[Gilfillian is the critic credited with discovering and encouraging Smith. The following article, the second on Smith by Gilfillian, introduced Smith to about six thousand readers before he had even published a book of poetry, and caused Smith's first volume to be eagerly anticipated. Here, Gilfillian favorably compares Smith to Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge, saying Smith has the potential to become a genius poet.]

Discoverers are often a much injured class of men. Sometimes the worth of their object is denied, sometimes their claim to the fact of finding it out is contested, and sometimes, in the brilliance of the star, the astronomer who has first observed it is utterly eclipsed! Nevertheless it is a pleasant thing, "when a new planet swims into our ken," or when, to pursue the quotation, we happen to resemble—

—Stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Gathered around him with a wild surmise,
Silent upon a peak in Darien.

This quotation is suggested, partly by the thought it embodies, and partly by the recollection of its author, both relevant to the subject before us. We—we first—we alone, claim the merit of discovering a new Poet in Glasgow, and a Poet, too, who in genius, circumstances, and present position, is not unlike John Keats. God forbid he should resemble him in his future destiny!

Some four months ago we received a packet of poetry from Glasgow, accompanied with a very modest note, signed "Alex. Smith." Encumbered with many duties, and with an immense mass of MS., good, bad, and indifferent, we allowed the volume to lie by us for a long time, till at last, lifting it up carelessly, we lighted upon some lines that pleased us, were tempted to read on—did so—and ere the end, were all but certain we had found a Poet—a new and real star in those barren Northern skies. We told the Poet our impressions; he in reply sent us two later effusions, which completely confirmed us; and we have now no hesitation in saying, that since Sidney Yendys, we have met with no more promising aspirant. He has not Yendys' intellect, nor art, nor culture, but his vein is equally true, and some of his verses are as sweet and tremblingly rich—like a rose shaken in the summer wind.

Poor fellow! at the age of ten he was sent from school to a commercial employment, where he has been engaged, ever since, ten hours a day, for the last eleven years. He is now, consequently, twenty-one. His principal, though not his best Poem, was written two years ago. It is entitled a "Life Fragment," and is, it seems, an attempt to set his "own life to music."

We may, without analysing the story, which is very slight, quote a few extracts from this powerful, though juvenile, unequal, and somewhat imitative Poem. These will speak for themselves, for their author, and for us! Hear this of certain books:

They mingle gloom and splendour, as I've oft
In thund'rous sunsets seen the thunder piles
Seam'd with dull fire, and fiercest glory rents.
They awe him to his knees, as if he stood
In presence of a King. They give him tears,
Such glorious tears as Eve's fair daughters shed
When first they clasped a son of God, all bright
With burning plumes and splendours of the sky
In zoning heaven of their milky arms.
How few read books aright! Most souls are shut
By sense from their grandeurs, as the man who snores,
Nightcapp'd and wrapt in blankets to the nose
Is shut out from the Night, which, like a sea,
Breaketh for ever on a strand of stars.

Again, of a Poet—

His was not that love
That comes on men with their beards; his soul was rich
And this his book unveils it, as the Night
Her panting wealth of stars. The world was cold,
And he went down like a lone ship at sea;
And now the fame which scorned him in life
Waits on him like a menial.
When the dark dumb Earth
Lay on her back and watch'd the shining stars. &c.

Hear this, too, of a Song—the Song itself we do not give:—

I'll sing it to thee, 'tis a song of one,
An image warm in his soul's caress,
Like a sweet thought within a Poet's heart,
Ere it is born in joy and golden words—
Of one, whose naked soul stood clad in love,
Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.

There is not a finer line than this last in literature! The combination of the thought, the image, and the picture formed from both, is perfect.

Let Mr. Smith be permitted again to speak of the Poet—of such as himself!

The Poet was as far 'bove common men
As a sun-steed, wild-eyed, and meteor-maned,
Neighing the reeling stars, is 'bove a dray,
With mud in its veins.
Shaken with joy or sadness, tremulous
As the soft star which in the azure East
Trembles with pity o 'er bright bleeding Day.

