Complete Essays, Literary Criticism, Cryptography, Autography, Translations & Letters. Эдгар Аллан По

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       Dwells ever in her words;

       The coinage of her heart are they,

       And from her lips each flows

       As one may see the burden’d be

       Forth issue from the rose.

       Affections are as thoughts to her,

       The measures of her hours;

       Her feelings have the fragrancy,

       The freshness of young flowers;

       And lovely passions, changing oft,

       So fill her, she appears

       The image of themselves by turns,

       The idol of past years!

       Of her bright face one glance will trace

       A picture on the brain,

       And of her voice in echoing hearts

       A sound must long remain;

       But memory, such as mine of her,

       So very much endears

       When death is nigh my latest sigh

       Will not be life’s, but hers.

       I fill’d this cup to one made up

       Of loveliness alone,

       A woman, of her gentle sex

       The seeming paragon-

       Her health! and would on earth there stood,

       Some more of such a frame,

       That life might be all poetry,

       And weariness a name.

      It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing called “The North American Review.” The poem just cited is especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet’s enthusiasm. We pardon his hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.

      It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves. Boccalini, in his “Advertisements from Parnassus,” tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book:— whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all the chaff for his reward.

      Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics — but I am by no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood. Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an axiom, which need only be properly put, to become self-evident. It is not excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:— and thus to point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that they are not merits altogether.

      Among the “Melodies” of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view. I allude to his lines beginning —“Come, rest in this bosom.” The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the all in all of the divine passion of Love — a sentiment which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more passionate, human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words:—

      Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer

       Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;

       Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o’ercast,

       And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

       Oh! what was love made for, if ’tis not the same

       Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?

       I know not, I ask not, if guilt’s in that heart,

       I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

       Thou hast call’d me thy Angel in moments of bliss,

       And thy Angel I’ll be, ‘mid the horrors of this,-

       Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,

       And shield thee, and save thee,- or perish there tool

      It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while granting him Fancy — a distinction originating with Coleridge — than whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there a greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet. In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more profoundly — more weirdly imaginative, in the best sense, than the lines commencing —“I would I were by that dim lake”— which are the composition of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.

      One of the noblest — and, speaking of Fancy — one of the most singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His “Fair Ines” had always for me an inexpressible charm:—

      O saw ye not fair Ines?

       She’s gone into the West,

       To dazzle when the sun is down,

       And rob the world of rest;

       She took our daylight with her,

       The smiles that we love best,

       With morning blushes on her cheek,

       And pearls upon her breast.

       O turn again, fair Ines,

       Before the fall of night,

       For fear the moon should shine alone,

       And stars unrivall’d bright;

       And blessed will the lover be

       That walks beneath their light,

       And breathes the love against thy cheek

       I dare not even write!

       Would I had been, fair Ines,

       That gallant cavalier,

       Who rode so gaily by thy side,

       And whisper’d thee so near!

       Were there no bonny dames at home

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