CATHERINE.

FRIEND.

ELIZA.

ELIZA.

FRIEND

FRIEND.

ity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of guise of playful raillery, and the countless other modesty which will arise in delicate munds, when infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial they are conscious of possessing the same or the feeling. correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels

Well, Sir ; you have said quite enough to make me the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its despair of finding a “ John Anderson, my jo, John," own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call to totter down the hill of life with. Goodness its Playfellow, and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thou

Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer sand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged VIRTUE than good women, but that what another would find the caressing fondness that belongs to the INNOCENCE of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and in you, you may hope to find in another. But well, tender courtesies as had been dictated by the same which would be more than an adequate reward for

however, may that boon be rare, the possession of affection to the same object when attired in feminine

the rarest virtue. loveliness or in manly beauty.

Surely, he who has described it so beautifully, What a soothing-what an elevating idea!

must have possessed it ? CATHERINE. If it be not only an idea.

If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had

believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter At all events, these qualities which I have enumer- the disappointment! ated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such in.

(Then, after a pause of a few minutes). dividuals should meet together in this wide world

ANSWER (er improviso). under circumstances that admit of their union as Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat, Husband and Wife! A person may be highly estima- He had, or fancied that he had ; ble on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbor, friend, Say, 't was but in his own conceithousemate-in short, in all the concentric circles of

The fancy made him glad! attachment, save only the last and inmost; and yet Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish! from how many causes be estranged from the highest The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish! perfection in this! Pride, coldness or fastidiousness | The fair fulfilment of his poesy, of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious dis- When his young heart first yearn’d for sympathy. position, a passion for display, a sullen temper-one or the other—too often proves “ the dead fly in the But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain compost of spices,” and any one is enough to unfit it

Unnourish'd wane! for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty Faith asks her daily bread, good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that Now so it chanced—from wet or dry,

And Fancy must be fed ! keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self. It boots not how—I know not whyimportance. And as this high sense, or rather sensa- She miss 'd her wonted food : and quickly tion of their own value is, for the most part, ground. Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly. ed on negative qualities, so they have no better means Then came a restless state, 't wixt yea ar ! 190 of preserving the same but by negatives—that is, by His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and yw, not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay for fond, silly, or nonsensical,-or (to use their own Above its anchor driving to and fro. phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in That boon, which but to have possess’d remembering.

In a belief, gave life a zest

Uncertain both what it had been, ELIZA (in answer to a whisper from CATHERINE).

And if by error lost, or luck; To a hair! He must have sate for it himself. Save And what it was :—an evergreen me from such folks! But they are out of the question. Which some insidious blight had struck,

Or annual flower, which past its blow True! but the same effect is produced in thousands No vernal spell shall e'er revive; by the too general insensibility to a very important Uncertain, and afraid to know, truth; this, namely, that the MISERY of human life is

Doubts tossd him to and fro; made up of large masses, each separated from the Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive, uther by certain intervals. One year, the death of a Like babes bewilder'd in a snow, child ; years after, a failure in trade; after another That cling and huddle from the cold longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have In hollow tree or ruin'd fold. married unhappily ;-in all but the singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum Those sparkling colors, once his boasi,. total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily Fading, one by one away, counted, and distinctly remembered. The HAPPINESS Thin and hueless as a ghost, of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute frac- Poor Fancy on her sick-bed lay, tions—the liule, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a mi at distance, worse when near, smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the dis- Telling her dreams to jealous l'ear'

FRIEND.

а

Where was it then, the sociable sprite

Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish! Of manhood, musing what and whence is man Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,

Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves Itself a substance by no other right

Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves But that it intercepled Reason's light;

Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids,
It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow, That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades;
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow!

Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's seast; Thank Heaven! 't is not so now.

Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest,
Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array,

To high-church pacing on the great saint's day. O bliss of blissful hours !

And many a verse which to myself I sang, The boon of Heaven's decreeing,

That woke the tear, yet stole away the pang, While yet in Eden's bowers

Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd.
Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate! And last, a matron now, of sober mien,

The one sweet plant which, piteous Heaven agreeing, Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen,
They bore with them through Eden's closing gate! Whoin as a faëry child my childhood woo'd
Of life's gay summer-tide the sovran Rose! Even in my dawn of thought-Philosophy.
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows Though then unconscious of herself, pardie,
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade ;

She bore no other name than Poesy;
If this were ever his, in outward being,

And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, Or but his own true love's projected shade, That had but newly left a mother's knee, Now, that at length by certain proof he knows, Prauled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone That whether real or magic show,

As if with elfin playfellows well known,
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so ;

And life reveal'd to innocence alone.
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,
Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest :
The certainty that struck Hope dead,

Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry
Hath left Conteniment in her stead :

Thy fair creation with a mastering eye,
And that is next to best!

