Proctor English Songs Reviews

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

[Proctor, Bryan W.], pseud. “Barry Cornwall”

English Songs, and Other Small Poems. London: Moxon, 1832.

Contemporary Reviews

Cornwall, Barry [Procter, Bryan W.]. English Songs and Other Small Poems. Boston: TicknorReedFields, 1851.

Before the introduction to the English Songs and Other Small Poems:

"Barry Cornwall with the exception of Coleridge is the most genuine poet of love who has, for a long period, appeared among us. There is an intense and passionate beauty, a depth of affection, in his little dramatic poems, which appear en in the affectionate triflings of his gentle character. He illustrates that holiest of human emotions, which, while it will twine itself with the fragilest twig, or dally with the most evanescent shadow of creation, wasting its excess of kindliness on all around it, is yet able to 'look on tempest and be never shaken.' Love is gently omnipotent in his poems; accident and death itself are but passing clouds, which scarcely vex and which cannot harm it. The lover seems to breathe out his life in the arms of his mistress, as calmly as the infant sinks into its softest slumber. The Fair blossoms of his genius, though light and trembling at the breeze, spring from a wide, and deep, and robust stock, which will sustain far taller branches without being exhausted."
[Author Unknown]

Moxon. "English Songs." Monthly Review or Literary Journal. London: 128. (1832). 379389.
Art. V.English Songs and other Small Poems. By Barry Cornwall. 12mo. pp.228. London: Moxon.1832.

Mr. Procter, who, by the way, might have dispensed before this time with his fantastic alias, is perfectly correct in his remark, that 'England is singularly barren of songwriters'! We have in fact no national music, a decided proof that we have no body of lyrical verses to which music might have been united. The few songs which are found scattered though the works of our elder dramatic writers, and which to Mr. Proctor seem often so 'eminently fine' have generally appeared to us by no means worthy of the prodigal praise which he has thought fit to bestow upon them. With the exception of Dibdin's ballads, we have nothing that deserves the name of a song in our native language. The sister kingdom of Scotland and Ireland have in a great measure redeemed our character in this respect. The melodies of those countries have been perhaps more extensively encouraged in England than they have been at home; and this fact shows that, though not a songmaking, we are a songloving people. We may indeed boast of our glees, a style of songmusic strictly English, in which we are not rivalled by any other nation. But even out best glees are inferior in the character melodies of Carolan; they have scarcely acquired for us any musical reputation, and are not even very much known amongst ourselves, except in those convivial parties whose recurrence is every year becoming less frequent.

The composition of a good song is really an affair of no small difficulty. Any person at all experienced in the art of writing, might produce in a week a hundred of those namely pamby verses, which we find in most the music shops of London. We very seldom hear at the theatre a new song, the words of which are arranged with the slightest attention to poetical effect. Indeed, Mr. Cornwall's standard of poetical excellence in this department of intellectual exertion is not a very high one. His notion seems to be that the words might be too good, and that the perfection of such a composition consists in its being wrought up exactly to that degree at which, without being in itself devoid of merit, it might be still futher improved by the assistance of music. To this notion we cannot subscribe. Let us try it by the test of Mr. Moore's songs in the Irish Melodies. The music of those songs would be delightful with almost any words; but delightful though it be, in itself, we do not think that it adds in any respect to the beauty of the verses which Moore has allied to its immortality. We should say, on the contrary, that in some instances the native airs have received new energy, and have been impregnated with a deeper and more impressive meaning, by the happy adaptations of the poet. The same observation applies to the songs of Burns. Take the wellknown ballad of "Lang Syne" for example. Does not everybody who sings, or hears another sing, this composition, feel that though the air is very beautiful, it is made still more affecting by the general sentiments of which Burns as rendered it the vehicle?

Our notion of the perfection of a song is this,—that it should be as simple as possible in the expression, but fraught with a degree of sentiment, whatever be the theme, that would of itself easily suggest the character of the air which might be composed for it. There should be no expletives in the diction, no conceit in the thought, and the writer should be frugal of imagery. Natural sentiment, clothed in appropriate and liquid language, is the soul of song. We are afraid that if we were to try Mr. Cornwall's lyrics by our standard, we should find very few that approach it. We open his little volume at random, and in the very first song that presents itself to our view, we discover at one glance a catalogue of imperfections.

