Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey

by Robert Southey

  “One, I remember, affirmed to me that himself had been dead four days; that most of his friends in that time were gathered together to his funeral; and that he should have been buried, but that some of his relations at a great distance, who were sent for upon that occasion, were not arrived; before whose coming he came to life again. In this time, he says, he went to the place where the sun rises (imagining the earth to be a plain), and directly over that place, at a great height in the air, he was admitted, he says, into a great house, which he supposes was several miles in length, and saw many wonderful things, too tedious as well as ridiculous to mention. Another person, a woman, whom I have not seen, but been credibly informed of by the Indians, declares she was dead several days; that her soul went southward, and feasted and danced with the happy spirits; and that she found all things exactly agreeable to the Indian notions of a future state.” — Brainerd. — that cheerful one, who knoweth all

  The songs of all the winged choristers. — XXIII. p. 162

  The Mocking Bird is often mentioned, and with much feeling, in Mr. Davis’s “Travels in America,” a very singular and interesting volume. He describes himself in one place as listening by moonlight to one that usually perched within a few yards of his log-hut. A negress was sitting on the threshold of the next door, smoking the stump of an old pipe. “Please God Almighty,” exclaimed the old woman, “how sweet that mocking-bird sing! he never tire.” By day and by night, it sings alike: when weary of mocking others, the bird takes up its own natural strain; and so joyous a creature is it, that it will jump and dance to its own music. The bird is perfectly domestic; for the Americans hold it sacred. Would that we had more of these humane prejudices in England, — if that word may be applied to a feeling so good in itself and in its tendency.

  A good old Protestant missionary mentions another of the American singing-birds very technically.

  “Of black birds there be millions, which are great devourers of the Indian corn as soon as it appears out of the ground. Unto this sort of birds, especially, may the mystical fowls, the Divells, be well resembled (and so it pleaseth the Lord Jesus himself to observe. Matt. xiii.); which mystical fowl follow the sowing of the word, pick it up from loose and careless hearers, as these blackbirds follow the material seed. Against these they are very careful, both to set their corn deep enough, that it may have a strong root, not so apt to be pluckt up, as also they put up little watch-houses in the middle of their fields, in which they or their biggest children lodge.” — Roger Williams. But of all the songsters in America who warble their wood-notes wild, the frogs are the most extraordinary.

  “Prepared as I was,” says a traveller, “to hear something extraordinary from these animals, I confess the first frog concert I herd in America was so much beyond any thing I could conceive of the powers of these musicians, that I was truly astonished. This performance was al fresco, and took place on the 18th (April) instant, in a large swamp, where there were at least ten thousand performers, and, I really believe, not two exactly in the same pitch, if the octave can possibly admit of so many divisions, or shakes of semitones. An Hibernian musician, who, like myself, was present for the first time at this concert of anti-music, exclaimed, ‘By Jesus, but they stop out of tune to a nicety!’

  “I have been since informed by an amateur who resided many years in this country, and made this species of music his peculiar study, that on these occasions the treble is performed by the Tree-Frogs, the smallest and most beautiful species: they are always of the same color as the bark of the tree they inhabit, and their note is not unlike the chirp of a cricket., The next in size are our countertenors: they have a; note resembling the setting of a saw. A still larger species sing tenor; and the under part is supported by the bull-frogs, which are as large as a man’s foot, and bellow out the bass in A tone as loud and sonorous as that of the animal from which they take: their name.” — Travels in America, by W. Priest, Musician.

  “I have often thought,” says this lively traveller, “if an enthusiastic cockney of weak nerves, who had never been out of the sound of Bow Bell, could suddenly be conveyed from his bed ii the middle of the night, and laid fast asleep in an Americain swamp, he would, on waking, fancy himself in the infernal regions. His first sensations would be from the stings of a myriad of mosquitoes; waking with the smart, his ears would be assailed with the horrid noises of the frogs; on lifting up his eyes, he would have a faint view of the nighthawks, flapping their ominous wings over his devoted head, visible only from the glimmering light of the fire-flies, which he would naturally conclude were sparks from the bottomless pit. Nothing would be wanting at this moment to complete the illusion but one of those dreadful explosions of thunder and lightning so extravagantly described by Lee in Oedipus. “Call you these peals of thunder but the yawn of bellowing clouds? By Jove, they seem to me the world’s last groans, and those large sheets of flame its last blaze!’”

