PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-JNO. R. THOMPSON, EDITOR. VOL. XXI. RICHMOND, OCTOBER, 1855. NO. 10. the skill or touch of human hand?" Grant A Ramble over the Realms of Poetry. all that the poetic muse assumes, and then O! deem not in this world of strife Let high Philosophy control Campbell. we ask, "Who made the harp?" and whence directed came the musing sylvan Zephyrus and his choir? Came they not from a land of images and dreams? But we are inquiring for originals. Images and originals are the poles apart. An original without an image is possible; but an image without an In the annals of Literature, Poetry ante- original is alike impossible and inconceivadates prose. Creation precedes Providence ble. Hence alike philosophically and loginot merely in the order of sequences, but in cally we conclude, that neither man nor anwhat is usually called intellectual and phy-gel addressed each other, until they themsical grandeur. So in genius and taste poe-selves had been addressed by their Creator. try trandscends prose. In the work of Cre- Then they intercommunicated thought, senation the Almighty broke the awful stillness timent and emotion with one another as God of eternity by His first creative fiat, and had communicated to them. angels were the first born of God. They The mystery of language and poetry is intook their thrones in the galleries of the uni-soluble, but on the admission of a revelation verse, and in silent contemplation sat. They or communication of some sort, unconceived spoke not for words as signs of thought, or by the human mind, unexecuted by the huwill, or emotion, were not then conceived and consequently then unborn. They gazed in rapture on one another, and in solemn silence thought. man hand. If invention and creation be the grand characteristics of the poet, Moses, if uninspired, was a greater poet than Homer, or Milton, or Shakspeare, if he invented the Drama which he wrote. The first chapter of Genesis is the greatest and most splendid poem ever conceived by the human imagination or written by the human hand. Human words being created breath, and breath being air in motion, prior to these language was impossible. And as the deaf are always dumb, language, like faith, comes by hearing. But hearing itself is a pensioner All poets, ancient and modern, are mere waiting upon a speaker; consequently it plagiarists if Moses was uninspired. We must ever be contingent on a cause alike an- prove his divine legation by the intrinsic and tecedent and extrinsic of itself. It is, there- extrinsic merits of the poem which he wrote. fore, equally an oracle of reason and an or- Imagination originates nothing absolutely acle of faith, that, however God may have new. It merely imitates and combines. It communicated to Angels, to Man he spoke is 1egarded as the creative faculty of man; in articulate sounds before man articulated but its material is already furnished. The a thought, a feeling, or an emotion of his portrait of an unreal Adam is as conceivable soul. And as an emotional soul is but a as a child without a father, or an effect withharp of many strings, a hand there must have out a cause. been to play upon its chords before melody or harmony, twins born of Heaven, had either a local habitation or a name. Thus we are obliged, by an insuperable necessity, to admit the credibility of the poem which he wrote. And what does MoBut it may be asked, "Is there not in the ses say? Nothing more than God spake and region of poetry an Eolian harp found in the the Universe was! This is the sublime of cave of Eolus, on which the winds of Heaven true poetry. This is more than the logic of played many a heavenly symphony, without the proposition, God was, therefore we are! VOL. XXI.—73 It is more than the philosophy, ex nihilo, ni- that chord. Poetry is the expression of those hil fit; or than, that nothing cannot be the feelings and sentiments in which all hearts, parent of something! under like circumstances, will harmonize. But we must place our foot upon a higher It is the language of the heart; the univer - round of the ladder, before we can stand sal language which will convey the same imupon such an eminence, as to see in all its pressions and excite the same emotions fair proportions the column on which the wherever and whenever its melodious ac muses place themselves. cents are breathed in upon the soul. Prose Job and not Moses shall be our guide, and is the language of the intellect; poetry is the oracle alike of our reason and our imag- the language of the feelings. Prose plods. ination. But who is Job? There is not Poetry soars and bathes her daring wing in much poetry in the name. But Rome and the ethereal regions of the distant spheres, its vulgate vulgarized this hallowed name, or fathoms the dark and silent depths of and Britain followed Rome. His name in oceans or mines for treasures in the secret Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic