Methinks it were a nobler sight
To see these vales in woods array'd,
Their summits in the golden light,
Their trunks in grateful shade;
And herds of deer, that bounding go
O'er rills and prostrate trees below.
And then to mark the lord of all,
The forest hero, train'd to wars,
Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall,
And seam'd with glorious scars,
Walk forth, amid his train, to dare
The wolf, and grapple with the bear.
This bank, in which the dead were laid,
Was sacred when its soil was ours,
Hither the artless Indian maid
Brought wreaths of beads and flowers,
And the gray chief and gifted seer,
Worshipped the God of thunders here.
October 29,
He rather he pub
Was born in London, where his father kept a livery stable, 1795. In his fifteenth year he was apprenticed to a surgeon. neglected his profession for literary pursuits; and in 1817 lished, under the auspices of Leigh Hunt, a volume of poems. In 1818 he issued another piece, "Endymion," a poetical romance. It was criticised rather severely in the " Quarterly Review," and the effects were felt deeply throughout the rest of his short life. He profited, however, by the hints given him, and produced "Hyperion," a work every way superior to anything he had yet written, and of which Byron spoke with rapture. "Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, &c.," was issued in 1820, and added yet to his fame. But hereditary consumption had become developed in his system, and he was advised to try the soft breezes of Italy, where he arrived in November 1820. He lingered on without hope or even desire of amendment, and died on 27th December of the same year. He was buried in the Protestant burying-ground at Rome, near the monument of Caius Cestus.
FROM "HYPERION."
DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale,
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair;
Forest on forest hung about his head
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day
Robs one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more
By reason of his fallen divinity
Spreading a shade: the Naiad 'mid her reeds
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.
Along the margin sand large footmarks went No further than to where his feet had stray'd, And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the earth, His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.
It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;
But there came one, who, with a kindred hand,
Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low
With reverence, though to one who knew it not.
She was a goddess of the infant world;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy's height: she would have ta'en
Achilles by the hair, and bent his neck;
Or with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face!
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self!
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was, with its stored thunder, labouring up.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or in a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes, like a gleaner, thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn,
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourne;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now, with treble soft,
The red-breast whistles from a garden croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
William and Mary Howitt. {Mary,
MEMBERS of the Society of Friends. In 1823 William Howitt married
Miss Mary Botham, and the same year they published a poem,
Forest Minstrel," as their joint production. It was favourably received,
and since then both have been extensive contributors to poetical and
prose literature.
FROM "THE FOREST MINSTREL."
AWAY with the pleasure that is not partaken!
There is no enjoyment by one only ta'en:
I love in my mirth to see gladness awaken
On lips, and in eyes, that reflect it again.
When we sit by the fire that so cheerily blazes
On our cozy hearthstone, with its innocent glee,
Oh! my soul warms, while my eye fondly gazes,
To see my delight is partaken by thee!
And when, as how often, I eagerly listen
To stories thou read'st of the dear olden day,
How delightful to see our eyes mutually glisten,
And feel that affection has sweetened the lay.
Yes, love-and when wandering at even or morning,
Through forest or wild, or by waves foaming white,
I have fancied new beauties the landscape adorning,
Because I have seen thou wast glad in the sight.
And how often in crowds, where a whisper offendeth,
And we fain would express what there might not
be said,
How dear is the glance that none else comprehendeth,
And how sweet is the thought that is secretly read.
Then away with the pleasure that is not partaken!
There is no enjoyment by one only ta'en:
I love in my mirth to see gladness awaken
On lips, and in eyes, that reflect it again.
JUDGE TALFOURD was born at Reading in 1795, his father being a brewer there. Talfourd studied for the law, and was called to the bar in 1821. In 1835 he published his tragedy of "Ion," which was very successful. Other works followed, both in poetry and prose. In 1849 he was raised to the Bench; and in 1854, while delivering a charge to the grand jury at Stafford, he was seized with a fit of apoplexy, and died before assistance could be procured.
ION, our sometime darling, whom we prized
As a stray gift, by bounteous Heaven dismissed
From some bright sphere which sorrow may not cloud
To make the happy happier! Is he sent
To grapple with the miseries of this time,
Whose nature such ethereal aspect wears
As it would perish at the touch of wrong!
By no internal contest is he trained
For such hard duty; no emotions rude
Hath his clear spirit vanquished-Love, the germ
Of his mild nature, hath spread graces forth,
Expanding with its progress, as the store
Of rainbow colour which the seed conceals
Sheds out its tints from its dim treasury,
To flush and circle in the flower. No tear
Hath filled his eye save that of thoughtful joy
When, in the evening stillness, lovely things
Pressed on his soul too busily; his voice,
If, in the earnestness of childish sports,
Raised to the tone of anger, checked its force,
As if it feared to break its being's law,
And faltered into music; when the forms
Of guilty passion have been made to live
In pictured speech, and others have waxed loud
In righteous indignation, he hath heard
With sceptic smile, or from some slender vein
of goodness, which surrounding gloom concealed,
Struck sunlight o'er it; so his life hath flowed
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.
ELDEST Son of the great poet of this name, was born at Clevedon, near Bristol. In childhood he manifested unusual talents, and at Oxford gained high distinctions, but unfortunately he at the same time acquired intemperate habits, which caused the forfeiture of his fellowship, and blighted his after prospects. Hartley was a well-intentioned man, but nfirmity of purpose characterised all his future exertions, and though a successful prose writer and poet, he never attained the eminent position in society to which his genius would have entitled him.
ADDRESS TO GOLD-FISHES.
RESTLESS forms of living light
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight
With a thousand shadowings;
|