THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT. 281 I wander on in thoughtful care, And spirit-sounds come answering this "There, where thou art not, there is bliss!" THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT. "Who does not recollect the exultation of Vaillant over a flower in the torrid wastes of Africa? The affecting mention of the influence of a flower upon the mind, by Mungo Park, in a time of suffering and despondency, in the heart of the same savage country, is familiar to every HowITT's Book of the Seasons. one." WHY art thou thus in thy beauty cast, O lonely, loneliest flower; Where the sound of song hath never pass'd From human hearth or bower? I pity thee, for thy heart of love, Would breathe out joy with each wind to rove— I pity thee, for thy wasted bloom, For the desert place, thy living tomb- I said-but a low voice made reply, "Lament not for the flower! Though its blossoms all unmark'd must die, “Though it bloom afar from the minstrel's way, And the paths where lovers tread; Yet strength and hope, like an inborn day, "Yes! dews more sweet than ever fell Were shaken forth, from its purple bell, “A wanderer came, as a stricken deer, "And dreams of home in a troubled tide As he lay down by the fountain side, "But his glance was caught by the desert's flower, The precious boon of Heaven; And sudden hope, like a vernal shower, To his fainting heart was given. "For the bright flower spoke of one above; Of the presence felt to brood. With a spirit of pervading love, O'er the wildest solitude. "Oh! the seed was thrown those wastes among In a bless'd and gracious hour, For the lorn one rose in heart made strong, SCENES, ETC., from goethe's "TASSO.' 99 283 TROUBADOUR SONG. THEY rear'd no trophy o'er his grave, A shiver'd spear, a cloven shield, He lies not where his fathers sleep, SCENES AND PASSAGES FROM THE "TASSO" OF GOETHE.' THE dramatic poem of "Tasso," though presenting no changeful pageants of many-coloured life-no combination of stirring incidents, nor conflict of tempestuous passions-is yet rich in interest for those who find 1 The first of a series of papers, to be entitled "German Studies," which the Author had proposed to herself to write. The unfinished fragment by which this is followed, was the commencement of a paper in continuation of the same series. "The still small music of humanity To chasten and subdue." It is a picture of the struggle between elements which never can assimilate-powers whose dominion is over spheres essentially adverse; between the spirit of poetry and the spirit of the world. Why is it that this collision is almost invariably fatal to the gentler and the holier nature? Some master-minds have, indeed, winged their way through the tumults of crowded life, like the sea-bird cleaving the storm from which its pinions come forth unstained; but there needs a celestial panoply, with which few indeed are gifted, to bear the heirs of genius not only unwounded, but unsoiled, through the battle; and too frequently the result of the poet's lingering afar from his better home has been mental degradation and untimely death. Let us not be understood as requiring for his well-being an absolute seclusion from the world and its interests. His nature, if the abiding-place of the true light be indeed within him, is endowed above all others with the tenderest and most widely-embracing sympathies. Not alone from "the things of the everlasting hills," from the storms or the silence of midnight skies, will he seek the grandeur and the beauty which have their central residence in a far more majestic temple. Mountains, and rivers, and mighty woods, the cathedrals of nature-these will have their part in his pictures; but their colouring and shadows will not be wholly the gift of rising or departing suns, nor of the night with all her stars; it will be a varying suffusion from the life within, from the glowing clouds SCENES, ETC., FROM GOETHE'S "TASSO." 285 of thought and feeling, which mantle with their changeful drapery all external creation. "We receive but what we give, And in our life alone does nature live." S41 15.63 Let the poet bear into the recesses of woods and shadowy hills a heart full-fraught with the sympathies which will have been fostered by intercourse with his kind-a memory covered with the secret inscriptions which joy and sorrow fail not indelibly to write-then will the voice of every stream respond to him in tones of gladness or melancholy, accordant with those of his own soul; and he himself, by the might of feelings intensely human, may breathe the living spirit of the oracle into the resounding cavern or the whispering oak. We thus admit it essential to his high office, that the chambers of imagery in the heart of the poet must be filled with materials moulded from the sorrows, the affections, the fiery trials, and immortal longings of the human soul. Where love, and faith, and anguish, meet and contend; where the tones of prayer are wrung from the suffering spirit-there lie his veins of treasure; there are the sweet waters ready to flow from the stricken rock. But he will not seek them through the gaudy and hurrying masque of artificial life; he will not be the fettered Samson to make sport for the sons and daughters of fashion. Whilst he shuns no brotherly communion with his kind, he will ever reserve to his nature the power of self-communion, silent hours for "The harvest of the quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart," and inviolate retreats in the depths of his being |