In Its Silence Urned            

      Lately, Da Woj and I have been discussing some of those poets to whom time and the academy have not been especially kind, poets whose works have either been given short shrift or almost entirely neglected, forgotten, or otherwise left to decompose in the historical junkheap. Some of these poets really should get a bit of attention now and again. One such poet is James Thomson (1834-1882), a nineteenth-century poet seldom if ever taught anymore. It's obvious he's not a great unsung poet; he is by no means a Tennyson or a Browning. But some of his pieces are worth reading for their minor delights. Here are a few of his pieces, taken from The City Of Dreadful Night And Other Poems, a compilation volume I'm fortunate enough to possess in a first edition copy from 1899. Oh, first editions, what lovely things....

The Fire That Filled My Heart Of Old

I.

The fire that filled my heart of old
         Gave lustre while it burned;
Now only ashes grey and cold
      Are in its silence urned.
Ah! better was the furious flame,
      The splendour with the smart:
I never cared for the singer's fame,
      But, oh! for the singer's heart!
            Once more---
      The burning fulgent heart!

II.

No love, no hate, no hope, no fear,
      No anguish and no mirth;
Thus life extends from year to year,
      A flat of sullen dearth.
Ah! life's blood creepeth cold and tame
      Life's thought plays no new part:
I never cared for the singer's fame,
      But, oh! for the singer's heart
            Once more---
      The bleeding passionate heart!

(1864)

E. B. B. [Ed: Elizabeth Barrett Browning]

The white-rose garland at her feet,
      The crown of laurel at her head,
Her noble life on earth complete,
      Lay her in the last low bed
For the slumber calm and deep:
"He giveth His belovèd sleep."

Soldiers find their fittest grave
      In the field whereon they died:
So her spirit pure and brave
      Leaves the clay it glorified
To the land for which she fought
With such grand impassioned thought.

Keats and Shelley sleep at Rome,
      She in well-loved Tuscan earth:
Finding all their death's long home
      Far from their old home of birth,
Italy you hold in trust
Very sacred English dust.

Therefore this one prayer I breathe, ---
      That you yet may worthy prove
Of the heirlooms they bequeath
      Who have loved you with such love
Fairest land while land of slaves
Yields their free sould no fit graves.

(1861)

Song

"The Nightingale was not yet heard,
      For the rose was not yet blown."
His heart was quiet as a bird
      Asleep in the night alone
And never were its pulses stirred
      To breathe or joy or moan:
The Nightingale was not yet heard
      For the Rose was not yet blown.

Then She bloomed forth before his sight
      In passion and in power,
And filled the very day with light,
      So glorious was her dower;
And made the whole vast moonlit night
      As fragrant as a bower:
The young, the beautiful, the bright,
      The splendid peerless Flower.

Whereon his heart was like a bird
      When Summer mounts his throne,
And all its pulses thrilled and stirred
      To songs of joy and moan,
To every most impassioned word
      And most impassioned tone;
The Nightingale at length was heard
      For the Rose at length was blown.

(1877)

It's also worth checking out Thomson's deeply pessimistic The City Of Dreadful Night, a longer work that can be found here.   Yeah, yeah, I'm sure most of you are just flighting past these poems, but give them a go. I do wonder what people might make of Thomson in these days. His vocabulary isn't exceptionally broad, but he has at times a keen gift of phrase--- "leaves the clay it glorified" strikes me as very good, indeed-- and he stands in curious contrast with the earlier Romantics; he seems neither Romantic nor Victorian, a bit out of the general loop, as it were. Give these poems a read. I think they're worth the effort.