The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 by Various

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Thirty years ago almost every critic in England exploded with laughter
over the poetry of Tennyson. Yet his poetry has exactly the same
characteristics now that it had then; and Tennyson has gone up to his
place among English poets. It is not "Blackwood," nor any quarterly
review or monthly magazine, (except, of course, the "North American" and
the "Atlantic,") which can decree or deny fame. While the critics are
busily proving that an author is a plagiarist or a pretender, the world
is crowning him,--as the first ocean-steamer from England brought Dr.
Lardner's essay to prove that steamers could not cross the ocean.
Literary criticism, indeed, is a lost art, if it ever were an art. For
there are no permanent acknowledged canons of literary excellence; and
if there were any, there are none who can apply them. What critic shall
decide if the song of a new singer be poetry, or the bard himself a
poet? Consequently, modern criticism wisely contents itself with
pointing out errors of fact or of inference, or the difference between
the critic's and the author's philosophic or aesthetic view, and bitterly
assaults or foolishly praises him. When Horace Binney Wallace, one of
the most accomplished and subtile-minded of our writers, says of General
Morris that he is "a great poet," and that "he who can understand Mr.
Emerson may value Mr. Bancroft," we can feel only the more profoundly
persuaded that fame is not the judgment of individuals, but of the mass
of men, and that he whose song men love to hear is a poet.

But while the magnetism of Longfellow's touch lies in the broad humanity
of his sympathy, which leads him neither to mysticism nor cynicism, and
which commends his poetry to the universal heart, his artistic sense is
so exquisite that each of his poems is a valuable literary study. In
this he has now reached a perfection quite unrivalled among living
poets, except sometimes by Tennyson. His literary career has been
contemporary with the sensational school, but he has been entirely
untainted by it, and in the present volume, "Tales of a Wayside Inn,"
his style has a tranquil lucidity which recalls Chaucer. The literary
style of an intellectually introverted age or author will always be
somewhat obscure, however gorgeous; but Longfellow's mind takes a
simple, child-like hold of life, and his style never betrays the
inadequate effort to describe thoughts or emotions that are but vaguely
perceived, which is the characteristic of the best sensational writing.
Indeed, there is little poetry by the eminent contemporary masters which
is so ripe and racy as his. He does not make rhetoric stand for passion,
nor vagueness for profundity; nor, on the other hand, is he such a
voluntary and malicious "Bohemian" as to conceive that either in life or
letters a man is released from the plain rules of morality. Indeed, he
used to be accused of preaching in his poetry by gentle critics who held
that Elysium was to be found in an oyster-cellar, and that intemperance
was the royal prerogative of genius.

His literary scholarship, also, his delightful familiarity with the pure
literature of all languages and times, must rank Longfellow among the
learned poets. Yet he wears this various knowledge like a shining suit
of chain-mail, to adorn and strengthen his gait, like Milton, instead of
tripping and clumsily stumbling in it, as Ben Jonson sometimes did. He
whips out an exquisitely pointed allusion that flashes like a Damascus
rapier and strikes nimbly home, or he recounts some weird tradition, or
enriches his line with some gorgeous illustration from hidden stores, or
merely unrolls, as Milton loved to do, the vast perspective of romantic
association by recounting in measured order names which themselves make
music in the mind,--names not musical only, but fragrant:--

"Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Araby the blest."

In the prelude to the "Wayside Inn," with how consummate a skill the
poet graces his modern line with the shadowy charm of ancient verse, by
the mere mention of the names!

"The chronicles of Charlemagne,
Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure,
Mingled together in his brain
With talcs of Flores and Blanchefleur,
Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour,
Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain."

A most felicitous illustration of this trait is in "The Evening Star,"
an earlier poem. Chrysaor, in the old mythology, sprang from the blood
of Medusa, armed with a golden sword, and married Callirrhoe, one of the
Oceanides. The poet, looking at evening upon the sea, muses upon the
long-drawn, quivering reflection of the evening star, and sings. How the
verses oscillate like the swaying calm of the sea, while the image
inevitably floats into the scholar's imagination:--

"Just above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows fainter and dimmer,
Lonely and lovely a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.

