The Knickerbocker | Page 7

illustration of this is found in the
opening stanzas of Gray's Elegy:
'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds
slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a
solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.'
A summer evening in the country is associated in most minds with
images of mirth and joy. Thus Goldsmith has described it:
'Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close, Up yonder hill the
village murmur rose; There as I passed with careless steps, and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below; The swain responsive
as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let
loose from school, The watch-dog's voice, that bayed the whisp'ring
wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.'
With what consummate skill, if indeed it be not rather the instinct of
the poet, has Gray avoided all mention of those objects which might
awaken associations discordant with the mood of his own mind! Each
epithet is full of a plaintive melancholy. There is not one that does not
contribute something to the effect; not one that can be omitted; not one
that can be altered for the better. Yet there is scarcely one that is
descriptive of any quality actually existing in its subject. The fitness of
each is to be felt rather than seen.
In the selection of those circumstances and objects which Gray has

enumerated, he was governed by the effect which each had upon his
own feelings. He looked upon nature in the reflected light of his own
heart. He was mournful in view of the destiny of man; and wandering
amidst the graves of the lowly and obscure, he saw all the external
world colored with the hue of his own sad thoughts. The melancholy
spirit within him transformed all things without into its own likeness.
His imagination, darting hither and thither, and governed in its flight by
laws too subtle and delicate to be analyzed, reposed itself for a moment
amidst the gloom of the historical associations that cluster around the
curfew, hovered over the lowing herd, and followed the ploughman as
he homeward plods his weary way. Goldsmith, recalling the scenes
where he had spent many happy hours, looks upon nature under a far
different aspect. Every thing to him is gay and joyous. He hears not the
hollow tones of the curfew, nor the drowsy tinklings that lull the distant
folds. He sees not the wearied ploughman, caring for nought but to
forget his toils in the sweet oblivion of sleep. He hears but the song of
the milk-maid, and the soft response of her rustic lover; the watchdog's
voice, and the loud laugh of the happy idlers. He sees but the children
just escaped from school, running and leaping, and romping in their
innocent glee. Happy himself, he fastens upon whatever in nature
around him seems to sympathise with him, and dwelling fondly upon it,
casts away from his thoughts every thing that can obstruct the full, free
flow of his joyous emotions.
We may remark in passing, what has probably been before remarked by
the attentive reader, that both Gray and Goldsmith, excited as they are
by different passions, refer to the 'lowing herd' as raising on the one
hand a cheerful, and on the other a melancholy feeling. To our thought,
the associations connected with the return of the herds from the fields
at sunset are best fitted to awaken that quiet, reflective state of mind
which is most congenial to the mood of the elegiac poet. To another,
these associations may be of such a character as to produce a directly
opposite effect.
The writer of prose who should describe scenes like these, would aim
to give us a distinct and accurate picture by presenting all their
prominent features, omitting nothing, and grouping them as Nature

herself had grouped them. Such descriptions we daily see in all books
of voyages and travels. Or if the descriptions be of scenes wholly
imaginary, their essential character is not changed. Although they cease
to be real, they do not become poetical. The extract which we have
made from Irving is not poetical. Accurate, vivid, life-like, it is. We
cannot read it without a feeling of pleasure. We admire the genius of
the writer; we wonder at the magnificence of the spectacle which, by a
few masterly touches, he has raised up before us. But there is no more
poetry in it than in his