The Poems of Felicia Hemans
Yet strength and hope, like an inborn day,
By its odours have been shed.
“Yes! dews more sweet than ever fell
O’er island of the blest,
Were shaken forth, from its purple bell,
On a suffering human breast.
“A wanderer came, as a stricken deer,
O’er the waste of burning sand,
He bore the wound of an Arab spear,
He fled from a ruthless band.
“And dreams of home in a troubled tide
Swept o’er his darkening eye,
As he lay down by the fountain-side,
In his mute despair to die.
“But his glance was caught by the desert’s flower,
The precious boon of heaven;
And sudden hope, like a vernal shower,
To his fainting heart was given.
“For the bright flower spoke of One above--
Of the presence felt to brood,
With a spirit of pervading love,
O’er the wildest solitude.
“Oh! the seed was thrown those wastes among
In a bless’d and gracious hour,
For the lorn one rose in heart made strong
By the lonely, loneliest flower!”
CRITIQUE BY PROFESSOR NORTON.
“The [American] collection of Mrs Hemans’ Miscellaneous Poems opens
with verses in honour of the Pilgrim Fathers. She has celebrated
with solemnity and truth the circumstances which gave sublimity to
the glorious scene of their landing; and their descendants cannot be
but pleased to see the devotedness displayed by them introduced into
poetry, and incorporated among the bright examples held up by the
inventive as well as the historic muse for the admiration of mankind.
“Freedom, not licentiousness--religious freedom, not the absence of
religious rites--was the object for which the fathers came. An air
of earnestness was thus originally imparted to the character of the
country, and succeeding ages have not worn it away. Though it may suit
the humour of moralisers to declaim against the degeneracy of the
times, we believe that the country has of late years made advances
in moral worth. We infer this from the more general diffusion of
intelligence, and the higher standard of learning; from the spirit
of healthy action pervading all classes; from the diminished number
of crimes; from the general security of property; from the rapid
multiplication of Sabbath schools, than which no discovery of our age
has been more important for the moral education of the people; from
the philanthropy which seeks for the sources of vice, and restrains it
by removing its causes; from the active and compassionate benevolence,
which does not allow itself to consider any class so vicious or so
degraded as to have forfeited its claim to humane attention--which
seeks and relieves misery wherever it is concealed, and, embracing
every continent in its regard, has its messengers in the remotest
regions of the world. Religious freedom is the last right which,
even in our days, the inhabitants of this country would surrender.
It would be easier to drive them from their houses and their lands,
than to take from them the liberty of worshipping God according to the
dictates of conscience. There is no general assertion of this right,
and no energetic display of zeal in maintaining it, solely because it
is menaced by no alarming danger.
“In a state of society like ours, there may be little room for the
exercise of those arts of which it is the chief aim to amuse and
delight; and yet attention is by no means confined to those objects
which are directly connected with the advancement of personal or
public wealth. For the costly luxuries of life, and even for its
elegant pleasures, there may as yet be little room; and still the
morality of the nation be far from forming itself on the new system of
morals devised by our political economists. There has been no age--we
assert it with confidence--there has been no people, where the efforts
of mind, directly connected with the preservation of elevated feeling
and religious earnestness, are more valued than they are by the better
part of our own community. We can no support, or we hold it not best
to support, an expensive religious establishment; but every where the
voice of religious homage and instruction is heard: we cannot set
apart large estates to give splendour to literary distinction; but you
will hardly find a retired nook, where only a few families seek their
shelter near each other, so destitute, that the elements of knowledge
are not freely taught: we cannot establish galleries for the various
works of the arts of design; but the eye that can see the beauties
of nature is common with us, and the recital of deeds of high worth
meets with ready listeners. The luxuries, which are for display, are
exceedingly little known; but the highest value is set on every effort
of mind connected with the investigation of truth, or the nurture of
generous and elevated sentiments.
“Where the public mind had been thus formed, the poetry of Mrs Hemans
was sure to find admirers. The exercise of genius, if connected with
no respect for virtue, might have remained unnoticed; the theory,
which treats of beauty as of something independent of moral effect, is
still without advocates among us. It has thus far been an undisputed
axiom that, if a production is indecent or immoral, it for that very
reason cannot claim to be considered beautiful.
“We do not go so far as to assert, that there can be no merit in works
of which the general tendency is immoral; but the merit, if there is
any, does not lie in the immoral part, in the charm that is thrown
round vice, but rather in an occasional gleam of better principles,
in nature occasionally making her voice heard above the din of the
dissolute, in the pictures of loveliness and moral truth that shine
out through the darkness. Amidst all the horrors and depravity of
superstition, the strange and the abominable vagaries of the human
imagination, exercised on religion in heathenish ignorance, the
observing mind may yet recognise the spirit that connects man with
a better world. And so it is with poetry: amidst all the confusion
which is manifest where the heavenly gift is under the control of a
corrupted judgment, something of its native lustre will still appear.