     Hide me, O twilight Air!
     Hide me from thought, from care,
     From all things, foul or fair,
          Until tomorrow!
     Tonight I strive no more;
     No more my soul shall soar:
     Come, Sleep, and shut the door
          'Gainst pains and sorrow!
     If I must see through dreams,
     Be mine Elysian gleams,
     Be mind by morning streams
          To watch and wander!
     So may my spirit cast
     (Serpent like) off the past,
     And my free soul at last
          Have leave to ponder!
     And shouldst thou 'scape control,
     Ponder on love, sweet Soul,
     On joy,—the end—the goal
          Of all endeavour!
     But if earth's pains will rise,
     (As damps will seek the skies,)
     Then, Night, seal though mind eyes.
          In sleep for ever! — p.10

Let us critically examine the first stanza. In the opening line the writer call upon the 'twilight air' to hide him. If the twilight could obey this request, it would be by reason of its shade, and not its air. Air is an element altogether devoid of colour, and therefore to ask its assistance for such a purposed is mere nonsense. From what is the twilight to hide him? From, amongst other things, 'all things foul or fair;' that is to say, from happy as unhappy thoughts. Yet in this very next stanza he supplicates for Elysian dreams! 'Fair,' then, must have been inserted merely for the sake of the rhyme. The line, 'No more my soul shall soar,' sounds so sharply, that we doubt if even the Chevalier Neiikomm, a composer, according to Mr. Cornwall's authority, 'of the very first order,' could, by any combination of sounds, render is musical. The author, apparently doubtful of his jurisdiction over the 'twilight air,' after asking it to hide him from every thing foul or fair, concludes his stanza with an appeal to another power, —to do what? Exactly the same thing. 'Come sleep, and shut the door' he says, in very humble prose, 'against pain and sorrow.' Here, then, is a repetition of the same idea, in the same stanza, in language not at all calculated to improve the thought, to please the ear, or to satisfy the judgment.
We submit the desire expressed in the second stanza, 'To watch and wander,' asks for two inconsistent things. He who watches ought not to wander; and he who really wishes to wander ought not to watch. The second part of the same stanza supposes a general acquaintance with the fact well known to naturalists, that the serpent occasionally renews —its skin. We venture to say, that knowledge of this description is very limited; even if the contrary were the case, we should still object to the metaphor, as being too much studied for a song. In such a composition, we have a mortal dislike to a parenthesis. Mr. Cornwall should know, that 'to ponder' is a verb active, and that it is never used, in good writing, without some allusion to the matter pondered: as in this instance from Dryden
     "Intent he seemed
     "And pondering future things of wond'rous weight.
Many use the verb with on, but incorrectlyas error which we find in the very next stanza"Ponder on love, sweet soul." Is not 'the goal' altogether superfluous, as 'the end' immediately precedes it? Is not the whole song, in short, as bad a composition as ever was set to music?

We think, however, that the writer in some degree redeems his character in the two first stanzas of the song by which it is followed, which expresses in a very lively and appropriate measure the joyous feeling that spring in the hunter's breast on a fine autumnal morning.
      Rise! Sleep no more! 'Tis a noble morn:
     The dew hang think in the fringed thorn:
     And the frost shrinks back, like a beaten hound,
     Under the steaming steaming ground.
     Behold, where the billowy clouds flow by,
     And leave us along in the clear gray sky!
     Our horses are ready and steadySo, ho!
     I'm gone, like a dart from the Tartar's bow.
          Hark, hark!Who calleth the maiden Morn
          From her sleep in the woods and the stubble corn?
               The horn,—the horn!
          The merry sweet ring of the hunter's horn.

     Now,—Though the copse, where the fox is found,
     And over the stream at a might bound,
     And over the high lands, and over the low,
     O'er furrows, o'er meadows the hunters go!
     Away!—as a hawk flies full at its prey,
     So flieth the hunter away,—away!
     From the burst at the cover till set of sun,
     When the red fox dies and —the day is done!
          Hark, hark!—What sound on the winds borne?
          'Tis the conquering voice of the hunter's horn.
               The horn,—the horn!
          The merry bold voice of the hunter's horn.

