steed: Corsica now begins to show her dark mountains, the dark shadow giving added height to the cloudy summit.1 Namatianus is last in this long series of classical poets who in diverse ways have given us the ancient impressions of landscape. The little collection which I have here offered, from its subject, we might almost literally call a Greek and Roman Anthology. The mere list of names might summon up before us a gallery of splendour, as if we enumerated the great landscape painters from Titian to Turner-Homer, Sappho, Pindar, Sophocles, Theocritus, Lucretius, Catullus, Vergil, Horace. Quitting this fascinating region-as at least the writer finds it -we see some prevision, faint yet clear, of later days. Yet near a thousand years were destined to pass-years covering the destruction of the Western Roman Empire by Northern tribes, the darkness, the pale twilight following, the gradual emergence of the first, the early or cosmopolitan Renaissance-till the new world of Christian literary civilisation breaks forth in full magnificent splendour with Dante ;—that first poet of imperial stature to whom, since Vergil, Europe had given birth. 1 currere curamus velis, aquilone reverso ; Itinerarium, II, 345, 429. CHAPTER VI LANDSCAPE IN THE HEBREW POETRY THUS far the landscape, as seen in the Greek and Roman poetry, has been before us. It is a scarcely disputable commonplace to add, that these two great literatures have been eminently the most powerful models in moulding modern verse; they form, in fact, the magnificent inevitable ante-room, the Propylaea, to the story of European song, of English more emphatically. Yet though the subject be trite, a few words may be added in explanation, so far as I am able, of the precise grounds upon which this high place is claimed. It is a familiar, though often ignored canon, that perfect poetry demands a perfect equipoise, a perfect equivalence, between subject and treatment, matter and form;—and that the art must be the more absolute the higher the theme chosen whilst we have at once to confess that imperfection attends all human attempts at the perfect. It is in the region of form and treatment that the largest debt of Modern poetry probably lies to Classical; to Hellas we all owe the eternal models of diction, of metre, in short, of style and, hardly less important, the separation of poetry under definite forms; the eternal models, also, of clearness and of sanity, of unity and climax in the whole. Rome, receiving this splendid inheritance, like a bridge uniting two worlds, carried it on to us with modifications which adapted Hellenic master-works to later thought and language. The Greek, in a word, generally speaking, taught us Beauty; the Roman, Dignity. This bequest belongs to the formal side, the side of art, as above defined. While it is in this field that we have gained most in a direct way from classical treasures, it would be ungrateful-it would be criminal-to ignore our immense debt to the noble thought, the penetrating insight into human character and life, the profound and exquisite, if limited, feeling for Nature (to touch our own province) which mark classical poetry from Homer onwards. We owe also to the ancients that constantly exhibited preference for objective over subjective treatment of theme which, as Goethe urged, is always the mark of the highest poetry. And if we are dwelling here upon both style and subject, this is because, although, for criticism, form and matter have been necessarily separated, yet the two are interwoven as warp and woof in the fine tapestry of verse, or rather, intimately combined everywhere as if by chemical union. If, however, here the metaphor of body and soul naturally occurs to the mind, it should recall also at once that vital element from which modern poetry can hardly dissever itself without suicide-that which, in its profoundest sense, the old pre-Christian world inevitably wanted. One ancient literature, however, remains by which the spiritual element was conferred upon humanity, and thus on human song. Palestine and Hellas, Athens and Jerusalem, these unquestionably are the two fountains of whatever is deepest in human thought, human emotion, human art-fountains which, like those fabled ones of Eros and Anteros at Gadara, answer and complete each other by their immense contrast. And this contrast, running through every region of man's interest, everywhere appears in the presentation of Landscape in Poetry. Under its highest aspect the Hebrew treatment has been admirably set forth by Humboldt in his Cosmos 1_ 1 Physical science has advanced with magnificent movement since that work was written. Yet the author enjoyed a range of knowledge, the fruit alike of study and of experience—a width, and at the same time a refinement of taste-a large-minded grasp of life in past and present times, which render Cosmos worthy of an attention now-it may be feared-seldom given. "It is characteristic of Hebrew poetry in reference to "nature, that, as a reflex of monotheism, it always embraces "the whole world in its unity, comprehending the life of the "terrestrial globe as well as the shining regions of space. It "dwells less on details of phenomena, and loves to contemplate great masses. Nature is pourtrayed, not as self"subsisting, or glorious in her own beauty, but ever in relation "to a higher, an over-ruling, a spiritual power. The Hebrew "bard ever sees in her the living expression of the omnipresence of God in the works of the visible creation. Thus, "the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews in its descriptions of "nature is essentially, in its very subject, grand and solemn, "and, when touching on the earthly condition of man, full of a yearning pensiveness." The landscape of Palestine is of course that mainly presented the climate, the seasons in their order; the skies and cloud-region in particular, occupy a large place in the Book of Job. But the sea is also described with a breadth and animation, a sense of life and of wonder, which classical poets do not approach. We may begin with the blessing of Joseph, as this gives a brief but most poetically felt sketch of the landscape in its largest sense Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, And for the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon, And for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, And for the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof.1 The hundred and fourth Psalm, in our version, is perhaps the noblest example of the Hebrew panorama of Nature; though no word analogous to Nature, we should note, ever occurs, either as a brief synonym for the external aspect of things, or, as we commonly use it, for a kind of abstract medium between God and the universe. This Song of the World begins with the Heavens, the Clouds, the Earth, the 1 Deut. xxxii, 13. rivers, grass and herbs for animals; wine and bread for man. Follow details of the landscape: the trees of the Lord, cedars with nestling birds; the stork on the fir-tree; hills and rocks for goats and conies. Let me quote here a few stanzas from the magnificent rendering of this psalm by that deep-souled neglected poet, Henry Vaughan. He is speaking of the brooks which run from hill to valley— These to the beasts of every field give drink ; There the wild asses swallow the cold spring : Thou giv'st the trees their greenness, ev'n to those, The birds their nests build; though the stork doth choose To the wild goats the high hills serve for folds, The rocks give conies a retiring place : Above them the cool moon her known course holds, And the sun runs his race. Then the poet turns to night and its terrors of wild beasts, until the human figure has its place Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour, until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are Thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches. But as the picture of life and of God's power is not exhausted, the song proceeds to the sea and its innumerable indwellers, all dependent upon Him for their sustenance and creation, as He renews the face of the earth: until, summing up all these wonders in the glory of their Maker, the royal poet strikes a note unknown to Athens or to Rome, as he tells of the God who rejoices in His works. Similar, though more dramatic, is the picture given in the hundred and seventh Psalm, telling of God's goodness to man, and ending with that vivid scene of the ship at sea, |