the light of which we could have desired to recognise more frequently in this deeply thoughtful work: PRESENTIMENT OF HIS RUIN. "Alas! too well I feel, too true a voice 66 ON A FRIEND'S DECLARING HERSELF UNABLE TO Rightly thou speak'st-I am myself no more; Thine eye, thy spirit irresistibly Winning with beams of love-mark! how it floats Through the day's glare, a pale and powerless cloud! I am o'ercome by the full blaze of noon; Ye know me, and I know myself no more!" ON BEING ADVISED TO REFRAIN FROM COMPOSITION. Vainly, too vainly, 'gainst the power I strive, Which, night and day, comes rushing through my soul! Wilt thou forbid the silkworm to spin on, SCENES, ETC., FROM GOETHE'S "TASSO." 297 Must from his inmost being still be wrought, Till he lies wrapp'd in his consummate shroud. Oh! that a gracious God to us may give The lot of that bless'd worm!-to spread free wings And burst exultingly on brighter life, In a new realm of sunshine!" He is at last released, and admitted into the presence of the Princess Leonora, to take his leave of her before commencing a distant journey. Notwithstanding his previous doubts of her interest in him, he is overcome by the pitying tenderness of her manner, and breaks into a strain of passionate gratitude and enthusiasm: "Thou art the same pure angel, as when first Thy radiance cross'd my path. Forgive, forgive, If for a moment, in his blind despair, The mortal's troubled glance hath read thee wrong! Once more he knows thee! His expanding soul Flows forth to worship thee for evermore, And his full heart dissolves in tenderness: * * * * Is it false light which draws me on to thee? * The wildness of his ecstasy at last terrifies his gentle protectress from him; he is forsaken by all as a being lost in hopeless delusion, and being left alone to the insulting pity of Antonio, his strength of heart is utterly subdued; he passionately bewails his weakness, and even casts down his spirit almost in wondering admiration before the calm self-collectedness of his enemy, who himself seems at last almost melted by the extremity of the poet's desolation, as thus poured forth: "Can I then image no high-hearted man All, all its fulness forth! To me a God Thou standest calm and still, thou noble man! That rock was fix'd, that quivering wave was made SCENES, ETC., FROM GOETHE'S "TASSO." 299 Now the sweet peace is gone-the glory now And thus painfully ends this celebrated drama, the catastrophe being that of the spiritual wreck within, unmingled with the terrors drawn from outward circumstances and change. The majestic lines in which Byron has embodied the thoughts of the captive Tasso, will form a fine contrast and relief to the music of despair with which Goethe's work is closed; "All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear, The God who was on earth and is in heaven; How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored." ON THE "IPHIGENIA" OF GOETHE. AN UNFINISHED FRAGMENT. eye THERE is a charm of antique grace, of the majestic repose resulting from a faultless symmetry, about the whole of this composition, which inclines us to rank it as among the most consummate works of art ever achieved by the master-mind of its author. The perfection of its design and finish is analogous to that of a Grecian temple, seen as the crown of some old classic height, with all its pure outlines-all the delicate proportions of its airy pillars-brought into bold relief by the golden sunshine, and against the unclouded blue of its native heavens. Complete within itself, the harmonious edifice is thus also to the mind and of the beholder; they are filled, and desire no more— they even feel that more would be but incumbrance upon the fine adjustment of the well-ordered parts constituting the graceful whole. It sends no vague dreams to wander through infinity, such as are excited by a Gothic minster, where the slight pinnacles striving upward, like the free but still baffled thought of the architect-the clustering pillars and high arches imitating the bold combinations of mysterious forests -the many-branching cells, and long visionary aisles, of which waving torchlight or uncertain glimpses of the noon seem the fittest illumination. —ever suggest ideas of some conception in the originally moulding mind, far more vast than the means allotted to human accomplishment of struggling endeavour, and pain |