The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-12 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Wanderer. By Owen Meredith. Chapman

and Hall.

It would be an affectation to assume ignorance as
to the real authorship of this charming volume of
poetry, entitled " The Wanderer," by Owen Mere-
dith. In deference, however, to the after thought
which has preserved the pseudonyme upon the
title-page, whenever we may have occasion to refer
to the writer of the volume tinder notice, in the
critical remarks here subjoined, we shall speak of
him exclusively by that nom de plume, as though
his publishers had not repeatedly within the last
few weeks divulged his real name time after time
in their advertised announcements. To say that
the present work is an improvement upon its pre-
decessor would be small praise indeed. " Clytem-
nestra," we take it, was but as the first fluttering
of the callow wing. Here, in the varied rhythm
of " The Wanderer," are audible the beatings of
the strong pinion of the full-fledged eaglet, fresh
from the eyrie—bold, bright-eyed, soaring sunward
—circling in sustained and protracted flight over
all this beautiful world of ours, over sea and land,
garden and desert, sylvan solitudes and crowded
capitals. Before advancing beyond the threshold
of the "Dedication"—we must pause, however, upon
that portal to the fairyland of song, traversed be-
yond it by the musical footsteps of "The Wanderer."
Although it is inscribed simply to "J. F.," the ini-
tials are, to ourselves at least, in no way enigmatical.
It is assuredly no other than the congenial bio-
grapher of one whose name is beloved in almost
every household where the Anglo-Saxon tongue is
spoken, as one of the familiar glories of our Eng-
lish literature—it is no other than the honoured
memorialist of dear Oliver Goldsmith, that the
young poet of " The Wanderer" thus fervently
apostrophises, where he exclaims—

But thou art strong where, even of old,
The old heroic strength was rare,
In high emotions self-controll'd,
And insight keen, but never cold,
To lay all falsehood bare ;
Despising all those glittering lies
Which in these days can fool mankind ;
But full of noble sympathies
For what is genuinely wise,
And beautiful, and kind.

Adding, thereupon, in words of graceful and modest
deprecation, addressing himself consciously at once
to the ripe critic and the generous friend—

And thou wilt pardon all the much
Of weakness which doth here abound,
Till music' little prized as such,
With thee find worth from one true touch
Of nature in its sound.
Thereafter follow these exquisite stanzas the
music of which will thrill, we doubt not, deep into
the large and noble heart of the Laureate—but
deeper yet into the innermost heart-of-hearts of
that Other whose paternal fame is veiled with such
a reverential and filial tenderness. The words we
here transcribe from the Dedication of " The
Wanderer" are as full of true poetry, feeling, and
imay, as any to which we have for a long while
listened delighted." Still, addressing himself to
J— F--, the young poet thus continues the
eloquent appeal of his Dedication—

Tho' mighty spirits are no more,.
Yet spirits of beauty still remain.
Gone is the Seer that, by the shore
Of lakes as limpid as his lore,
Lived to one ceaseless strain.
And strenuous melody of mind.
But one there rests that hath the power
To charm the midnight moon, and bind
All spirits of the sweet south wind,
And steal from every shower
That sweeps green England cool and clear,
The violet of tender song.
GREAT ALFRED I long may England's ear
His music fill, his name be dear
To English bosoms long
And ONE . .in sacred silence sheathed
That name I keep, my verse would shame.
The name my lips sn prayer first breath' d
Was his : and prayer hath yet bequeath' d
Its silence to that name;—
Which yet an age remote shall hear,
Borne on the fourfold wind sublime
By Fame, where, with some faded year
These songs shall sink, like leaflets sere,
In avenues of Time.
Not less beautiful than these the words that follow
—every syllable of which we would fain have

Love on my harp his finger lays ;
His hand is held against the chords.
My heart upon the music weighs,
And, beating, hushes foolish praise
From desultory words :
And Childhood steals, with wistful grace,
'Twixt him and me ; an infant hand
Chides gently back the thoughts that chace
The forward hour, and turns my face
To that remembeed land.
the " receding" dreamland of childhood. A dedica-
tion such as this, holds us spell-bound as effectually
as the " glittering eye " of the Ancient Mariner
held the wedding guest, when—

