The woods are deaf and will not be aroused—
The mountains are asleep, they hear him not,
Nor from deep-founded silence can be wrought,
Tho’ herded bison on their steeps have browsed:
Beneath their hanks in _darksome stillness_ housed
The rivers loiter like a calm-bound sea;
_In anchored nuptials to dumb apathy_
_Cliff, wilderness and solitude are spoused_.
Let us endeavor to translate this gibberish, by way of ascertaining its
import, if possible. Or, rather, let us state the stanzas, in substance.
The spirit _lowers_, that is to say _grows angry_, and speaks. He calls
upon the Wild Woods to tremble, and upon the Cataracts to sound their
voices which have the tone of an organ. He addresses, then, _an_
Earthquake, or perhaps Earthquake in general, and requests it to _level
flat_ all the Deep Crags which are bound by massy tenures in earth—a
request, by the way, which any sensible Earthquake must have regarded as
tautological, since it is difficult to level anything otherwise than
_flat_:—Mr. Mathews, however, is no doubt the best judge of flatness in
the abstract, and may have peculiar ideas respecting it. But to proceed
with the Spirit. Turning to the Winds, he enjoins them to howl and break
the peace that broods above this world and steadfastly eludes their
power—the same peace that mocks a Dismay ’mid streams, rocks, et
cetera. He now speaks to the night-shadowed Rivers, and commands them to
lift their dusky hands, and clap them harshly _with a sullen roar_—and
as _roaring_ with one’s _hands_ is not the easiest matter in the world,
we can only conclude that the Rivers here reluctantly disobeyed the
injunction. Nothing daunted, however, the Spirit, addressing a thousand
Pinnacles and Steeps, desires them to deplore the glory that departs, or
is departing—and we can almost fancy that we see the Pinnacles
deploring it upon the spot. The Lakes—at least such of them as possess
azure waves and snowy strands—then come in for their share of the
oration. They are called upon to observe—to take notice—that above
them stands no ordinary character—no Piankitank stump orator, or
anything of that sort—but a Power;—a power, in short, to use the exact
words of Mr. Mathews, “that _utters forth_ his loud behest, till
mountain, lake and river shall attest the puissance of a Master’s _large
commands_.” _Utters forth_ is no doubt somewhat supererogatory, since
“to utter” is of itself to emit, or send forth; but as “the Power”
appears to be somewhat excited he should be forgiven such mere errors of
speech. We cannot, however, pass over his boast about uttering forth his
loud behest _till_ mountain, lake and rivers shall obey him—for the
fact is that his threat is _vox et preterea nihil_, like the
countryman’s nightingale in Catullus; the issue showing that the
mountains, lakes and rivers—all very sensible creatures—go fast asleep
upon the spot, and pay no attention to his rigmarole whatever. Upon the
“large commands” it is not our intention to dwell. The phrase is a
singularly mercantile one to be in the mouth of “a Power.” It is not
impossible, however, that Mr. Mathews himself is
—busy in the cotton trade
And sugar line.
But to resume. We were originally told that the Spirit “lowered” and
spoke, and in truth his entire speech is a scold at Creation; yet stanza
the eighth is so forgetful as to say that he spoke “with a wide-cast
look of bounteous power and _cheerful_ majesty.” Be this point as it
may, he now shakes his brandished arms, and, swelling out, seems to
grow—
As grows a cedar on a mountain’s top
By the mad air in ruffling breezes _took_
—or as swells a turkey-gobbler; whose image the poet unquestionably had
in his mind’s eye when he penned the words about the ruffled cedar. As
for _took_ instead of _taken_—why not say _tuk_ at once? We have heard
of chaps vot vas tuk up for sheep-stealing, and we know of one or two
that ought to be tuk up for murder of the Queen’s English.
We shall never get on. Stanza the ninth assures us that the woods are
deaf and will not be aroused, that the mountains are asleep and so
forth—all which Mr. Mathews might have anticipated. But the rest he
could not have foreseen. He could not have foreknown that “the rivers,
housed beneath their banks in _darksome stillness_,” would “loiter like
a calm-bound sea,” and still less could he have been aware, unless
informed of the fact, that “_cliff, wilderness and solitude would be
spoused in anchored nuptials to dumb apathy_!” Good Heavens—no!—nobody
could have anticipated _that_! Now, Mr. Mathews, we put it to you as to
a man of veracity—what _does_ it all mean?
As when in times to startle and revere.
This line, of course, is an accident on the part of our author. At the
time of writing it he could not have remembered
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
Here is another accident of imitation; for seriously, we do not mean to
_assert_ that it is anything more—
I urged the dark red hunter in his quest
Of pard or panther with a gloomy zest;
And while through darkling woods they swiftly fare
_Two seeming creatures of the oak-shadowed air_,
I sped the game and fired the follower’s breast.
The line italicized we have seen quoted by some of our daily critics as
beautiful; and so, barring the “oak-shadowed air,” it is. In the
meantime Campbell, in “Gertrude of Wyoming,” has the _words_
—the hunter and the deer a shade.