THE RELEASE OF TASSO.

THERE came a Bard to Rome: he brought a lyre,
Of sounds to peal through Rome's triumphal sky,
To mourn a hero on his funeral pyre,

Or greet a conqueror with its war-notes high;
For on each chord had fall'n the gift of fire,
The living breath of Power and Victory!
-Yet he, its lord, the sovereign city's guest,
Sigh'd but to flee away, and be at rest.

He brought a spirit, whose ethereal birth
Was of the loftiest, and whose haunts had been
Amidst the marvels and the pomps of earth,
Wild fairy-bowers, and groves of deathless green,
And fields, where mail-clad bosoms prove their worth,
When flashing swords light up the stormy scene.
-He brought a weary heart, a wasted frame,
The Child of Visions from a dungeon came.

On the blue waters, as in joy they sweep,
With starlight floating o'er their swells and falls,
On the blue waters of the Adrian deep,

His numbers had been sung: and in the halls,
Where, through rich foliage if a sunbeam peep,
It seems Heaven's wakening to the sculptured walls,
Had princes listen'd to those lofty strains,

While the high soul they burst from, pined in chains.

And in the summer-gardens, where the spray
Of founts, far-glancing from their marble bed,
Rains on the flowering myrtles in its play,

And the sweet limes, and glossy leaves that spread
Round the deep-golden citrons; o'er his lay
Dark eyes, dark, soft, Italian eyes had shed

Warm tears, fast-glittering in that sun, whose light
Was a forbidden glory to his sight.

Oh! if it be that wizard sign and spell
And talisman had power of old to bind,
In the dark chambers of some cavern-cell,
Or knotted oak, the Spirits of the Wind,
Things of the lightning-pinion, wont to dwell
High o'er the reach of eagles, and to find
Joy in the rush of storms;-even such a doom
Was that high Minstrel's in his dungeon-gloom.

But he was free at last!-the glorious land
Of the white Alps and pine-crown'd Apennines,
Along whose shore the sapphire seas expand,
And the wastes teem with myrtle, and the shrines
Of long-forgotten gods from Nature's hand
Receive bright offerings still; with all its vines,
And rocks, and ruins, clear before him lay-
-The seal was taken from the founts of day.

The winds came o'er his cheek; the soft winds, blending
All summer-sounds and odours in their sigh;
The orange-groves waved round; the hills were sending
Their bright streams down; the free birds darting by,

And the blue festal Heavens above him bending,
As if to fold a world where none could die!

And who was he that look'd upon these things?
-If but of earth, yet one whose thoughts were wings-

To bear him o'er creation! and whose mind
Was as an air-harp, wakening to the sway
Of sunny Nature's breathings unconfined,
With all the mystic harmonies that lay

Far in the slumber of its chords enshrined,
Till the light breeze went thrilling on its way.

-There was no sound that wander'd through the sky,
But told him secrets in its melody.

Was the deep forest lonely unto him

With all its whispering leaves?-Each dell and glade
Teem'd with such forms as on the moss-clad brim
Of fountains in their sparry grottoes play'd,
Seen by the Greek of yore through twilight dim,
Or misty noontide in the laurel-shade.

-There is no solitude on earth so deep

As that where man decrees that man should weep!

But oh! the life in Nature's green domains,

The breathing sense of joy! where flowers are springing
By starry thousands, on the slopes and plains,

And the grey rocks!—and all the arch'd woods ringing,
And the young branches trembling to the strains
Of wild-born creatures, through the sunshine winging
Their fearless flight!-and sylvan echoes round,
Mingling all tones to one Eolian sound!-

And the glad voice, the laughing voice of streams,
And the low cadence of the silvery sea,

And reed-notes from the mountains, and the beams
Of the warm sun-all these are for the Free!

And they were his once more, the Bard, whose dreams
Their spirit still had haunted!-Could it be

That he had borne the chain?-Oh! who shall dare
To say how much man's heart uncrush'd may bear?

