168 CHAPTER II. THE POETRY OF YOUTH. I. The kindliest symptoms, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish state of youth."-CHARLES LAMB. "For old men think They ever wisest seem when most severe." -Jerusalem Delivered. A FACE speaks to me from the wall: a face long known, fondly remembered. It causes me to turn to a thin volume, bound in green and gold, the place of which is in the shelves that lie to the south. These remind me that here is the proper place to speak of the Hours of Youth, when Poetry divided the passions with Gloriana. -If I say that my youth was beguiled by song, will it be considered a weakness? Nay, cries Arcangelo, by all the Lords of Poësy! Where is the man-intelligent, emotional, aspiring,— whose youth has not been cheered by song as by the constant voice of a mountain stream? And who is he that does not joyfully revert to the time of Youth and Song? Who does not acknowledge to a sweetness unknown to later hours, in the vagrant music, the incongruous fancies, the love-born, wayward imaginings of early years which cause the blood again to tingle, and the hand to write bolder and freer in the remembrance of the old, uncontrollable, mystic visitations? Let the foremost minds among the living answer: the greatest of the dead answer us truly as for one of other temper there is an impassable gulf between him and all Beauty-we can have no word for him, "That blockhead's heart is ice, thrice baked beneath the pole." And yet one finds oneself in a strange contention, when speaking of what stirred and cherished this love of Song. There is a general ungratefulness with regard to the excursiveness attending this in Youth. Its friendships, its actions, its dreamy recollections, are all dear to the intellect; but not its passionate revellings in Poetry. It is one of the sins of manhood, to deprecate the first remote movements of the Muse,-whatever be the course it has since taken. Some of the most eminent minds sin more greatly. They are altogether reticent of antecedents, unless the antecedents honour them. They vilify the espousals of their youth; will not acknowledge their potentiality in the success they have attained. Ungenerous Age thus often comes to mis-estimate altogether, the intelligences that do not produce something which reaches the standards set up by mature judgment. They worship (and they have the justification of ages in doing so) the Poctics of Aristotle, based on the study of the master-pieces of antiquity, and they coldly condemn the ardent outpourings of youth. These poetlings cannot keep the rule of Horace, and wait nine grey years before they print.-Why, they have vanished ere that time-into a higher altitude of Poësy, or into alien cold pursuits, or into another world. The reproach of these early years is, therefore, without limit. It is a question not easily to be solved, whether the influence of Chatterton on the literary mind of the country, has not been (directly or indirectly) as great as that of any author-our chief poets excepted. I would scarcely qualify that remark with regard to Keats, and only slightly moderate it in degree as to Kirke White, and the early poems of Pope. The productions I refer to, live in our literature, and take a position disproportionate to their intrinsic merit, because of the incalculable influence they exert on the youthful mind. The first inquest of Youth, on the springlike motions of its intelligence, is to ascertain what has been accomplished by others at its own years; what has been done by others, who have had culture, or opportunities similar to its own. Our late Premier disclosed that this process was to him a fountain of hope; but his illustrations of great accomplishment were found in the active spheres of the world; in warriors, religious organisers, statesmen,—where energy was the factor first and last. "The history of Heroes," he said, "is the history of Youth." Vernal, imaginative minds, find the response to their desires in the pages of such poets as I have mentioned. Youthlimited in its experience, distrustful of its own action, through them learns what can be made out of its own narrow domain. One power it possesses-Enthusiasm : it is as untameable as flies :" and it has language commensurate with its enthusiasm. It worships the gods of poetry; by comparison with them, it learns to believe that it may share their heaven. And what though, afterwards, stronger legions of words lie in the mind's command: though in travelling earth's common road, nobler companions are found for the soul; a time when "ideas float on winged words, and as they expand their plumes, catch the golden light of other years,”"-all this is really the guerdon bestowed by the rich youthful voices that spake to Youth. I can make a ready concession in the case. I never had a relish for Kirke White. A morbid tone was associated with him. But I have witnessed so many instances where he has been the one poet who opened the eyes and unsealed the ears of those who might otherwise have perceived nothing in poetry but lines with broken ends, never recognised its music as "far above singing," that he should not be disallowed a place amongst the Oracles of Youth. I acknowledge the difference in the two periods of Life its Springtime is as remote in character, as in time, from its Autumn. The poetry of Byron proves this signally. Hurried, impulsive, quickly appropriative in the most frenzied mood, it holds us spell-bound in our early years. It mingles impetuousness with the sensuousness of Keats: gives flesh and blood to the ideal beings that float in Shelley's verse. But the time comes when the imperiousness of our nature is found to be but naughtiness of spirit: the volcano withdraws its flames, and disrobes itself of the garments of smoke,burning though the heart be within, it only shows stern. clear precipices and peaks, or, it clothes its bosom with flowers, and the bloom of fields. In other words, Byron is dethroned and comes but to recall the days when sensation was deemed thought, and delirious transports -Love. For all that, there is a Springtime of Life which is priceless when there is unconsciousness and development: when we do not botanize amongst the flowers but enjoy them with enthusiasm, taking their Beauty and fragrance into our being; when shining cloudland, balmy zephyrs, sparkling tree and stream are not the things as we now know them; when we drink sight, sound, and nectarous air, as though they made but one passion; when we love everything for its own sake, and love Poetry for its own sake, too.-Youth will, nay must, acknowledge the impeachment, be it sweet or deadly, that in its ardent hours the soft shades of language are as nothing, have no power over it; a moralist is prosy, and a proverb is but offal of the market of common speech. Only by degrees, awakened, probably by some of our essayists, do we become touched by the deep, half hidden pathos of Lear; and feel the wondrous tenderness of Cordelia, Desdemona, and Imogen. II. "Here be all the pleasures, That Fancy can beget on youthful thoughts -Comus. So I write now; but, ah, some thirty years ago, when the Poetry of Youth was bold, self-assertive beyond precedent or succession until this day! Ah, then—. Wandering through the flowery labyrinths, and "wilderness and wasteful deserts" of the Faerie Queene, with frequent longing recurrence to the large sonorous language of the first book of Paradise Lost; lingering over the strains of Tasso, by Fairfax in the north wind sung; fond of Gebir and of Thalaba-my admiration for the latter kindled by Christopher North's admirable essay,-Youth still loved to measure itself with Youth. At eighteen, its regard was upon Chatterton: upon Kirke White,-his versification though not his fame being deemed realisable: and Keats's Endymion thrilled with strange music, as though a new language broke upon the ear. Shelley's Queen Mab had little influence as a poetic production of Youth; its force lay in its audacious pride, its disdain of old settled faiths, a daring endeavour to be singular at the expense of what has not ceased to be holy: Queen Mab herself was a vision, lovely, indeed, but ethereal; not real enough for the rough pastime of a youthful poet's robust passion. In tamer moods, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was an admiration : Pollok, was a name that the sleep of time had not overtaken. At that period, mighty world-influ |