But as if to shew the facility with which eve so practiced a writer as Mr. Cornwall can slip down from the beautiful to the ludicrous, he, without any positive necessity, adds a third stanza, every line of which is as bad as any thing of the kind that has ever appeared in those ballads, which are purchased by the yard in the streets of London, or struck up on a wall for sale. We need hardly mark the stupid phrases in Italics.
     'Sound! 'sound the horn! To the hunter good,
     What's the gulley deep, or the roaring flood?
     Right over he bounds, as the wild stag bounds,
     At the heels of his swift, sure, silent hounds,
     Oh!what delight can a mortal lack,
     When once he is firm on his horse's back,
     With his stirrups short, and his snaffle strong,
     And the blast of the horn for his morning song? —p.12.

"The Exile's Farewell to Old England" breathes much feeling: the diction is chaste and natural, and we fancy that it would be matter of no great difficulty for a composer to translate it into pathetic music.
     'Farewell! Old England shores!
     Farewell her rugged men!
     Now, sailors strain your oars!
     I ne'er will look again.
     I've lived—I've sought—I've seen
     Oh, things I love too well,
     Upon those shores of green:
     So England! Long farewell!
     Farewell!

     I go,—what matter where?
     The exile when he flies,
     Thinks not of other air,—
     Dreams not of alien skies:
     He seeks but to depart
     From the land he loves too well,—
     From thoughts that smite his heart:
     So, England! long farewell!
     Farewell!

     O'er lands and the lonely main,
     A lonelier man, I roam,
     To seek some balm for pain,—
     Perhaps to find a home:
     I go,—but Time nor tide,
     Nor all that tongue may tell,
     Shall e'er from thee divide
     My heart,—and so farewell!
     Old England, fare thee well!'  —pp.13, 14

There are some verses upon a mother and a child sleeping, which though really very beautiful, do not appear to us well calculated for music.
     'Night gaze, but send no sound!
     Fond heart, thy fondness keep!
     Nurse Silence, wrap them round!
     Breathe low;—they sleep, they sleep!

     No wind! no murmuring showers!
     No music, soft and deep!
     No thoughts not dreams of flowers!
     All hence;—they sleep, they sleep!

     Time's step is all unheard:
     Heaven's stars bright silence keep:
     No breath, no sign, no word!
     All's still;—they sleep, they sleep!

     O Life! O Night! O Time!
     Thus ever round them creep!
     From pain, from hate, from crime,
     E'er guard them, gentle Sleep!'  —p.14

The author, possibly from association, appears to have been much pleased with his address to a wild cherry-tree. To us the verses seem exceedingly puerile. We should like to ask him what was his reason, while versifying his reflections on the 'common lot,' as he calls it, for introducing into each stanza, such inelegant rhymes, as 'lot,' 'not",—''blot,' 'not,—''hot,' 'not,'—'lot,' 'knot,—''lot,' 'forgot?' It is undoubtedly often a graceful ornament in a song to repeat the same rhymes, but it is an essential condition that they should not be so uncouth as those which we have just cited. The "Poet's Song to his Wife' is pretty and musical.
     How many Summers, love,
     Have I been thine?
     How many days, thou dove,
     Hast thou been mine?
     Time, like the winged wind
     When't bends the flower,
     Hath left no mark behind,
     To count the hours!

     Some weight of thought, though loth,
     On thee he leaves;
     Some lines of care round both
     Perhaps he weaves;
     Some fears,—a soft regret
     For joys scarce known;
     Sweet looks we half forgot;
     All else is flown!

     Ah!—With what thankless heart
     I mourn and sing!
     Look, where our children start,
     Like sudden spring!
     With tongues all sweet and low,
     Like a pleasant rhyme,
     They tell how much I owe
     To thee and time!  —p.21

The thought which suggested the stanzas beginning 'she was not fair not full of grace,' came from a poetical source. The object is to give expression to that feeling which is left behind upon the departure of one whose society we had been accustomed. Manner, a kind way of looking, or listening, may sometimes render a very ordinary person more engaging in the home circle, than a person of brilliant beauty or accomplishments. But we must confess that while tracing the progress of this just and natural feeling though the stanzas in question, we were not prepared for the following strange simile: —
     'Perhaps some grain lost to its sphere
     Might cast the bright sun from his throne;
     For all we know is—"she was here,"
     And—"She hath flown!"

