Part 43

Such is the poet's cottage at Elleray, in itself unostentatious, but surrounded by the magnificence of nature in the distance, and by its quiet sweetness at hand. Years ago, when Mrs. Wilson was living, and the children were young and about them, we can conceive no happier spot of earth. No man was more formed to enjoy all that life had to offer, both at home and abroad, in such scenery; his wife was a most charming woman, and his children full of spirit and promise. The affectionate tenderness which diffused itself through the whole of Wilson's being, and the depth of that happiness which he enjoyed here, are manifested in such poems as the Children's Dance, and the Angler's Tent. When his tent was pitched in a Sabbath valley far off, he thus referred to the homes of both himself and his companion, the poet of Rydal:--

"Yet think not in this wild and fairy spot, This mingled happiness of earth and heaven, Which to our hearts this Sabbath-day was given, Think not that far-off friends were quite forgot. Helm-crag arose before our half-closed eyes, With colors brighter than the brightening dove; Beneath that guardian mount a cottage lies; Encircled by a halo breathed from love! And sweet that dwelling rests upon the brow, Beneath that sycamore, of Orest hill, As if it smiled on Windermere below, Her green recesses and her islands still! Thus gently blended many a human thought With those that peace and solitude supplied, Till in our hearts the musing kindness wrought With gradual influence like a flowing tide, And for the lovely sound of human voice we sighed."

But the great charm and ornament of that house has vanished; the young steps have wandered forth, and found other homes; and it must now be a somewhat solitary spot to him who formerly found collected into it all that made life beautiful. Nay, steam, as little as time, has respected the sanctity of the poet's home, but has drawn up its roaring iron steeds opposite to its gate, and has menaced to rush through it, and lay waste its charmed solitude. In plain words, I saw the stakes of a projected railway running in an ominous line across the very lawn, and before the very windows of Elleray.

WALLER BRYAN PROCTER.

As the most beautiful flowers are found in the most arid deserts, so out of the dry study of law comes forth now and then the most genial and tender spirit of poetry. Such has been the case with Mr. Procter, or Barry Cornwall, for we delight in that old favorite _nom de guerre_; and although I have been able to obtain but little knowledge of his homes and haunts, still these volumes would be incomplete without some notice of a man whose writings hold so firm a place in the public heart.

About seven-and-twenty years ago, Mr. Procter, then a young man, just called to the bar, and in very delicate health, published his first volume of poetry. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Campbell, and Leigh Hunt, were then pouring out volume after volume; and Scott, who was crowned with the laurels of his metrical romances, was riveting the attention of the whole world by his earlier romances; while Crabbe, as if woke up out of his slumber of twenty-two years by this great constellation of genius, had just put forth his new work, the Tales of the Hall. It was not a moment when a poet of ordinary power had any chance of sustaining his existence; but the young aspirant stood among those gigantic men, as one who, if not equal to them in all points at that moment, was yet kindred with them; and, although the Sicilian story, Diego de Montilla, Mirandola, and the Flood of Thessaly, have rather become pleasant memories than the actualities of the present day, the poet has established a lasting reputation by his volume of "English Songs, and other small Poems"--a volume, in which there are gems of as noble and perfect poetry as any in the language, and which abounds with the most healthy, manly sentiment, and the broadest sympathies with suffering and struggling humanity. It is now the fashion to sympathize with the people--and a noble fashion it is--the only fear being of this otherwise holy Christian sentiment becoming, in some minds, morbid, if not mawkish. In Barry Cornwall, it is as genuine as any other part of his nature; feigning and falsehood are as impossible to it as darkness to the sun. He has the clearest understanding of moral truth, and a detestation of the cold, sordid spirit of the world. According to his faith--

"Song should spur the mind to duty, Nerve the weak and stir the strong; Every deed of truth and beauty Should be crowned by starry song;"

and like a true man, who proclaims no more than he himself practices, his song becomes a watchword in the cause of man. In confirmation of this, let me select one little poem, A Lyric of London, which contains a deeper moral than most sermons.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

"WITHOUT.

"The winds are bitter; the skies are wild; From the roof comes plunging the drowning rain, Without--in tatters, the world's poor child Sobbeth aloud her grief, her pain! No one heareth her, no one heedeth her: But Hunger, her friend, with his bony hand Grasps her throat, whispering huskily-- 'What dost _thou_ in a Christian land?'

"WITHIN.

