by Thomas Moore
7 According to the cosmogony of the ancient Persians, there were four stars set as sentinels in the four quarters of the heavens, to watch over the other fixed stars, and superintend the planets in their course. The names of these four Sentinel stars are, according to the Boundesh, Taschter, for the east; Satevis, for the west; Venand, for the south; and Haftorang. for the north.
8 Chavah, or, as it is Arabic, Havah (the name by which Adam called the woman after their transgression), means “Life”.
9 Called by the Mussulmans Al Araf — a sort of wall or partition which, according to the 7th chapter of the Koran, separates hell from paradise, and where they, who have not merits sufficient to gain them immediate admittance into heaven, are supposed to stand for a certain period, alternately tantalized and tormented by the sights that are on either side presented to them.
10 I am aware that this happy saying of Lord Albemarle’s loses much of its grace and playfulness, by being put into the mouth of any but a human lover.
11 According to Whitehurst’s theory, the mention of rainbows by an antediluvian angel is an anachronism; as he says, “There was no rain before the flood, and consequently no rainbow, which accounts for the novelty of this sight after the Deluge.”
12 In acknowledging the authority of the great Prophets who had preceded him, Mahomet represented his own mission as the final “Seal,” or consummation of them all.
13 The Zodiacal Light.
14 Pococke, however, gives it as the opinion of the Mahometan doctors, that all souls, not only of men and of animals, living either on land or in the sea, but of angels also, must necessarily taste of death.
15 The Dove, or pigeon which attended Mahomet as his Familiar, and was frequently seen to whisper into his ear, was, if I recollect right, one of that select number of animals [including also the ant of Solomon, the dog of the Seven Sleepers, etc.] which were thought by the Prophet worthy of admission into Paradise.
16 “Mohammed [says Sale], though a prophet, was not able to bear the sight of Gabriel, when he appeared in his proper form, much less would others be able to support it.”
17 Seth is a favorite personage among the Orientals, and acts a conspicuous part in many of their most extravagant romances. The Syrians pretended to have a Testament of this Patriarch in their possession, in which was explained the whole theology of angels, their different orders, etc. The Curds, too (as Hyde mentions in his Appendix), have a book, which contains all the rites of their religion, and which they call Sohuph Sheit, or the Book of Seth.
18 The Seraphim, or Spirits of Divine Love.
19 An allusion to the Sephiroths or Splendors of the Jewish Cabala, represented as a tree, of which God is the crown or summit.
RHYMES ON THE ROAD.
EXTRACTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF A TRAVELLING MEMBER OF THE POCO-CURANTE SOCIETY,
1819.
The greater part of the following Rhymes were written or composed in an old calêche for the purpose of beguiling the ennui of solitary travelling; and as verses made by a gentleman in his sleep, have been lately called “a psychological curiosity,” it is to be hoped that verses, composed by a gentleman to keep himself awake, may be honored with some appellation equally Greek.
RHYMES ON THE ROAD
INTRODUCTORY RHYMES.
Different Attitudes in which Authors compose. — Bayes, Henry Stevens, Herodotus, etc. — Writing in Bed — in the Fields. — Plato and Sir Richard Blackmore. — Fiddling with Gloves and Twigs. — Madame de Staël. — Rhyming on the Road, in an old Calêche.
What various attitudes and ways
And tricks we authors have in writing!
While some write sitting, some like BAYES
Usually stand while they’re inditing,
Poets there are who wear the floor out,
Measuring a line at every stride;
While some like HENRY STEPHENS pour out
Rhymes by the dozen while they ride.
HERODOTUS wrote most in bed;
And RICHERAND, a French physician,
Declares the clock-work of the head
Goes best in that reclined position.
If you consult MONTAIGNE and PLINY on
The subject, ’tis their joint opinion
That Thought its richest harvest yields
Abroad among the woods and fields,
That bards who deal in small retail
At home may at their counters stop;
But that the grove, the hill, the vale,
Are Poesy’s true wholesale shop.
And verily I think they’re right —
For many a time on summer eves,
Just at that closing hour of light,
When, like an Eastern Prince, who leaves
For distant war his Haram bowers,
The Sun bids farewell to the flowers,
Whose heads are sunk, whose tears are flowing
Mid all the glory of his going! —
Even I have felt, beneath those beams,
When wandering thro’ the fields alone,
Thoughts, fancies, intellectual gleams,
Which, far too bright to be my own,
Seemed lent me by the Sunny Power
That was abroad at that still hour.
If thus I’ve felt, how must they feel,
The few whom genuine Genius warms,
Upon whose soul he stamps his seal,
Graven with Beauty’s countless forms; —
The few upon this earth, who seem
Born to give truth to PLATO’S dream,
Since in their thoughts, as in a glass,
Shadows of heavenly things appear.
