510 



ON THE LANGUAGE 



Flow'd from the heart ; for then the rustic muse 



Warmest iospired them ; then convivial sport 



Taught round their heads, their shoulders, taught to twifie 



Foliage, and flowers, and garlands, richly dight ; 



To loose, innumerous time their limbs to move, 



And beat tvith sturdy foot maternal earth ; 



While m.;ny a smile, and many a laughter loud 



Told all was new, and wond'rous much esteem'd. 



Thus wakeful lived they r cheating of its rest 



The drowsy midnight ; with the jocund dance 



Mixing gay converse, madrigals, and strains^ 



Run o'er the reed with broad recumbent lip : 



As, wakeful still, our revellers through the night 



li^ad on their defter dance to time precise. 



Yet cull not costiier sweets, with all their art. 



Than the rude oflfspring earth in woodlands bore."* 



Nature is tvet the same ; and hence music, and dancing, and poetry, 

 tind impassioned language are to be found at this moment, in all their 

 energy and irregular wildness, among the barbarians of JNorfh America, 

 those of the Polynesian islands, and even the negro tribes of Africa ; 

 while not unfr6quently we hear an equally daring and figurative diction, 

 though of a very different kind, vented by the last in a state of Mexican 

 ot West Indian slavery, alternately mixed with terrible execrations on the 

 heads of their cruel task-masters, and with the most piteous longings for 

 freedom and their native land. 



In like manner it existed, and was even cultivated with systematic atten- 

 tion, among the earliest savages of the hyperboreal snows, the Gothsf, 

 Scythians, or Scandinavians ; nor less so among the Celtic tribes of Gaul, 

 Britain, and Ireland. The scalds of the former, and the bards or druids 

 of the latter. Were always held in the highest dignity and admiration ; their 

 persons were esteemed sacred ; their rhapsodies were in measured flow, 

 and had an enthusiastic effect in rousing their fellow-countrymen to arms, 

 to religious rites, or funeral lamentations ; in rehearsing the dangers they 

 had encountered, and the victories they had gained ; and in stimulating 

 theitl to a contempt of torment and death under every shape, in the high 

 career of heroic exploits, and the glory of living in the national hymns of 

 future ages. 



Such was the death-song of Regner Lodbrok, a Danish prince of the 

 eighth century, and one of the most celebrated scalds of his day. It 

 inischanced the warrior to fall into the hands of his enemies, by whom he 

 was thrown into prison, and condemned to be destroyed by serpents. In 

 this situation he solaced himself with rehearsing all the exploits of his life ; 

 and the following is a part of the ferocious verses he composed in the im- 

 mediate prospect of the fate reserved for him, translated word for word by 

 Olaus Wormius from the Runic original : " He only regrets this life who 

 has never known distress : he who aspires to the love of virgins, ought 

 always to be foremost in the roar of arms. In the halls of our father Bal- 

 mier for Odin) I know there are seats prepared, where in a short time we 

 shall drink ale out of the hollow skulls of our enemies. In the house of 

 the mighty Odin no brave man laments death. I come not with the voice 

 of despair to Odin's hall." 



Mr. Gray has been peculiarly happy in inspiriting the old patriotic 

 bard of Cambria with a similar contempt of death. The entire descrip- 



* At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore 

 Ante fuit miilto, quam laevift cavmina CiUBitUr St0. 



