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already drunk for us! He had strength to drink it to the dregs; He knew Thee; He had seen Thee: He knew wherefore he was about to drink it; He knew the immortal life which awaited him beyond his tomb of three days ;- but I, Lord, what do I know, except the sufferings which rend my heart, and the hopes which they have taught me?'" - pp. 250, 251.

We need no painter now to draw for us those Olives, under which the Son of Man spent a midnight of agony. We see them; we even hear them. They are not so much trees as beings. They are aged witnesses of that most solemn scene; and we too could kneel under them, and humble ourselves, and weep. We need give no further evidences of our author's power; and after such a passage as this which we have just quoted, we do not feel disposed to draw from his volumes any evidences of his weakness.

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ART. VII. Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems. By WILLIAM WORdsworth. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1835. 16mo. pp. 244.

WHEN this volume was announced, the great and increasing number of Mr. Wordsworth's admirers awaited its appearance with eagerness. Public opinion, though still divided as to the precise rank of his poetical genius, had done high honor to his name. Those who had at first ridiculed his pretensions, were compelled at last to allow him a place among the great poets who have illustrated the age; while his most earnest admirers admitted that his theory of poetry, and his excessive straining after simplicity, had marred the effect of some of his grandest strains by mere puerilities. It was supposed, on all hands, that increasing age, greater experience, and the storm of criticism, good, bad, and indifferent, with which he had so long been assailed, would have tempered down the passion which his really great mind had conceived for a theory. It was therefore supposed that this volume, the offspring of his green old age, would be freer from his peculiar faults, and fuller of his peculiar beauties, than any preceding volume of his poems.

But the readers of Mr. Wordsworth are somewhat divided in their opinions of its merits. The London Quarterly Review uses language of extravagant eulogy, which will raise expectations that must be disappointed.

We think this volume must give pleasure to all readers of taste and sensibility, though by no means the same kind or degree of pleasure which they feel in reading passages of the Excursion. It contains poems on a great variety of subjects: but there are not many among them, which are calculated to excite a lively interest, except perhaps in minds of a very reflective cast. The spirit which breathes through every page, is delicate and pure. A kindly sympathy with every feeling of the human heart, embracing the affections of the lowest of mankind, a calm, ever-present love of Nature, and a placid vein of meditation, are its leading characteristics. Many of the descriptions have a minute fidelity to nature adorned by the beauty of choice language and harmonious numbers, and several of the narrative pieces are marked by great simplicity and elegance. Many of the sonnets are written in a style of severe beauty, that modern literature has never surpassed. But there are a few passages which carry simplicity into weakness; and others so strictly personal, that they are justly liable to the charge of egotism. A large part indeed, of the volume, is made up of records of feeling, almost too private for publication. Personal details, which most men keep to themselves, Mr. Wordsworth has a singular fancy for embodying in his poems. But besides these, any scene that happens to strike his imagination; any incident that touches the chord of feeling; any association that calls up some old local superstition, or some historical event, afford him hints for ballads, tales, or sonnets.

"Yarrow Revisited," from which the volume takes its title, is a memorial of a visit to that stream in company with Sir Walter Scott, when that celebrated man was about to depart for Italy. The subject suits well the genius of Mr. Wordsworth, and the language of the piece is pure and flowing. The structure of the verse does not correspond to the grave style of thought. It is altogether too light and dancing. The first four lines are an example of Mr. Wordsworth's objectionable peculiarities.

"The gallant youth, who may have gained
Winsome Marrow,'

Or seeks a

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Was but an infant in the lap

When first I looked on Yarrow."

The images presented here are, in themselves, pretty and simple; but, at the beginning of this poem, they have the air of a far-fetched conceit and are wholly out of place. The following stanzas are pleasing and elegant.

"For busy thoughts the stream flowed on

In foamy agitation;

And slept in many a crystal pool
For quiet contemplation :
No public and no private care

The freeborn mind enthralling,

We made a day of happy hours,
Our happy days recalling.

"Brisk youth appeared, the morn of youth,
With freaks and graceful folly,-

Life's temperate noon, her sober eve,

Her night not melancholy,

Past, present, future, all appeared

In harmony united,

Like guests that meet, and some from far,
By cordial love invited.

