The “Romantic Ballads” which he translated in his youth from the old Danish and from Œhlenschlaeger are exceedingly interesting because of their matter: the legends include some of the great ones of the Northern world. But Borrow’s verse would provide a deep disappointment for any reader who, having made acquaintance with his prose through “Lavengro,” for example, had conceived high expectations of his poetry. The copy which lies before me is an exceedingly interesting one. I am indebted for its use to Mr. Francis Edwards, the bookseller in Marylebone; whose property it is. The volume is in the original coloured boards as it was issued from the press of S. Wilkin at Norwich in 1826. It was Borrow’s own copy. In it he had erased many lines and stanzas, and written, either in ink or pencil, others to take their place. There is no record of the date at which this revision was undertaken—doubtless with a view to a second edition which was never called for,—but the evidence of the handwriting shows that it was done in his youth, during the “veiled period,” and probably before 1830. The finnicking calligraphy—plain to read, and full of character, but exceedingly fine and minute—is his early style, the style of the letters to Bowring, and not that of the later period when he rushed through his manuscripts in odd notebooks and on the backs of old accounts or envelopes.
The book illustrates the fact that at this time the Bowring influence was strong on him, and that he and Bowring were on cordial terms. The title-page is adorned by a quatrain of Bowring’s:
“Through gloomy paths unknown,
Paths which untrodden be,
From rock to rock I roam
Along the dashing sea.”
The opening pages are occupied by a poetical address to Borrow from Allan Cunningham, whose encouragement and praise had prompted him to issue the work. Cunningham apostrophises him in numbers like these:
“Sing, sing, my friend! Breathe life again
Through Norway’s song and Denmark’s strain.”
A few examples from among the many manuscript amendments made by Borrow—which Mr. Edwards has courteously permitted me to give—will let some light into the mental workshop of the versifier. In the ballad of “The Death Raven” Dame Sigrid is lying on the deck of the ship watching the setting of the sun:
Original.
“Then all at once the smiling sky drew dark,
The breaker’s raved, and sinking seemed the bark;
The wild Death Raven, perched upon the mast,
Screamed ’mid the tumult and awoke the blast.”“The foam-clad billows to repose he brought,
And tamed the tempest with the speed of thought.”“Above her head its leaf the aspen shook,
Moist as her cheek and pallid as her look.”
Revision.