The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-04-13
RAGS Here and There.

Everything in the world seems to have
peculiar beginning and peculiar ending,
with normal state between them, and it is
always this normal state which gives the
truest character of thing, for it expresses
its nature and ruling idea.
Summer is WEAKNESS in itself. This is
in great measure the wretchedness impris-
onment however comfortable and roomy
our dungeon may be. The sun shines in at
our window, the morning breeze comes
there, and the little birds sing without, and
for moment our waking thoughts do not
realize where we are or what we have to en-
counter. But when we are fully aware that
we have another day before us of unche-
quered monotonous confinement, the soul
SINKS within us. forlorn and weary, even
after long hours of refreshing sleep.
When coming over the classic pages of
Byron we cannot help saying to ourselves
If the finest poetry be that which leaves the
deepest impression on the minds of its read
ers-and this 10 not the worst test or its ex-
celence-Lord Byron must be allowed to
take precedence of all his distinguished
contemporaries. He has not the variety of
the absolute truth of Crabbe, nor the pol
iahed sparkling of "Erin's sweetest lyric !"
but in force of dicton, and inextinguishable
energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses
them all. "Words that breathe, and
thoughts that burn are not merely The or
naments but the common staple of his poe
try. And he is not inspired or impressive
only in some happy passages, but through
the whole body and tissue of his compost
ton. 1t was an unavoidable condition, per-
haps, OF this higher excellence, that his
scene should be narrow and his persons
few. To produce great effects, he fe t that
II was necessary to reject all ordinary
agents, and all trivial combinations, and to
deal only with the greater passions, with
the exaltations of daring fancy, and the
errors of lofty intellect, with the pride,
the terrors and the agonies, of strong emo
tion-the fire aud air alone of our human
intellect. In Lord Byron we have perpe-
tual stream of thick-coming fancies, an
eternal spring of fresh blown images, which
seem called into existence by the sudden
flash of those glowing thoughts and over
whelming emotions and overwhelming
emotions, that struggle for expression
through the whole flow of his poetry, and
impart to dction that is often abrupt and
irregulrr, force and a charm which seem
frequently TO realize all that is said of in
spiration. With all these undoubted claims
TO our admiration, however, 1t ia impossi-
bic to deny that the noble author has still
something to learn, and a good deal to cor
rect. He is frequently abrupt and care
less, and sometimes obscure. There
are marks, occasionally, of effort and strain
ing after an emphasis which is generally
spontaneous; and, above all, there is far
too great monotony in the moral coloring
of his pictures, and too much repetition of
the same sentiments and maxims. He de-
lights too exclusively in the delneation of
certain morbid exaltation of character
and of feeling, sort of demonlacal sublim-
ity, not without some trials of the ruined
Archangel. He is haunted almost perpe-
tually with the image of q being feeding and
fed upon by violent passions, and the recol-
lections of catastropEes they have occa-
stoned and, though worn out by their past
indulgence, unable to sustain the burden
of an existence which they do not continue
to animate. Full of pride, revenge and OBJ
duracy, disdaining life and death and man
kind and himself, and trampling, in his
scorne. not .only upon the faliehoo and
formality of polished life, but upon its viz
tues and devotion. Such is the person with
whom we are called upon to sympathize in
all the greater productions of this distin-
guished writer; in Childe Harold, in the
Corsair, in Lara, in the Siege of Corintb,
in Parisina and most Of the smaller pieces
RAGS.