From "Love and Solitude," by Mr. Taylor, we extract the following picture, in order to contrast it with the handling of the same subject by Mr. Stoddard in "The South:"
"Some island, on the purple plain Of Polynesian main, Where never yet adventurer's prore Lay rocking near its coral shore: A tropic mystery, which the enamored deep Folds, as a beauty in a charméd sleep. There lofty palms, of some imperial line, That never bled their nimble wine, Crowd all the hills, and out the headlands go To watch on distant reefs the lazy brine Turning its fringe of snow. There, when the sun stands high Upon the burning summit of the sky, All shadows wither: Light alone Is in the world: and pregnant grown With teeming life, the trembling island earth And panting sea forebode sweet pains of birth Which never come;--their love brings never forth The human Soul they lack alone."
Half-way between the frozen zones, Where Winter reigns in sullen mirth, The Summer binds a golden belt About the middle of the Earth, The sky is soft, and blue, and bright, With purple dyes at morn and night: And bright and blue the seas which lie In perfect rest, and glass the sky; And sunny bays with inland curves Round all along the quiet shore; And stately palms, in pillared ranks Grow down the borders of the banks, And juts of land where billows roar; The spicy woods are full of birds, And golden fruits, and crimson flowers; With wreathéd vines on every bough, That shed their grapes in purple showers; The emerald meadows roll their waves, And bask in soft and mellow light; The vales are full of silver mist, And all the folded hills are bright; But far along the welkin's rim The purple crags and peaks are dim; And dim the gulfs, and gorges blue, With all the wooded passes deep; All steeped in haze, and washed in dew, And bathed in atmospheres of Sleep!
Passages like these say more for their authors than could any commendation from the critic. Observe how soon mere description is abandoned by Mr. Taylor, and he begins to put life and feeling into his scene. The deep is "enamored," the island is "in a charméd sleep," the palms are "imperial," and "crowd the hills," and "out the headlands go to watch the lazy brine," &c. All nature is alive. On the other hand, Mr. Stoddard loves nature for its beauty alone, without desiring in it any imaginable animation. The man who can read Mr. Taylor's "Kubla," without feeling the blood dance in his veins, should never confess it, for he is hardening into something beyond the reach of sympathy. In "The Soldier and the Pard," a poem of curious originality, Mr. Taylor pushes his belief in the all-pervading existence of moral nature to its last extreme. It closes with the following emphatic lines: