tiate the position we have taken relative to the authorship of the poems in question. But should any one argue that passages like these could be pilfered from the writings of the blind, and so patched into the compositions of another as not to discover theft, we can only say, he betrays such an ignorance of the true spirit of poetry, that we fear no opposition from this source. While heroic themes, robed in nature's own beauty and majesty, can interest the intelligent reader, the poems of "Blind Ossian" will be read with undiminished interest, and we cannot close this article without offering a few extracts, that may not only serve to throw light upon their author's history, but recommend this collection to all lovers of true poetry. OSSIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN. O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O Sun? thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountain fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more: whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills the blast of the north is on the plain, the traveler shrinks in the midst of his journey. FROM THE POET'S LAST SONG. Lead, son of Alpin, lead the aged to his woods. The winds begin to rise. The dark wave of the lake resounds. Bends there not a tree from Mora with its branches bare? It bends, son of Alpin, in the rustling blast. My harp hangs on a blasted branch; the sound of its strings is mournful. Does the wind touch thee, O harp, or is it some passing ghost? It is the hand of Malvina! Bring me the harp, son of Alpin. Another song shall rise. My soul shall depart in the sound. My fathers shall hear it in their airy hall. Their dim faces shall hang, with joy, from their clouds; and their hands receive their son. The aged oak bends over the stream. It sighs with all its moss. The withered fern whistles near, and mixes, as harp, and raise the song: Bear the mournful sound it waves, with Ossian's hair. Strike the be near, with all your wings, ye winds. away to Fingal's airy hall. Bear it to Fingal's hall, that he may hear the voice of his son: the voice of him that praised the mighty! The blast of the north opens thy gates, O king! I behold thee sitting on mist dimly gleaming in all thine arms. Thy form now is not the terror of the valiant. It is like a watery cloud, when we see the stars behind it with their weeping eyes. Thy shield is the aged moon: thy sword a vapor half kindled with fire. Dim and feeble is the chief who traveled in brightness before. But thy steps are on the winds of the desert. The storms are darkening in thy hand. Thou takest the sun in thy wrath, and hidest him in thy clouds. The sons of little men are afraid. A thousand showers descend. But when thou comest forth in thy mildness, the gale of the morning is near thy course. The sun laughs in his blue fields; the stream winds in its vale. The bushes shake their gray green heads in the wind. The roes bound towards the desert. There is a murmur in the heath! the stormy winds abate! I hear the voice of Fingal. Long has it been absent from mine ear! Come, Ossian, come away, he says. Fingal has received his fame. We passed away like flames that have shone for a season. Our depar ture was in renown. Though the plains of our battles are dark and silent; our fame is in the four gray stones. The voice of Ossian has been heard. The harp has been strung in Selma; come, Ossian, come away, he says, come, fly with thy fathers on clouds. I come, I come, thou king of men! The life of Ossian fails. I begin to vanish on Cona. My steps are not seen in Selma. Beside the stone of Mora I shall fall asleep. The winds whistling in my gray hair shall not awaken me. Depart on thy wings, O wind, thou canst not disturb the rest of the bard. The night is long, but his eyes are heavy. Depart, thou rustling blast. BEAUTIES FROM THE WRITINGS OF JOHN MILTON. "But Milton next, with high and haughty stalks, No vulgar hero can his muse engage, Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallowed rage." THERE is much in the long and eventful life of this great and good man, worthy of detail, and eminently calculated to interest the general reader. But so many excellent memoirs of him have been given to the public, in connection with his works, from pens eloquent with praise, and glowing with fervent admiration of his genius, that we purpose, in this article, to confine ourselves mainly to that period of his life subsequent to the loss of his sight. He was born, it appears, at London, in 1608; greatly impaired his sight by hard study in youth; took the degree of A. M. at Christ College, in his twenty-fourth year; zealously embarked in the political and religious controversies of the times, and, while engaged in writing his defense of the English people, again overtasked his eyes, and brought on a gutta serena, which ended in the total extinction of his sight, in the forty-fourth year of his age. Of this melancholy result he was, however, forewarned by his physician, but, in the alternative of evils, preferred, it seems, the loss of sight to the dereliction of his duty. As clouds collect around them dark, floating vapors, and seem to convert into blackness the bright blue sky itself, so great afflictions accumulate sorrow, until every glad beam of hope and joy is shut out from the heart. Very much about this time, Milton was called to mourn the death of his wife, who left to his protection three orphan daughters. He did not, however, long remain in this friendless situation, but shortly after married Catharine, daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, who seems to have been the object of his fondest affection, but who died, within a year after their marriage. This new accession of sorrow again brought back his helpless and forlorn condition, and no doubt cast a deeper gloom over his spirits than either of his former afflictions had done. It forms the subject of that beautiful and melting sonnet to his deceased wife. This sonnet is found in Milton's collected poems, and possibly lives in the reader's memory, as one of its brightest and purest images of thought. But as it brings out some valuable ideas in relation to the dreams of the blind, and offers us the welcome opportunity of drawing upon our own experience, we gladly give it room: Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis from the grave, |