  In sink and swell

  More exquisitely sweet than ever art

  Of man evoked from instrument of touch,

  Or beat, or breath. — XXIII. p. 182.

  The expression is from an old Spanish writer: “Tanian instrumentos de diversas maneras de la musica, de pulso, e flato, e tato, e voz.” — Cronica de Pero Nino.

  — the old, in talk

  Of other days, which mingled with their joy

  Memory of many a hard calamity. — XXIV. p. 167.

  “And, when the builders laid the foundation of the Temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David, King of Israel. “And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

  “But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud with joy:

  “So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.” — Ezra, iii. 10-13.

  For Aztlan comes in anger, and her Gods

  Spare none. — XXIV. p. 170.

  Kill all that you can, said the Tlascallans to Cortes; the young that they may not bear arms, the old that they may not give, counsel. Bernal Diaz, p. 56.

  The Circle of the Years is full. — XXVI. p. 183.

  Torquemada, L. 10, c. 33. The tradition of the Five Suns is related by Clavigero; the origin of the present by the same author, and by Torquemada, L. 6, c. 42: the whole of the ceremonies is accurately stated.

  Depart! depart!” for so the note,

  Articulately in his native tongue,

  Spake to the Azteca. — XXVII. p. 195.

  My excuse for this insignificant agency, as I fear it will be thought, must be, that the fact itself is historically true: by means of this omen, the Aztecas were induced to quit their country, after a series of calamities. The leader who had address enough to influence them was Huitziton, a name which I have altered to Yuhidthiton for the sake of euphony. The note of the bird is expressed in Spanish and Italian thus, tihui: the cry of the peewit cannot be better expressed. Torquemada, L. 2, c. 1. Clavigero.

  The Chair of God. — XXVII. p. 206.

  Mexitli, they said, appeared to them during their emigration, and ordered them to carry him before them in a chair: Teoycpalli it was called. Torquemada, L. 2, c. 1.

  The hideous figures of their idols are easily accounted for by the historian of the Dominicans in Mexico.

  “As often as the Devil appeared to the Iexicans, they made immediately an idol of the figure in which they had seen him; sometimes as a lion, other times as a dog, other times as a serpent; and, as
the ambitious Devil took advantage of this weakness, he assumed a new form every time to gain a new image in which he might be worshipped.. The natural timidity of the Indians aided the design of the Devil; and he appeared to them in horrible and affrighting figures, that he might have them the more submissive to his will: for this reason it is that the idols which we still see in Mexico, placed in the corners of the streets as spoils of the gospel, are so deformed and ugly.” — Augustin Davila Padilla.

  To spread in other lands Mexitli’s name. — XXVII. p. 210.

  It will scarcely be believed that the resemblance between Mexico and Messiah should have been adduced as a proof that America was peopled by the Ten Tribes. Fr. Estavan de Salazar discovered this wise argument, which is noticed in Gregorio Garciat’s very credulous and very learned work on the Origin of the Indians, L. 3, c. 7, sec. 2.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER

  First published in 1801, this epic poem is composed in twelve books of irregular stanzas, with lines that are not rhymed. The poem concerns the eigth century Arab leader Harun al-Rashid and a group of sorcerers at Domdaniel, who live under the sea. In the poem, it was foretold that Thalaba, a Muslim, would be God’s champion and conquer the sorcerers. To pre-empt the prophecy, the sorcerers kill the Hodeirah family. Unknown to them, Thalaba is able to escape from harm with his mother Zeinab. They flee through the desert and arrive at Irem, a ruined city. After Zeinab dies, Thalaba is raised by a leader of Irem named Moath. Nevertheless, when the sorcerers discover that Thalaba is still alive, they quickly make plans to find him and kill him.

  Having been inspired to write Thalaba the Destroyer as early as during his boyhood days when attending Westminster School, Southey did not begin to write the poem seriously until he finished composing Madoc at the age of 25. He started the project alongside his friend Coleridge, who was working on a similar themed poem at the same time, which would later become famous as Kubla Khan, and so both poets shared their sources. The epic was completed while Southey travelled in Portugal and finally published by Longman, though unfortunately it suffered poor sales and only half of the copies were sold by 1804.

