Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843

When the dread block the head he cradled presses,
And high the blood his kiss once fever'd springs.
6.
Thee, Francis, Francis,[13 - Joseph, in the original.] league on league, shall follow
The death-dirge of the Lucy once so dear;
From yonder steeple, dismal, dull, and hollow,
Shall knell the warning horror on thy ear.
On thy fresh leman's lips when Love is dawning,
And the lisp'd music glides from that sweet well—
Lo, in that breast a red wound shall be yawning,
And, in the midst of rapture, warn of hell!
7.
Betrayer, what! thy soul relentless closing
To grief—the woman-shame no art can heal—
To that small life beneath my heart reposing!
Man, man, the wild beast for its young can feel!
Proud flew the sails—receding from the land,
I watch'd them waning from the wistful eye,
Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand,
Breathes the false incense of his fatal sigh.
8.
And there the Babe! there, on the mother's bosom,
Lull'd in its sweet and golden rest it lay,
Fresh in life's morning as a rosy blossom,
It smiled, poor harmless one, my tears away.
Deathlike yet lovely, every feature speaking
In such dear calm and beauty to my sadness,
And cradled still the mother's heart, in breaking,
The soft'ning love and the despairing madness.
9.
"Woman, where is my father?"—freezing through me,
Lisp'd the mute Innocence with thunder-sound;
"Woman, where is thy husband?"—called unto me,
In every look, word, whisper, busying round!
For thee, poor child, there is no father's kiss.
He fondleth other children on his knee.
How thou wilt curse our momentary bliss,
When Bastard on thy name shall branded be!
10.
Thy mother—oh, a hell her heart concealeth,
Lone-sitting, lone in social Nature's All!
Thirsting for that glad fount thy love revealeth,
While still thy look the glad fount turns to gall.
In every infant cry my soul is heark'ning,
The haunting happiness for ever o'er,
And all the bitterness of death is dark'ning
The heavenly looks that smiled mine eyes before.
11.
Hell, if my sight those looks a moment misses—
Hell, when my sight upon those looks is turn'd—
The avenging furies madden in thy kisses,
That slept in his what time my lips they burn'd.
Out from their graves his oaths spoke back in thunder!
The perjury stalk'd like murder in the sun—
For ever—God!--sense, reason, soul, sunk under—
The deed was done!
12.
Francis, O Francis! league on league, shall chase thee
The shadows hurrying grimly on thy flight—
Still with their icy arms they shall embrace thee,
And mutter thunder in thy dream's delight!
Down from the soft stars, in their tranquil glory,
Shall look thy dead child with a ghastly stare;
That shape shall haunt thee in its cerements gory,
And scourge thee back from heaven—its home is there!
13.
Lifeless—how lifeless!--see, oh see, before me
It lies cold—stiff!--O God!--and with that blood
I feel, as swoops the dizzy darkness o'er me,
Mine own life mingled—ebbing in the flood—
Hark, at the door they knock—more loud within me—
More awful still—its sound the dread heart gave!
Gladly I welcome the cold arms that win me—
Fire, quench thy tortures in the icy grave!
14.
Francis—a God that pardons dwells in heaven—
Francis, the sinner—yes—she pardons thee—
So let my wrongs unto the earth be given:
Flame seize the wood!--it burns—it kindles—see!
There—there his letters cast—behold are ashes—
His vows—the conquering fire consumes them here:
His kisses—see—see all—all are only ashes—
All, all—the all that once on earth were dear!
15.
Trust not the roses which your youth enjoyeth,
Sisters, to man's faith, changeful as the moon!
Beauty to me brought guilt—its bloom destroyeth:
Lo, in the judgment court I curse the boon:
Tears in the headsman's gaze—what tears?—tis spoken!
Quick, bind mine eyes—all soon shall be forgot—
Doomsman—the lily hast thou never broken?
Pale doomsman—tremble not!

[The poem we have just concluded was greatly admired at the time of its first publication, and it so far excels in art most of the earlier efforts by the author, that it attains one of the highest secrets in true pathos. It produces interest for the criminal while creating terror for the crime. This, indeed, is a triumph in art never achieved but by the highest genius. The inferior writer, when venturing upon the grandest stage of passion, (which unquestionably exists in the delineation of great guilt as of heroic virtue,) falls into the error either of gilding the crime in order to produce sympathy for the criminal, or, in the spirit of a spurious morality, of involving both crime and criminal in a common odium. It is to discrimination between the doer and the deed, that we owe the sublimest revelations of the human heart: in this discrimination lies the key to the emotions produced by the Œdipus and Macbeth. In the brief poem before us a whole drama is comprehended. Marvellous is the completeness of the pictures it presents—its mastery over emotions the most opposite—its fidelity to nature in its exposition of the disordered and despairing mind in which tenderness becomes cruelty, and remorse for error tortures itself into scarce conscious crime.

But the art employed, though admirable of its kind, still falls short of the perfection which, in his later works, Schiller aspired to achieve, viz. the point at which Pain ceases. The tears which Tragic Pathos, when purest and most elevated, calls forth, ought not to be tears of pain. In the ideal world, as Schiller has inculcated, even sorrow should have its charm—all that harrows, all that revolts, belongs but to that inferior school in which Schiller's fiery youth formed itself for nobler grades—the school "of Storm and Pressure"—(Stürm und Dräng—as the Germans have expressively described it.) If the reader will compare Schiller's poem of the 'Infanticide,' with the passages which represent a similar crime in the Medea, (and the author of 'Wallenstein' deserves comparison even with Euripides,) he will see the distinction between the art that seeks an elevated emotion, and the art which is satisfied with creating an intense one. In Euripides, the detail—the reality—all that can degrade terror into pain—are loftily dismissed. The Titan grandeur of the Sorceress removes us from too close an approach to the crime of the unnatural Mother—the emotion of pity changes into awe—just at the pitch before the coarse sympathy of actual pain can be effected. And it is the avoidance of reality—it is the all-purifying Presence of the Ideal, which make the vast distinction in our emotions between following, with shocked and displeasing pity, the crushed, broken-hearted, mortal criminal to the scaffold, and gazing—with an awe which has pleasure of its own—upon the Mighty Murderess—soaring out of the reach of Humanity, upon her Dragon Car!]

THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

A HYMN