"Into the ocean faint and far
Falls the trail of its golden splendor,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.

"Chrysaor rising out of the sea
Showed tints glorious and thus emulous,
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,
Forever tender, soft, and tremulous.

"Thus o'er the ocean faint and far
Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly:
Is it a god, or is it a star,
That, entranced, I gaze on nightly?"

The blending of the poetical faculty and scholarly taste is seen, also,
in his translations; and would not a translation of Dante's great poem
be the crowning work of Longfellow's literary life?

But while we chat along the road, and pause to repeat these simple and
musical poems, each so elegant, so finished, as the monk finished his
ivory crucifix, or the lapidary his choicest gem, we have reached the
Wayside Inn. It is the title of Longfellow's new volume, "Tales of a
Wayside Inn." They are New-England "Canterbury Tales." Those of old
London town were told at the Tabard at Southwark; these at the Red Horse
in Sudbury town. And although it is but the form of the poem, peculiar
neither to Chaucer nor to Longfellow, which recalls the earlier work,
yet they have a further likeness in the sources of some of the tales,
and in the limpid blitheness of the style and the pure objectivity of
the poems.

The melodious, picturesque simplicity of the opening, in which the place
and the persons are introduced, is inexpressibly graceful and
masterly:--

"One autumn night in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves
Of woodbine hanging from the eaves,
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.
As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be,
Built in the old colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality:
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And stairways worn, and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled, and tall."

The autumn wind moans without, and dashes in gusts against the windows;
but there is a pleasant murmur from the parlor, with the music of a
violin. In this comfortable tavern-parlor, ruddy with the fire-light, a
rapt musician stands erect before the chimney and bends his ear to his
instrument,--

"And seemed to listen, till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought,"

--a figure and a picture, as he is afterward painted,--

"Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe,
His figure tall and straight and lithe,"--

which recall the Norwegian magician, Ole Bull. He plays to the listening
group of friends. Of these there is the landlord,--a youth of quiet
ways, "a student of old books and days,"--a young Sicilian,--"a Spanish
Jew from Alieant,"--

"A theologian, from the school
Of Cambridge on the Charles,"--

then a poet, whose portrait, exquisitely sketched and meant for quite
another, will yet be prized by the reader, as the spectator prizes, in
the Uffizi at Florence, the portraits of the painters by themselves:--

"A poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and terse:
The inspiration, the delight,
The gleam, the glory, the swift flight
Of thoughts so sudden that they seem
The revelations of a dream,
All these were his: but with them came
No envy of another's fame;
He did not find his sleep less sweet
For music in some neighboring street,
Nor rustling hear in every breeze
The laurels of Miltiades.
Honor and blessings on his head
While living, good report when dead,
Who, not too eager for renown,
Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown."

The musician completes the group.

When he stops playing, they call upon the landlord for his tale, which
he, "although a bashful man," begins. It is "Paul Revere's Ride,"
already known to many readers as a ballad of the famous incident in the
Revolution which has, in American hearts, immortalized a name which this
war has but the more closely endeared to them. It is one of the most
stirring, ringing, and graphic ballads in the language,--a proper
pendant to Browning's "How they brought the good news from Ghent to
Aix."

The poet, listening with eager delight, seizes the sword of the
landlord's ancestor which was drawn at Concord fight, and tells him that
his grandfather was a grander shape than any old Sir William,

"Clinking about in foreign lands,
With iron gauntlets on his hands,
And on his head an iron pot."

All laughed but the landlord,--

"For those who had been longest dead
Were always greatest in his eyes."

Did honest and dull "Conservatism" have ever a happier description? But
lest the immortal foes of Conservatism and Progress should come to
loggerheads in the conversation, the student opens his lips and breathes
Italy upon the New-England autumn night. He tells the tale of "The
Falcon of Sir Federigo," from the "Decameron." It is an exquisite poem.
So charming is the manner, that the "Decameron," so rendered into
English, would acquire a new renown, and the public of to-day would
understand the fame of Boccaccio.

But the theologian hears with other ears, and declares that the old
Italian tales

"Are either trifling, dull, or lewd."