So deep a root hath hope!-But woe for this,
Our frail mortality! that aught so bright,
So almost burden'd with excess of bliss,
As the rich hour which back to summer's light
Calls the worn captive, with the gentle kiss
Of winds, and gush of waters, and the sight
Of the green earth, must so be bought with years
Of the heart's fever, parching up its tears!

And feeding a slow fire on all its powers,
Until the boon for which we gasp in vain,
If hardly won at length, too late made ours,
When the soul's wing is broken, comes like rain
Withheld till evening, on the stately flowers
Which wither'd in the noontide, ne'er again
To lift their heads in glory!-So doth Earth
Breathe on her gifts, and melt away their worth!

The sailor dies in sight of that green shore,
Whose fields, in slumbering beauty, seem'd to lie
On the deep's foam, amidst its hollow roar
Call'd up to sunlight by his fantasy!—

And, when the shining desert-mists that wore
The lake's bright semblance, have been all pass'd by,
The pilgrim sinks beside the fountain-wave,
Which flashes from its rock, too late to save.

Or if we live, if that, too dearly bought
And made too precious by iong hopes and fears,
Remains our own; love, darken'd and o'erwrought
By memory of privation, love, which wears
And casts o'er life a troubled hue of thought,
Becomes the shadow of our closing years,
Making it almost misery to possess
Aught, watch'd with such unquiet tenderness.

Such unto him, the Bard, the worn and wild,
And sick with hope deferr'd, from whom the sky,
With all its clouds in burning glory piled,
Had been shut out by long captivity,
Such, freedom was to Tasso!-As a child
Is to the mother, whose foreboding eye
In its too radiant glance, from day to day
Reads that which calls the brightest first away.

And he became a wanderer-in whose breast

Wild fear, which, e'en when every sense doth sleep,
Clings to the burning heart, a wakeful guest,
Sat brooding as a spirit, raised to keep

Its gloomy vigil of intense unrest

O'er treasures, burdening life, and buried deep

In cavern-tomb, and sought, through shades and stealth,
By some pale mortal, trembling at his wealth!

But woe for those who trample o'er a mind

A deathless thing!-They know not what they do,
Or what they deal with!-Man perchance may bind
The flower his step hath bruised; or light anew
The torch he quenches; or to music wind
Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew!
But, for the soul!-Oh! tremble, and beware
To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there!

For blindness wraps that world!-our touch may turn
Some balance, fearfully and darkly hung,

Or put out some bright spark, whose ray should burn
To point the way a thousand rocks among!

Or break some subtle chain, which none discern,
Though binding down the terrible, the strong,
Th' o'ersweeping passions! which to loose on life,
Is to set free the elements for strife!

Who then to power and glory shall restore
That which our evil rashness hath undone ?

Who unto mystic harmony once more

Attune those viewless chords?-There is but One!
He that through dust the stream of life can pour,
The Mighty and the Merciful alone!

-Yet oft his paths have midnight for their shade-
He leaves to man the ruin man hath made!

F. H.

LIVING FRENCH POETS.-NO. II.

De Lamartine.

THE higher order of poetry in France was considered as almost extinct for some time before the fall of Napoleon. The impulse which the Revolution gave to genius is sufficiently attested by its prose productions, its specimens of eloquence, and the progress of painting. But that species of boisterous excitement which inspires the orator and the artist with subjects fitting to such times, and strengthens the faculties in their immediate display, seems the very reverse of that which is most favourable to the poet. His art is pre-eminently one that demands repose. His talent lives on recollections, and grows in retrospect. The images which flit before him escape as soon as observed. They are impalpable, though powerful, and can rarely be described when first conceived. Their presence is as unreal as the shadows of a dream, but the impressions they make sink as deeply in his mind; and it is in leisure and retirement that he embodies forth the notions, the vividness of which is not injured by time. The interval between inspiration and composition is therefore much greater than is commonly supposed; and we think that extempore productions are in most cases but the utterance of ideas long before received. It must be obvious that we do not refuse belief in those improvisatore effusions which are frequent and sometimes good. We do not deny the hurried production of verses possessing considerable merit, nor undervalue the various pièces de circonstance for stage or closet; but we speak of the higher order of poetry; and glance at, rather than examine, one great cause of its decline in France. Another obviously presents itself, in the slavery that succeeded to the fury of the Revolution. The storms of that event, which rocked the cradle of Despotism, were chilling to the bright but delicate flower of poetry. It opens gladly to the breath of Freedom, but is shrunk and withered by the noxious blast of Tyranny. Every one of the productions under the reign of the Emperor was forced and unseemly. They had, perhaps, the florid bloom of poetry, but it was unhealthy; and what they gained in colouring they lost in perfume.