was Jobal. places of the soul of man. Poetry is thereThere is more poetry in this. There is no fore associated with all that is beautiful and metre nor poetry in a monotone, or mono- lovely, and sublime in the feelings, affecsyllable. He was born among rocks and tions and sentiments of the human heart. mountains, the proper theatre of a heaven- It is not bound down in its expressions to inspire. muse; not in Arabia the Happy, rhyme, rhythm or figure. Even language but in Arabia the Rocky. touching, emotional bard. In such a case the cloud that overshadows the era of the man, only enhances the genius and the inspiration of the poet. He was a heart- itself is not needed to give expression to "The soul's sincere desire, 'Tis the joyous glancing of an eye, In internal and external evidence, according to our calendar of the muses, he is the first-born of the poets that yet survive the wasteful ravages of hoary time. He sings not, indeed, of Chaos and eternal Night; Rhyme, rhythm, figures, and all the beaubut as one inspired with a Heaven-born tiful forms of poetic diction are therefore but muse he echoes the chorus of the Angelic the vesture with which the skilful artist song, when on the utterance of the first fiat clothes the living thoughts and conceptions the morning stars sang together, and all the of his genius. True poetry is not dependent sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we argue that poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its intellectual and emotional embodiment, is Heaven-conceived as Heaven-born. on any of these adventitious circumstances for its power. The most beautiful and sublime poetry that the literature of any age can produce, comes to us under all the disadvantages of a translation into a foreign Beautiful are the words of Israel's sweet language, and the absence of rhyme; and Psalmist when he describes those noble and yet it is peerless in its power over the heart generous sympathies of the human heart, of man. We need only quote two examples. which in every age, and through every clime have harmonized in their testimony that however diversified men may be in body, in soul they are one: "As mirrored in the water So does the heart of man to man." There is a chord in every heart which, when rightly touched, will vibrate in unison with our own feelings. The poet's art is to touch THE SUBLIME. "In my distress I called upon the Lord; And my cry came before Him. The foundations also of the hills were moved; He bowed the Heavens and came down, His pavilion round about Him were dark waters THE BEAUTIFUL. "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters: He restoreth my soul. And with lead in the rock forever! He shall stand at the laiter day on the earth; It will be seen that in those early ages the Poet depended upon language as the means of perpetuating, rather than of beautifying, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of his thoughts. The parallelism or climax of death, I will fear no evil, For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me, the ancient Hebrew Poet is an effort to deepen rather than to beautify the expression of a thought. In the first line he desires that the grand conception of the resurrection of the body, with which his mind is fired, The earliest forms in which Poetry was should be written; in the second line he expressed were the affecting actions of Panwishes it printed; in the third he would tomime. In the time of the patriarch Job, have it graven on a brazen tablet, with a pen this art was carried to a remarkable degree of iron; in the fourth he would carve it in of perfection, and it possessed a power of the living rock, and fill up the letters with expression, which can never be equalled by molten lead, that it might remain forever. language. It is impossible to convey in words the Poetry which is expressed in pan-vated the arts of expression so highly, that In the days of Homer, the Poet had cultitomime in Job, 2-xii-xiii. "Oh that my words were now written, Oh that they were printed in a book, That they were graven with an iron pen, *The praises of the Author of Nature was the most ancient use of Poetry, as may be learned from the Greek fragments of Orpheus; a relic of great antiquity. These fragments contain many verses concerning God, and his forming and governing the Universe; which, though imperfect, have many noble thoughts and lofty expressions. It has been doubted, however, whether these Hymns were written by Orpheus or by Onomacritus, who lived about the era of Pisistratus. Poetry was cultivated among the Greeks at a very early period. The Greek inhabited a land well suited to foster and nourish the fancy and imagination. His was a country of varied and picturesque beauty; a land of the mountain and the flood. Every scene upon which the eye of the Greek rested, was, in his imagination, haunted by mysterious essences; and