The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous ProseLamb, Charles
General
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous Prose
Lamb, Charles
English literature
Sometimes this harmony is imaged to us by an echo; and in one instance,
it is with such transcendant beauty set forth by a shadow and its
corresponding substance, that it would be a sin to cheat our readers at
once of so happy an illustration of the poet's system, and so fair a
proof of his descriptive powers.
Thus having reached a bridge, that overarched
The hasty rivulet where it lay becalmed
In a deep pool, by happy chance we saw
A two-fold Image; on a grassy bank
A snow-white Ram, and in the crystal flood
Another and the same! Most beautiful,
On the green turf, with his imperial front
Shaggy and bold, and wreathed horns superb,
The breathing Creature stood; as beautiful,
Beneath him, shewed his shadowy Counterpart.
Each had his glowing mountains, each his sky,
And each seemed centre of his own fair world:
Antipodes unconscious of each other,
Yet, in partition, with their several spheres,
Blended in perfect stillness, to our sight!--p. 407.
Combinations, it is confessed, "like those reflected in that quiet
pool," cannot be lasting: it is enough for the purpose of the poet, if
they are felt.--They are at least his system; and his readers, if they
reject them for their creed, may receive them merely as poetry. In him,
_faith_, in friendly alliance and conjunction with the religion of his
country, appears to have grown up, fostered by meditation and lonely
communions with Nature--an internal principle of lofty consciousness,
which stamps upon his opinions and sentiments (we were almost going to
say) the character of an expanded and generous Quakerism.
From such a creed we should expect unusual results; and, when applied to
the purposes of consolation, more touching considerations than from the
mouth of common teachers. The finest speculation of this sort perhaps in
the poem before us, is the notion of the thoughts which may sustain the
spirit, while they crush the frame of the sufferer, who from loss of
objects of love by death, is commonly supposed to pine away under a
broken heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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