Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 4, October 1842Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 4, October 1842
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
She loved to lend Imagination wing
And link her heart with Juliet’s in a dream,
And feel the music of a sister string
That thrilled the current of her vital stream.
How delightful a picture we have here! A lady is lending one of her
wings to the spirit, or genius, called Imagination, who, of course, has
lost one of his own. While thus employed with one hand, with the other
she is chaining her heart to the heart of the fair Juliet. At the same
time she is feeling the music of a sister string, and this string is
thrilling the current of the lady’s vital stream. If this is downright
nonsense we cannot be held responsible for its perpetration; it is but
the downright nonsense of Mr. Dawes.
Again—
Without the Palinurus of self-science
Byron embarked upon the stormy sea,
To adverse breezes hurling his defiance
And dashing up the rainbows on his lee,
And chasing those he made in wildest mirth,
Or sending back their images to earth.
This stanza we have more than once seen quoted as a fine specimen of the
poetical powers of our author. His lordship, no doubt, is herein made to
cut a very remarkable figure. Let us imagine him, for one moment,
embarked upon a stormy sea, hurling his defiance (literally throwing his
gauntlet or glove) to the adverse breezes, dashing up rainbows on his
lee, laughing at them, and chasing them at the same time, and, in
conclusion, “sending back their images to earth.” But we have already
wearied the reader with this abominable rigmarole. We shall be pardoned
(after the many specimens thus given at random) for not carrying out the
design we originally intended: that of commenting upon two or three
successive pages of “_Geraldine_,” with a view of showing (in a spirit
apparently more fair than that of particular selection) the _entireness_
with which the whole poem is pervaded by unintelligibility. To every
thinking mind, however, this would seem a work of supererogation. In
such matters, by such understandings, the brick of the _skolastikos_
will be received implicitly as a sample of the house. The writer
_capable_, to any extent, of such absurdity as we have pointed out,
_cannot_, by any possibility, produce a long article worth reading. We
say this in the very teeth of the magnificent assembly which listened to
the recital of Mr. Dawes, in the great hall of the University of New
York. We shall leave “Athenia of Damascus,” without comment, to the
decision of those who may find time and temper for its perusal, and
conclude our extracts by a quotation, from among the minor poems, of the
following very respectable
ANACREONTIC.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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