And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand,
Now wander through the Eden of thy hand;
Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear
See fragment shadows of the crossing deer,
And with that serviceable nymph I stoop,

The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO. I see no longer! I myself am there,

Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. Of late, in one of those most weary hours,

'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings, When life seems emplied of all genial powers,

And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings :
A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells
May bless his happy lot, I sate alone;

From the high tower, and think that there she dwells And, from the numbing spell to win relief,

With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest, Call’d on the past for thought of glee or grief.

And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest In vain! bereft alike of grief and glee, I sate and cower'd o'er my own vacancy! And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache, The brightness of the world, O thou once free, Which, all else slumbiring, seem'd alone to wake; And always fair, rare land of courtesy ! O Friend ! long wont to notice yet conceal,

0, Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills! And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, And famous Arno fed with all their rills; I but half saw that quiet hand of thine

Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy! Place on my desk this exquisite design,

Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine, Boccaccio's Garden and its faery,

The golden corn, the olive, and the vine. The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry!

Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm,

And forests, where beside his leafy hold Framed in the silent poesy of form.

The sullen boar haih heard the distant horn, Like flocks adown a newly-bained steep

And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn, Emerging from a mist: or like a stream

Palladian palace with its storied halls; of music soft that not dispels the sleep,

Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gardens, where Aings the bridge its airy span, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might

And Nature makes her happy home with man; The picture stole upon my inward sight.

Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast. And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, And one by one (I know not whence) were brought A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought. Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn, In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost

Thine all delights, and every muse is thine : Or wonder, and in its own fancies lost;

And more than all, the embrace and intertwine Or charm'd my youth, that kindled from above, or all with all in gay and twinkling dance' Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love; 'Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance

See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees

of poetry, to observe, that in the attempt to adapt the The new-found roll of old Mæonides ;*

Greek metres to the English language, we must begin But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart, by substituting quality of sound for quantity – that is, Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart!t accentuated or comparatively emphasized syllables,

for what, in the Greek and Latin verse, are named O all-enjoying and all-blending sage,

long, and of which the prosodial mark is “; and vice Long be it mine to con thy mazy page,

versâ, unaccentuated syllables for short, marked. Where, half conceal’d, the eye of fancy views

Now the hexameter verse consists of two sorts of feet, Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy the spondee, composed of two long syllables, and the muse!

dactyl, composed of one long syllable followed by two Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, short. The following verse from the Psalms, is a rare And see in Dian's vest between the ranks

instance of a perfect hexameter (i. e. line of six feet) Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes in the English language :The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves,

Göd cāme lūp with ă | shout: our | Lord with With that sly satyr peering through the leaves ! thē sound of a | trūmpēt.

But so few are the truly spondaic words in our language, such as Egypt, üprūar, tūrmoil, &c., that we

are compelled to substitute, in most instances, the MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY.

trochee, or “ă, i.e. such words as mērrý, lightlý, &c.

for the proper spondee. It need only be added, that LINES COMPOSED ON A SICK BED, UNDER SEVERE in the hexameter the fifth foot must be a dactyl, and

BODILY SUFFERING, ON MY SPIRITUAL BIRTH-DAY, the sixth a spondee, or trochee. I will end this note OCTOBER 28th.

with two hexameter lines, likewise from the Psalms.

Thēre Ys à | rivěr thě | flowing whěre of shall | Bow unto God in CHRIST- in Christ, my ALL!

gladden thẻ city. What, that Earth boasts, were not lost cheaply, rather

Hallẽ | lujah thẻ | citỷ $f | God Jehövüh! hinh | Than forfeit that blest Name, by which we call blēst hér.] The Holy One, the Almighty God, OUR FATHER ? FATHER ! in Christ we live · and Christ in Thee : Eternal Thou, and everlasting We!

