Mus.– The fife.
Chispa.– I like it; it has a cheerful, soul-stirring sound, that soars up to my lady's window like the song of a swallow. And you others?
Other Mus.– We are the singers, please your honour.
Chispa.– You are too many. Do you think we are going to sing mass in the cathedral of Cordova? Four men can make little use of one shoe, and I see not how you can all sing in one song. But follow me along the garden-wall. That is the way my master climbs to the lady's window. It is by the vicar's skirts the devil climbs into the belfry. Come, follow me, and make no noise.
Chispa is travelling with his master, Victorian. When they come to an inn, the latter regales himself with a walk in the moonlight, meditating on his mistress. Not so Chispa.
"Chispa.– Hola! ancient Baltasar! Bring a light and let me have supper.
Bal.– Where is your master?
Chispa.– Do not trouble yourself about him. We have stopped a moment to breathe our horses; and if he chooses to walk up and down in the open air, looking into the sky as one who hears it rain, that does not satisfy my hunger, you know. But be quick, for I am in a hurry, and every one stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet. What have we here?
Bal. (setting a light on the table.) – Stewed rabbit.
Chispa (eating.) – Conscience of Portalegre! Stewed kitten, you mean!
Bal.– And a pitcher of Pedro Ximenes with a roasted pear in it.
Chispa (drinking.) – Ancient Baltasar amigo! You know how to cry wine and sell vinegar. – Moreover, your supper is like the hidalgo's dinner, very little meat, and a great deal of table-cloth.
Bal.– Ha! ha! ha!
Chispa.– And more noise than nuts.
Bal.– Ha! ha! ha! You must have your jest, Master Chispa. But shall not I ask Don Victorian in to take a draught of the Pedro Ximenes?
Chispa.– No; you might as well say, 'Don't you want some?' to a dead man.
Bal.– Why does he go so often to Madrid?
Chispa.– For the same reason that he eats no supper. He is in love. Were you ever in love, Baltasar?
Bal.– I was never out of it, good Chispa.
Chispa.– What! you on fire too, old haystack? Why, we shall never be able to put you out.
Vict. (without.) – Chispa!
Chispa.– Go to bed – the cocks are crowing."
This Chispa changes masters in course of the piece, and enters into the service of Don Carlos; but the change does not seem to have advanced his fortunes, for we find him thus moralising to himself at the close of the play —
"Alas! and alack-a-day! Poor was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither win nor lose. Thus I wag through the world half the time on foot, and the other half walking… And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox. Who knows what may happen? Patience, and shuffle the cards! I am not yet so bald that you can see my brains."
It would not be difficult to select other favourable specimens both of the graver and lighter manner of Mr Longfellow; but we must now proceed to the second name upon our list.
Mr Bryant is a poet who not unfrequently reminds us of Mrs Hemans. Perhaps we could not better, in a few words, convey our impression of his poetical status. His verse is generally pleasing – not often powerful. His good taste rarely deserts him; but he has neither very strong passions, nor those indications of profounder thought which constitute so much of the charm of modern poetry. For he who would take a high rank amongst our lyric poets should, at one time or other, have dwelt and thought with the philosophers. He should be seen as stepping from the Porch; he should have wandered, with his harp concealed beneath his robe, in the gardens of the Academy.
Short as Mr Bryant's poems generally are, they still want concentration of thought – energy – unity. In quoting from him, we should often be disposed to make omissions for the very sake of preserving a connection of ideas. The omission of several verses, even in a short poem, so far from occasioning what the doctors would call a "solution of continuity," would often assist in giving to the piece a greater distinctness, and unity of thought and purpose. This ought not to be.
Mr Bryant's poems, we believe, are by this time familiar to most readers of poetry; we must, therefore, be sparing of our quotations. In the few we make, we shall be anxious to give the most favourable specimens of his genius: the faults we have hinted at will sufficiently betray themselves without seeking for especial illustration of them. Our first extract shall be from some very elegant verses on a subject peculiarly American – "The Prairie." We quote the commencement and the conclusion. The last strikes us as singularly happy. Mr Bryant starts with rather an unfortunate expression; he calls the Prairie "the garden of the desert;" he rather meant "the garden-desert." He may describe the Prairie, if he pleases, as one green and blooming desert; but the garden of the desert implies a desert to which it belongs – would be an oasis, in short: —
THE PRAIRIES
"These are the gardens of the desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name —
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless forever. Motionless?
No! – they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with the shadows, and beneath
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along, and chase
The sunny ridges…
Still this great solitude is quick with life.
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,
And birds that scarce have learned the fear of man,
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground
Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,
A more adventurous colonist than man,
With whom he came across the Eastern deep,
Fills the savannas with his murmurings,
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,
Within the hollow oak. I listen long
To his domestic hum, and think I hear
The sound of that advancing multitude
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
Comes up the laugh
