Part 3 — HEADS OF THE POETS.

——Chaucer's healthy Muse, Did wisely one sweet instrument to choose— The native reed; which, tutored with rare skill, Brought other Muses [1] down to aid its trill! A cheerful song that sometimes quaintly masked The fancy, as the affections sweetly tasked; And won from England's proud and foreign [2] court, For native England's tongue, a sweet report— And sympathy—till in due time it grew A permanent voice that proved itself the true, And rescued the brave language of the land, From that [3] which helped to strength the invader's hand. Thus, with great patriot service, making clear The way to other virtues quite as dear In English liberty—which could grow alone, When English speech grew pleasant to be known; To spell the ears of princes, and to make The peasant worthy for his poet's sake.

——'T were hard to say, Upon what instrument did Shakspeare play— Still harder what he did not! He had all The orchestra at service, and could call To use, still other implements, unknown, Or only valued in his hands alone! The Lyre, whose burning inspiration came Still darting upward, sudden as the flame; The murmuring wind-harp, whose melodious sighs Seem still from hopefullest heart of love to rise, And gladden even while grieving; the wild strain That night-winds wake from reeds that breathe in pain, Though breathing still in music; and that voice, Which most he did affect—whose happy choice Made sweet flute-accents for humanity Out of that living heart which cannot die, The Catholic, born of love, that still controls While man is man, the tide in human souls.

——His universal song Who sung by Avon, and with purpose strong Compelled a voice from native oracles, That still survive their altars by their spells— Guarding with might each avenue to fame, Where, trophied over all, glows Shakspeare's name! The mighty master-hand in his we trace, If erring often, never commonplace; Forever frank and cheerful, even when wo Commands the tear to speak, the sigh to flow; Sweet without weakness, without storming, strong, Jest not o'erstrained, nor argument too long; Still true to reason, though intent on sport, His wit ne'er drives his wisdom out of court; A brooklet now, a noble stream anon, Careering in the meadows and the sun; A mighty ocean next, deep, far and wide, Earth, life and Heaven, all imaged in its tide! Oh! when the master bends him to his art, How the mind follows, how vibrates the heart; The mighty grief o'ercomes us as we hear, And the soul hurries, hungering, to the ear; The willing nature, yielding as he sings, Unfolds her secret and bestows her wings, Glad of that best interpreter, whose skill Brings hosts to worship at her sacred hill!

It was for Spenser, by his quaint device To spiritualize the passionate, and subdue The wild, coarse temper of the British Muse, By meet diversion from the absolute: To lift the fancy, and, where still the song Proclaimed a wild humanity, to sway Soothingly soft, and by fantastic wiles Persuade the passions to a milder clime! His was the song of chivalry, and wrought For like results upon society; Artful in high degree, with plan obscure, That mystified to lure, and, by its spells, Making the heart forgetful of itself To follow out and trace its labyrinths, In that forgetfulness made visible! Such were the uses of his Muse; to say How proper and how exquisite his lay, How quaintly rich his masking—with what art He fashioned fairy realms and paints their queen, How purely—with how delicate a skill— It needs not, since his song is with us still!

The master of a single instrument, But that the Cathedral Organ; Milton sings With drooping spheres about him, and his eye Fixed steadily upward, through its mortal cloud, Seeing the glories of Eternity! The sense of the invisible and true Still present to his soul, and in his song; The consciousness of duration through all time, Of work in each condition, and of hopes Ineffable, that well sustain through life, Encouraging through danger and in death, Cheering, as with a promise rich in wings! A godlike voice that, through cathedral towers Still rolls, prolonged in echoes, whose deep tones Seem born of thunder, that subdued to music Soothe when they startle most! A Prophet Bard, With utt'rance equal to his mission of power, And harmonies that, not unworthy heaven, Might well lift earth to equal worthiness.

——Not forgotten or denied, Scott's trumpet-lay, and Burns's violin-song; The one a call to arms, of action fond; The other, still discoursing to the heart— The lowly human heart—of loves and joys— Such as beseem the cotter's calm fireside— Cheerful and buoyant still amid a sadness— Such sadness as still couples love with care!

——For Byron's home and fame, It needed manhood only! Had he known How sorrow should be borne, nor sunk in shame, For that his destiny decreed to moan— His Muse had been triumphant over Time As still she is o'er Passion; still sublime— Having subdued her soul's infirmity To aliment; and, with herself o'ercome, O'ercome the barriers of Eternity, And lived through all the ages, with a sway Complete, and unembarrassed by the doom That makes of Nature's porcelain, common clay!

——As one who had been brought, By Fairy hands, and as a changeling left In human cradle, the sad substitute For a more smiling infant—Shelly sings Vague minstrelsies that speak a foreign birth, Among erratic tribes; yet not in vain His moral, and the fancies in his flight Not without profit for another race! He left his spirit with his voice—a voice Solely spiritual, which will long suffice To wing the otherwise earthy of the time, And, with the subtler leaven of the soul, Inform the impetuous passions! With him came Antagonist, yet still with sympathy, Wordsworth, the Bard of the contemplative, A voice of purest thought in sweetest music! —These, in themselves unlike, together linked, Appear in unison in after days, Making progressive still, the mental births, That pass successively through rings of time, Each to a several conquest; most unlike That of its sire, yet borrowing of its strength, Where needful, and endowing it with new, To meet the new necessity which still Haunts the free progress of each conquering race. —Thus, Tennyson and Barrett, Browning, Horne, Blend their opposing faculties, and speak For that fresh nature, which in daily things Beholds the immortal, and from common forms Extorts the Eternal still! So Baily sings In Festus; so, upon a humbler rank, Testing the worth of social policies, As working through a single human will, The Muse of Taylor argues—Artevelde, Being the man who marks a popular growth, And notes the transit of a thought through time, Growing as still it speeds..... Exquisite The ballads of Campbell, and the lays of Moore, Appealing to our tastes, our gentler moods, The play of the affections, or the thoughts That come with national pride; and as we pause In our own march, delight the sentiment! But nothing they make for progress. They perfect The language, and diversify its powers— Please and beguile, and, for the forms of art, Prove what they are, and may be. But they lift None of our standards; help us not in growth; Compel no prosecution of our search, And leave us, where they found us—with the time!