_Aylmere, or the Bondman of Kent; and Other Poems. By Robert T.
Conrad. 1 Vol. Philadelphia; E. H. Butler & Co._
The author of this volume is one of those rare organizations,
intellectually, which have the power of transmuting whatever they touch
into gold. As an orator, he sways his audience at will; as a writer, he
storms the reader’s judgment by logic and declamation welded into one;
and as a poet, he now charms the fancy with the grace and delicacy of
his imagery, and now makes the heart throb with his fiery and
impassioned words.
“Aylmere” is a dramatic poem, originally written for Mr. Forrest, and
still played, under the name of “Jack Cade,” by that eminent tragedian.
Though parts of it may derive additional power, on the stage, from the
magnificent bursts of the great actor for whom it was composed, the true
beauty of the drama, we think, can only be enjoyed by those who peruse
it, at leisure, in the closet. Many passages, indeed, are suppressed on
the boards, in order to bring the play within accustomed limits; and the
benefit of these the spectator loses entirely.
The drama of “Aylmere” is founded on the famous insurrection of 1450, in
which the English peasantry were headed by a physician, known
indifferently as Jack Cade, Aylmere, Mendall and Mortimer. The theme is
one peculiarly fitted for a republican poet. Goaded by intolerable
wrongs, social as well as political—insults to their women, contumely
to themselves, public taxes that reaped them to the last stubble, and
private exactions on the part of the nobility, that gleaned what little
regal rapacity had left—the people, in which we comprise the yeomen and
burghers, as well as the villeins, rose in a body, marched on London,
exacted the death of the infamous lord-chamberlain, and procured a
charter from the king, guarantying to the commonalty the rights and
privileges demanded by their leader. But scarcely had these concessions
been granted, when a collision, provoked probably by the royal party,
occurred between the citizens of London and the followers of Cade: the
insurgents met with a repulse; and the late terrified aristocracy
rallying, a total defeat and dispersion of the peasantry ensued. Aylmere
himself was hunted down, like a wild beast, and mercilessly put to
death. The concessions granted were revoked. And, for centuries after,
English historians in the interest of the upper classes, blackened the
name and misrepresented the motives of the ill-fated Kentish reformer.
What nobler task could a republican poet set before himself, than to
rescue the reputation of this martyred hero from obloquy and shame?
Well, too, has Judge Conrad fulfilled his pious labor. The principal
character of the play is Aylmere, of course; indeed he may be said, in
one sense, to be the entire play. His lofty courage, his abhorrence of
wrong, his high aspirations after liberty, and the fiery enthusiasm
which he breathes into his followers, form, as it were, the deep
undertone, whose thunders roll incessantly through this grand anthem of
freedom. Other characters, however, contribute materially to the action
of the piece, and furnish the author with opportunities to display his
dramatic powers. The portrait of Marianne, the wife of Aylmere, is drawn
with great tenderness of feeling, and delicacy of touch: she is, like
her own native Italy, a vision of immortal beauty hallowed and
sanctified by wo. The cruel, vindictive and insolent Say; the gay,
careless, yet not wholly wicked Clifford; the friend of the people,
Friar Lacy; and the yeomen, Wat Worthy and Will Mowbray, all stand
prominently out from the canvas.
The drama is full of noble poetry. It would give us pleasure to quote
more largely from it, in proof of this; but the quantity of books upon
our table, requiring notice, forbids a monopoly of our limited space by
one. We cannot, however, resist making a few extracts. Here is one, in
which Aylmere, after his return from Italy, eloquently describes the
bondage which he shared in common with his fellow-Englishmen.
Ten years of freedom have not made me free.
I’ve throttled fortune till she yielded up
Her brightest favors; I have wooed Ambition,
Wooed with a fiery soul and dripping sword,
And _would not_ be denied; I turned from her,
And raked amid the ashes of the past,
For the high thoughts that burn but cannot die,
Until my spirit walked with those who now
Are hailed, as brethren, by archangels:—_Yet,_
_Have I come home a slave—a thing for chains_
_And scourges—ay, a dog,_
_Crouching, and spurned, and spit upon._
In fine contrast to this picture, is the following one of Italy, _as
Italy was four centuries ago_.
’Tis free; and want, fear, shame, are aliens there.
In that blest land the tiller is a prince.
No ruffian lord breaks spring’s fair promises;
And summer’s toils—for freedom watches o’er them—
Are safe and happy; summer lapses by,
In its own music;
And pregnant Autumn, with a matron blush,
Comes stately in, and with her, hand in hand,
Labor, and busy Plenty. Then old Winter,
With his stout glee, his junkets, and a laugh
That shakes from his hoar beard the icicles,
Makes the year gay again. There are no poor
Where freedom is.
The whole of the following is in the same fine strain.
