A BARREN MOOR.
Night—Mist and fog.
Enter Firmilian.
They’re hot upon my traces! Through the mist
I heard their call and answer—and but now,
As I was crouching ’neath a hawthorn bush,
A dark Familiar swiftly glided by,
His keen eyes glittering with the lust of death.
If I am ta’en, the faggot and the pile
Await me! Horror! Rather would I dare,
Like rash Empedocles, the Etna gulf,
Than writhe before the slaves of bigotry.
Where am I? If my mind deceives me not,
Upon that common where, two years ago,
An old blind beggar came and craved an alms,
Thereby destroying a stupendous thought
Just bursting in my mind—a glorious bud
Of poesy, but blasted ere its bloom!
I bade the old fool take the leftward path,
Which leads to the deep quarry, where he fell—
At least I deem so, for I heard a splash—
But I was gazing on the gibbous moon,
And durst not lower my celestial flight
To care for such an insect-worm as he!
How cold it is! The mist comes thicker on.
Ha!—what is that? I see around me lights
Dancing and flitting, yet they do not seem
Like torches either—and there’s music too!
I’ll pause and listen.
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
Follow, follow, follow!
Over hill and over hollow;
It is ours to lead the way,
When a sinner’s footsteps stray—
Cheering him with light and song,
On his doubtful path along.
Hark, hark! The watch-dogs bark.
There’s a crash, and a splash, and a blind man’s cry,
But the Poet looks tranquilly up at the sky!
Firmilian.
Is it the echo of an inward voice,
Or spirit-words that make my flesh to creep,
And send the cold blood choking to my heart?
I’ll shift my ground a little—
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
Flicker, flicker, flicker!
Quicker still, and quicker.
Four young men sate down to dine,
And still they passed the rosy wine;
Pure was the cask, but in the flask
There lay a certain deadly powder—
Ha! his heart is beating louder!
Ere the day had passed away,
Garcia Perez lifeless lay!
Hark! his mother wails Alphonzo,
Never more shall strong Alonzo
Drink the wine of Ildefronso!
Firmilian.
O horror! horror! ’twas by me they died!
I’ll move yet farther on—
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
In the vaults under
Bursts the red thunder;
Up goes the cathedral,
Priest, people, and bedral!
Ho! ho! ho! ho!
Firmilian.
My brain is whirling like a potter’s wheel!
O Nemesis!
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
The Muses sing in their charmed ring,
And Apollo weeps for him who sleeps,
Alas! on a hard and a stony pillow—
Haverillo! Haverillo!
Firmilian.
I shall go mad!
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
Give him some respite—give him some praise—
One good deed he has done in his days;
Chaunt it, and sing it, and tell it in chorus—
He has flattened the cockscomb of Apollodorus!
Firmilian.
Small comfort that! The death of a shard-beetle,
Albeit the poorest and the paltriest thing
That crawls round refuse, cannot weigh a grain
Against the ponderous avalanche of guilt
That hangs above me! O me miserable!
I’ll grope my way yet further.
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
Firmilian! Firmilian!
What have you done to Lilian?
There a cry from the grotto, a sob by the stream,
A woman’s loud wailing, a little babe’s scream!
How fared it with Lilian,
In the pavilion,
Firmilian, Firmilian?
Firmilian.
Horror! I’m lost!—
Chorus of Ignes Fatui.
Ho! ho! ho!
Deep in the snow
Lies a black maiden from Africa’s shore!
Hasten, and shake her—
You never shall wake her—
She’ll roam through the glens of the Atlas no more!
Stay, stay, stay!
This way—this way—
There’s a pit before, and a pit behind,
And the seeing man walks in the path of the blind!
[Firmilian falls into the quarry. The Ignes Fatui dance as the curtain descends.
And so ends the tragedy of Firmilian.
It is rather difficult to give a serious opinion upon the merits of such a production as this. It is, of course, utterly extravagant; but so are the whole of the writings of the poets of the Spasmodic school; and, in the eyes of a considerable body of modern critics, extravagance is regarded as a proof of extraordinary genius. It is, here and there, highly coloured; but that also is looked upon as a symptom of the divine afflatus, and rather prized than otherwise. In one point of proclaimed spasmodic excellence, perhaps it fails. You can always tell what Percy Jones is after, even when he is dealing with “shuddering stars,” “gibbous moons,” “imposthumes of hell,” and the like; whereas you may read through twenty pages of the more ordinary stuff without being able to discern what the writers mean—and no wonder, for they really mean nothing. They are simply writing nonsense-verses; but they contrive, by blazing away whole rounds of metaphor, to mask their absolute poverty of thought, and to convey the impression that there must be something stupendous under so heavy a canopy of smoke. If, therefore, intelligibility, which is the highest degree of obscurity, is to be considered a poetic excellence, we are afraid that Jones must yield the palm to several of his contemporaries; if, on the contrary, perspicuity is to be regarded as a virtue, we do not hesitate in assigning the spasmodic prize to the author of Firmilian. To him the old lines on Marlowe, with the alteration of the name, might be applied—
“Next Percy Jones, bathed in the Thespian Springs,
Had in him those brave sublunary Things
That your first Poets had; his Raptures were
All Air and Fire, which made his Verses clear;
For that fierce Madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a Poet’s Brain.”