Charles Lamb - The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

——I have seen

A curious Child [who dwelt upon a tract

Of inland ground], applying to his ear

The convolutions of a smooth-lipp'd Shell;

To which, in silence hushed, his very soul

Listened intensely, and his countenance soon

Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within

Were heard—sonorous cadences! whereby,

To his belief, the Monitor expressed

Mysterious union with its native Sea.

Even such a Shell the Universe itself

Is to the ear of Faith; and [there are times,

I doubt not, when to you it] doth impart

Authentic tidings of invisible things;

Of ebb and flow, and ever during power;

And central peace subsisting at the heart

Of endless agitation.—p. 191.

Sometimes this harmony is imaged to us by an echo; and in one instance, it is with such transcendant beauty set forth by a shadow and its corresponding substance, that it would be a sin to cheat our readers at once of so happy an illustration of the poet's system, and so fair a proof of his descriptive powers.

Thus having reached a bridge, that overarched

The hasty rivulet where it lay becalmed

In a deep pool, by happy chance we saw

A two-fold Image; on a grassy bank

A snow-white Ram, and in the crystal flood

Another and the same! Most beautiful,

On the green turf, with his imperial front

Shaggy and bold, and wreathed horns superb,

The breathing Creature stood; as beautiful,

Beneath him, shewed his shadowy Counterpart.

Each had his glowing mountains, each his sky,

And each seemed centre of his own fair world:

Antipodes unconscious of each other,

Yet, in partition, with their several spheres,

Blended in perfect stillness, to our sight!—p. 407.

Combinations, it is confessed, "like those reflected in that quiet pool," cannot be lasting: it is enough for the purpose of the poet, if they are felt.—They are at least his system; and his readers, if they reject them for their creed, may receive them merely as poetry. In him, faith , in friendly alliance and conjunction with the religion of his country, appears to have grown up, fostered by meditation and lonely communions with Nature—an internal principle of lofty consciousness, which stamps upon his opinions and sentiments (we were almost going to say) the character of an expanded and generous Quakerism.

From such a creed we should expect unusual results; and, when applied to the purposes of consolation, more touching considerations than from the mouth of common teachers. The finest speculation of this sort perhaps in the poem before us, is the notion of the thoughts which may sustain the spirit, while they crush the frame of the sufferer, who from loss of objects of love by death, is commonly supposed to pine away under a broken heart.

——If there be whose tender frames have drooped

Even to the dust; apparently, through weight

Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power

An agonizing spirit to transmute,

Infer not hence a hope from those withheld

When wanted most; a confidence impaired

So pitiably, that, having ceased to see

With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love

Of what is lost, and perish through regret.

Oh! no, full oft the innocent Sufferer sees

Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs

To realize the Vision with intense

And overconstant yearning—there—there lies

The excess, by which the balance is destroyed.

Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh,

This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs,

Though inconceivably endowed, too dim

For any passion of the soul that leads

To extacy; and, all the crooked paths

Of time and change disdaining, takes its course

Along the line of limitless desires.—p. 148.

With the same modifying and incorporating power, he tells us—

Within the soul a Faculty abides,

That with interpositions, which would hide

And darken, so can deal, that they become

Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt

Her native brightness. As the ample Moon,

In the deep stillness of a summer even

Rising behind a thick and lofty Grove,

Burns like an unconsuming fire of light,

In the green tree; and, kindling on all sides

Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil

Into a substance glorious as her own,

Yea with her own incorporated, by power

Capacious and serene. Like power abides

In Man's celestial Spirit; Virtue thus

Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds

A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire,

From the incumbrances of mortal life,

From error, disappointment—nay from guilt;

And sometimes, so relenting Justice wills,

From palpable oppressions of Despair.—p. 188.

This is high poetry; though (as we have ventured to lay the basis of the author's sentiments in a sort of liberal Quakerism) from some parts of it, others may, with more plausibility, object to the appearance of a kind of Natural Methodism: we could have wished therefore that the tale of Margaret had been postponed, till the reader had been strengthened by some previous acquaintance with the author's theory, and not placed in the front of the poem, with a kind of ominous aspect, beautifully tender as it is. It is a tale of a cottage, and its female tenant, gradually decaying together, while she expected the return of one whom poverty and not unkindness had driven from her arms. We trust ourselves only with the conclusion—

Nine tedious years;

From their first separation, nine long years,

She lingered in unquiet widowhood,

A Wife and Widow. [Needs must it have been

A sore heart-wasting!] I have heard, my Friend,

That in yon arbour oftentimes she sate

Alone, through half the vacant Sabbath-day;

And if a dog passed by she still would quit

The shade, and look abroad. On this old Bench

For hours she sate; and evermore her eye

Was busy in the distance, shaping things

That made her heart beat quick. You see that path,

[Now faint—the grass has crept o'er its grey line;]

There, to and fro, she paced through many a day

Of the warm summer, from a belt of hemp

That girt her waist, spinning the long drawn thread

With backward steps. Yet ever as there pass'd

A man whose garments shew'd the Soldier's [32]red, [Or crippled Mendicant in Sailor's garb], The little Child who sate to turn the wheel Ceas'd from his task; and she with faultering voice Made many a fond enquiry; and when they, Whose presence gave no comfort, were gone by, Her heart was still more sad. And by yon gate, That bars the Traveller's road, she often stood, And when a stranger Horseman came the latch Would lift, and in his face look wistfully; Most happy, if, from aught discovered there Of tender feeling, she might dare repeat The same sad question. Meanwhile her poor hut Sank to decay: for he was gone—whose hand, At the first nipping of October frost, Closed up each chink, and with fresh bands of straw Checquered the green-grown thatch. And so she lived Through the long winter, reckless and alone; Until her house by frost, and thaw, and rain, Was sapped; and while she slept the nightly damps Did chill her breast; and in the stormy day Her tattered clothes were ruffled by the wind; Even at the side of her own fire. Yet still She loved this wretched spot, nor would for worlds Have parted hence: and still that length of road, And this rude bench, one torturing hope endeared, Fast rooted at her heart: and here, my Friend, In sickness she remains; and here she died, Last human Tenant of these ruined Walls.—p. 44.

[32]Her husband had enlisted for a soldier.

The fourth book, entitled "Despondency Corrected," we consider as the most valuable portion of the poem. For moral grandeur; for wide scope of thought and a long train of lofty imagery; for tender personal appeals; and a versification which we feel we ought to notice, but feel it also so involved in the poetry, that we can hardly mention it as a distinct excellence; it stands without competition among our didactic and descriptive verse. The general tendency of the argument (which we might almost affirm to be the leading moral of the poem) is to abate the pride of the calculating understanding , and to reinstate the imagination and the affections in those seats from which modern philosophy has laboured but too successfully to expel them.