MISS LANDON'S VOW OF THE PEACOCK. The Vow of the Peacock, and other Poems. By L. E. L. Author of the "Improvvisatrice," "The Golden Violet," &c. &c. Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street. A DESCRIPTION at once accurate and comprehensive, has often been demanded, of "What is Poetry ?" We believe that the world has not yet had an answer, that may be justly called universally satisfactory. We have a reply ready, to which, at least, a very extensive circle will make no cavil-it is, "Miss Landon's feelings verbally expressed." If it be asked still further, where they are so verbally expressed, we respond, at once, in the book now under our notice. This definition, it may be urged, is comprehensive enough, and any thing but accurate. We, however, assert it to be true, as far as accuracy implies truth. That beautiful tact, the offspring of exalted sentiments, of making the true, by means of the false, lovely and triumphant, is most eminently hers. The power of transforming mere matter into mind, and sublimating dull reality into inspired idealty, she possesses in a degree not surpassed by any living writer, and approached but by few of the aspirants for poetical fame. As, at the first beams of the sun, the wide landscape, before but so dimly seen, starts into life, and light, and beauty, so does her mind flash into poetry the moment her eye rests upon any object that contains even but a little of the Promethean fire. She saw Mr. M'Cliso's picture of the "Vow of the Peacock," the electric spark was communicated to her soul, and the world has the beautiful poem, the title of which heads this article. But, after all, grateful as the world will be to her for this production, how little has that world received of the gorgeous images, the lofty aspirations, that must have swelled her bosom even to ecstasy, when she sate down to pen the crowding and many-tinted thoughts, that must have made her waking dream an actual visitation to Paradise. How poor and insignificant must be the unexpressed, and the inexpressible, when compared with what the poverty of the language will permit her to pour forth in her musical numbers, to an applauding world! Of the picture to which we are indebted for so much pleasure, we shall say but little. The brand may be mean that lights up the altar fire, the incense of which ascends into heaven. If we do not speak in raptures of this painting, that has been the cause of so many, Miss Landon will forgive us, and we will, for her sake, henceforward remember it only through the medium of her own sweet poetry. The poem of the "Vow of the Peacock" opens with a fine burst of false philosophy, yet of the most genuine and elevated poetry. In this case, the poetess has thrown all the gorgeous beauty that really exists in the true, over the false. We read, we become impassioned, and in love with that morbidness of mind, that sees nothing good or glorious in the resplendent present that a beneficent Deity has so bounteously spread out before us. But even this distaste for the present, and adoration for the past, involves an absurdity, for we feel a high present pleasure in the very act of asserting, (for we go along with the author,) that this same present has not pleasure to administer. The past is made most beautiful by the beauty of the present. The metrical tale of the "Vow of the Peacock," is fabled to have been sung by a young page to a queen; and this slight introduction is made touching by many quiet, tender, and beautiful thoughts. He sings to this effect, that the Queen of Cyprus has been traitorously dispossessed of her throne by her uncle-guardian, and barely escapes from death, or perpetual incarceration, by means of flight, she repairs to Venice, and finds there Count Leoni, about to celebrate a splendid tournament. She petitions him by his vow of knighthood, to turn the gallantry of a pageant into the heroism of actual war, for the_vindication of her right. The request is joyfully acceded to. Love suddenly usurps the bosom of the distressed queen and her noble vindicator; and he, and all his martial followers, take the "Vow of the Peacock." True love, though shared by queens and belted knights, will run not the more smooth on that account. Count Leoni has brought up an orphan, much younger than himself, upon whom, as he lavishes the endearments grown people give to children, she in return lavishes upon him every feeling, thought, and affection that women know. She at once, at the festal commemoration of the "Vow," understands her lost situation. She cannot wholly resign, whom she knows she can never possess. She darkens her complexion, and sails disguised as a page, with the lovers to Cyprus. For once might and right are on the same side. The usurper is slain; and then, when ambition and love are about to crown the conqueror, he discovers whom the devoted being is that has so zealously attended them. However, the struggle between the point of honour and passion is not long. The orphan herself cuts the gordian knot that tied up the fates of these three persons so perplexingly. An assassin enters Leoni's tent in the dead hour of night, and the orphan and hopeless one saves the loved life of her early protector, by interposing her own. By this sacrifice, so emphatically a woman's, all difficulties are removed. The count and queen marry, and happiness is the result, so say the chronicles and Miss Landon, to all parties, not excepting those most interested, their mutual subjects. This abridgment, that must appear so dry to the reader, is merely the bare walls of a splendid and elegant temple