EARLY POEMS, 1820-33

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON1

Behold

What care employs me now, my vows I pay

To the sweet Muses, teachers of my youth!-AKENSIDE.

Ancient of days! August Athena! Where,

Where are thy men of might, thy grand in soul?

Gone-glimmering through the dream of things that were.

First in the race that led to glory's goal,

They won, and passed away.-BYRON.

PREFACE

mission, to offer these pages to the perusal of the few kind and partial friends who may condescend to read them, assured that their criticism will be tempered with mercy.

THAT poetry is the first, and most cele- | guilty to their accusations, and, with subbrated of all the fine arts, has not been denied in any age, or by any philosopher. The culture of the soul, which Sallust so nobly describes, is necessary to those refined pleasures, and elegant enjoyments, in which man displays his superiority to brutes. It is alone the elevation of the soul, not the form of the body, which constitutes the proud distinction; according to the learned historian, Alterum nobis cum diis, alterum cum belluis commune est.' The noblest of the productions of man, that which inspires the enthusiasm of virtue, the energy of truth, is poetry: poetry elevates the mind to heaven, kindles within it unwonted fires, and bids it throb with feelings exalting to its nature.

This humble attempt may by some be unfortunately attributed to vanity, to an affectation of talent, or to the still more absurd desire of being thought a genius. With the humility and deference due to their judgements, I wish to plead not

Dedication to the original edition of 1820: 'To him to whom "I owe the most," and whose admonitions have guided my youthful muse, even from her earliest infancy, to the Father whose never-failing kindness, whose unwearied affection, I never can repay, I offer these pages as a small testimony of the gratitude of his affectionate child, ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.'

Happily it is not now, as it was in the days of Pope, who was so early in actual danger of thinking himself 'the greatest genius of the age.' Now, even the female may drive her Pegasus through the realms of Parnassus, without being saluted with the most equivocal of all appellations, a learned lady; without being celebrated by her friends as a Sappho, or traduced by her enemies as a pedant; without being abused in the Review, or criticized in society; how justly then may a child hope to pass unheeded!

In these reading days there need be little vulgar anxiety among poets for the fate of their works: the public taste is no longer so epicurean. As the press pours forth profusion, the literary multitude eagerly receive its lavish offerings, while the sublimity of Homer, and the majesty of Virgil, those grand and solitary specimens of ancient poetic excellence, so renowned through the lapse of ages, are by many read only as schoolbooks, and are justly estimated alone by the comparative

of glory around the brow of independence; liberty, at whose decline virtue sinks before the despotic sway of licentiousness, effeminacy, and vice. At the fall of liberty, the

became deaf to the call of glory, fame, and manly virtue. 'On vit manifestement (says Montesquieu) pendant le peu de temps que dura la tyrannie des decemvirs, à quel point l'agrandissement de Rome dependoit de sa liberté; l'état sembla avoir perdu l'âme qui la faisoit mouvoir.' And Bigland thus: 'It was not till luxury had corrupted their manners, and their liberties were on the eve of their extinction, that the principal citizens of Athens and of Rome began to construct magnificent houses, and to display their opulence and splendour in private life.'

characteristic, and invention the very foundation, of poetry. The necessity of the latter in all poetic effusions is established by that magnificent translator of the greatest of poets, Pope, in this beauti-immortal Republics of Rome and Athens ful passage: 'It is the invention that in different degrees distinguishes all great geniuses: the utmost extent of human study, learning, and industry, which masters everything besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes art with all her materials, and without it, judgement itself can but steal wisely; for art is only a prudent steward, who lives on managing the riches of nature.' And in this ingenious note the editor, Mr. Wakefield, elegantly exemplifies it: For poetry, in its proper acceptation, is absolutely creation, wolŋσïs or invention. In the three requisites prescribed by Horace of poetic excellence, Ingenium cui sit cui mens divinior atque os magna sonaturum." The first, "ingenium," or native fertility of intellect, corresponds to the "invention" of Pope.'

