Conscrits, au pas. Marchez au pas. Au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas! These men pronounced the chorus: Conscrits au pas. Ne pleurez pas... Marchez au pas, au pas, au pas, in a tone so manly, and so pathetic, that tears started into my eyes. Marking the step themselves, as they drew out their hemp, they seemed to be spinning the last moment of the Vieux Caporal. Who had taught them this ballad? Assuredly not literature, not criticism, not taught admiration, all that is subservient to reputation and renown, but a genuine accent from some quarter or other had reached their humble minds. I cannot express all that there was in this glory peculiar to Beranger, in this glory thus solitarily revealed by two sailors, singing at sun-set, in sight of the sea, the death of a soldier. BEATTIE. BURNS, Mason, Cowper, died during my emigration to London, before and in 1800; they concluded the century: I began the new one. Darwin and Beattie died two years after my return from exile. Beattie had announced the new era of the lyre. "The Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius," delineates the first effects of the Muse on a young bard, who is yet a stranger to the spirit by which he is tormented. Sometimes the future poet seats himself on the margin of the sea during a storm; sometimes he quits the village sports to listen alone and at a distance to the sound of the bagpige. The poem is written in the Spenserian stanza. The rolls of fame I will not now explore; While from his bending shoulder decent hung His harp-the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wind responsive rung: And ever as he went some merry lay he sung. The wight whose tale these artless lines unfold, There lived in Gothic days, as legends tell, But he, I ween, was of the north countrie; Poor Edwin was no vulgar boy, And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbours star'd and sigh'd, yet bless'd the lad ; Some deem'd him wond'rous wise, and some believ'd him mad. But why should I his childish feats display? Lo! where the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves And oft he traced the uplands to survey, * And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb, See in the rear of the warm summer shower For now the storm of summer rain is o'er When the long-sounding curfew from afar And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng, Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering aisles along Or when the setting moon in crimson dyed yore And there let Fancy rove at large, till sleep * The dream is fled eyes Even now his with smiles of rapture glow, As on he wanders through the scenes of morn, Where the fresh flowers in living lustre blow, Where thousand pearls the dewy lawns adorn, A thousand notes of joy in every breeze are borne. But who the melodies of morn can tell? The wild brook babbling down the mountain side; The lowing herd; the sheepfold's simple bell; The pipe of early shepherd dim descried In the lone valley; echoing far and wide The clamorous horn along the cliffs above; The hollow murmur of the ocean tide; The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love, And the full choir that wakes the universal grove. The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark; Crown'd with her pail the tripping milkmaid sings; The whistling ploughman stalks afield, and, hark! Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings; Through rustling corn the hare astonish'd springs; Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour; The partridge bursts away on whirring wings: Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower, And shrill lark carols clear from her aërial tower. |