A DREAM OF LATIN ROMANCE.
CANTO THE SECOND.
AGAIN upon the LATIN DREAM,
As down a flow'ry golden stream
The Memory glideth on and sighs,
Cowley of Tasso's land!* for thee,
To bear her pleasant company.
Or shall I come to thee and borrow
The music of thy Harp of Sorrow,
Bidding the tears of anguish start,
Sweet Poet of the Broken Heart !†
Or touch my cittern with thy finger,
Softest, tenderest, Grecian singer ;
Thou, whose plaintive lullaby,
Poured slumber on the weeper's eye,
What time, upon the troubled sea,
The mourning mother wrapped the vest
Of purple on the infant's breast,
While wintry storm and thunder roll
Blackness of horror on her soul.
Or gently breathe upon my lyre
The breath of thy poetic fire,§
Thou, by the hand of Sorrow led
Unto the City of the Dead;
Upon whose staring, frighted eye,
With looks tossed upward to the sky,
Wishing for death, and yet afraid to die,
Remorse glared horribly; and Dread,
With hair that started on his head;
And Misery, the ghastly Spright,
That on the burning pillow lay,
Praying for early dawn of day,
Then weeping for the night.
Or rather thee, whose heart is stored ||
With many a harvest-year of thought
From fair Arabian gardens brought,
Thee, from thy rich enchanted Hall
Unto my lowly hearth I call,
Turning the charmed listener pale
With Thalaba, the wondrous Tale.
Oft at the evening hour of calm,
When the broad shadow of the palm
By many a dancer's mirthful bound
Is scattered on the sunny ground;
To thee, as to her spirit's Lord,
From lute of sweetest melody,
Her tales of olden minstrelsy
The Indian muse hath poured.
* Marino, whose peculiar Concetti entitle him to that designation. upon Adonis, the story of Psyche is told with considerable beauty.
In the fourth canto of the poem
↑ Ford, whose tragedy of The Broken Heart is most pathetic.
Sackville; alluding to the figures described in the Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates.
§ Southey; alluding to the Curse of Kehama,
Beautiful Indian Maid! we see,
Beneath the feathery coco-tree,
Upon thy lap the Outcast lying;
While, through the branches over-head,
The summer air is flying.
Then, learned Dreamer, visit me,
And o'er my brightening fancy shed
The rich bloom of thy Poesy.
She entered now a forest dark,
A solitude of trees;
No rustling wing of mounting lark
Shaketh its wild notes on the breeze.
Along the green untrodden way,
The mirrored foliage moveless lay,
As on a smooth transparent river;
While through the black domes of the bower,
The red sun shot its arrowy shower,
Like darts from Dian's silver quiver,
Piercing the night of leaves.
All is silent as the tomb,
"Now in glimmer, and now in gloom."
The gentle mourner onward goes,
And still the tear of sadness flows.
A flush is on her marble brow
What vision greets the wanderer now?
Softly, softly, softly, tread!-
Underneath yon aged tree,
O'er-shaded by the canopy
Of boughs, the Forest God is sleeping;
The gray-moss round the old trunk creeping,
A pillow for his head.
But, hush! the slumberer starts to hear
A footstep through the green-wood pass,
And sees with heavy slumbering eye
(Why roameth mortal maiden here,
When Pan upon his couch doth lie?)
A human shadow on the grass.*
The Pilgrim stood, nor angry he,
For sweeter than a pastoral lay
In the melting light of May,
Sighed that desolate ladye-
"Succour! succour! succour me!"
Alas! no aid the Forest King
Unto the wounded heart could bring;
A word of peace he spoke and ended,
While o'er his heavy eyes descended
The slumber of his noon-day dream.
Many a rushing wind hath bowed
That mighty forest, lone and dim,
Making the solemn evening hymn,
Ere Psyche on her journey drear
The sound of living things did hear,
To soothe the anguish of her breast.
And now she comes, unlooked-for guest,
The silence of the woods, during the slumbers of Pan, is frequently noticed by the classic poets.
Unto her sister's palace-gate;
No voice of welcome hastes to greet
That weary pilgrim's aching feet.
But envy darkened into hate.
Now Cytherea, with her choir
Of beautiful celestial daughters,
To Cyprus' myrtle-groves had strayed;
And there, amid the sapphire waters
Their limbs of roseate lustre played,
While up each darkling olive glade
Stole the faint whispers of the lyre;
And glimmering through the paths of trees,
And up the winding bowers of green,
The merry lover-groups were seen.
Now one and then another flees
Over the flashing crystal wave,
With feet like moonbeams, and now one
Flings up a shower to the sun,
Then dives into a pearly cave.
As when, in Grecian grove at noon,
Lulled by the fountain's drowsy tune,
Some heavenly Messenger hath slept
Till evening o'er the garden crept,
And through the leaves the moonlight darted;
Quick from his flow'ry bed hath started,
And from his wings of hundred hues
Scattered about the silvery dews
Upon the sable robes of night-
So Venus, in her rich delight,
Upon the burning water glowed,
Gilding the billows with her hair,
That, loosened by the amorous air,
In hyacinthine beauty flowed.
But why so swiftly through the stream
Doth Cytherea's white arm gleam,
Like the beloved through a dream?
