new question of the future destiny of the race, as a whole, are introduced by Cowper into English poetry. And though splendor and passion were added, by the poets who succeeded him, to the new poetry, yet they worked on the thoughts he had laid down, and he is their leader." 66 Cowper is one of the first symptoms, if not the originator, of a revolution in style which is soon to become a revolution in ideas. The 'clear, crisp English' of his verse is not the work of a man who belongs to a school, or follows some conventional pattern. It is for his amusement, he repeats again and again in his letters, that he is a poet; just as it has been for his amusement that he has worked in the garden and made rabbit-hutches. He writes because it pleases him, without a thought of his fame or of contriving what the world will admire. The Task, his most characteristic poem, is indeed a work of great labor; but the labor is not directed, as Pope's labor was directed, towards methodizing or arranging the material, towards working up the argument, towards forcing the ideas into the most striking situations. The labor is in the cadences and the language; as for the thoughts, they are allowed to show themselves just as they come, in their natural order, so that the poem reads like the speech of a man talking to himself. To turn from a poem of Cowper's to a poem of Pope's, or even of Goldsmith's, is to turn from one sphere of art to quite another, from unconscious to conscious art. Formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery,' as Southey said. And how much that means! It means that the day of critical, and so-called classical, poetry is over; that the day of spontaneous, natural, romantic poetry has begun. Burns and Wordsworth are not yet, but they are close at hand. We read Cowper not for his passion or for his ideas, but for his love of nature and his faithful rendering of her beauty, for his truth of portraiture, for his humor, for his pathos; for the refined honesty of his style, for the melancholy interest of his life, and for the simplicity and the loveliness of his character."-Thomas H. Ward. BIBLIOGRAPHY. COWPER.-Cowper's Letters; Southey's Life of; Bagehot's Estimates of some Eng. and Scotchmen; F. Jeffrey's Essays; Thomson's Celebrated Friendships; Eng. Men of Let. Series; Ward's Anthology; Black. Mag., v. 109, 1871; Fort. Rev., v. 3, 1865; Fraser's Mag., v. 64, 1861; Nat. Quar. Rev., v. 7, 1863; N. Br. Rev., v. 22, 1854; Quar. Rev., v. 107, 1860. LESSON 47. Cowper's On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smiles I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, 66 Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!" The meek intelligence of those dear eyes— Blest be the art that can immortalize, The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim O welcome guest, though unexpected here, But gladly, as the precept were her own. A momentary dream that thou art she. My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! it answers-Yes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial-day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu. But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting sound shall pass my lips no more. Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. What ardently I wished I long believed, Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, That once we called the pastoral house our own. A thousand other themes less deeply traced. Thy nightly visits to my chamber made That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, The biscuit or confectionery plum; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed; All this, and more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. I pricked them into paper with a pin And thou wast happier than myself the while, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast And, while the wings of Fancy still are free, From The Task-The Winter Evening. Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright, He comes, the herald of a noisy world, With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, Is to conduct it to the destined inn, And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on. Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, His horse and him, unconscious of them all. |