PATRICK SCOTT
Footpaths between Two Worlds and other Poems. By PATRICK SCOTT.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW 1842 – 1954), Tuesday 15 November 1859
Patrick Scott, a poet, came to Australia in 1840, the year of his mother’s death. He returned to England where he died at Glendon, Surrey, in 1887
Footpaths between Two Worlds and other Poems. By PATRICK SCOTT. London: Bell and Dalby. 1859.
THE author of this volume, who, by the publication of several works of great interest and beauty, has established for himself a reputation among the poets of the present day, may be looked upon, as an old colonist of New South Wales.; and perhaps it is that circumstance which induces us to select his from among the many attractive books of verse which have of late years issued from the English Press. Undoubtedly, poems of more than common power have been produced during the last twenty years, whose authors are little known to the great mass of readers.
Poor Cooper’s prison rhyme of the “Purgatory of Suicides” is one of the most remarkable of these pro- ductions. Its vast design, daring thought, and terrible imagery arrested the attention of great critics when it first appeared, and it was pronounced by some the highest effort in epic verse since Paradise Lost. But a very few years have thrown a veil over the sublime epic of the Chartist shoemaker, and it may be doubted whether one in a thousand of the British population is aware that one Thomas Cooper, a poet of Miltonic genius, is still living amongst them. The author before us does not occupy a position in the world of letters commensurate with the merits of his works; but in this he only shares the lot of several contemporaries, who have nevertheless found “fit audience though few ” in the inner circle of the reading public.
Mr. Patrick Scott is a younger brother of Mr. A. W. Scott, of Ash Island, who represents the county of Northumberland in the Legislative Assembly. We believe he resided some years in this colony; subsequently he proceeded to India, where also he re- named some time. Many of his poems have in them traces of his life in the East. Thus, in the present Volume, we have “The Village of the Dead,” and “The Demon’s Bath ” the first an illustration of the dreary choice of life given to the Hindoo sick who have been carried by their friends to the Ganges to die ; and the second, the poetical embodiment of a legend of a beautiful demon that was washed pure of her original foulness in the Kurum Nàssa, by an in- ferior angel of good who had fallen in love with her but not without leaving the communicable stain of her origin in the waters ever afterwards. Mr. Scott’s successive publications are “Lelio and other poems,” “Love in the Moon,” ” Thomas à Becket and other poems,” “A Poet’s Children,” and “Pathways be tween Two Worlds.”
The last of these volumes receives its title from a poem, more of a metaphysical character than any other, divided into four parts, and extending over one hundred and thirty pages. “The subjects treated of include the Immortally of the Soul; the idea of a Providence as exhibited in the beliefs and ceremonies of the old Word; and the Argument for the Truth of Christianity, as supplying the acknowledged defici- ences of those ancient religions.” The first part argues the soul’s immortality, from the commonest conditions of earthly existence—the humiliating pressure of human wants—the phenomena in the supply of food—the necessity for memory and hope—every obstacle, obligation, and incident of life; and proceeds by investigating the nature of organic change in the material universe, and the necessity for a “hidden sustaining power.” The argument derived from the indestructibility of matter is then taken up, and poetically illustrated, and the offices of matter in the education and government of man are suggestively discussed. In conclusion, the question of beasts pos- sessing souls is entertained and disposed of, and the essential difference in man pointed out. As a specimen, we extract the following passage, descriptive of the mind’s power to explore the post and the future
‘ Eden! e’en there thy mind her glances can cast, Sweeping away the long-encumb’ring past, And whilst this bank supports thy limbs, can weave A fancied chaplet far the brow of Eve, Whose beauties (If the tale be true) attest, That God’s last work is fairer than the rest. Or, if thou will’st, thy eager thought can climb Up the dark heights of intercepting time, And view that awful scene, when suns and moons Shall die away from heaven as passing tunes, And the last star, like torch-ray on a hearse, Shall light the pall that wraps the universe.
The second part carries the soul, admitted to be immortal, through the vicissitudes of the world, deals with the imperfections of conscience as a guide, and exhibits the harmony between the longing for, and the efficiency of, a superior intelligence such as in all ages has been supposed to exist. The existence of Deity is considered in the light of science and human expe- rience; and the proof is made irresistible by meta- physical deductions, the evidence of man’s conscious- ness of God supplied by all ages in the works dedicated to his varied name, the rites of all heathen nations, including the Australian, and the texture of all creeds. This part concludes with a comparison of the old pagan creeds, shewing the fragmentary truth imparted to them by the nature of man, along with their fallibility and insufficiency.
