Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]
[graphic]

F I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield. against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history -with the wisest, the wittiest-with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations-a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him. There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. It civilises the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarous.

Herschel.

WHAT IS THE POET?

WHAT is a Poet? To whom does he address himself? And what

art.

language is to be expected from him? He is a man speaking to men Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the biographer and historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered by the poet who has an adequate notion of the dignity of his The poet writes under one restriction only, namely, that of the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human being possessed of that information which may be expected from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner, an astronomer, or a natural philosopher, but as a man. Except this one restriction, there is no object standing between the poet and the image of things; between this and the biographer and historian there are a thousand.

Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be considered as a degradation of the poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledg ment of the beauty of the universe, an acknowledgment the more sincere, because it is not formal, but indirect; it is a task light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of love: further, it is a homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is propagated by pleasure. I would not be misunderstood, but wherever we sympathise with pain it will be found that the sympathy is produced and carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The man of science, the chemist and mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they may have had to struggle with, know and feel this. However painful may be the objects with which the anatomist's knowledge is connected, he feels that his knowledge is pleasure; and where he has no pleasure he has no knowledge. What then does the poet? He considers man and the objects that surround him as acting and re-acting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure; he considers man in his own

nature and in his ordinary life as contemplating this with a certain quantity of immediate knowledge, with certain convictions, intuitions, and deductions, which by habit become of the nature of intuitions; he considers him as looking upon this complex scene of ideas and sensations, and finding everywhere objects that immediately excite in him sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are accompanied by an overbalance of enjoyment.

To this knowledge which all men carry about with them, and to these sympathies in which, without any other discipline than that of our daily life, we are fitted to take delight, the poet principally directs his attention. He considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature. And thus the poet, prompted by this feeling of pleasure which accompanies him through the whole course of his studies, converses with general nature with affections akin to those which, through labour and length of time, the man of science has raised up in himself, by conversing with those parts of nature which are the objects of his studies. The knowledge both of the poet and the man of science is pleasure; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable inheritance; the other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to come to us, and by no habitual and direct sympathy connecting us with our fellow-beings. The man of science seeks. truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly com panion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science.

[merged small][graphic]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

The storm that wrecks the wintry sky
No more disturbs their deep repose
Than summer evening's latest sigh,
That shuts the rose.

I long to lay this painful head
And aching heart beneath the soil;
To slumber in that dreamless bed
From all my toil.

The Grave, that never spake before, Hath found at length a tongue to chide; Oh, listen!-I will speak no more—

Be silent, pride!

"Art thou a mourner? hast thou known
The joy of innocent delights,

Endearing days for ever flown,
And tranquil nights?

Oh, live and deeply cherish still
The sweet remembrance of the past;
Rely on Heaven's unchanging will
For peace at last.

Though long of winds and waves the sport,
Condemn'd in wretchedness to roam,
Live-thou shalt reach a sheltering port,
A quiet home.

Seek the true treasure, seldom found,
Of powers the fiercest griefs to calm;
And soothe the bosom's deepest wound
With heavenly balm.

« PreviousContinue »