that Miss Landon has erected to poetry, in which she has crowded a profusion of beauties, and built up an altar to the deity of that passion, who is with her so refined and exalted-Love. Were we to make a selection of all the excellent passages of this poem, peradventure we should offend her publishers, as they might have some objection to our transcribing the whole work. But a few we must appropriate to our pages. As Miss Landon is so passionately enamoured of the past, our readers shall briefly know why, in the following quotation. "The past! ah, we owe it a tenderer debt, Its influence softens the present, and flings When alone, 'mid the shadows the dim hearth has cast; Then friends, whose sweet friendship the world could divide, The book which we loved when our young love was strong;- A walk slow and pleasant by field and by wood;— The winding 'mid water-plants of that clear flood, Where lilies, like fairy queens, looked on their glass,— Oh! world of sweet phantoms, how precious thou art! The past is perpetual youth to the heart. The past is the poet's,-that world is his own; He calls up the shadows of ages long fled, And light, as life lovely, illumines the dead. And the beauty of time, with wild flowers and green, Shades and softens the world-worn, the harsh and the mean. Miss Landon is always peculiarly happy in her graphic manner of portraying nature, and giving her scenes a brightness more sweet and beautiful, than even that of sunshine. The following lines display a picture that ought to make a young painter wild with excitement; though, we fear, did he ask his palette for colours to perpetuate it upon canvass, he would be wild with despair. "It was an eve when June was calling When dew-like tears around are falling- The woods obscured the crimson west, Which yet shone through the shadowy screen Like a bright sea in its unrest, With gold amid the kindling green. But softer lights and colours fall Around the olive-sheltered hall, And lovely plants, in vases, there Wore colours caught in other skies; A fountain, like an April shower, The isolation of sovereign state is also well expressed in the following lines. "Alas, the steps of that young queen Upon life's rudest path have been. An orphan! ah, despair is heard In but the echo of that word! Left in her infancy, alone, On that worst solitude-a throne." Yet we know no one who is more queenly in the constitution of her mind than our poet; had she but a throne, chivalry would once more start into the lists, honour become no more an idle pretence to evade a debt, or to palm off a falsehood, and pageantry would become gracious, since it would be informed with benevolence, and directed with exquisite taste. The throne would be no solitude to her-nor would she suffer a solitude near her-gladly would we become one of her lieges, provided that she were despotic, and her kingdom situated in fairy realms. Since, at present, the lady has only a disputed sovereignty in the realms of poetry, as yet, we can only offer her a divided allegiance. Miss Landon's poetical distinction between the morning and evening dews, is written with a delicate perception of the beautiful. "The morning! 'tis a glorious time, The Eden of its earlier prime, The following couplet is, to us, original, and we think the first line of it very good. Miss Landon is speaking of an honest modesty. Though we must own there seems a discrepancy in the last line, as here, the blushing lady is personified, and it seems droll that she should disallow her own existence. We must, for the delight of all admirers of spirit-stirring verse, show how our inspired author describes the evening of a victory. There breathes about it a spirit of philanthropy, as delightful as is its elevated vein of poetry. "And is this all?-the flush and glow When war's wild waves at morning flow? The glittering waves that caught the sun- "For the proud chief, in shining mail, With many of the elegant poems at the end of the volume an admiring public is already well acquainted. The piece, entitled "The Lover's Rock," will never grow old in interest. "The Village Tale,' and "The Two Sisters," can never pall upon a repeated perusal. There is a singularly stern moral, that cannot be too often conned, in the lines entitled, "Follow Me." Of the other poems, if we do not speak, it is merely because their merits are so well known, that to speak would be superfluous. In taking our leave of this delightful publication, we are bound to assert, that Miss Landon has done as much to revive a taste for poetry, (and that a pure one too,) as any author at present living; if we had said that she had done more, we perhaps should have met with but few impugners of the correctness of our declaration. These poems should be generally read by the young. They will warm their hearts into a passionate love of the beauteous, and the beauteous, if rightly considered, and considered in the light in which Miss Landon displays it, is always the virtuous. True it is, that she makes the torch of love throw its tender light over most of her productions; but with her it is a torch lighted, at a chaste, a holy, and a religious altar; such a flame, the light of which can never either fire to vice, or shed its rays upon the paths of dissipation. Perhaps, next to Lord Byron, no author ever betrayed more individuality in her writings, than does L. E. L. This manifestation of character, and especially of such a character, is always a great charm. Long may she continue to delight the world with her literary productions, for she may depend upon it, that she is still far from the |