The third part is occupied with the history of re- ligion from the beginning of the world, objectively considered, showing the vital influence of Christianity in subduing military barbarism, and moderating the designs of political power. But still the character of the Christian was full of deformity. To many hearts the day-star rose in vain; Worst subjects of a king most fit to reign, They stretch’d the gentlest and most pure of creeds To cloak false thoughts and cover bloody deeds. The fruition of Christian love would cure all; and the world will yet learn to copy the character of its Redeemer.
As love must form the clasp of social ties, So without love all worship starves and dies; Here is the spell that, mutter’d heavenward, bids The eyes of Hope lift up their weary lids: Tis learnt witb ease, though subtle wits may pore On misty maps of metaphysic lore, And, patient, strive to climb, with giddy braun, Some theologlc height that mocks their pain; And though “Faith rests on Reason”—that must ask The hand of Love to ease it of its task.
The fourth and concluding part of Mr. Scott’s poem is confined to the history of man under the influence of religion. The different phases of the Christian’s life are illustrated by memorable events in the pro- gress of civilisation, and some passages in the treatment of this portion of his subject are, in our judgment, the finest efforts of the author. We shall only copy, the description of the temptation in the wilderness, and the poet’s reasonings on the permissive character and peculiar miraculousness of that awful trial.
Upon a mountain in Judea’s land, Behold-nay, shrink not I two dim figures stand— Describe them! —that were vain: thy sense can tell Which one is Heaven, and which embodied Hell. “From frozen climes athwart the burning sones, O’er all the nations, and on all the thrones, I’ll set thee up supreme; but first bow down To me thy lord—from me receive the crown!” The demon spake. God-like the God replies, Nor yet the baffled fiend despairing flies, He offer’d all ambitious earth could want, And, knew he not, when offering, he could grant! Knew not to whom be spake?—Why tempting cast Before a mortal’s choice, a prize so vast? Why seek an end without a hope to gain?— One, too, so wise, though often wise in vain! Alas! be thought upon his early hold, Which time but strengthened while it rendered old, O’er man, God’s greatest work, and dared to try The human passions mix’d in Deity! Think not, that man to him, th’ arch-flend, was sold, Beyond the reach of power, the lure of gold, And that the streaming cross and Godhead’s grave Was Heaven’s price paid to Hell, and loosed the slave. Thus far we know. The Almighty Lord of all. Not yet had sworn this awful power should fall, But let it grow so high, the only flood To drown destruction was celestial blood.
Nor hath he yet vouchsafed that foe to kill, In the long fight which Good hath waged with Ill; So now, for human sin, God views each crime Not in itself alone, and done in time, But as an act in that great war which shows To angel eyes which side the mortal chose. Soldier, that wavering serv’st the fiend who fell! Without a crime desert the cause of hell. Enlist thy soul, and count thy life as dross, To advance the banner of the bloody cross!
Is this dread evil yet what it hath been? Or do we fear it not, because not seen? Hot for some deed that shames the bashful day, What, wayward sinner, would thy passion say, If thou couldst pierce, the mortal mists that hide A shape of blasted grandeur by thy side, Signing thee on to snatch the adulterous kiss, And pawn salvation for a passing bliss? Or when, like evil bird, half stretch’d to fly, Hangs on thy lips th’ imperfect perjury. If those could’st see the Demon bending wait For the false breath, th’ eternal stamp of fate, As o’er thy soul he sca’ters from his store A thousand lies to sanctify one more, Would’st thou not start with horror in each limb, And clutch thy heart to keep it safe from him?
Yet would that sight more scare thee than the sense That to thy soul, through all its moral fence A spirit had passed in, and more and more Was worming its slow passage to the core. To spread out thence, and interfuse the whole Till man and demon made a single soul— Though matter may not interpenetrate Its neighbouring matter, such may be the fate Of things impalpable, where two may swell, Without extention, to one simple Hell.