I. HYMN TO THE EARTH. The Heir of Heaven, henceforth I dread not Death, Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse In Christ I live, in Christ I draw the breath

and the mother, of the true Life. Let Sea, and Earth, and Sky Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, Wage war against me: on my front I show

blessing, I hymn thee ! Their mighty Master's seal! In vain they try Forth, ye sweet sounds ! from my harp, and my voice To end my Life, who can but end its Woe.

shall float on your surges

Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on Is that a Death-bed, where the CHRISTIAN lies!

thy pinionis. Yes!-- But not his: "Tis Death itself there dies.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows,

and lake with green island,

Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing FRAGMENTS

in brightness,

Thrilled with thy beauty and love, in the wooded slope FROM THE WRECK OF MEMORY:

of the mountain,

Here, Great Mother, I lie, thy child with its head on PORTIONS OF POEMS COMPOSED IN EARLY MANHOOD.

thy bosom!

Playful the spirits of noon, that creep or rush through ¡Note. - It may not be without use or interest to

thy tresses: youthful, and especially to intelligent female readers Green-haired Goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they

hurry or linger, * Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first in- Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical troduced the works of Homer to his countrymen.

t I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Ro- Into my being thou murmurest joy; and tenderest man classics exercised on the judgmente, feelings, and imagi- sadness nations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the Shed'st thon, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio; where the sake instructor, Racheo, as soon as the

the heavenly gladness young prince and the beautiful girl Biancafiore had learned Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of hymns of thanksgiving. Love. Incommcio Racheo a mettere il suo officio in essecu- Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse zione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece legere il santo libro d'Ovvidio,

and the mother, nel quale il sommo poeta mostra, come i santi fuochi di Vé Sister thou of the Stars, and beloved by the sun, the nere si debbano ne freddi cuori occendere."

rejoicer!

235

OR

murmurs.

Guardian and friend of the Moon, O Earth, whom IV. THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE DESCRIBED the Comets forget not,

AND EXEMPLIFIED. Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round, and

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

Creation ?)
Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon

thee enamored!
Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great Mother and God-

V. A VERSIFIED REFLECTION. dess!

[A Force is the provincial term in Cumberland for Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap

any narrow fall of water from the summit of a mounwas ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed

tain precipice. — The following stanza (it may not thee and won thee!

arrogate the name of poem) or versified reflection, Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes was composed while the author was gazing on three of morning!

parallel Forces, on a moonlight night, at the foot of

the Saddleback Fell.-S. T. C.) Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy

self-retention : July thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at

On stern BLENCARtuur's perilous height thy centre!

The wind is tyrannous and strong: Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience;

And flashing forth unsteady light and forth with

From stern Blencarthur's skiey height Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty

As loud the torrents throng! embracement, Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thou- Beneath the moon in gentle weather sand-fold instincts,

They bind the earth and sky together: Filled, as a dream, the wide waters: the rivers sang But oh! the Sky, and all its forms, how quiet! on their channels;

The things that seek the Earth, how full of noise Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas : the yearn- and riot!

ing ocean swelled upward : Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods,

and the echoing mountains, Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled in blos

LOVÉ'S GHOST AND RE-EVANITION. soming branches.

.

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE.

Like a lone ARAB, old and blind, II. ENGLISH HEXAMETERS, WRITTEN DURING Some caravan had left behind; A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN 1799.

Who sits beside a ruin'd well,

Where the shy Dipsads* bask and swell! O, what a life is the Eye's! what a strange and And now he cowers with low-hung head aslant, inscrutable essence!

And listens for some human sound in vain : Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that And now the aid, which Hoaven alone can grant, warms him;

Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain Him, that never beheld the swelling breast of his Even thus, in languid mood and vacant hour,

mother; Him, that smiled in his gladness, as a babe that smiles with brow low-bent, within my garden bower,

Resting my eye upon a drooping plant, in its slumber;

I sate upon its couch of Camomile: Even for Him it exists! It moves and stirs in its And loor was it a brief sleep, the while prison !

I watch'd the sickly calm and aimless scope Lives with a separate life; and—“Is it a Spirit?" of my own heart ?–I saw the inmate, Hope, he murmurs:

That once had made that heart so warm, Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and TO SEE is only

Lie lifeless at my feet! a language !"

And Love stole in, in maiden form,

Toward my arbor-seat!

She bent and kissed her sister's lips,
III. THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER DESCRIBED

As she was wont to do:
AND EXEMPLIFIED.

Alas ! 'l was but a chilling breath,
STRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless

That woke enough of life in death billows,

To make Hope die anew. Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean

* The Asps of the sand-deserts, anciently named Dipsade.