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The battle of Marathon is not, perhaps, a subject calculated to exercise the powers of the imagination, or of poetic fancy, the incidents being so limited; but it is a subject every way formed to call forth the feelings of the heart, to awake the strongest passions of the soul. Who can be indifferent, who can preserve his tranquillity, when he hears of one little city rising undaunted, and daring her innumerable enemies, in defence of her freedom-of a handful of men overthrowing the invaders, who sought to molest their rights and to destroy their liberties? Who can hear unmoved of such an example of heroic virtue, of patriotic spirit, which seems to be crying from the ruins of Athens for honour and immortality? The heart, which cannot be fired by such a recital, must be cold as the icy waters of the Pole, and must be devoid at once of manly feeling and of patriotic virtue; for what is it that can awaken the high feelings which sometimes lie dormant in the soul of man, if it be not liberty? Liberty, beneath whose fostering

It may be objected to my little poem, that the mythology of the ancients is too much called upon to support the most considerable incidents; it may unhappily offend those feelings most predominant in the breast of a Christian, or it may be considered as injudicious in destroying the simplicity so necessary to the epic. Glover's Leonidas is commended by Lyttelton, because he did not allow himself the liberty so largely taken by his predecessors, of wandering beyond the bounds, and out of sight, of common sense in the airy regions of poetic mythology'; yet, where is the poet more remarkable for simplicity than Homer, and where is the author who makes more frequent use of heathen mythology? The heathens,' says Rollin, addressed themselves to their gods, as beings worthy of adoration.'

He who writes an epic poem must transport himself to the scene of action; he must imagine himself possessed of the same opinions, manners, prejudices, and beliefs; he must suppose himself to be the hero he delineates, or his picture can no longer be nature, and what is not natural cannot please. It would be considered ridiculous in the historian or poet describing the an ient manners of Greece, to address himself to that Omnipotent Being who first called the world out of chaos, nor would it be considered less so if he were to be silent upon the whole subject; for

in all nations, in all ages, religion must be the spur of every noble action, and the characteristic of every lofty soul.

many other imitations, which it would be unnecessary and tedious here to enumerate. Even Milton, the pride and glory of English taste, has not disdained to replenish his imagination from the abundant fountains of the first and greatest of poets. It would have been both absurd and presumptuous, young and inexperienced as I am, to have attempted to strike out

Perhaps I have chosen the rimes of Pope, and departed from the noble simplicity of the Miltonic verse, injudiciously. The immortal poet of England, in his apology for the verse of Paradise Lost, declares 'rimes to be, to all judicious ears, trivial, and of no true musical de-a path for myself, and to have wandered light.' In my opinion, humble as it is, the custom of riming would ere now have been abolished amongst poets, had not Pope, the disciple of the immortal Dryden, awakened the lyre to music, and proved that rime could equal blank verse in simplicity and gracefulness, and vie with it in elegance of composition, and in sonorous melody. No one who has read his translation of Homer, can refuse him the immortality which he merits so well, and for which he laboured so long. He it was who planted rime for ever in the regions of Parnassus, and uniting elegance with strength, and sublimity with beauty, raised the English language to the highest excellence of smoothness and purity.

I confess that I have chosen Homer for a model, and perhaps I have attempted to imitate his style too often and too closely; and yet some imitation is authorized by poets immortalized in the annals of Parnassus, whose memory will be revered as long as man has a soul to appreciate their merits. Virgil's magnificent description of the storm in the first book of the Aeneid is almost literally translated from Homer, where Ulysses, quitting the Isle of Calypso for Phaeacia's dusty shore,' is overwhelmed by Neptune. That sublime picture, 'Ponto nox incubat atra,' and the beautiful apostrophe, 'O terque quaterque beati,' is a literal translation of the same incident in Homer. There are

among the varied windings of Parnassus, without a guide to direct my steps, or to warn me from those fatal quicksands of literary blunders, in which, even with the best guide, I find myself so frequently immersed. There is no humility, but rather folly, in taking inferiority for a model, and there is no vanity, but rather wisdom, in following humbly the footsteps of perfection; for who would prefer quenching his thirst at the stagnant pool, when he may drink the pure waters of the fountain-head? Thus, then, however unworthily, I have presumed to select, from all the poets of ancient or modern ages, Homer, the most perfect of the votaries of Apollo, whom every nation has contributed to immortalize, to celebrate, and to admire.

If I have in these pages proved what I desired, that poetry is the parent of liberty, and of all the fine arts, and if I have succeeded in clearing up some of the obscurities of my little poem, I have attained my only object; but if on the contrary I have failed, it must be attributed to my incapacity, and not to my inclination. Either way, it would be useless to proceed further, for nothing can be more true than the declaration of Bigland, 'that a good book seldom requires, and a worthless never deserves, a long preface.'

HOPE END, 1819.

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON