out of the mind of God-the base and original of the being of which was a selfmodifying vital principle. This vital force was independent of, and prior to, all organization; yet the law of its energies was the creative or self-formative-so that, if it acted through itself at all, it must act creatively-plastically-expressing this action in forms, the combinations of its own constituents. Mark you; the gift of this creative energy was from God, who gave it its laws, making it through them self-acting. In a word, His higher energy produced here a remote modification of some one thought or phase of His own Eternal might; and this we call and it is to us--creative. The fact of its being an energy sustained from God, implies the necessity of action, and this action constitutes its development of itself-its entity. That this entity must be infinitely remote from the positive being of God is self-evident : "As if the cause of life could think and live." God's being must be something immeasurably beyond the ideas of thinking and living, as they appear to us-for how could like create its like. It may pro create-creation is absolute and beyond this; the power of pro-creation is from it an endowment: so that in applying the term creativeness to any being under God, we must be understood as using it in the sense of production or projection out of the laws of its own life. We are no 66 "Magian with his powerful wand," setting up to reveal, or be doctrinal of, that which may not be known; but yet, we protest we love similitudes," and are fain to test how far they may play fully and safely carry us; for we mean to demonstrate (save the mark !) that these Birds of which we are to treat are no less than the "winged words" of this Earth's Poetry! Do they not express the supremest graces of a purely sensuous life of action-which we have shown to be a necessity of that vital energy permeating the globe and all that is therein? Now let us see how we can make our Earth a Poet-to discourse in sweet living numbers! This must be comparatively with Man, of course. There are two souls; Man possesses a soul-a peculiar energy, "breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life"-Eternal life, higher than the life of the Earth, and to which its vital principle has been given as a medium. Then, as the soul is man's highest vitality, why may not the Principle of Life, which is to the Earth its highest vitality, be to it the soul— "The lightning of its being," yet a lightning whose fountain may be the sun, while the eternity of God's own life may be the source of that higher soul in man. His soul is creative, and peoples the chambers of its imagery with rare and gorgeous creatures. Then why may it not be as we have shown it must, from the necessities of its origin and existence-that this lower, or Earth Soul is likewise creative, and all things that it contains, the expression of this selfexercised, self-modifying power, in thoughts that walk, run, creep, are still, or fly? A union of the two energies, the Spiritual and Sensuous, seems to have been necessary to the consummation of things as they are. The purely Spiritual could know nothing of the Sensuous, except as an abstract idea; nor could the purely Sensuous know the Spiritual at all, except through vague and undefined images of power; and this image precludes the possibility of any very necessity for the interposition of an Hence it apknowledge of its essence. pears to us, that the life of the latter must have been confined to simple consciousness-a mere direct knowledge of external effected its organization; while its being, things, as they appealed to its senses, to the former, was only a cold and lifeless reflex, such as we have described the inverted landscape in the lake to have been. Now we fancy that, to angelic vision, which alone, under God, regarded things from the Universe as a point of view, our world must have hung upon space about as unnaturally as that morning picture did, and all its action have seemed as the shadow of a Bird passing over it would have done to us from our point of view. -The Dædal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, Hung in its cloud of all sustaining air; But this divinest universe Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not; but power from worst producing worst The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds and of the watery forms." That" thou" was Adam, and, in reverence, it seems to us that the only way left of righting that apparently shadow peopled "island" to the apprehension charmingly and pleasantly his relations of those Higher Intelligences, was through the interpenetration of the idiosyncratic life of some one of the "Principalities and Powers" into its lower essencein a word, by the marriage of the Angelic and Sensuous life. That such a marriage was symboled by the breathing into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, we have no question. Into his organization-the most subtle and perfect expression of the creative energy of earth-a higher energy had passed, and in this sublimest marriage was the act and purpose of creation consummate. To the universe, when he awoke in birth "the great globe itself," with all the pomp and circumstance" of its peculiar being, stood first revealed beneath the pillared firmament as now it stands 66 “Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied His organization became to this vast gifted. This is the vision and the faculty divine;" and that his recreant spirituality does not always use it-that he has sometimes walked through life as one having eyes that saw not-does not, for an instant, alter the relations of things, or make their position on the eternal scale less absolute, or iron-hinged. That he has Free Will, in this respect, is his own awful and peculiar gift- -we cannot conceive, even of Gabriel, nearest the throne," as one who could not FALL! But we can conceive-if man could only see as we do or (more modestly) would only walk with his eyes open, how to the Earth might be changed. It is not so absurd, as might appear at first glance, to suppose her our Primal Parent through whom we have been born of Spirit-for surely we owe to her what we have of flesh and blood. And, to our mind, how lovely such a faith would be! With our hearts possessed of it, then would all the rude tremendous phases of her energy be tempered with amenities. It would then be our large Old Mother, chaunting in her seas a lullaby to us, when the long waves broke roaring on the sands or shook the fast cliffs with lashings. Then it would be the heavy trample of her roused strength in chastenings, when the hoarse storm made noises and the "cross blue lightning" spit its shafts against the crags-or, when her mountainous brows shook off the mellow evening, it would be in parting smiles for us- -when their white fronts laughed out with the fiery kiss of morning, it would be to greet us. We might gaze back tranquil love for love into her dark eyes of sleeping waters when they showed eloquent for us the sparkling visions of her infinite life. In pleasant wonder, with some awe, we might look down where the cavernous arteries of her warm great heart were yawninghear the clinking ripple of her nourishing blood go through her veins-while, far beneath, her fiery bowels yearned and shook the hills with belchings. Then in her long rivers we would see the arms of a nursing Mother thrown around the nations we should know in the windbowed voiceful forest, the shaking of her musical hair-and ah! how tenderly salute the Cowslip "cinque-spotted with its crimson drops," sent forth to us from near her heart-a thought of odors painted and embodied by the Sun. We should then see in Brute active life, not simply savage foes with whom our dealings should be under the law of blood, but Anti-types in which were foreshadowed the physical thoughts of strength, activity, courage &c., which were to be united in man the Type. Lion, tiger, horse, hog, monkey, all blended into one; and hewith, his union of the Higher Vitality acting through these forces-exhibiting their utmost capabilities, the basest as well as the best powers of these organized thoughts of action and of passion. Then would they become to us forever a lower Brotherhood, reminding us that we too are born" of the earth, earthy;" that, with all the keen exulting of this starmeasuring vision, we are linked to them through a common life in half that constitutes our being. Then would the Brute King of Numidian forests be a reproach to us-with its inviolate faith to the original laws which stamped it royalwould rebuke its Human Brother of the lion-heart back to "mere nature;" when he grew voluptuous, would taunt him through the fixed wrinkles in its tawny face and the still strength of fierceness in its eye, to "Rouse! and the weak and wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous folds, And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, Be shook to air!" Even the striped Tiger, in its Hyrcanian lair, stretched, gorged with blood, and harmless as a sleeping child, might teach a Robespierre to tire of slaughter and sheath for once his gore-stained claws. We are forever drawn away from our Earth-Mother by that counter force in us. May it not be that all Evil is the result of this unceasing antagonism of the Organic and Spiritual lives-that in a struggle which should elevate the lower, the symmetry of both is most frequently destroyed. Nature calls us back to her in this symbolical language, while the stars draw us by affinities. We will not see that our true Heaven lies between the two; but in the blindness of our perverse strivings make that happy half-way place a Hell! Our Mother discourseth with us through these her living words-through these her constant Anti-types of the heroic virtues in us she illustrates the changeless laws by which they are sustained. She warns us when we have disgraced our