The student will not argue. He says only,--

"Nor were it grateful to forget
That from these reservoirs and tanks
Even imperial Shakespeare drew
His Moor of Venice and the Jew,
And Romeo and Juliet,
And many a famous comedy."

After a longer pause, the Spanish Jew from Alieant begins "a story in
the Talmud old," "The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi." This is followed after
the interlude by the Sicilian's tale, "King Robert of Sicily," a noble
legend of the Church, whose moral is humility. It is told in a broad,
stately measure, and with consummate simplicity and skill. The attention
is not distracted for a moment from the story, which monks might tell in
the still cloisters of a Sicilian convent, and every American child hear
with interest and delight.

"And then the blue-eyed Norseman told.
A Saga of the days of old."

It is the Saga of King Olaf, and is much the longest tale in the volume,
recounting the effort to plant Christianity in Norway by the sword of
the King. In every variety of measure, heroic, elegiac, lyrical, the
wild old Scandinavian tradition is told. Even readers who may be at
first repelled by legends almost beyond modern human sympathy cannot
escape the most musical persuasion of the poem which wafts them along
those icy seas.

"And King Olaf heard the cry,
Saw the red light in the sky,
Laid his hand upon his sword,
As he leaned upon the railing,
And his ships went sailing, sailing
Northward into Drontheim fiord.

* * * * *

"Trained for either camp or court,
Skilful in each manly sport,
Young and beautiful and tall;
Art of warfare, craft of chases,
Swimming, stating, snow-shoe races,
Excellent alike at all."

There is no continuous thread of story in the Saga, but each fragment of
the whole is complete in itself, a separate poem. The traditions are
fierce and wild. The waves dash in them, the winds moan and shriek.
There are evanescent glimpses of green meadows, and a swift gleam of
summer; but the cold salt sea and winter close round all. The tides rise
and fall; they eddy in the sand; they float off and afar the huge
dragon-ships. But the queens pine for revenge and slaughter; the kings
drink and swear and fight, and sail away to their doom.

"Louder the war-horses growl and snarl,
Sharper the dragons bite and sting!
Eric the son of Hakon Yarl
A death-drink salt as the sea
Pledges to thee,
Olaf the King!"

Whoever has heard Ole Bull play, or Jenny Lind sing, the weird minor
melodies of the North, will comprehend the kind of spell which these
legends weave around the mind. Nor is their character lost in the
skilful and symmetrical rendering of Longfellow. The reader has not the
feeling, as in Sir William Jones's translations, that he is reading Sir
William, and not the Persian.

"'What was that?' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck;
Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck.'
Einar, then, the arrow taking
From the loosened string,
Answered, 'That was Norway breaking
From thy hand, O King!'"

But the battle which Thor had defied was not to end by the weapons of
war. In the fierce sea-fight,

"There is told a wonderful tale,
How the King stripped off his mail,
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,
As he swam beneath the main;

"But the young grew old and gray,
And never by night or day
In his kingdom of Norroway
Was King Olaf seen again."

The victory must be won by other weapons. In the convent of Drontheim,
Astrid, the abbess, hears a voice in the darkness:--

"Cross against corslet,
Love against hatred.
Peace-cry for war-cry!"

The voice continues in peaceful music, forecasting heavenly rest:--

"As torrents in summer,
Half dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, though the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;

"So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining."

With this exquisitely beautiful strain of the abbess the Saga ends.

The theologian muses aloud upon creeds and churches, then tells a
fearful tragedy of Spain,--the story of a father who betrays his
daughter to the fires of Torquemada. It chills the heart to think that
such unspeakable ruin of a human soul was ever wrought by any system
that even professed to be Christian. Moloch was truly divine, compared
with the God of the Spanish Inquisition. But the gloom of the tragedy is
not allowed to linger. The poet scatters it by the story of the merry
"Birds of Killingworth," which appears elsewhere in the pages of this
number of the "Atlantic." The blithe beauty of the verses is
captivating, and the argument of the shy preceptor is the most poetic
plea that ever wooed a world to justice. What an airy felicity in the
lines,--

"'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents from shore to shore
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."

