 | The Works of Thomas Love Peacock |  |
III. PART III
------ mutuus ut nos
Adfectus petere auxilium et præstare juberet.
Juvenalis.
ANALYSIS OF THE THIRD PART
The sorrows of mutual love are mingled with a delightful sensation, far preferable to the cold tranquillity of the Stoic, the apathy of the hermit, and the selfish gratifications of the proud.
The charity, which seeks out and relieves affliction, familiarising itself with melancholy scenes, feels, in the contemplation, a glow of inward happiness, not to be appreciated by those, who make themselves strangers to the house of mourning. The widowed mother. The captive. The wanderer. Mungo Park relieved by the African peasant.
The retrospective attachment, which dwells on the memory of the dead, is mingled with a melancholy pleasure, unknown to those with whom the partiality of the hour effaces all former impressions. Feelings excited by revisiting scenes, and observing objects, which recall to us the intercourse of the friends whom we have loved and lost. Filial affection at the tomb of a parent. Tale of an eastern philosopher.
And sweet the solace of commingling tears.
The Stoic frost, that locks their source, destroys
The purest spring of nature's tenderest joys.
The hermit cell, the spangled domes of pride,
Alike uncharmed, unsoftened by their tide,
Can yield no balm of that divine relief,
That flows in love's participated grief.
To smooth the toils of life's unequal road!
Thou! whose pure rose preserves, in wintry gloom,
The unchanging sweetness of its vernal bloom,
Sheds richer fragrance on the winds that rave,
Shoots in the storm, and blossoms on the grave!
Thou! whose true star, amid the tempest's night,
Streams through the clouds imperishable light,
More brightly burns, when wilder whirlwinds sweep,
And gilds the blackest horrors of the deep!
If e'er in woodland shade, by Cynfael's urn,
Thy altar saw my votive incense burn,
May thy propitious star, thy deathless flower,
Illume my path, and twine my rustic bower.
Whose glossy locks on ocean-breezes float;
That tender voice, whose rapture-breathing thrill,
Unheard so long, in fancy vibrates still;
That Parian hand, that draws, with artless fire,
The soul of music from her mountain-lyre;
Led by thy planet from the billowy shore,
Resume these groves, and never leave them more.
The storm-cloud blacken in December's sky!
Love's syren voice, and music's answering shell,
Shall cheer the simple genius of our cell:
The plaintive minstrel's legendary strain
One added charm of softest power shall gain,
When she, whose breast thy purest fount supplies,
Bids thy own songs, oh melancholy! rise.
The pitying sigh, that ever breathes to bless,—
With mingling spell, the sweetest concords find,
That heaven can wake in man's ethereal mind.
O'er blighted hopes, and famished babes forlorn:
See the low latchet rise, the door expand,
The Man of Ross extend his bounteous hand:
Mark the quick light the mother's eye that fires,
The smile her child's responsive cheek respires:
Hear the wild thanks, by grateful phrensy given,
That waft deep blessings to recording heaven.
Where through the creviced wall sad twilight shines.
Departed joy, a sullen spectre, flits,
His wasted hand with hopeless sorrow rears
The mournful record of his lingering years.
At once, the locks resound, the bars give way,
The opening door admits the distant day:
His dazzled eyes his guardian genius see:
He hears an angel speak, while Howard says, Be free!
Shrink from the rain, and bend beneath the gale.
Hopeless he hears the kindred tempest roar
Round lordly pride's inhospitable door,
But hails with joy the taper's simple blaze,
That through the cottage-casement streams its rays.
There, by the social fire to warmth restored,
For him the housewife spreads her frugal board,
For him the good man's homely vintage flows,
Rich in those sweets that pity only knows.
Through barbarous realms where mighty Niger runs,
Outraged by kings, and plundered by the great,
Sunk at the sable peasant's pitying gate.
There female kindness brought her simple store,
And dropt soft balsam on the wounds he bore.
O'er him compassion waked her tenderest strain,
Who knew no mother to relieve his pain,
No wife, to watch the paths he used to roam,
Spread the wild fruits, and hail her wanderer home.
These the blest wreathes thy lonely myrtle rears!
The grateful thought, that sojourns with the dead,
Possess a nobler charm, a stronger tie,
Than all the world's unfeeling joys supply.
He knows them not, whose love's fantastic flower
Falls with the varying zephyr of the hour.
When the worn pilgrim turns to press the soil,
On which fond memory dwelt through all his toil,
How thrills his heart, while every breeze he hears
Recalls the playmates of his tender years!
