Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851 - Various - Страница 3
SOME AMERICAN POETS.1
THE PRAIRIES
Оглавление"These are the gardens of the desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name —
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless forever. Motionless?
No! – they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with the shadows, and beneath
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along, and chase
The sunny ridges…
Still this great solitude is quick with life.
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,
And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man,
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground
Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,
A more adventurous colonist than man,
With whom he came across the Eastern deep,
Fills the savannas with his murmurings,
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,
Within the hollow oak. I listen long
To his domestic hum, and think I hear
The sound of that advancing multitude
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
Over the dark brown furrows. All at once
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,
And I am in the wilderness alone."
It is a natural sentiment, though somewhat difficult to justify, which poets, and others than poets, entertain when they look about for some calm and beautiful spot, some green and sunny slope, for their final resting-place. Imagination still attributes something of sensation, or of consciousness, to what was once the warm abode of life. Mr Bryant, in a poem called "June," after indulging in this sentiment, gives us one of the best apologies for it we remember to have met with. There is much grace and pathos in the following verses: —
"I know, I know I should not see
The seasons' glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me,
Nor its wild music flow;
But if around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs, and song, and light and bloom
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
These to their softened hearts should bear
The thought of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part, in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
Is – that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice."
"The Lapse of Time" is a piece which might be quoted as a favourable specimen of Mr Bryant's poetry. It might also serve as an instance of its shortcoming– of its want of concentration – of a distinct, firm tone of thought. As it is not long, we will quote the whole of it. Our complaint of a certain weakness – the want of a steady and strong grasp of his subject – could not be less disagreeably illustrated, nor brought to a more rigid test. Our italics here are not complimentary, but simply serve the purpose of drawing attention to the train of thought or sentiment: —
