The Death-Wake. Stoddart Thomas Tod
Tasistro (vol. xx.). Mr. Ingram, the biographer of Edgar Poe, observes that Poe praised the piece while he was exposing Tasistro's "barefaced robbery."
The copy of The Death-Wake from which this edition is printed was once the property of Mr. Aytoun, author of Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, and, I presume, of Ta Phairshon. Mr. Aytoun has written a prefatory sonnet which will be found in its proper place, a set of rhymes on the flyleaf at the end, and various cheerful but unfeeling notes. After some hesitation I do not print these frivolities.
The copy was most generously presented to me by Professor Knight of St. Andrews, and I have only seen one other example, which I in turn contributed to fill the vacant place in the shelves of Mr. Knight. His example, however, is far the more curious of the twain, by virtue of Aytoun's annotations.
I had been wanting to see The Death-Wake ever since, as a boy, I read the unkind review of it in an ancient volume of Blackwood's Magazine. In its "pure purple mantle" of glazed cloth, with paper label, it is an unaffectedly neat and well-printed little volume.
It would be unbecoming and impertinent to point out to any one who has an ear for verse, the charm of such lines as —
"A murmur far and far, of those that stirred
Within the great encampment of the sea."
Or —
"A love-winged seraph glides in glory by,
Striking the tent of its mortality."
(An idea anticipated by the as yet unknown Omar Khayyam).
Or —
"Dost thou, in thy vigil, hail
Arcturus in his chariot pale,
Leading him with a fiery flight
Over the hollow hill of night?"
These are wonderful verses for a lad of twenty-one, living among anglers, undergraduates, and, if with some society of the lettered, apparently with none which could appreciate or applaud him.
For the matter of the poem, the wild voyage of the mad monkish lover with the dead Bride of Heaven, it strikes, of course, on the common reef of the Romantic – the ridiculous. But the recurring contrasts of a pure, clear peace in sea and sky, are of rare and atoning beauty. Such a passage is —
"And the great ocean, like a holy hall,
Where slept a seraph host maritimal,
Was gorgeous with wings of diamond."
Once more, when the mad monk tells the sea-waves we recognise genuine imagination.
"That ye have power and passion, and a sound
As of the flying of an angel round,
The mighty world, that ye are one with Time,"
A sympathetic reader of The Death-Wake would perhaps have expected the leprosies and lunacies to drop off, and the genius, purged of its accidents, to move into a pure transparency. The abnormal, the monstrous, the boyish elements should have been burned away in the fire of the genius of poetry. But the Muses did not so will it, and the mystic wind of the spirit of song became of less moment to Mr. Stoddart than the breeze on the loch that stirs the trout to feed. Perhaps his life was none the less happy and fortunate. Of the many brilliant men whom he knew intimately – Wilson, Aytoun, Ferrier, Glassford Bell, and others – perhaps none, not even Hogg, recognised the grace of the Muse which (in my poor opinion) Mr. Stoddart possessed. His character was not in the least degree soured by neglect or fretted by banter. Not to over-estimate oneself is a virtue very rare among poets, and certainly does not lead to public triumphs. Modesty is apt to accompany the sense of humour which alleviates life, while it is an almost insuperable bar to success.
Mr. Stoddart died on November 22nd, 1880. His last walk was to Kelso Bridge "to look at the Tweed," which now murmurs by his grave the self-same song that it sings beside Sir Walter's tomb in Dryburgh Abbey. We leave his poem to the judgment of students of poetry, and to him we say his own farewell —
Sorrow, sorrow speed away
To our angler's quiet mound,
With the old pilgrim, twilight grey,
Enter thou the holy ground.
There he sleeps, whose heart was twined
With wild stream and wandering burn,
Wooer of the western wind,
Watcher of the April morn.
THE DEATH-WAKE
OR LUNACY
Sonnet to the Author
O wormy Thomas Stoddart who inheritest
Rich thoughts and loathsome, nauseous words, & rare!
Tell me, my friend, why is it that thou ferretest
And gropest in each death-corrupted lair?
Seek'st thou for maggots, such as have affinity
With those in thine own brain? or dost thou think
That all is sweet which hath a horrid stink?
Why dost thou make Hautgout thy sole divinity?
Here is enough of genius to convert
Vile dung to precious diamonds, and to spare,
Then why transform the diamond into dirt,
And change thy mind wh. shd. be rich & fair
Into a medley of creations foul,
As if a Seraph would become a Goul?
1834
CHIMERA I
An anthem of a sister choristry!
And like a windward murmur of the sea,
O'er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!
A dying music shrouded in deep walls,
That bury its wild breathings! And the moon,
Of glow-worm hue, like virgin in sad swoon,
Lies coldly on the bosom of a cloud,
Until the elf-winds, that are wailing loud,
Do minister unto her sickly trance,
Fanning the life into her countenance;
And there are pale stars sparkling, far and few
In the deep chasms of everlasting blue,
Unmarshall'd and ungather'd, one and one,
Like outposts of the lunar garrison.
A train of holy fathers windeth by
The arches of an aged sanctuary,
With cowl, and scapular, and rosary
On to the sainted oriel, where stood,
By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood —
A weeping group of virgins! one or two
Bent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,
Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,
With its black pall flung over: – Agathè
Was on the lid – a name. And who? – No more!
'Twas only Agathè.
'Tis o'er, 'tis o'er, —
Her burial! and, under the arcades,
Torch after torch into the moonlight fades;
And there is heard the music, a brief while,
Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,
From the deep organ panting out its last,
Like