Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1857-11-18
Gbitress S 4%epartmsnt.
rHE. ENeI1sH POETS

is IL HUNS CNClL Y y 80 - AAA6A1y v II
or dashing cataract-and then as the soft
murmurings of a lutte, or the tabled notes of |
the expiring Swan But there are som of $
them, whose writings, while they charm the
senses and c~aptivate the intellect, are there
fore the more dangerous in consequence of
the pernicious and fatal sentiments inculcated
in many of their works
AS one of this class / may mention the al
most incomparably gifted BYRON. No one
perhaps, has received more idolatrous wor-
shin from his admirers, or been the mark of
more ardent hate and relentless criticism
Born from an exhausted stock, the last of his
race, and a deformed cripple, (to use the Ian
guage of a recent critique) 'she shot athwart
the horizon of the worlds history like a mad
meteor; concentrating in his single entity,
all the talent and most of the vices of not only
his individual ancestry, but Britain's %aristo-
cracy."
For his club foot, he was often tainted by
his fellows, and even by his own cruel moth
er. In his "Defornfed TRANSFORMED he per-
SOllIIICS hJIllSClI s1ttO0Is eluS LID dOtCi VI "A
mold" while Bertha daguerreotypes his
mother. Listen how she tantalizes him:
'Out, hunchback. Thou incubus !
Thou nightmare! of seven sons
The sole abortion. But get thee hence,
And gather wood. Call me not mother
For, if brought thee forth, it was
As foolish hens, at times, hatch vipers, by
Sitting on strange eggs. Out, urchin, out.
And then hear his imprecations, after
wounding himself:
"Accursed be this blood which flows so fast
For double curses will be my need now
At home. What home {? Ihave no home, no
kin,
No kind. Oh, that each drop that falls to
earth
Would rise, a snake, to sting them as they
have me-"
The same %revengeful spirit again bursts
forth in "Mazeppa," when he makes the old
Cossack Hetman tell the king:
"For time at last, sets all things even;
And if we do but wait the hour,
There never yet was human power
That conld evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search, and vigil long,
VI MIN VINO treasures UP Il wrong.
Byron, as has been truthfully said, SIS The
poetof all the human passions" He knew,
felt, and described them all the gentle and
loving, as we'll as the black and ~revengeful
No word painting has ever delineated the
dGrkly reoengefu1 more wildly. So ALI, the
"Adrian renegade" in the "Siege of Corinth,
who, b1o IoEro4hod oopooc Hropo Lor roc4 r.
him she loves best" and pleads for the devo
ted city:
eff not for love of me be given
Thus much, then for the love of Heaven"
The poet makes him listen in silence,
not patience, while nursing his wrath, and b
sees the feet cloud scudding from the dim
med face of the moon, while
"His heart was sullen and turned aside
By deep interminable pride
, He sue for mercy. Tx dismayed,
? By wild words of a timid maid;
! He, wronged by Venice, VOW to save
! Her sons devoted to the grave
No--thought that cloud were thunder's wors
And charged to crush him-let it burst.
e Byron's poetical and imaginative facultit
were constitutionally of the dark and misal
thropic order, and on such subjects he love
to dwell. Here he revealed and ~luxuriate'
e Manfred" his masterpiece, and Darkness
} scarcely it: inferior, are perfect illustration
In the one we see crime-real, or imaginar,
Le the throes of insanity, perhaps-that in i
it despair ceases
Of ITO justify it's deeds unto itself !.
q The last infirmity of evil"
1T while in the other we see a proud, gloom
is powerful, unsatisfed mind, striving to era
II pie by it's own innate, unaided force, wi
the problem of eternity-the future lift
problem which death alone can solve to
er monstration-startled back upon itself-gras
n, ing nc solution-crying out in its great ag
ny,
~ Darkness had no need
IA Ofaid from them. She was the universe
If. And the same spirit looms out in the O
m to Time, a short poem full of pathos, pow
- - and gloom, but little read, we fear, and Il
spoken ola poem we would gladly tral
II, cribe, had we space.
rd "IIme! on whose arbitrary wins
1r, The varying hours must flag or fly,
lis Whose tardy winter, feeting spring,
er But drive or drag us on to die"
u l would urge every reader to peruse ca
fully the poem, but in this connection CAM
ks resist the inclination to quote one more ST
ad "a:
'sFor them, however drear and dark,
Al Ny soul oGs suited to the sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark,
~ To prove thee-not eternity"
ok Byron should neoer be put into the hand
lis, the young. No one under forty should r.
ler him Unfortunately. Nothing can be fol
in the whole range of human literature, |
he ter adapted for the formation of manly CT
re acter, and nobly generous sentiments, in
boy, or womanly sweetness and heroism
the girl, than some of his poems; w
to nothing, on the other hand, could more sv
est ly corrupt, degrade and gnarl the sentime
of both, than an unlimited perusal.
hen
me- The Fireside.
the
zen. HONE is the covert and shelter, not onl
en- the body, but of the heart also. It is
Don beautiful and fruitful garden where the al
~ tons unfold their fragrant blossoms and ri
- IoAAon EsA1 - -1aao G.. I'll -