Psalms of a Romantic Poet

Do the Psalms of a Romantic Poet apply parallelisms effectively? In a poem like “Don’t Quit”, the verses build on one another and press the final note: “I am a rose sailing into the ocean of my destiny, / I am the rainbow fading away from my calamity.” This final couplet draws and ties up the poem’s varied meanings into one complete image. The poem is one of encouragement to live fully and at the same venture it is a poem calling for bravery in God’s name. The poem “Beauty” is another example of a poem with moral conviction. The poet reminds us that appearances are deceptive. The allure of physical beauty is murderous. Rev. Cecil employs the image of the sea in a slightly different sense than in previous poems. He says the ocean “destroys men in her sweet emotion.” He marks the thing signified from the signifier itself by addressing the fact that the beauty of the ocean is not the ocean itself because the ocean destroys men. In a show of gusto, Rev. Cecil uses the same objects to signify both good and evil, as if to remind us that we are given a choice between dark and light. This poem is not about female beauty or lust; no, it digs deeper. The poem opens our eyes to what is truly wonderful in life. Beauty and goodness are perhaps different things if we are blinded by the world’s definitions. The poem indicates the usual suspects like fast cars and beautiful women; these things, the poet exclaims, are alluring and appeal to lustful impulses, not the enduring truth. The final lines of the poem reveal the intent of the verses before them. As a point of fact, many of these poems intimate the same sentiments of Christopher Gray’s “Lines Written in a Country Churchyard”. For instance, carefully peruse these lines: “Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor.”