Dear children! when the flowers are full of bees; best! God! would they handcuff thee? and, if they could stream That leaves them still behind, and mocks their changeless dream. They know ye not, ye flowers that welcome me, gaze [Pictures of Native Genius.] O faithful love, by poverty embraced! And she, thy mate, when coldest blows the storm, To flow unseen, repent, and sin no more! Yet while in gloom your freezing day declines, Stretch to the winds in sport their stalwart length, And, while he feeds him, blush and tremble too! Mother of men, be proud without a tear! Northumbrian vales! ye saw, in silent pride, Scenes of his youth, where first he wooed the Nine, Born in a lowly hut an infant slept, The worm came up to drink the welcome shower; The redbreast quaffed the raindrop in the bower; The flaskering duck through freshened lilies swam ; The bright roach took the fly below the dam; Ramped the glad colt, and cropped the pensile spray; No more in dust uprose the sultry way; The lark was in the cloud; the woodbine hung More sweetly o'er the chaffinch while he sung; And the wild rose, from every dripping bush, Beheld on silvery Sheaf the mirrored blush; When calmly seated on his panniered ass, Where travellers hear the steel hiss as they pass, A milkboy, sheltering from the transient storm, Chalked, on the grinder's wall, an infant's form; Young Chantrey smiled; no critic praised or blamed; And golden promise smiled, and thus exclaimed :— 'Go, child of genius! rich be thine increase; Go-be the Phidias of the second Greece!' [Apostrophe to Futurity.] Ye rocks! ye elements! thou shoreless main, Thoughts that with terror and with sorrow wring Their deeds, that yet shall be on earth, in heaven, A Poet's Prayer. Almighty Father! let thy lowly child, MRS NORTON. The family of Sheridan has been prolific of genius, and MRS NORTON, granddaughter of Richard Brinsley, has well sustained the family honours. Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan was, at the age of nineteen, married to the Honourable George Chapple Norton, brother to Lord Grantley, and himself a police magistrate in London. This union was dissolved in 1840, after Mrs Norton had been the object of suspicion and persecution of the most painful description. In her seventeenth year, this lady had composed her poem, The Sorrows of Rosalie, a pathetic story of village life. Her next work was a poem founded on the ancient legend of the Wandering Jew, which she termed The Undying One. A third volume appeared from her pen in 1840, entitled The Dream, and other Poems. This lady,' says a writer in the Quarterly Review, is the Byron of our modern poetesses. She has very much of that intense personal passion by which Byron's poetry is distinguished from the larger grasp and deeper communion with man and nature of Wordsworth. She has also Byron's beautiful intervals of tenderness, his strong practical thought, and his forceful expression. It is not an artificial imitation, but a natural parallel.' The truth of this remark, both as to poetical and personal similarity of feeling, will be seen from the following impassioned verses, addressed by Mrs Norton to the Duchess of Sutherland, to whom she has dedicated her poems. The simile of the swan flinging aside the turbid drops' from her snowy wing is certainly worthy of Byron. [To the Duchess of Sutherland.] Once more, my harp! once more, although I thought A wandering dream thy gentle chords have wrought, Whose lot is cast amid that busy world And Fancy's generous wing is faintly furled; To thee-whose friendship kept its equal truth Through the most dreary hour of my embittered youth I dedicate the lay. Ah! never bard, In days when poverty was twin with song; Nor wandering harper, lonely and ill-starred, Cheered by some castle's chief, and harboured long; Not Scott's Last Minstrel, in his trembling lays, Woke with a warmer heart the earnest meed of praise! For easy are the alms the rich man spares To sons of Genius, by misfortune bent; But thou gav'st me, what woman seldom dares, Belief in spite of many a cold dissentWhen, slandered and maligned, I stood apart From those whose bounded power hath wrung, not crushed, my heart. Thou, then, when cowards lied away my name, And scoffed to see me feebly stem the tide; Thou gav'st me that the poor do give the poor, Who changed not with the gloom of varying years, Their own hearts weak to unresisted sin; Memory, not judgment, prompts the thoughts which steal O'er minds like these, an easy faith to win; And tales of broken truth are still believed Most readily by those who have themselves deceived. But like a white swan down a troubled stream, Whose ruffling pinion hath the power to fling Aside the turbid drops which darkly gleam And mar the freshness of her snowy wingSo thou, with queenly grace and gentle pride, Along the world's dark waves in purity dost glide: Thy pale and pearly cheek was never made To crimson with a faint false-hearted shame; Thou didst not shrink-of bitter tongues afraid, Who hunt in packs the object of their blame; To thee the sad denial still held true, For from thine own good thoughts thy heart its mercy drew. And though my faint and tributary rhymes Shall set some value on his votive lay; So when these lines, made in a mournful hour, All was beheld, and nothing unadmired; The affectionate attachment of Rogers to Sheridan, in his last and evil days, is delicately touched upon by the poetess : And when at length he laid his dying head [Picture of Twilight.] Oh, twilight! Spirit that dost render birth Dear art thou to the lover, thou sweet light, The vision of a white robe's fluttering folds. The Mother's Heart. When