The Poems of Felicia Hemans
is benevolent and social, all that favours truth and goodness, is of
universal and perpetual interest.
“These are but plain inferences from facts in the history of
literature. The plays of Dryden were written to please an audience
of a vicious taste; they may have been received with boisterous
applause, but nobody likes them now, though in their form not unsuited
to the stage; and as for the grossest scenes, any merit in the
invention is never spoken of as compensating for their abominable
coarseness. On the other hand, Milton’s Comus, though in its form
entirely antiquated, has the beautiful freshness of everlasting youth,
delights the ardent admirer of good poetry, and is always showing
new attractions to the careful critic. And where lies this immense
difference in the lasting effect of these two writers? Dryden, it is
true, fell far short of Milton in poetic genius; but the true cause
lies in this,--virtue, which is the soul of song, is wanting in the
plays of Dryden, while the poetry of Milton bears the impress of his
own magnanimity.
“We are contending for no sickly morality: we would shut out the
poet from the haunts of libertinism, not from the haunts of men; we
would have him associate with his fellows, hold intercourse with
the great minds that light up the gloom of ages, and share in the
best impulses of human nature, and not, under the influence of a too
delicate sensibility, treat only of the harmless flowers, and the
innocent birds, and the exhilarating charm of agreeable scenery;
and still less, in the spirit of a sullen misanthropy, delight in
obscure abstractions, find comfort only in solitude, and rejoice, or
pretend to rejoice, chiefly in the mountains, and the ocean, and the
low places of the earth. Their pursuit of moral beauty does not lead
to an affected admiration, or an improper idolatry of the visible
creation. The genius of the poet can impart a portion of its eloquence
to the external world, and elevate creation by connecting it with
moral associations. But descriptions, except of scenes where moral
beings are to move, possess little interest. If landscape-painting
is an inferior branch of that art, though the splendid works of
Claude demand praise without measure, landscape poetry is a kind of
affectation, an unnatural result of excessive refinement. Description
is important, but subordinate. The external world, with all its
gorgeousness and varied forms of beauty; the cataract, ‘with its glory
of reflected light;’ the forests, as they wave in the brilliancy of
early summer; the flowers, that are crowded in gardens, or waste their
sweetness on the desert air; ‘the noise of the hidden brook, that all
night long in the leafy months sings its quiet tune to the sleeping
woods;’ the ocean, whether reposing in tranquil majesty or tossed by
the tempest; night, when the heavens are glittering with the splendour
of the constellations; morning, when one perfect splendour beams in
the sky, and is reflected in a thousand colours from the guttering
earth--these are not the sublimest themes that awaken the energies of
the muse. It is mind, and mind only, which can exhibit the highest
beauty. The hymn of martyrdom, the strength by which the patriot girds
himself to die, ‘God’s breath in the soul of man,’ the unconquerable
power of generous passion, the hopes and sorrows of humanity--love,
devotion, and all the deep and bright springs of affection--these are
higher themes of permanent interest and exalted character.
“Here, too, we find an analogy between poetic and religious feeling.
The image of God is to be sought for, not so much in the outward world
as in the mind. No combination of inanimate matter can equal the
sublimity and wonderful power of life. To impart organic life, with
the power of reproduction, is a brighter display of Omnipotence than
any arrangement of the inanimate, material world. A swarm of flies,
as through their short existence they buzz and wheel in the summer’s
sun, offer as clear, and, to some minds, a clearer demonstration of
Omnipotence, than the everlasting, but silent, courses of the planets.
But moral life is the highest creation of divine power. We, at least,
know and can conceive of none higher. We are, therefore, not to look
for God among the rivers and the forests, nor yet among the planets
and the stars, but in the hearts of men; he is not the God of the
dead, but of the living.
“Those who accord with the general views which we have here
maintained, will be prepared to express unqualified approbation of the
literary career of Mrs Hemans. Had her writings been merely harmless,
we should not have entered into an analysis of them; but the moral
charm which is spread over them is so peculiar, so full of nature, and
truth, and deep feeling, that her productions claim at once the praise
of exquisite purity and poetic excellence. She adds the dignity of her
sex to a high sense of the duties of a poet; she writes with buoyancy,
yet with earnestness; her poems bear the impress of a character worthy
of admiration. In the pursuit of literary renown, she never forgets
what is due to feminine reserve. We perceive a mind endowed with
powers to aspire, and are still further pleased to find no unsatisfied
cravings, no passionate pursuit of remote objects, but high
endowments, graced by contentment. There is plainly the consciousness
of the various sorrow to which life is exposed, and with it the spirit
of resignation. She sets before herself a clear and exalted idea of
what a female writer should be, and is on the way to realise her own
idea of excellence. Living in domestic retirement, in a beautiful
part of Wales, it is her own feelings and her own experience which
she communicates to us. We cannot illustrate our meaning better, than
by introducing our readers at once to Mrs Hemans herself, as she
describes to us the occupations of a day.
