From out some dreary chasm, he knows not where;
So from the sunshine and the green of Love,
We enter on our story’s darker part,’ etc.
The faults of the whole production are the necessary ones of all young writers of original power; a too ready faculty of imitation, and a lack of conciseness. The poets whom Mr. Lowell mostly reminds us of, in his faults, are Shelly and Shakspeare; the juvenile Shakspeare, we mean—Shakspeare the sonnetteer. Both in the ‘Revolt of Islam’ and ‘Tarquin and Lucrece,’ blemishes resembling his own constantly occur. It will nevertheless be gratifying to his many ardent admirers to perceive that on the whole he has exhibited a more definite approach to what he is capable of accomplishing, and that in proportion as he has grown less vague and ethereal, less fond of personifying sounds and sentiments, so has he advanced toward a more manly and enduring standard of excellence. ‘Prometheus’ is the next longest poem, and it has afforded us great gratification. It might almost be mistaken for the breath of Æschylus, except that it contains sparkles of freedom that even the warm soul of the Greek could never have felt. The first two lines glitter with light:
‘One after one the stars have risen and set,
Sparkling upon the hoar-frost on my chain.’
Although, rhyme is no tyrant to our poet, yet he seems to take a fuller swing when free from its influence; and the verse which he employs for the vehicle of his thoughts in this genuine poem is peculiarly adapted to the grandeur and dignity of his subject. This composition will stand the true test of poetry; a test which many immortal verses cannot abide, for it will bear translation into prose without loss of beauty or power: it contains more thoughts than lines, and although abounding in high poetic imaginings, the spirit of true philosophy which it contains is superior to the poetry.
Of Mr. Lowell’s shorter specimens we may remark, in contradistinction to what has been said of the Legend of Brittany, that so far as they resemble the kind of his former productions, so far in short as they are re-castings of himself, they do him injustice. We now feel that he is capable of stronger and loftier efforts, and are unwilling to overlook in his later compositions the flaws that are wilfully copied from his own volume. The public demand that he should go onward, and not wander back to dally among flowers that have been plucked before, and were then accepted for their freshness. He must devote himself to subjects of wider importance, and give his imaginations a more permanent foothold upon the hearts of men. His love-poems, though many of them would have added grace to his first collection, fail to excite our admiration equally in this. We do not say that he had exhausted panegyric before; far less would we insinuate that passion itself is exhaustible; and yet there is a point where to pause might be more graceful than to go on: ‘Sunt certi denique fines.’ Did any one ever wish that even Petrarch had written more? Mr. Lowell then ought to consider this, and begin to build upon a broader foundation than his own territory, beautiful as it may be, of private and personal fancies and affections. Perhaps there is no exception to the law that love should always be the first impulse that leads an ardent soul to poesy. (By poesy we do not mean school-exercises, and prize heroics approved by a committee of literary gentlemen.) On this account, it may be, that a young poet is always anxious to walk upon the ground where he first felt his strength, considering that a minstrel without love were as powerless, to adopt the Rev. Sidney Smith’s jocose but not altogether clerical illustration, as Sampson in a wig. Mr. Lowell evinces the firmest faith in his passion, which is evidently as sincere as it is well-bestowed. It is from this perhaps that he derives a corresponding faith in his productions, which always seems proportionate to his love of his subject. Let him be assured however that he is not always the strongest when he feels the most so, nor must he mistake the absence of this feeling for a symptom of diminished power. Should he be at any time inclined to such a self-estimate, let him refer his judgment to his ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Rhœcus.’ In his ‘Ode’ also, and his ‘Glance behind the Curtain,’ there is much to embolden him toward the highest endeavors in what he would perhaps disdain to call his Art. Poesy, notwithstanding, is an Art, which even Horace and Dryden did not scorn to consider such; and our poet ought to remember that he is bound not only to utter his own sentiments and fantasies according to his own impulse, but moreover to consult in some degree the ears of the world: the poet’s task is double; to speak FROM himself indeed, but TO the hearing of others. The contempt which a man of genius feels for the mere mechanicism of verse and rhyme may naturally enough lead him to affect an inattention to it; but in this he only benefits the school of smoother artists by allowing them at least one superiority. If he accuses them of being silly, they can retort that he is ugly.
Our author in this second volume has given the small carpers who pick at the ‘eds’ of past participles, and stickle for old-fashioned moon-shine instead of moon-shine, fewer causes of complaint. His diction is well-chosen and befitting his themes; and this is a characteristic which peculiarly marks the true artist, if it does not indicate the true genius. His execution, his ‘style of handling,’ is adapted to his subject; an excellence in which too many artists, whether painters or poets, are sadly deficient. In this respect his performances and those of his friend Page may be hung together. From the stately and dignified lines of ‘Prometheus’ to the jetty, dripping verse of ‘The Fountain,’ the step is very wide. How full of sparkling, brilliant effects are these joyous lines?
Into the sunshine,