Angelic power and dignity and grace
Were in his glorious pennons; from the neck
Down to the ankle reach'd their swelling web,
Richer than robes of Tyrian dye, that deck
Imperial Majesty:
Their colour like the winter's moonless sky
When all the stars of midnight's canopy
Shine forth; or like the azure deep at noon,
Reflecting back to heaven a brighter blue.
Such was their tint when clos'd, but when outspread,
The permeating light
Shed through their substance thin a varying hue;
Now bright as when the Rose,
Beauteous as fragrant, gives to scent and sight
A like delight; now like the juice that flows
From Douro's generous vine,
Or ruby when with deepest red it glows;
Or as the morning clouds refulgent shine
When, at forthcoming of the Lord of Day,
The Orient, like a shrine,
Kindles as it receives the rising ray,
And heralding his way,
Proclaims the presence of the power divine.
Thus glorious were the wings
Of that celestial Spirit, as he went
Disporting through his native element.
Nor these alone
The gorgeous beauties that they gave to view;
Through the broad membrane branch'd a pliant bone,
Spreading like fibres from their parent stem;
Its veins like interwoven silver shone,
Or as the chaster hue
Of pearls that grace some Sultan's diadem.
Now with slow stroke and strong, behold him smite
The buoyant air, and now in gentler flight,
On motionless wing expanded, shoot along.
Through air and sunshine sails the Ship of Heaven.
Far far beneath them lies
The gross and heavy atmosphere of earth;
And with the Swerga gales,
The Maid of mortal birth,
At every breath, a new delight inhales.
And now towards its port the Ship of Heaven,
Swift as a falling meteor, shapes its flight,
Yet gently as the dews of night that gem,
And do not bend the hare-bell's slenderest stem.
Daughter of Earth, Ereenia cried, alight,
This is thy place of rest, the Swerga this,
Lo, here my bower of bliss!
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.co.in/books/content?id=9TAOAAAAYAAJ&output=html_text&pg=RA3-PA323-IA40&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=editions:UOM49015003426369&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U1fNnCDMnUU1-04a_iq4jZMpdx1lQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=1,313,10,11)
the work immediately before us, a greater jumble of sublime nonsense never issued from any pen, or from any brain, in any hemisphere, or any age of the world. It cannot but serve to lower our high-flown fancies concerning Hindu poetry, and Hindu mythology, and in this respect may, perhaps, have a beneficial influence. The basis of the story is the birth, life, and adventures of Rama, who is an incarnation of the god Vishnu; who, in his early years, gave prodigious signs of that power which, in process of time, was to perform the most wonderful achievements. We have, however, a tiresome series of adventures before his coming upon the theatre of action; and the regular narration is afterwards strangely broken in a multitude of places, by a variety of episodes containing the adventures of other gods and heroes. We hail the work, however, imperfect and heterogeneous as are its materials; and we trust the plan will be rigorously persevered in, that the public at last may be enabled to form a due estimate of the value of Hindu literature.
"Ta Tsing Leu Lee: being the Fundamental Laws, and a Selection from the Supplementary Statutes of the Penal Code of China, &c. by Sir George Staunton, Bart." 4to. This is a still greater novelty than the preceding work: and is not only worthy of notice as containing a pretty full statement of the political, fiscal, ritual, military, and criminal law of the Chinese empire, but as constituting the first book that has ever been translated immediately out of the Chinese character into the English language. The original has been printed and published in Pekin, in various successive editions, under the sanction, and by the authority, of the several emperors of
the Ta Tsing, or present dynasty. It fails chiefly upon the subject of religion, upon which we still seem to be in a considerable degree of darkness: and it is truly extraordinary that Sir George Staunton, in a note subjoined to the first page of the division on the ceremonial law, candidly admits that he does not know whether the Chinese worship the deity as one individual being, or as compounded of various beings of different attributes and powers. The established religion, however, be it what it may, is vested solely in the state. The emperor himself is the high-priest, and his state officers are religious ministers. The sect of Fo and Taotse are merely tolerated, as the Christians are; and the priests of the two first are prohibited from imitating the imperial rites, under a penalty of eighty blows, and expulsion from their own order of priesthood.
