been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand"? Rather would he make one with those "airy spirits" described by Ben Jonson, which
play with falling stars,
And mount the sphere of fire, to kiss the moon.
In the one particular of sunset "effects," what vigour and variety his descriptions show! He may apply to himself what Wordsworth says—"an auxiliar light came from my mind, which on the setting sun bestowed new splendour." Now he stands with forehead bathed with sunset on a mountain's summer crown—(dear to him should be mountain heights, if only because, like sovran Blanc, visited all night by troops of stars)—and looks up toward the descending shadows of darkness. Now he watches a sunset amid orchestral thunders, the gloom rift with golden furrows, and the black masses finally melted to a sphere of rosy light. Now he pictures the western sky all washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun beats like a pulse, welling at every beat a spreading wave of lustre. Then again the sunset hangs before him like a dream that shakes a demon in his fiery lair—the clouds standing around like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles, citadels throbbing in their own fierce light, tall spires that come and go like spires of flame, cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks of piled gorgeousness, and rocks of fire a-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas, all huddled in that dreadful west, and trembling in unsteadfast light before the blaze of the angry sun.[1] Then again he depicts Night mounting her chariot in the eastern glooms to chase the flying sun, whose flight has left footprints of glory in the clouded west—the cloudy manes of her swimming steeds wet with heavy dews—bats and grisly owls on noiseless wings flocking round her in the pale spectral light. At another time, and in another mood, he espies the same sun large and red, his day's work done, sitting right portly within the lazy west, and staring at the world with a round, rubicund, wine-bibbing face. Then the sun is represented as, Cæsar-like, gathering his robes around him as he falls. Then as waited on by clouds previously attired in homely dun and grey, but now—like parasites that dress themselves in smiles to feed a great man's eye—putting on in haste their purple mantles trimmed with ragged gold, and congregating in a shining crowd, to flatter with bright faces the sinking orb. Again, the poet marks how the sunset builds a city frail as dream, with bridges, towers, streets of splendour—and how these fabrics crumble into rosy ruin, and then grow grey as heath. Then we have a strangely imposing picture—such as John Martin must love to study brush in hand—of the sun dying like a cloven king in his own blood—while the distant moon, like a pale prophetess, whom he has wronged, leans eager forward, with most hungry eyes, watching him bleed to death—she brightening and dilating as he faints—until, revenge complete, she walks in lonely triumph through the night. And anon the sun is likened to a perjured lover, that has left dreary the pale deserted east, forgetful of her dewy dawn and his own morning vows, and now flattering Ids new love, the happy-blushing west. And yet once more, the great orb dying in a ring of
- ↑ For these and other "studies" of setting sons, cnf. "Life-Drama," pp. 28, 35, 51, 84, 127, 129, 134, 151, 206, 207.
