Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

OFF MY GAME.

"I'm off my game," the golfer said, And shook his locks in woe; "My putter never lays me dead,

My drives will never go; Howe'er I swing, howe'er I stand, Results are still the same,

I'm in the burn, I'm in the sand-
I'm off my game!

66

Oh, would that such mishap might fall On Laidlay or Macfie,

That they might toe or heel the ball,

And sclaff along like me!
Men hurry from me in the street,

And execrate my name,

Old partners shun me when we meet
I'm off my game!

"Why is it that I play at all?

Let memory remind me

How once I smote upon my ball,
And bunkered it—behind me.1
I mostly slice into the whins,
And my excuse is lame-
It cannot cover half my sins
I'm off my game!

"I hate the sight of all my set,
I grow morose as Byron;

I never loved a brassey yet,
And now I hate an iron.

My cleek seems merely made to top,
My putting's wild or tame;
It's really time for me to stop-
I'm off my game!"

Nor should'st thou leave their friend and thine, o'ertaken,

Downtrodden, tortured by the tyrant's thong,

Vainly expecting, till thy song should waken

Spring, whose soft breath would wipe out Winter's wrong.

Pardon, dear heart, if singing thus I blame thee;

(Graceless, to doubt that songful heart and true);

Soon shall yon birch and thy poor poet claim thee

Yes! thou shalt thrill our souls the Summer through.

I will not listen to the wind's wail'd "Never!"

I will not deem thee dead, thy last song sung; Somewhere thou lingerest, and though space now sever,

Still I shall list to thee, these firs among.

Longer delay not, set all hearts a-beating,Primrose, and birch, and larch-blooms wait thy word;

All long for life, for Spring, for thy glad greeting,

Sing till the dullest, drowsiest pulse is stirr'd.

Temple Bar.

[blocks in formation]

JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD.

[blocks in formation]

SECRETS.

JULY roses wet with rain

Tap against the window-pane ;
There is something they would seek,
Had they voices and could speak.
Silence seals their crimson lips,
And the dull rain drops and drips.

Th' other side the streaming glass
Stands a little sad-eyed lass;
There is something she would seek,
But a maiden may not speak-
Silence seals her longing lips,
And the dull rain drops and drips.

And salt tears in showers stain
Her side of the window-pane;
And the crimson roses grow
Pale as dreamis dreamt long ago;
(Hearts may break behind sealed lips),
And the dull rain drops and drips..

M. H. BROWNE,

D

From The Fortnightly Review.
SCENERY AND THE IMAGINATION.

of the earth's surface were in truth among the earliest with which the huTHE more marked features on the man race began to deal. If we try to surface of the land have from early discover how they were first approached, times awakened the curiosity and stim- how their treatment varied, not only ulated the imagination of men. Moun- with peculiarities of race and national tainous regions with their peaks and temperament, but with conditions of crests where cloud and tempest find a climate and variations of topography, home, their rugged scarps of cliff and we are led backward into the study of crag, whence landslips sweep down into some of the most venerable efforts of the valleys, their snows and frosts, the human imagination, which, though their floods and avalanches, their oft- now in large measure faded or vanrepeated and too frequently disastrous ished, may yet be in some slight degree shocks of earthquake, supply the most recovered from the oldest mythologies striking illustrations of the influence of and superstitions. In many of the the external world on human develop-early myths we may recognize primitive ment. Yet while it is in these elevated attempts to account for some of the parts of the earth's surface, where the more prominent features of landscape activities of nature seem to beat with a or of climate. And as we trace the more rapid pulse, that the human imag-variations of these legends from counination has been more especially stimu- try to country, we learn how much their lated, even among the comparatively changes of dress have arisen from local featureless lowlands the influence of peculiarities of environment. outer things, though less potent, may be distinctly traced. Wherever, for instance, the monotony of a lowland landscape is broken by an occasional oddly shaped hill, by a conspicuous grassy mound, by a group of prominent boulders, by a cauldron-shaped hollow, or by a river chasm, we may expect to find that these diversities of scenery have from time immemorial arrested attention.

Of the earlier interpretations of nature we can partially judge from the fragmentary evidence that has come down to our own time. Some of them may be in some degree restored from a comparison of ancient myth and superstition with the physical characters of the regions wherein these legends took their rise, or where, at least, they assumed the forms in which they have been transmitted to later ages. Others have survived in place-names which, still in common use, connect our own generation with the days of our ancestors.

Whatever departs from ordinary usage and experience prompts, even among the rudest people, a desire for explanation. The more striking elements of topography accordingly aroused the curi- In pursuing the investigation of this osity of the earliest races who came to subject we soon perceive, however, that dwell among them. In the infancy of the supernatural interpretations, and the world the forces of nature were the tendency to personification which more or less mysterious to men. They led to them, began to be supplanted by were looked upon as manifestations of natural explanations founded on actual superior beings, whose conflicts or co- observation of the outer world, and that operation were held to account for the this change of view, commencing first changes of the external world. Thus, with the few observant men or philosby a system of personification that ophers, made considerable way among varied from clime to clime, primeval even the ordinary populace, long before mankind surrounded itself with invisi- the decay of the mythological systems ble deities, to each of whom some spe- or superstitions of which these primecial function in the general government val supernatural interpretations formed and progress of the world was assigned. a characteristic part. The growth of Hence the problems presented by the the naturalistic spirit was exceedingly more impressive details of the scenery slow, and for many centuries was coeval

with the continued vigorous life of reli-topography on the imagination, and gious beliefs which accounted for many what they are or should be now in the natural events as evidence of the opera- midst of modern science and universal tions of supernatural beings. education.

