American Quarterly Review
[In the following excerpt, the reviewer comments on various poems in Halleck's 1836 collection, Alnwick Castle, with Other Poems, and discusses his transition from social satire to descriptive nature and landscape poetry and narrative.]
[Halleck's] city residence, … did not seduce our author away from the remembrance of the country. He reverted to its calmness, its seclusion, and its purity, in many a melodious line. To him there was a charm in recollected rocks, waters, and vernal uplands—"ruris amoeni rivos, et musco circumlita saxa nemusque." He heard, even in the crowded and garish ways of the town, those celestial voices which breathe at night from echoing hills and thickets, over land and sea. The power of these entered into his heart of hearts; but he was environed by the every day realities of a crowded capital; the follies of its dwellers passed in daily review before him; and, quenching within himself what we must call his better inspirations, he launched his bark of authorship upon the sea of satire. In doing this, he acquired a burlesque habitude of style, which we regret to say became afterwards almost a passion with him, and the effects of which are absent from but very few of his compositions. In the verses of Croaker, written in conjunction with others, his spirit roamed and revelled among the stupidities or the "sins, negligences, and ignorances," of the town. Many a citizen rued the movements of his caustic quill: but like the sword of Sir Lucius O'Trigger in the comedy, it was no less polished than keen. There is one species of satirists that may be called insupportable: those who condemn without grace, and rebuke without good nature. This propensity, in man or woman, but especially in the latter, is beyond endurance. It is produced from ungenial minds, and betokens the utter absence of those lovely humanities, without the enforcement of which no writer can enduringly or really please.
Since he dissolved his partnership with the firm of Croaker and Co., Mr. Halleck—who has been justly accredited in the literary world as the chief operator in the concerns of that well-known house—has had little to do with satire. Not that its vein is extinct within him; but he has too much goodness of heart to engage in the breaking of social butterflies upon the wheel of ridicule.…
If, however, our author ever felt a momentary regret that he did not keep up his hunt for the follies and foibles of metropolitan life, he has been abundantly consoled in the success of those better, though not more popular works, which seem to have emanated warmly from his soul, and to have been dashed upon paper by a hand burdened and busy with the genuine promptings of genius. Intending to offer proofs of his sudden power, it is not improper to preface them with our impressions of the method by which Mr. Halleck commits himself "to virgin sheets." He does not seize upon one bright and lofty thought, and, delighting in it, per se, dilute it into a column or a page; he preserves it; he joins it with others that may occur to him from time to time, whether he move at nightfall along the dim streets of the city, catching glimpses of the distant country across the Hudson or the bay, as the sun sinks to his evening pavilion—or whether he gain an afternoon to visit suburban landscapes, and "walk in the fields, hearing the voice of God:" and when his mind is full, he pours it forth, a deluge of strong and brilliant imaginings. He suffers little or nothing to go forth to a cold-bosomed public which does not bear the impress of a master's hand. The first poem in the volume before us establishes the powerful originality of his style. In the present age of indiscriminate locomotion—when "the universal Yankee nation," using the phrase in the national sense, are every where present in Europe, by travelled delegations—we all know how stale and unprofitable are their pictures and descriptions of ivied ruins and broken turrets, the homes of rooks and owls—where the moon is as constant an attendant for every tourist, as if she were hired for the occasion, under a contract of "no postponement on account of the weather;" we know the thricetold tales of halls, and armours, and corridors, and so forth—part romance, part reality;—and it is an easy thing to set them down at their true value. But, let the reader peruse such a concentrated sketch as the following of Alnwick Castle—and will he ever forget it? Not soon.
Gaze on the abbey's ruined pile:
Does not the succouring ivy, keeping
Her watch around it, seem to smile,
As o'er a loved one sleeping?
One solitary turret gray
Still tells, in melancholy glory,
The legend of the Cheviot day,
The Percy's proudest border story.
That day its roof was triumph's arch;
Then rang, from aisle to pictured dome,
The light step of the soldier's march,
The music of the trump and drum;
And babe, and sire, the old, the young,
And the monk's hymn, and minstrel's song,
And woman's pure kiss, sweet and long,
Welcomed her warrior home.
We ask a close attention to the lines we have Italicised. If there be any thing more delicious in the whole range of English literature, we have not yet encountered it. Something akin to them may be found in Bassanio's exclamation in the Merchant of Venice, when he draws from the leaden casket that which assures him how he is beloved:—
Fair Portia's counterfeit!
What demi-god Hath come so near creation?
—Here are sever'd lips
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends.
