way to our heather-bed. Lo! sudden the illumination as one of our own bright thoughts. They terrify him-he faints-he dies and is himself a ghost. 'Tis a world of Shadows. "Among the hills a hundred homes have "Embryos we must be till we burst the we; Our table in the wilderness is spread; In such lone spots one human smile can buy Plain fare, warm welcome, and a rushy bed." Our single small tallow yields an uncertain glimmer in the gloom, and we fear to snuff it with our fingers lest it should leave us where Moses was when his candle went out. Our peat-fire has again subsided — and there is neither moon nor star. Yet with our eyes shut we could read from the book of memory, at any given. catchword, the finest passages in the Night Thoughts; and they are in thousands swarming—murmuringhumming-though the image is not that of bees. Shakspeare alone is fuller of " thick-coming fancies" than Young. Lavish as he is-profuseprodigal of his riches, we feel that his stores of thought, imagery, and sentiment are inexhaustible-his mind as opulent, after all that magnificent outlay, as before the "treasures of the deep as wonderful in their undiscovered caves as those that have been thrown up on the surging sea. That is indeed Poetry. Recoils the soul from the brink of the abyss? Stands it shuddering there? By horrid temptation is it instigated to leap out of time? Or, calmed by awe, leans it an ear to the mystery moaning far down like some perpetual tide, and learns therefrom to walk at all times guardedly along the paths of life? Thought, busy thought, too busy for my peace, Through the dark postern of Time long elapsed, Led softly by the stillness of the night, And whom is he going to murder? Why? The question is asked, but not answered-for the pathos is in itself-and wretched Thought must pause till Doomsday for a reply. Yet 'tis not of such a one the Poet says, "here buries all his thoughts, Inters celestial hopes, without one sigh." He inters them not-they seem belooks on with many a sigh-deeper fore his eyes to bury themselves-he than any grave-but they cease, for 'tis an imaginary funeral, and Fear comes at last to know as well as Hope, that 'twas all a delusion of the soul sick unto death. Then, we can think of that great line and be comforted: "How populous! how vital is the grave !” And of that other line, so tender and so true, "He mourns the dead who lives as they desire." Try to say a new good thing about Time. Don't be afraid of failure, for on such a subject commonplaces are the world's delight-and wisdom is at one with the world. Then take Young. "The day is past Like a bird struggling to get loose in going; Scarce now possessed so suddenly 'tis gone." "Where is to-morrow? world." In another "All men think all men mortal but themselves." God knows. But his hand is palsied, "How swift the shuttle flies that weaves for he thy shroud." "Time wasted is existence-used is life." Or seek ye some more elaborate image? Then here is one-and on its Time, in advance, behind him hides his And seems to creep, decrepit with his age; Behold him when past by; what then is seen, But his broad pinions swifter than the wind?" Oh! the dark days of vanity! cries the Poet; while here how tasteless-and how terrible when gone! You-Iany one could have said that—but that is prose-not poetry—the poetry is to come and here it comes- That intensifies the idea and its emotion-and no poet need speakunless he chooses of a sun-dial again. But Young is not done with the image or rather the image is not done with Young-it haunts him still, and tells him "That all mankind mistake the time of day, Even age itself." And then he illustrates that truth told him by the gnomon, in simpler language and less scientific, the originating idea of the whole recurring solemnly at the close. "Fresh hopes are hourly sown In furrowed brows. To gentle life's de scent We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain. He scarce believes he's older for his The world used to have by heart one celebrated passage on friendship -and we shall not quote, as we hope "'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past she has not forgotten it; but we call hours; And ask them what report they bore to And how they might have borne more Their answers form what men experience call." There can be no experience, worth the name, without communion with heaven. The worldly-wise man is a mere mole-or at the best a bat. "Should not each dial strike us as we pass, Portentous, as the written wall which struck, on single lines-though we trust she remembers them too "Poor is the friendless master of a world." Almost as immense as Shakspeare's— "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Do this and be happy"Judge before friendship, then confide till death." "When such friends part, 'Tis the survivor dies." Friendship has been called many million times a flower-and it is a O'er midnight bowls, the proud Assyrian flower; but Young asks you for whom pale ?" it blossoms? and seeing you hesitate -in the multitude of the thoughts Many men might have said that, within him he sums up them all in but few could have said this "That solar shadow, as it measures life, It life resembles too; life speeds away From point to point, though seeming to stand still. The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth: What more could be said? No more?