With one peculiarity we have been very much struck—the combination of much original power with a tendency to imitate, to an almost ludicrous extent, other and contemporary poets. We find, especially in the first volume, imitations which have all the air of a theme or exercise of a young writer, sitting down deliberately to try how far he could succeed in copying the manner of some favourite author. Sometimes it is Keats, sometimes it is Tennyson, who seems to have exercised this fascination over him: he is in the condition of a bewildered musician, who can do nothing but make perpetual variations upon some original melody that has bewitched his ear. He revels with Keats in that poetic imagery and language which has a tendency to separate itself too widely from the substratum of an intelligible meaning, which ought always to be kept at least in sight. At other times he paints ideal portraits of women after the manner of Tennyson. On these last he was perfectly welcome to practise his pictorial art: he might paint as many Irenes as he pleased; but when, in his piece called "The Syrens," he recalls to mind the beautiful poem of "The Lotus Eaters!" our patience broke down—we gave him up—we closed the book in despair. However, at another time we reopened it, and read on, and we are glad we did so; for we discovered that, notwithstanding, this proneness to imitate, and often to imitate what should have been avoided, there was a vein of genuine poetry in the book, some specimens of which we shall proceed to give. It is a task which we the more readily undertake because we suspect that most readers of taste would be disposed, after a cursory perusal, to lay the book aside: they would not have the motive which prompted us to explore further, or to renew their examination.
Mr Lowell's faults lie on the surface; they cannot be disguised, nor will there be the least necessity to quote for the purpose of illustrating them. He is an egregious instance of that half excellence which we have ventured to attribute to such American poets as have come under our notice. The genius of the poet is but partially developed. The peach has ripened but on one side. We want more sun, we want more culture. To speak literally, there is a haste which leads the writer to extravagance of thought, to extravagance of language and imagery; an impatience of study, and of the long labour that alone produces the complete work. The social and economical condition of America has probably something to do with this. It is a condition more favourable to the man and the citizen than propitious to the full development of the poet. In England, or any other old established country, the educated class crowd every profession, and every avenue to employment; if a youth once gives himself up to the fascination of literature, he will probably find himself committed to it for life, and be compelled to accept as a career, what perhaps at first only tempted him as a pleasure. If he wishes to retrace his steps, and resume his place in any profession, he finds that the ranks are closed up; no opening at all presents itself—certainly none which, if he is only wavering in his resolution, will solicit his return. He has wandered from his place in the marching regiment; it has marched on without him, in close order, and there is no room for the repenting truant. Now in America there cannot yet be such over-crowding in all the recognised pursuits of life as to render it difficult or impossible for the truant to return. He is probably even invited, by tempting prospects of success, to re-enter some of those avenues of life which lead to wealth, or to civic prosperity. This must act materially upon the young poet. He indulges his predilections, yet does not feel that he has irrevocably committed himself by so doing. Or if he adopts literature as the main object and serious occupation of his life, he can at the first discouragement—he can, as soon as he has learnt the fact that authorship is a labour, as well as a pleasure—abandon his hasty choice, and adopt an easier and a more profitable career. He has not burnt his ships. They lie in the offing still; they are ready to transport him from this enchanted island to which some perverse wind has blown him, and restore him to the stable continent. Retreat is still open; he does not feel that he must here conquer or be utterly lost; there is no desperate courage, nothing to induce strenuous and indefatigable labour.
But to Mr Lowell. The first piece in his collection of poems is entitled "A Legend of Brittany." The subject is as grotesque as legendary lore could have supplied him with. A knight-templar, a soldier-priest who has taken the vow of chastity at a time and place when that vow was expected to be kept, has fallen in love with a beautiful girl. He seduces her; then to hide his own disgrace he murders her; and he buries the body, with the unborn infant, under the altar of the church! One day at high mass, when the guilty templar is there himself standing, with others, round the altar, a voice is heard, a vision is seen—it is the spirit of the murdered girl and mother. She appears—not to denounce the assassin—she regrets to expose his guilt—there is so much woman in the angel that she loves him still—she appears to claim the rite of baptism for her unborn infant, who, till that rite is performed, wanders in darkness and in pain. The legend must have received this turn during some Gorham controversy now happily forgotten. Notwithstanding the very strange nature of the whole story, there is a pleasing tenderness in this address of the spirit to the wicked templar. After glancing more in sadness than in anger at his falsehood, it continues:—
"And thou hadst never heard such words as these,
Save that in heaven I must ever be
Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this
Our unbaptisèd babe shut out from bliss.
This little spirit, with imploring eyes,
Wanders alone the dreary wild of space;
The shadow of his pain forever lies
Upon my soul in this new dwelling-place;
His loneliness makes me in paradise
More lonely; and unless I see his face,
Even here for grief could I lie down and die,
Save for my curse of immortality.
I am a mother, spirits do not shake
This much of earth from them, and I must pine,
Till I can feel his little hands, and take
His weary head upon this heart of mine.
And might it be, full gladly for his sake
Would I this solitude of bliss resign,
And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him
For ever in that silence drear and dim.
I strove to hush my soul, and would not speak
At first for thy dear sake. A woman's love
Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,
And by its weakness overcomes; I strove
To smother better thoughts with patience meek,
But still in the abyss my soul would rove,
Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim
The rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name.
I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing:
I can but long and pine the while they praise,
And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I fling
My voice to where I deem my infant stays,
Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring
Her nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace;
But still he answers not, and I but know
That heaven and earth are but alike in woe."
The sacred rite, so piteously pleaded for, was of course duly performed. This poem seems to have been written when Keats was in the ascendant, and predominated over the imagination of our author. Nor has he failed to catch a portion of the finer fancy of that exuberant poet. Such lines as the following are quite in the manner of Keats.
"The deep sky, full-hearted with the moon."
... "the nunneries of silent nooks,
The murmured longing of the wood."