scene of happiness and joy. But if she is more favourably circumstanced, every supplication for pardon will have the effect of angelprayers ; and this is the reward of those who in this life cultivate social connexions, and are bound in the endearing ties of friendship.'
pp. 74, 75.
Trifling as this little work may appear in itself, yet it is impossible to glance over it without feeling that such gossiping pages as these are calculated to make us better acquainted with Persian female manners than a more grave and learned treatise. Life is composed of really little things-especially domestic life, in which the routine of one day scarcely differs from that which follows or precedes it. Foreigners can seldom penetrate the privacy of oriental families; and native writers too rarely think of describing habits which are of every hour's use, and have therefore no novelty to recommend them.
ART. IX.—Poems by Hartley Coleridge. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 157.
Leeds, 1833. TWO WO sons of Dryden were clever versifiers; but we are not aware of
any instance in our literary history of the son of a great poet achieving for himself the name of poet. Here, however, is such a claim advanced by the son of Coleridge ; and, weak and merely imitational as many of the pieces included in this volume are, we are bound to say that we consider its author as having already placed himself on high vantage-ground, as compared with any of the rhymers of these latter years. From the locality of the publication, Leeds, taken together with various melancholy allusions in the verses themselves, we are compelled to believe that the fate of this gentleman has not been such as bis birth, education, and talents, with the well-won celebrity of several of his immediate connexions, might have been expected to lead him to. What his actual situation may be we know not; but we are grieved to hear the language not only of despondency, but of self-reproach bordering almost on remorse, from one who must be young, and who certainly possesses feelings the most amiable, together with accomplishments rich and manifold, and no trivial inheritance of his father's genius. It is impossible to read the two following sonnets without deep and painful interest :
Too true it is, my time of power was spent
In idly watering weeds of casual growth,-
That wasted energy to desperate sloth
Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent,
That the huge debt for all that nature lent
I sought to cancel,--and was nothing loath
To deem myself an outlaw, sever'd both
From
From duty and from hope,-yea, blindly sent
Without an errand, where I would to stray :-
Too true it is, that, knowing now my state,
I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate,
Nor love the law I yet would fain obey :
But true it is, above all law and fate
Is Faith, abiding the appointed day.'-p. 13.
• If I have sinn'd in act, I may repent;
If I have err'd in thought, I may disclaim
My silent error, and yet feel no shame
But if my soul, big with an ill intent,
Guilty in will, by fate be innocent,
Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse
And incapacity of being worse,
That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent
In keen expectance of a Carnival ;
Where, in all worlds, that round the sun revolve
And shed their influence on this passive ball,
Abides a power that can my soul absolve?
Could any sin survive, and be forgiven-
One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.'-p. 27. We have no desire to penetrate the mystery in which this unfortunate shrouds his sorrow. Let us rather afford our readers some evidence, that whatever may have been his errors, he has the gentle heart, as well as the power and music of a poet. We remember no sonnets so nearly resembling the peculiar and unaccountable sweetness of Shakspeare's, as the three following, all addressed To a Friend.'
• When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted :
Our love was nature ; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills :
One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
That, wisely doating, ask'd not why it doated,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
That man is more than half of nature's treasure,
Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,
Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
And now the streams may sing for other's pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity.'
In the Great City we are met again,
Where many souls there are, that breathe and die,
Scarce knowing more of nature's potency,
Than what they learn from heat, or cold, or rain,
The sad vicissitude of weary pain:
For busy man is lord of ear and eye,
And what hath nature, but the vast, void sky,
And the throng'd river toiling to the main?
Oh! say not so, for she shall have her part
In every smile, in every tear that falls,
And she shall hide her in the secret heart,
Where love persuades, and sterner duty calls :
But worse it were than death, or sorrow's smart,
To live without a friend within these walls.'