thus even the perishable and transitory things of this world were stamped, as it were, with immortality. To their excited imaginations Nereids were sporting in every fountain, they heard the voices of the Dryads in the echoes of the woods. The very lights of Heaven were but the radiance of the Gods. Their very souls were imbued with the spirit of Poetry.See Brown's Hist. Greck Lit. Lempriere's Tour: the beautiful conceptions of the mind were clothed in all the richness and grace of which language was capable; and then, as if we were to be made sensible of the preciousness of the thoughts, and even the words over which genius had toiled, they were measured out syllable by syllable; the harmony and euphonious cadence of which filled the mind with wonder at the artistic skill which had adjusted them; and at the same time became, by the slowness or rapidity of the movement, a means of giving a greater effect to the ideas which it was designed to express." * From that period to the present day, Poets have confined their attention to the solution of two problems. First; Given, a happy combination of the intellectual powers, with a noble, generous heart; to produce an idea which will excite pleasure in the hearts of others. Many elegant examples of the adaptation of the sound to the sentiments intended to be expressed, may be found in the Greek Poets. The following lines from Moschus, describing the long, dreamless sleep of the grave, have always been admired: “Εύδος εὖ μάλα μαχρὸν ἑτερμον q νήγρετον ύπνον." Another fine example may be found in the first book of the Iliad, 49th line, where Homer is describing Apollo as shooting his arrows down upon the Greeks. Observe the singular expressive sound of the words he employs. Second; Given, a Poetical conception, to clothe it in the most expressive diction. But the question here arises, what is it that constitutes its peculiar excellence? With reference to the former of these pro- The answer to this inquiry involves the blems, it should be observed, that the pos- statement of all the poetic art of versification. session of a warm and generous heart, and a In the first two lines there is a pleasing alcommanding genius, have not always en-literation. In every line the rhyme is persured a Poetical idea, when it has been fect. There is also a varied cæsura, which sought. But whenever such a heart and adapts itself to the sense and gives a pecusuch a head were aroused to action by the liar elasticity to the verse, which a uniform occurrence of extraordinary events, such as cæsura does not possess. There is, morethe sack of Troy, or the grandeur of Impe- over, not a single redundant syllable, which rial Rome, then poetry poured forth its by its presence would compel the ellipsis of beautiful conceptions as fast as a Homer or either a vowel or a consonant. Every ada Virgil could find language to clothe them. jective seems not only to be an help-mate There has been little gained since the classic for its noun, but also to convey, in its very days of Greece and Rome in beauty, grace, sound, a living, breathing idea of its original. or power of expression. The same measures And beyond all this, there is so much left that obtained then, are in vogue now; and for the fancy to dwell upon, so much that is with the single advantage of the jingle of unexpressed, that the mind would fain revert rhyme, modern Poets cannot boast of their again and again to each line, finding on each improved diction. review some new associations starting up, Rhyme is not, however, so much an ad- and bringing into renewed being the scenes vantage to the sense, as to the nonsense in of childhood, or the labors of youth, or the poetry. Its use in poetry is similar to the memory of those we have lost. The whole use of paint and putty in cabinet making; forms an exquisite picture; but there is that it hides the defects, it fills up cracks and in the words "twittering," "shrill" and crevices. We could cite many examples il-" breathing," which the painter's art cannot lustrative of its value in this respect, but stamp upon the canvass; for the Poet alwe content ourselves with two lines from most makes you hear the twitter of the swalCowper, italicizing the nonsense, which low, he makes you almost feel the rosy breath otherwise could not be noticed. of the morning. "Blest, rather curst with hearts that never feel, Kept snug in caskets of close-hammered steel." soul. Therefore, when we said every one who had any Poetry in his soul, would recognize these beauties, we should have added if the By a careful study of the arts of expres-verses were repeated to him by a good reasion the accomplished writer may clothe his der, for that is necessary to develope the thoughts in words, which will, by their very meaning of an elegant poem. cadence, convey additional meaning to the Having thus glanced at the general effect We instance the following from of the beautiful conceptions