In this little gem of a picture, the author of "Alnwick" has taken us back to the past. The pomp and circumstance of the victory and the return are there; the harpings in the hall of triumph; the shouts of retainers; the joy of the feast; the draining of huge draughts of Rhenish down;—the speaking roll of the drum to the "cannonier without;" and the echoes which that noisy functionary sends thrilling magnificently toward the empyrean. This is abbreviated romance—it is the spirit of unadulterated chivalry. The true poet alone could thus embody the scenes of other days. Some who affected the burlesque, and shone therein, have delighted to imagine that knights templars have left their blacksmith's bills for mending coats of mail unpaid, all the way from England to Palestine; and bold historians have sometimes represented them as clumsy horsemen, with their limbs galled, and their unwashed persons irritated, by rusty armour. We do not, for our parts, affect this dissolving of ancient spells: and we can scarcely forgive those venerable chroniclers, Froissart, de Thou, or Stowe, for representing the characters of so many heroes, "dear to fancy" and treasured in the recollection of every true lover of the brave and noble, apparently in puris naturalibus—without that ornament which, with the aid of their recorded deeds, imagination could easily supply. For the same reasons, we take but little pleasure in perusing those short narratives in the Decameron of Boccacio, from which Shakespeare has built a fairy and unconquered world. Who would go to the dull outline which some old monk or annalist has furnished of Romeo and Juliet, when he could revel in that glowing description written by the bard of Avon? The moonlight sleeps upon the garden of the Capulets, when we survey it from the window of our imagination, as palpably as if the rustling of its leaves were in our ear;—we hear the stifled sigh—the broken vow—the voice of Philomel singing in the branches. What has "unaccommodated" history to do with the enchanting transactions of that balmy night, and the loving interlocutors who made its presence holy? By the mass, nothing. The poet's duty is to give us things, robed couleur de rose; to shed around nature a perfume richer than the breath of the violet—and to suffuse it "with tints more magical than the blush of morning." A power or skill like this bespeaks more readily the poet, nascitur, non fit, than the wildest bursts of animal passion: it exhibits a quality, ethereal—heavenly—which owns no touch of this workingday world. And as often as we think of the devoted pair of Verona, so often are we reminded of their familiar identity; as if we saw the noble girl sinking into the tomb of her fathers. In our mental vision,
The summer rose hath not yet faded—
The summer stream not yet decayed;
The purple sky is still unshaded,
And, from the sweet pomegranate-glade,
Floateth the night-bird's serenade;
Flower, and stream, and song remain—
Not one of Nature's charms hath fled;
While she, who breathed a softer strain,
Herself a fairer flower, is dead.
We had not intended to stroll into so long a digression—and return to our author. Having quoted a parallel to those charming lines at the close of the extract from "Alnwick," in the same language, we ought perhaps to seek a better in some older tongue. The task is difficult; for with all the luxurious tastes of lyrists in the by-gone time, they had not a better perception of the beautiful than has been accorded, early and late, to a favoured few in many ages, who have swept the lyre with measures of English modulation. Mr. Halleck has built his rhymes with care: he has turned his stylus often, until every note he has recorded has discoursed pleasantly to his spiritual ear. Hence, his sentiments, above expressed, are not less pure than smooth—reminding one of those sweet and juicy lines in the Carmen ad Lydiam of Horace:—
—dulcia oscula, quae Venus
QuintA parte sui nectaris imbuit.
Next in order, among the productions in the volume under notice, appears that splendid lyric, entitled "Marco Bozzaris." We will not so far question the good taste of the reader as to presume that he has not perused this stirring effusion, "time and again;" but we cannot refrain from offering the first portions of it for renewed admiration. To ourselves, the best test of its merit is the effect which it has upon our feelings. It is like contemplating a distant conflict, in which we have the deepest interest, but are forbidden to take a part. The spirit of liberty thrills through every line. We are convinced, while we read with tingling veins, that the writer possesses the true chivalresque quality; and that, occasion serving or demanding, he would be quite ready to distinguish himself, like Korner, not with the lyre merely, but the sword. In truth the very quantity and movement of this noble poem seem instinct with martial ardour. Like the war-horse in Scripture, the author, in his spirit at least, "goeth forth to meet the armed men. The quiver rattleth against him; the glittering spear and the shield. He saith ha, ha! among the trumpets; he heareth the battle afar off,—the noise of the captains, and the shouting." Let the reader observe the life-like energy with which the Turk is awakened from his last gorgeous dream, and hears the death-shots falling around him, like the angry bolts of heaven as they leap from the bosom of an Alpine tempest;—the stern and patriotic command that rings through the sacred air; the tumult that ensues;—the leaden rain—and the harvest of death. We mark some lines in Italic, not that we suppose their grandeur and beauty will not be perceived, but to express how especially we appreciate them.
At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet ring:
Then pressed that monarch's throne—a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Plataea's day;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick as far as they.
An hour passed on—the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke—to hear his sentries shriek,
'To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!'
He woke—to die midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre stroke,
And death shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
'Strike—till the last armed foe expires;
Strike—for your altars and your fires;
Strike—for the green graves of your sires;
God—and your native landl'
They fought—like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain;
They conquered—but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile, when rang their proud hurrah
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose
Like flowers at set of sun.
