‘Like angels’ visits, few and far between’—
is a borrowed one.[[62]] But in the Gertrude of Wyoming ‘we perceive a softness coming over the heart of the author, and the scales and crust of formality, that fence in his couplets and give them a somewhat glittering and rigid appearance, fall off,’ and he has succeeded in engrafting the wild and more expansive interest of the romantic school of poetry on classic elegance and precision. After the poem we have just named, Mr. Campbell’s Songs are the happiest efforts of his Muse:—breathing freshness, blushing like the morn, they seem, like clustering roses, to weave a chaplet for love and liberty; or their bleeding words gush out in mournful and hurried succession, like ‘ruddy drops that visit the sad heart’ of thoughtful Humanity. The Battle of Hohenlinden is of all modern compositions the most lyrical in spirit and in sound. To justify this encomium, we need only recall the lines to the reader’s memory.
‘On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
‘But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.