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(1819)

Nugæ Canoræ. Poems by Charles Lloyd

The reader who shall take up these poems in the mere expectation of deriving amusement for an idle hour, will have been grievously misled by the title. Nugæ they certainly are not, but full of weight; earnest, passionate communings of the spirit with itself. He that reads them must come to them in a serious mood; he should be one that has descended into his own bosom; that has probed his own nature even to shivering; that has indulged the deepest yearnings of affection, and has had them strangely flung back upon him; that has built to himself a fortress out of conscious weakness; that has cleaved to the rock of his early religion, and through hope in it hath walked upon the uneasy waters.

We should be sorry to convey a false notion. Mr. Lloyd's religion has little of pretence or sanctimoniousness about it; it is worn as an armour of self-defence, not as a weapon of outward annoyance: the believing may be drawn by it, and the unbelieving need not be deterred. The Religionist of Nature may find some things to venerate in its mild Christianity, when he shall discover in a volume, generally hostile to new experiments in philosophy and morals, some of its tenderest pages dedicated to the virtues of Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin.

Mr. Lloyd's poetry has not much in it that is narrative or dramatic. It is richer in natural description; but the imagery is for the most part embodied with, and made subservient to, the sentiment, as in many of the sonnets, &c. His genius is metaphysical and profound; his verses are made up of deep feeling, accompanied with the perpetual running commentary of his own deeper self-reflection. His affections seem to run kindliest in domestic channels; and there some strains, commemorative of a dead relative, which, while they do honour to the heart of the writer, are of too sacred a nature, we think, almost to have been committed to print at all; much less would they bear exposal among the miscellaneous matter indispensable to a public journal. We prefer therefore giving an extract from the fine blank verse poem, entitled Christmas. It is richly embued with the meditative, introspective cast of mind, so peculiar to this author:—

There is a time

When first sensation paints the burning cheek,

Fills the moist eye, and quickens the keen pulse,

That mystic meanings half conceiv'd invest

The simplest forms, and all doth speak, all lives

To the eager heart! At such a time to me

Thou cam'st, dear holiday! Thy twilight glooms

Mysterious thoughts awaken'd, and I mus'd

As if possest, yea felt as I had known

The dawn of inspiration. Then the days

Were sanctified by feeling, all around

Of an indwelling presence darkly spake.

Silence had borrow'd sounds to cheat the soul!

And, to the toys of life, the teeming brain,

Impregning them with its own character,

Gave preternatural import; the dull face

Was eloquent, and e'en the idle air

Most potent shapes, varying and yet the same,

Substantially express'd.

But soon my heart,

Unsatisfied with blissful shadows, felt

Achings of vacancy, and own'd the throb

Of undefin'd desire, while lays of love

Firstling and wild stole to my trem'lous tongue.

To me thy rites were mock'ry then, thy glee

Of little worth. More pleas'd I trod the waste

Sear'd with the sleety wind, and drank its blast;

Deeming thy dreary shapes most strangely sweet,

Mist-shrouded winter! in mute loneliness

I wore away the day which others hail'd

So cheerily, still usher'd in with chaunt

Of carol, and the merry ringers' peal,

Most musical to the good man that wakes

And praises God in gladness.

But soon fled

The dreams of love fantastic! Still the Friend,

The Friend, the wild roam o'er the drifted snows

Remain unsung! then when the wintry view

Objectless, mist-hidden, or in uncouth forms

Prank'd by the arrowy flake might aptly yield

New stores to shaping fantasy, I rov'd

With him my lov'd companion! Oh, 'twas sweet;

Ye who have known the swell that heaves the breast

Pregnant with loftiest poesy, declare

Is aught more soothing to the charmed soul

Than friendship's glow, the independent dream

Gathering when all the frivolous shews are fled

Of artificial life; when the wild step

Boundeth on wide existence, unbeheld,

Uncheck'd, and the heart fashioneth its hope

In Nature's school, while Nature bursts around,

Nor Man her spoiler meddles in the scene!

Farewell, dear day, much hath it sooth'd my heart

To chaunt thy frail memorial.

Now advance

The darkening years, and I do sojourn, home!

From thee afar. Where the broad-bosom'd hills,

Swept by perpetual clouds, of Scotland, rise,

Me fate compels to tarry.

Ditty quaint or custom'd carol, there my vacant ear

Ne'er blest! I thought of home and happier days!

And as I thought, my vexed spirit blam'd

That austere race, who, mindless of the glee

Of good old festival, coldly forbade

Th' observance which of mortal life relieves

The languid sameness, seeming too to bring

Sanction from hoar antiquity and years

Long past!