The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-07 00:00:00

himself by the way we find while lingering 10001
over the thought of—•
• • • the balm of a delicious rain,
Pressed from the fleeces of a summer cloud;" thy,
and at another moment passing in tenderest sYroPa,
before the caged songster of the 44 Trille-la, trillete;
Sir Edward, we say, has far more in
perament that is akin to the etherealized natio 1.
Shelley, than to the more material, palpable, Pio
sating, warm-blooded nature of Keats. Ilenimis--ost
insist upon what we have already remarked—Q."3—o
wholly without the all-essential qualities new_.iariti
to insure to a poet anything like extended
—sensuousness. Of the majority of these "
of his, he might say, as he says in one of their-
" I dream the dream I dreamed." rrhp 0
They are dreams of dreams within dreams- 1--rifhey
frequently and designedly vague in outline•
his poetic 0
of
are often—using the term in no invidious se
~„hfhe
hilosytt;
visionary in their inner meaning, in the p
they inculcate. About the aptest, as also 31)°it•
happiest, illustrations of much that we are here:jaing
ing upon might be readily culled from the err.oe
Poem of the volume—the exquisitely sc wit)
allegorical presentment of Human Life/ sun onion
so much lyrical verve and melody in the harilinve,iir
flow of the whole poem of " The Boatman. :nor
ning thus musingly, meditatively, munnuAed
like the babbling forth of a runnel that is Bestaof 3
afterwards to swell into the sweeping fl°°
broad and resistless river :
Half sleeping still, I stand among
Tho silvery, trembling sedges,
And hear the river rolling strong,
Through mists that veil its edges.
" Up, Boatman, up ! the moments flee
As on the bank I shiver ;
And thou must row me towards the sea
•
Along this length of river."
The Boatman rose and stretched his hand"
" Come in—thou hast far to go ;"
And through the drowsy reeds from land
The boat went soft and slow ;
Stealing and stilly, and soft and slow._.o.
And the Boatman looked in my face, ands ,_.,711
" Thy lids are yet heavy ; sleep on, poor elms
Lulled by the drip
Of the oars I dip,
Measured and musical, sure and steady—.
Sleep by my side
While from home we glide."
And I dreamily murmur, " From home alre'
I awake with a start—on my sight flashes daY•
" So late, and so little advanced on the NOY 5
Arouse thee, old laggard, and row me faster'
Or never a sliver thou'lt get from me."
~stffi
" When the voyage is over my pert young
Be sure the grey boatmen will earn hi 3 fee'
But whether I seem to thee fast or slow,
There is but one speed for the boat I row;
I measure my movements by no man's taste'
Whether he asks Ina to halt or haste.
"'HAI, plash, drop upon drop,
On without hurry, but on without stop;
The clock on yon turret is not so steady?
"If crawl we must at this snail-like pace, lore.
Ero the river flow curved to the curving s'.
Lot me take a last look at my native place, ore.
And the green of the sedges—one last 104
Where the home of my birth ?
Is it blotted from earth ?
Just left, and now lost to my sight already •
Tauntingly answered the Boatman grey
" Not a moment ago
Didst thou call me slow ;
But already's a word thou wilt often PP
'Tis the change of the shore
Proves the speed of the oar,
Stealing the banks away, stealthy, steadY.
The allegory throughout is perfectly Well sciru wale°
up to the very climax of it all, when to the
ear there

" . . . seems to float,
Down the length of the way—
From the sedges remote,
From the rose-garden bay,
From the town and the mart,
From the river's deep heart,
From the heart of the land,
From the lips of the bride,
Through the darkness again
Stealing close to my side,
With her hand in my hand,
From the gamesters in vain
Staking odds on the main
Of the last all-invisible die,
An echo that wails back the wail of ray sig:o;aof.