"The Conquest of the Miao-tsé: an Imperial Poem, Kien Lung, entitled a Choral Song of Harmony for the first Part of the Spring. By Stephen Weston, F. R. S. &c." 8vo. We cannot pay the same compliments to this work as we have done to the preceding. We did not expect by any means, however, to have had to announce translations of two Chinese books in the course of a single year. We admire the patient toil with which Mr. Weston has plodded through the poem be fore us, if poem it may be called: but cannot avoid lamenting that his time and his talents should have been so woefully misbestowed. If this imperial poem present us with a fair specimen of Chinese taste for poetry, nothing is clearer than that these people are even worse poets than they are painters. The original poem is in rhyme, and in recitation, is intended to be sung in a kind
None hath seen its secret fountain;
But on the top of Meru mountain
Which rises o'er the hills of earth,
In light and clouds, it hath its mortal birth.
Earth seems that pinnacle to rear
Sublime above this wordly sphere,
Its cradle, and its altar, and its throne;
And there the new-born River lies
Outspread beneath its native skies,
As if it there would love to dwell
Alone and unapproachable.
Soon flowing forward, and resign'd
To the will of the Creating Mind,
It springs at once, with sudden leap,
Down from the immeasurable steep.
From rock to rock, with shivering force rebounding,
The mighty cataract rushes; Heaven around,
Like thunder, with the incessant roar resounding,
And Meru's summit shaking with the sound.
Wide spreads the snowy foam, the sparkling spray
Dances aloft; and ever there, at morning,
The earliest sun-beams haste to wing their way,
With rain-bow wreaths the holy flood adorning;
And duly the adoring Moon at night
Sheds her white glory there,
And in the watery air
Suspends her halo-crowns of silver light.
A mountain valley in its blessed breast
Receives the stream, which there delights to lie,
Untroubled and at rest,
Beneath the untainted sky.
There in a lovely lake it seems to sleep,
And thence, through many a channel dark and deep,
Their secret way the holy Waters wind,
Till, rising underneath the root
Of the Tree of Life on Hemakoot,
Majestic forth they flow to purify mankind.
Towards this Lake, above the nether sphere,
The living Bark, with angel eye,
Directs its course along the obedient sky.
Kehama hath not yet dominion here;
And till the dreaded hour,
When Indra by the Rajah shall be driven
Dethron'd from Heaven,
Here may Ladurlad rest beyond his power.
The living Bark alights; the Glendeveer
Then lays Ladurlad by the blessed Lake;
O happy Sire, and yet more happy Daughter!
The ethereal gales his agony aslake,
His daughters's tears are on his cheek,
His hand is in the water;
The innocent man, the man opprest,
Oh joy!-hath found a place of rest
Beyond Kehama's sway,
His Curse extends not here; his pains have past away.
Oh happy Sire, and happy Daughter!
Ye on the banks of that celestial water
Your resting place and sanctuary have found,
What! hath not then their mortal taint defil'd
The sacred solitary ground?
Vain thought! the Holy Valley smil'd
Receiving such a sire and child;
Ganges, who seem'd asleep to lie,
Beheld them with benignant eye,
And rippled round melodiously,
And roll'd her little waves, to meet
And welcome their beloved feet.
The gales of Swerga thither fled,
And heavenly odours there were shed
About, below, and overhead;
And Earth rejoicing in their tread,
Hath built them up a blooming Bower,
Where every amaranthine flower
Its deathless blossom interweaves
With bright and undecaying leaves.
Three happy beings are there here,
The Sire, the Maid, the Glendoveer!
A fourth approaches,-who is this
That enters in the Bower of Bliss?
No form so fair might painter find
Among the daughters of mankind;
For Death her beauties hath refin'd,
And unto her a form hath given
Fram'd of the elements of Heaven;
Pure dwelling-place for perfect mind,
She stood and gaz'd on sire and child;
Her tongue not yet had power to speak,
The tears were streaming down her cheek;
And when those tears her sight beguil'd,
And stiil her faltering accents fail'd,
The Spirit, mute and motionless,
Spread out her arms for the caress,
Made still and silent with excess
Of love and painful happiness.
The Maid that lovely form survey'd;
Wistful she gaz'd, and knew her not;
But Nature to her heart convey'd
A sudden thrill, a startling thought,
A feeling many a year forgot,
Now like a dream anew recurring,
As if again in every vein
Her mother's milk was stirring.
With straining neck and earnest eye
She stretch'd her hands imploringly,
As if she fain would have her nigh,
Yet fear'd to meet the wish'd embrace,
At once with love and awe opprest.
Not so, Ladurlad; he could trace,
Though brighten'd with angelic grace,
His own Yedillian's earthly face:
He ran and held it to his breast!
Oh joy above all joys of Heaven,
By Death alone to others given,
This moment hath to him restor'd
The early-lost, the long-deplor'd.
They sin who tell us Love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell;
Earthly these passions of the Earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceiv'd, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
Oh! when a Mother meets on high
The Babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight!
|