章节正文
But the latter view is espoused by most of the writers mentioned,
notably and nobly by Drake, the Haynes, the Laniers, Lee, Meek, and Thompson,
the poet-laureate of the mocking-bird, whose poems should be read
by every lover of nature and especially of the mocking-bird.
As Thompson's tributes are all too long for quotation, I give here Meek's,
in the hope that I may rescue it from the long oblivion of an out-of-print.
My attention was called to it by my friend, Dr. C. H. Ross,
to whom every reader will be indebted along with myself. It runs as follows:
"From the vale, what music ringing,
Fills the bosom of the night;
On the sense, entranced, flinging
Spells of witchery and delight!
O'er magnolia, lime and cedar,
From yon locust-top, it swells,
Like the chant of serenader,
Or the rhymes of silver bells!
Listen! dearest, listen to it!
Sweeter sounds were never heard!
'Tis the song of that wild poet --
Mime and minstrel -- Mocking-bird.
"See him, swinging in his glory,
On yon topmost bending limb!
Carolling his amorous story,
Like some wild crusader's hymn!
Now it faints in tones delicious
As the first low vow of love!
Now it bursts in swells capricious,
All the moonlit vale above!
Listen! dearest, etc.
"Why is't thus, this sylvan Petrarch
Pours all night his serenade?
'Tis for some proud woodland Laura,
His sad sonnets all are made!
But he changes now his measure --
Gladness bubbling from his mouth --
Jest and gibe, and mimic pleasure --
Winged Anacreon of the South!
Listen! dearest, etc.
"Bird of music, wit and gladness,
Troubadour of sunny climes,
Disenchanter of all sadness, --
Would thine art were in my rhymes.
O'er the heart that's beating by me,
I would weave a spell divine;
Is there aught she could deny me,
Drinking in such strains as thine?
Listen! dearest, etc."
As is well known, the mocking-bird is often called the American nightingale.
As to their relative merits as singers, here is the judgment of one
that has heard both birds, Professor James A. Harrison (`The Critic',
New York, 2. 284, December 13, 1884): "Well, it is my honest opinion
that philomel will not compare with the singer of the South
in sweetness, versatility, passion, or lyrical beauty. The mocking-bird
-- better the echo-bird, with a voice compounded of all sweet sounds,
as the blossom of the Chinese olive is compounded of all sweet scents --
is a pure lyrist; its throat is a lyre -- Aeolian, capricious, many-stringed;
as its name suggests, it is a polyglot mime, a bird linguist,
a feathered Mezzofanti singing all the bird languages; yet over and above
all this, with a something of its own that cannot be described."
The mocking-bird speaks for himself in Thompson's `To an English Nightingale':
"What do you think of me?
Do I sing by rote?
Or by note?
Have I a parrot's echo-throat?
Oh no! I caught my strains
From Nature's freshest veins.
. . . . .
"He
A match for me!
No more than a wren or a chickadee!
Mine is the voice of the young and strong,
Mine the soul of the brave and free!"
This self-appreciation is confirmed by the greatest authority on birds,
Audubon: "There is probably no bird in the world that possesses
all the musical qualifications of this king of song, who has derived all
from Nature's self. Yes, reader, all!"
It will be interesting and instructive to compare the tributes
to the mocking-bird with Keats's `Ode to a Nightingale',
Shelley's `To a Skylark', and Wordsworth's `To the Skylark'.
Aside from Audubon's `Birds of America' and Ridgway's
`Manual of North American Birds', the student may consult with profit
Burroughs's `Birds and Poets', Thompson's `In the Haunts of the Mocking-bird'
(`The Atlantic', 54. 620, November, 1884), various articles
by Olive Thorne Miller in `The Atlantic' (vol. 54 on), and Winterfield's
`The Mocking-bird, an Indian Legend' (`The American Whig Review',
New York, 1. 497, May, 1845).
14. Wilde compares the mocking-bird to Yorick and to Jacques;
Meek, to Petrarch; Lanier, to Keats, in `To Our Mocking-bird',
as does Wm. H. Hayne:
"Each golden note of music greets
The listening leaves divinely stirred,
As if the vanished soul of Keats
Had found its new birth in a bird."
Song of the Chattahoochee
Out of the hills of Habersham, [1]
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills of Habersham, [11]
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried `Abide, abide,'
The willful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said `Stay,'
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed `Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.'
High o'er the hills of Habersham, [21]
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, `Pass not, so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.'
And oft in the hills of Habersham, [31]
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone
-- Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst --
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
But oh, not the hills of Habersham, [41]
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call --
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.
____
1877.