Reflections of bright shapes that pass
Thro’ other worlds, above our sphere!
But this reminds me I digress; —
For PLATO, too, produced, ’tis said,
(As one indeed might almost guess),
His glorious visions all in bed.1
’Twas in his carriage the sublime
Sir RICHARD BLACKMORE used to rhyme;
And (if the wits dont do him wrong)
Twixt death and epics past his time,2
Scribbling and killing all day long —
Like Phoebus in his car, at ease,
Now warbling forth a lofty song,
Now murdering the young Niobes.
There was a hero ‘mong the Danes,
Who wrote, we’re told, mid all the pains
And horrors of exenteration,
Nine charming odes, which, if you’ll look,
You’ll find preserved with a translation
By BARTHOLINOS in his book.
In short ‘twere endless to recite
The various modes in which men write.
Some wits are only in the mind.
When beaus and belles are round them prating;
Some when they dress for dinner find
Their muse and valet both in waiting
And manage at the self-same time
To adjust a neckcloth and a rhyme.
Some bards there are who cannot scribble
Without a glove to tear or nibble
Or a small twig to whisk about —
As if the hidden founts of Fancy,
Like wells of old, were thus found out
By mystic trick of rhabdomancy.
Such was the little feathery wand,3
That, held for ever in the hand
Of her who won and wore the crown4
Of female genius in this age,
Seemed the conductor that drew down
Those words of lightning to her page.
As for myself — to come, at last,
To the odd way in which I write —
Having employ’d these few months past
Chiefly in travelling, day and night,
I’ve got into the easy mode
Of rhyming thus along the road —
Making a way-bill of my pages,
Counting my stanzas by my stages �
��
‘Twixt lays and re-lays no time lost —
In short, in two words, writing post.
1 The only authority I know for imputing this practice to Plato and Herodotus, is a Latin poem by M. de Valois on his Bed, in which he says: —
Lucifer Herodotum vidit Vesperque cubantem, desedit totos heic Plato saepe dies.
2 Sir Richard Blackmore was a physician, as well as a bad poet.
3 Made of paper, twisted up like a fan or feather.
4 Madame de Staël.
EXTRACT I.
Geneva.
View of the Lake of Geneva from the Jura.1 — Anxious to reach it before the Sun went down. — Obliged to proceed on Foot. — Alps. — Mont Blanc. — Effect of the Scene.
’Twas late — the sun had almost shone
His last and best when I ran on
Anxious to reach that splendid view
Before the daybeams quite withdrew
And feeling as all feel on first
Approaching scenes where, they are told,
Such glories on their eyes will burst
As youthful bards in dreams behold.
’Twas distant yet and as I ran
Full often was my wistful gaze
Turned to the sun who now began
To call in all his out-posts rays,
And form a denser march of light,
Such as beseems a hero’s flight.
Oh, how I wisht for JOSHUA’S power,
To stay the brightness of that hour?
But no — the sun still less became,
Diminisht to a speck as splendid
And small as were those tongues of flame,
That on the Apostles’ heads descended!
’Twas at this instant — while there glowed
This last, intensest gleam of light —
Suddenly thro’ the opening road
The valley burst upon my sight!
That glorious valley with its Lake
And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,
Mighty and pure and fit to make
The ramparts of a Godhead’s dwelling.
I stood entranced — as Rabbins say
This whole assembled, gazing world
Will stand, upon that awful day,
When the Ark’s Light aloft unfurled
Among the opening clouds shall shine,
Divinity’s own radiant sign!
Mighty MONT BLANC, thou wert to me
That minute, with thy brow in heaven,
As sure a sign of Deity
As e’er to mortal gaze was given.
Nor ever, were I destined yet
To live my life twice o’er again,
Can I the deep-felt awe forget,
The dream, the trance that rapt me then!
’Twas all that consciousness of power
And life, beyond this mortal hour; —
Those mountings of the soul within
At thoughts of Heaven — as birds begin
By instinct in the cage to rise,
When near their time for change of skies; —
That proud assurance of our claim
To rank among the Sons of Light,
Mingled with shame — oh bitter shame! —
At having riskt that splendid right,
For aught that earth thro’ all its range
Of glories offers in exchange!
’Twas all this, at that instant brought
Like breaking sunshine o’er my thought —
’Twas all this, kindled to a glow
Of sacred zeal which could it shine
Thus purely ever man might grow,
Even upon earth a thing divine,
And be once more the creature made
To walk unstained the Elysian shade!
No, never shall I lose the trace
Of what I’ve felt in this bright place.
And should my spirit’s hope grow weak,
Should I, oh God! e’er doubt thy power,
This mighty scene again I’ll seek,
At the same calm and glowing hour,
And here at the sublimest shrine
That Nature ever reared to Thee
Rekindle all that hope divine
And feel my immortality!
