasing , " spirited little poem : — " Into the sunshine , Full of the light , _Leaping und flashing from morn fo night ! " Into the moonlight , Whiter than snow , Waving ho llowcr-like When tho _wiiulu blow I
James Russell Lowell. Poems. By James Hu...
" Into the starlight Rushing in spray , Happy at midnight , Happy by day ! " Ever in motion , Blithesome and cheery , Still climbing heavenward , Never aweary . " Ceaseless aspiring , Ceaseless content , Darkness or sunshine Thy element;—" Glorious fountain ! Let my heart be Fresh , changeful , constant , Upward , like thee !" But we are inclined to rank " Rosaline" as the first in merit ; it has a beauty and sadness of its own which is touching . And next to it , we may place the " Vision of Sir Launfal , "—from which we will make a quotation , —as very characteristic of a kind of way of thinking and speaking popular in America , and which has a not unattractive oddness about it . Lowell has been complaining of the age;—for he is very strong against " slavery , " sympathizes with the moral questions of the day , and does not worship the dollar : — " Earth gets its price for what earth gives us , The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in , The priest hath his fee who comes and shrines us , We bargain for the graves we lie in ; At the Devil ' s booth are all things sold , Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; " For a cap and bells our lives we pay , Bubbles we earn with a whole soul ' s tasking : ' Tis Heaven alone that is given away , "lis only God may be had for the asking ; There is no price paid for the lavish summer , And June may be had by the poorest comer . " The quotation we have just given brings us to the consideration of Mr . Lowell ' s humorous poems , and we must unhesitatingly assign them to the highest place among his efforts—from no w ish to depreciate the volume from which we have just been extracting , but because such seems to us the true state of the case . In the _Sigloto Papers—which , as little known here , we desire to point out to our reading friends—there are touches of humour—flashes of sunny ridicule—unmatched in comic literature in our day by anybody ' s ridicule , except Hood ' s , of our professed humourists . Mr . Hosea Biglow expresses himself on such themes as the Mexican War and the Slavery Question , in the genuine Yankee dialect , the effect of which sometimes is irresistibly droll . Hosea loq . — " Ez fer war , I call it murder , — There you . hev it plain an' Hat ; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that ; God hex scd so plump an' fairly , It ' s ez long- ez it is broad , An' you ' ve gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God . " 'Taint your eppyletts an' feathers Makes the thing a grain more right ; 'Taint a follerin' your bell-wethers Will excuse ye in His sight ; Ef you take a sword an' dior it , An' go stick a feller thru , Guv ' mcnt unit to answer for it , God 'II send the bill to you . " Or take the following , from a poem called What Mr . Robinson thinks . — " We . were gittin on nicely up here to our village , With good old itlees o' wut ' s right nu' Avuf ah it , We kind o'thought Christ went agin war and pillage , An' tbet eppyletts worn ' t , the bent mark of a saint ; But John 1 \ Robinson lie Scz this kind o' thing's itu exploded idee . " Parson Wilbur be calls all these arguments lies , _Stvz . they ' re nothing ou airtb but jest , fee , fate , fit in ; An' tbet all this big talk of onr destinies , Is half ou it ignorance , and t ' other half ruin ; lint . 101111 * 1 * . Robinson he ttez it libit no _sech thing ; an ' , of course , so must wc . "J ' arson Wilbur _sez he never hcerd in his lil ' c Tbet th' Apostles rigged out , in their swaller-tnil coats , An' marched round in front of a drum and n , life , To git some on 'em ollice , an' some of ' cm votes Hut , . John |\ Robinson hi ! j iSez Ihey did ' nt know _everiflltin' damn , in Judea !" These are specimens , and wo think pretty fair ones , of Hosea Biglow _' s humorous _YankoeiNUi . He gives us , also , a rub af tho pious editor of his native land , who says— " I du believe with all my soul In the grct I ' _icsh ' _s freedom , To pint the people to the goal An' in tho tracca lead ' cm ;
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 3, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03071852/page/17/
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