  Southey used the poem to describe various superstitions and myths, with a heavy reliance on repetition of various themes that link the myths together. Although based on Islamic theology, most of the action is mechanical instead of emphasising possible moral truths that can be drawn from the plot. Though the main character is purported to be a Muslim, the story actually takes place thousands of years before Islam, in ancient Babylon. Critics gave the work mixed reviews, with some emphasising the strong morality within the work and the quality of the poetry. However, other critics felt that the lack of a strong lyrical structure and the use of Middle Eastern myths took away from the poem.

  Harun al-Rashid (763 c.-809) was the fifth Arab Abbasid Caliph. His rule encompassed modern Iraq. Al-Rashid ruled from 786 to 809 and his time was marked by scientific, cultural and religious prosperity.

  CONTENTS

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK I.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK II.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK III.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK IV.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK V.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK VI.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK VII.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK VIII.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK IX.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK X.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK XI.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK XII.

  PREFACE

  In the continuation of the Arabian Tales, the Domdaniel is mentioned; a Seminary for evil Magicians under the Roots of the Sea. From this seed the present Romance has grown. Let me not be supposed to prefer the metre in which it is written, abstractedly considered, to the regular blank verse; the noblest measure, in my judgement, of which our admirable language is capable. For the following Poem I have preferred it, because it suits the varied subject; it is the Arabesque ornament of an Arabian tale.

  The dramatic sketches of Dr. Sayer, a volume which no lover of poetry will recollect without pleasure, induced me when a young versifier, to practise in this metre. I felt that while it gave the poet a wider range of expression, it satisfied the ear of the reader. It were easy to make a parade of learning by enumerating the various feet which it admits; it is only needful to observe that no two lines are employed in sequence which can be read into one. Two six-syllable lines (it will perhaps be answered) compose an Alexandrine: the truth is that the Alexandrine, when harmonious, is composed of two six-syllable lines.

  One advantage this metre assuredly possesses; the dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it with a prose mouth, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible. Verse is not enough favoured by the English reader: perhaps this is owing to the obtrusiveness, the regular Jews-harp twing-twang, of what has been foolishly called heroic measure. I do not wish the improvisatorè tune, but something that denotes the sense of harmony, something like the accent of feeling; like the tone which every Poet necessarily gives to Poetry.

  THALABA THE DESTROYER. BOOK I.

  How beautiful is night!

  A dewy freshness fills the silent air,

  No mist obscures, no little cloud

  Breaks the whole serene of heaven:

  In full-orbed glory the majestic moon

  Rolls thro the dark blue depths.

  Beneath her steady ray

  The desert circle spreads,

  Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.

  How beautiful is night!

  Who at this untimely hour

  Wanders o’er the desert sands?

  No station is in view,

  No palm-grove islanded amid the waste.

  The mother and her child,

  The widow and the orphan at this hour

  Wander o’er the desert sands.

  Alas! the setting sun

  Saw Zeinab in her bliss,

  Hodeirah’s wife beloved.

  Alas! the wife beloved,

  The fruitful mother late,

  Whom when the daughters of Arabia named

  They wished their lot like her’s;

  She wanders o’er the desert sands

  A wretched widow now,

  The fruitful mother of so fair a race,

  With only one preserved,

  She wanders o’er the wilderness.

  No tear relieved the burthen of her heart;

  Stunned with the heavy woe she felt like one

  Half-wakened from a midnight dream of blood.

  But sometimes when her boy

  Would wet her hand with tears,

  And looking up to her fixed countenance,

  Amid his bursting sobs

  Say the dear name of MOTHER, then would she

  Utter a feeble groan.

  At length collecting, Zeinab turned her eyes

  To heaven, exclaiming, “praised be the Lord!

  “He gave, he takes away,

  “The Lord our God is good!”

  “Good is he?” cried the boy,

  “Why are my brethren and my sisters slain?

  “Why is my father killed?

  “Did ever we neglect our prayers,

  “Or ever lift a hand unclean to heaven?

  “Did ever stranger from our tent

  “Unwelcomed turn away?

  “Mother, he is not good!”

  Then Zeinab beat her breast in agony,

  “O God forgive my child!

  “He knows not what he says!

  “Thou know’st I did not teach him thoughts like these,

  “O Prophet, pardon him!”

  She had not wept till that assuaging prayer....

  The fountains of her eyes were opened then,

  And tears relieved her heart.

  She raised her swimming eyes to Heaven,

  “Allah, thy will be done!

  “Beneath the dispensation of thy wrath<
br />
  “I groan, but murmur not.

  “The Day of the Trial will come,

  “When I shall understand how profitable