The first is a song of Harvest-Home, supposed to be sung by a company of reapers.
It must be mentioned that this and the other songs had the advantage of being set to music by John Hullah. The next, “Love is not a feeling to pass away,” was a great favourite at the time. We quote the first stanza, the last line of which recalls the little song in the Pickwick Papers:
“Love is not a feeling to pass away,
Like the balmy breath of a summer day;
It is not—it cannot be—laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide.
It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me!
As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.”
The next is a Bacchanalian song, supposed to be sung by a country squire.
But the gem of all these little lyrics, in our opinion, is that of “Autumn Leaves,” of which the refrain strikes us as being peculiarly happy. The reader, however, shall judge for himself, from the following quotation:—
“Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!
How like the hopes of childhood’s day,
Thick clustering on the bough!
How like those hopes is their decay,
How faded are they now!
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear!”
The next lyric, “The Child and the Old Man,” was sung by Braham at different concerts, long after the piece from which it is taken, had been forgotten, and was almost invariably encored.
Mr. Dickens’s poetical attempts have not, however, been confined to song-writing. In 1842 he wrote for a friend a very fine Prologue to a new tragedy. Mr. Westland Marston came to London in his twenty-first year, and resolved to try his success in the world of letters: after writing for several of the second-class magazines, he finished his tragedy of the “Patrician’s Daughter,” and introduced himself to Mr. Dickens, who became interested in the play. Struck with the novelty of “a coat-and-breeches tragedy,” the good-tempered novelist recommended Macready to produce it, and after some little hesitation, this distinguished actor took himself the chief character—Mordaunt,—and also recited a prologue by Mr. Dickens, [336] from which we quote a few lines.
Impressing the audience strongly with the scope and purpose of what they had come to see, this prologue thoroughly prepared them for welcome and applause. The strength and truth of some of the concluding lines address themselves equally to a larger audience.
“No tale of streaming plumes and harness bright
Dwells on the poet’s maiden theme to-night.