AFTER-THOUGHT [Concluding sonnet of the series 'To the River Duddon,' 1820.] I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Enough, if something from our hands have power And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know. MUTABILITY. From low to high doth dissolution climb, Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail; Which they can hear who meddle not with crime, Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain (1822.) TO LADY FITZGERALD, IN HER SEVENTIETH YEAR. Such age how beautiful! O Lady bright, Than flesh and blood; whene’er thou meet'st my sight, (1827.) ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT FROM ABBOTSFORD, FOR NAPLES. [1831.] A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might [PAST YEARS OF HOME.] Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot, To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her rays, Evening's angelic clouds. Yet ne'er a note Bountiful Son of Earth! when we are gone Thy visionary majesties of light, How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest. (Dec. 24, 1842.) The Hill that rises to the south east, above Ambleside. SAMUEL ROGERS. [SAMUEL ROGERS was born at Stoke Newington in 1763 and died in 1855. The dates of his principal poems are-Pleasures of Memory 1793, Epistle to a Friend 1798, Human Life 1819, Italy (complete edition) 1834.] When a poet has become a poet of the past and in the natural course of things his poetry has ceased to be talked about, it is not easy to ascertain how far it may or may not have ceased to be read. Has it ceased to be bought? The answer to that question might be accepted in most cases as answering the other. But in the case of Rogers an element of ambiguity was introduced long since. When a well-known firm some fifty years ago expressed a doubt whether the public would provide a market for a volume he wished them to publish, Rogers, in a tone half serious, half comic, said 'I will make them buy it ;' and being a rich man and a great lover of art, he sent for Turner and Stothard, and a volume appeared with such adornments as have never been equalled before or since. It was called by a sarcastic friend of mine 'Turner illustrated.' The Pleasures of Memory is an excellent specimen of what Wordsworth calls 'the accomplishment of verse'; and it was well worthy to attract attention and admiration at the time when it appeared; for at that time poetry, with few exceptions, was to be distinguished from prose by versification and little else. The Pleasures of Memory is an essay in verse, not wanting in tender sentiment and just reflection, expressed, gracefully no doubt, but with a formal and elaborate grace, and in studiously pointed and carefully poised diction, such as the heroic couplet had been trained to assume since the days of Pope. In 1793 very different days were approaching-days in which poetry was to break its chains, and formality to be thrown to the winds. The didactic dullness of the eighteenth century was presently to be supplanted by the romantic spirit and easy animation of Scott, the amorous appeals of Moore, and the passion of Byron ; whilst mere tenderness, thoughtfulness and grace were to share its fate, and be trampled in the dust. An author's name will generally continue long to be associated with that of the work which has first made him known to the world, whether or not it be his best. The Pleasures of Memory is probably to this day the best known by name of the author's principal poems. They were seven in number-an Ode to Superstition, The Pleasures of Memory, An Epistle to a Friend, Columbus, Jacqueline, Human Life, and Italy; and they were written, the earliest at twenty-two years of age, the latest at seventy-one. Human Life is a poem of the same type as The Pleasures of Memory, and in the same verse. The fault of such poems is that they are about nothing in particular. Their range and scope is so wide that one theme is almost as apposite as another. The poet sets himself to work to think thoughts and devise episodes, and to give them what coherency he can; the result being, that some are forced and others commonplace. But if such poems are to be written by a poet who is not a philosopher, they could not well be executed by any one with more care and skill than by Rogers. The subject of Italy was better chosen. The poet travels from Geneva to Naples; and his itinerary brings picturesque features, alternately with romantic traditions and memorable facts in history, into a natural sequence of poetic themes. They are described and related always in a way to please, often with striking effect; and any one who travels the same road and desires to see with the eyes of a poet what is best worth seeing, and to be reminded of what is best worth remembering, can have no better companion. The heroic couplet, moreover, is left behind. For before the first of the fifteen years occupied in the composition of Italy (1819-34) Spenserian stanzas, ottava rima, octosyllabic verse, blank verse, any verse, had found itself to be more in harmony with the poetic spirit of the time. Italy is the longest of the author's poems; and for a poem of such length, blank verse is best. It is a form of verse which, since the Elizabethans, no poet except Milton had hitherto used with what could be called signal success; and the abrupt contrasts and startling significance of which it was capable in their hands, will always find a place more naturally in dramatic than in narrative poetry. But the blank verse written by Rogers, though not very expressive, flows with an easy and gentle melody, sufficiently varied, and almost free from faults, |