It is, therefore, but little astonishing that from the days of Delille and Parny until the Restoration, no poet of any eminence appeared in France. But no sooner did that event take place, and political convulsions subside into something like the calm of comparative freedom, than literature resumed its influence; and however political sentiments might vary, there seemed a common accord in relation to poetry. The general feeling was, that it had arisen from its long sleep; that it had returned, as it were, from its term of exile; and that, however little other emigrants had profited by their banishment, it at least had gained new vigour from repose, and came back regenerated and revived. The inspirations of the Muse were deeply and generally felt, and she scattered her favours neither like a niggard nor a partisan. Amongst men of every political opinion she found votaries; and she denied her smiles to no party in the state. Royalists, Republicans, and Constitutionalists produced alike their poets, of various degrees of merit and in different walks of the art; but none took his station on a prouder eminence than Alphonse de Lamartine.

A volume of poetry, the leading qualities of which were religion

without intolerance, piety without cant, and elevation without bombast, was a novelty in France; but it was still more strange to see a young and ardent author discarding every aid of popular prejudice, and writing to the minds instead of the passions of his countrymen. Such were the " Méditations Poetiques," the title of the book, and M. de Lamartine, its author. This work appeared anonymously in the spring of 1820. Its success was instantaneous, and the name of the author became immediately known. The second edition bore it on the title-page, and it was at once enrolled among those of the most distinguished of the national poets. This success was chiefly the combined effect of the merit and the novelty of the work; but another principal cause was the strict avoidance of political opinion or allusion. Poetry, purely abstracted and imaginative, spoke to all parties in a tone of feeling, but to none in that of hostility. The aristocratical class of society (and literature was distinguished like it) was satisfied that it had gained a powerful adherent; while there breathed through the verses of De Lamartine a strain of high and liberal thought, dissipating the doubts suggested by his name, which announced nobility, and his general tone, which savoured so deeply of religion. In thus noticing the feelings of modern France, it is not our intention to enter into the question of their prejudice or their propriety. Political discussion would be misplaced here. But blended as it is with every thing relating to modern French literature, it is impossible to separate allusions to the one from a notice of the other; and it is too true that nothing is looked on with more distrust by the nation at large than religion as now professed, and nobility as formerly composed.

De Lamartine, thus dear to the hopes of the powerful minority, and not obnoxious to the distrust of the larger, and perhaps the more enlightened, portion of the public, found favour on all hands, and was read only to be admired. His triumph was not gained over partyfeelings, to which he was not opposed, but over national prejudices, less virulent, but full as strong; for he struck with a vigorous hand at the root of chill correctness-that family-tree under the branches of which French poetry had so long reclined. He came to the exercise of his art at home, prepared for it by the study of foreign models. He shewed himself to be well acquainted with the classical authors of antiquity; and, what was of much more value in the present day, he displayed a deep knowledge, and frequent imitation, of English writers. In this particular point of view he stands at the head of all his contemporaries; and, even had his talents been less than they are, he would have thus rendered one of the best services to the literature which he in other respects so eminently adorns. We say this without arrogance or even vanity. It is, in fact, but an echo of the general opinion of the best qualified judges among the French themselves; for while they reject as outré and ridiculous the metaphysical extravagance of German poetry, they acknowledge in the boldness of that of England the best model for the enfranchisement of their own. The tribute which M. de Lamartine has thus paid to this country has been returned in the reputation he has acquired among us. A light but well-aimed blow at almost the only part of his "Méditations" open to the assaults of ridicule, retarded for some time our knowledge of his merit; but from the same source which gave vent to that witty effusion a full