The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863

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 æsthetic 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 shoreOf 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 brainWith 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 Callirrhoë, 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 starLights the air with a dusky glimmer."Into the ocean faint and farFalls the trail of its golden splendor,And the gleam of that single starIs ever refulgent, soft, and tender."Chrysaor rising out of the seaShowed tints glorious and thus emulous,Leaving the arms of Callirrhoë,Forever tender, soft, and tremulous."Thus o'er the ocean faint and farTrailed 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 innGleamed red with fire-light through the leavesOf woodbine hanging from the eaves,Their crimson curtains rent and thin.As ancient is this hostelryAs 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 caughtConfessions 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 schoolOf 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 verseWas tender, musical, and terse:The inspiration, the delight,The gleam, the glory, the swift flightOf thoughts so sudden that they seemThe revelations of a dream,All these were his: but with them cameNo envy of another's fame;He did not find his sleep less sweetFor music in some neighboring street,Nor rustling hear in every breezeThe laurels of Miltiades.Honor and blessings on his headWhile 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 deadWere 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 forgetThat from these reservoirs and tanksEven imperial Shakespeare drewHis 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, sailingNorthward 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 YarlA 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 dayIn 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 theSky is still cloudless,For rain has been fallingFar off at their fountains;"So hearts that are faintingGrow full to o'erflowing,And they that behold itMarvel, and know notThat God at their fountainsFar 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 aboveThe awakening continents from shore to shoreSomewhere 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 mediæval 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 throngOf thoughts, whose only speech is song!O heart of man! canst thou not beBlithe 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 yearsMust wander on through doubts and fears,        Must ache and bleed beneath your load!I, nearer to the wayside innWhere 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.