We do not understand the connection between the 'perhaps' and the 'for.' Has Mr. Procter ever seen the voice of the nightingale? If he has not, wheat does he mean by telling the bird,
'Thy voice is sweet,is sad,is clear,
And yet, methinks,'t should flow unseen.'

Has Master Barry Cornwall ever seen the wind? If he have not, may we ask him to interpret the hidden sense of the following line in his 31st ode, or song; 'On every gust that mocks the eye.' We admire a good glass of wine as much as he does, and therefore we feel much at a loss to understand how we could manage matters if we were to act upon his direction:
'Why doth the bottle stand boys?
Let the glass run silent round,'

Now if the bottle were not to stand, and the glass were to be perpetually running round, we should be glad to have the problem solved, by what means the wine could find its way to its final destination? Under such circumstances, would it be unpardonable to take a drop from the bottle itself?

Wandering through these pages we light upon a 'Phantasy' somewhat fantastic, perhaps, but delightful for the imagery which it summons around us.
     'Feed her with the leaves of Love,—
     (Love, the rose that blossoms here)!
     Music, gently 'round her move!
     Bind her to the cypress near!
     Weave her round and round,
     With skeins of silken sound!
     'Tis a little stricken deer,
     Who doth from the hunter fly,
     And comes her to droop,to die,
     Ignorant of her wound!
     Soothe her with sad stories,
     O poet, till she sleep!
     Dreams, come forth with all your glories!
     Night, breathe soft and deep!
     Music, round her creep!
     If she steal away to weep,
     Seek her out,—when you find her,
     Gentle, gentlest Music, wind her
     Round and round,
     Round and round,
     With your bands of softest sound;
     Such as we, at night-fall hear
     In the wizard forest near,
     When the charmed Maiden sings
     At the hidden springs!'  —p.51

We are about to take a joyous bound from the first to the second part of these songs, when our critical eyes were attracted by some reflections on 'Life.' Now here, thought we, the poet becomes a philosopher, the philosopher a poet. He tell us some tings which we knew before, as for instance, that we are born, we laugh, we weep, we love, we droop, we die!but he gives a novelty to his subject by putting the questions, wherefore are we born, wherefore do we laugh, or weep, or love , or die? Alas! he knows not. It is a secret which we have yet to learn. But now comes the moral.
     'We toil,—through pain and wrong;
     We fight,—and fly;
     We love; we lose; and then ere long
     Stone-dead we lie.'

Oh! Barry, dear Barry! couldst thou not have discovered a more gentle mode of communicating to us this dreadful intelligence?

Part the second dashes forth amidst a gay flourish of stars and graces, the latter flying about in all directions; one of the fair damsels seems to be walking the skies with her heard downward while the others seem to be at a game of romps. At first, we read the following spirited lines under the impression that they were expressive of the feelings of these various figurantes:—
     'How gallantly, how merrily
     We ride along the sea!
     The morning is all sunshine,
     The wind is blowing free:
     The billows are all sparkling,
     And bounding in the light,
     Like creatures in whose sunny veins
     The blood is running bright.'

But when we went on a little further, we found that we were under a mistake, and that the whole ballad was intended to describe the return of a man of war form the scene of victory; and although it is open in some parts to severe criticism, as the shout to the shark, and the turning of the Admiral into clay, yet we must admit the piece to be written with considerable power.
     'All nature know our triumph:
     Strange birds about us sweep;
     Strange things come up to look at us,
     The masters of the deep:
     In our wake, like any servant,
     Follows even the bold shark—
     Oh, proud must be our Admiral
     Of such a bonny barque!

     Proud, proud must be our Admiral,
     (Though he is pale to-day,)
     Of twice five hundred iron men,
     Who all his nod obey;
     Who've fought for him, and conquered,—
     Who've won, with sweat and gore,
     Nobility! which he shall have
     Whene'er he touch the shore.

