Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/504
That from its lofty altar shone,—
Though fled the priests, the votaries gone,
Still did the mighty flame burn on
Through chance and change, through good and ill,
Like its own God's eternal will,
Deep, constant, bright, unquenchable!"
We shall conclude our extracts with the following exquisite description of a calm after a storm, and of Hinda awaking from a swoon of terror on board of the war-bark of Hafed; than which last it is difficult to conceive any thing of the kind making a nearer approach to the definite distinctness of the sister-art of painting.
"How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone!
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity,—
Fresh as if day again were born,
Again upon the lap of morn!
When the light blossoms, rudely torn
And scatter'd at the whirlwind's will,
Hang floating in the pure air, still,
Filling it all with precious balm,
In gratitude for this sweet calm;
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left upon the grass and flowers
Sparkles, as 'twere that lightning gem[1]
Whose liquid flame is born of them!
When, 'stead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears,—
As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own,
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs!
When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And even that swell the tempest leaves
Is like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest—
Too newly to be quite at rest!
Such was the golden hour that broke
Upon the world when Hinda 'woke
From her long trance, and heard around
No motion but the waters' sound
Rippling against the vessel's side,
As slow it mounted o'er the tide.—
But where is she?—her eyes are dark,
Are wilder'd still—is this the bark.
The same, that from Harmosia's bay
Bore her at morn,—whose bloody way
The sea-dog tracks?—No! strange and new
Is all that meets her wondering view.
Upon a galliot's deck she lies,
Beneath no rich pavilion's shade,
No plumes to fan her sleeping eyes,
Nor jasmine on her pillow laid.
But the rude litter, roughly spread
With war-cloaks, is her homely bed,
And shawl and sash, on javelins hung
For awning, o'er her head are flung.
Shuddering she look'd around—there lay
A group of warriors in the sun
Resting their limbs, as for that day
Their ministry of death were done.
Some gazing on the drowsy sea,
Lost in unconscious reverie;
And some, who seem'd but ill to brook
That sluggish calm, with many a look
To the slack sail impatient cast,
As loose it flagg'd before the mast."
On looking back to our extracts, we feel that they give a very inadequate idea of the high and varied excellence of Mr Moore's poetry. But from a poem of four long cantos, how is it possible to give any but short and imperfect specimens? Yet though our readers may not be able, from these few passages, to judge of the design and execution of the whole poem, they will at least discover in them the hand of a master,—as a judge of painting could, from the smallest shred of a picture, decide on the skill and genius of the artist, though he saw only a bit of colouring, and the contour of a single limb. For our own parts, we are of opinion, that if Mr Moore had written nothing but the Fire-Worshippers, he would have stood in the first rank of living poets. The subject is a fine one, and admirably suited to call forth the display of his peculiar feelings and faculties. His ardent and fiery love of Liberty,—his impassioned patriotism, at times assuming the loftiest form of which that virtue is susceptible, and at others bordering upon a vague and objectless enthusiasm,—his admiration of what may be called the virtues of his native land,—valour, courage, generosity, love, and religion; an admiration which occasionally induces him to sympathise with illegitimate or extravagant exercises of such emotions,—his keen and exquisite perception of the striking, the startling, and the picturesque, in incident and situation,—his wonderful command of a rich poetical phraseology, sometimes eminently and beautifully happy, and not unfrequently overlaid with too highly-coloured ornament and decoration,—his flowing, rapid, and unobstructed versification, now gliding like a smooth and majestic river, and now like a mountain-stream dallying with the rocks, which rather seem to hasten than impede its course;—all these
- ↑ "A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen," &c.