Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848

I know it by thy song!

Thou hast loved – it may be vainly —
But well – oh! but too well —
Thou hast suffered all that woman's heart
May bear – but must not tell.

Thou hast wept and thou hast parted,
Thou hast been forsaken long;
Thou hast watch'd for steps that came not back —
I know it by thy song!

By its fond and plaintive lingering
On each word of grief so long,
Oh! thou hast loved and suffered much —
I know it by thy song!

But with this mournful spirit we have no quarrel. It is, as we have said, without a grain of bitterness; it loves to associate itself with all things beautiful in nature; it makes the rose its emblem. It does so in the following lines to

THE SHADOW OF A FLOWER

'Twas a dream of olden days,
That Art, by some strange power,
The visionary form could raise
From the ashes of a flower:

That a shadow of the rose,
By its own meek beauty bowed,
Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose,
Like pictures in a cloud.

.          .          .          .             .

A fair, yet mournful thing!
For the glory of the bloom
That a flush around it shed,
And the soul within, the rich perfume,
Where were they? – fled, all fled!

Naught but the dim, faint line
To speak of vanished hours —
Memory! what are joys of thine?
Shadows of buried flowers!

We should be disposed to dwell entirely on the shorter pieces of Mrs Hemans, but this would hardly be just. There is one of her more ambitious efforts which, at all events, seems to demand a word from us. The Vespers of Palermo is not perhaps the most popular, even of her longer productions – it is certainly written in what is just now the most unpopular form – yet it appears to us one of the most vigorous efforts of her genius. It has this advantage too – it can be happily alluded to without the necessity of detailing the plot – always a wearisome thing, to both the critic, and the reader: every body knows the real tragedy of the Sicilian Vespers. The drama is unpopular as a form of composition, because the written play is still considered as a production, the chief object of which is missed if it is not acted; and the acting of plays is going into desuetude. When the acting of tragedies shall be entirely laid aside, (as it bids fair to be,) – that is, as an ordinary amusement of the more refined and cultivated classes of society – and the drama shall become merely a class of literature, like all others, for private perusal – then its popularity, as a form of composition, will probably revive. For there is one order of poetry – and that the more severe and manly – which seems almost to require this form. When an author, careless of description, or not called to it by his genius, is exclusively bent on portraying character and passion, and those deeper opinions and reflections which passion stirs from the recesses of the human mind, the drama seems the only form natural for him to employ.

The opinion we have ventured to express on the inevitable decease of the acting drama – of tragic representations – as a general amusement of an age increasing in refinement, will probably subject us, in certain quarters, to an indignant reproof. Shakspeare, and the legitimate drama! seems, with some, to have all the sacredness of a national cause. Shakspeare, by all means – Shakspeare for ever! eternally! – only we would rather read him – if we could creep up there – with little Felicia Browne, in the apple-tree. Shakspeare supports the stage – so far as it remains supported – not the stage Shakspeare. And can he support it long? Consider what sort of amusement it is which tragic representation affords – for of comedy we say nothing – consider that it must either thrill us with emotions of a most violent order, (which the civilised man in general avoids), or it becomes one of the saddest platitudes in the world. Your savage can support prolonged ennui, and delights in excitement approaching to madness; your civilised man can tolerate neither one nor the other. Now your tragedy deals largely in both. It knows no medium. Every body has felt that, whether owing to the actor or the poet, the moment the interest of the piece is no longer at its height, it becomes intolerable. You are to be either moved beyond all self-control, which is not very desirable, or you are to sit in lamentable sufferance. In short, you are to be driven out of your senses, one way or the other. Depend upon it, it is a species of amusement which, however associated with great names – though Garrick acted, and Dr Johnson looked on – is destined, like the bull-fights of Spain, or the gladiatorial combats of old Rome, to fall before the advancing spirit of civilisation.

But to Mrs Hemans' Vespers of Palermo. It was not the natural bent of genius which led her to the selection of the dramatic form; and when we become thoroughly acquainted with her temperament, and the feelings she loved to indulge, we are rather surprised that she performed the task she undertook with so much spirit, and so large a measure of success, than that she falls short in some parts of her performance. Nothing can be better conceived, or more admirably sustained, than the character of Raimond de Procida. The elder Procida, and the dark revengeful Montalba, are not so successfully treated. We feel that she has designed these figures with sufficient propriety, but she has not animated them; she could not draw from within those fierce emotions which were to infuse life into them. The effort to sympathise, even in imagination, with such characters, was a violence to her nature. The noble and virtuous heroism of the younger Procida was, on the contrary, no other than the overflow of her own genuine feeling. Few modern dramas present more spirit-stirring scenes, than those in which Raimond takes the leading part. Two of those we would particularly mention – one when, on joining the patriot-conspirators, and learning the mode in which they intended to free their country, he refuses, even for so great an object, to stain his soul with assassination and murder; and the other, where, towards the close of the piece, he is imprisoned by the more successful conspirators – is condemned to die for imputed treachery to their cause, and hears that the battle for his country, for which his spirit had so longed, is going forward. We cannot refrain from making a quotation from both these parts of the drama. We shall take the liberty of omitting some lines, in order to compress our extracts.

The conspirators have met, and proclaimed their intended scheme —

Sicilians. Be it so!
If one amongst us stay the avenging steel
For love or pity, be his doom as theirs!
Pledge we our faith to this.

Raim. (rushing forward indignantly.) Our faith to this!
No! I but dreamt I heard it: Can it be?
My countrymen, my father! – Is it thus
That freedom should be won? – Awake! – awake
To loftier thoughts! – Lift up, exultingly,
On the crowned heights, and to the sweeping winds,
Your glorious banner! – Let your trumpet's blast
Make the tombs thrill with echoes! Call aloud,
Proclaim from all your hills, the land shall bear
The stranger's yoke no longer! – What is he
Who carries on his practised lip a smile,
Beneath his vest a dagger, which but waits
Till the heart bounds with joy, to still its beatings?
That which our nature's instinct doth recoil from,
And our blood curdle at – ay, yours and mine —
A murderer! Heard ye? – Shall that name with ours
Go down to after days?

Mont. I tell thee, youth,
Our souls are parched with agonising thirst,
Which must be quenched though death were in the draught:
We must have vengeance, for our foes have left
No other joy unblighted.

Pro. O, my son!
The time has passed for such high dreams as thine:
Thou knowest not whom we deal with. We must meet
Falsehood with wiles, and insult with revenge.
And, for our names – whate'er the deeds by which
We burst our bondage – is it not enough
That, in the chronicle of days to come,
We, through a bright "For ever," shall be called
The men who saved their country.

Raim. Many a land
Hath bowed beneath the yoke, and then arisen,
As a strong lion rending silken bonds,
And on the open field, before high heaven,
Won such majestic vengeance as hath made
Its name a power on earth.

Mon. Away! when thou dost stand
On this fair earth as doth a blasted tree,