Notes: Song of the Chattahoochee
The Chattahoochee River rises in Habersham County, in northeast Georgia,
and, intersecting Hall County, flows southwestward to West Point,
then southward until it unites with the Flint River
at the southwesternextremity of Georgia. The Chattahoochee
is about five hundred miles long, and small steamboats can ascend it
to Columbus, Ga. Hon. Henry R. Jackson, of Savannah, Ga.,
late Minister to Mexico, has an interesting poem `To the Chattahoochee River',
in his `Tallulah and Other Poems' (Savannah, Ga., 1850);
and Mr. M. V. Moore, in his poem, `Southern Rivers' (`Harper', 66. 464,
February, 1883), has a paragraph on the rivers of Georgia,
in which he speaks of "the sandy Chattahoochee".
In the `Introduction' (pp. xxxi [Part III], xliv, xlvii [Part IV])
I have spoken of this `Song' as Lanier's most finished nature poem,
as the most musical of his productions. "The music of a song
easily eludes all analysis and may be dissipated by a critic's breath,
but let us try to catch the means by which the effect is in part produced.
In five stanzas, of ten lines each, alliteration occurs in all
save twelve lines. In eleven of these twelve lines internal rhyme occurs,
sometimes joining the parts of a line, sometimes uniting successive lines.
Syzygy is used for the same purpose. Of the letters occurring in the poem
about one-fifth are liquids and about one-twelfth are sibilants.
The effect of the whole is musical beyond description.
It sings itself and yet nowhere sacrifices the thought" (Kent).
Another way to test the beauty of `The Song of the Chattahoochee'
is to compare it with other kindred poems. There are many stream-songs
in English, several of which are very pretty, but there is, I think,
but one rival to our `Song', and that is Tennyson's `The Brook'.
Even so careful a critic as Mr. Ward says that `The Song of the Chattahoochee'
"strikes a higher key, and is scarcely less musical." It will be instructive,
too, to compare Lanier's poem with Southey's `The Cataract of Lodore'
(see `Gates', p. 25), which exhibits considerabletalent, if not inspiration;
with P. H. Hayne's `The Meadow Brook', which is simple and sweet;
and with Wordsworth's `Brook! whose society the Poet seeks',
which is grave and elevated. Professor Kent suggests as interesting analogues
Poe's `Ulalume' and Buchanan Read's `Bay of Naples'; and, if the student
cares to extend his list, he should read the stream-songs by Bryant,
Mary Ainge De Vere (`Century', 21. 283, December, 1891),
Longfellow, Weir Mitchell (`Atlantic', 65. 629, May, 1890),
Clinton Scollard (`Lippincott', 50. 226, August, 1892), etc., etc.
The Revenge of Hamish
It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay; [1]
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.
Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;
In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern
She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.
Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go
Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;
And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,
For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, [11]
Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.
Then Alan the huntsmansprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,
The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvelous bound,
notably and nobly by Drake, the Haynes, the Laniers, Lee, Meek, and Thompson,
the poet-laureate of the mocking-bird, whose poems should be read
by every lover of nature and especially of the mocking-bird.
As Thompson's tributes are all too long for quotation, I give here Meek's,
in the hope that I may rescue it from the long oblivion of an out-of-print.
My attention was called to it by my friend, Dr. C. H. Ross,
to whom every reader will be indebted along with myself. It runs as follows:
"From the vale, what music ringing,
Fills the bosom of the night;
On the sense, entranced, flinging
Spells of witchery and delight!
O'er magnolia, lime and cedar,
From yon locust-top, it swells,
Like the chant of serenader,
Or the rhymes of silver bells!
Listen! dearest, listen to it!
Sweeter sounds were never heard!
'Tis the song of that wild poet --
Mime and minstrel -- Mocking-bird.
"See him, swinging in his glory,
On yon topmost bending limb!
Carolling his amorous story,
Like some wild crusader's hymn!
Now it faints in tones delicious
As the first low vow of love!
Now it bursts in swells capricious,
All the moonlit vale above!
Listen! dearest, etc.
"Why is't thus, this sylvan Petrarch
Pours all night his serenade?
'Tis for some proud woodland Laura,
His sad sonnets all are made!
But he changes now his measure --
Gladness bubbling from his mouth --
Jest and gibe, and mimic pleasure --
Winged Anacreon of the South!
Listen! dearest, etc.
"Bird of music, wit and gladness,
Troubadour of sunny climes,
Disenchanter of all sadness, --
Would thine art were in my rhymes.
O'er the heart that's beating by me,
I would weave a spell divine;
Is there aught she could deny me,
Drinking in such strains as thine?
Listen! dearest, etc."
As is well known, the mocking-bird is often called the American nightingale.