But here is a higher voice:

The soliloquy with which God broke
The silence of the dead Eternities,—At which ancient words,
With showery tresses like a child from sleep,
Uprose the splendid, mooned, and long-haired Night,
The loveliest born of God.

To this the lady well answers—

Doubtless your first chorus
Shall be the shoutings of the morning stars!
What martial music is to marching men,
Should Song be to Humanity. In bright Song
The Infant Ages born and swathed are.

Thus he opens the Second Part; and is it not like the sound of a trumpet?

Curl not thy grand lip with that scorn, O World!
Nor men with eyes of cold and cruel blue
Wither my heart-strings with contemptuous "Pooh!"
Alas, my spirit sails not yet upfurled,
Flap idly 'gainst the mast of my intent.
Bagged Ledger men, with souls by Mammon churl'd,
What need of mocks or jeers from you or yours,
Since hope of Song is by Scorn's arrow shent!
O Poesy, the glory of the lands,
Of thee no more my thirsty spirit drinks.
I seek the look of Fame! poor fool, so tries
Some lonely wand'rer 'mong the desert sands,
By shouts to gain the notice of the Sphynx,
Staring right on with calm eternal eyes.

This last line should have been in Hyperion. It reminds us of

Sate grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone.

Or,

With solemn step an awful Goddess came!

Or,

And plunged all noiseless into the deep Night.

but is, perhaps, finer than any of them. It is one of those lines which are worlds of self-contained power and harmony!

We give another laboured and very splendid passage:

Ev'n as I write the ghost of one bright hour
Comes from its grave and stands before me now.
"Twas at the close of a long summer's day,
As we were standing on a grassy slope,
The sunset hung before us like a dream
That shakes a demon in his fiery lair.
The clouds were standing round the setting sun
Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles;
Wide castles throbbing in their own fierce light;
Tall spires that went and came like spires of flame,
Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and sunset-peaks
Of piled gorgeousness, and rocks of fire
A-tilt and poised; bare beaches crimson seas:
All these were huddled in that dreadful West;
All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light,
And from the centre blazed the angry Sun,

Stern as the unlashed eye of God, a glare
O'er ev'ning city with its boom of sin.
Dost thou remember as we journeyed home,
(That dreadful sunset burnt into our brain)
With what a soothing came the naked Moon;
She, like a swimmer that has found his ground,
Came rippling up a silver strand of clouds,
And plunged from the other side into the Night.

Here is a fine thought in a softer vein:

O my Friend,
If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered,
Stand up amid the ruins of thy heart,
And with a calm brow front the solemn stars.
'Tis four o'clock already, see the Moon
Has climbed the eastern sky,
And sits and tarries for the coming Night.
So let thy soul be up and ready-armed,
In waiting till occasion comes like night,
As night to moons—to souls occasion comes.

Take another sweet image (perhaps suggested by that line in Festus, which David Scott pronounced the best in the poem

Friendship has passed me like a ship at sea.)—
We twain have met like ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour, and then away they speed
On lonely paths through mist and cloud and foam—
To meet no more.

Again, he says—

God is a worker. He has thickly sown
Wide space with rolling grandeurs. God is Love:
He yet shall wipe away Creation's tears,
And all the worlds shall summer in his smile.
Why work I not? the veriest mote that sports
Its one day life within the sunny beam,
Hath its stern duties. Wherefore have I none?

Listen, O world, to this picture of they weary self:

Methinks our darkened world doth wander Ione,
A Cain-world, outcast from her peers in light;
Wild and curse driven. A poor maniac world,
Homeless and sobbing, through the deep she goes.