Those features of the outer world which most attract attention were the first that appealed to the observing faculty of mankind. Among these the elements of topography obviously hold a foremost place, including, as they do, the most frequent and impressive manifestations of those natural agencies whereby the surface of the land is constantly modified. It was impossible that after men had begun to observe, and to connect effects with causes, they should refrain from referring the resultant changes of landscape to the working of the natural processes that were seen or inferred to produce them. They were led to trace this connection even while their religious belief or superstition remained hardly impaired. The conclusions thus popularly reached were sometimes far from correct, but inasmuch as they substituted natural for supernatural causes, they undoubtedly marked a distinct forward step in the intellectual development of man.

The mythology of ancient Greece supplies many illustrations of the way in which the physical aspects of the land have impressed their character on the religious beliefs and superstitions of a people. The surface of that country is almost everywhere rugged, rising into groups of hills and into chains of lofty mountains which separate and enclose fertile plains and valleys. The climate embraces all the softness of the Mediterranean shores together with the year-long snows and frosts of Olympus on the one hand, and the almost sub-tropical heat of the lowlands of Attica on the other. The clouds and rains of the mountains have draped the slopes with umbrageous forests, and have spread over the plains a fertile soil which has been cultivated since before the dawn of history. Thus, while a luxuriant vegetation clothes the lower grounds with beauty, bare crags and crests are never far away. The soft and the harsh of nature, the soothing From that time onward the influence and the repulsive are. placed side by of scenery on the human imagination side. The indolence begotten of a took a different course. The gods were teeming soil and sunny clime is quickdethroned, and the invisible spirits of ened by proximity to the stern mountain nature no longer found worshippers; world the home of thunder-clouds, but it was impossible that the natural tempests, and earthquakes. In the features which had prompted the pri- childhood of mankind, the physical meval beliefs should cease to exercise features of such a country could not a potent influence on the minds of men. | fail to re-act powerfully upon the imagThis influence has varied in degree and ination of those who dwelt among them, in character from generation to gener- calling forth visions of grace and beauty, ation, as we may see by comparing its and at the same time imparting to these place in the literature of successive visions a variety and vigor which would periods. Probably at no time has it hardly have been developed among the been more potent than it is at the pres-dwellers on monotonous plains. The ent day.

.

natural influence of scenery and climate To discuss fully this wide subject like those of Greece upon the imaginawould demand far more space than can tion of a race endowed with a large be given to it here. I propose, there- share of the poetic faculty has never fore, to select two portions of it only; been more forcibly or gracefully exone from the beginning and the other pressed than by our own Wordsworth, from the end of its historical develop-in a well-known passage in the fourth ment. I shall try to show by reference book of his "Excursion." to primitive myth and early legend what were the first and most obvious effects of the more prominent elements of

With the source of the early Hellenic myths we are not so much concerned in the present inquiry as with the form in

[ocr errors][merged small]

which they have reached us. Whether | mountain region. At the base of the
they arose in Greece, or, having been bare cliffs and down the rocky decliv-
brought from some other home, re-ities lie huge blocks of stone that have
ceived their final shape there, is of less been detached by the weather from the
moment than the actual guise in which precipices above. And, doubtless, from
we find them in the earliest Greek liter-time immemorial the dwellers on these
ature. There cannot, I think, be any slopes have been familiar with the
doubt that to the striking topography of crash and tumult of the landslip, and
Thessaly they are largely indebted for with the havoc wrought by it on forest
the dress in which they appear in the and field. Along the mountain-ridges,
poems of Homer and Hesiod. We may too, clouds are ever gathering, and
recognize among them some of the thunderstorms are of continual recur-
earliest recorded efforts of the human rence. The lightnings of Olympus are
imagination to interpret the aspects of visible from Othrys, and to the inhab
nature, and these aspects were unmis-itants of the intervening plain the in-
takably such as presented themselves cessant peals and reverberations from
in that particular portion of the ancient the northern and southern ranges might
world.
well sound like shouts of mutual defi-
The wide Thessalian plain, the largest auce from the two lines of lofty ram-
area of lowland in Greece, lies upon part, as where, in a more northern
Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, which,
clime
in the lower parts of the region, are
overlain with a level tract of alluvial
soil. Round this plain stretches a
girdle of lofty and imposing mountains,
composed chiefly of hard crystalline
schists and limestones. On the north
the crags and snowy crests of Olympus
rise high and bare above the dense for-
ests that clothe the slopes. To the
eastward, across the narrow chasm of
Tempe through which the drainage of
the great inland basin escapes to the
sea, the grey peak of Ossa forms the
northern end of a long chain of heights
which, farther south, mount into the
ridge of Pelion. Along the southern
edge of the plain another vast mountain
barrier sweeps eastward from Mount
Pindus through the lofty chain of
Othrys to the sea.

