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"One stern tyrannic thought, that made All other thoughts its slave;

Stronger and stronger every pulse

Did that temptation crave,-
Still urging me to go and see
The Dead Man in his grave!

"Heavily I rose up, as soon
As light was in the sky,
And sought the black accursed pool
With a wild misgiving eye;

And I saw the Dead in the river-bed,
For the faithless stream was dry!

"Merrily rose the lark, and shook
The dew-drop from its wing;
But I never mark'd its morning flight,
I never heard it sing;

For I was stooping once again

Under the horrid thing.

"With breathless speed, like a soul in chace,

I took him up and ran ;

There was no time to dig a grave

Before the day began;

In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, I hid the murder'd man!

"And all that day I read in school,
But my thought was other-where ;
As soon as the mid-day task was done,
In secret I was there;

And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,
And still the corse was bare!

"Then down I cast me on my face,

And first began to weep;

For I knew my secret then was one
That earth refused to keep;
Or land or sea, though he should be
Ten thousand fathoms deep.

"So wills the fierce avenging Sprite,
Till blood for blood atones!
Ay, though he's buried in a cave,
And trodden down with stones,
And years have rotted off his flesh,—
The world shall see his bones!

"Oh, God! that horrid, horrid dream
Besets me now awake!
Again-again, with dizzy brain,
The human life I take;

And my red right hand grows raging hot,
Like Cranmer's at the stake.

"And still no peace for the restless clay,
Will wave or mould allow ;

The horrid thing pursues my soul,-
It stands before me now!"
The fearful Boy look'd up, and saw
Huge drops upon his brow.

That very night, while gentle sleep
The urchin eyelids kiss'd,

Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walked between,
With gyves upon his wrist.

THE DEATH-BED.

We watch'd her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied-

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids clos'd-she had
Another morn than ours.

ROBERT POLLOK.

(1799-1827.)

THE author of "The Course of Time" adds one more to the list of minds too early quenched by the very ardour of their pursuit of greatness. He was born at Muirhouse, in the parish of Eaglesham, in Renfrewshire. Destined for the dissenting Presbyterian ministry of Scotland, he passed with reputation through his curriculum of study. But the severity of his application induced consumption, which cut off the young poet at the age of twentyseven; he died in the south of England, to which he had been removed for the recovery of his health, shortly after his license to the ministry and the publication of his great poem. Among the dissenting population of Scotland, "The Course of Time" is extolled as rivalling the sublimity of Milton; it has gone through many editions. Its plan is original; the history of the world is supposed to have been wound up, and young angels in heaven inquire of an "Ancient Bard of earth" its eventful history. The Bard proceeds to relate the destinies of mankind till the judgment sealed up their story. The poem is pregnant with spiritual hope, but overshadowed by gloomy views of merely human objects and pursuits. The style is often turgid, without the epigrammatic vividness of Young. As the production of a youth, "The Course of Time" must rank among the most wonderful efforts of genius.

(6
FROM THE COURSE OF TIME."

LIBERTY.

True Liberty was Christian, sanctified,
Baptized, and found in Christian hearts alone;
First born of virtue! daughter of the skies!
Nursling of truth divine! sister of all

The graces, meekness, holiness, and love!

Giving to God, and man, and all below,

That symptom showed of sensible existence,

Their due, unasked; fear to whom fear was due;

To all, respect, benevolence, and love:

Companion of religion! where she came,

There freedom came; where dwelt, there freedom dwelt;

Ruled where she ruled, expired where she expired.

"He was the freeman whom the truth made free;"

Who, first of all, the bands of Satan broke ;

Who broke the bands of sin; and for his soul,
In spite of fools, consulted seriously;
In spite of fashion, persevered in good;
In spite of wealth or poverty, upright;
Who did as reason, not as fancy, bade;

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Who heard temptation sing, and yet turned not
Aside; saw Sin bedeck her flowery bed,

And yet would not go up; felt at his heart

The sword unsheathed, yet would not sell the truth;
Who, having power, had not the will to hurt;

Who blushed alike to be, or have a slave;

Who blushed at nought but sin, feared nought but God;
Who, finally, in strong integrity

Of soul, 'midst want, or riches, or disgrace,
Uplifted, calmly sat, and heard the waves

Of stormy folly breaking at his feet,

Now shrill with praise, now hoarse with foul reproach,
And both despised sincerely; seeking this

Alone,-The approbation of his God,

Which still with conscience witnessed to his peace.

This, this is freedom, such as angels use,

And kindred to the liberty of God.

First born of virtue! daughter of the skies!

The man, the state, in whom she ruled, was free;
All else were slaves of Satan, Sin, and Death.

THE GENIUS OF BYRON.

He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced.
As some vast river of unfailing source,

Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And oped new fountains in the human heart.
Where Fancy halted, weary in her flight,
In other men,1 his, fresh as morning, rose,
And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home,
Where angels bashful looked. Others, though great,
Beneath their argument seemed struggling whiles;
He from above descending, stooped to touch
The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though
It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self
He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"2
And played familiar with his hoary locks:
Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,
And with the thunder talked as friend to friend;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist, the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance, seem'd;

1 Byron appeared as Scott's poetical reputation declined.
2 Childe Harold, Canto iv. St. 184; The Foscari, Act i. Sc. 1.
Manfred; Childe Haroid, Canto iii.

483

SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sung
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed.

Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds, his sisters were;
Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms,
His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deemed. All passions of all men,
The wild and tame, the gentle and severe;
All thoughts, ali maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds, all seasons, Time, Eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared, by man,
He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves;
Then, smiling, looked upon the wreck he made.
With terror now he froze the cowering blood,
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness;
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
So Ocean, from the plains his waves had late
To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,

And seemed to mock the ruin he had wrought.
As some fierce comet of tremendous size,
To which the stars did reverence as it pass'd,
So he, through learning and through fancy, took
His flights sublime, and on the loftiest top

Of Fame's dread mountain sat; not soiled and worn,
As if he from the earth had laboured up;

But, as some bird of heavenly plumage fair,

He looked, which down from higher regions came,
And perched it there, to see what lay beneath.

JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

MR KNOWLES is a dramatic writer who has attempted to revive the style of the age of Elizabeth and James I. In the effort he occasionally degenerates into bombast, sometimes into littleness; but his writings abound with admirable scenic pictures, and frequently rise into impassioned poetry. His dramas consist of tragedies, and of that semi-comedy denoted by the term "play." His plots and characters are generally interesting and truthage." The ful, though the reader often feels painfully the imitation of an "

See the extracts from Byron, p. 451, supra. Pollok seems to have deeply admired the literature of Byron's poetry; indeed, there is considerable resemblance between the idea of the "Course of Time" and that of "Childe Harold." Both are views of conspicuous points in the world's history.

2 Mr Knowles has perhaps injured his genius by sometimes writing with a view to the This is said with the utmost deference to Mr Macrepresentation of a particular actor. ready's genius; but imagination, which "bodies forth the forms of things that are not," must be stinted in her flight by a process which reverses the order of the two departments of the drainatic art.

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