And wherefore, with upturned eyes,
Watcheth she through yonder skies
The radiant Bird of Paradise,
That to the shadowy waves descends,
And o'er the listening goddess bends?
While every ear in silence hung
Upon the tale the White Bird sung,
Of wounded Cupid, and the Bride
Whom Fate had parted from his side;
How Gladness had forsaken earth,
And Sorrow sat by every hearth;
No lovers talked beneath the trees,
No children "climbed their father's knees,"
Since Cupid on his couch was laid,
And Cytherea's footsteps strayed,
"Through the Cyprian myrtle shade."
Psyche! Psyche! who was she,
A heavenly lover's bride to be?
*Kit Marlowe has a similar image., Asiat Journ.N.S. VOL.21.No.81.
No more the angry goddess heard;
But starting from the troubled sea,
With cheek of wrath, and eye of flame,
Unto her golden chamber came.
Darting through the radiant door
Her wrath on Cupid's head to pour.
He for his lovely Bride was pining,
Upon his silver couch reclining;
Faded his pinions' gorgeous dyes,
The purple beauty of his eyes,
By care and weeping vigils shaded,
Like violets in the sunlight faded.
In vain the Hours, in glittering ring,
His silken bed engarlanding,
With voice, and song, and silvery string,
His heart of sorrow would beguile,
Or pile the rose beneath his head,
Or breathe ambrosia o'er his bed.
For on his saddened heart the smile
Of her, the Beautiful, Forsaken,
Came freshly back, as on the night
When, in the Palace of Delight,
The Bride unto his arms was taken.
Unheeded flows the joyous measure
From the red lips of full-eyed Pleasure,
Dancing to the jocund strain;
And Hebe's white hand pressed in vain
From the warm veins of the vine,
The blood that makes the soul divine,
Weak the lover's arm to save
From his angry mother's rage,
The Wanderer on the stormy wave
Of sorrow's darkest tempest driven—
Yet light unto her path was given.
But it were idle toil for me,
O meek and beautiful Ladye,
With lingering step to follow thee,
Thy weary pilgrimage along-
E'en now upon my brightening song
The beauty of thy triumph dawns,
And from the fair Elysian lawns
The cittern pours its silvery sound-
"Psyche with amaranth is crowned!
No more to wander from thy side,
Celestial Lover! take thy Bride!"
Thus on the lucid waves of song,
Unto her home of endless glory
The Wanderer hath sailed along,
Lighting the sadness of the story;
And Psyche from her crystal tomb,
Embalmed by Latin genius, risen,
Beams on thee in celestial bloom,
Warm with the purple hues of heaven!
"Like Psyche thou in bloom and youth,
Like her immortal in thy truth."
So sighed my heart its earlier lay;
Thou too along life's thorny way
Like that meek wanderer hast trod;
And in the flow'ry time of years
Hast drunk the bitter wine of tears!
Thrice happy thou! whose feet have found
A lantern for the roughest ground,
A Shepherd in thy God!
And, Lady, now my song is o'er;
Unto Italian fields doth fly
The vision of the old Romance,
To warm me with its eyes no more,
Or sing me asleep upon the shore.
Nor grieve I that the antique lute
Of sweetest poesy is mute,
Or song, or hymn, or voice divine,
O Ever-loved! while I have thine!
MISS ROBERTS" SCENES OF HINDOSTAN."
My dear Sir: In reply to a letter, inserted in the Bengal Hurkaru, from the editor of the Calcutta Literary Gazette,* disclaiming the authenticity of a paragraph said to be taken from the last-mentioned work, and appended to the "Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan," I can only say, that I had every reason to believe that it was genuine. It was despatched to me in a letter from Calcutta, and arrived at the time that my work was going through the press. The friend who sent it, could have had no other object than that of affording me the gratification of learning that my writings were appreciated in Bengal, and as I had always ranked the editor of the Calcutta Literary Gazette amongst my well-wishers, I entertained no doubt of its authenticity. In republishing this comment in England, I felt merely desirous to evince my sense of the compliment he had paid me, for, without in the slightest degree wishing to say anything in disparagement of the Calcutta Literary Gazette, it is obvious that its praise or its censure could have no possible influence in England. How the mistake originated, I cannot tell; but I feel quite certain that the paragraph in question was copied from one of the Bengal newspapers; and I must only console myself by the conviction, that I possess some unknown friend in Calcutta who does not object to praise articles emanating from that "excellent miscellany, the Asiatic Journal:" the mistake, however, shall be rectified in a future edition of my work.
"MISS ROBERTS and D. L. R.-To the Editor of the Bengal Hurkaru and Chronicle. Sir: The paragraph in praise of Miss Robert's new work, and "that excellent miscellany, the Asiatic Journal," which is quoted from the Calcutta Literary Gazette, in your paper of Saturday, was not written by me, nor do I remember that it ever appeared in any form in any work under my editorial direction. There must be some curious mistake in this. I have no objection to praise Miss Roberts, whose notices of society are always animated and graphic; but, for various reasons, I should not wish to be answerable for the paragraph imputed to me. Yours, &c.-ED. CAL. LIT. GAZ."
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