Sometimes this harmony is imaged to us by an echo; and in one instance, it is with such transcendant beauty set forth by a shadow and its corresponding substance, that it would be a sin to cheat our readers at once of so happy an illustration of the poet's system, and so fair a proof of his descriptive powers.
Thus having reached a bridge, that overarched The hasty rivulet where it lay becalmed In a deep pool, by happy chance we saw A two-fold Image; on a grassy bank A snow-white Ram, and in the crystal flood Another and the same! Most beautiful, On the green turf, with his imperial front Shaggy and bold, and wreathed horns superb, The breathing Creature stood; as beautiful, Beneath him, shewed his shadowy Counterpart. Each had his glowing mountains, each his sky, And each seemed centre of his own fair world: Antipodes unconscious of each other, Yet, in partition, with their several spheres, Blended in perfect stillness, to our sight!--p. 407.
Combinations, it is confessed, "like those reflected in that quiet pool," cannot be lasting: it is enough for the purpose of the poet, if they are felt.--They are at least his system; and his readers, if they reject them for their creed, may receive them merely as poetry. In him, _faith_, in friendly alliance and conjunction with the religion of his country, appears to have grown up, fostered by meditation and lonely communions with Nature--an internal principle of lofty consciousness, which stamps upon his opinions and sentiments (we were almost going to say) the character of an expanded and generous Quakerism.
From such a creed we should expect unusual results; and, when applied to the purposes of consolation, more touching considerations than from the mouth of common teachers. The finest speculation of this sort perhaps in the poem before us, is the notion of the thoughts which may sustain the spirit, while they crush the frame of the sufferer, who from loss of objects of love by death, is commonly supposed to pine away under a broken heart.
----If there be whose tender frames have drooped Even to the dust; apparently, through weight Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power An agonizing spirit to transmute, Infer not hence a hope from those withheld When wanted most; a confidence impaired So pitiably, that, having ceased to see With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love Of what is lost, and perish through regret. Oh! no, full oft the innocent Sufferer sees Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs To realize the Vision with intense And overconstant yearning--there--there lies The excess, by which the balance is destroyed. Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh, This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs, Though inconceivably endowed, too dim For any passion of the soul that leads To extacy; and, all the crooked paths Of time and change disdaining, takes its course Along the line of limitless desires.--p. 148.