The horrors of corruption, in the Third Chimera, may be left unquoted, Aytoun parodies -"The chalk, the chalk, the cheese, the cheese, the cheeses, And straightway dropped he down upon his kneeses."Julio comes back to reason, hates the dreadful bride, and feeds on limpets, "by the mass, he feasteth well!"There was a holy hermit on the isle, "I ween like other hermits, so was he."He is Agathe's father, and he has retired to an eligible island where he may repent his cruelty to his daughter. Julio tells his tale, and goes mad again. The apostrophe to Lunacy which follows is marked "Beautiful" by Aytoun, and is in the spirit of Charles Lamb's remark that madness has pleasures unknown to the sane.
"Thou art, thou art alone, A pure, pure being, but the God on high Is with thee ever as thou goest by."Julio watches again beside the Dead, till morning comes, bringing "A murmur far and far, of those that stirred Within the great encampment of the sea."The tide sweeps the mad and the dead down the shores. "He perished in a dream." As for the Hermit, he buried them, not knowing who they were, but on a later day found and recognised the golden cross of Agathe, "For long ago he gave that blessed cross To his fair girl, and knew the relic still."So the Hermit died of remorse, and one cannot say, with Walton, "and I hope the reader is sorry."The "other poems" are vague memories of Shelley, or anticipations of Poe. One of them is curiously styled "Her, a Statue," and contains a passage that reminds us of a rubaiyat of Omar's, "She might see A love-wing'd Seraph glide in glory by, Striking the tent of its mortality.
"But that is but a tent wherein may rest A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes, and prepares it for another guest."Most akin to Poe is the "Hymn to Orion,"
"Dost thou, in thy vigil, hail Arcturus on his chariot pale, Leading him with a fiery flight -Over the hollow hill of night?"
This, then, is a hasty sketch, and incomplete, of a book which, perhaps, is only a curiosity, but which, I venture to think, gave promise of a poet. Where is the lad of twenty who has written as well to-day--nay, where is the mature person of forty? There was a wind of poetry abroad in 1830, blowing over the barricades of Paris, breathing by the sedges of Cam, stirring the heather on the hills of Yarrow. Hugo, Mr. Browning, Lord Tennyson, caught the breeze in their sails, and were borne adown the Tigris of romance.
But the breath that stirred the loch where Tom Stoddart lay and mused in his boat, soon became to him merely the curl on the waters of lone St. Mary's or Loch Skene, and he began casting over the great uneducated trout of a happier time, forgetful of the Muse.
He wrote another piece, with a sonorous and delightful title, "Ajalon of the Winds." Where is "Ajalon of the Winds"? Miss Stoddart knows nothing of it, but I fancy that the thrice-loathed Betty could have told a tale.
MALIM CONVIVIS QVAM PLACVISSE COQVIS.
We need not, perhaps, regret that Mr. Stoddart withdrew from the struggles and competitions of poetic literature. No very high place, no very glorious crown, one fancies, would have been his.
His would have been anxiety, doubt of self, disappointment, or, if he succeeded, the hatred, and envyings, and lies which even then dogged the steps of the victor. It was better to be quiet and go a-fishing.
"Sorrow, sorrow speed away To our angler's quiet mound, With the old pilgrim, twilight gray, Enter through the holy ground;There he sleeps whose heart is twined With wild stream and wandering burn, Wooer of the western wind Watcher of the April morn!"