Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

other selections from Proctor. We pass over them, however, to insert "The Storm," a grand example of imagination pervaded by the most powerful feeling, and throwing off images of the intensest beauty and grand

eur.

"A STORM.

"The spirits of the mighty sea

To-night are wakened from their dreams,
And upward to the tempest flee,

Baring their foreheads, where the gleams

Of lightning run, and thunders cry,
Rushing and raining through the sky.

"The spirits of the sea are waging

Loud war upon the peaceful night,
And bands of the black winds are raging
Through the tempest blue and bright;
Blowing her cloudy hair to dust

With kisses, like a madman's lust!

"What ghost now, like an Até, walketh

Earth- ocean-air? and aye with Time,
Mingled, as with a lover talketh?

Methinks their colloquy sublime

Draws anger from the sky, which raves
Over the self-abandoned waves!

"Behold! like millions massed in battle,
The trembling billows headlong go,
Lashing the barren deeps, which rattle
In mighty transport, till they grow
All fruitful in their rocky home,
And burst from frenzy into foam.

"And look! where on the faithless billows
Lie women, and men, and children fair;
Some hanging, like sleep, to their swollen pillows,
With helpless sinews and streaming hair,
And some who plunge in the yawning graves!
Ah! lives there no strength beyond the waves?

[blocks in formation]

Jean Paul says that some souls fall from heaven like flowers, but that ere the pure and fresh buds have had time to open, they are trodden in the dust of the earth, and lie soiled and crushed beneath the foul tread of some brutal hoof. It was the fate of JOHN KEATS to illustrate, in some respects, this truth. He experienced more than the ordinary share of the world's hardness of heart, and had ess than the ordinary share of sturdy strength to bear it. In him, an imagination and fancy of much natura capacity were lodged in a frame too weak to sus

hemmed

with noth

Milton still

Nothing on

tain the shocks of life, and too sensitive for the development of high and sturdy thought. The great defect of his nature was a lack of force. Since his death, it has become a common cant to speak of him as possessing something Miltonic in his genius. It seems to us that this argues a misunderstanding of Keats as well as Milton. In all the din of this world's conflicts,-surrounded by the bitterest and basest adversaries, in by calamities of the most terrible nature, ing external on which to lean for support, ever proved himself like "a seraph strong." earth was mightier than his force of will. depth and strength of his character, tested both in the endurance and repulse of evil, was the prominent element of his genius. He did not need that the wolves, and vultures, and all "those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures," should suspend their tasks out of pity for him. He could exist, though the whole pack was howling and flapping around his very dwelling. This lofty independence of circumstances, this invulnerability of soul, is a part of Milton's genius. Neither "Comus nor "Paradise Lost" could have been written

[ocr errors]

without it.

The intense

Now, Keats belongs to a class of beings entirely dif ferent. His nature was essentially sensitive. Far from being independent of others, he held his life at the mercy of others. To murder him was a cowardly murder, yet who can expect magnanimity from bullies? But, had he possessed a great nature, he would not have been murdered, though all the critics of his time had leagued against him. William Gifford kill John Milton - why, he could not kill Leigh Hunt! There is danger in admitting a doctrine which places the life of the noblest

genius at the mercy of every liar and libeller that may lift his hoof against him. Keats died because he was weak — because, from the peculiar constitution or disease of his nature, he was unfitted to struggle with the calamities which beset actual life. "I feel the daisies growing over me," he said, on his death-bed. If any epitaph were put above him, he requested that it should be "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." This is very affecting, but it is the opposite of Miltonic. We never pity Milton.

In his early poems, Keats appears as a kind of youthful Spenser, without Spenser's moral sense or judgment. His soul floats in a "sea of rich and ripe sensation.” The odors, forms, sounds, and colors of nature, take him captive. There is little reäction of his mind on his sensations. He grows faint and languid with the excess of light and loveliness which stream into his soul. His individuality, without being merged in the objects of his thoughts, is narrowed and enfeebled. All that is mighty in nature and man is too apt to be "sicklied o'er" with fanciful sentimentalities. The gods are transformed into green girls, and the sublime and beautiful turned to "favor and to prettiness." Everything is luscious, sweet, dainty, and debilitating, in his sense of love and beauty. There are few hymns and numberless ditties. There is no descent into his soul of that spirit of Beauty, that "awful loveliness," before whose presence the poet's sensations are stilled, and in whose celebration his language is adoration. In the place of this, there is an allabsorbing relish and delicate perception of beauties, kind of feeding on "nectared sweets," -a glow of delight in the abandonment of the soul to soft and de

a

licious images, framed by fancy out of rich sensations. It is rather reverie than inspiration.

This bewildering sense of physical pleasure was generally predominant in Keats. It was the source of the thousand affectations and puerilities which mar his poems, and it had a debilitating effect on his intellect. A keen sensitiveness of perception doubtless characterizes all great poets. Keats is supposed to have had more of this power, because he lacked other and equally important powers, or because it obtained over them such a mastery. No man ever possessed more fineness of sensibility to outward nature than Shelley, but it was developed in connection with a piercing intellect, which was never overcome with the mere deliciousness of things. He had altogether more depth of insight, nobler ideals, greater reach of thought and breadth of passion, a stronger hold upon existence, than Keats. The confounding of fine sensations with moral sense, the pleasurable with the right, is a great defect of Keats's poetry. If we compare him with Spenser, who possessed even a keener feeling of the physically delightful, and a richer imagination to mould it into dazzling shapes and fascinating images, we see that the most voluptuous descriptions of enchanting scenes and objects are heightened in their effect by being disposed according to moral and spiritual laws. Had Spenser been deficient in moral sense, "The Faery Queene" would have been made the most corrupting of all modern poems.

In his later works, the imagination of Keats was somewhat released from the thraldom of sensation, and evinced more independent power. "The Eve of St. Agnes" is delicately beautiful, and perfect of its kind; but it is not poetry of the highest order. The sense of luxury is its

« ПредишнаНапред »