Ah! who could deem that foot of Indian crew
Was near? — Yet there, with lust of murd'rous deeds,
Gleam'd like a basilisk, from woods in view,
The ambush'd foeman's eye — his volley speeds !

And Albert - Albert — falls! the dear old father bleeds ! “And tranc'd in giddy horror Gertrude swoon'd!

Yet, while she clasps him lifeless to her zone,
Say, burst they, borrow'd from her father's wound,
Those drops ? — O God! the life-blood is her own!
And falt'ring, on her Waldegrave's bosom thrown
• Weep not, O Love !'— she cries, “to see me bleed -
Thee, Gertrude's sad survivor, thee alone -
Heaven's peace commiserate! for scarce I heed
These wounds! — Yet thee to leave is death, is death indeed.
Clasp me a little longer, on the brink
Of fate! while I can feel thy dear caress ;
And, when this heart hath ceas'd to beat - oh! think,
And let it mitigate thy woe's excess,
That thou hast been to me all tenderness,
And friend to more than human friendship just.
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,
And by the hopes of an immortal trust,
God shall assuage thy pangs

when I am laid in dust! “Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart!

The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move,
Where

my

dear father took thee to his heart,
And Gertrude thought it ecstasy to rove
With thee, as with an angel, through the grove
Of peace — imagining her lot was cast
In heav'n! for ours was not like earthly love!
And must this parting be our very last ?

No! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past. " Half could I bear, methinks, to leave this earth

And thee, more lov'd than aught beneath the sun!
Could I have liv'd to smile but on the birth
Of one dear pledge!— But shall there then be none,
In future times no gentle little one,
To clasp thy neck, and look, resembling me!
Yet seems it, ev’n while life's last pulses run,
A sweetness in the cup of death to be,

Lord of my bosom's love! to die beholding thee !'
“ Hush'd were his Gertrude's lips ! but still their bland

And beautiful expression seem'd to melt
With love that could not die! and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more that felt.
Ah heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair !"— p. 64–68.

192

CAMPBELL'S GERTRUDE

THE DEATH SONG.

The funeral is hurried over with pathetic brevity; and the desolated and all-enduring Indian brought in again with peculiar beauty.

Touch'd by the music, and the melting scene,
Was scarce one tearless eye amidst the crowd :
Stern warriors, resting on their swords, were seen
To veil their eyes, as pass'd each much-lov'd shroud
While woman's softer soul in woe dissolv'd aloud.

" Then mournfully the parting bugle bid

Its farewell o'er the grave of worth and truth.
Prone to the dust, afflicted Waldegrave hid
His face on earth! — Him watch'd in gloomy ruth,
His woodland guide; but words had none to sooth
The grief that knew not consolation's name !
Casting his Indian mantle o'er the youth,
He watch'd beneath its folds, each burst that came
Convulsive, ague-like, across his shuddering frame !"-p. 69.

!

After some time spent in this mute and awful pause, this stern and heart-struck comforter breaks out into the following touching and energetic address, with which the poem closes, with great spirit and abruptness :

" And I could weep;'— th' Oneyda chief
·
His descant wildly thus began;

But that I may not stain with grief
The death-song of my father's son!
Or bow his head in woe;
For by my wrongs, and by my wrath!
To-morrow Areouski's breath
(That fires yon heaven with storms of death)
Shall light us to the foe:
And we shall share, my Christian boy !

The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy!--
“. But thee, my flow'r! whose breath was giv'n

By milder genii o'er the deep,
The spirits of the white man's heav'n
Forbid not thee to weep!
Nor will the Christian host,
Nor will thy father's spirit grieve
To see thee, on the battle's eve,
Lamenting take a mournful leave
Of her who lov'd thee most:
She was the rainbow to thy sight!
Thy sun — thy heav'n — of lost delight!

GENERAL ESTIMATE.

193

"To-morrow let us do or die !

But when the bolt of death is hurl'd,
Ah! whither then with thee to fly,
Shall Outalissi roam the world?
Seek we thy once-lov'd home? –
The hand is gone that cropt its flowers !
Unheard their clock repeats its hours !
Cold is the hearth within their bow'rs!
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes, and its empty tread,
Would sound like voices from the dead !