AN HOUR OF ROMANCE.
‘There were thick leaves above me and around,
And low sweet sighs, like those of childhood’s sleep,
Amidst their dimness, and a fitful sound
As of soft showers on water,’ etc. etc.
“The poetry is here as beautiful as the scene described is quiet
and pleasing. It forms an amiable picture of the occupations of a
contemplative mind. The language, versification, and imagery, are of
great merit, the beauties of nature described by a careful observer;
the English scene is placed in happy contrast with the Eastern, and
the dream of romance pleasantly disturbed by the cheerfulness of life.
But we make but sorry work at commenting on what the reader must feel.
* * * * *
“It has been said that religion can never be made a subject of
interest in poetry. The position is a false one, refuted by the close
alliance between poetic inspiration and sacred enthusiasm. Irreligion
has certainly no place in poetry. There may have been Atheist
philosophers; an Atheist poet is an impossibility. The poet may doubt
and reason like Hamlet, but the moment he acquiesces in unbelief,
there is an end to the magic of poetry. Imagination can no longer
throw lively hues over the creation: the forests cease to be haunted;
the sea, and the air, and the heavens, to teem with life. The highest
interest, we think, attaches to Mrs Hemans’s writings, from the spirit
of Christianity which pervades them.
“The poetry of our author is tranquillising in its character, calm
and serene. We beg pardon of the lovers of excitement, but we are
seriously led to take notice of this quality as of a high merit. A
great deal has been said of the sublimity of directing the passions;
we hold it a much more difficult and a much more elevated task,
to restrain them. It may be sublime to ride on the whirlwind, and
direct the storm; but it seems to us still more sublime to appease
the storm, and still the whirlwind. Virgil, no mean authority, was
of this opinion. The French are reported to be particularly fond of
effect and display; but we remember to have read that, even in the
splendid days of Napoleon, the simplicity of vocal music surpassed
in effect the magnificence of a numerous band. It was when Napoleon
was crowned Emperor in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The Parisians,
wishing to distinguish the occasion by some novel exhibition, and to
produce a great effect, filled the orchestra with eighty harps, which
were all struck together with unequalled skill. The fashionable world
was in raptures. Presently the Pope entered, and some thirty of his
singers, who came with him from Rome, received him with the powerful
_Tu es Petrus_ of the old-fashioned Scarlatti; and the simple majesty
of the air, assisted by no instruments, annihilated in a moment the
whole effect of the preceding fanfaronade. And in literature the
public taste seems to us already weary of those productions which
aim at astonishing and producing a great effect, and there is now an
opportunity of pleasing by the serenity of contemplative excellence.
“It is the high praise of Mrs Hemans’s poetry that it is feminine. The
sex may well be pleased with her productions, for they could hardly
have a better representative in the career of letters. All her works
seem to come from the heart, to be natural and true. The poet can
give us nothing but the form under which the objects he describes
present themselves to his own mind. That form must be noble, or it is
not worthy of our consideration; it must be consistent, or it will
fail to be true. Now, in the writings of Mrs Hemans, we are shown how
life and its concerns appear to woman, and hear a mother intrusting
to verse her experience and observation. So, in ‘The Hebrew Mother,’
‘the spring-tide of nature’ swells high as she parts from her son, on
devoting him to the service of the Temple:--
‘Alas, my boy! thy gentle grasp is on me,
The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes;
And now fond thoughts arise,
And silver cords again to earth have won me,
And like a vine thou claspest my full heart--
How shall I hence depart?
‘And oh! the home whence thy bright smile hath parted,
Will it not seem as if the sunny day
Turn’d from its door away?
While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted,
I languish for thy voice, which past me still
Went like a singing rill?
‘I give thee to thy God--the God that gave thee,
A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart!
And, precious as thou art,
And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee,
My own, my beautiful, my undefiled!
And thou shalt be His child.
‘Therefore, farewell! I go--my soul may fail me,
As the hart panteth for the water-brooks,
Yearning for thy sweet looks.
But thou, my first-born! droop not, nor bewail me;
Thou in the Shadow of the Rock shalt dwell,
The Rock of Strength.--Farewell!’
“The same high feeling of maternal duty and love inspires the little
poem, ‘The Wreck,’ which every one has read. ‘The Lady of the Castle,’
‘The Grave of Körner,’ ‘The Graves of a Household,’ are all on
domestic subjects. But why do we allude to poems which are in every
one’s hands? The mother’s voice breaks out again in the piece entitled
‘Elysium.’ Children, according to the heathen mythology, were banished
to the infernal regions, and religious faith had no consolation for a
mourning parent.
‘Calm, on its leaf-strewn bier,
Unlike a gift of Nature to Decay,
Too roselike still, too beautiful, too dear,
The child at rest before its mother lay;
E’en so to pass away,