The verses in memory of Robert Burns, addressed to a rose brought from near Alloway Kirk, in Ayreshire, in the autumn of 1822, which follow the lyric from which we have just made an extract, are worthy of any modern pen, whose products are but the synonyms for true inspiration. The author has written in a strain worthy of his subject: his method is simple, fervent, and dear to the heart. He has a Scott-like faculty, we think, of contemplating his theme with a nice severity;—there is a simplex munditiis about the objects of his song, sometimes, that really gives them more attraction than the most laboured measures could otherwise impart. The mere sight of a rose, brought across the Atlantic, awakens in his mind a host of happy and pathetic imaginations. He is reminded of the autumn noon when he first detached it from its parent stem, on "the banks of bonnie Doon." He bore it with him across the winter sea; and lo! when it meets his eye in his native country, a multitude of recollections pass, with kaleidoscopic colours, through his mind. We consider this faculty of making one thought provoke a legion of others, as among the highest attributes of human intellect. That our author possesses it to more than the ordinary extent, is undeniable. With him the running brook might indeed furnish forth its volumes; or the mossy stone, half hidden from the eye, fructify into a sermon. This power of his reminds us frequently of the peculiar gifts of the imaginary German, Teufelsdro'ch, with whom the author of Sartor Resartus has caused the English and American reader to be well acquainted. This faculty of making the most evanescent thing in nature a nucleus for profound reflection, is admirably exhibited in the following passage:—"As I rode through the Schwarzwald," he writes, "I said to myself: that little fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing moor, where the sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy lost horse-shoe—is it a detached, separated speck, cut off from the whole universe; or indissolubly joined to the whole? Thou fool; that smithy fire was primarily kindled at the sun; is fed by air, that circulated from before Noah's deluge—from beyond the dogstar; it is a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the great vital system of immensity." We cannot help comparing the spirit which dictated these sentences, to that which can evoke from a scentless rose, a thousand leagues from the source where it bloomed, a tribute like the one from which the following quotation is offered.
Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined,—
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.
Sages, with wisdom's garland wreathed,
Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power,
And warriors with their bright swords sheathed
The mightiest of the hour;
And lowlier names, whose humble home
Is lit by Fortune's dimmer star,
Are there—o'er wave and mountain come,
From countries near and far;
Pilgrims whose wandering feet have prest
The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand,
Or trod the piled leaves of the West,
My own green forest-land.
All ask the cottage of his birth,
Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung,
And gather feelings not of earth
His fields and streams among.
They linger by the Doon's low trees,
And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr,
And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries!
The Poet's tomb is there.
But what to them the sculptor's art,
His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns?—
Wear they not, graven on the heart,
The name of Robert Bums?
There is a good deal of spirit about the poem of "Wyoming," and some delicious rural description—but in the abrupt, parenthetical dashes, and vicissitudes of style, which it contains, we recognise a residuum or leaven from Croaker and Company's peculiar passion; and we must be permitted to say, that we look upon it as the offspring of bad taste. Every one knows that Campbell's Gertrude was painted couleur de rose; yet the fair Wyoming, or the banks of the fair Susquehanna, never came palpably within the scope of his corporeal eye. He looked at them merely, through the glass of his imagination. But we confess we had rather see his heroine as the bard of Hope has painted her, than to scrutinize her proportions, hoeing corn, sans hose and shoon. We do not affect this blending of styles. One at a time is sufficient; and there is an infelicity about the commingling of two or more, at the very best. Abrupt transitions, such as we find in Don Juan, are amusing, it is true, but then they are utterly devoid of dignity: without which, pathos is a poor gawd, and the virtues, pitiful ministers to the burlesque. We really think that Mr. Halleck should eschew this propensity henceforth, whenever he writes gravely. Wit he has, and humour, in abundance; but let him not present them in compositions that might move, as with the wand of a prophet, the sacred fountains of sympathy or tears. We are aware of his versatility; but it should be evinced in the separate, rather than in the collected variety of his performances. Olla-podridas of the kind may have told well in Matthews' amusing rehearsals—but they are not defensible in a bard like Halleck.
Passing over the elegiac effusion on the death of JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, which is familiar to every admirer of our author, we reach the ensuing lines entitled "Twilight." There is about them a holy music, which rings at the portals of our spiritual ear, like the breathings of some enchanting lute. As we read it, all our visions of the tender and the lovely throng up in glittering array before the eye of reminiscence. We see the sunlight playing again on the vernal landscapes of our early youth; a momentary glimpse is given us of the sheen of waters, that can never flash so blue and bright as in other days; hallowed hours, spell-bound moments, are hurrying by upon the wings of remembrance; and, convening again around us, in sweet communion, the distant and the dead, we go back with rapture to the times when, to our unpractised eyes, there was a newness of lustre in the brave evening firmament, fretted with dazzling fires; and when the mere boon of existence sufficed us, while we could look upon the folded lily, as it rested in humble modesty on the margin of the water-brook, and "rocked to sleep a world of insect life in its golden cradle." These of course were childish affections; and when we come to be men, we put away childish things; but a strain like "Twilight" re-presents them anew.
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