This rural beauty, who caused such terrible devastation, and who, it is said, first made a poet of her lover, became afterwards his wife; and in her matronly character, she inspired that beautiful little effusion of conjugal tenderness, "The Poet's Bridal Song." When first published, it was almost universally copied, and committed to memory; and Allan Cunningham may not only boast that he has woven a wreath "to grace his Jean,"
While rivers flow and woods are green,
but that he has given the sweet wife, seated among her children in sedate and matronly loveliness, an interest even beyond that which belongs to the young girl he has described with raven locks and cheeks of cream, driving rustic admirers to despair, or lingering with her lover at eve,
—Amid the falling dew,
When looks were fond, and words were few!
Such is the charm of affection, and truth, and moral feeling, carried straight into the heart by poetry!
What a new interest and charm will be given to many of Moore's beautiful songs, when we are allowed to trace the feeling that inspired them, whether derived from some immediate and present impression; or from remembered emotion, that sometimes swells in the breast, like the heaving of the waves, when the winds are still! Several of the most charming of his lyrics are said to be inspired by "the heart so warm, and eyes so bright," which first taught him the value of domestic happiness;—taught him that the true poet need not rove abroad for themes of song, but may kindle his genius at the flame which glows on his own hearth, and make the Muses his household goddesses.[166]
Gifford, the late editor of the Quarterly Review, and the author of the Baviad and Mæviad, was in early youth doomed to struggle with poverty, obscurity, ill health, and every hardship which could check the rise of genius. He has himself described the effect produced on his mind, under these circumstances, by his attachment to an amiable and gentle girl. "I crept on," he says, "in silent discontent, unfriended and unpitied; indignant at the present, careless of the future,—an object at once of apprehension and dislike. From this state of abjectness, I was raised by a young woman of my own class. She was a neighbour; and whenever I took my solitary walk with my Wolfius in my pocket, she usually came to the door, and by a smile, or a short question, put in the friendliest manner, endeavoured to solicit my attention. My heart had been long shut to kindness; but the sentiment was not dead within me; it revived at the first encouraging word; and the gratitude I felt for it, was the first pleasing sensation I had ventured to entertain for many dreary months."
There are two little effusions inserted in the notes to the Baviad and Mæviad, which have since been multiplied by copies, and have found their way into almost all collections of lyric poetry and "Elegant Extracts;" one of these was composed during the life of Anna; the other, written after her death, and beginning,
I wish I were where Anna lies,
For I am sick of lingering here,
is extremely striking from its unadorned simplicity and profound pathos.—Such was not the prevailing style of amatory verse at the time it was written, nearly fifty years ago. Mr. Gifford never married; and the effect of this early disappointment could be traced in his mind and constitution to the last moments of his life.