"The skies are wild, and the blast is cold, Yet riot and luxury brawl within; Slaves are waiting in crimson and gold, Waiting the nod of a child of sin. The fire is crackling, wine is bubbling Up in each glass to its beaded brim: The jesters are laughing, the parasites quaffing, 'Happiness,'--'honor,'--and all for _him_!

"WITHOUT.

"She who is slain in the winter weather, Ah! she once had a village fame; Listened to love on the moonlit heather; Had gentleness, vanity, maiden shame: _Now_ her allies are the tempest howling; Prodigal's curses; self-disdain; Poverty, misery: Well, no matter; There is an end unto every pain.

"The harlot's fame was her doom to-day, Disdain, despair; by to-morrow's light The ragged boards and the pauper's pall; And so she'll be given to dusky night! Without a tear or a human sigh She's gone,--poor life and its fever o'er! So let her in calm oblivion lie; While the world runs merry as heretofore?

"WITHIN.

"He who yon lordly feast enjoyeth, He who doth rest on his couch of down, He it was who threw the forsaken Under the feet of the trampling town. Liar--betrayer--false as cruel, What is the doom for his dastard sin? His peers, they scorn?--high dames, they shun him? --Unbar your palace, and gaze within!

"There,--yet his deeds are all trumpet-sounded, There upon silken seats recline Maidens as fair as the summer morning, Watching him rise from the sparkling wine. Mothers all proffer their stainless daughters; Men of high honor salute him 'friend;' Skies! oh where are your cleansing waters! World! oh where do thy wonders end?"

Again, here is another poem, worthy to take its place beside Burns's A Man's a Man for a' that.

RIND AND FRUIT.

"You may boast of jewels, coronets,-- Ermine, purple, all you can-- There is that within them nobler;-- Something that we call--a man!

Something all the rest surpassing; As the flower is to the sod; As to man is high archangel; As is to archangel--God!

"Running o'er with tears and weakness; Flaming like a mountain fire; Racked by hate and hateful passions; Tossed about by wild desire; There is still within him mingled With each fault that dims or mars, Truth, and pity, virtue, courage,-- Thoughts that fly beyond the stars!

"You, who prize the book's fair paper Above its thoughts of joy and pain; You, who love the cloud's bright vapor More than its soul,--the blessing, rain; Take the gems, the crowns, the ermine; Use them nobly, if you can; But give _us_--in rags or purple-- The true, warm, strong heart of man!"

Mr. Procter was born and spent his youth at Finchley, in a house which we understand is now pulled down. He was educated for the bar. He was some years at school at Harrow, where he was the cotemporary of the present Duke of Devonshire, Lord Byron, and Sir Robert Peel. On leaving Harrow, it had been the intention of his father to send him to one of the universities; but from this he was deterred, in consequence of the son of some friend or acquaintance having run a wild and ruinous career at one of these seminaries of extravagance and dissipation. From Harrow he, therefore, went to Calne, in Wiltshire, where he remained for some time under the care of an excellent man of the name of Atherton, who lived, it was said, in the house which at one time had been the residence of Coleridge, and opposite to another called the "Doctor's house," because it had once been occupied by Dr. Priestley. Two miles from Calne was Bremhill, the rector of which place, William Lisle Bowles, was on friendly terms with young Procter.

With a head and heart much more fitted for the noble business of poetry than law, Mr. Procter devoted himself for twenty years to his profession, until a few years ago he was appointed one of the Government Commissioners of Lunacy, with a good income, but with less leisure than ever for his favorite studies. He has resided altogether in London, for some time, in Gray's-inn; and after his marriage, with the step-daughter of Mr. Basil Montague, in what was in those days a very pretty cottage and suitable poet's home, at No. 5, Grove-end-place, St. John's-wood; and latterly in Upper Harley-place, Cavendish-square; where we sincerely hope he may yet find leisure, if not to write some noble drama, for which we consider him eminently qualified, at least to enrich the lyrical poetry of his country with fresh lays that will add honor to his reputation, at the same time that they assist struggling humanity in its great contest with the cruelty and selfishness of the world.

