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Southey was made Poet Laureate in 1813, and was the first to raise that office from the low estate into which it had fallen since the death of Dryden. The opening lines of Thalaba, beginning, How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air, are still sometimes quoted; and a few of his best known short poems, like "The Scholar," "Auld Cloots," "The Well of St.
The Herodotus of Brazil, himself, had seen, when I first saw him, fifty-seven winters; but his once dark locks, though sprinkled with snow, were still curling as if childhood had not passed; and looked wild and thick as those of his own Thalaba.
Southey has also introduced in his wild but beautiful poem of "Thalaba," the vampyre corse of the Arabian maid Oneiza, who is represented as having returned from the grave for the purpose of tormenting him she best loved whilst in existence.
None of them even appears to have obtained the price of their self-sacrifice in worldly honours and advancement, except Mohareb; and he, though assured by destiny that there was one death-blow appointed for him and Thalaba, is yet represented, in the concluding scene, as engaged with him in furious combat, and aiming many a deadly blow at that life on which his own was dependent.
He then repaired to the parlour, bolted his food down his capacious throat in squares of three inches, answered ay and no at random to whatever question was asked at him, and again hurried back to the library, as soon as his napkin was removed, and sometimes with it hanging round his neck like a pinafore; How happily the days Of Thalaba went by!
In his favourite poem of "Thalaba", his imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In the summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire and a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopsgate Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer months were warm and dry.
The witches have also a decoy ready for him in the desart; yet he sups with Okba's daughter, without any of the sorcerers being aware of it; and afterwards proceeds to consult the simorg, without meeting with any obstacle or molestation. The simoom kills Abdaldar, too, in spite of that ring which afterwards protects Thalaba from lightning, and violence, and magic.
The superior melody of the nightingale's song over the grave of Orpheus is alluded to by Southey in his "Thalaba": "Then on his ear what sounds Of harmony arose' Far music and the distance-mellowed song From bowers of merriment, The waterfall remote, The murmuring of the leafy groves; The single nightingale Perched in the rosier by, so richly toned, That never from that most melodious bird Singing a love song to his brooding mate, Did Thracian shepherd by the grave Of Orpheus hear a sweeter melody, Though there the spirit of the sepulchre All his own power infuse, to swell The incense that he loves"
I cannot but believe that, in the heat and glare through which we are passing, this book will not invite in vain to the calm, sweet shadows of holy meditation, grateful as the green wings of the bird to Thalaba in the desert; and thus afford something of consolation to the bereaved, and of strength to the weary.
'I wish you would not speak as if you were Thalaba yourself, said Amy, 'you bring the whole Domdaniel round us. 'I am afraid he is going to believe himself Thalaba as well as Sintram, said Laura. 'But you know Southey did not see all this himself, and did not understand it when it was pointed out. 'Don't tell us that, said Amy.
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