The following passage has obvious faults of rhythm and diction, but is quite equal to anything in Festus on the same theme. It is a picture of the poet of the coming time:

When ages flower, ages and bards are born;
My friend, a Poet must ere long arise,
And with a regal song sun-crown the age,
As a saint's head is with a glory crowned;
One who shall hallow Poetry to God
And to its own high uses—for poetry is
The grandest chariot in which king-thoughts ride;
One who shall fervent grasp the sword of song,
As a stern swordsman grasps his keenest blade
To gain the quickest passage to the heart.
A mighty Poet, whom this age shall choose
To be its spokesman to all coming times.
In the ripe full-blown season of his soul
He shall go forward in his spirit's strength
And grapple with the questions of all time
And wring from them their meanings. As King Saul
Called up the buried prophet from his grave
To speak his doom: so shall this Poet-King
Call up the dead Past from its awful grave
To tell him of our future. As the air
Doth sphere the world, so shall his heart of love—
Loving mankind, not peoples. As the lake
Reflects the flower, tree, rock, and bending heav'n,
Shall he reflect our great humanity.
And as the young Spring breathes with living breath
On a dead branch till it sprouts fragrantly,
Green leaves and sunny flowers shall he breathe life,
Through every theme he touch, making all Beauty
And Poetry for ever like the Stars.

There follows a noble rhapsody on the Stars, for which we have not room. We quote the closing passage of this "Life-Fragment."

As he wrote, his task the lovelier grew,
Like April into May, or as a child
A smile in the lap of life, by fine degrees
Orbs to a maiden walking with meek eyes
In atmosphere of beauty round her breath'd,
Over his work he flush'd and paled in room
Hallowed with glooms and books. Priests which have wed
Their makers unto Fame. Moons which have shed
Eternal halos around England's head;
Books dusky and thumbed without, within a sphere,
Smelling of Spring, as genial, fresh, and clear,

And beautiful as is the rainbow'd air
After May showers. Within this warm lair
He spent in writing all the winter moons.
But when May came with train of sunny noons,
He chose a leafy summer house within
The greenest nook of all his garden green.
Oft a fine thought, his face would flush divine,
As he had quaffed a cup of olden wine,
Which deifies the drinker: oft his face
Gleamed "like a spirit's" in that shady place,
When he saw smiling upwards from the scroll
The image of the thought within his soul,
As mid the waving shadows of the trees,
Mid garden odours and the hum of bees,
He wrote the last and closing passages.

'Tis truly a noble tragment of a "Life" this—the chip of a colossal block. We fervently trust that Mr. Smith's "life" may be long extended, his delicate health strengthened, and his circumstances so ameliorated, that he may fulfil the beautiful promise he has so unequivocally given.

We have a few sonnets from his pen. These are of various merit, some of them too much modelled on those of favourite authors such as Wordsworth. This fault of imitation is one with which Mr. Smith, like all young poets, is chargeable to some extent, and of which his detractors are certain bitterly to accuse him. His imitation, however, is occasional, not habitual; it is unconscious, not wilful; it fails to disguise the force and freshness of his own genius; it is not greater than was that of Shelley, Coleridge, and many others at the same period of life; and like them he has but to go on, and it will drop off like an old sandal, from his own naked and vigorous foot; that of one who pursues Poetry as a Pilgrimage, and feels that "Life," even if a "fragment," should be a real, earnest and original one—the jagged splinter of an oak rent by lightning, and not the broken fraction of a mere bust or lay figure.

We quote three fine specimens of his Sonneteering vein. The first, though "All in Honour" is perhaps a little too luxurious in tone:

