The creeping tide came up along the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land 66 And never home came she. Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair A tress o' golden hair, O' drowned maiden's hair, Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, Among the stakes o' Dee." They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea; But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands o' Dee. Another poem, quite as desolate and far more painful, inasmuch as the tale of suffering is reflected back upon the author, is "The Castaway," the last verses that poor Cowper ever wrote. Every one knows that the terrible gloom which overshadowed that fine mind arose from insanity; and I know a story of madness amongst his near friends, and I believe also his blood relations, almost as affecting. In early youth I was well acquainted with two old ladies, Mrs. Theodosia and Frances Hill, sisters to the "Joe Hill," the favourite and constant friend, who figures so frequently in Cowper's correspondence. These excellent persons lived at Reading, and were conspicuous through the town for their peculiarities of dress and appearance. Shortest and smallest of women, they adhered to the costume of fifty years before, and were never seen without their high lappeted caps, the enormous hoops, brocaded gowns, ruffles, aprons, and furbelows of our grandmothers. They tottered along upon high-heeled shoes, and flirted fans emblazoned with the history of Pamela. Nevertheless such was the respect commanded by their thorough gentility, their benevolence and their courtesy, that the very boys in the streets forgot to laugh at women so blameless and so kind. An old housekeeper, who had been their waiting-maid for half a lifetime, partook of their popularity. Their brother and his wife inhabited a beautiful place in the neighbourhood (afterwards bequeathed to the celebrated Whiggish wit, Joseph Jekyl), and until the sisters approached the age of eighty, nothing could be smoother than the current of their calm and virtuous life. At that period Mrs. Theodosia, the elder, sank into imbecility, and Mrs. Frances, a woman of considerable ability and feeling, broke all at once into incurable madness. Both were pronounced to be harmless, and were left in their own house, with two or three female servants, under the care of the favourite attendant who had lived with them so long. For a considerable time no change took place; but one cold winter day, their faithful nurse left her younger charge sitting quietly by the parlour fire, and had not been gone many minutes before she was recalled by sudden screams, and found the poor maniac enveloped in flames. It was supposed that she had held her cambric handkerchief to air within the fireguard, and had thus ignited her apron and other parts of her dress. The old servant, with a true woman's courage, caught her in her arms. and was so fearfully burnt in the vain endeavour to extinguish the flames, that she expired even before her mistress, who lingered many days in dreadful agony, but without any return of recollection. The surviving sister, happily unconscious of the catastrophe, died at last of mere old age. This tragedy occurred not many years after the death of Cowper. THE CASTAWAY. Obscurest night involved the sky; No braver chief could Albion boast He loved them both, but both in vain, Not long beneath the whelming brine Nor soon he felt his strength decline, He waged with death a lasting strife, He shouted: nor his friends had failed They left their outcast mate behind And scudded still before the wind. Some succour yet they could afford And such as storms allow The cask, the coop, the floated cord, But he, they knew, nor ship nor shore Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he Yet bitter felt it still to die He long survives who lives an hour And so long he with unspent power And ever as the minutes flew Entreated help, or cried Adieu ! At length his transient respite past Could catch the sound no more. No poet wept him; but the page That tells his name, his worth, his age, And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalize the dead. I therefore purpose not or dream, To give the melancholy theme But misery still delights to trace No voice divine the storm allayed, No light propitious shone ; We perished each alone; But I beneath a rougher sea And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he. Very different, yet scarcely less melancholy, was the destiny of the writer of the following sonnet, called by Coleridge the finest in our language. Most remarkable it undoubtedly is, not merely for the grandeur of the thought, but for the beauty of the execution. In reading these lines, it is difficult to believe that the author (Blanco White) was not only born and educated in Spain, but wrote English very imperfectly until he was turned of thirty. TO NIGHT. Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame Hesperus with the host of Heaven came, And, lo! creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Most different again is the following quaint sonnet, taken from a series of sixty-three, all addressed to his mistress, and called by Drayton " Ideas." The turn of the language is exceedingly dramatic. |