قراءة كتاب Homes and haunts of the most eminent British poets, Vol. II (of 2)

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‏اللغة: English

Homes and haunts of the most eminent British poets, Vol. II (of 2)

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المؤلف:

Howitt William

دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

الصفحة رقم: 3

"Time have I lent—I would their debt were less—

To flowing pages of sublime distress;

And to the heroine's soul-distracting fears

I early gave my sixpences and tears;

Oft have I traveled in these tender tales,

To Darnley Cottages and Maple Vales.

* * * * * *

I've watched a wintry night on castle walls,

I've stalked by moonlight through deserted halls;

And when the weary world was sunk to rest,

I've had such sights—as may not be expressed.

"Lo! that chateau, the western tower decayed,

The peasants shun it, they are all afraid;

For there was done a deed! could walls reveal

Or timbers tell it, how the heart would feel.

Most horrid was it:—for, behold the floor

Has stains of blood, and will be clean no more.

Hark to the winds! which, through the wide saloon,

And the long passage, send a dismal tune,—

Music that ghosts delight in; and now heed

Yon beauteous nymph who must unmask the deed:

See! with majestic sweep she swims alone

Through rooms all dreary, guided by a groan.

Though windows rattle, and though tapestries shake,

And the feet falter every step they take,

Mid moans and gibing sprites she silent goes,

To find a something which shall soon expose

The villainies and wiles of her determined foes:

And having thus adventured, thus endured,

Fame, wealth, and lover, are for life secured.

"Much have I feared, but am no more afraid,

When some chaste beauty, by some wretch betrayed,

Is drawn away with such distracted speed

That she anticipates a dreadful deed.

Not so do I. Let solid walls impound

The captive fair, and dig a moat around:

Let there be brazen locks and bars of steel,

And keepers cruel, such as never feel.

With not a single note the purse supply,

And when she begs let men and maids deny.

Be windows those from which she dare not fall,

And help so distant 'tis in vain to call;

Still means of freedom will some power devise,

And from the baffled ruffian snatch the prize."

From all this false sublime, Crabbe was the first to free us, and to lead us into the true sublime of genuine human life. How novel at that time, and yet how thrilling, was the incident of the sea-side visitors surprised out on the sands by the rise of the tide. Here was real sublimity of distress, real display of human passion. The lady, with her children in her hand, wandering from the tea-table which had been spread on the sands, sees the boatmen asleep, the boat adrift, and the tide advancing:—

"She gazed, she trembled, and though faint her call,

It seemed like thunder to confound them all.

Their sailor-guests, the boatman and his mate,

Had drank and slept, regardless of their state;

'Awake!' they cried aloud! 'Alarm the shore!

Shout all, or never shall we reach it more!'

Alas! no shout the distant land can reach,

No eye behold them from the foggy beach:

Again they join in one loud, fearful cry,

Then cease, and eager listen for reply;

None came—the rising wind blew sadly by.

They shout once more, and then they turn aside

To see how quickly flowed the coming tide;

Between each cry they find the waters steal

On their strange prison, and new horrors feel.

Foot after foot on the contracted ground

The billows fall, and dreadful is the sound;

Less and yet less the sinking isle became,

And there was weeping, wailing, wrath, and blame."

It has been said that Crabbe's poetry is mere description, however accurate, and that he has not a spark of imagination. The charge arises from a false view of the man and his objects. He saw that the world was well supplied with what are poems of the creative faculty, that it was just as destitute of the poetry of truth and reality. He saw human life lie like waste land, as worthless of notice, while our poets and romancers

"In trim gardens took their pleasure."

He saw the vice, the ignorance, the misery, and he lifted the veil and cried—"Behold your fellow-men! Such are the multitude of your fellow-creatures, among whom you live and move. Do you want to weep over distress? Behold it there, huge, dismal, and excruciating! Do you wish for a sensation? Find it there! Follow the ruined gentleman from his gaming and his dissipation, to his squalid den and his death. Follow the grim savage, who murders his shrieking boy at sea. Follow the poor maiden to her ruin, and the parent weeping and withering under the curse of a depraved child. Go down into the abodes of ignorance, of swarming vice, of folly, and madness—and if you want a lesson, or a moral, there they are by thousands."

Crabbe knew that the true imaginative faculty had a great and comprehensive task, to dive into the depths of the human heart, to fathom the recesses and the springs of the mind, and to display all their movements under the various excitements of various passions, with the hand of a master. He has done this, and done it with unrivaled tact and vigor. Out of the scum and chaos of lowest life, he has evoked the true sublime. He has taught us that men are our proper objects of display, and that the multitude has claims on our sympathies that duty as well as taste demand obedience to. He was the first to dare these desperate and deserted walks of humanity, and prove to us that still it was humanity. At every step he revealed scenes of the truest pathos, of the profoundest interest, and gave instances of the most generous sacrifices, the most patient love, the most heroic duty, in the very abodes of unvisited wretchedness. He made us feel that these beings were men! There is no picture so touching in all the million volumes of romance, as that of the dying sailor and his sweetheart. What hero ever breathed a more beautiful devotion, or clothed it in more exquisite language, than this poor sailor youth, when believing himself dying at sea:—

"He called his friend, and prefaced with a sigh

A lover's message—'Thomas, I must die.

Would I could see my Sally, and could rest

My throbbing temples on her faithful breast,

And gazing go!—if not, this trifle take,

And say till death I wore it for her sake:

Yes, I must die—blow on, sweet breeze, blow on!

Give me one look before my life be gone,

Oh! give me that and let me not despair,

One last fond look—and now repeat the prayer.'

* * * * *

She placed a decent stone his grave above,

Neatly engraved—an offering of her love,

For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,

Awake alike to duty and the dead."

It was by these genuine vindications of our entire humanity, that Crabbe, by casting the full blaze of the sunshine of truth and genius on the real condition of the laboring population of these kingdoms, laid the foundations of that great popular feeling which prevails at the present day. Patriots and patrons of the people are now plentiful enough, but in Crabbe's day the work had to be begun; the swinish multitude had yet to be visited in their sties;

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