     Oh! would I were our Admiral,
     To order, with a word,—
     To lose a dozen drops of blood,
     And strait rise up a lord!
     I'd shout e'en to yon' shark, there,
     Who follows in our lee,
     "Some day, I'll make thee carry me,
     Like lightening through the sea."

     —The Admiral grew paler,
     And paler as we flew:
     Still talked he to his officers,
     And smiled upon his crew;
     And he looked up at the heavens,
     And he looked down on the sea,
     And at last he spied the creature,
     That kept following in our lee,

     He shook—'twas but an instant—
     For speedily the pride
     Ran crimson to his heart,
     Till all chances he defiled:
     It threw boldness on his forehead;
     Gave firmness to his breath;
     And he stood like some grim warrior
     New risen up from death.

     That night a horrid whisper
     Fell on us where we lay;
     And we knew our old fine Admiral
     Was changing into clay;
     And we heard the wash of waters,
     Though nothing could we see,
     And whistle and a plunge
     Among the billows in our lee!

     'Till dawn we watched the body
     In its dead and ghastly sleep,
     And next evening at sunset,
     It was slung into the deep!
     And never, from that moment,—
     Save one shudder through the sea,
     Saw we (or heard) the shark
     That had followed in our lee! —pp.55-57.

The songs of 'Babylon' we perceive, has been set to music by Mr. H. Phillips. It is worthy of a fine sacred strain; the thoughts are lofty, so is the diction in which they are clothed.
     (Recitative)
     Pause in this desert! Here men say, of old
     Belshazzar reigned, and drank from cups of gold;
     Here, to his hideous idols, bowed the slave,
     And here—God struck him dead!
     Where lies his grave?
     'Tis lost!—His brazen gates? his soaring towers,
     From whose dark tops men watched the starry hours?
     All to the dust gone down! The desert bare
     Scarce yields an echo when we question "Where?"
     The lonely herdsman seeks in vain the spot;
     And the black wandering Arab knows it not.
     No brick, nor fragment lingereth now, to tell
     Where Babylon (mighty city!) rose and fell!

     (Air)
     O City, vast and old!
     Where, where is they grandeur fled?
     The stream that around thee rolled,
     Still rolls in its ancient bed!
     But where, oh, where are THOU gone?
     Oh, Babylon! Oh, Babylon!

     The Giant, when he dies,
     Still leaves his bones behind,
     To shrink in the winter skies,
     And whiten beneath the wind!
     But where, oh, where are THOU gone?
     Oh, Babylon! Oh, Babylon!

     Thou liv'st!—for they name still glows,
     A light in the desert skies;
     As the fame of the hero grows
     Thrice trebled because he dies!
     Oh, Babylon! Oh, Babylon!  —pp.85, 86.

It may be said that our remarks upon these songs have been written in a spirit of minute criticism. It will be said with truth. Little things must be looked at through a microscope. We have not with held our cheerful praise where praise was due, and if we have exposed some of the faults which pervade this collection of songs, we have done so for the purposed of hinting to Mr. Procter, that he has not, as yet at least, succeeded in supplying that great desideratum, a body of lyrics truly English. We do not remember more than one or two of his compositions which do not apply, nationally speaking, just as mush to America as they do this country. The great majority of them are conversant with feelings and sentiment which are common to all mankind and do not even pretend to afford us the slightest idea of the English character. As if to crown the absurdity of the plan, most of those which have been set to music, have received that honour from the talents of a foreigner!

"English Songs." New Monthly Magazine and Humorist. London: 71. (1844). 545-548.

BARRY CORNWALL'S ENGLISH SONGS.

England has some fine saying about songs and ballads. The old Chevychase rhyme moreover is a national memory. Whatever may have been said or may be said still, in reproach or ridicule of us as a musical people, this is to all intents a songloving land. And yet with this prevalent taste, or rather with this old, rooted, cordial feeling for songsand with a magnificent literature, wonderfully rich in its varieties of excellence—England , it is very true, is singularly "barren of songwriters." With the absurd inappropriateness that sometimes characteristics established phrases of the proverbial kind, we are apt to remark of anything very common that it may be had for an old song: an old song being the choicest rarity in the language.