" The bride bath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she •
And nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy."
We "cannot choose but hear "—held captive at the
outset by the melody of that graceful introduction.
Besides a Prologue and an Epilogue— each
divided into three parts, and each written in what
appears to us a very novel, and certainly a very ela-
borate stanza, consisting of a rhymed quatrain pre-
fixed to the stanza latterly rendered familiar to all
through the pages of "'ln Memoriam "—Besides
this Prologue and Epilogue, " The Wanderer" com-
prises, under that comprehensive title, Six Books,
as diversified in rhythm, and manner, and theme
and sentiment as the very regions the genius of
which the five first of those Six Books indirectly
tend to illustrate Italy France—England—
Switzerlaand Holland : the sixth Book being
suggestively entitled " Palingenesis." Altogther
it will be seen, therefore, at a glance that Owen
Meredith's new volume has the sustained effect of
a complete whole, and the varied charm of n. col-
lection of the most diversified minor poems—such
as, jumbled together, might have been designated
fugitive or miscellanesus: It is scarcely pos-
sible, from the variety of these one-hundred-and-
one separate pieces, extending altogether (with the
addition before specified of prologue and epilogue)
to no less than 436 pages, it is scarcely possible,
we say, amidst such a diversity and multiplicity of
productions, ranging " from grave to gay, from
lively to severe"—to afford anything at all like an
adequate idea of the entire work by means of brief
and fragmentary quotation. • As varied as the metre
are the merits of these 101 poems of " The Wan-
derer." Extracting one or two would be like pick-
ing a few stray gems from a jewelled coronal—
showing in each the skill of the cutting, and dis-
playing the respective colours of the stones ex-
tracted, the green of the emerald, the violet of the
amethyst, the golden sheen of the topaz, but afford-
ing not the faintest notion of the peculiar excel-
lence of the setting or the effect of the contrasting
dyes of all when there combined together harmo-
niously. That effect, of course, can alone be
realised by a reference to the work itself, and solely
with a view to enforce our own recommendation of
that reference we shall here append to our remarks
two or three excerpts taken almost at random from
the pages of " The Wanderer." In the very midst
of Owen Meredith's own original effusions are five
most truthful translations from Peter Ronsard,
pieces replete with a delicate grace and espieglerie.
Happiest of these five versions, to our mind, "Ma
Douce Jouvence" and " Voici le Bois Quo Ma
Saincte Angellette." Occasionally—but this is chiefly
noticeable in " Book 11. France"—the young poet
sings of the belle passion in a strain not merely
most impasssioned, but at times even (how shall we
express it ?) almost—improper. "Au Café * * s"
breathes somewhat of the atmosphere breathed by
the heroine of the A. Dumas Fils—" The Lady of
the Camelias," celebrated by that clever son, who
has been wittily pronounced the best of all the
works of the French Alexander the Great !
This intensely French poem, "Au Cafe * *
may not have been written with the slightest re-
membrance at the time of its composition of Goethe's
" Bride of Corinth"—but certainly if so, the vivid-
ness of the resemblance is a coincidence. We do
not imply for an instant anything like plagiarism
in the idea, for the poems are altogether as dissimi-
lar as possible ; but surely the same chord is struck
here as there ! Here—where our young poet sings
of the exhumed Irene side by side with her living
lover—

" Thy kiss, on my lips it is burning for ever 1
I cannot sleep calm, for my bed is so cold,
Embrace me I close . . . closer . . 0 let us part never,
And let all be again as it once was of old I"
So she murmurs repiningly ever. Her breath
Lifts his hair like a nightwind in winter. And he . .
" Thy hand, 0 Irene, is icy as death,
But thy face is unchanged in its beauty to me."
" 'Tis so cold, my beloved one, down there, and so drear."
"Ah, thy sweet voice, Irene, sounds hollow and strange 1"
" 'Tis the chills of the grave that have changed it, I fear :
But the voice of my heart there's no chill thai can
change."
" Ha I thy pale cheek is fluslit with a heat like my own.
Is it breath, is it flame, on thy lips that is burning ?
Ha I thy heart flutters wild, as of old, 'neath thy zone.
And_ those cold eyes of thine fill with passionate
yearning."
There—as the old German bard in the echo of his
recent translators, sings in that wonderful, hideous,
lovely, detestable masterpiece--
" Dull boomed the midnight hour unhallowed
And then first her eyes began to shine ;
Eagerly, with pallid lips she swallowed
Hasty, draughts of purple tinctured wine;