“. . . . . You will be surprised perhaps at hearing
that Cowper’s poem does not at all
please me: you
| Ætat. 23. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 325 |
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“‘Thou should’st have longer lived, and to the grave
Have peacefully gone down in full old age;
Thy children would have tended thy gray hairs.
We might have sat, as we have often done,
By our fire-side, and talk’d whole nights away,
Old tune, old friends, and old events recalling,
With many a circumstance of trivial note,
To memory dear, and of importance grown.
How shall we tell them in a stranger’s ear!
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“‘A wayward son oft times was I to thee:
And yet, in all our little bickerings,
Domestic jars, there was I know not what
Of tender feeling that were ill exchanged
For this world’s chilling friendships, and their smiles
Familiar whom the heart calls strangers still.
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“‘A heavy lot hath he, most wretched man,
Who lives the last of all his family!
He looks around him, and his eye discerns
The face of the stranger; and his heart is sick.
Man of the world, what can’st thou do for him?
Wealth is a burthen which he could not bear;
Mirth a strange crime, the which he dares not act;
And generous wines no cordial to his soul.
For wounds like his, Christ is the only cure.
Go, preach thou to him of a world to come,
Where friends shall meet and know each other’s face;
Say less than this, and say it to the winds.’
|
“I am aware of the danger of studying simplicity of
language—but you will find in my blank verse a fulness of phrase when the
subject requires it; these lines may instance:—
| 326 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 23. |
“‘It was a goodly sight To see the embattled pomp, as with the step Of stateliness the barbed steeds came on; To see the pennons rolling their long waves Before the gale; and banners broad and bright Tossing their blazomy; and high-plumed chiefs, Vidames, and Seneschals, and Chastellains, Gay with their bucklers’ gorgeous heraldry, And silken surcoats on the buoyant wind Billowing.’ |
