GIRL. But few request my prayers. WALTER. I request them. For ne'er did a dishevelled woman cling So earnest-pale to a stern conqueror's knees, Pleading for a dear life, as did my prayer Cling to the knees of God. He shook it off, And went upon His way. Wilt pray for me? GIRL. Sin crusts me o'er as limpets crust the rocks. WALTER. - Poor homeless one! There is a door stands wide for thee and meThe door of hell. Methinks we are well met. I saw a little girl three years ago, With eyes of azure and with cheeks of red, A crowd of sunbeams hanging down her face; Sweet laughter round her; dancing like a breeze. I'd rather lair me with a fiend in fire Than look on such a face as hers to-night. But I can look on thee, and such as thee! I'll call thee "Sister ;" do thou call me "Brother." A thousand years hence, when we both are damned, We'll sit like ghosts upon the wailing shore, And read our lives by the red light of hell. Will we not, Sister? GIRL. O, thou strange wild man, Let me alone what would you seek with me? WALTER. Your ear, my Sister. I have that within As a wave bursts in spray. She covered me She did not kill me with a single word, Set in a night of hair; reproachful eyes, A NEW POET IN GLASGOW. DISCOVERERS are often a much-injured class of men. Sometimes the worth of their object is denied, sometimes their claim to the fact of finding it out is contested, and sometimes, in the brilliance of the star, the astronomer who has first observed it is utterly eclipsed! Nevertheless it is a pleasant thing, "when a new planet swims into our ken," or when, to pursue the quotation, we happen to resemble Stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Gathered around him with a wild surmise, Silent upon a peak in Darien. This quotation is suggested, partly by the thought it embodies, and partly by the recollection of its author, both relevant to the subject before us. Wewe first - we alone, claim the merit of discovering a new Poet in Glasgow, and a Poet, too, who in genius, circumstances, and present position, is not unlike JOHN KEATS. GOD forbid he should resemble him in his future destiny! Some four months ago we received a packet of poetry from Glasgow, accompanied with a very modest note, signed "ALEX. SMITH." Encumbered with many duties, and with an immense mass of MS., good, bad, and indifferent, we allowed the volume to lie by us for a long time, till at last, lifting it up carelessly, we lighted upon some lines that pleased us, were tempted to read on - did so - and ere the end, were all but certain we had found a Poet -a new and real star in those barren Northern skies. We told the Poet our impressions; he in reply sent us two later effusions, which completely confirmed us. Poor fellow at the age of ten he was sent from school to a commercial employment, where he has been engaged, ever since, ten hours a day, for the last eleven years. He is now, consequently, twenty-one. His principal, though not his best poem, was written two years ago. It is entitled a " Life Drama," and is, it seems, an attempt to set his " life to music." Own We may, without analyzing the story, quote a few extracts from this powerful though unequal, poem. These will speak for themselves, for their author, and for us! Hear this of certain books: They mingle gloom and splendor, as I've oft Of one, whose naked soul stood clad in love, Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire. There is not a finer line than this last in literature! The combination of the thought, the image, and the picture formed from both, is perfect. Let Mr. Smith be permitted again to speak of the Poet of such as himself! The Poet was as far 'bove common men Shaken with joy or sadness, tremulous To this the lady well answers Doubtless your first chorus Shall be the shoutings of the morning stars! What martial music is to marching men, Should Song be to Humanity. In bright Song The Infant Ages born and swathed are. Thus he opens the Second Part; and is it not like the sound of a trumpet? Curl not thy grand lip with that scorn, O World! Alas, my spirit sails not yet upfurled, What need of mocks or jeers from you or yours, Of thee no more my thirsty spirit drinks! That comes on men with their beards; his soul By shouts to gain the notice of the Sphynx, was rich, And this his book unveils it, as the Night Her panting wealth of stars. The world was cold, When the dark dumb Earth Lay on her back and watched the shining stars. &c. Hear this, too, of a Song- the Song itself we do not give : I'll sing it to thee, 't is a song of one, Staring right on with calm eternal eyes. This last line should have been in Hyperion. It reminds us of Sate gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone. Or, With solemn step an awful Goddess came ! And plunged all noiseless into the deep Night; but is, perhaps, finer than any of them. It is one of those lines which are worlds of selfcontained power and harmony! We give another labored and very splendid passage: Ev'n as I write the ghost of one bright hour flame. Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and sunset-peaks Dost thou remember as we journeyed home If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered, And sits and tarries for the coming Night. When ages flower, ages and bards are born; One who shall fervent grasp the sword of song, Called up the buried prophet from his grave Doth sphere the world, so shall his heart of love — And as the young Spring breathes with living breath On a dead branch till it sprouts fragrantly, Green leaves and sunny flowers, shall he breathe life Their makers unto Fame. Moons which have shed Eternal halos around England's head; Smelling of Spring, as genial, fresh, and clear, Listen, O world, to this picture of thy Oft a fine thought his face would flush divine, weary self: Methinks our darkened world doth wander lone, As he had quaffed a cup of golden wine, As mid the waving shadows of the trees, Tis truly a noble fragment of a "Life" this-the chip of a colossal block. We fervently trust that Mr. Smith's "life" may be long extended, his delicate health strengthened, and his circumstances so ameliorated, that he may fulfil the beautiful promise he has so unequivocally given. We quote three fine specimens of his Sonneteering vein. The first, though "All in Honor" is perhaps a little too luxurious in tone: Last night my check was wetted with warm tears, Than the vast midnight with its gleaming spheres; Like clouds or streams we wandered on at will, Three glorious days, when, near our journey's end, As down the moorland road we straight did wend, Still saw that old fort on the moorland road, Stare through the rain with strange woe-wildered look. Beauty still walketh on the earth and air, And the deep seas foam their music old. This Beauty will unloose our bonds of care. Within old starry-gated Poesy, To meet a soul set to no earthly tune, We have culled the previous extracts, and even the Sonnets, almost at random, and could easily have multiplied them by dozens But we proceed now to give some extracts from the "Page and the Lady," which we deem his finest artistic production. The story of the Page and the Lady is simple-A lady of high birth and great beauty, hath an Indian Page, who falls in love with her, which love is betrayed in the course of a tion is the Poem. This confession she is at first disposed to treat with disdain, but ultimately she finds, by a very brief process of self-inquiry, that it is but the counterpart of a feeling towards him, which has long lurked in her own bosom. Let us take first the. opening of the poem : Conversation between them. The Conversa On balcony, all summer, roofed with vines, leaves, Thus luxuriously rested, she begins to tell her Page of a rhyming cousin she had once. A strange person, truly: He went to his grave, nor told what man he was; the sea. The crime for which 't is lashed by cruel winds, To shrieks and spoomings to the frighted stars, The thought, pain, grief within its lab'ring breast. Many strange things have been said about It has been called the "far-resounding Main:" it has by an author of the day been boldly called "The Shadow and Mad Sister of the Earth." Thomson figures it as the " melancholy Main ;" and well may it be both mad and melancholy, for Mr. Smith proclaims it a tongueless penitent, carrying in its bosom the memory of some Crime of Ages; lashed for its penance by the eternal winds and yet unable to relieve itself by expressing its guilt, save in inarticulate shrieks, sobs, and "spoomings to the frighted stars." We think that we remember a similar thought in Mr. Gilfillan's "Second Gallery of Portraits,' where he describes Mrs. Shelley, after her husband's death, wandering along the shore and asking vain questions at the sea," which, like a dumb murderer, had done the deed, but was not able to utter the confession." Mr. Smith, however, improves upon this by making the crime a profound, old and general one, worthy of those long and fearful moanings which, even in calm, never altogether subside, and which in storm seem to express a divine desperation, as of a whole Synod of Gods plunged into Tartarus, and feeling the virgin fires on their immortal limbs. The Lady, in her turn, condescends to sing a song, and proceeds in various measure to recount the history and character of those who in vain had loved her. She asks him, then, if he thinks that the power of Beauty is so great as is usually supposed, and he, in very glowing terms, affirms that it is. The lady dowered him with her richest look, She We must omit his very eloquent reply, which is, of course, in the affirmative. begins to suspect, from his language, that he has known by experience what love is. She asks him My lustrous Leopard, hast thou been in love? What follows is admirable: The Page's dark face flushed the hue of wine In crystal goblet, stricken by the sun, | His soul stood like a moon within his eyes, Suddenly orbed, his passionate voice was shook By trembles into music "Thee I love!" "Thou!" and the lady with a cruel laugh (Each silver throb went through him like Flung herself back upon her fringed couch, sword) From which she rose, upon him, like a queen, She rose, and stabbed him with her angry eyes. We do not quote what she then says in words, unknowing her own heart; her laughter's" silver throbs" (what an exquisite ex-. pression!) had said it more eloquently before. Suffice it, she dismisses the crestfallen pageWith arm sweep superb, And withered his bloomed heart, which like a rose The light of scorn was cold within her eyes, Had opened timid to the noon of Love. But mark now! After sitting alone for a season, she thus communes with her own soul, in a soliloquy worthy of any poet or dramatist: It was my father's blood Into what angry beauty rushed his face! Were fouled and mudded if I stooped to him. To bring him to my feet, to lip my hand, But, whether I might lance him through the brain And sink all tears and weakness in his arms, I will be kind when next he brings me flowers, And thrill him to the heart's core with a toush Smile him to Paradise at close of eve, And thus is the story "left untold ;" and yet what more is needed to tell us, that Love has triumphed over Rank, that the Lady has become the " Page" to the Page, and the Page the Lord to the Lady. |