Note 55 — THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE (continued 4)
Reading edition
.sp 1
‘How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair
Walk’d forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share,
On thy romantic banks, have my wild strains
(Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale,
Filled up the pause of love’s delightful tale!
While, ever as she read, the conscious maid,
By faultering voice and downcast looks betray’d,
Would blushing on her lover’s neck recline,
And with her finger—point the tenderest line!’
Mæviad, pp. 194, 202.
Yet the author assures us just before, that in these ‘wild strains’ ‘all was plain.’
‘Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways)
No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays,
No oaths, no execrations; all was plain;
Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train
Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art,
And shock the reason and revolt the heart;
My hopes and fears, in nature’s language drest,
Awakened love in many a gentle breast.’
Ibid., v. 185–92.
If any one else had composed these ‘wild strains,’ in which ‘all is plain,’ Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things. ‘1. Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;’ and proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way. As it is, he is thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of tenderness, and ‘gasps at the recollection’ ‘of watery Aquarius!’ he! jam satis est! ‘Why rack a grub—a butterfly upon a wheel?‘