LIGHT-HEARTEDNESS IN RHYME. Thus long accustomed on the twy-fork'd hill,*

To pluck both flower and floweret at my will ; “I expect no sense, worth listening to, from the man who Nor common law, nor statute in my head ;

The garden's maze, like No-man's land, I tread, never dares talk nonsense."- Anon.

For my own proper smell, sight, fancy, feeling,

With autocratic hand at once repealing 1. THE REPROOF AND REPLY:

Five Acts of Parliament 'gainst private stealing! OR, THE FLOWER-THIEF'S APOLOGY, FOR A ROBBERY But yet from C-m, who despairs of grace ?

COMMITTED IN MR. AND MRS. —'S GARDEN, ON There's no spring-gun nor man-trap in that face!
SUNDAY MORNING, 25TH OF MAY, 1833, BETWEEN Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue,
THE HOURS OF ELEVEN AND TWELVE.

That look as if they had little else to do:

For C -m speaks.“ Poor youth! he's but a wais! "FIE, Mr. Coleridge!-- and can this be you?

The spoons all right? The hen and chickens safe ? Break two commandments ?--and in church-time too? Well, well, ne shall not forfeit our regards — Have you not heard, or have you heard in vain,

The Eighth Commandment was not made for Bards!" The birth-and-parentage-recording strain ?-Confessions shrill, that shrill cried mack'rel drown Fresh from the drop—the youth not yet cut down

II. IN ANSWER TO A FRIEND'S QUESTION. Letter to sweet-heart—the last dying speech Her attachment may differ from yours in degree, And did'nt all this begin in Sabbath-breach?

Provided they are both of one kind ; You, that knew better! In broad open day

But friendship, how tender so ever it be, Steal in, steal out, and steal our flowers away?

Gives no accord to love, however refined. What could possess you? Ah! sweet youth, I fear,

Love, that meets not with love, its true nature The chap with horns and tail was at your ear!"

revealing, Such sounds, of late, accusing fancy brought

Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs: From fair to the Poet's thought.

If you cannot list hers up to your state of feeling, Now hear the meek Parnassian youth's reply :- You must lower down your state to hers. A bow—a pleading look-a downcast eye -And then :

III. LINES TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABU " Fair dame! a visionary wight,

SIVE REVIEW. Hard by your hill-side mansion sparkling white, What though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking His thought all hovering round the Muses' home,

chorus Long hath it been your Poet's wont to roam. From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak And many a morn, on his bed-charmed sense, So was it, neighbour, in the times before us, So rich a stream of music issued thence,

When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak, He deem'd himself, as it flow'd warbling on,

Romped with the Graces : and each tickled Muse Beside the vocal fount of Helicon!

(That Turk, Dan Phæbus, whom bards call divine, But when, as if to settle the concern,

Was married to - at least, he kepl - all nine) — A nymph too he beheld, in many a turn,

They fled; but with reverted faces ran! Guiding the sweet rill from its fontal urn;

Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse, Say, can you blame ?-No! none, that saw and heard, They had allured the audacious Greek to use, Could blame a bard, that he, thus inly stirr'd, Swore they mistook him for their own Good Man. A muse beholding in each fervent trail,

This Momus — Aristophanes on earth Took Mary H-for Polly Hymnia!

Men called him-maugre all his wit and worth, Or, haply as thou stood beside the maid

Was croaked and gabbled at. How, then, should you, One loftier form in sable stole arrayed,

Or I, Friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew? If with regretful thought he hail'd in thee,

No: laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee, C-m, his long-lost friend Mol Pomone ?

“I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me !" But most of you, soft warblings, I complain! "T was ye, that from the bee-hive of my brain

IV. AN EXPECTORATION,
Did lure the fancies forth, a freakish rout,
And witched the air with dreams turn'd inside out.

OR SPLENETIC EXTEMPORE, ON MY JOYFUL DEPARTURE

FROM THE CITY OF COLOGNE. Thus all conspired_each power of eye and ear,

As I am Rhymer, And this gay month, th' enchantress of the year,

And now at least a merry one, To cheat poor me (no conjurer, God wot!)

Mr. Mum's Rudesheimert
And C-m's self accomplice in the plot.

And the church of St. Geryon
Can you then wonder if I went astray?
Not bards alone, nor lovers mad as they

* The English Parnassus is remarkable for its two gummits
All Nature day-dreams in the month of May, of unequal height, the lower denominated Hampstead, tin
And if I pluck'd each flower that sweetest blows'- higher Highgate.
Who walks in sleep, needs follow must his nose. † The apotheosis of Rhenish wine.