• We parted on the mountains, as two streams
From one clear spring pursue their several ways;
And thy feet course hath been through many a maze
In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams
To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams
Brighten'd the tresses that old Poets praise;
Where Petrarch's patient love, and artful lays,
And Ariosto's song of many themes,
Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook,
As close pent up
within
my
native dell,
Have crept along from nook to shady nook,
Where flow'rets blow, and whispering Naiads dwell.
Yet now we meet, that parted were so wide,
O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side.'-p. 3. The following, 'To SHAKSPEARE,' is worthy of being so inscribed : it seems to us hardly inferior to any sonnet in Wordsworth:
• The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean—or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathom'd centre. Like that Ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O’er the drown'd hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great Poet, 'twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny,
Or the firm, fatal Purpose of the Heart
Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.' Some stanzas •To the Nautilus' appear to us full of life and grace. We quote two of them :
• Where Ausonian summers glowing,
Warm the deep to life and joyance,
And gentle zephyrs nimbly blowing
Wanton with the waves that flowing
By many a land of ancient glory,
And many an isle renown'd in story,
Leap
Leap along with gladsome buoyance,
There, Marinere,
Do'st thou appear,
In faery pinnace gaily flashing,
Through the white foam proudly dashing,
The joyous playmate of the buxom breeze,
The fearless fondling of the mighty seas.
Lame is Art, and her endeavour
Follows Nature's course but slowly,
Guessing, toiling, seeking ever,
Still improving, perfect never ;
Little Nautilus, thou shewest
Deeper wisdom than thou knowest,
Lore, which man should study lowly:
Both faith and cheer,
Small Marinere,
Are thine within thy pearly dwelling,
Thine, a law of life compelling
Obedience, perfect, simple, glad, and free,
To the great will that animates the sea.'-pp. 57, 58. We are not less pleased with an address • To certain Golden Fishes :'
• Restless forms of living light
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight
With a thousand shadowings ;-
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams.
Harmless warriors, clad in mail
Of silver breastplate, golden scale ;-
Mail of Nature's own bestowing,
With peaceful radiance mildly glowing,
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,
Sport ye
in your sea so narrow.
Was the sun himself your sire ?
Were born of vital fire ?
Or of the shade of golden flowers,
Such as we fetch from eastern bowers,
To mock this murky clime of ours ?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance;
Seeming still to grow in size
When
ye
would elude our eyes
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem,-
As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleam'd in fair Cathay;
And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart;
It may be, that your ceaseless gambols,
Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,
Your restless roving round and round
The circuit of your crystal bound,
Is but the task of weary pain,
An endless labour, dull and vain;
And while your forms are gaily shining,
Your little lives are inly pining!
Nay—but still I fain would dream
That ye are happy as ye seem.'—pp. 113, 114. We conclude with another of his sonnets : it is inscribed · To a lofty Beauty, from her poor Kinsman:'
• Fair maid, had I not heard thy baby cries,
Nor seen thy girlish, sweet vicissitude,
Thy. mazy motions, striving to elude,
Yet wooing still a parent's watchful eyes,
Thy humours, many as the opal's dyes,
And lovely all;-methinks thy scornful mood,
And bearing high of stately womanhood,
Thy brow, where Beauty sits to tyrannize
O’er humble love, had made me sadly fear thee;
For never sure was seen a royal bride
Whose gentleness gave grace to so much pride-
My very thoughts would tremble to be near thee;
But when I see thee at thy father's side,
Old tinies unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee.'p. 34. The Beauty must, we think, be cold as well as lofty, if these delicious lines did not reach her heart.
It is an old saying, that the oakling withers beneath the shadow of the oak; and perhaps had it been the happier destiny of this lady's 'poor kinsman' to spend his early manhood under the same roof with the father and bard revered' to whom he dedicates his little book, we should never have been called upon to announce a second English poet of the name of Coleridge. If he will drop somewhat of that overweening worship of Wordsworth which is so visible in many of these pages--so offensively prominent in the longest piece they contain-and rely, as our extracts show he is thoroughly entitled to do, solely upon himself, we are not afraid to say that we shall expect more at his hands than from any has made his first appearance subsequent to the death of Byron.
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