Last night my cheek was wetted with warm tears,
Each worth a world. They fell from eyes divine.
Last night a silken lip was pressed to mine,
And at its touch fled all the barren years.
And golden-couched on a bosom white,
Which came and went beneath me like a sea,
An Emperor I lay, in empire bright.
Lord of the beating heart! while tenderly
Love-words were glutting my love-greedy ears;
Kind Love, I thank thee for that happy night.
Richer this check for those warm tears of thine,
Than the vast midnight with its gleaming spheres:
Leander toiling through the midnight brine,
Kingdomless Antony were scarce my peers.
Like clouds or streams we wandered on at will,
Three glorious days, when, near our journey's end,
As down the moorland road we straight did wend,
To Wordsworth's "Inversneyd," talking to kill
The cold and cheerless drizzle in the air.
'Bove me I saw, at pointing of my friend,
An old fort, like a ghost upon the hill,
Stare in blank misery through the blinding rain;
So human like it seemed in its despair,
So stunned with grief, long gazed at it we twain,
Weary and damp we reached our poor abode,
I, warmly seated in the chimney nook,
Still saw that old fort on the moorland road,
Stare through the rain with strange woe-wildered look.
Beauty still walketh on the earth and air,
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold
As ere the Iliad's numbers were outrolled,
The roses of the spring are ever fair,
'Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair:
And the deep seas still foam their music old.
So if we are at all divinely souled,
This Beauty will unloose our bonds of care,
'Tis pleasant when blue skies are o'er us bending,
Within old starry-gated Poesy.
To meet a soul set to no earthly tune,
Like thine sweet friend! O dearer thou to me
Than are the dewy trees the sun, the moon,
Or noble music with a golden ending.

We have culled the previous extracts, and even the Sonnets, almost at random, and could easily have multiplied them by dozens. But we proceed now to give some extracts from a separate poem of his entitled the "Page and the Lady," which we deem his finest artistic production.

The story of the Page and the Lady is simple—A lady of high birth and great beauty, hath an Indian Page, who falls in love with her, which love is betrayed in the course of a Conversation between them. The Conversation is the Poem. This confession she is at first disposed to treat with disdain, but ultimately she finds, by a very brief process of self-inquiry, that it is but the counterpart of a feeling towards him, which has long lurked in her own bosom. Let us take first the opening of the poem:

On balcony, all summer, roofed with vines,
A lady half-reclined amid the light,
Golden and green, soft showering through the leaves,
Silent she sate one half the silent noon;
At last she sank luxurious on her couch
Purple and golden-fringed like the sun's,
And stretch'd her white arms on the warm'd air,
As if to take some object where withal
To ease the empty aching of her heart.

She is weary, because, although she has plenty of rich and noble suitors she has none she can love; and exclaims—

O empty heart!
O palace! rich and purple-chambered,
When will thy Lord come home?

Then she bethinks herself in her weariness of her Page:

My cub of Ind,—
My sweetest plaything! He is bright and wild
As is a gleaming panther of the hills.
Lovely as lightning—beautiful as wild!
His sports and laughters are with fierceness edged,
As I were toying with a naked sword
Which starts within my veins the blood of Earis.
I fain would have the service of his voice,
To kill with music this most languid noon.

She summons him accordingly to her presence and bids him sing a battle song, or better still:

Some hungry lay of love,
Like that you sung me on the eve you told
How poor our English to your Indian darks,
Shaken from od'rous hills what tender smells
Pass like fine pulses through the mellow nights,
Your large round Moon, more beautiful than ours—
The showered stars—each hanging luminous,
Like golden dewdrops in the Indian air.

He sings, as she bids, a very sweet, love song. At the close—

Queenly the lady lay;
One white hand hidden in a golden shoal
Of ringlets, reeling down upon her couch,
And heaving on the heavings of her breast,
The while her thoughts rose in her eyes like stars,
Rising and setting in the blue of night.

Thus luxuriously rested, she begins to tell her Page of a rhyming cousin she had once. A strange person, truly!

He went to his grave, not told what man he was;
He was unlanguaged, like the earnest sea,
Which strives to gain an utterance on the shore;
But ne'er can shape unto the listening hills
The lore it gathered in its awful age,
The crime for which 'tis lashed by cruel winds,
To shrieks and spoomings to the frighted stars,
The thought, pain, grief within its lab'ring breast.