As to their relative merits as singers, here is the judgment of one
that has heard both birds, Professor James A. Harrison (`The Critic',
New York, 2. 284, December 13, 1884): "Well, it is my honest opinion
that philomel will not compare with the singer of the South
in sweetness, versatility, passion, or lyrical beauty. The mocking-bird
-- better the echo-bird, with a voice compounded of all sweet sounds,
as the blossom of the Chinese olive is compounded of all sweet scents --
is a pure lyrist; its throat is a lyre -- Aeolian, capricious, many-stringed;
as its name suggests, it is a polyglot mime, a bird linguist,
a feathered Mezzofanti singing all the bird languages; yet over and above
all this, with a something of its own that cannot be described."
The mocking-bird speaks for himself in Thompson's `To an English Nightingale':
"What do you think of me?
Do I sing by rote?
Or by note?
Have I a parrot's echo-throat?
Oh no! I caught my strains
From Nature's freshest veins.
. . . . .
"He
A match for me!
No more than a wren or a chickadee!
Mine is the voice of the young and strong,
Mine the soul of the brave and free!"
This self-appreciation is confirmed by the greatest authority on birds,
Audubon: "There is probably no bird in the world that possesses
all the musical qualifications of this king of song, who has derived all
from Nature's self. Yes, reader, all!"
It will be interesting and instructive to compare the tributes
to the mocking-bird with Keats's `Ode to a Nightingale',
Shelley's `To a Skylark', and Wordsworth's `To the Skylark'.
Aside from Audubon's `Birds of America' and Ridgway's
`Manual of North American Birds', the student may consult with profit
Burroughs's `Birds and Poets', Thompson's `In the Haunts of the Mocking-bird'
(`The Atlantic', 54. 620, November, 1884), various articles
by Olive Thorne Miller in `The Atlantic' (vol. 54 on), and Winterfield's
`The Mocking-bird, an Indian Legend' (`The American Whig Review',
New York, 1. 497, May, 1845).
14. Wilde compares the mocking-bird to Yorick and to Jacques;
Meek, to Petrarch; Lanier, to Keats, in `To Our Mocking-bird',
as does Wm. H. Hayne:
"Each golden note of music greets
The listening leaves divinely stirred,
As if the vanished soul of Keats
Had found its new birth in a bird."
Song of the Chattahoochee
Out of the hills of Habersham, [1]
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills of Habersham, [11]
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried `Abide, abide,'
The willful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said `Stay,'
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed `Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.'
High o'er the hills of Habersham, [21]
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, `Pass not, so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.'
And oft in the hills of Habersham, [31]
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone
-- Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst --
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
But oh, not the hills of Habersham, [41]
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call --
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.
____
1877.
Notes: Song of the Chattahoochee
The Chattahoochee River rises in Habersham County, in northeast Georgia,
and, intersecting Hall County, flows southwestward to West Point,
then southward until it unites with the Flint River
at the southwesternextremity of Georgia. The Chattahoochee
is about five hundred miles long, and small steamboats can ascend it
to Columbus, Ga. Hon. Henry R. Jackson, of Savannah, Ga.,
late Minister to Mexico, has an interesting poem `To the Chattahoochee River',
in his `Tallulah and Other Poems' (Savannah, Ga., 1850);
and Mr. M. V. Moore, in his poem, `Southern Rivers' (`Harper', 66. 464,
February, 1883), has a paragraph on the rivers of Georgia,
in which he speaks of "the sandy Chattahoochee".
In the `Introduction' (pp. xxxi [Part III], xliv, xlvii [Part IV])
I have spoken of this `Song' as Lanier's most finished nature poem,
as the most musical of his productions. "The music of a song
easily eludes all analysis and may be dissipated by a critic's breath,
but let us try to catch the means by which the effect is in part produced.
In five stanzas, of ten lines each, alliteration occurs in all
save twelve lines. In eleven of these twelve lines internal rhyme occurs,
sometimes joining the parts of a line, sometimes uniting successive lines.
Syzygy is used for the same purpose. Of the letters occurring in the poem
about one-fifth are liquids and about one-twelfth are sibilants.
The effect of the whole is musical beyond description.
It sings itself and yet nowhere sacrifices the thought" (Kent).
Another way to test the beauty of `The Song of the Chattahoochee'
is to compare it with other kindred poems. There are many stream-songs
in English, several of which are very pretty, but there is, I think,
but one rival to our `Song', and that is Tennyson's `The Brook'.
Even so careful a critic as Mr. Ward says that `The Song of the Chattahoochee'
"strikes a higher key, and is scarcely less musical." It will be instructive,
too, to compare Lanier's poem with Southey's `The Cataract of Lodore'
(see `Gates', p. 25), which exhibits considerabletalent, if not inspiration;
with P. H. Hayne's `The Meadow Brook', which is simple and sweet;
and with Wordsworth's `Brook! whose society the Poet seeks',
which is grave and elevated. Professor Kent suggests as interesting analogues
Poe's `Ulalume' and Buchanan Read's `Bay of Naples'; and, if the student
cares to extend his list, he should read the stream-songs by Bryant,
Mary Ainge De Vere (`Century', 21. 283, December, 1891),
Longfellow, Weir Mitchell (`Atlantic', 65. 629, May, 1890),
Clinton Scollard (`Lippincott', 50. 226, August, 1892), etc., etc.