And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural
romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real
sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is
brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains
to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at
the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking
constellation of the Bear,--and then,

"Far off the village-clock struck one."

So ends this ripe and mellow work, leaving the reader like one who
listens still for pleasant music i' the air which sounds no more. Those
who will may compare it with the rippling strangeness of "Hiawatha," the
mournfully rolling cadence of "Evangeline," the mediaeval romance of "The
Golden Legend." For ourselves, its beauty does not clash with theirs.
The simple old form of the group of guests telling stories, the thread
of so many precious rosaries, has a new charm from this poem. The Tabard
inn is gone; but who, henceforth, will ride through Sudbury town without
seeing the purple light shining around the Red Horse tavern?

The volume closes with a few poems, classed as "Birds of Passage." It is
the "second flight,"--the first being those at the end of the "Miles
Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all
will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know.
"The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the
memory with its melody, its sportive, affectionate, and yearning lay.

"They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his mouse-tower on the Rhine.

"Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?"

Here, too, is the grand ballad of "The Cumberland," and the delicate
fancy of "The Snow-Flakes," expressing what every sensitive observer has
so often felt,--that the dull leaden trouble of the winter sky finds the
relief in snow that the suffering human heart finds in expression. Then
there is "A Day of June," an outburst of the fulness of life and love in
the beautiful sunny weather of blossoms on the earth and soft clouds in
the sky.

"O life and love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?"

To this poem the date is added, June, 1860.

And here, at length, is the last poem. We pause as we reach it, and turn
back to the first page of "Outre-Mer." "'Lystenyth, ye godely gentylmen,
and all that ben hereyn!' I am a pilgrim benighted on my way, and crave
a shelter till the storm is over, and a seat by the fireside in this
honorable company. As a stranger I claim this courtesy at your hands,
and will repay your hospitable welcome with tales of the countries I
have passed through in my pilgrimage." It is the gay confidence of
youth. It is the bright prelude of the happy traveller and scholar, to
whom the very quaint conceits and antiquated language of romance are
themselves romantic, and who makes himself a bard and troubadour. Hope
allures him; ambition spurs him; conscious power assures him. His eager
step dances along the ground. His words are an outburst of youth and
joy. Thirty years pass by. What sober step pauses at the Wayside Inn? Is
this the jocund Pilgrim of Outre-Mer? The harp is still in his strong
hand. It sounds yet with the old tenderness and grace and sweetness. But
this is the man, not the boy. This is the doubtful tyro no longer, but
the wise master, honored and beloved. To how many hearts has his song
brought peace! How like a benediction in all our homes his music falls!
Ah! not more surely, when the stretched string of the full-tuned harp
snaps in the silence, the cords of every neighboring instrument respond,
than the hearts which love the singer and his song thrill with the
heart-break of this last poem:--

"O little feet, that such long years
Must wander on through doubts and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load!
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road."

* * * * *

LETTER TO A PEACE DEMOCRAT.

ADDRESSED TO ANDREW JACKSON BROWN.

MY DEAR ANDREW,--You can hardly have forgotten that our last
conversation on the national questions of the day had an abrupt, if not
angry, termination. I very much fear that we both lost temper, and that
our discussion degenerated into a species of political sparring. You
will certainly agree with me that the great issues now agitating the
country are too grave to be treated in the flippant style of bar-room
debate. When the stake for which we are contending with immense armies
in the field and powerful navies on the ocean is nothing less than the
existence of our Union and the life of our nation, it ill becomes
intelligent and thoughtful men to descend to personal abuse, or to be
blinded for one moment by prejudice or passion to the cardinal principle
on which the whole controversy turns.

In view of these considerations, therefore, as our previous discussions
have left some vital questions untouched, and as our past experience
seems to have proved that we cannot, with mutual profit, compare our
opinions upon these subjects orally, I have decided to embody my
sentiments on the general points of difference between us in the form of
a letter. Knowing my personal regard for you, I am sure that you will
not believe me guilty of intentional discourtesy in anything I may say,
while you certainly will not be surprised, if I occasionally express
myself with a degree of warmth which finds its full justification in the
urgent importance of the questions to be considered.

