Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile,
Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile.
How often we forget, all time, when lone,
Admiring Nature's universal throne,
Her woods, her wilds, her waters, the intense
Reply of hers to our intelligence!
Live not the stars and mountains? Are the waves
Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves
Without a feeling in their silent tears?
No, no;-they woo and clasp us to their spheres,
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before
Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore.
Strip off this fond and false identity!-
Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky?
And who, though gazing lower, ever thought,
In the young moments ere the heart is taught
Time's lesson, of man's baseness or his own?
All nature is his realm, and Love his throne.
Neuha arose, and Torquil; twilight's hour
Came sad and softly to their rocky bower,
Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars,
Echoed their dim light to the mustering stars.
Slowly the pair, partaking Nature's calm,
Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm;
Now smiling and now silent, as the scene;
Lovely as Love-the spirit! when serene.
The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his swell,
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell*
* If the reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell on his chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the text should appear obscure, he will find in "Gebir" the same idea better expressed in two lines-The poem I never read, but have heard the lines quoted by a more recondite reader who seems to be of a different opinion from the Editor of the Quarterly Review, who qualified it, in his answer to the Critical Review
As, far divided from his parent deep,
The sea born infant cries, and will not sleep,
Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave
For the broad bosom of his nursing wave:
The woods drooped darkly, as inclined to rest,
The Tropic bird wheeled rockward to his nest,
And the blue sky spread round them like a lake
Of peace, where piety her thirst might slake.
But through the palm and plaintain, hark, a voice!
Not such as would have been a lover's choice,
In such an hour, to break the air so still;
No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill,
Striking the strings of Nature, rock and tree,
Those best and earliest lyres of harmony,
With echo for their chorus; nor the alarm
Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm;
Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl,
Exhaling all his solitary soul,
The dim though large-eyed winged anchorite,
Who peals his dreary pean o'er the night;—
But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill
As ever startled through a sea-bird's bill;
And then a pause, and then a hoarse "Hallo!
Torquil! my boy! what cheer? Ho, brother, ho!"
"Who hails?" cried Torquil; following with his eye
"Here's one," was all the brief reply.
But here the berald of the self-same mouth
Came breathing o'er the aromatic south,
er of his Juvenal, as trash of the worst and most insane description. It is to Mr. Landor, the author of Gebir, so qualified, and of some Latin poems, which vie with Martial or Catullus in obscenity, that the immacuLate Mr. Southey addresses his declamation against impurity!
Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale,
But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale,
Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown
Its gentle odours over either zone,
And puffed where'er winds rise or waters roll,
And wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
Opposed its vapour as the lightning flashed,
And reeked, midst mountain-billows unabash'd,
To Eolus a constant sacrifice,
Through every change of all the varying skies.
And what was he who bore it?—I may err,
But deem him sailor or philosopher.*
Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
Cheers the Tar's labour or the Turkman's rest;
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand;
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe,
When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress
More dazzling when daring in full dress;
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties-Give me a cigar!
Through the approaching darkness of the wood
A human figure broke the solitude,
Fantastically, it may be, arrayed,
A seaman in a savage masquerade;
Such as appears to rise out from the deep,
When o'er the Line the merry vessels sweep,
*Hobbes, the father of Locke's and other philosophy, was an inveterate smoker, even to pipes beyond computation."
And the rough Saturnalia of the Tar
Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's borrowed car;*
And pleased the God of Ocean sees his name
Revive once more, though but in mimic game
Of his true sons, who riot in a breeze
Undreamt of in his native Cyclades.
Still the old god delights, from out the main,
To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign.
Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim,
His constant pipe, which never yet burned dim,
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait,
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state;
But then a sort of kerchief round his head,
Not over tightly bound, nor nicely spread;
And stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn!
For even the mildest woods will have their thorn)
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat
Now served for inexpressibles and hat;
His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face,
Perchance might suit alike with either race.
His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth,
Which two worlds bless for civilizing both;
The musket swung behind his shoulders broad,
And somewhat stooped by his marine abode,
But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath,
His cutlass drooped, unconscious of a sheath,
Or lost or worn away; his pistols were
Linked to his belt, a matrimonial pair-
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff,
Though one missed fire, the other would go off;)
These, with a bayonet, not so freed from rust
As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust,
*This rough but jovial ceremony, used in crossing the Line, has been se often and so well described, that it need not be more than alluded to.
Completed his accoutrements, as Night
Surveyed him in his garb heteroclite.
"What cheer, Ben Bunting?" cried (when in full view Our new acquaintance) Torquil, “ Aught of new?” "Ey, ey," quoth Ben," not new, but news enow; A strange sail in the offing."—"Sail! and how? What! could you make her out? It cannot be; I've seen no rag of canvass on the sea.
"Belike," said Ben, "you might not from the bay,
But from the bluff-head, where I watched to-day,
I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind
Was light and baffling."-" When the sun declin'd
Where lay she? had she anchored?"-" No, but still
She bore down on us, till the wind grew still."
“Her flag?”—“I had no glass; but fore and aft,
Egad, she seemed a wicked looking craft."
"Armed?"- "I expect so:-sent on the look-out;—
'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about."
"About?-Whate'er may have us now in chace,
We'll make no running fight, for that were base;
We will die at our quarters, like true men.'
"Ey, ey; for that, 'tis all the same to Ben."
"Does Christian know this?"" Aye; he has piped all To quarters. They are furbishing the stands Of arms; and we have got some guns to bear,
And scaled them. You are wanted."-"That's but fair;
And if it were not, mine is not the soul
To leave my comrades helpless on the shoal.
My Neuha! ah! and must my fate pursue
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true?
But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha! now
Unman me not; the hour will not allow
|