Most of our best poets have been full of the matter whereof songs are made, but few of them have tried to make a song, and fewer still have succeeded. We have a profusion of short pieces, beautiful exceedingly, but not exactly in the song's shape. We have scores of delicate little poems; but however these might be married to immortal airs, few of them could be brought "to sing well." If it be at all an objection to a drain that it is, under every combination of circumstances, unsetable, it is a greater fault in a song that it cannot be sung with the sweetest and fullest of its affects. Barry Cornwall in the dissertation prefixed to his volume, says what is perfectly right; the true song should not only be fitted for mane, but it should be better for the accompaniment.

We agree with the same authority that many of these lyrics which are scattered over the great dramatic writings ate among the most songlike things we have; but, exquisite as they are, there never could wake the popular heart, and set a million throbbing as one. Of the more professed song-writers, not one scarcely is of the first rank. We have a great name in Dibdin; but true, home-felt, and indeed exquisite as his power was, "after its kind," his genius was not of the order to reconcile as to the surrounding harrenness.

An Englishman, when people invite him to "give them a song," is generally obliged to borrow before he can give. And admirable use have we indeed made of the results of that delightful faculty which other nations have more happily cultivated. Our independence may not be distant; since of all those glories of song which Ireland and justly exult in, while hitherto we could do little more than hear and envy, the brightest, beyond question, are of modern date. The present age, in fact, has given to Scotland several song—writers:—and almost needless bounty, for Burns along is enough for the fame and honour of one country.

That the genius of Barry Cornwall includes within its compass of imagination and feeling some of the truest, simplest, and most impressive qualities of song-writers, is partly attested by the wide and landing popularity of several of his pieces, which have stirred the pulse and charmed the ear again and again, in circles high and low, wherever a song finds welcome. But better evidence still are to be found abundantly sown through this collection of the songs, in the pleasure they inspire without the aid of music; and in the harmonious instinct which leads us, by a sense of their truth and expressiveness, to set them of our own accord, while we read, to some silent, faithful measure, and give them unconsciously some fitting accompaniment answering to their bold hilarity, or their hushed tenderness; their exquisite play of fancy, or the flow of their homely affections. This is the way, at least, in which we found ourselves reading many of them, "singing them unaware," and yielding to the influence of that delicate and exact consistency of the music, with the sentiment and motive of the song, which is so essential, but so rare an excellence, and yet so frequently a characteristic of these masterly compositions.

Barry Cornwall won his fame early and sustained it well. That done, he left it for some time to take care of itself in the jostle of rival reputations. It lost no glass, and the poet forbore to weaken it by rush efforts for its advancement. Ten or eleven years ago, it was strengthened considerably, by a combination of sweetness and power with maturer knowledge and judgment, manifest to every poetical mind, in a small volume then issued under the title of "English Songs." Long out of print, the choicest and most perfect of those poems are here associated with many new ones, and a rich assemblage of dramatic aphorisms, portraitures and glances at character, never published before. It is to the present volume we look for the realization of the best promises of his younger muse; for the ripened fruits of a mind, retaining its/fresh bright fancies, while deepening continually in knowledge of that human heart whereof it passionately sings. And these, beyond question, we find here in their fullest degree. Barry Cornwall had moved hearts before, and charmed with infinite graces of song and story; but based on this full volume of songs and blank-verse, his reputation is assuredly higher and more permanent. This poet first excellence, if we mistake not, has been thought to consist in passage of domestic tenderness, of pathetic remembrance, and of simple feeling, especially in relation to childhood; and not a syllable should we wish to deduct from any degree of admiration accorded upon these grounds. But many, perhaps, are impresses with the tenderness, who are not so well aware of the vigour and rough passion of his line. Beautiful as the verse over is, when it lavishes its music upon woman, and simply touching as it never fails to be, when the song is of the loveliness and innocence of children, the distinguishing charm of the volume is the free, bold manliness of its sentiment, the largeness of its sympathies, and the generous humanity of its tone and purpose. Nothing that is sweet and gentle in nature is here slighted; but the various strain includes very different themes; and is never more true and admirable than when in rugged but skilful phrases, it "flings out" great truths and noble honest thoughts—giving, it may be, in one or two unembellished lines, the essence of the deepest speculation upon human ills, and of the wisest and kindliest lesson for their relief. There is little, as we verily believe, of whatever is loving and charitable to man, sympathizing with his joy, compassionating and comforting his affliction, that is not, in some form or other, sung of and embalmed in these English melodies.

