The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-09 00:00:00

LITERAT UR E.

The Music Master : a Love Story. And Two
Series of Day and Night Songs. By William
Allingham. G. Routledge and Co.
William Allingham—whoever he may be, for, to
us, he is but as a name upon a title-page—is a true
poet. An entire stranger to ourselves though he
may yet remain, we welcome him, nevertheless, with
the cordiality due to one who has spoken to our
heart of hearts, through the dulcet tones, and ten-
der cadences, and exquisite modulations of that
grand old language familiar to every lettered Eng-
lishman—" the tongue that Shakspere spake"—a
language only fully audible when breathed through
the lips of genius—a language the music of which
has proved so wondrously variable in its harmo-
nious adaptability from the days of old Geoffrey
Chaucer down to those of Alfred Tennyson. We
welcome Mr. Allingham not as the favourite of a
coterie—not as the treasure trove of a clique—but
as any unknown minstrel might have been wel-
comed in the age of romance had he struck the
chords of his harp in unison with the vibrations of
the heart-strings of his auditors, or as any unrecog-
nised knight must have been welcomed in the age
of chivalry had he borne his crest bravely over his
closed vizor through the crashing lances and
gleaming swords of a tournament.
From the evidence presented to us in these pages
we should conjecture that the author of them is
still young—that he is a Catholic—and that he is an
Irishman. We have already declared him to be in
our estimation a poet—no mere versifier,—but a
poet--aten,fit sed nascitur. His volume has large
promise of future excellence, but with this it has
also excellence of its own already accomplished.
As lovers of poetry we exult over the promise, and
are justified in so doing because we can discover
reason even now to rejoice over the accomplish-
ment. Mr. Allingham first appeared as a candidate
for honours in poetic literature five years ago,
when in 1850 a volume was issued from the press,
which has been since modestly withdrawn from
publication. Last summer a smaller collection of
fugitive pieces from the same pen 'lade its appear-
ance. And at length these two preliminary 'ventures
have ripened or effloresced into this mature perform-
ance. A charming little book of some 220 pages,
gracefully embellished by artists who have " sub-
mitted their genius to the risks of wood-engraving"
—painters no less gifted, and of no less eminence
than Hughes, and Millais, and Rosetti. The dainti-
ness, the sweetness, the melody, gathered up like
the song, of a bird in a rose bush in this beautiful
grouping together of the results of pictorial art and
poetical nature, are symbolised aptly enough in the
little vignette on the title-page, representing the
books, the flute, and the flower. Already, we
doubt not, but that by many readers several of the
"Day and Night Songs " of William Allingham
will be recognised as old favourites. Such, for
example, as the nursery song of " The Fairies,"
the tiny, goblin, elfine sprites of the sod and the
moonbeams . . .
" Wee folk, good folk,
Trouping all together ;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather !"
Or the piquant coquetting—across the street—
with the " Tenus of the needle"—who'll . . .
" —Bless the youth whom love shall bring,
And happy stars embolden ;
To change the dome into the ring—
The silver into golden !"
Everybody, for instance, who has sauntered through
the cool shade of the sculptor-room of the Royal
Academy, admiring the grand head of a truer lyrist
than Alton Locke—Gerald Massey, tailor and poet
—will remember Munro's "rendering" of the
Lover's Walk, as suggested by that tender fancy
of Mr. Allingham in his delicious quatrains on the
" Wayside Well :"
" When a laddie brings her pail
Down the twilight meadow,
Tender falls the whisper'd tale,
Soft the double shadow !"
But among all these country songs for Day and
Night, commend us to the one, set to an Irish
tune—a song that none but a true Irish poet could
have written, celebrating the graces and the paces
of " Lovely Mary Donelly" :
" Oh, lovely Mary D'qnelly, it's you I love the beet !
If fifty girls were round you, I'd hardly see the rest.