It is the same with Campbell as with all the other authors of the group to which he belonged--his poetic faculty is based upon the freshness of his receptivity to natural impressions. He has written a poem to the rainbow which, in spite of a rather prosaic and argumentative introduction, is a little masterpiece of simplicity and fancy. He begins by imagining the feelings of "the world's grey fathers" when they came forth to watch its first appearance:--
"And when its yellow lustre smiled O'er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, The first made anthem rang On earth delivered from the deep, And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye Unraptured greet thy beam: Theme of primeval prophecy, Be still the poet's theme!
How glorious is thy girdle cast O'er mountain, tower, and town, Or mirrored in the ocean vast, A thousand fathoms down!
As fresh in yon horizon dark, As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam."
And one of his latest poems, _The Dead Eagle_, written at Oran in Africa, bears witness to the same, unenfeebled, receptivity to all the phenomena of nature as this early one. In the later work we are conscious of a joy in natural strength and power which is characteristically English. "True" the poet writes:
"True the carr'd aëronaut can mount as high; But what's the triumph of his volant art? A rash intrusion on the realms of air. His helmless vehicle, a silken toy, A bubble bursting in the thunder-cloud; His course has no volition, and he drifts The passive plaything of the winds. Not such Was this proud bird: he clove the adverse storm And cuff'd it with his wings. He stopp'd his flight As easily as the Arab reins his steed, And stood at pleasure 'neath heaven's zenith, like A lamp suspended from its azure dome, Whilst underneath him the world's mountains lay Like molehills, and her streams like lucid threads. Then downward, faster than a falling star, He near'd the earth, until his shape distinct Was blackly shadow'd on the sunny ground; And deeper terror hush'd the wilderness, To hear his nearer whoop. Then, up again He soar'd and wheel'd. There was an air of scorn In all his movements, whether he threw round His crested head to look behind him, or Lay vertical and sportively display'd, The inside whiteness of his wing declined In gyres and undulations full of grace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He--reckless who was victor, and above The hearing of their guns--saw fleets engaged In flaming combat. It was nought to him What carnage, Moor or Christian, strew'd their decks. But if his intellect had match'd his wings, Methinks he would have scorn'd man's vaunted power To plough the deep; his pinions bore him down To Algiers the warlike, or the coral groves That blush beneath the green of Bona's waves; And traversed in an hour a wider space Than yonder gallant ship, with all her sails Wooing the winds, can cross from morn till eve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The earthquake's self Disturb'd not him that memorable day, When o'er yon table-land, where Spain had built Cathedrals, cannon'd forts, and palaces, A palsy-stroke of Nature shook Oran, Turning her city to a sepulchre, And strewing into rubbish all her homes."