Alas! the setting sun The fruitful mother late, Whom, when the daughters of Arabia named, She wanders o'er the desert-sands A wretched widow now; The fruitful mother of so fair a race, She wanders o'er the wilderness. No tear relieved the burden of her heart; And, looking up to her fixed countenance, The pious sufferer cried: * She cast her eyes around: Alas! no tents were there Beside the bending sands; No palm-tree rose to spot the wilderness; The dark blue sky closed round And rested like a dome Upon the circling waste She cast her eyes around, Famine and thirst were there; And then the wretched mother bowed her head And wept upon her child." During nearly the first forty years of this century did Southey devote himself, as long as his powers lasted, to an honourable activity in his country's literature, associating, like Scott, in genial companionship with all the good and great in the same cause: the record of his life, (his son is now giving it to the world,) like the inimitable biography of Scott, is not only a personal narrative, but a history of the literature of our times. I know not where you could look for that history so agreeably told as in these two biographies.* *My brother was an earnest admirer of Southey, not only of his prose and verse, but of his personal character as revealed in his writings; and I well remember the triumphant pleasure he felt and expressed to me when the fact was revealed, a few years ago, that Southey was not responsible for the ancient acrimony of the Quarterly Review toward this country. He seemed to exult that his favourite had not maligned his country. While he was in England last summer, he visited Miss Southey at Keswick; and I am tempted to make an extract from one of his letters home, if only to illustrate the gentle habit of his mind and current of his thoughts: "As we parted,” he says, "Katharine Southey said she supposed I wished to see the church. I said we were on our way there, and she at once offered herself and the children for an escort through the fields. The children, Edith, and Bertha, and Robert, were sweet, loving, little bodies, who kept close to us during the whole visit. A short walk along the hedges -it was a beautiful day-brought us to the churchyard, and opposite the gate. Miss Southey said she would wait for us and the children. They had a winning, affectionate way, that would have charmed you, of taking us by the hand and leading the way. We went into the church, and saw the very impressive recumbent statue of Southey; these recumbent monumental figures are always imposing and solemn, this one peculiarly so. The children then took us to Southey's grave. While there, the little boy, putting his hands on the tomb, said to his sister, Edy, who in here?' and she told him, 'Grandfather.' This did not seem to satisfy him, for, coming back, he renewed his question, 'Edy, who in here?' and then she varied her young rhetoric, and said, 'Aunt Katy's father and mother.' One spoils, I fear, this prattle in repeating it, but on the spot, and with all the asoociations, it was delightful." MS. Letter, 19 June, 1854. About the time this letter In this rapid and very inadequate view of contemporary literature, I have reserved little space for an influence which is felt most amply and gratefully where it is felt at all, and which, in my belief, will prove the most was written, or not long after, Southey's second wife, better known as Caroline Bowles, died in a distant part of England; and since her death some very interesting though painful letters from her, descriptive of Southey's latter days of fading or faded intellect, have found their way into the newspapers. I am tempted to make short extracts from two of these, dated in 1840, which seem to me very touching: "Nothing gratifying, nothing hopeful, have I now to tell, though there is still great cause for thankfulness in continued exemption from all acute pain and bodily suffering; but I think there is increased feebleness; and certainly, from week to week, the mental failure progresses. Spark after spark goes out of the little light now left. Yet a capacity for enjoyment remains; and, God be thanked! and in his way, he still lives in his books, taking, to all appearance, as much delight in them as ever. I have no doubt, however, that there is at times a painful consciousness of his condition." "Of late my dear husband has been less restless in the day-time, sitting quietly on the sofa, turning over his leaves for an hour or two at a time, so that I have been able to occupy myself a little, as of old, with my pencil; and now my latest and perhaps last attempt satisfies even me, for I have somehow made out an excellent likeness of that dear husband, of whom there has never yet been a resembling portrait. Here is a chapter of egotism, but never was Raphael so contented with the most glorious of his works as I with this, my poor defective drawing. 'Yes, this me,' was the remark of my dear husband when I showed it to him." I cannot refrain from still farther extending this note by a poem commemorative of Southey by Landor, which I find in the Annual Register for 1853-a book, by-the-by, let me say, where year after year, when there is any current poetry, beautiful selections are always to be found. It is quoted from "The Last Fruits of an Old Tree:” "It was a dream, (ah! what is not a dream?) In which I wandered through a boundless space permanent poetic influence of these times: I refer, I need hardly add, to the poetry of Wordsworth, of which, it might have been expected, I would have made room to speak more at large. I should certainly have rejoiced in But who conducted me? That gentle Power, I was among the Shades, (if Shades they were,) Of Alighieri, trustier far than he, Higher in intellect, more conversant With earth and heaven, and what so lies between. He stood before me.-Southey. Said I, 'whom I was wishing.' Thou art he,' 'That I know,' We may And shadiest of our paths.' 'I do not ask,' The same serenity as when we walkt Along the downs of Clifton. Fifty years Have rolled behind us since that summer-tide, Nor thirty fewer since along the lake Of Lario, to Bellagio villa-crowned, Thro' the crisp waves I urged my sideling bark. the opportunity of deepening the sense of thoughtful admiration and gratitude to Wordsworth's genius in any mind that has already possessed itself of the treasures of such emotions, and possibly of persuading some so to approach that poetry as to find in it, what it can surely give to all who are willing as well as worthy to find it— a ministry of wisdom and happiness, both in the homely realities of daily life, and in the deepest spiritual recesses of our being. But such a theme transcends the limit now left for me; and I propose therefore only to notice two or three points having a connection with subjects I have already had occasion to speak of. With regard to language, an English editor of Wordsworth has said, "By no such great poet, besides Shakspeare, has the English tongue been used with equal purity, and yet such flexible command of its resources. Spenser gives us too many obsolete forms, Milton too much un-English syntax, to make either of them available for the purpose of train Amid sweet salutation off the shore From lordly Milan's proudly courteous dames.' 'I had just lost my first-born, only boy, The words were not yet spoken when the air Gentle the sire's embrace, Gentle his tone. See here He gazed into my face, then meekly said, He whom my father loves hath his reward On earth; a richer one awaits him here.'" W. B. R. |