Let the reader consult for evidence the first part: it is wholly new, and has as little of the superfluities of verse can well be imagined. Of needless lines and make-weight epithets, there are few or none. Deep Philosophy often starts the subject, but it is Poetry that discourses. This is true of the poems at the opening, illustrative of London scene, and of others of a similar class. In as fine a spirit, with more melting tenderness, are some, like the discourse between the "BeggarGirl and the Widow," which represents a delightful class of these compositions. To turn at once to a different order, let us copy for the reader a couple of dainties, bright and brief, sweet and short as songs can possibly be. We feel at once what perfect songs they are.

XLIII A LOVE SONG

     Laugh not nor weep; but let thine eyes
     Grow soft and dim (as lone should be);
     And be thy breathing tender, quick,
     And tremulous, whilst I gaze on thee.

     And let they words be few or none;
     But murmurs, such as soothe the air
     In summer when the day is done,
     Be heard, sweet heart, when I am there.

     And I,—oh! I, in those soft times
     When all around is still and sweet,
     Will love thee more a thousand times
     Than if the world was at thy feet!

XLIV. SONG

     Love me if I live!
     Love me if I die!
     What to me is life or death,
     So that thou be nigh?

     Once I loved thee rich,
     Now I love thee poor;
     Ah! what is there I could not
     For thy sake endure?

     Kiss me for my love!
     Pay me for my pain!
     Come! and murmur in my ear
     How thou lov'st again!

Nor can we resist adding a third, charming in its moral tone and its melody, and its melody, and forming a proper pendant to the others:

LXXXII THE POET'S SONG TO HIS WIFE

     How many summers, love,
     Have I been thine?
     How many days, thou dove,
     Hast thou been mine?
     Time, like the winged wind
     When 't bend the flowers,
     Hath left no mark behind,
     To count the hours!

     Some weight of though, though loth,
     On thee he leaves;
     Some lines of care round both
     Perhaps he weaves;
     Some fears,—a soft regret
     For joys scarce known;
     Sweet looks we half forgot;—
     All else is flown!

     Ah!—With what thankless heart
     I mourn and sing!
     Look, where our children start,
     Like sudden Spring!
     With tongues all sweet and low,
     Like a pleasant rhyme,
     They tell how much I owe
     To thee and Time!

Amongst the new poems is a very fine on the "Rising of the North." It is grand as well as simple in its suggestiveness; showing by a few natural touches the broad outline of a terrible struggle, and ever picturing its incidents with fidelity and distinctness, till we see the onward hastening march of Famine, and echo, not without hope, the poet's cry to Heaven. But this and other new Lyrics, which are destined to become enduring favourites;— these, as well as all the old ones dwelling in the reader's memory;—the songs inspired by children, playing or sleeping; the songs dedicated to sleep itself, soft as its shadow; the songs of love and beauty—of heroism in its wisest moods —of patriotism in its warmest glow—of mirth in its sunniest season; the songs of wine, rich, bright, and full, at once delicate and strong, sparkling, and yet soft; the songs of the sea, fine rough, briny-breathing the fresh wild air, sharp and salt to the taste, filling the sense with awe and joy, and tossing the imagination from billow to cloud;—all these tokens of the riches compressed into this one small volume, we must pass, with as little panse as we bestow upon the variest common-place; for it is no exaggeration to say that the page we write on would barely suffice to chronicle their names. One lyrical passage, at the end of the collection, we publish at parting; the first stanza for its versification, and both for their humanity:

CCII. RIND AND FRUIT

     You may boast of jewels,—coronets,—
     Ermine,—purple, all you can:
     There is that within them nobler;
     Something that we call—A Man!
     Something all the rest surpassing:
     As the flower is to the sod;
     As to man is high archangel;
     As is to archangel—God!