The ivied tower, by sportive childhood climbed,
The fairy grove, by hope's first dream sublimed,
The laurel-shade, where love's young sigh was breathed,
The woodbine-bower, by mutual ardor wreathed,
The cataract-rocks, where lonely fancy roved,
The twilight-path confiding friendship loved,—
The thoughts, the tales, of parted times restore,
That one thought is suggested to the mind by another, and that the sight of an external object often recalls former occurrences, and revives former feelings, are facts perfectly familiar, even to those who are least disposed to speculate concerning the principles of their nature. In passing along a road which we have formerly travelled in the company of a friend, the particulars of the conversation in which we were then engaged are frequently suggested to us by the objects we meet with. In such a scene we recollect that such a particular subject was started; and in passing the different houses, and plantations, and rivers, the arguments we were discussing when we last saw them recur spontaneously to the memory. . . . After time has in some degree reconciled us to the death of a friend, how wonderfully are we affected the first time we enter the house where he lived! Every thing we see, the apartment where he studied, the chair upon which he sate, recall to us the happiness we enjoyed together; and we should feel it a sort of violation of that respect which we owe to his memory, to engage in any light or indifferent discourse, when such objects are before us. Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind.
And wake the forms his eye must hail no more.
Sweet sorrow sings in every breeze that bends
The church-yard grass that shrouds his earliest friends,
And heaven looks down to bless the falling tear
Of filial duty on a parent's bier.
The lake's wide surface flashed a golden glow;
Where the still clouds their crimson glory gave
In full reflection from the trembling wave.
Far on the air Araxes rolled his roar.
The soft breeze waved the light acacia's bower,
And wafted fragrance from the citron flower.
His pensive path Abdallah chanced to take
Along the margin of that beauteous lake,
By science led o'er wildest hills to roam,
And cull their sweets to grace his studious home.
And well he deemed a day's long toil repaid,
If one young blossom he had ne'er surveyed,
Or unknown herb, his curious search might find.
Thus while he roamed, with contemplative mind,
The turning rock disclosed a wondrous scene:
A myrtle grove, in summer's loveliest green:
A blossomed lawn: an hermit cave beside:
A central tree, in solitary pride.
Even while he gazed on that strange plant, he felt,
As if amidst its leaves some genius dwelt,
Some musing spirit, whose diffusive power
Shed deeper awe on placid evening's hour.
Still, science-led, he pressed the lonely plain,
And stretched his hand the offering bough to gain.
Then first an urn, with recent flowerets dressed,
His gaze attracted, and his touch repressed:
On whose broad pedestal a tablet said:
Respect these branches, nor profane the dead.
Congealed he stood, in statue-like surprise,
Fixed on the plant his wonder-beaming eyes,
And heard the gale, that played its leaves around,
Wake, as it passed, a wild unearthly sound.
He turned, and saw a grey-haired stranger near,
Whom years had bowed beneath their lengthened load:
Yet in his reverend features gently glowed
The deep, sublime tranquillity of soul,
That fate shakes not, nor time's supreme control.
He spoke, and mildly-sweet his accents fell,
Sweet as the wafted note of evening-bell,
Whose slow swing strikes the weary traveller's ear,
Awakes the thought of home, and tells of shelter near:
Nursed that fair tree, now monarch of the glade.
Within its boughs a spirit dwells enshrined,
And sheds blest influence on the musing mind.
I laid his body on the funeral pyre,
Placed in that urn the ashes of his clay,
And left them free to Mithra's holy ray.
The warm ray fell: the summer-dews came down:
The forest-verdure changed to russet brown:
The dry leaves dropped: the wintry tempest past.
When spring's mild gale dispelled the freezing blast,
That solemn plant, my ever-sacred trust,
Sprang from my heaven-loved parent's genial dust.
------les feux du soleil commençoient à embraser l'horison: l'inconnu, appercevant un arbre isolé, proposa à Orondal de s'arrêter un moment sous son ombrage.—Cette idée m'enchante, dit le vieillard: cet arbre m'est cher, plus que tu ne penses: c'est mon pere.—Votre pere!—Jeune homme, écoute-moi. Je n'ai point cru outrager la nature, en faisant servir la cendre d'un pere à la génération des êtres: j'osai l'exposer au soleil, renfermée dans son urne, et couverte d'un crystal léger, qui, sans s'opposer au contact de l'air, arrêtoit les graines étrangeres qui auroient pu végéter sur sa surface: tous les jours j'arrosai cette cendre précieuse avec de l'eau, portée par l'alembic à son dernier degré de pureté: enfin, les principes de vie que l'urne renfermoit se développèrent, et je vis naître une plante que la botanique ne rangeroit dans aucune de ses classes. Cette plante périt, et eut une postérité, dont la cendre augmenta le volume du limon générateur: au bout d'un certain nombre d'années, les principes de vie acquirent plus d'activité: la plante devint arbuste: et aujourd'hui c'est un arbre qui le dispute en hauteur aux plus beaux cèdres de ces déserts. Philosophie de la Nature.
Not long that narrow urn its strength could rear:
I raised it from its bed, and fixed it here.
Sweet was the task to watch its spreading stem,
And every infant bud's expanding gem.
I hear my father, on the evening wind,
Breathe, in pure accents of celestial truth,
The sacred lore that trained my tender youth.
Soon by his urn shall my old bones be laid,
And sweetly sleep in his protecting shade.”
| The Works of Thomas Love Peacock | |