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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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LATTER-DAY POETRY . The latest development of poetry indicates , as we conceive , an approach or a £ taUaS » to ^ characteristics of music . In this fact consists its strength and ^ ts wetness , its peculiar excellences and its characteristic defects . Our poets seem bent on astounding us with strange new harmonies of words ; £ ith wilci experiments of rhythm , having for their object a more obviously lyrical expression , and a more direct . analogy with the va « ied modulations of the musical art . More and more do they appeal to emotion ; less , and less to intellect . Some fierce and all-transmuting passion—some isolated mood of love or grief , rage or madness , joy or despair—some abstraction ot feelings morbidly acute , and addressing the reader ' s sympathies by a kind of quivering , palpitating intensity-are what our modern verse-writers chiefly Sm at Producing ; and this , not by direct description or the regular sequence of a narrative , but in the way that music effects the same resultk , ? o D ,, T , fl « h \ nt \ n < r of the details of passion , conveyed in the flux and reflux
of emotion . JL tale is not told ; it is implied . Narrative poetry is almost extinct : but ballads—such as those which were sung of old , when poetry hardly existed apart from music , and when the minstrel or troubadour was as much a vocal and instrumental performer as an author—are again poured forth with exhaustless fertility . Epics are hardly attempted The tragic drama has dwindled down to a nonentity ; philosophical and didactic poetry vanished with Wordsworth ( for Tennyson , though full of thought , conveys his cogitations in the midst of a prevailing lyrical tendency ) ; satirical verse is a mere dream of the last generation ; and the poetry of manners and society is equally asleep . All these are in abeyance ; but the poetry of emotion , of sensation , and of sumptuous musical utterance , is awake and active—indeed , unduly so . It must , be granted that poetry has never been so exquisitely sensitive as now ; never possessed so subtle a perception of those tender threads of analogy which connect the material and the spiritual universes ; never before laid bare with such a cruel mastery , not the dramatic forms of emotion—for in this , as we have said , it is deficient—but the
throbbing heart itself . Yet here lies a fatal weakness . The desire to pry into the * very soul of passion has been pampered into a disease ; and the cheek of our Latter-day Poetry not unfrequently burns with a hectic flush . We want less of hysteria ; more of " sage and serious" thought . Perhaps our young poets might advantageously quiet their overwrought nerves by reverting at times to the extinct school of former days—to the assured strength of Dryden and the intellectual evolutions of Cowley . We have been more especially led into these reflections by the volume of poems recently issued by Mr . Sydney Dobell , author of The Roman , Balder , &c , and entitled England in Time of JPar . ( Smith , Elder , and Co . ) It might be taken as an exemplar of what we are tending to in the direction of poetry—as an epitome of the vices and the virtues of the present poetical system . Mr . Dobell is already favourably known to the public , and the
book now before us will no doubt find many admirers . It is indeed a book of great power—of noble elements , yet of most unsatisfactory results . More intense perception of passion it would be difficult to find ; more varied and expressive versification of the lyrical order , more warm and richly coloured fancy , cannot be shown within the compass of living verse-writers . Mr . Dobell has in him the very soul of sadness and the very soul of joy ( though we hear more of the former than of the latter ); he has a true poet ' s sympathy with the many forms of beauty and solemnity that fill the world , and can incarnate the volatile suggestions of the mind in shapes of subtle analogy ; but he cannot rule over this gorgeous chaos world with royal strength , nor sort the elements that lie before him with an eye to consistency and repose . It is the old story that we have had to repeat till we are tired
of the iteration : fine materials and bad architecture . Extravagance runs riot from , the first page to the last of this singular volume , with a few rare exceptions ; and the author , having got hold of a hobby , rides it most pitilessly . This hobby consists of a tendency to incessant repetition of words , phrases , lines , and passages—a practice full of beauty if occasionally employed , as Coleridge employed it , but most wearisome , and even irritating , when made , as Mr . Dobell makes it , part of the positive substance of his style , a rule and not an exception . What does the reader think of this—not by any means an isolated instance?—How long , oh Lord of thunder ? Victory ! Lord God of vengeance , give us victory ! Victory , victory ! oh , Lord , victory ! Oh , Lord , victory ! Lord , Lord , victory I