We have now given the reader some idea of the scope and aim of this fine poem, and the preceding extracts will afford a fair sample of the manner in which the work is executed. We shall pass on to the rest of the volume,
The miscellaneous poems illustrate the widely directed, unsatisfled inquisitiveness of the poet’s mind. The piled up carnage of the battle-field, and its terrible chapters of instruction for human pride and power; the Edens that are lost anew in those broken threads of life—the beautiful gardens of youthful passion that are desolated for ever—the lofty temples of ambition there crushed to atoms—his eye sees all the multifold wreck beneath the hideous flap- ping of the vulture’s wings. Astronomic science, and the “dim religious light” of Grecian mythology, mingle strangely with apocryphal speculation in his Xoyoc [sic?] of the stars.
Centres sought out by worlds (which, round them turning, Wander for ever on, though burning With love ungratified for a near embrace— That which would blast them as the maid of old Was ashes in the touch of Jove), they hold Their stations as the starting-points of space, Sky-marks of aged Time’s continuous marches, While for their silent home the infinite other arches.
The common mournful sound of “the passing bell” comes upon his ear with a varied eloquence of the multitudinous world.
‘Mid those tones of discord wrung From weak nature overstrung; Heard above the lone heart-throbbings, Heard above the sighs and sobbings, Hark! with glad and earnest voice, Cries that bell again, rejoice For emancipated man, Chains of earth long time they bore: They are freed, and gone before, Follow ye who can!
Iscariot is to him a universal presence. The arch traitor, the object of all accusing eyes, is an ensan- guined type of the Christian’s living and daily-acted treason, through the “in-rolling voices” of eternity.
Shall ever more upbraiding cry On him, as we do now, And dash their infinite reply Into his ears, “‘Tis thou ‘” While ever to his view shall rise A blood-stained face with gentle eyes. So be it-and with brow On which self-knowledge casts no glow, We turn and cry, ” It should be so!” With him it should be—and we see No Judas in our fold, Yet make we Gold our god, while he Betrayed a God for gold.
● ● ●
We live, and would live—gold the end And life the enabling mean. Wealth makes morality its friend. And, if religion’s seen To bend at periodic prayer, We are full-arm’d, and none may dare To lift the gilded screen, And, with ungracious prying, find The decent vice that hides behind.
Then we find him plunging into the hopeless depths of a London vagrant’s misery. He comes upon a de- spairing wretch in a damp gateway in the bitter bleakness of a March midnight,—
A man of tatters and of grief, Resolved from fate to force relief; Houseless, shameless, without a bond On earth, and not a fear beyond— So now for liberty from life! And to his throat the open knife He holds with a bitter cry, As if to execrate the past, When all it taught is summ’d at last ln the desire to die.
The suicide in thought yet stops his impious hand, still linked by the sympathies of his nature to a world that disowns him, and casts himself back amidst the denying multitude—back to those frightful stews of wretchedness where his tottering reason can grasp no possible means of comfort, and in the future no single ray of earthly hope—
Back to his rags and misery, . To his naked bed ‘mid starving men, To the depths of a fever-haunted den, To the filth of a human stye!
And still the unholy cry for death goes up through this festering mass of desolate existence,
From women and wild-hearted men Whom hunger hath made tame;
and the mystery to the mind of the poet remains un- solved. Several poems embalm incidents of individual life in the Crimean war. A soldier gathers violets on the battle-field and sends them in a letter to his sweet- heart in England, and the next letter is written by a comrade’s hand and conveys a lock of lifeless hair. There is a Grecian beauty in these coruscations of martial sentiment. Besides the Indian stories alluded to in the opening of this notice, the pieces at the end of the volume include a romaunt of Anglo-Saxon history embracing the chief scenes in the life of Edwin: king of Northumbria, which is very finely sustained, with a true perception of the poetical ele- ments in the story.
“Pathways between Two Worlds” is a book of rare beauty, and will be read with equal delight by the more fanciful and. the more philosophic students of poetry. The first will find a treasure in the passion- pictures and the delicate breathings of sentiment, the historic images and the glimpses of storied superstition with which the book abounds; and the latter will be led on through the pages of the principle poem by the subtile vein of metaphysical inquiry, which pervades it, Mr. Scott’s versification is soft sweet, and flowing, without the harmoniousness im- pairing its strength. Though the style and phraseo- logic texture are very unlike Campbell’s, the reading of the longer poem often reminds us of the Pleasures of Hope, in its melody of numbers.