The Blameless Prince, and Other Poems
By . Boston : Fields, Osgood, & Co.
MR. STEDMAN had a good story to tell, and he has told it admirably, with the perception that in a narrative poem the story must be the first thing, and with the skill to give it uninterrupted and consequent movement from the beginning to the end. In spite of the half-mythical setting of the story, it appeals to the reader as a tragedy rather than an allegory, through characters that are persons, and not merely principles of good and evil. The prince reputed blameless falls in love with a beautiful subject of the queen he comes to wed, and after his marriage sins with her, while seeming all loyalty and devotion to his wife, and showing a stainless life to the world, till at last the intolerable sense of guilt and falsehood makes him end the intrigue. Returning to the queen after the final parting with his mistress, he is killed, and the stricken wife mourns him with perfect faith in his matchless truth ; but in the convent, whither she goes to compose her thoughts for the celebration of his funeral rites, she finds his dying paramour and learns from her his falsehood. The situations are effectively conceived, but developed clearly, rather than vividly or dramatically. The whole poem gives the impression of grace more than of strength : especially toward the close the reader feels defrauded of some bitterest drops which seemed his due, and which a sharper stress would have wrung from the story. Yet we content ourselves with what is otherwise so well done: the tale is eminently poetic in itself, it is artistically and compactly wrought, it interests and moves, with a feeling which, if not the profoundest, is always genuine. We have noted, however, an occasional excess, or falseness, in Mr. Stedman’s imagery, which is curiously out of keeping with his restrained and unaffected sentiment. It does not seem well to say even of unhappy lovers,
“ Like tangled bees,
Each other and themselves they sweetly stung ” ;
Each other and themselves they sweetly stung ” ;
it is too much to tell us of a young wife and old husband,
“ The lady next her lord
Drooped like a musk-rose trained beside a tomb ” ;
Drooped like a musk-rose trained beside a tomb ” ;
and what is meant by
“ Her lips grew white, and on her nostrils flakes
Of wrath and loathing stood ” ?
Of wrath and loathing stood ” ?
All this is very different, as we say, from the main conceit of the poem, and from the real thoughtfulness of such passages as that in which the poet describes the effect of the intrigue upon the prince’s life : —
“Meanwhile the Prince put on his own disguise
Holding it naught for what it kept secure,
Nor wore it only in his comrades’ eyes ;
Beneath this cloak and seeming to be pure
He felt the thing he seemed. For some brief space
His conscience took the reflex of his face.
Holding it naught for what it kept secure,
Nor wore it only in his comrades’ eyes ;
Beneath this cloak and seeming to be pure
He felt the thing he seemed. For some brief space
His conscience took the reflex of his face.
“ But lastly through his heart there crept a sense
Of falseness, like a worm about the core,
Until lie grew to loathe the long pretence
Of blamelessness, and would the mask he wore
By some swift judgment from his face were torn,
So might the outer quell the inner scorn.
Of falseness, like a worm about the core,
Until lie grew to loathe the long pretence
Of blamelessness, and would the mask he wore
By some swift judgment from his face were torn,
So might the outer quell the inner scorn.
“Such self-contempt befell him, when the feast
Rang with his praise, he blushed from nape to crown,
And ground his teeth in silence, yet had ceased
To bear it, crying, ‘ Crush me not quite down,
Who ask your scorn, as viler than you deem
Your vilest, and am nothing that I seem ! ’
Rang with his praise, he blushed from nape to crown,
And ground his teeth in silence, yet had ceased
To bear it, crying, ‘ Crush me not quite down,
Who ask your scorn, as viler than you deem
Your vilest, and am nothing that I seem ! ’
“ With such a cry his conscience riotous
Had thrown, perchance, the burden on it laid,
But love and pity held his voice ; and thus
The paramours their constant penance made.
False to themselves, before the world a lie,
Yet each for each had cast the whole world by.”
Had thrown, perchance, the burden on it laid,
But love and pity held his voice ; and thus
The paramours their constant penance made.
False to themselves, before the world a lie,
Yet each for each had cast the whole world by.”
The Blameless Prince is followed in this volume by a number of shorter pieces, — by that pretty little idyl, “ The Doorstep,” which we lately gave our readers, and by another poem in the same vein (always a fortunate one with Mr. Stedman), called “Country Sleighing,” and yet others which we like. Chief among these is “ Pan in Wall Street,” — a play of the same fancifulness which delighted us long ago in the author’s “ Ballad of Lager-Beer,” and which here, artfully seizing mythic traits and oldworld aspects, gives a light shock, half pain, half pleasure, by their contrast with the most commonplace expression of our own work-day life. “ Anonyma ” is equally well done, and is an admirable “ dramatic lyric.”
Amongst the poems entitled “ ShadowLand,” “The Undiscovered Country ”seems best, for the suggestive touches and the thoughtful melancholy, doubt, and longing in it; and “ The Sad Bridal ” worst, for that effect of ghastliness which is produced, without adequate motive, by such lines as
“ If Death should mumble as he list
These red lips which now you kist.”
These red lips which now you kist.”
We think Mr. Stedman’s specimens of translation from Theocritus very charming. He has wisely chosen, “as the only measure adapted to a literal and lineal rendering of the peculiar idyllic verse,” the English hexameter — an instrument full of sweetness and harmony to the skilful touch, which will be perfectly enjoyed when people cease to listen to pedantic follies about quantity, and read the hexameter straightforwardly and simply as they would any other English verse. Mr. Stedman manages it very pleasingly, (though not always with perfect success,) and in his clear and graceful English, — colloquial without vulgarity in “ The Reapers,” and finely colored and picturesque in “ Hylas,” — gives enough of Theocritus to make the reader eager for the complete translation which he promises.