lion—or even our hog or donkey natures-how we may get back again to truth by copying their simple lives. She speaketh sternly to us, for she cannot lie. Ay "Call the creatures Whose naked natures live in all the spite Of wreakful heaven; whose bare unhoused trunks To the conflicting elements exposed thee." Ah! then, too, as well, would birds he the Anti-types of the Poetical in us. As we have said, they are to our Eld-Mother her winged words" of poetry. The similitude is perfect here! Even as Poe try is to us the higher language of our highest-i. e. our angelic nature-so, with this Matron Sister of the stars, is this Poetry the higher expression of the strong and beautiful in her. Furthermore, as in our case it matters not whether this expression speak outwardly through the heart, the blood or the brain, so it be the most purely creative and perfect of its kind, it is yet our Poetry-exalted just in proportion as the brainchief organ of the Soul-has worked it forth. So with her-it boots not whether sunset, waters, clouds, herbs, creeping things, beasts or Birds be her language— each condition is the expression of the est revelations, her Poetry-and, as Birds Soul of action in her, and is, in its highembody the purest graces of this action, they are her most elevated articulations! is not this fairly "demonstrated ?" Should they not seem to us the sublimest voices of her worship, lifted up on wings towards God, and be therefore sacred from all wantonness. Should they not thus be taken close to our hearts because they not only so clearly speak to us of the Soul in her, but as distinctly symbolize our own Souls? for is it not from their swift aerial movements and melodious tones we gather all the images and language of the Spiritual Life? In short, are not Birds the clearest, loftiest strain of the Earth's Poetry-the most perfect allegories of the life to come-the finest Anti-types of the noblest aspirations of the life that is? Though man has, in common with the elephant, sagacity— with the horse, generous activity-with the lion, magnanimous courage-yet, only in common with the Bird hath he wings, or rendereth up his heart on high in singing. But even as Anti-types of the physical virtues, Birds are the highest expression, and therefore the Heroic Poetry. The traits enumerated above in connection with Brutes, are those of subordinates, of such as, sword in hand, lead columns crashing in the onset, or mount first "the imminent deadly breach ;" but they act under a controlling mastery, and it is that of such a spirit as the Eagle typifies of a broad-pinioned cleaver of the mists, whose far-flashing, sun-defying eye sees beyond the concurrence he has wielded to the results. Such a one was Napoleon-whose whole career was the sublimest Heroic Epic the world ever saw. The Eagle was, naturally, his favorite bird, and perched upon his standards, leading his fiery veterans to victory. It was his Anti-type, with its whole hungry family of Raptores, flame-eyed and hookbeaked, clustered around it in his Marshals! It has been the bird of victory since time began all the mighty Geniuses of war have loved it "The Anarch Chiefs, whose fierce and murderous snares Have founded many a sceptre-bearing line," have taken it for a sign, an omen of triumph. The wry-necked, world-conquering Macedonian followed it to the "Ganges golden" and the Temple of Ammon. The nation-yoking, "hook-billed Roman" carried it before his legions. Beneath its wings the grand Wallenstein, with his German cohorts, "blue-eyed, yellow-haired and strong," battled haughtily with his Destiny?" The sterner stuff" of our own daring and hardy Fathers saw in its strong wings and continent-girdling flight, the fittest emblem of the freedom and the boundless Empire they were founding here. In a word, it has idealized and glorified all sublimest action and triumphs of the physical. It is the Epic of earth's heroic Poetry. In it, like Homer, the Old Mother has loosened from "thunderous brows" her topmost thought of beautiful, fierce, exulting strength, and sent it plumed to float upon her storms!-That will do-Miss Barrettizing the Earth! But let the Daughter paint for us her bold pencil does it well! When we set up for one of "God's prophets of the beautiful," then may we, too, grind down the elements for our palette, and, at a single stroke, dash off such a profile of our Sphynx-headed Mother in her eternal youth, that the very Raven of the ark-said to be now abroad!