Campaspe Reviews KS

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

[Melesina C. Trench]

Campaspe: an Historical Tale; and Other Poems. By Mrs. Trench. [Southampton: Baker], 1815. Pp. 40.

Contemporary Review

"Campaspe, an Historical Tale; and Other Poems." Literary Gazette 14 Oct. 1820: 661-662.

This little poem, founded on the surrender of Campaspe by Alexander to Apelles, is the production of a lady whose compositions have more than once been noticed in our columns. It seems to have been written some time ago, though only now published, and that imperfectly, in a provincial town. We presume, however, that it is to be found with the London booksellers; and quote a passage to exemplify its style. When Alexander announces to the beautiful maiden his resolution to sacrifice his love on the altar of friendship, the story thus proceeds —
          With mute indigant pride Campaspe heard,
          This strange request from lips so dear preferr'd:
          Restrain'd her tears, repress'd her struggling sighs,
          Nor from the ground once rais'd her burning eyes:
          Reply'd with all the stillness of Despair,
          And mark'd the limit of existence there.
          Breathing,— not living, — from that fatal hour
          She sank in slow decay. The vernal flow'r,
          Transferr'd by hands unconscious of its worth,
          Thus sheds its silken blossoms on the earth."

          With calm austerity, and meek delay
          Still she defers the promis'd nuptial day.
          Her lip no smile bestows, her eye no tear,
          One dead to Hope, insensible of fear:
          Her chill indiff'rence to each earthly thing,
          To all that pleasure, all that pain, can bring:
          Inspir'd around a strange mysterious awe,
          A being not compris'd in Nature's law.
          A moon-like softness soon usurp'd the place
         Of all her varying eloquence of face;
         Save when a glancing lustre, wild and high,
         Flash'd sudden from her dark dilated eye.

         When those inspiring eyes for ever clos'd,
         One smile of joy on her pale lips repos'd:
         Her first, her last, reproach—this dying smile—
         With fearful Beauty grac'd her funeral pile,
         And left a sting in ALEXANDER'S breast,
         The whirlwind of his future days confest.

         Ne'er can the noble mind to bliss aspire,
        That once has quench'd Affection's sacred fire:
         Each pain inflicted on the heart it loves,
         Throbless that heart, a dreadful Hydra proves.
         The Night's companion! Sleep's eternal dream!
         First image offer'd by the morning beam!
         Nought then relieves like the loud clang of arms,
        The frantic contest, Danger's dazzling charms!
         Extremes alone a moment's ease bestow;—
         And in their form what crimes familiar grow!

         But scenes like these a bolder touch demand,
         More glowing colors, and a firmer hand.
         Enough for me, in this sequester'd shade,
         To paint the sorrows of a love-lorn maid.

The following is one of two minor poems, which are inserted at the end: the thought is very pretty, and the expression good.
[poem not transcribed here]