| Proclaims the presence of the power divine— |
| Thus glorious were the wings |
| Of that celestial spirit, as he went |
| Disporting through his native element— |
| Nor these alone |
| The gorgeous beauties that they gave to view; |
| Through the broad membrane branched a pliant bone, |
| Spreading like fibres from their parent stem; |
| Its vines like interwoven silver shone; |
| Or as the chaster hue |
| Of pearls that grace some sultan’s diadem. |
| Now with slow stroke and strong, behold him smite |
| The buoyant air, and now in gentler flight |
| On motionless wing expanded, shoot along.” |
All Southey’s works are instinct, and replete with the experiences of piety, from that fine picture of natural religion, Joan of Arc’s confession of faith, to that as noble sermon as ever was preached upon Christianity, the penitence of Roderic the Goth. This last is the most original and elevated in its design of all Southey’s poems. In “Thalaba” and “Joan of Arc,” he had illustrated the power of faith; in “Madoc” contrasted religion under a pure and simple form with the hydra ugliness of superstition. In “Kehama” he has exhibited virtue struggling against the most dreadful inflictions with heavenly fortitude, and made manifest to us the angel-guards who love to wait on innocence and goodness. But in Roderic the design has even a higher scope, is more difficult of execution; and, so far as I know, unique. The temptations which beset a single soul have been a frequent subject, and one sure of sympathy if treated with any power. Breathlessly we watch the conflict, with heartfelt anguish mourn defeat, or with heart-expanding triumph hail a conquest. But, where there has been defeat, to lead us back with the fallen one through the thorny and desolate paths of repentance to purification, to win not only our pity, but our sympathy, for one crushed and degraded by his own sin; and finally,
