This sad story is closed by a sort of choral dirge, of great elegance and beauty, of which we can only afford to give the first stanza.

Farewell farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea)
No pearl ever lay, under Oman's green water,
More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee.".

p. 284.

The general tone of this poem is certainly too much strained. It is overwrought throughout, and is too entirely made up of agonies and raptures; but, in spite of all this, it is a work of great genius and beauty; and not only delights the fancy by its general brilliancy and spirit, but moves all the tender and noble feelings with a deep and powerful agitation.

The last piece, entitled "The Light of the Haram," is the gayest of the whole; and is of a very slender fabric as to fable or invention. In truth, it has scarcely any story at all; but is made up almost entirely of beautiful songs and descriptions. During the summer months, when the court is resident in the Vale of Cashmere, there is, it seems, a sort of oriental carnival, called the Feast of Roses, during which every body is bound to be happy and in good humour. At this critical period, the Emperor Selim had unfortunately a little love-quarrel with his favourite Sultana Nourmahal, - which signifies, it seems, the Light of the Haram. The lady is rather unhappy while the sullen fit is on her; and applies to a sort of enchantress, who invokes a musical spirit to teach her an irresistible song, which she sings in a mask to the offended monarch; and when his heart is subdued by its sweetness, throws off her mask, and springs with

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

499

The

fonder welcome than ever into his repentant arms. whole piece is written in a kind of rapture, as if the author had breathed nothing but intoxicating gas during its composition. It is accordingly quite filled with lively images and splendid expressions, and all sorts of beauties,

except those of reserve or simplicity. We must give a few specimens, to revive the spirits of our readers after the tragic catastrophe of Hafed; and we may begin with this portion of the description of the Happy Valley.

"Oh! to see it by moonlight, when mellowly shines
The light o'er its palaces, gardens and shrines;
When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of stars,
And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet,

From the cool shining walks where the young people meet
Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, call'd forth every one
Out of darkness, as they were just born of the Sun.
When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day,
From his Haram of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind, full of wantonness, woos like a lover
The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over.
When the east is as warm as the light of first hopes,
And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurl'd,
Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes,
Sublime, from that Valley of bliss to the world!

-p. 296.

The character of Nourmahal's beauty is much in the same taste though the diction is rather more loose and careless.

"There's a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright,

Like the long sunny lapse of a summer day's light,
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,
Till Love falls asleep in its sameness of splendour.
This was not the beauty-oh! nothing like this,
That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss ;
But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays
Like the light upon autumn's soft shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies
From the lips to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes,
Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams,
Like the glimpses a saint has of Heav'n in his dreams!
When pensive, it seem'd as if that very grace,
That charm of all others, was born with her face.

Then her mirth-oh! 'twas sportive as ever took wing
From the heart with a burst, like the wild-bird in spring;
Illum'd by a wit that would fascinate sages,

Yet playful as Peris just loos'd from their cages.
While her laugh, full of life, without any controul
But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul;
And where it most sparkl'd no glance could discover,
In lip, cheek, or eyes, for she bright'ned all over,
Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon,

When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun."

- p. 302, 303.

We can give but a little morsel of the enchanting Song of the Spirit of Music.

"For mine is the lay that lightly floats,

And mine are the murm'ring, dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly!
And the passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk-wind over the water blowing,
Ruffles the wave, but sweetens it too!

The warrior's heart, when touch'd by me,
Can as downy soft and as yielding be
As his own white plume, that high amid death
Through the field has shone
yet moves with a breath.

And, oh how the eyes of Beauty glisten,
When Music has reach'd her inward soul,
Like the silent stars that wink and listen,
While Heav'n's eternal melodies roll!''

p. $18, 319.

Nourmahal herself, however, in her Arabian disguise, sings a still more prevailing ditty — of which we can only insert a few stanzas.

This strain, and the sentiment which it embodies, remind the offended monarch of his charming Nourmahal ; and he names her name in accents of tenderness and regret.

"The mask is off. the charm is wrought!—

And Selim to his heart has caught,

In blushes, more than ever bright,

His Nourmahal, his Haram's Light!"- p. 334.

We have now said enough, and shown enough, of this book, to let our readers understand both what it is, and what we think of it. Its great fault certainly is its excessive finery, and its great charm the inexhaustible copiousness of its imagery- the sweetness and ease of its diction and the beauty of the objects and sentiments with which it is concerned. Its finery, it should also be observed, is not the vulgar ostentation which so often disguises poverty or meanness but the extravagance of excessive wealth. We have said this, however, we believe before- and suspect we have little more to say.

All poets, who really love poetry, and live in a poetical age, are great imitators; and the character of their writings may often be as correctly ascertained by observing whom they imitate and whom they abstain from imitating, as from any thing else. Mr. Moore, in the volume before us, reminds us oftener of Mr. Southey

502

MOORE

HIS POETICAL RELATIONS.

and Lord Byron, than of any other of his contemporaries. The resemblance is sometimes to the Roderick of the first-mentioned author, but most frequently to his Kehama. This may be partly owing to the nature of the subject; but, in many passages, the coincidence seems to be more radical-and to indicate a considerable conformity, in taste and habits of conception. Mr. Southey's tone, indeed, is more assuming, his manner more solemn, and his diction weaker. Mr. Moore is more lively his figures and images come more thickly; and his language is at once more familiar, and more strengthened with points and antitheses. In other respects, the descriptive passages in Kehama bear a remarkable affinity to many in the work before us-in the brightness of the colouring, and the amplitude and beauty of the details. It is in his descriptions of love, and of female loveliness, that there is the strongest resemblance to Lord Byron - at least to the larger poems of that noble author. In the powerful and condensed expression of strong emotion, Mr. Moore seems to us rather to have imitated the tone of some of his Lordship's smaller pieces — but imitated them as only an original genius could imitate-as Lord Byron himself may be said, in his later pieces, to have imitated those of an earlier date. There is less to remind us of Scott than we can very well account for, when we consider the great range and variety of that most fascinating and powerful writer; and we must say, that if Mr. Moore could bring the resemblance a little closer, and exchange a portion of his superfluous images and ecstacies for an equivalent share of Mr. Scott's gift of interesting and delighting us with pictures of familiar nature, and of that spirit and energy which never rises to extravagance, we think he would be a gainer by the exchange. To Mr. Crabbe there is no resemblance at all; and we only mention his name to observe that he and Mr. Moore seem to be the antipodes of our present poetical sphere; and to occupy the extreme points of refinement and homeliness that can be said to fall within the legitimate dominion of poetry. They could not meet in the middle,