breathing encouragement into the sufferer's heart in language with which he had been familiar from boyhood, and which continued to be spoken to him by some of the best-beloved books in the little library which his wife would not suffer him to sell even though the quartern loaf was at eighteenpence, and the scrag of mutton in proportion.
Please to observe, that there is no troubled passion in the passage—that the young poet is contemplating not a miserable scene—of utter wretchedness—but the "sacred home of Hymenean joy," clouded with care, but not deprived of sunshine. With such a mood, poetical imagery is not unaccordant—and fancy embellishes at her own pleasure the song of hope. "The wedded pair of love and virtue" are not located in any county—on this or that side of the Tweed. What if their dwelling be in a land of vines? "Hybla sweets" is a pardonable prettyism; and prettyisms are often found in the poetry of natural sentiment. As for "Arcadian beauty," the word is a lovely one, and legitimate—and nothing forbids the application of it to any sweet spot on the surface of the earth, especially if it has been won from the barren wilderness by the happy labour of contentment.
"The subject most effectively treated in this portion of the poem, is the Hope of the poor maniac for the return of her shipwrecked lover—an expectation perpetually disappointed, and perpetually revived. As the feelings of such an individual come rarely under observation, and must remain with most of us a subject only for the imagination, the departure from truth—if any such there be—is not readily detected, and the topic affords scope for the harmonious numbers and tender generalities of the poet."
Was ever praise so cautiously and sparingly doled out? "The departure from truth—if any such there be—is not readily detected." Is there or is there not? Answer.
"Hark! the wild maniac sings, to chide the gale
That wafts so slow her lover's distant sail;
She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore,
Watch'd the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore,
Knew the pale form, and shrieking in amaze,
Clasp'd her cold hands, and fix'd her maddening gaze:
Poor widow'd wretch! 'twas there she wept in vain,
Till memory fled her agonizing brain;—
But mercy gave, to charm the sense of woe,
Ideal peace, that truth could ne'er bestow;
Warm on her heart the joys of fancy beam.
And aimless Hope delights her darkest dream.
Oft when yon moon has climb'd the midnight sky,
And the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest cry,
Piled on the steep, her blazing fagots burn,
To hail the bark that never can return;
And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep
That constant love can linger on the deep."
"The second part of the Pleasures of Hope is chiefly occupied in celebrating the anticipation of an immortal life—a glowing theme, and treated with great power. But here the poet has sometimes, in his attention to the music of his line, and the vigour of his diction, neglected to secure a sound and accurate basis of thought.
'Unfading Hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return'—
The return of dust to dust we understand, but that of 'soul to soul,' if it have any analogous meaning, implies the absorption of the spirit of man into that of his Maker, and therefore contradicts the hope of a personal immortality. Perhaps there is no passage more elaborate, or more frequently, and on many accounts more justly admired, than the concluding lines of the poem.
'Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began—but not to fade.—
When all the sister planets have decay'd;
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below;
Thou, undismay'd, shall o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!'
He who regards the destruction of the world as the era when his future and immortal existence shall commence,