When we see the poet of transcendent genius delineating any thing but
the higher part of our nature; when we observe how, after borrowing
fiendish colours, he describes states of mind with which devils only
should have sympathy, rails at human nature in a style which spiteful
misanthropy alone can approve, or gives descriptions of sensuality
fit only for the revels of Comus; when we see him ‘hurried down the
adulterate age, adding pollutions of his own,’ we can have little to
say to excuse or to justify an admiration of poetic talent, till we
are reconciled to human nature and the muse by the pure lustre of
better-guided minds.
“In what view of the subject can it be held a proper design of poetry
to render man hateful to himself? How can it delight or instruct us to
see our fellow-men ranged under the two classes of designing villains
and weak dupes? Or what sources of poetic inspiration are left, if
all the relations of social life are held up to derision, and every
generous impulse scorned as the result of deluded confidence?
“To demand that what is called _poetical justice_ should be found
in every performance may be unreasonable, since the events of life
do not warrant us in expecting it; but we may demand what is of
much more importance, _moral justice_--a consistency of character,
a conformity of the mind to its career of action. It may not be
inconsistent with reality, though it is with probability, that an
unprincipled miscreant, governing himself in his gratifications by
the narrowest selfishness, should be successful in his pursuits;
but it is unnatural and false to give to such a nature any of the
attributes of goodness. Vice is essentially mean and low; it has no
dignity, no courage, no beauty; and while the poet can never impart
to a production, tending to promote vice, the power and interest
which belong to the worthy delineation of honourable actions, he can
never invest a false heart with the noble qualities of a generous
one. Observe in this respect the manner of the dramatic poet, who
is acknowledged to have delineated the passions with the greatest
fidelity. Shakspeare describes the mind as gradually sinking under
the influence of the master-passion. It stamps itself on the whole
soul, and obliterates all the finer traces in which humanity had
written a witness of gentler qualities. Macbeth is a moral picture of
terrific sublimity, and an illustration of that _moral_ justice which
we contend should never be wanting. The one strong passion moulds the
character, and blasts every tender sentiment. When once Othello is
jealous, his judgment is gone; the selfishness of Richard leads to
wanton cruelty. In one of Shakspeare’s tragedies, not a crime, but
a fault is the foundation of the moral interest. Here, too, he is
consistent; and the irresolution of Hamlet leaves his mind without
energy, and his contending passions without terror. We might explain
our views by examples from the comedies of the great dramatist, but
Macbeth and Richard furnish the clearest illustration of them. And it
is in such exhibitions of the power of vice to degrade, that ‘gorgeous
tragedy’ performs her severest office; lifting up the pall which hides
the ghastliness of unprincipled depravity, and showing us, where vice
gains control, the features, that before may have been resplendent
with loveliness, marred and despoiled of all their sweet expression.
“There can, then, be no more hideous fault in a literary work than
profligacy. Levity is next in order. The disposition to trifle
with topics of the highest moment--to apply the levelling principle
to the emotions of the human mind, to hold up to ridicule the
exalted thoughts and kindling aspirations of which human nature
is capable--can at best charm those only who have failed to enter
the true avenues to happiness. Such works may be popular, because
the character of the public mind may for a season be corrupt. A
literature, consisting of such works, is the greatest evil with which
a nation can be cursed. National poverty is nothing in comparison, for
poverty is remedied by prudent enterprise; but such works poison the
life-blood of the people, the moral vigour, which alone can strive for
liberty and honour. The apologists for this class of compositions,
in which Voltaire and La Fontaine are the greatest masters, defend
it on the ground that it is well adapted to give pleasure to minds
which have been accustomed to it, and that foreigners need only a
different moral education to be able to enjoy it. Now, without wasting
a word on the enormity of defending what is intrinsically sensual,
we reply merely on the score of effect. He who adapts his inventions
to a particular state of society, can please no further; he depends
on circumstances for his popularity; he does not appeal to man, but
to accidental habits, a fleeting state of the public mind; he is
the poet, not of nature, but of a transient fashion. The attraction
which comes from the strangeness or novelty of the manner is of very
little value. On the most brilliant night a meteor would be followed
by all eyes for a while; and why? Because it is as evanescent as
bright; we must gaze at once, or it will be too late. Yet the mind
soon returns to the contemplation of the eternal stars which light
up the heavens with enduring lustre. Any popularity, obtained by
gratifying a perverse taste, is essentially transitory; while all that