Jura answers from her misty shroud
Back to the joyous Alps that call to her
aloud.

If to these daily or frequently returning meteorological phenomena we add the terrors of an occasional earthquake, such as effect most mountainous countries and are known to have shaken different parts of Greece within historic times, we perceive how favorable the conditions of environment must have been for exciting the imagination of an impressionable people. Whether, therefore, the early Hellenic myths arose in Hellas, or came from elsewhere, they could hardly fail in the end to betray the influence of the surroundings amid which they were handed down from generation to generation. No other part of Greece presents The snowy summits of Olympus, rising such diversities of topography and of serenely above the shifting clouds into climate as are to be found within the the calm, clear, blue heaven, naturally region thus encircled with mountains. came to be regarded as the fit abode of The peaceful beauty and spontaneous the gods who ruled the world. The fertility of the plain offer an impressive association of that mountain-top with contrast to the barren ruggedness of the dwelling-place of the immortals, the surrounding heights. High above first suggested to the imagination of the gardens, meadows, and cornfields, the early settlers in Thessaly, passed sharply cut walls and pinnacles of white limestone mount out of the thick woodland into the clear upper air. Nor is evidence wanting of those catastrophes which from time to time convulse the

outwards to the utmost bounds of the Hellenic world. Everywhere the word Olympus came to be synonymous with heaven itself.

In the myth of the Gods and the

Titans, as handed down in early Greek | issue; the apparently insurmountable poetry, the influence of Thessalian barrier interposed across the course of topography is abundantly conspicuous. the stream; the singular and unexThe two opposite mountain ranges of pected ravine by which the drainage is Olympus and Othrys became the re- allowed to escape to the sea; the naked, spective strongholds of the opposing fissured walls of white limestone on hosts. The convulsions of that ten either side of the narrow pass, even years' struggle, whether suggested or now powerfully impress the observant not by the broken features of the ground traveller of to-day. These striking and the conflicts of the elements, assur- features could not fail to appeal to the edly took their poetic coloring from imagination of the old Greek. From them. The riven crags piled in confu- early times it was recognized that the sion one above another, the rock-strewn plain of Thessaly had once been covslopes, the trees uprooted by landslips, ered with a sheet of water, of which the thunder-peals that resound from the remaining portions formed two conthe misty mountain-chains, seem still siderable lakes. Had no passage been to tell of that primeval belief, wherein opened for the outflow of the drainage the Titans were pictured as striving across the barrier of mountains the with frantic efforts to scale the heights plain would have remained submerged. of Olympus by piling Ossa on Pelion, The cleaving of a chasm whereby the hurling huge rocks and trees through pent-up waters were allowed to flow the darkened air, and answering the down to the sea, and thus to lay bare thunderbolts of Zeus with fierce peals so wide an area of rich land for human from the clouds of their lofty citadel. occupation, was looked on as the work In the magnificent description of of some benevolent power and natuHesiod, beneath all the supernatural | rally came to be associated with the turmoil we catch, as it were, the tumult name of Poseidon, the god of the sea.1 of a wild storm among the Thessalian In later times, when the deeds of gods hills, with such added horrors as might and heroes began to be confounded be suggested to the imagination of the with each other, the supernatural charpoet from the recollection or tradition acter of the Vale of Tempe was still of former earthquake or volcanic erup-acknowledged; but the opening of the tion.

cleft was in course of time transferred to Hercules, who, by cutting a hollow across the ridge, allowed the stagnant waters of the interior to flow off into the sea.2

Long after the time of the primitive mythology the more striking features of the land continued to appeal to the Hellenic imagination and to perpetuate the prowess of gods and heroes, even Prominent hills and crags in other down to generations of men among parts of Greece gave rise to legends or whom belief in these legends was became the localized scenes of myths already beginning to grow dim. The which had floated down from an older narrow gorge of Tempe may be cited time, and sometimes perhaps from anin illustration of this influence. Cleft other birthplace. Thus the hill Lycabetween the precipices of Olympus and bettus, that stands so picturesquely on Ossa, and serving as the only outlet for the north-east of Athens, suggested to the drainage of the wide Thessalian the lively fancy of the early Athenians plain, this chasm must have arrested a record of the prowess of their patron the attention of the earliest settlers, goddess. When Athene, so the legend and certainly continued for many cen- ran, was founding their state and turies to be one of the most noted val-wished to strengthen the city, she went leys of the Old World. The contrast out to Pallene, a demos lying to the between the vast level plain through north-eastward, and procured there a which the river Peneius and its tributaries wander, and the narrow gorge Diod. Sic., iv. 18. See also Lucan, Pharsalia, through which the accumulated waters vi. 345.

1 Herodotus, vii. 129.

« ElőzőTovább »