SONG FROM ZAPOLYA COLERIDGE VERSE, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a beeBoth were mine! Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young! When I was young ?—Ah, woeful When ! Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, When Youth and I lived in't together. O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old! Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere, This drooping gait, this altered size: That only serves to make us grieve 1823-April, 1832. 1828-June, 1832. WORK WITHOUT HOPE ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where ama ranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll: And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live. February, 1827. 1828. THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO Of late, in one of those most weary hours, When life seems emptied of all genial powers, A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known May bless his happy lot, I sate alone; And, from the numbing spell to win relief, [grief. Call'd on the Past for thought of glee or In vain bereft alike of grief and glee, Which, all else slumbering, seem'd alone to wake; O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal, And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, I but half saw that quiet hand of thine An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might The picture stole upon my inward sight. A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast. And one by one (I know not whence) were brought All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost; Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above, Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love; Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan is man! Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea worn caves Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves; Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids, That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades; Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast; Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest, Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array, To high-church pacing on the great saint's day. And many a verse which to myself I sang, That woke the tear yet stole away the pang. Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd. And last, a matron now, of sober mien, Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen, Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd Even in my dawn of thought—Philosophy; Though then unconscious of herself, pardie, She bore no other name than Poesy: And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, That had but newly left a mother's knee, Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone, As if with elfin playfellows well known, And life reveal'd to innocence alone. Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry Thy fair creation with a mastering eye, And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand, Now wander through the Eden of thy hand: Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear See fragment shadows of the crossing deer; And with that serviceable nymph I stoop The crystal from its restless pool to scoop. I see no longer! I myself am there, on the ground-sward, and the 'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings, And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings; O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse! 1 I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imaginations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio, where the sage in structor, Racheo, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancofiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of Love. "Incominciò Racheo a mettere il suo officio in esecuzione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece leggere il santo libro d'Ovvidio, nel quale il sommo poeta mostra, come i santi fuochi di Venere si debbano ne' freddi cuori accendere." — (Coleridge.) Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, And see in Dian's vest between the ranks Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves, With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves ! 1828. 1829. PHANTOM OR FACT A DIALOGUE IN VERSE AUTHOR A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed, And such a feeling calm its presence shed, A tender love so pure from earthly leaven, That I unnethe the fancy might control, 'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven, Wooing its gentle way into my soul! But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet Alas! that change how fain would I forget! That shrinking back, like one that had mistook! That weary, wandering, disavowing look! 'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame, And still, methought, I knew, it was the same! SCOTT LIST OF REFERENCES - EDITIONS POETICAL WORKS, edited by William Minto, 2 volumes, Edinburgh, 1887-88. POETICAL WORKS, 1 volume, edited, with revision of text, by W. J. Rolfe, Boston, 1888. POETICAL WORKS, edited by Andrew Lang, 6 volumes, 1902. POETICAL WORKS, 1 volume, edited by F. T. Palgrave, The Macmillan Co., 1866 (Globe Edition; not complete). * COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS, 1 volume, edited by H. E. Scudder, The Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1900 (Cambridge Edition). - POEMS, 1 volume, edited by J. Logie Robertson, Clarendon Press, 1906 (Oxford Edition). - JOURNAL, 1825-1832, 2 volumes, edited by David Douglas, Edinburgh, 1890. FAMILIAR LETTERS, 2 volumes, edited by David Douglas, Edinburgh, 1894. BIOGRAPHY ** LOCKHART (J. G.), Life of Sir Walter Scott, 1837.-*HUTTON (R. H.), Scott, 1878 (English Men of Letters Series). (Containing two chapters of excellent criticism on Scott as a poet.) YONGE (C. D.), Scott, 1888 (Great Writers Series). SAINTSBURY (George), Sir Walter Scott, 1897 (Famous Scots Series). HUDSON (W. H.), Sir Walter Scott, 1901 (Scots Epoch Makers). HUGHES (Mary A. W.), Letters and Recollections of Scott, Smith, Elder & Co., 1904. NORGATE (G. Le G.), Life of Sir Walter Scott, Methuen, 1906. JENKS (T.), In the Days of Scott, A. S. Barnes, 1906.*LANG (A.), Sir Walter Scott, 1906 (Literary Lives Series). CRITICISM BALL (Margaret), Sir Walter Scott as a Critic, 1907. BEERS (H. A.), English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century, 1901. *BROOKE (Stopford A.), Studies in Poetry, 1907. - *CARLYLE (T.), Miscellanies, Vol. IV; from the London and Westminster Review, 1838. - CROCKETT (S. R.), The Scott Country, 1902. EMERSON (R. W.), Miscellanies. - HAY (John), Addresses: Speech at the Unveiling of the Bust of Scott in Westminster Abbey, 1897. HOWELLS (W. D.), My Literary Passions, 1895. - HUGO (Victor), Littérature et Philosophie, 1834. -HUTTON (R. H.), Brief Literary Criticisms, 1906.-JEFFREY (Francis), Edinburgh Review, No. 23 (April, 1808), Art. 1, Marmion; No. 32, Art. 1, Lady of the Lake; No. 36. Art. 6, Vision of Don Roderick; No. 48, Art. 1, Lord of the Isles. Also in his Critical Essays. KER (W. P.), Scott, in Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature, Vol. III, new edition, 1904. *LANG (A.), Letters to Dead Authors, 1886. LANG (A.). Essays in Little, 1891. - LANG (A.), Poets' Country, 1907.- PRESCOTT (W. H.), Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1845. *PALGRAVE (F. T.), Introduction to the Globe Edition, 1866. - *RUSKIN (John), Modern Painters, Part IV, Chap. 16 (especially sections 22– 45) and 17. *RUSKIN (John), Fors Clavigera, Letters 31-34, 92. - SAINTSBURY (G.), Essays on English Literature, Second Series, 1895. *SHAIRP (J. C.), Aspects of Poetry: Homeric Spirit of Scott, 1881. SMITH (Goldwin), Scott's Poetry again; in the Atlantic, March, 1905. STEPHEN (Leslie), Hours in a Library, Vol. I, 1874, 1892. — SWINBURNE (A. C.), Studies in Prose and Poetry, 1894. SYMONS (Arthur), Was Sir Walter Scott a Poet; in the Atlantic, Nov., 1904. SYMONS (Arthur), Romantic Movement in English Poetry, 1909. WOODBERRY (G. E.), Great Writers, 1907; from McClure's Magazine, June, 1905. WILLIAM AND HELEN SCOTT Imitated from Bürger's Lenore. See Lockhart's Life of Scott, Volume I, Chap. 7. FROM heavy dreams fair Helen rose, With gallant Frederick's princely power With Paynim and with Saracen At length a truce was made, Our gallant host was homeward bound And old and young, and sire and son, Full many a maid her true-love met, Nor joy nor smile for Helen sad, The martial band is past and gone; And in distraction's bitter mood "O, rise, my child," her mother said, "Nor sorrow thus in vain ; A perjured lover's fleeting heart "O, Mother, what is gone is gone, Death, death alone can comfort me; "O, break, my heart, O, break at once! "O, enter not in judgment, Lord!” Impute not guilt to thy frail child! "O, say thy pater-noster, child ! "O mother, mother, what is bliss? My William's love was heaven on earth, "Why should I pray to ruthless Heaven, "No sacrament can quench this fire, "O, break, my heart, O, break at once! Be thou my god, Despair! Heaven's heaviest blow has fallen on me, And vain each fruitless prayer." |