"When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest,
By that broad water of the west;
There comes a glory on the walls:
"Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o'er the number of thy years."
This young man, whose memory his friend has consecrated in the hearts of
all who can be touched by such love and beauty, was in nowise unworthy
of all this. It is not for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad
privilege to know, all that a father's heart buried with his son in that
grave, all "the hopes of unaccomplished years;" nor can we feel in its
fulness all that is meant by
"Such
A friendship as had mastered Time;
Which masters Time indeed, and is
Eternal, separate from fears.
The all-assuming months and years
Can take no part away from this."
But this we may say, we know of nothing in all literature to compare
with the volume from which these lines are taken, since David lamented
with this lamentation: "The beauty of Israel is slain. Ye mountains of
Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you. I am distressed for
thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy
love for me was wonderful." We cannot, as some have done, compare it
with Shakspeare's sonnets, or with _Lycidas_. In spite of the amazing
genius and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-involving reiteration of
passionate attachment, the idolatry of admiring love, the rapturous
devotedness, displayed in these sonnets, we cannot but agree with Mr.
Hallam in thinking, "that there is a tendency now, especially among
young men of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these
remarkable productions;" and though we would hardly say with him, "that
it is impossible not to wish that Shakspeare had never written them,"
giving us, as they do, and as perhaps nothing else could do, such proof
of a power of loving, of an amount of _attendrissement_, which is not
less wonderful than the bodying forth of that myriad-mind which gave us
Hamlet, and Lear, Cordelia, and Puck, and all the rest, and indeed
explaining to us how he could give us all these;--while we hardly go so
far, we agree with his other wise words:--"There is a weakness and folly
in all misplaced and excessive affection;" which in Shakspeare's case is
the more distressing, when we consider that "Mr. W. H., the only
begetter of these ensuing sonnets," was, in all likelihood, William
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a man of noble and gallant character, but
always of licentious life.
As for _Lycidas_, we must confess that the poetry--and we all know how
consummate it is--and not the affection, seems uppermost in Milton's
mind, as it is in ours. The other element, though quick and true, has no
glory through reason of the excellency of that which invests it. But
there is no such drawback in _In Memoriam_. The purity, the temperate
but fervent goodness, the firmness and depth of nature, the impassioned
logic, the large, sensitive, and liberal heart, the reverence and godly
fear, of
"That friend of mine who lives in God,"
which from these Remains we know to have dwelt in that young soul, give
to _In Memoriam_ the character of exactest portraiture. There is no
excessive or misplaced affection here; it is all founded in fact; while
everywhere and throughout it all, affection--a love that is
wonderful--meets us first and leaves us last, giving form and substance
and grace, and the breath of life and love, to everything that the
poet's thick-coming fancies so exquisitely frame. We can recall few
poems approaching to it in this quality of sustained affection. The only
English poems we can think of as of the same order, are Cowper's lines
on seeing his mother's portrait:--
"O that these lips had language!"