"And if as Yarrow, through the woods
And down the meadow ranging,

Did meet us with unaltered face,
Though we were changed and changing;
If then, some natural shadows spread
Our inward prospect over,

The soul's deep valley was not slow
Its brightness to recover."

- p. 18.

Two or three of the rhymes, in this poem, are defective; for instance, on page 18, honor is made to rhyme with upon her; and, on page 20, we have the ludicrous jingle of sunshine with moonshine.

The following Sonnet, "On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples," is as finished and exquisite as the ode of Horace to the ship which was to carry Virgil from Italy.

"A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:
Spirits of power, assembled there, complain,
For kindred power departing from their sight;
VOL. XIX. 3D S. VOL. I. NO. III.

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48

While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.

Lift up your hearts, ye mourners! for the might
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ;
Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue

Than sceptered king or laurelled conqueror knows,
Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true,
Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea,
Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope!"

— p. 21. This part of the volume contains twenty-two Sonnets, with the "Apology," and the little poem on "The Highland Broach," all of which are commemorative of incidents, or descriptive of places, to which the poet's attention was drawn during his tour in Scotland, in 1831. Most of them are very pleasing; but they run into that minuteness of detail, and that labored delineation of the smallest traits in the scenes described, for which Wordsworth is remarkable beyond all the other poets of the age. Shades of feeling, as transient as the passing cloud of a summer day, are touched with the most careful hand. Thoughts, associations, impressions, simple as those of childhood, are wrought into the substance of these little pieces.

"The Egyptian Maid" is a tale of romance and magic. The narrative is skilfully constructed and the verse harmonious; but there are passages, of which the connexion and bearing are not very intelligible.

The "Ode composed on May Morning," and that "To May," for richness of language, harmony of verse, and beauty of imagery, are among the best in the volume.

"The Armenian Lady's Love" is a romantic story of the olden time. The subject of it is the love of a Sultan's daughter for a Christian captive, and the heroical manner in which she risked every thing to set him free. Though she learns from the lips of the Christian, that he is already wedded to one, who in his absence "counts widowed hours," she persists in her generous purpose of liberating him, and they escape together. After many adventures, full of peril, they arrive at Venice, the Christian's home, and the Armenian is welcomed with the honors due to the captive's noble deliverer. She renounces the Moslem faith, becomes a Christian, and passes a happy life, with those whom she has so greatly blessed. This little poem is free from all of Mr. Wordsworth's faults. The style

is simple, the sentiments are natural, and all the associations it awakens are poetical. The character of the Armenian Lady, in particular, though slightly sketched, is full of beauty.

"The Poet and the caged Turtledove," on page 90, is so simple as to be silly. The feelings expressed in it are childish, but, according to Mr. Wordsworth's theory and practice, they are not the less fitted for poetry on that account.

ume.

"The Russian Fugitive," is the longest poem in the volIn general, the story is told with elegance and dignity, but there is an occasional line, marked and marred by the Wordsworthian simplicity. For example, in Part II., describing the hiding-place of Ina, the poet says

"Advancing, you might guess an hour,

The front with such nice care

Is masked, 'if house it be or bower,' " &c. &c.

In the following stanza, an idea is introduced, that savours strongly of conceit.

"The prayer is heard, the Saints have seen,
Diffused through form and face,
Resolves devotedly serene,

That monumental grace

Of faith which doth all passions tame
That reason should control,

And shows in the untrembling frame
A statue of the soul."

Perhaps the best part of the volume is the series beginning on page 116, called "Evening Voluntaries." The train of reflections, which naturally spring up during that sober hour, harmonizes well with the character of Mr. Wordsworth's contemplative mind. With his deep sensibility to all the influences of nature, it would be impossible for him not to be poetical amidst the solemn shades, and the mysterious repose, and the softening indistinctness thrown over all things, at early evening. Accordingly his meditations fall naturally into the gravest English measure, and move in a majestic and stately march, singularly appropriate to the topics successively touched upon. The rest into which all animated nature sinks, the soothing sounds that murmur awhile and then die away, the changing hues of the outward world, and the moral associations, which they are so powerful in calling up, are described

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