The last two lines are employed seven times ( exclusive of what we have quoted ) in the course of the poem , which is little more than five pages in length . We seem never to bid farewell to this " damnable iteration , " for it is woven into the very texture of the book . It would not be fair , however , to call attention to the eccentricity without giving the reader a few specimens of Mr . Dobell ' s genius , which , as we have already intimated , is of a fine order when he will only give it fair play . The following is surely the perfection of hopeless misery and loneliness : — DESOLATE . From the sad eaves the drip-drop of the rnin ! The water washing at the latchel door ! A slow stop plashing by upon the moor ; A single bloat fur from the faminhed fold ; The clicking of un omborod hearth and cold ; The rainy Kobin tic-tac at the pano . " So na it is with theo Ih it with mo , So as it ia and it used not to bo , With theo used not to be , Nor mo . " So singeth Robin on the willow-treo , The rainy Robin tic-tac at the pano . Horo in thin breast all day The fire is dim and low ; Within I care not to stay , Without I caro not to go . A sadness ever slnga Of unforgotton things ,
And the bird of love is patting at the pane ; But the wintry water deepens at the door , And a step is plashing by upon the moor Into the dark upon the darkening moor , And alas , alas , the drip-drop of the rain ! Mr . Dobell has a great admiration of Scotch ballads ( from which , w < suspect , he derives his tendency to repetition ); and , although we cannot g < along with him in his strong sympathy with the northern dialect , it is impossible not to recognize the extraordinary dramatic force , vividness , anc pathos of " The Market Wife's Song . " E qually affecting , in its sorrowfu wonderment , is " The Little Girl ' s Song" ( not written in Scotch)—a poem expressive of a child ' s weary longings for the return of her father from th € wars , in which the reader is subtly made to know , what the child doe * not know , that the warrior is dead . A ballad on a cognate subject , a little way further on ., is worthy to rank with Sir Patrick Spens , or Chevy Chase . It is entitled * how ' s my hot ? " Ho , Sailor of the sea ! How's my boy—my boy ?" " What ' s your boy ' s name , good wife , And ia what good ship sailed he ?" " My boy John—He that went to sea —• What care I for the ship , sailor ? My boy's my boy to me . " You come back from sea , And not know my John ? I might as well have asked some landsman Yonder down in the town . There ' s not an ass in all the parish But he knows my John . " How ' s my boy—my boy ? And unless you let me know I'll swear" you are no sailor ,
Brass buttons or no , sailor , Anchor and crown or no ! Sure his ship was the ' Jolly Briton' "" Speak low , woman , speak low !" " And why should I speak low , sailor , About my own boy John ? If I was loud as I am proud I'd sing him over the town ! Why should I speak low , sailor ?" " That good ship went down . " " How's my boy—my boy ? What care I for the ship , sailor , I was never aboard her . Be she afloat or be she aground , Sinking or swimming , I'll be bound , Her owners can afford her ! I say , how ' s my John ?" " Every man on board went down , Every man aboard her . " " How ' s my boy—my boy ? What care I for the men , sailor ? I ' m not their mother—How ' s my boy—my boy ? Tell me of him and no other ! How ' s tny boy—my hoy ?" " Tommy ' s Dead" is a wonderful representation of the witless wanderin" - of an old man under accumulated griefs . The verses are supposed to ° be spoken by an English agricultural labourer , who thinks everything in the world is withered and dried up ; and it is singular to note how the rough Doric images and language are preserved , to the heightening , rather than the depreciation , of the poetry . " The Recruits' Ball ( Fiddler loquitur }" might be quoted , if space would permit , as a piece of audacious animal spirits—a perfect passion of tumultuous revelry ; and we might add many other specimens , but for the reason just assigned . Yet we must append this beautiful and original comparison spoken by one who is dying : — I feel two worlds : ono ends and one begins . Methinks I dwell in both ; being much here , But more hereafter : even as when the nurse Doth give the babe into the mother ' s arms , And she who hath not quite resigned , and she Who hath not all received , support in twain The single burden ; nevertheless the babe Already tastes its mother . Lord , I come .
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THE ZOUAVES AT THE SURREY GARDENS . Last Tuesday , a Zouavo Band performed at the Surre } ' Gardens . M . Jullien had composed for them a Trumpeters' Quadrille , which they " poured from their mellow horns" with admirable effect . The- now Music Hall—a monument of the Limited Liability Act—was densely crowded , and when the picturesque group —green , brass , and scarlet—was marshalled on tho platform , an enthusiasm wae excited which might have frightened any " intelligent foreigner , " but which did not seem in tho least to discompose tho swarthy Zouaves . The clarion was imporiully shrill . The Roll-call , Reveil , March , Bivouac , Alarm , and Victory were sounded in all their variations , and when tho martial melodists ceased , it was their turn to listen , for tho uproar of applause was continued for sorao minutee . Tli © irrational persons who thought it necessary to hiss tho Zouaves , as the proxies of Louis Napoleon , might have reserved their protest Against Prrotorianisra for a more fitting timo and place .
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Attest 9 , 1856 . 1 " THE LEADER . 765
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 9, 1856, page 765, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2153/page/21/
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