     You who prize the book's poor paper,
     Above its thoughts or joy and pain;
     You who love the cloud's bright vapour,
     More than its soul,—the blessing rain;
     Take the gems, the crowns, the ermine;
     Use them nobly, if you can;
     But give us (in rags or purple),
     The true, warm, strong Heart of Man.

The dramatic fragments appended to the volume are noble in themselves; and among the scenes and passages now published are several of rare beauty; glimpses of character, expositions of passion, flashes of fancy, and unfoldings of the heart's deep secrets, which the world will find "Enduring like a truth from age to age."

Cornwall, Barry [Procter, Bryan W.]. English Songs and Other Small Poems. Boston: Ticknor-Reed-Fields, 1851.

Before the introduction to the original English Songs and other small poems:

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC

The Writer of the following Poems has, for some years past, abandoned versewriting, for graver, and (to him) more important occupations. He has, however,—influenced by motives with which he needs not trouble the reader,—allowing some of the MSS. Remaining in his portfolio to be printed. The time is not very favorable to productions of this sort; but "Le Printemps reviendra!" the days of relishing poetry can never be utterly at an end. We may as well hope to extinguish the Imagination and the Fancy themselves, as to put a final stop to the love which poetry (their offspring) has so long excited. When "the spring shall return," the Author hopes that a few of these verses will find favor with the public; upon whose kindness and courtesy he throws himself, as a writer of verse, for—he believes—the last time!

It is proper to state that several of the following Songs, which have obtained considerable popularity, are indebted for it mainly, if not solely, to the music of the CHEVALIER SIGISMOND NEUKOMM; a composer of the very first order.

Garnett, Richard. "Procter, Bryan Waller." Dictionary of National Biography. 46. (1896).
416-418.

But none of these efforts exhibits the genuine individuality of the man, which is to be found exclusively in his songs. These were mostly written about this time although not published until 1832, and, it not effluences of potent inspiration, are melodious, vigorous, and rarely imitative. Longfellow thought them 'more suggestive of music than any modern song' a judgment in which it is difficult to concur.

Whipple, Edwin P. Recollections of Eminent Men. Boston & New York: Houghton-Mifflin Co. (1892). 305-343.

…After making all proper deductions, however, from the mass of Procter's poetry, we find that what remains is a solid addition to the poetical literature of the century. His songs, as Longfellow says, 'have the very pulse of music in them;" even when little is expressed that has any intellectual and imaginative value, the sentiment and the melody are still sweet and attractive, and there are some scores of them which are remarkable for other qualities than the mere indefinite beauty which comes from vague images wedded to harmonious sounds. "The Sea", "King Death," "The SeaKing," "Belshazzar," "Wine," "Song of the Outcast," "A Storm," "Fuller's Bird," "A Poor House," "To the Singer Pasta," "The Lake has Burst," "A Bacchanalian Song," "The Blood Horse," "The Rising of the North," have a grand lyric energy which produces an instantaneous effect on the brain as well as on the blood. Among the "Unpublished Verses," printed now for the first time in the present volume, "The Burial Club" and "The Field Preacher" have a similar energy. Then what can exceed the exquisite beauty and softness of "The Chamber Scene," "A Repose," "After Death," "To the South Wind," "Home," "I Die for they Sweet Love," and other poems of the same general kind? "Touch us gently, Time!" is perhaps the most popular of all his songs. Longfellow sent him, in 1853, a slip form an American newspaper, wherein the editor states, that in opening twenty-seven of his exchanges he found that each of them contained his home-inspired lyric. Longfellow then goes on to say that on the 1st of June, 1853, it must have been left at a hundred and forty thousand doors, and read by half a million readers. "The pleasure I have had," he concludes, "in seeing this poem so reflected and flashing from thousands of mirrors makes me hope it will give you pleasure to see it." Perhaps "The Poet's Song to his Wife," "Golden Tressed Adelaide," "A Prayer on Sickness," and "Softly woo away her Breath should be welcomed in every household where "Touch us gently, Time!" has entered with its sweet consecration of home life and home feelings.