There is a healthy, active vigor about all the latter writings of Barry Cornwall, that show that he has never yet fairly and fully developed his whole power. His reputation is of the first class, but every one feels, in reading one of his lyrics, that he would not surprise us now to come forth with some high and stirring drama of real life, that would stamp him as a true tragic poet. The elements of this lie everywhere in his poems. There is a clear and decided dramatic tact and cast of thought. Pathos and indignation against wrong live equally and vividly in him. His thoughts and feelings are put forth with a genuineness and a perspicuous life, that tell at once on the reader, making him feel how real and how earnest is his spirit. Spite of the long and continuous labors of his daily life, we shall still trust to some future outburst of his powers and impulses in a fitting form. In the mean time, the prompt and quick spirit of his lyrics is doing great service to the cause of progress far and wide.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Alfred Tennyson moves on his way through life heard, but by the public unseen. We might put to him a question similar to that which Wordsworth put to the cuckoo:--

"O blithe new-comer! I have heard, I hear thee, and rejoice. O Tennyson! art thou a man, Or but a wandering voice?"

And our question would have like answer. That is, we should get just as much from the man as Wordsworth got from the cuckoo. We should have to look wise, and add--

"Even yet thou art to me No man; but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery."

Many an admiring reader may have said with Solomon of old--"I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he answered me not." If you want a popular poet, you generally know pretty well where to look for him. In the first place, you may make certain that London contains him. You may trace him to a coterie, probably a very _recherché_ and exclusive one; you may look for him at midnight in some hot and crowded drawing-room, surrounded by the fairest of incense burners, and breathing volumes of ambrosial essences with a very complacent air; you may find him as the great gun of a popular periodical; you may meet him at Rogers's at breakfast; you may follow him from one great dinner table to another, and at last to that of the lord mayor. But in few or none of these places will you find Alfred Tennyson. "He has gone down into his garden, to his beds of spices, to feed in his garden and gather lilies." You may hear his voice, but where is the man? He is wandering in some dream-land, beneath the shade of old and charmed forests, by far-off shores, where

"All night The plunging seas draw backward from the land Their moon-led waters white:"

by the old milldam, thinking of the merry miller and his pretty daughter; or is wandering over the open wolds, where

"Norland whirlwinds blow."

From all these places--from the silent corridor of an ancient convent; from some shrine where a devoted knight recites his vows; from the drear monotony of "the moated grange," or the ferny forest beneath the "talking oak"--comes the voice of Tennyson, rich, dreamy, passionate, yet not impatient; musical with the airs of chivalrous ages, yet mingling in his song the theme and the spirit of those that are yet to come.

The genius of Tennyson is essentially retiring, meditative, spiritual, yet not metaphysical; ambitious only that itself, and not the man, shall be seen, heard, and live. So that his song can steal forth; catch by a faint but aerial prelude the ear quick to seize on the true music of Olympus; and then, with growing and ever swelling symphonies, still more ethereal, still fuller of wonder, love, and charmed woe, can travel on amid the listening and spell-bound multitude, an invisible spirit of melodious power, expanding, soaring aloft, sinking deep, coming now as from the distant sea, and filling all the summer air; so that it can thus triumph in its own celestial energy, the poet himself would rather not be found. He seems to steal away under the covert of friendly boughs; to be gone to caves and hiding crags, or to follow the stream of the gray moorland, gathering

"From old well-heads of haunted rills, And the heart of purple hills, And shadowed caves of a sunny shore, The choicest wealth of all the earth, Jewel, or shell, or starry ore."

The orator may climb heights of most imperial influence over the public mind, the statesman of power over the public destiny, the merchant may gather stupendous wealth from every zone, the patriot produce and carry on to success the most dazzling schemes for human good: these disturb not the equanimity of Tennyson--the spirit of poetry that is conferred on him he accepts as his fortune, his duty, and his glory. In short, he has all that he can conceive of, or desire. He knows that through that, his applauses, though less riotous than those of the orator, will endure the longer; that he has in it a commission to work with or against the statesman, as that man may be good or evil; that even into the ear of the princeliest wealth he can whisper a startling word of human counsel, or can move to deeds of mercy; and that there is no patriot who can be more patriotic than him whose voice, from day to day and year to year, is heard in the stillest and most teachable hours of the most amply endowed and teachable natures. Over all the faculties, the ranks, the influences of human life, poetry maintains a suggestive and immortal supremacy, for it becomes the more aspiring spirit of the age in the school and the closet ere it comes forth upon the world. It mingles itself with whatever is generous, ambitious, perceptive of greatness and of virtue, and often speaks in the man in power by a deed of glorious beneficence that falls like a blessing from heaven on the heart of afflicted genius.

