But silently doth glide. Thy vast majestic tide, Huge Orellana, on, on to the Atlantic maiu! No utterance may know Of that which in my heart was swelling long, And vainly hopes to show A vast and voiceless joy, a bliss too deep for song. O Lyre, why thrills thy string? That to thy chords a transient language lent? And harsh thy softest moan, To reach the height sublime of this great argument. Upon the topmost stone Which Chimboraço to the sky doth rear: And to that. Watcher's eye (2) Coal-black seemed the sky, Black as the funeral pall that shades a monarch's bier. Fades in excess of light My life's horizon in its happiness: Nor would I try to paint, In earthly colour faint, That rainbow-lighted life-the life that she will bless. Hush then that fluttering strain : Thou wert ambitious of a theme too high! That note so faint and low, That note, O Lyre, doth show Thy music is too slight for such grave harmony. (') De Saussure. In the abysmal Heaven The mysterious (3) Seven (2) At this immense height, the travellers describe the effect of the sky as singularly sublime-from the great rarity of the atmosphere the refractive power was exceedingly diminished, and being far above the region of clouds, the colour of the sky was black, and the celestial bodies of an intense white appearance. () The seven planets known to the ancients. Vide Humboldt and de Saussure. VOL. III. 3 Swell their eternal anthem to the Lord: Yet no mortal ear Ever yet could hear The faintest tone that breathes from that great (') Heptachord: Ev'n so the music deep That o'er my soul doth sweep, The Triumph-song, in silence dies away Thy feeble note, O Lyre, Unto that Lady's ear to echo such a lay. T. B. S. (') The Platonic and Pythagorean philosophers had a notion that the movements of the seven planets were accompanied with musical sounds, inaudible however to human The system they called the great Heptachord, or seven-stringed lyre of Heaven, and in this celestial instrument they attributed the gravest or flattest note to the Moon, and the sharpest to the Sun. ears. Vide Cicero, Tusc. Quaest. Apuleius, and the later Pythagoreans, as Iamblichus, &c., &c. THE POETICAL WORKS OF THOMAS MOORE, Esq. COLLECTED BY HIMSELF. We are glad that Mr. Moore has thought fit to raise for himself, in his own lifetime, the Monument which has been erected for other distinguished poets after their death only, and by the hand of editors more or less qualified for the task, by publishing this edition of his complete works. We are glad also to see that his eminent publishers, at whose judicious request this Monument was undertaken, have done their part to render it worthy of the name inscribed upon it. The edition is, indeed, a very tasteful and desirable one; and, enriched as it largely is with introductory and prefatory recitals and notices, replete with interesting biographical and critical details and remarks, it cannot but be hailed as a precious addition to other similar collections of elegant literature. But we do not regard Mr. Moore as having by yielding to the wish for a complete edition of his published poems, in that way settled his accounts with posterity, and relinquished all further control over his poetical testament. On the contrary, we perceive intimations in some of his prefaces that there still remain additions to be made-unfinished fragments, and sketches of compositions-which only await a little resolution on his part to be moulded into shape and rendered presentable. And really, when we remember how few years have elapsed since the appearance of his last poetical work of importance-the Epicurean;' how thoroughly that beautiful fiction, though destitute of the ornament of verse, bore witness to the undiminished vigour of the poetical faculties of the writer-we feel that the public has some further claims upon him, before he finally relinquishes the Lyre. Thus much, most assuredly, we would not say, did we feel that with him the period of excellence had past. Nothing is more painful than the exhibition of genius in decay. Nothing is more distressing than to witness those who have already won for themselves a safe and lofty eminence, descending again into the arena with decayed strength and fires, and seemingly unconscious of their own decline-making a poor profit of the popularity of their well-known names, to the utter loss of all that peculiar dignity which belongs to self-respecting retirement. But, as we have said before, this appears to us to be a destiny which Mr. Moore has no reason whatever to fear. He has rather withdrawn from the field with his powers, if we may so express ourselves, not yet fully developed; for poets of a highly imaginative order do indeed grow very prematurely old. The richest outpourings of their genius are commonly the earliest, and the decline is soon perceptible. Not so with poets of quick wit, sensibility, and graceful thought-the class in which Mr. Moore holds so very distinguished a position. With them there are generally two very distinct epochs of perfection : they ripen twice, if we may so express ourselves. The first has the character of youthful fire; the second, that of pathos and reflection. Their task has been chastised by time; the luxuriance of their imagery repressed. They have lost something, probably, in buoyancy as well as in brilliancy; but those intellectual powers which lie at the foundation of excellence of this description remain the same, or rather improved and mellowed by age; for these faculties are not of the same exhausting character as imagination, and do not react with its restless and terrible power on the mind and the body. We cannot but think that the reader of these collected poems, now placed for the first time in the order of their production, will be able to trace in them the details of the little history which we have endeavoured to sketch out. From the youthful poems, full of fire and freshness, he passes to the author's first work of importance, and as yet his greatest, Lalla Rookh;' written, it should seem, about the mid-way of this our life's career,' although not published until later. Here he will find that brilliancy of thought and diction, which in so remarkable a degree characterize the author, carried even to excess. As we proceed onwards, we perceive his occasional poetry becoming more and satisfying; until at last we find the gradual change of tone completed in the Epicurean' -in our view, the most perfect of all Mr. Moore's compositions as a work of art; and which probably, if it had not wanted the ornament of verse, would have been the most popular. On this account, we cannot avoid expressing our earnest hope that the expectations vaguely held out, as we have above observed, in some parts of the prefaces, may be fulfilled. For instance, we have no doubt that out of the rejected materials for Lalla Rookh,' which Mr. Moore describes as lying by him, it is in his power to produce what might not perhaps attain the almost incredible popularity reached at once by that poem, but might prove even more acceptable to genuine lovers of poetry. There is, perhaps, no other bard alive (except one) to whom we could honestly give this advice-to vanquish the temptation, whether, of indolence or diffidence, and write more; and we shall resolutely refuse to consider these ten volumes as a fait accompli, until the time for making ‘farther observations' is hopelessly gone by. We have said that we do not regard Mr. Moore as a poet of the high imaginative order; nor do we suppose that this is a point which will be much contested even by his warmest admirers, amongst whom we rank ourselves; but in adding that we cannot either attribute to him the characteristic of much fancy, in the higher and more poetical sense, we shall probably encounter more opposition. And this leads us to devote a few pages to that much-vexed question, what is really meant by the term Fancy' in poetical criticism? No point in the metaphysics of poetry appears to have given English critics so much trouble, as the establishment of |