As I murmur, " The Ocean already"—"
One glimmer of light
From the beacon's lone height,
One look at the shore, and one stroke of al° °sr. „
And the river is lost in the ocean already e
tivt
Neither the poem itself, however, nor til°lloie
people it, are ought else throughout the w 051'
this singularly beautiful allegorical P°Bzji
AD ea
vague, etherialized, dream-like, visional"' owe',
in fact, is it with most of the Poems here:loo.°d,
together. Even some of the love poeras
those, nevertheless, there are several st) iter°,
thick with love" that we might say a theA„,toil
them, in the words of old Burton, in 1115,41 fr°'
of Melancholy, that " had he not taken 3 'l.). so Ole;
Cupid's wing, he never could have virittei 0100,,
rously." As to the Edition itself, in its that Avi:
as a Revised Edition—never, perhaps, I°, botile,l4
Horatian precept been more sedulously
mind or more conscientiously acted 111)°1'
says—
" -- Carmen reprehendite quod nen
Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atcloo:' eti
Prtesectum decies non castigavit ad no— rfeet
z.).
So far as the book could be teeperft
by the author's own scrupulous (often, 95,111 eloe:
to us, by reason of the minuteness of
ous re";
dations here adventured upon) over-scrar'
sion—the volume under notice has been revt for L 4
once, we may say, with a loving, and Ye:fter P.;
that, frequently with a pitiless striving icbt/c,
provement. Almost the noblest effusion ill t 00,4
collection, to our thinking, is, we would se of Pe
one of the very earliest products of the renstelie'li;
Bulwer Lytton, a poem dating back, 'are
even to his college days at Cainbrl2l3
truly poetic and patriotic celebration of
—in verse that, unless we are indeed raBllloo°9o
mistaken, England will not willingly let die,loo jf
the minor poems in the volume, which of tiiojiiolo3
therebeaut
ft that
aw nd at th
e coulde adduce
timcease
as
more 1131111,001)110
more ictoiro
and earnest and pathetic in its way, art:bit/0 o
of as
an
our author's most dearly cherished at at
a poet—than the following, written by
age of Thirty—
I do confess that I have wished to give
My land the gift of no ignoble name, „
And seen that life, of which the memories 11"1
Glass'd in the dreams of fame.
Do I lament that roseate youth has flown a,
In the hard labour grudged its niggard We
And cull from far and juster lands alone
Few flowers from many a seed
No ! for whoever with an earnest soul 01'7
Strives for some end from this low world afar'
Still upward travels, though he miss the eal"
And strays—but towards a star.
Better than fame is still the wish for fame/
The constant training for a glorious strife' 0
The Athlete nurtured for the Olympian GBll3
Gains strength, at least, for life.
The wish for Fame is faith in holy things 0 4.0311)'
That soothe the life, and shall outlive th
A reverent listening for some angel Wine
That cower above the gloom.
To gladden earth with beauty, or raeles
To serve with action, or their souls with truth
vio
These are the ends for which the hope 01°111
The ignobler thirsts of youth.
fall
No, I lament not, though these leaves ins ice,
From the sered branches on the desert Pall
i`*--
Mock'd by the idle winds that waft ; and
Life's blooms, its last, in vain !
If vain for others, not in vain for nl5--- „.Ifi,
Who builds an altar let him worship a itl"d
Who needs the crowd ? though lone the shr
Not hallow'd less the prayer.
Eno' if haply in the after days,
W.VhVehnegnebnye tthhee
maltieatreseleurephs
umtheehfupneereasilosot:ise,
And Truth is seen alone :
no otere'
When causeless Hate can wound its preYdefid,
And fawns its late repentance dl o'er r lore
If gentle footsteps from some kin
Pause by my narrow bed.
yatoutocmhiinkhe.
OrFiLlo ott'gliee
g gales al
Recall some echo, in their years to be,
Of not all-perish'd song !' r light _
eena,rwthhoeseevyeonuinng sounds.
Taking some spark to glad the hearth,4 aro--
The student lamp, from now neglec.;
And one sad memory in the sons recitil fee'
What—l forgive the sires.
said 11'd of Dio
Enough, after all that we have hereco, of Do
to Sir Bulwer Lytton's genius as aciP ecoy
charm appertaining to this Revise e de, tl°
as 'c( that
" Poems"—enough if we find thing of
at our heart of that lowly
and affecting inspiration.