Of this profound and blessed reliance on the all-sufficiency of his art, perhaps no poet ever furnished a more complete example than Alfred Tennyson. There is nothing stirring, nothing restless, nothing ambitious, in its tone; it has no freaks and eccentricities by which it seeks to strike the public notice. There are no evidences of any secret yet palpable artifices at work to urge it on, and thrust it before you in magazines and reviews. Quiet in itself, it comes quietly under your eye, naturally as the grass grows or the bird sings, and you see, hear, and love it. From this absence of all bustle and parade of introduction, or of the violence of attack upon it from the display of prominent antagonist principles, political or theological, as in the cases of Byron and Shelley, we are often surprised to find Tennyson still wholly unread in quarters where poetry is read with much avidity, and to hear others lamenting that he does not put forth a poem more commensurate with his purely poetic temperament. But the very nature of Tennyson's genius is to be contented with what it is. It is happy in itself as the bird upon the bough. It is rolled into itself, living and rejoicing in its own being and blessedness. It has no deadly thirst for draughts of spirits from other worlds, no feverish wrestlings for mere notoriety, no ostentatious display of gigantic agonies and writhings under a dark destiny, no pictures of plunging down into depths of mystery and of woe beyond the diving powers of ordinary mortals. It is healthy, clear, joyous, for the most part, and musical as nature itself. In entering into the region of Tennyson's poetry you enter one of sun and calm. The land of romance, of dream, of fairy; the land of beauty, glory, and repose, stretching on through all the regions of the earth, wherever genius has alighted in any age, wherever mind has put forth its forms of divinest grace. It belongs to what may be termed the romantic school, yet it is often purely classical. You see in such poems as the Lotus Eaters, OEnone, Ulysses, etc., that Tennyson loves to sit by the immortal wells of Homer; to wander amid the godlike habitants of the Greek Elysium. But whether there, or at the court of "great Haroun Alraschid," or in the spell-bound castles of German Legend, or in our own middle ages, he alike infuses into all his subjects the spirit of the romantic. That spirit which at once invests every thing which it touches with the vitality of beauty, of tenderness, and of purity heavenly, and yet--

"Not too good For human nature's daily food."

Alfred Tennyson loves to individualize; to select some person or scene from the multitude or the mass, and to throw himself wholly into it. From the heart of this personage or group of personages he speaks for the time, the unerring oracle of human nature. We are seized, engrossed, charmed, entranced, for the space of this impersonation; for it is human nature in all the power and beauty of its greatness, of its passions and its sufferings, of its eternal yearnings and its unquenchable love, its daring, its crime and desolation, that unfolds to you its history and its inner life. There is no man, except Shakspeare, who has more thoroughly and eminently possessed this faculty of interpretation, of comprehending and giving voice to the infinite laws and movements of universal humanity; and there is no other who has been endowed for the purpose with a gift of speech so rich, genial, and specially demonstrative. We have no misgivings, as we read Tennyson, whether any thing be poetry or not; we have no feeling of a want in the phraseology. Thought, language, imagery, all flow together from one source; that of a genius creative in all the attributes of life, or in the life itself--in color, taste, motion, grace, and sentiment. Whatever is produced, lives. It is no dead form; it is no half-sentient form; it is perfect in spirit, in beauty, and in abode.

The poetry of Tennyson, like that of Shakspeare, seems to possess a music of its own. It is evidently evolved amid the intense play of melodies which are as much a part of the individual mind itself, as the harmonies of nature are a part of nature. Like Shakspeare, Tennyson is especially fond of, or rather haunted by musical refrains, and airs that are not invented but struck out; that can not be conceived by any labor of thought, but are inspired; and that once communicated to the atmosphere, will go chiming on forever.

"Motions flow To one another, even as though They were modulated so To an unheard melody, Which lives about them, and a sweep Of richest pauses evermore Drawn from each other, mellow--deep."

Of these refrains, Oriana, and the Lady of Shalott, present striking examples.

"When Norland winds pipe down the sea, Oriana, I walk, I dare not think of thee, Oriana. Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree, I dare not die and come to thee, Oriana. I hear the roaring of the sea, Oriana."

Or you may take the very first little melody with which this volume opens.

CLARIBEL.

"Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose leaves fall: But the solemn oak tree sigheth, Thick-leaved ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth.

"At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone, At noon the wild bee hummeth, About the mossed head-stone: At midnight the moon cometh And looketh down alone. Her song the lintwhite swelleth, The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, The fledgling throstle lispeth, The slumberous wave outwelleth, The babbling runnel crispeth, The hollow gust replieth, Where Claribel low-lieth."

This little poem derives its charm, much easier to feel than to describe, from the instinctive selection of the most exquisitely beautiful imagery, and the most felicitous phraseology. Nature, with her loveliest attributes, is made to express the regrets of affection.