be;—for we find free, deep tones, from the seaman’s breast, chorded into harmony by an artist happy enough to feel nature—wise enough to follow nature. “Lochiel” is what it should be, a wild, breezy symphony, from the romantic Highlands. There are, in fact, flat lines and tame passages in “Lochiel;” but I should never have discovered them, if I had not chanced to hear that noble composition recited by a dull schoolboy. The idealizing tendency in the reader, stimulated by the poet’s real magnetic power, would prevent their being perceived in a solitary perusal, and a bright schoolboy would have been sufficiently inspired by the general grandeur of the piece; to have known how to sink such lines as
“Welcome be Cumberland’s steed to the shock,
“Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock;”
or,
“Draw, dotard, around thy old, wavering sight;”
and a few other imperfections in favour of
“Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn,”
and other striking passages.
As for the sweet tale of “Wyoming,” the expression of the dying Gertrude’s lips is not more “bland, more beautiful,” than the music of the lay in which she is embalmed. It were difficult to read this poem, so holy in its purity and tenderness, so deliciously soft and soothing in its coloring, without feeling better and happier.
The feeling of Campbell towards women is refined and deep. To him they are not angels—not, in the common sense, heroines; but of a “perfect woman nobly planned,” he has a better idea than most men, or even poets. Witness one of his poems, which has never received its meed of fame; I allude to Theodric. Who can be insensible to the charms of Constance, the matron counterpart to Gertrude’s girlhood?
