Hazlitt says, one cannot "make an allegory go on all fours," it must
to a certain degree be obscure and shadowy, like the images which the
traveller in the desert sees mirrored on the heavens, wherein he can
trace but a dreamy resemblance to the reality beneath. It therefore
seems to me advisable to give a solution of the "Eidolon," the symbol,
which follows, that the purpose of the poem may at once be evident.
In "Eidolon" I have attempted to symbol the course of a Poet's mind
from a state wherein thought is disordered, barren and uncultivated,
to that which is ordered and swayed by the true Spirit of Poetry, and
holds its perfect creed.
I have therefore laid the scene on a desert island, whence, as from
the isolation of his own mind, he reflects upon the concerns of life.
At first he is a poet only by birthright '_Poeta nascitur_.' He has
the poet's inherent love for the Beautiful, his keen susceptibility of
all that is lovely in outward nature, but these are only the blossoms
which have fallen upon him from the Tree of Life, the fruit is yet
untasted. He has looked at the evil of the world alone, and seeing how
much "the time is out of joint" has become misanthropic, and turns his
back alike on the evil and the good.
Then comes Night, the stillness of the soul, with starlight breaking
through the gloom. He gazes on other worlds, and pictures there the
perfection he sighs for, but cannot find in this. Thus by the
conception of a higher and nobler existence acquiring some impetus
towards its realization.
We then find him lying in the sunshine with the beauties of Nature
around him, whose silent teaching works upon him till the true SPIRIT
OF POETRY speaks _within his soul_, and combats the misanthropy and
weakness of the sensuous MAN, showing him that Action is the end of
Life, not mere indulgence in abstract and visionary rhapsodies.
In the next scene he makes further advances, for the spirit of Poetry
shows him that the beauty for which he has sought amongst the stars of
heaven lies really at his feet; that Earth, too, is a star capable of
equal brightness with those on which he gazes. He is thus brought from
the Ideal to the Real.
The fifth scene emblems the influence of Love on the soul. It is the
nurse of Poetry, and Sorrow is the pang which stimulates the divine
germ into active vitality. Had he been entirely happy, and the course
of his love run smooth, he would have been content to enjoy life in
ease and idleness.
Next we find him looking broadly on life, on its utmost ills as well
as its beauties, but not with the eye of the misanthrope, but of the
Physician who searches out disease that he may find the remedy, and
though the soul still sighs for the serenity and placid delight of
the ideal life, the world of Thought, the glorious principle of Poetry
prevails, and he sacrifices self-ease, feeling that he has a nobler
mission than to dream through life, and that here he must labour ere
he can earn the right to rest.
Thus in the last scene the SPIRIT and the MAN have become one--he is
_truly_ a Poet. His prayer maintains the direct and divine inspiration
of the Poet-Priest.
The action in short is the conflict of two principles within the
breast, the False and the True, ending in the extinction of error
and the triumph of truth.
EIDOLON,
OR
THE COURSE OF A SOUL.