The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [954]
Shaped of the seven splendors of the light —
Piled up the mountains for thy throne; and thee
The image of His beauty made and power,
And gave thee to be sharer of His state,
His majesty, His glory, and His fear!
We extract this not because we like it ourselves, but because we take it for granted that there are many who will, and that Mr. Lord himself would desire us to extract it as a specimen of his power. The “Great worshipper” is Nature. We disapprove, however, the man-milliner method in which she is tricked out, item by item. The “How beautiful!” should be understood, we fancy, as an expression of admiration on the part of Mr. Lord, for the fine idea which immediately precedes — the idea which we have italicized. It is, in fact, by no means destitute of force — but we have met it before.
At page 70, there are two stanzas addressed to “My Sister.” The first of these we cite as the best thing of equal length to be found in the book. Its conclusion is particularly noble.
And shall we meet in heaven, and know and love?
Do human feelings in that world above
Unchanged survive? blest thought! but ah, I fear
That thou, dear sister, in some other sphere,
Distant from mine will (wilt) find a brighter home,
Where I, unworthy found, may never come: —
Or be so high above me glorified,
That I a meaner angel, undescried,
Seeking thine eyes, such love alone shall see
As angels give to all bestowed on me;
And when my voice upon thy ear shall fall,
Hear only such reply as angels give to all.
We give the lines as they are: their grammatical construction is faulty; and the punctuation of the ninth line renders the sense equivocal.
Of that species of composition which comes most appropriately under the head, Drivel, we should have no trouble in selecting as many specimens as our readers could desire. We will afflict them with one or two:
SONG.
O soft is the ringdove’s eye of love
When her mate returns from a weary flight;
And brightest of all the stars above
Is the one bright star that leads the night.
But softer thine eye than the dove’s by far,
When of friendship and pity thou speakest to me;
And brighter, O brighter, than eve’s one star
When of love, sweet maid, I speak to thee.
Here is another
SONG.
Oh, a heart it loves, it loves thee,
That never loved before
Oh, a heart it loves, it loves thee,
That heart can love no more.
As the rose was in the bud, love,
Ere it opened into sight,
As yon star in drumlie daylight
Behind the blue was bright —
So thine image in my heart, love,
As pure, as bright, as fair,
Thyself unseen, unheeded,
I saw and loved it there.
Oh, a heart it loves, it loves thee
As heart ne’er loved before;
Oh, a heart, it loves, loves, loves thee,
That heart can love no more.
In “The Widow’s Complaint” we are entertained after this fashion:
And what are these children
I once thought my own,
What now do they seem
But his orphans alone?
In “The New Castalia” we have it thus:
Then a pallid beauteous maiden
Golden ghastly robes arrayed in
Such a wondrous strain displayed in,
In a wondrous song of Aidenne,
That all the gods and goddesses
Shook their golden yellow tresses,
Parnassus’ self made half afraid in.
Just above this there is something about aged beldames dreaming
—— of white throats sweetly jagged
With a ragged butch-knife dull,
And of night-mares neighing, weighing,
On a sleeper’s bosom squatting.
But in mercy to our readers we forbear.
Mr. Lord is never elevated above the dead level of his habitual platitude, by even the happiest thesis in the world. That any man could, at one and the same time, fancy himself a poet and string together as many pitiable inanities as we see here, on so truly suggestive a thesis as that of “A Lady taking the Veil,” is to our apprehension a miracle of miracles. The idea would seem to be, of itself, sufficient to elicit fire from ice — to breathe animation into the most stolid of stone. Mr. Lord winds up a dissertation on the subject by the patronizing advice —
Ere thou, irrevocable,