_Worthy._ Behold! He comes! he comes!
_Enter_ Aylmere.
_Lacy._ Thank Heaven! thou’rt free!
_Aylmere_, (_laughs._) Ay, once more free! within my grasp a
sword,
And round me freemen! Free! as is the storm
About your hills; the surge upon your shore!
Free as the sunbeams on the chainless air;
Or as the stream that leaps the precipice,
And in eternal thunder, shouts to Heaven,
That it is free, and will be free forever!
_Straw._ Now for revenge! Full long we’ve fed on wrong:
Give us revenge!
_Aylmere._ For you and for myself!
England from all her hills, cries out for vengeance!
The serf, who tills her soil, but tastes not of
Her fruit, the slave that in her dungeon groans,
The yeoman plundered, and the maiden wronged,
Echo the call in shrieks! The angry waves
Report the sound in thunder; and the heavens,
From their blue vaults, roll back a people’s cry
For liberty and vengeance!
_Lacy._ Wrong on wrong!
Are there no bolts in heaven?
_Aylmere._ _No swords on earth?_
_He’ll ever be a slave, who does not right_
_Himself. The heavens fight not for cravens. Let us strike,_
_Strike for ourselves, and Heaven will strike for us._
The ensuing are nervous and striking.
All would o’ertop their fellows;
And every rank—the lowest—hath its height
To which hearts flutter, with as large a hope
As princes feel for empire! But in each,
Ambition struggles with a sea of hate.
He who sweats up the ridgy grades of life.
Finds, in each station, icy scorn above,
Below him hooting envy.
My lord, if you seek power in this, remember,
The greatness which is born of anarchy,
And thrown aloft in tumult, cannot last.
It mounts, like rocks hurled skyward by volcanoes,
Flushes a guilty moment, and falls back
In the red earthquake’s bosom.
The tragedy violates, in some of its details, the facts of history. Thus
Aylmere, instead of being defeated and betrayed, as in the real story,
perishes, in the drama, at the very hour that the charter is granted.
The change enables the author to give a fine artistic scene as his
closing one. Marianne, the wife, having been separated from her husband
at the outset of the insurrection, falls into the power of Lord Say.
While thus a prisoner she is accosted with dishonorable proposals by
Lord Clifford, whom she stabs to escape indignity. For this heroic act
she is thrown into the castle dungeon, scourged, and visited with other
brutalities, till she loses her reason. Escaping eventually, she rejoins
her husband. In Aylmere’s last interview with Lord Say, when the latter,
dying, poniards the former, she rushes in, her intellect restored, as is
often the case before death, and perishes with her lord. This furnishes
the material for the closing scene, which is most dramatically
conceived. Clasping the fair corpse in his arms, the hero is himself
sinking into death, when suddenly loud huzzas in the street, call him
back to life. He starts up with a wild cry of exultation, and asks
eagerly what it means. The attendants reply, “the charter!” and, as they
speak, the parchment, duly sealed, is brought triumphantly in. Aylmere
rushes to it, kisses it, clasps it to his bosom, and exclaiming that the
bondmen are avenged and England free, totters toward Marianne, falls,
and dies.
But the drama is not the only poem in the volume, for some fifty
fugitive pieces ensue, the chance contributions of a life devoted
generally to pursuits more stern. Several of the last of these
originally appeared in the pages of this magazine: we may mention “The
Sons of the Wilderness,” and the “Sonnets on the Lord’s Prayer.”
Generally they are distinguished by great felicity of expression, a
vigorous imagination, touches of exquisite pathos, and a lofty scorn of
whatever is base, cruel, or wrong. As examples of the gentler mood of
the author’s muse, we would point out two poems, which evidently relate
to a mother and her daughter: the first, “Lines on the death of a Young
Married Lady,” and the second, “To Maggie.” The sonnet, “To My Wife,” is
also very beautiful. As specimens of Judge Conrad’s more indignant mood,
we refer to the sonnets, “On the Invasion of the Roman Republic,” and to
“Fear.”
The poem, “To My Brother,” is one that would have made the author’s
reputation, even if he had written nothing else; and “Freedom” contains
stanzas that but few other living poets could have penned. To say that
it exhibits the power of the fourth canto of “Childe Harold,” would
imply imitation, of which certainly no one can accuse Judge Conrad. But
we may remark that it has the same nervous style, the same exalted
imagination, with an original conception that is all its own. In
perusing this and other poems in this volume we instinctively regret
that Judge Conrad has not devoted himself entirely to poetry. Such
powers as his, concentrated on a pursuit so congenial to him, could not
but have produced results that would have adorned American literature,
not only temporarily, but throughout all time.
We cannot take leave of our author without going back to the dedication,
which is addressed to the poet’s father, and which, though often quoted
in print since the appearance of the book, we venture to quote again.