"How was it with Sir Hubert?
--Beggarly language! _I could burst_
For impotence of effort:
Those who made thee were accurst!
_Dumb men were gods were all dumb_.
But go on, and do thy worst!--
"His life-blood stopp'd to listen--
Her _delivering_ lips dealt sound--
Oh! _hungrily_ he listen'd,
But the meaning meant was drown'd;
For, to him, her voice and presence
Meaning held far more profound.
"He gave his soul to feasting,
And his sense, (which is the soul
More thoroughly incarnate,)
Backward standing, to control
His object, as a painter
Views a picture in the whole.
"She stood, her eyes cast downwards,
And, upon them, dropp'd halfway,
Lids, sweeter than the bosom
Of an unburst lily, lay,
With black abundant lashes,
To keep out the upper day.
"_A breath from out her shoulders
Made the air cool_, and the ground
Was greener in their shadow;
All her dark locks _loll'd_, unbound,
About them, heavily lifted
By the breeze that struggled round.
"As if from weight of beauty,
Gently bent--but oh, how draw
This _thousand-featured_ splendour--
_Thousand-featured without flaw!_--
At last, his vision reveling
On her ravishing mouth, _he saw_
"_It closed_; and then remember'd
That she spoke not.--'Stay to dine,
And name her wishes after'--
To these sounds he could assign
A sense, for still he heard them,
Echoing silvery and divine."
Sir Hubert having reveled on her ravishing mouth, and having, by a
strong effort of intelligence, mastered the meaning of the very occult
proposition which issued therefrom, namely, that the lady would "stay to
dine, and name her wishes after;" and, moreover, having seen--"It
closed"--he shortly afterwards saw it opened, for the purpose of eating
his hawk, which, as the reader knows, he had felt himself under the
necessity of killing for the fair widow's entertainment. We pass over
the relation of the circumstances which, as the lady discovers, render
her mission fruitless, and which are detailed in a strain of the most
vapid silliness--and proceed to the interview which brings about the
union of Mabel and Sir Hubert. The latter, some time after these
occurrences, pays a visit to the castle.
"Half reclined
Along a couch leans Mabel,
Deeply musing in her mind
Something her bosom echoes.
O'er her face, like breaths of wind
"Upon a summer meadow,
Serious pleasures live; and eyes
_Large always, slowly largen,
As if some far-seen surprise
Approach'd,--then fully orb them,
At near sound of one that sighs_."
Her eyes having recovered their natural size, a good deal of
conversation ensues, the result of which is given in the following
stanza, which forms a fit conclusion for the story of such a passion--
"Her hands are woo'd with kisses,
They refuse not the caress,
Closer, closer, ever closer,
Vigorous lips for answer press!
_Feasting the hungry silence
Comes, sob-clad, a silver 'yes.'_"
There are several smaller poems interspersed throughout the volume. Mr
Tennyson has his "Claribels," and "Isabels," and "Adelines," and
"Eleanores"--ladies with whom he frequently plays strange, though, we
admit, by no means ungraceful vagaries; and Mr Patmore, as in duty
bound, and following the imitative bent of his genius, must also have
his Geraldine to dally with. The two following stanzas of playful
namby-pambyism, are a specimen of the manner in which this gentleman
dandles his kid:--
"We are in the fields. Delight!
Look around! The bird's-eyes bright;
Pink-tipp'd daisies; sorrel red,
Drooping o'er the lark's green bed;
Oxlips; glazed buttercups,
Out of which the wild bee sups;
See! they dance about thy feet!
Play with, pluck them, little Sweet!
Some affinity divine
Thou hast with them, Geraldine.
"Now, sweet wanton, toss them high;
Race about, you know not why.
Now stand still, from sheer excess
Of exhaustless happiness.
I, meanwhile, on this old gate,
Sit sagely calm, and perhaps relate
Lore of fairies. Do you know
How they make the mushrooms grow?
Ah! what means that shout of thine?
_You can't tell me, Geraldine._"
Our extracts are now concluded; and in reviewing them in the mass, we
can only exclaim--this, then, is the pass to which the poetry of England
has come! This is the life into which the slime of the Keateses and
Shelleys of former times has fecundated! The result was predicted about
a quarter of a century ago in the pages of this Magazine; and many
attempts were then made to suppress the nuisance at its fountainhead.
Much good was accomplished: but our efforts at that time were only
partially successful; for nothing is so tenacious of life as the spawn
of frogs--nothing is so vivacious as corruption, until it has reached
its last stage. The evidence before us shows that this stage has been
now at length attained. Mr Coventry Patmore's volume has reached the
ultimate _terminus_ of poetical degradation; and our conclusion, as well
as our hope is, that the fry must become extinct in him. His poetry
(thank Heaven!) cannot corrupt into any thing worse than itself.