Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845

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Like friend's farewell in parting hour,
And mournful as his whisper'd word,
Thy solemn roar—that voice of power—
Now for the last time I have heard.

Bound of my spirit's aspiration!
How often on thy shore, O Sea!
I've roved in gloomy meditation,
Tired with my mighty ministry!

Thine echoes—oh, how I have loved them!
Dread sounds—the voices of the Deep!
Thy waves—or rock'd in sunset sleep,
Or when the tempest-blast had moved them!

The fisher's peaceful sail may glide—
If such thy will—in safety gleaming,
Mid thy dark surges rolling wide;
But thou awak'st in sportful seeming—
And navies perish in thy tide!

How oft was mock'd my wild endeavour
To leave the dull unmoving strand,
To hail thee, Sea; to leave thee never,
And o'er thy foam to guide for ever
My course, with free poetic hand.

Thou calledst … but a chain was round me;
In vain my soul its fetters tore;
A mighty passion-spell had bound me,
And I remain'd upon thy shore.

Wherever o'er thy billows lonely
I might direct my careless prow,
Amid thy waste one object only
Would strike with awe my spirit now;

One rock … the sepulchre of glory …
There sleep the echoes that are gone,
The echoes of a mighty story;
There pined and died Napoleon.

There pined he, lone and broken-hearted.
And after, like a storm-blast, then
Another Mighty One departed,
Another Ruler among Men.

He vanish'd from among us—leaving
His laurels, Freedom, unto thee!
Roar, Ocean; swell-with tempest-grieving;
He was thy chosen bard, O sea!

Thine echoes in his voice resounded
Thy gloom upon his brow was shed,
Like thee, his soul was deep, unbounded,
Like thee 'twas mighty, dark, and dread.

The earth is empty now, * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

Farewell, then, Sea! Before me gleaming
Oft wilt thou float in sunny pride,
And often shall I hear in dreaming
Thy resonance, at evening-tide.

And I shall bear, to inland meadows
To the still woods, and silent caves,
Thy rocks, thy cliffs, thy lights, thy shadows,
And all the language of the waves.

The following lines we think elegantly and prettily expressed.

Echo

To roar of beast in wild-wood still,
To thunder-roll, to bugle-trill,
To maiden singing on the hill,
To every sound
Thy voice, responsive, straight doth fill
The air around.

Thou hearkenest when the storm-blasts blow,
To thunder peal, to billow's flow,
And shepherd's call from hamlet low,
Replying straight;
But thee nought answers … Even so,
Poet, thy fate!

There are few things more curious than to observe how universally the same legends are to be found in the popular traditions of very distant ages and nations, under circumstances which render it extremely difficult for the most acute investigator to trace how, when, and where they were communicated, or even to give any plausible account of the origin of the legend itself. So difficult indeed is this task, that we are almost driven to account for so singular a phenomenon, by attributing to the human mind an exceedingly small endowment of originality; and by supposing that, however the details of these ancient traditions may have been modified and adapted to suit the peculiar nature, the scenery of each particular country, or the manners, customs, and character of its inhabitants—the fundamental idea, and the leading incident, remaining the same under the most dissimilar conditions of time and place, must have a common and a single origin. This doctrine, if carried to its legitimate consequences, would lead us to consider the number of the original legends common to all times and many races, as singularly limited; and that a very short list indeed might be made to embrace the root-stories —the uhrsagen , as a German might call them. And really when we reflect that many of the most threadbare jests which figure in the recondite tomes of Mr Joseph Miller are to be found, crystallized in attic salt, in the pages of Hierocles, and represented as forming part of the "Hundred merye Talis and Jeastis" which delectated the citizens of ancient Greece; when we reflect, we repeat, that the same buffooneries, still retailed by after-dinner cits in the Sunday shades of Clapham or Camden-Town, may have raised the easy laugh of the merry Greek beneath the portico and in the Agora; it makes us entertain a very humble idea respecting the amount of creative power given to man, even for the production of so small a matter as a pleasantry, not to speak of pleasantries so very small as some of these mysterious and time-honoured jokes. If we remember, still further, that the pedigree of these trifling insects of the brain, these children of the quip, does not stop even in the venerable pages of Hierocles—that Greek "Joe"—but loses itself, like a Welsh genealogy in the darkest gloom of antiquity, we ought not to be surprised that ancient legends, being often shattered fragments and dim shadowings-forth of mystic and hierophantic philosophy, should be found, with many of their principal features unaltered, in the popular traditions of different ages and countries.

The tale embodied in the "Lay of Olég the Wise," is identical in all its essentials with the legend still extant upon the tomb of an ancient Kentish family, in the church of (we believe) Minster, in the Isle of Sheppey. The inimitable Ingoldsby has made the adventure the subject of one of his charming "Legends," and has shown how the Knight came by his death in consequence of wounding his foot in the act of contemptuously kicking the fatal horse's skull, thus accomplishing the prophecy many years after the death of the faithful steed. The reader will perceive, that in the Russian form of the legend the hero dies by the bite of a serpent, and not by the less imposing consequences of mortification in the toe; but the identity of the leading idea in the two versions of the old tale, is too striking not to be remarked. It is only necessary to observe that Olég is still one of the popular heroes of Russian legendary lore, and that the feast, to which allusion is made at the end of the poem, is the funeral banquet customary among the ancient Slavons at the burial of their heroes; and resembling the funeral games of the heroic age in Greece. The Slavonians, however, had the habit, on such occasions, of sacrificing a horse over the tumulus or barrow of the departed brave. The Perún mentioned in the stanzas was the War-God of this ancient people.

The Lay of the Wise Olég

Wise Olég to the war he hath bouned him again,
The Khozárs have awaken'd his ire;
For rapine and raid, hamlet, city, and plain
Are devoted to falchion and fire.
In mail of Byzance, girt with many a good spear,
The Prince pricks along on his faithful destrere.

From the darksome fir-forest, to meet that array,
Forth paces a gray-haired magician:
To none but Perún did that sorcerer pray,
Fulfilling the prophet's dread mission:
His life he had wasted in penance and pain:—
And beside that enchanter Olég drew his rein.

"Now rede me, enchanter, beloved of Perún,
The good and the ill that's before me;
Shall I soon give my neighbour-foes triumph, and soon
Shall the earth of the grave be piled o'er me?
Unfold all the truth; fear me not; and for meed,
Choose among them—I give thee my best battle-steed."

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