Once more, when the mad monk tells the sea-waves
"That ye have power and passion, and a sound
As of the flying of an angel round,
The mighty world, that ye are one with Time,"
we recognise genuine imagination.
A sympathetic reader of The Death-Wake would perhaps have expected the leprosies and lunacies to drop off, and the genius, purged of its accidents, to move into a pure transparency. The abnormal, the monstrous, the boyish elements should have been burned away in the fire of the genius of poetry. But the Muses did not so will it, and the mystic wind of the spirit of song became of less moment to Mr. Stoddart than the breeze on the loch that stirs the trout to feed. Perhaps his life was none the less happy and fortunate. Of the many brilliant men whom he knew intimately—Wilson, Aytoun, Ferrier, Glassford Bell, and others—perhaps none, not even Hogg, recognised the grace of the Muse which (in my poor opinion) Mr. Stoddart possessed. His character was not in the least degree soured by neglect or fretted by banter. Not to over-estimate oneself is a virtue very rare among poets, and certainly does not lead to public triumphs. Modesty is apt to accompany the sense of humour which alleviates life, while it is an almost insuperable bar to success.
Mr. Stoddart died on November 22nd, 1880. His last walk was to Kelso Bridge "to look at the Tweed," which now murmurs by his grave the self-same song that it sings beside Sir Walter's tomb in Dryburgh Abbey. We leave his poem to the judgment of students of poetry, and to him we say his own farewell—
Sorrow, sorrow speed away
To our angler's quiet mound,
With the old pilgrim, twilight grey,
Enter thou the holy ground.
There he sleeps, whose heart was twined
With wild stream and wandering burn,
Wooer of the western wind,
Watcher of the April morn.
A. L