-will recognize it for the same face it saw lifted calm above the flood! That would be Miss Barrett-izing with a "line effect," especially if by the one effort we could throw in, as an accessory, the old fellow's croak of greeting, hoarse with the phlegm of ages. But we are mournfully fain to confess we may not be a Seer-for, as yet, we have seen no sights "Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire," worth talking about; though, in equal humility, we are ready to acknowledge that, all this while, it may be -true I talk of dreams Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy!" Be our similitudes veritable, or this the "baseless fabric of a vision," still we reiterate our "weakness" for them! Sure this wondrous wide ocean of Analogy (had we not as well have said Truth?) has some sunny spots in it-green islands where we love to stop and play upon the pebbly verge with the weird Albatross it brings us "whispering shells" from the deep, deep sea. Rebuke not our toying fancy, and you shall hear them, too! But has not Earth, too, as well as Man, a yet more exalted and exalting Poetry than that of which the Bird of Battle is a this-for have we not heard it?-not sign? We, ourselves, can vouch for alone in strains such as -Bottomless conceit Can comprehend in still imagination," but through this carnal sense in our own pricked ears have we confessed it. Ah! how different that mellow rhythm, from the harsh, hungry clarion, sounded in its scream? Have we not gone aside into those secret places where our Primal Mother "Plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all too rumpled and sometimes impaired." Here an awed silent witness have we not listened when her solemn moods of worship came upon her? Think you she does not know the Mighty One, who thought her-Daughter of the Sun--into being? Yes! and she serves an altar to him, "in a house not made with hands;" and thus, for that service-away from the hum and dust of bruising cities-from the rock-rude chaos of her sterner moods, where Eaglets nestle with her Stormsdoth she draw apart; and, gathering about her there her delicate thoughts of love and gentlest peace, she lifts them on her green bosom to her old Sire to kiss, and resting tranquil in his warm lightsings! First, she sings an under prelude with the breeze and stream-then, soft and clear, a louder diapason swelling rings in sweet articulations, warbled out or trilling from her thousand living throats! Must not this be her choral incensehymn of praise the holier strain she carries in the anthem of the stars? Every note, too, is plumed with wings, and is the living movement of her heart to God. Have we not thus seen that she, too-comparatively with man-has a Poetry, and discourseth "sweet living numbers," after the same manner with his rapt inspirations? This, her tuneful choir," is the eldest; and, as it expresses in her the highest yearnings of her purer life, so it stands the Anti-type of the spiritual and truest Poetry in ManMan her wayward child, half tyrant and half stranger on her bosom. What recks he, the hard self-worshiper, that the Linnet is his lowlier sister! Still is she bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and sings for him of love! Yet he, too, sings of love. Her love is of the sun and flowers-his love goes winging to freeze among the stars, and will not stoop to caress her. Ah! unfraternal despot; ye may not know the innocent joy when it is warm about the heart. Thus her meek rebuke would be plained low from out her tiny heart! But, gentle singer, though in the aggre. gate we be "A people currish, churlish as the seas, And rude almost as rudest salvages"yet have we men and women of us, who "Subscribe to tender objects"who can turn away from the unholy altars of this " dark idolatry of self," to know and feed upon the beautiful in outward things. To such, thou art a lowly sister "And for thy songs they give thee song again, But set thy lispings to a loftier strain !" Safer in their wide sympathies thou may. est nestle than in the strong cedarcherished and nourished at their deep hearts-take thine ease-thou mayest be glad! These are the true Monarchs here. They have thrown aside the purple and forgotten State. They go forth bare and meek into the throng of living creatures, and in their beneficence alone do they seem royal-" like the benediction of the covering heavens," their calm, genial smiles fall everywhere in dew; "And they shall be accounted Poet Kings, Who simply say the most heart-easing things." These are they the Song Birds typify! -the soft-eyed and musical-hearted!Ah, alike-how full of happy love and the power of giving joy! It is very pleasant and curious to see how many points of resemblance there are between these Plumy Poets and their bifurcated rivals without feathers. The points of departure are rather of manner than of kind. The bird is its own instrument, and Singeth of Summer in full-throated ease;" though there are exceptions: the Woodpecker sometimes makes of the hollow oak an "instrument" whereon to beat a tattoo. The Pheasant extemporizes the thunder of deep bass, using an old log for a drum; but these are incidental deviations, for they are not strictly SongBirds, though they carry important parts in the orchestra. The Man has a voice too, and uses it to a purpose sometimesfor old Herrick says, "So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice, As, could they hear, the damned would make no noise." |