6

“ • But hark, the trump! to-morrow thou

In glory's fires shalt dry thy tears :
Ev'n from the land of shadows now
My father's awful ghost appears,
Amidst the clouds that round us roll!
He bids my soul for battle thirst —
He bids me dry the last — the first-
The only tears that ever burst
From Outalissi's soul!
Because I may not stain with grief

The death-song of an Indian chief!'"- p. 70—73. It is needless, after these extracts, to enlarge upon the beauties of this poem. They consist chiefly in the feeling and tenderness of the whole delineation, and the taste and delicacy with which all the subordinate parts are made to contribute to the general effect. Before dismissing it, however, we must say a little of its faults, which are sufficiently obvious and undeniable. In the first place, the narrative is extremely obscure and imperfect; and has greater blanks in it than could be tolerated even in lyric poetry. We hear absolutely nothing of Henry, from the day the Indian first brings him from the back country, till he returns from Europe fifteen years thereafter. It is likewise a great oversight in Mr. Campbell to separate his lovers, when only twelve years of age — a period at which it is utterly inconceiv

able that any permanent attachment could have been formed. The greatest fault, however, of the work, is the occasional constraint and obscurity of the diction, proceeding apparently from too laborious an effort at emphasis or condensation. The metal seems in several places to have been so much overworked, as to have lost

VOL. II.

194

CAMPBELL'S GERTRUDE

not only its ductility, but its lustre; and, while there are passages which can scarcely be at all understood after the most careful consideration, there are others which have an air so elaborate and artificial, as to destroy all appearance of nature in the sentiment. Our readers may have remarked something of this sort, in the first extracts with which we have presented them ; but there are specimens still more exceptionable. In order to inform us that Albert had lost his wife, Mr. Campbell is pleased to say, that

“ Fate had reft his mutual heart;" and in order to tell us something else — though what, we are utterly unable to conjecture — he concludes a stanza on the delights of mutual love, with these three lines :

“ Roll on, ye days of raptur'd influence, shine !

Nor, blind with ecstasy's celestial fire,

Shall love behold the spark of earth-born time expire !'” The whole twenty-second stanza of the first part is extremely incorrect; and the three concluding lines are almost unintelligible.

“. But where was I when Waldegrave was no more ?
And thou didst pale thy gentle head extend,

In woes, that ev'n the tribe of deserts was thy friend !"" If Mr. Campbell had duly considered the primary necessity of perspicuity — especially in compositions which aim only at pleasing — we are persuaded that he would never have left these and some other passages in so very questionable a state. There is still a good deal for him to do, indeed, in a new edition: and working — as he must work — in the true spirit and pattern of what is before him, we hope he will yet be induced to make considerable additions to a work, which will please those most who are most worthy to be pleased; and always seem most beautiful to those who give it the greatest share of their attention.

Of the smaller pieces which fill up the volume, we have scarce left ourselves room to say any thing. The greater part of them have been printed before ; and

there are probably few readers of English poetry who are not already familiar with the Lochiel and the Hohinlinden — the one by far the most spirited and poetical denunciation of coming woe, since the days of Cassandra ; the other the only representation of a modern battle, which possesses either interest or sublimity. The song to " the Mariners of England,” is also very generally known. It is a splendid instance of the most magnificent diction adapted to a familiar and even trivial metre. Nothing can be finer than the first and the last stanzas.

“Ye mariners of England !

That guard our native seas ;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle, and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep," &c.-p. 101.
“ The meteor flag of England

Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors !
Our
song

and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceas d to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,

And the storm has ceas'd to blow.”—p. 103, 104. “ The Battle of the Baltic,” though we think it has been printed before, is much less known. Though written in a strange, and we think an unfortunate metre, it has great force and grandeur, both of conception and expression — that sort of force and grandeur which results from the simple and concise expression of great events and natural emotions, altogether unassisted by any splendour or amplification of expression. The characteristic merit, indeed, both of this piece and of Hohinlinden, is, that, by the forcible delineation of one or two great circumstances, they give a clear and most energetic representation of events as complicated as they are impressive — and thus impress the mind of the reader with all the terror and sublimity of the subject, while they rescue him from the fatigue and perplexity of its