I have not the vanity to believe that anything I can say on subjects
that have so long engrossed the attention of thoughtful Americans will
have the charm of novelty. And yet, in view of the unwelcome fact, that
there exists to some extent a decided difference at the North about
questions in regard to which it is essential that there should be a
community of feeling, it certainly can do no harm to make an attempt,
however feeble, to enlist in the cause of constitutional liberty and
good government at least one man who may have been led astray by a too
zealous obedience to the dictates of his party. As the success of our
republican institutions must depend on the morality and intelligence of
the citizens composing the nation, no honest appeal to that morality and
that intelligence can be productive of serious evil.

Permit me, then, at the outset, to remind you of what, from first to
last, has formed the key-note of all your opposition to the war-policy
of the Administration. You say that you have no heart in this struggle,
because Abolitionists have caused the war,--always adding, that
Abolitionists may carry it on, if they please: at any rate, they shall
have no support, direct or indirect, from you. I have carefully
considered all the arguments which you have employed to convince me that
the solemn responsibility of involving the nation in this sanguinary
conflict rests upon Abolitionists, and these arguments seem to me to be
summed up in the following proposition: Before Abolitionists began to
disseminate their dangerous doctrines, we had no war; therefore
Abolitionists caused the war. I might, perhaps, disarm you with your own
weapons, by saying that before Slavery existed in this country we had no
Abolitionists; but I prefer to meet your argument in another manner.

Not to spend time in considering any aspect of the question about which
we do not substantially differ, let us at once ascertain how far we can
agree. I presume you will not deny that this nation is, and since the
twelfth of April, 1861, has been, in a state of civil war; that the
actively contending parties are the North and the South; and that on the
part of the South the war was commenced and is still waged in the
interest of Slavery. We should probably differ _toto coelo_ as to the
causes which led to the conflict; but, my excellent Andrew, I think
there are certain facts which after more than two years' hard fighting
may be considered fairly established. Whatever may be your own
conclusions, as you read our recent history in the light of your ancient
and I had almost said absurd prejudices, I believe that the vast
majority of thinking men at the North have made up their minds that a
deliberate conspiracy to overturn this government has existed in the
South for at least a quarter of a century; that the proofs of such a
conspiracy have been daily growing more and move palpable, until any
additional evidence has become simply cumulative; that the election of
Abraham Lincoln was not the cause, but only marked the culmination of
the treason, and furnished the shallow pretext for its first overt acts.
That you are not prepared to admit all this is, I am forced to believe,
mainly because you dislike the conclusions which must inevitably follow
from such an admission. I say this, because, passing over for the
present the undoubted fact, that this nation would have elected a
Democratic President in 1860 but for the division of the Democratic
party, and the further fact, equally indisputable, that Southern
politicians wilfully created this division, I think you will hardly
venture to deny that even after the election of Abraham Lincoln the
South controlled the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the House of
Representatives. And to come down to a still later period, you can have
no treasonable doubt that the passage of the Corwin Amendment disarmed
the South of any cause for hostilities, based on the danger of
Congressional interference with Slavery wherever existing by force of
State laws. There remains, then, only one conceivable excuse for the
aggressive policy of the South, and that is found in the alleged
apprehension that the slaves would be incited to open rebellion against
their masters. But, I ask, can any intelligent and fair-minded man
believe, to-day, that slaveholders were forced into this war by the fear
that the anti-slavery sentiment of the North would lead to a general
slave-insurrection? Nine-tenths of the able-bodied Southern population
have been in arms for more than two years, far away from their
plantations, and unable to render any assistance to the old men, women,
and children remaining at home. The President's Emancipation
Proclamation was made public nearly a year ago, and subsequent
circumstances have conspired to give it a very wide circulation through
the South. And yet there has not been a single slave-insurrection of any
magnitude, and not one that has not been speedily suppressed and
promptly punished. This fact would seem to be a tolerably conclusive
answer to all apologies for the wicked authors of this Rebellion, drawn
from their alarm for their own safety and the safety of their families.
But the persistent Peace Democrat has infinite resources at command in
defence of the conduct of his Southern allies.

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