Many strange things have been said about the sea. It has been called the "far resounding Main;" it has by an author of the day been boldly called "The Shadow and Mad Sister of the Earth." Thomson figures it as the "melancholy Main;" and well may it be both mad and melancholy, for Mr. Smith proclaims it a tongueless penitent, carrying in its bosom the memory of some Crime of Ages; lashed for its penance by the eternal winds; and yet unable to relieve itself by expressing its guilt, save in inarticulate shrieks, sobs, and "spoomings to the frighted stars." We think that we remember a similar thought in Mr. Gilfillian's Second Gallery of Portraits," where he describes Mrs. Shelley, after her husband's death, wandering along the shore and asking vain questions at the sea, "which, like a dumb murderer, had done the deed, but was not able to utter the confession." Mr. Smith, however, improves upon this by making the crime a profound, old and general one, worthy of those long and fearful moanings which, even in calm, never altogether subside, and which in storm seem to express a divine desperation, as of a whole Synod of Gods plunged into Tartarus, and feeling the virgin fires on their immortal limbs.

The Lady, in her turn, condescends to sing a song, and proceeds in various measure to recount the history and character of those who in vain had loved her. She asks him, then, if he thinks that the power of Beauty is so great as is usually supposed, and he, in very glowing terms, affirms that it is.

The lady dowered him with her richest look,
Her arch head half-aside, her liquid eyes
From 'neath their dim lids drooping, slumbrous
Stood full on his, and call'd the wild blood up
All in a tumult to his sun-kissed cheek,

As if it wished to see her beauty too.
Then asked in dulcet tones "Dost think me fair."

We must omit his very eloquent reply, which is, of course, in the affirmative. She begins to suspect, from his language, that he has known by experience what love is. She asks him —

My lustrous Leopard, hast thou been in love?

What follows is admirable:

The Page's dark face flush'd the hue of wine
In crystal goblet, stricken by the sun,
His soul stood like a moon within his eyes,
Suddenly orbed, his passionate voice was shook,
By trembles into music "Thee I love!"
"Thou!" and the lady with a cruel laugh
(Each silver throb went through him like a sword,)
Flung herself back upon her fringed couch
From which she rose, upon him, like a queen,
She rose, and stabb'd him with her angry eyes.

We do not quote what she then says in words, unknowing her own heart; her laughter's "silver throbs" (what an exquisite expression!) had said it more eloquently before. Suffice it, she dismisses the crestfallen Page —

With arm sweep superb,
The light of scorn was cold within her eyes,
And withered his bloom'd heart, which like a rose
Had open'd timid to the noon of Love.

But mark now! After sitting alone for a season, she thus communes with her own soul, in a soliloquy worthy of any Poet or Dramatist:

It was my father's blood
That bore me, as a red and wrathful stream
Bears a shed leaf. I would recall my words,
And yet I would not.
Into what angry beauty rushed his face!
What lips! What splendid eyes! 'twas pitiful
To see such splendors ebb in utter woe.
His eyes half won me! Tush! I am a fool;
The blood that purples in these azure veins,
Rich'd with its long course thro' an hundred Earth,
Were foul'd and mudded if I stooped to him.
My father loves him for his free wild wit,
I for his beauty and sun-lighted eyes.
—To bring him to my feet, to lip my hand,
Had I it in my gift, I'd give the world—
Its panting fire—heart, diamonds, veins of gold,
Its rich strands, oceans, bells of cedar'd hills,
Whence summer smells are struck by all the winds.
But, whether I might lance him through the brain
With a proud look, or whether sternly kill
Him with a single deadly word of scorn,
Or—whether—yield me up,
And sink all tears and weakness in his arms,
And strike him blind with a strong shock of joy—
Alas! I feel I could do each and all.
I will be kind when next he brings me flowers,
Plucked from the shining forehead of the morn,
Ere they have ope'd their rich cores to the bee.
His wild heart with a ringlet will I chain,
And o'er him I will lean me like a heav'n,
And feed him with sweet looks and dew-soft word,
And beauty that might make a monarch pale;
And thrill him to the heart's core with a touch—
Smile him to Paradise at close of eve,
To hang upon my lip in silver dreams.

And thus is the story "left untold;" and yet what more is needed to tell us, that Love has triumphed over Rank, that the Lady has become the "Page" to the Page, and the Page the Lord to the Lady.