Songs Essay

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

[Costello, Louisa Stuart]

Songs of a Stranger. London: Published for the Author. London: by Talor and Hessey, 1825. Vol. 1, ix + 158pp.

NOTE: For an electronic version of the text of Songs of a Stranger, click here.

Descriptive Essay

The title page for Louisa Stuart Costello's, Songs of a Stranger, opens with a quote from William Shakespeare:
                                        I do but dream.
          Like one that stands upon a promontory
          And spies a far off shore which her would reach,
          Wishing his foot were equal with his eye. (1)
Shakespeare was not noted as one of Costello's particularly influential predecssors; however, quoting Shakespeare might suggest she is an admirer of his work. Costello (1799-1870) dedicated her Songs of a Stranger to the Reverend William Lisle Bowles, stating: "These poems, are dedicated, as a tribute of gratitude and sincere esteem" (2). Bowles is noted as one of the many influences upon Costello, and the dedication to him suggests the two shared a close and enjoyable friendship, or at the very least that the younger poet admired his work a great deal. In 1789 Bowles published Fourteen Sonnets, "which did much to revive the important poetic form and also influence the longer Romantic poems of meditative description of a natural scene" (Hide).

Songs of a Stranger consists of over eighty short poems, ranging over one-hundred and forty pages. "Out of eighty-two poems, thirty-five are set in non-European locations including South America, the Arctic, Japan, Russia, and America" (Hide). Costello was well-known throughout her life for her travel writing. It is evident that her passion for travel is very influential to her poetry in Songs of a Stranger. Costello's most famous travel writing came from her stories of England and France; however, unlike early romantic poets Costello takes her readers outside common English settings, and into a more unique environment.

In the poem, "Memory," Costello incorporates various settings of nature into one poem:
          The high grass waves, with varied hues
          Of wild flower glowing 'mid the green;
          The woods have caught a deeper shade,
          And darkly skirt the distant scene. (46)

          I cannot smile, though all the scene
          Is gay in Nature's bright guise;
          I think on hours that once have been,
          And clouds o'er all the landscape rise. (47)
Within the first stanza, Costello compares the "tall grass" to "waves," suggesting to her audience that the setting is in a countryside or pasture with open and untouched fields, since the grass is tall with growing wild flowers. Moving on within the same stanza, Costello paints another picture of a dark forest or "woods." Continuing on in the forth stanza, the narrator states that clouds are rising over the landscape (47). The audience is not told clearly which specific landscape is clouded, which may suggest a generalized view of Nature taken as a whole.

Costello's place-oriented poems all feature an impassioned speaker in a specific location: "The Hunter of Uruguay to his Love," "The Destroying Spirit," "Night, on the Sea-shore," "His Indian Love to Diogo Alvarez," "Medjnoon in his Solitude," "November Fifth," "Memory," "The Indian Cupid," "The Traveller in Africa," "The Adieu," "Written at B—," "Sung by the Wife of a Japanese," "Lament of an Ashantee Warrior," "Complaint of Amanieu," "The Return of the Indians," "The Wanderers in the Polar Sea," "Chaucer's Tale of the Falcon," "Lines written in November, at Bremhill," and "Colabah, the Camel-Seeker." It is interesting to note that the majority of these poems, and many of Costello's other "Songs" as well, feature a male speaker.

Several of the poems in Costello's Songs of a Stranger were set to music at the time by composers named J. Beale and J. Linley. These poems can be identified because the title of the poem is replaced by the word "Song," within the text. The original title can be found on the contents pages, vii through ix. The songs are very elegant and thoughtful and became very popular at this time (Taylor). Costello's poems are very lyrical and entrancing, incorporating as they do a variety of meditative descriptions.

Although she comes relatively late in the period, Costello may be called a romantic poet, as she explores a very evident interest in nature, as well as an emphasis upon individual expression of emotion and imagination (Kariger). Imagination and emotion is a dominant theme consistent throughout Songs of a Stranger. As mentioned above, a majority of the characters within Songs of a Stranger are male. The characters in all of the poems are generally placed in imaginative settings and are these characters tend to be emotional. The poem, "Colabah, the Camel-Seeker," for example, has several male characters and speakers:
          Thus Colaba, the Arab, strayed,
          With toil and grief opprest,
          Till, 'midst a cavern's awful shade
          He cast him down to rest,
          And to the Desert Spirit prayed
          That his visions might be blest :
          He lay in slumber heavy and deep,
          And dream came over his troubled sleep. (140)

The setting of this poem is an example of Costello's unique nature settings. In the first stanza, lines four through five, the narrator says: "And through the shades of night: / Amidst the Winding Sands I go" (139). The windy sands the narrator is describing are the desert, which is in keeping with the poem's title, "Colabah, The Camel-Seeker." Camels are among one of the few large mammals that can survive in a harsh desert environment (Sharp).

The poems within Costello's Songs of a Stranger, like many of those in Bowles's Fourteen Sonnets, routinely include depictions of natural scenes and meditative descriptions. Poems such as, "The Hunter of Uruguay to his Love," "The Destroying Spirit," "The Dreamer on the Sea Shore," "The Cape of the Caba Rumia," "The Inca," "Colabah, the Camel-Seeker," and "Spirit's Song," to name a few, all revolve around natural settings. Nature is in fact the main focus of setting within Costello's poems. Costello and her audience explore the beauty of nature and visit places like the Nile River and burning mountains, as they go deep within the jungle, surrounded by birds and other wild animals. In the poem, "The Hunter of the Uruguay to his Love," the setting is a remote wooded island with exotic animals:
          Would'st thou be happy, would'st thou be free,
          Come to our woody island with me !
          Come, while the summer is high,
          Beneath the peach tree's shade and lie ;
          Or the hunter will shield thee the live-long day
          In his hut of reeds from the scorching ray.
          The countless birds with wings of light
          Shall flit and glitter before they sight,
          And their songs from the stately palm trees nigh
          Shall charm thee with ceaseless melody. (1)
Here, Costello paints a picturesque scene of an almost exotic nature for her readers. The jungle can be seen as exotic, as this particular territory is very secluded, mainly untouched, and unattainable by most humans. The setting for this poem is a jungle island, which further suggests the idea of seclusion and isolation. The jungle is brightly decorated, though, and it can be seen as a metaphor for fantasies. The description of the island birds within the first stanza mentions their "wings of light" (line 7), suggesting they are brightly colored. The poem, "The Hunter of the Uruguay to his Love," incorporates several of the reoccurring themes throughout Songs of a Stranger, such as the unique setting in nature, the male narrator, romance or love and the lyrical melody. The poem is very picturesque and lyrical in character almost meditative.

Ending Songs of a Stranger, pages 147 to 158 are "Notes" of explanation for various poems. The "Notes" are references to anything from the characters used to a description of a type of animal Costello mentioned. A few of the poems have footnotes present on the main text pages , usually directing the reader to refer to the "Notes" section at the end of the volume.

Works Cited

Hide, Kevin. "Louisa Stuart Costello." Old Poetry. Ed. Desiree Darkk. Spring 2002. <http://www.oldpoetry.com/authors/Louisa%20Stuart%20Costello.html.>
Kariger, Brian and Daniel Fierro. Dictionary. 1995. <http://www.lexmark.com.>
Sharp, W. Jay. "Desert Animals." Desert USA. May 2001.<http://www.desertusa.com.>
Taylor, C. "Songs of a Stranger, by Louisa Stuart Costello." The Eclectic Review 24.6 (1825): 168-73.