The Revenge of Hamish
It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay; [1]
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.
Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;
In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern
She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.
Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go
Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;
And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,
For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, [11]
Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.
Then Alan the huntsmansprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,
The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvelous bound,
- rescue [´reskju:]
vt.&n.救援；挽救 (初中英语单词) - measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- relative [´relətiv] a.有关系的 n.亲属 (初中英语单词)
- singer [´siŋə] n.歌手，演唱者 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- blossom [´blɔsəm] n.花；开花期 vi.开花 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- feathered [´feðəd] a.有羽毛的；羽状的 (初中英语单词)
- musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
- instructive [in´strʌktiv] a.有益的 (初中英语单词)
- consult [kən´sʌlt] v.商量；磋商；请教 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- attain [ə´tein] v.取得；到达；成为 (初中英语单词)
- ascend [ə´send] v.登；上升；追溯 (初中英语单词)
- columbus [kə´lʌmbəs] n.哥伦布 (初中英语单词)
- minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
- mexico [´meksikəu] n.墨西哥 (初中英语单词)
- paragraph [´pærəgrɑ:f] n.段；节 vt.将...分段 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- analysis [ə´næləsis] n.分解；分析(结果) (初中英语单词)
- critic [´kritik] n.批评家；吹毛求疵者 (初中英语单词)
- considerable [kən´sidərəbəl] a.重要的；值得重视 (初中英语单词)
- talent [´tælənt] n.天才；才干；天资 (初中英语单词)
- meadow [´medəu] n.草地；牧场 (初中英语单词)
- revenge [ri´vendʒ] vt.报复 n.报仇；报复 (初中英语单词)
- velvet [´velvit] n.&a.天鹅绒(般的) (初中英语单词)
- breeze [bri:z] n.微风；不费力的事 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- marvelous [´mɑ:viləs] (=marvellous) a.奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- quotation [kwəu´teiʃən] n.引用；引文；语录 (高中英语单词)
- minstrel [´minstrəl] n.吟游诗人；音乐家 (高中英语单词)
- woodland [´wudlənd] n.树林，林地 (高中英语单词)
- sadness [´sædnis] n.悲哀；悲痛；凄惨 (高中英语单词)
- sweetness [´swi:tnis] n.甜蜜；芳香；亲切 (高中英语单词)
- laurel [´lɔrəl] n.月桂树(叶)；桂冠 (高中英语单词)
- shadowy [´ʃædəui] a.有阴影的；模糊的 (高中英语单词)
- chestnut [´tʃesnʌt] n.栗子；栗树；栗色(马) (高中英语单词)
- quartz [kwɔ:ts] n.石英 (高中英语单词)
- northeast [,nɔ:θ´i:st] n.东北 a.东北的 (高中英语单词)
- southward [´sauθwəd] a.&n.向南方向(的) (高中英语单词)
- extremity [ik´stremiti] n.末端；危机 (高中英语单词)
- georgia [´dʒɔ:dʒjə] n.乔治亚 (高中英语单词)
- internal [in´tə:nl] a.内部的；国内的 (高中英语单词)
- successive [sək´sesiv] a.相继的；接连的 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- kindred [´kindrid] n.亲属关系；同源关系 (高中英语单词)
- nostril [´nɔstril] n.鼻孔 (高中英语单词)
- miller [´milə] n.磨坊主；铣床(工) (英语四级单词)
- poplar [´pɔplə] n.白杨；杨木 (英语四级单词)
- walnut [´wɔ:lnʌt] n.胡桃(树，木) (英语四级单词)
- luminous [´lu:minəs] a.发光的；明晰的 (英语四级单词)
- myriad [´miriəd] n.极大数量 a.无数的 (英语四级单词)
- cataract [´kætərækt] n.大瀑布；白内障 (英语四级单词)
- sinister [´sinistə] a.阴险的；不吉的 (英语四级单词)
- huntsman [´hʌntsmən] n.猎人；管理猎犬的人 (英语四级单词)
- oblivion [ə´bliviən] n.(被)忘却；漠视 (英语六级单词)
- indebted [in´detid] a.负债的；感恩的 (英语六级单词)
- moonlit [´mu:n,lit] a.月光普照的 (英语六级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
- willful [´wilfəl] a.任性的，固执的 (英语六级单词)
- hickory [´hikəri] n.山核桃(属) (英语六级单词)
- lordly [´lɔ:dli] a.高贵的；高傲的 (英语六级单词)
- southwestern [,sauθ´westən] a.西南的 (英语六级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
- lazily [´leizili] ad.懒惰地，慢吞吞地 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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