-Ay-listen "In reason's eye That sedentary shadow travels hard." "Abroad they find who cherish it at home." Who was Philander? We know not. But how the poet must have loved him, who thus lamented his loss! "Thy last sigh Dissolved the charm; the disenchanted earth Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers? Her golden mountains where? All darkened down To naked waste; a dreary vale of tears; The great magician's dead!" The great poet is true to nature here-if too often-and we fear it is so he plays her false-and wilfully follows phantasies when imaginations were ready to crowd into his arms. And true to her is he in another place -far away from the above-but hallowed by the same spirit of grief. "I loved him much, but now I love him more, Like birds, whose beauties languish, halfconcealed; Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes Expanded shine with azure, green and gold; How blessings brighten as they take their flight!" Call not that image fanciful-but if it affects you not as assuredly it af fected the Poet, sympathize with the awe that for a while held him back from depicting the deathbed of such a friend. "Yet am I struck; as struck the soul, beneath Aerial groves' impenetrable gloom'; In vaults; thin courts of poor unflattered kings; Or at the midnight altar's hallowed flame. Or turn from that august spectacle to this the saddest-and but for the written promise unsupportable "And oh! the last-last what? Can words express? Thought reach it? the last silence of a friend." These are the speechless griefs that justify the Poet in saying "Scorn the proud man that is ashamed to weep." And we now call to mind another strain, in which he sings of some strange, wild, sudden accumulation of sorrows such as often befalls the children of men-and when heard of strike us all with dismay-" because that we have all one human heart." "This hoary cheek a train of tears bedews; And each tear mourns its own distinct distress; And each distress, distinctly shown, demands Of grief still more, as heightened by the whole. A grief like this proprietors excludes; Far as the fatal fame can wing her way; From whom of all our living Poets could we select such pregnant lines as many of the above? We glance over the pages, and how thick the gems! "When gross guilt interposes, labouring earth, O'ershadowed, mourns a deep eclipse of joy." "Through chinks, styled organs, dim life peeps at light; Death bursts the involving cloud, and all is day.” "Like lavish ancestors his earlier years "Is not the mighty mind, that son of Heaven, "The world's infectious; few bring back at eve, Immaculate, the manners of the morn." "How wretched is the man who never mourned.". "Truth shows the real estimate of things, Which no man, unafflicted, ever saw." "But some reject this sustenance divine; To beggarly vile appetites descend; Ask alms of earth for guests that come from heaven." "Irrationals all sorrow are beneath, That noble gift! that privilege to man." "Early, bright, transient, chaste, as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven." "Like damaged clocks, whose hand and bell dissent, Folly rings six while nature points at twelve." "Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines." "Age should......... Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore "Our needful knowledge, like our needful food, "Like other tyrants, Death delights to smite, What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of power, And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme To bid the wretch survive the fortunate; The feeble wrap the athletic in his shroud; And weeping fathers build their children's tomb. "Our morning's envy, and our evening's sigh." "Man's lawful pride includes humility; "Who lives to Nature never can be poor; "Resolve me why the Cottager and King, “His grief is but his grandeur in disguise; "Man's misery declares him born for bliss." "If man can't mount He will descend-he starves on the possest." "Shall we, this moment, gaze on God in man? The next, lose man for ever in the dust?" "Heaven starts at an annihilating God." "A Christian dwells, like Uriel, in the Sun." "Too low they build, who build beneath the stars." "Truth never was indebted to a lie." "No man e'er found a happy life by chance." Though nature shakes, how soft to lean on Heaven! "Some joys the future overcast, and some Ah! dear Thomas Campbell! Thou hast dealt out scant and scrimp praise to the Bard of Night-but it was of such lines as these that thou said'st with thy native felicity," he has individual passages which Philosophy might make her texts, and experience select for her mottos." Gloomy indeed! Is not the Poem called "The Complaint?" If " Night Thoughts" are not gloomy - then nothing is gloomy on this side of the grave. There is a Poem, you know, called "The Grave," and a noble one" Gloomy it stood as Night." Who? Death. "But what are ye ?-Thou who didst put Primeval silence, when the morning star, O Thou! whose word from solid darkness That spark the sun, strike wisdom from my soul, My soul which flies to Thee !" Assuredly the opening strain is magnificent; and what farther, is his prayer? "Through this opaque of nature and of soul, This double night, transmit one pitying ray, We have been familiar with Young's Night Thoughts from boyhood-and half a century ago the volume was to be seen lying-with a few others of kindred spirit-beside the Holiest-in many a cottage in the loneliest places in Scotland. The dwellers there were grave-not gloomy-but they loved to look into deep waters, which, though clear, are black because of their depth Lead it through varied scenes of life and and their overshadowings-yet show the stars. "Silence and Darkness! solemn sisters! twins From ancient Night, who nurse the tender To reason, and on reason build resolve, To sing a cheerful song-a merry To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind, death; And from each scene the noblest truths Nor less inspire my conduct than my song. will Teach rectitude, and fix my firm resolve Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear; Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, poured On this devoted head, be poured in vain." Compare this with the opening of any other Great Poem in our language, and its sublimity will not sink in the comparison. |