1 Between Vattay and Gex.
EXTRACT II.
Geneva.
FATE OF GENEVA IN THE YEAR 1782.
A FRAGMENT.
Yes — if there yet live some of those,
Who, when this small Republic rose,
Quick as a startled hive of bees,
Against her leaguering enemies — 1
When, as the Royal Satrap shook
His well-known fetters at her gates,
Even wives and mothers armed and took
Their stations by their sons and mates;
And on these walls there stood — yet, no,
Shame to the traitors — would have stood
As firm a band as e’er let flow
At Freedom’s base their sacred blood;
If those yet live, who on that night
When all were watching, girt for fight,
Stole like the creeping of a pest
From rank to rank, from breast to breast,
Filling the weak, the old with fears,
Turning the heroine’s zeal to tears, —
Betraying Honor to that brink,
Where, one step more, and he must sink —
And quenching hopes which tho’ the last,
Like meteors on a drowning mast,
Would yet have led to death more bright,
Than life e’er lookt, in all its light!
Till soon, too soon, distrust, alarms
Throughout the embattled thousands ran,
And the high spirit, late in arms,
The zeal that might have workt such charms,
Fell like a broken talisman —
Their gates, that they had sworn should be
The gates of Death, that very dawn,
Gave passage widely, bloodlessly,
To the proud foe — nor sword was drawn,
Nor even one martyred body cast
To stain their footsteps, as they past;
But of the many sworn at night
To do or die, some fled the sight,
Some stood to look with sullen frown,
While some in impotent despair
Broke their bright armor and lay down,
Weeping, upon the fragments there! —
If those, I say, who brought that shame,
That blast upon GENEVA’S name
Be living still — tho’ crime so dark
Shall hang up, fixt and unforgiven,
In History’s page, the eternal mark
For Scorn to pierce — so help me, Heaven,
I wish the traitorous slaves no worse,
No deeper, deadlier disaster
From all earth’s ills no fouler curse
Than to have * * * * * * * * * * * their master!
1 In the year 1782, when the forces of Berne, Sardinia, and France laid siege to Geneva, and when, after a demonstration of heroism and self-devotion, which promised to rival the feats of their ancestors in 1602 against Savoy, the Genevans, either panic-struck or betrayed, to the surprise of all Europe, opened their gates to the besiegers, and submitted without a struggle to the extinction of their liberties — See an account of this Revolution in Coxe’s Switzerland.
EXTRACT III.
Geneva.
Fancy and Truth — Hippomenes and Atalanta. Mont Blanc. — Clouds.
Even here in this region of wonders I find
That light-footed Fancy leaves Truth far behind;
Or at least like Hippomenes turns her astray
By the golden illusions he flings in her way.
What a glory it seemed the first evening I gazed!
MONT BLANC like a vision then suddenly raised
On the wreck of the sunset — and all his arr
ay
Of high-towering Alps, touched still with a light
Far holier, purer than that of the Day,
As if nearness to Heaven had made them so bright!
Then the dying at last of these splendors away
From peak after peak, till they left but a ray,
One roseate ray, that, too precious to fly,
O’er the Mighty of Mountains still glowingly hung,
Like the last sunny step of ASTRAEA, when high,
From the summit of earth to Elysium she sprung!
And those infinite Alps stretching out from the sight
Till they mingled with Heaven, now shorn of their light,
Stood lofty and lifeless and pale in the sky,
Like the ghosts of a Giant Creation gone by!
That scene — I have viewed it this evening again,
By the same brilliant light that hung over it then —
The valley, the lake in their tenderest charms —
MONT BLANC in his awfullest pomp — and the whole
A bright picture of Beauty, reclined in the arms
Of Sublimity, bridegroom elect of her soul!
But where are the mountains that round me at first
One dazzling horizon of miracles burst?
Those Alps beyond Alps, without end swelling on
Like the waves of eternity — where are they gone?
Clouds — clouds — they were nothing but clouds, after all!1
That chain of MONT BLANC’S, which my fancy flew o’er,
With a wonder that naught on this earth can recall,
Were but clouds of the evening and now are no more.
What a picture of Life’s young illusions! Oh, Night,
Drop thy curtain at once and hide all from my sight.
1 It is often very difficult to distinguish between clouds and Alps; and on the evening when I first saw this magnificent scene, the clouds were so disposed along the whole horizon, as to deceive me into an idea of the stupendous extent of these mountains, which my subsequent observation was very far, of course, from confirming.
EXTRACT IV.
Milan.
The Picture Gallery. — Albano’s Rape of Proserpine. — Reflections. — Universal Salvation. — Abraham sending away Agar, by Guercino. — Genius.
Went to the Brera — saw a Dance of Loves
By smooth ALBANO! him whose pencil teems
