The Star in the East; with other Poems. By Josiah Conder. London. 1824.
There are many circumstances about this little volume, which tend powerfully to disarm criticism. In the first place, it is, for the most part, of a sacred character: taken up with those subjects which least of all admit, with propriety, either in the author or critic, the exercise of intellectual subtlety. For the practical tendency, indeed, of such compositions, both are most deeply responsible; the author who publishes, and the critic who undertakes to recommend or to censure them. But if they appear to be written with any degree of sincerity and earnestness, we naturally shrink from treating them merely as literary efforts. To interrupt the current of a reader’s sympathy in such a case, by critical objections, is not merely to deprive him of a little harmless pleasure, it is to disturb him almost in a devotional exercise. The most considerate reviewer, therefore, of a volume of sacred poetry, will think it a subject on which it is easier to say too much than too little.
In the present instance, this consideration is enforced by the unpretending tone of the volume, which bears internal evidence, for the most part, of not having been written to meet the eye of the world. It is in vain to say that this claim on the critic’s favour is nullified by publication. The author may give it up, and yet the work may retain it. We may still feel that we have no right to judge severely of what was not, at first, intended to come before our judgement at all. This of course applies only to those compositions, which indicate, by something within themselves, this freedom from the pretension of authorship. And such are most of those to which we are now bespeaking our readers’ attention.
Most of them, we say, because the first poem in the volume, The Star in the East, is of a more ambitious and less pleasing character. Although in blank verse, it is, in fact, a lyrical effusion; an ode on the rapid progress and final triumph of the Gospel. It looks like the composition of a young man: harsh and turgid in parts, but interspersed with some rather beautiful touches. The opening lines are a fair specimen.
O to have heard th’ unearthly symphonies,
Which o’er the starlight peace of Syrian skies
Came floating like a dream, that blessed night
When angel songs were heard by sinful men,
Hymning Messiah’s advent! O to have watch’d
The night with those poor shepherds, whom, when first
The glory of the Lord shed sudden day—
Day without dawn, starting from midnight, day
Brighter than morning—on those lonely hills
Strange fear surpris’d—fear lost in wondering joy,
When from th’ angelic multitude swell’d forth
The many-voicèd consonance of praise:—
Glory in th’ highest to God, and upon earth
Peace, towards men good will. But once before,
In such glad strains of joyous fellowship,
The silent earth was greeted by the heavens,
When at its first foundation they looked down
From their bright orbs, those heavenly ministries,
Hailing the new-born world with bursts of joy.
Notwithstanding beauties scattered here and there, there is an effort and constrained stateliness in the poem, very different from the rapidity and simplicity of many of the shorter lyrics, which follow under the titles of Sacred and Domestic Poems. Such, for instance, as the Poor Man’s Hymn
As much have I of worldly good
As e’er my master had:
I diet on as dainty food,
And am as richly clad,
Tho’ plain my garb, though scant my board,
As Mary’s Son and Nature’s Lord.
The manger was his infant bed,
His home, the mountain-cave,
He had not where to lay his head,
He borrow’d even his grave.
Earth yielded him no resting spot,—
Her Maker, but she knew him not.
As much the world’s good will I bear,
Its favours and applause,
As He, whose blessed name I bear,—
Hated without a cause,
Despis’d, rejected, mock’d by pride,
Betray’d, forsaken, crucified.
Why should I court my Master’s foe?
Why should I fear its frown?
Why should I seek for rest below,
Or sigh for brief renown?—
A pilgrim to a better land,
An heir of joys at God’s right hand?