which the poet Gray's Elegy, as an illustration of a rare has grouped together in these lines, let us and happy combination of several arts of analyze the elements which, when combined, poetic phraseology, some of which give addi-produce such grace and harmony. tional significance, while others enhance the beauty and grace of its expression. "The breezy call of incense breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, A poetical conception expressed in prose, changes its dress, and becomes verse when the words are measured and arranged by certain rules, which regulate their time and pauses. The first of these rules regards the time and number of syllables or feet with Every one who has any poetry in his soul which the poetical movement advances. It will recognize in these lines an elegance of has been found that all the syllables in our expression, a beauty of imagery and depth of language are capable of being divided into meaning which are only to be met with in two classes; one of these are called long the productions of art and genius combined. syllables; the other, short syllables; and it is found, moreover, that all the short sylla- | The cæsura is, perhaps, the most important bles are capable of being so pronounced as part of the poetic movement, and although to be just half the length of the long sylla- it may be varied in its position to suit the bles. This applies generally to other lan- taste of the artist, yet upon its management guages also. It has also been observed that and regularity depends much of the melothe regular recurrence of certain sounds at dious effect of the poem. Indeed, the excertain intervals is melodious. Thus the perienced poet, having attuned his ears to measured chime of a church bell is melodi- the measures of the great masters of his art, ous. This melody may be varied by alter- gives little heed to feet when he is construcnating a heavy stroke and a light tap: ting his verse, but keeps his attention conThus Dong-Dong-Dong-Dong, Ding, Dong-Ding, Dong-Ding, Dong-Ding, Dong. Now the poet arranges his words upon stantly fixed on the cæsura, leaving his practised ear to measure the sound of each word, as they successively fall into their ranks, as it best can. Pope thinks that the cæsura should fall as near the middle of a line as possible. But this principle, and thus produces melody. it may be laid down as the usage of the ma Thus: "Tityre, tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi," or, "Hills PEEP o'er HILLS; and ALPS on ALPS ARISE.' It will be perceived that in the Latin line the melody is produced by alternating two feet or measures; one of them being composed of a long and two short syllables; the other having two long syllables; while in the English line, it is produced by throwing the accent on each alternate word. jority of the greatest poets, that this pause should occur after the fourth syllable, at the beginning, or, before the fourth syllable from the end of a line. Thus : "O Theu! whose word-from solid darkness struck That spark, the sun-strike wisdom from my soul." or, "How passing wonder He-who made him such! Who centered in our make-such strange extremes." When the pause falls earliest, that is, after the fourth syllable, the briskest melody is therefore formed, and the most spirited air Our language, however, admits of a great given to the line. In the following lines variety of feet or poetic measures. There from the Rape of the Lock, Pope has, with were eight in use among the Latin poets, exquisite propriety, suited the construction and they may all be employed in English of the verse to the subject: verse. "On her white breast-a sparkling cross she wore, Favours to none-to all she smiles extends, Yet graceful ease-and sweetness void of pride. It has been observed in nature that a peculiar effect is produced by regular intervals or pauses in actions. Thus, after a gust of wind sweeps over the plain, there will be a pause, and then comes another gust, &c. Or, when the sea is up, we see great waves breaking over a vessel, and almost burying Might hide her faults-if belles had faults to hide ; her beneath their mass of waters, and then If to her share-some female errors fall, there will succeed a space of comparative Look on her face—and you'll forget them all.” calm. This breaking off an action, has been When the pause falls after the fifth syllaimitated by the Poet, by the introduction of ble, which divides the line into two equal pauses. We will only illustrate one of these portions, the melody is sensibly altered. pauses, which is called cæsura, or, the divi- The verse loses that brisk sprightly air, der, because it divides every line into two or which it had with the former pause, and bemore parts: thus "Warms in the sun-refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars-and blossoms in the trees." comes more smooth, gentle, and flowing: "Eternal sunshine-of the spotless mind, |