THE SINGING LEAVES.

A BALLAD.

[James Russell Lowell, born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 22d February, 1819. Poet and essayist. He was admitted to the bar, but renounced law for letters. He was, at different periods, editor of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine and of the North American Review. In 1855 he succeeded the poet Longfellow as professor of belles-lettres in Harvard College. His most important works are: A Year's Life; A Legend of Brittany: Prometheus; The Vision of Sir Launjal: A Fable for Critics-a humorous review in verse of the most prominent American writers; The Biglow Papers, a series of political satires; Fireside Travels; Among my Books; My Study Windows; 1 and Under the Willows. H. T. Tuckerman, one of the best of American critics, says of Professor Lowell: "He has written clever satires, good sonnets, and some long poems with fine descriptive passages. He reminds us often of Tennyson in the sentiment and construction of his verse. Imagination and philanthropy are the dominant elements in his writings. He died in 1891.]

II.

He mounted and rode three days and nights Till he came to Vanity Fair,

And 'twas easy to buy the gems and the silk,`
But no singing leaves were there.

Then deep in the greenwood rode he,
And asked of every tree,
"O, if you have ever a singing leaf,
I pray you to give it me!"
But the trees all kept their counsel,
And never a word said they,
Only there sighed from the pine-tops
A music of sea far away.
Only the pattering aspen

Made a sound of growing rain,
That fell ever faster and faster,

Then faltered to silence again.

"O, where shall I find a little foot-page

That would win both hose and shoon,
And will bring to me the singing leaves
If they grow under the moon?"

Then lightly turned him Walter the page,
By the stirrup as he ran :

"Now pledge ye me the truesome word
Of a king and gentleman,

"That you will give me the first, first thing You meet at your castle gate,

And the princess shall get the singing leaves,
Or mine be a traitor's fate."

The King's head dropped upon his breast
A moment, as it might be;
""Twill be my dog," he thought, and said,
"My faith I plight to thee."

Then Walter took from next his heart
A packet small and thin,

"Now give you this to the Princess Anne, The singing leaves are therein."

III.

As the King rode in at his castle gate,
A maiden to meet him ran,
And "Welcome, father!" she laughed and cried
Together, the Princess Anne.

"Lo, here the singing leaves," quoth he,
"And woe, but they cost me dear!"
She took the packet, and the smile
Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart,
And then gushed up again,

And lighted her tears as the sudden sun
Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first leaf, when it was opened,

Sang: "I am Walter the page,

And the songs I sing 'neath thy window Are my only heritage."

And the second leaf sang: "But in the land That is neither on earth or sea,

My lute and I are lords of more

Than thrice this kingdom's fee."

157

And ever it sang, "Be mine!"

Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter, And said, "I am thine, thine, thine."

At the first leaf she grew pale enough,
At the second she turned aside,
At the third, 't was as if a lily flushed
With a rose's red heart's tide.

"Good counsel gave the bird," said she, I have my hope thrice o'er, For they sing to my very heart," she said, "And it sings to them evermore."

She brought to him her beauty and truth, But and broad earldoms three,

And he made her queen of the broader lands He held of his lute in fee.

WITS AND POETS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D.

Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.

Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets.

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavour: but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables.

If the father of criticism had rightly deno

below Donne in wit; but maintains that they surpass him in poetry.

If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they certainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language.

If by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be considered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that which he that never found it, wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found.

But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred, that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never inquired what, on any occasion, they

158

should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had been never said before.

Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; for they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. Their attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he who dissects a sunbeam with a prism can exhibit the wide effulgence of a summer noon.

What they wanted, however, of the sublime they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole; their amplifications had no limits; they left not only reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confused magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined.

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost; if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables.

In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or inquiry; something already learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be examined.

If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity, and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety though less copiousness of sentiment.

This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge; and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments.

When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our members. Milton tried the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment and more music. Suckling neither improved versification nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it.

Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers) was eminently distinguished.

As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus, Cowley on Knowledge:

"The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew;
The phoenix truth did on it rest,
And built his perfumed nest,

That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show.
Each leaf did learned notions give,
And the apples were demonstrative;

So clear their colour and divine,

The very shade they cast did other lights outshine." On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old

A powerful brand prescribed the date

Of thine, like Meleager's tate.

Th' antiperistasis of age

More indam'd thy amorous rage.'

In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinion concerning manna:

"Variety I ask not: give me one
To live perpetually upon.

The person Love does to us fit,

Like manna, has the taste of all in it."

Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses:

"In everything there naturally grows
A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,
If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows:
Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.
But you, of learning and religion,
And virtue and such ingredients, have made
A mithridate, whose operation

Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said."

Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant:

"This twilight of two years, not past nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,
Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,
Whose what and where in disputation is,
If I should call me anything, should miss.
I sum the years and me, and find me not
Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new.
That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot,

Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true This bravery is, since these times show'd me you." Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon man as a microcosm:

"If men be worlds, there is in every one Something to answer in some proportion; All the world's riches; and in good men this Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is." Of thoughts so far-fetched as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full.

To a lady who wrote posies for rings:
"They who above do various circles find,

Say, like a ring th' equator Heaven does bind.
When Heaven shall be adorn'd by thee,
(Which then more Heaven than 'tis will be)
Tis thou must write the poesy there,
For it wanteth one as yet.
Then the sun pass through't twice a year.
The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit."
-(COWLEY.)

The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy are by Cowley, with still more perplexity, applied to love:

"Five years ago (says story) I loved you,

For which you call me most inconstant now;
Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;
For I am not the same that I was then:
No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me,
And that my mind is changed yourself may see.
The same thoughts to retain still, and intents,
Were more inconstant far: for accidents
Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove,
If from one subject they t' another move;
My members then the father members were,

159

From whence these take their birth which now are

here.

If then this body love what th' other did,
"Twere incest, which by nature is forbid."

The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels through different countries:

"Hast thou not found each woman's breast
(The land where thou hast travelled)
Either by savages possest.

Or wild, and uninhabited?
What joy could'st take, or what repose,
In countries so unciviliz'd as those?
Lust, the scorching dog-star, here
Rages with immoderate heat;
Whilst Pride the rugged northern bear,
In others makes the cold too great.
And where these are temperate known.
The soil's all barren sand or rocky stone."
-(COWLEY.)

A lover, burned up by his affection, is compared to Egypt:

"The fate of Egypt I sustain,

And never feel the dew of rain,

From clouds which in the head appear;

But all my too-much moisture owe

To overflowings of the heart below."-(COWLEY.) The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury and rites of sacrifice:

"And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear:

When, sound in every other part,

Her sacrifice is found without an heart.
For the last tempest of my death

Shall sigh out that too, with my breath."

That the chaos was harmonized, has been recited of old; but whence the different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover:

"Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew;

An artless war from thwarting motions grew;
Till they to number and fixed rules were brought.
Water and air he for the tenor chose,
Earth made the base; the treble flame arose."
-(COWLEY.)

The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they may be read again:

Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive

Things in proportion fit, by perspective

Deeds of good men; for by their living here,
Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near."

Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote ideas could be brought together?

Of enormous and disgusting hyberboles, these may be examples:

"By every wind that comes this way,

Send me at least a sigh or two,

Such and so many I'll repay

As shall themselves make winds to get to you."

"In tears I'll waste these eyes,

By love so vainly fed:

So lust of old the deluge punished."

"All arm'd in brass, the richest dress of war, (A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar. The sun himself started with sudden fright, To see his beams return so dismal bright." -(COWLEY.)

An universal consternation:

"His bloody eyes he hurls round. his sharp paws
Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,
Lashing his angry tail and roaring out.
Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;
Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear;
Silence and horror fill the place around;
Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound."

(COWLEY.)

On an inconstant woman:

"He enjoys the calmy sunshine now,
And no breath stirring hears,
In the clear heaven of thy brow
No smallest cloud appears.
He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay,

And trusts the faithless April of thy May.

(COWLEY.)

Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire:

"Nothing yet in thee is seen,

But when a genial heat warms thee within.
A new-born wood of various lines there grows;

Here buds an L, and there a B.
Here sprouts a V, and there a T,

And all the flourishing letters stand in rows."
-(COWLEY.)

As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross; whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little.

Physic and chirurgery for a lover:

"Gently, ah gently, madam, touch
The wound which you yourself have made;
That pain must needs be very much
Which makes me of your hand afraid.
Cordials of pity give me now,

For I too weak of purgings grow."—(COWLEY.)

The world and a clock:

'Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face

Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace;
Great Nature's well set clock in pieces took;
On all the springs and smallest wheels did look
Of life and motion, and with equal art
Made up the whole again of every part."

-(COWLEY.)

A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but that it may not want its due honour, Cleveland has paralleled it with the sun:

"Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine
Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?
These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be,
Than a few embers, for a deity.

Had he our pits, the Persian would admire
No sun, but warm's devotion at our fire:
He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner.
For wants he heat or light? or would have store
Of both? 'tis here: and what can suns give more?
Nay, what's the sun but, in a different name,
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame?
Then let this truth reciprocally run,
The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun."
Death, a voyage:

"No family

E'er rigg'd a soul for Heaven's discovery,
With whom more venturers might boldly dare
Venture their stakes with him in joy to share."
DONNE.)

Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such as no figures or license can reconcile to the understanding. A lover neither dead nor alive:

"Then down I laid my head

Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled;