Flushes a guilty moment, and falls back
In the red earthquake’s bosom.
The tragedy violates, in some of its details, the facts of history. Thus Aylmere, instead of being defeated and betrayed, as in the real story, perishes, in the drama, at the very hour that the charter is granted. The change enables the author to give a fine artistic scene as his closing one. Marianne, the wife, having been separated from her husband at the outset of the insurrection, falls into the power of Lord Say. While thus a prisoner she is accosted with dishonorable proposals by Lord Clifford, whom she stabs to escape indignity. For this heroic act she is thrown into the castle dungeon, scourged, and visited with other brutalities, till she loses her reason. Escaping eventually, she rejoins her husband. In Aylmere’s last interview with Lord Say, when the latter, dying, poniards the former, she rushes in, her intellect restored, as is often the case before death, and perishes with her lord. This furnishes the material for the closing scene, which is most dramatically conceived. Clasping the fair corpse in his arms, the hero is himself sinking into death, when suddenly loud huzzas in the street, call him back to life. He starts up with a wild cry of exultation, and asks eagerly what it means. The attendants reply, “the charter!” and, as they speak, the parchment, duly sealed, is brought triumphantly in. Aylmere rushes to it, kisses it, clasps it to his bosom, and exclaiming that the bondmen are avenged and England free, totters toward Marianne, falls, and dies.
But the drama is not the only poem in the volume, for some fifty fugitive pieces ensue, the chance contributions of a life devoted generally to pursuits more stern. Several of the last of these originally appeared in the pages of this magazine: we may mention “The Sons of the Wilderness,” and the “Sonnets on the Lord’s Prayer.” Generally they are distinguished by great felicity of expression, a vigorous imagination, touches of exquisite pathos, and a lofty scorn of whatever is base, cruel, or wrong. As examples of the gentler mood of the author’s muse, we would point out two poems, which evidently relate to a mother and her daughter: the first, “Lines on the death of a Young Married Lady,” and the second, “To Maggie.” The sonnet, “To My Wife,” is also very beautiful. As specimens of Judge Conrad’s more indignant mood, we refer to the sonnets, “On the Invasion of the Roman Republic,” and to “Fear.”
The poem, “To My Brother,” is one that would have made the author’s reputation, even if he had written nothing else; and “Freedom” contains stanzas that but few other living poets could have penned. To say that it exhibits the power of the fourth canto of “Childe Harold,” would imply imitation, of which certainly no one can accuse Judge Conrad. But we may remark that it has the same nervous style, the same exalted imagination, with an original conception that is all its own. In perusing this and other poems in this volume we instinctively regret that Judge Conrad has not devoted himself entirely to poetry. Such powers as his, concentrated on a pursuit so congenial to him, could not but have produced results that would have adorned American literature, not only temporarily, but throughout all time.
We cannot take leave of our author without going back to the dedication, which is addressed to the poet’s father, and which, though often quoted in print since the appearance of the book, we venture to quote again.
TO JOHN CONRAD, ESQ.
How much that Young Time gave hath Old Time ta’en;
Snatching his blessings back with churlish haste,
And leaving life a wreck-encumbered waste!