first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond, All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure; Yet patient of rebuke when justly given- And meekly cheerful-such wert thou, my child. Haunting my walks, while summer-day was dying; Nor leaving in thy turn; but pleased to glide Through the dark room, where I was sadly lying; Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek, Watch the dim eye, and kiss the feverish cheek. O boy! of such as thou are oftenest made Earth's fragile idols; like a tender flower, No strength in all thy freshness-prone to fadeStill round the loved, thy heart found force to bind, And bending weakly to the thunder showerAnd clung like woodbine shaken in the wind. Then thou, my merry love, bold in thy glee Under the bough, or by the firelight dancing, With thy sweet temper and thy spirit free, Didst come as restless as a bird's wing glancing, Full of a wild and irrepressible mirth, Like a young sunbeam to the gladdened earth! Thine was the shout! the song! the burst of joy! Which sweet from childhood's rosy lip resoundeth; Thine was the eager spirit nought could cloy And the glad heart from which all grief reboundeth; And many a mirthful jest and mock reply Lurked in the laughter of thy dark-blue eye! And thine was many an art to win and bless, The cold and stern to joy and fondness warming; The coaxing smile-the frequent soft caress The earnest, tearful prayer all wrath disarming! Again my heart a new affection found, But thought that love with thee had reached its bound. At length thou camest-thou, the last and least, Nicknamed 'the emperor' by thy laughing brothers, Because a haughty spirit swelled thy breast, And thou didst seek to rule and sway the others; Nor injured either by this love's comparing, MRS SOUTHEY. MRS SOUTHEY (Caroline Bowles) is one of the most pleasing and natural poetesses of the day. She has published various works-Ellen Fitzarthur (1820), The Widow's Tale and other Poems (1822), The Birthday and other Poems (1836), Solitary Hours (1839), &c. The following are excellent both in thought and versification : Mariner's Hymn. Launch thy bark, mariner! No land yet-all's right.' At an hour when all seemeth How! gains the leak so fast? Slacken not sail yet At inlet or island; Straight for the beacon steer, ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. MISS ELIZABETH B. BARRETT, a learned lady, has published Prometheus Bound, a translation from the Greek of Eschylus; and written two original works, The Seraphim and other Poems (1838), and The Romaunt of the Page (1839). Cowper's Grave. It is a place where poets crowned O poets! from a maniac's tongue And now, what time ye all may read And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds He shall be strong to sanctify The poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down Nor ever shall he be in praise With sadness that is calm, not gloom, On God, whose heaven hath won him. And wrought within his shattered brain As hills have language for, and stars The pulse of dew upon the grass The very world, by God's constraint, Beside him true and loving! And timid hares were drawn from woods To share his home-caresses, But while in darkness he remained, MARY HOWITT. This lady, the wife of William Howitt, an industrious miscellaneous writer, is distinguished for her happy imitations of the ancient ballad manner. In 1823 she and her husband published a volume of poems with their united names, and made the following statement in the preface: The history of our poetical bias simply what we believe, in reality, to be that of many others. Poetry has been our youthful amusement, and our increasing daily enjoyment in happy, and our solace in sorrowful hours. Amidst the vast and delicious treasures of our national literature, we have revelled with growing and unsatiated delight; and, at the same time, living chiefly in the quietness of the country, we have watched the changing features of nature; we have felt the secret charm of those sweet but unostentatious images which she is perpetually presenting, and given full scope to those workings of the imagination and of the heart, which natural beauty and solitude prompt and promote. The natural result was the transcription of those images and scenes.' A poem in this volume serves to complete a happy picture of studies pursued by a married pair in concert : Away with the pleasure that is not partaken! 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! how 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! nated,' she says, 'in a strong impression of the immense value of the human soul, and of all the varied modes of its trials, according to its own infinitely varied modifications, as existing in different individuals. We see the awful mass of sorrow and of crime in the world, but we know only in part-in a very small degree, the fearful weight of solicitations and impulses of passion, and the vast constraint of circumstances, that are brought into play against suffering humanity. In the luminous words of my motto, What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. Thus, without sufficient reflection, we are furnished with data on which to condemn our fellow-creatures, but without sufficient grounds for their palliation and commiseration. It is necessary, for the acquisi. tion of that charity which is the soul of Christianity, for us to descend into the depths of our own nature; to put ourselves into many imaginary and untried situations, that we may enable ourselves to form some tolerable notion how we might be affected by them; how far we might be tempted-how far deceived-how far we might have occasion to lament the evil power of circumstances, to weep over our own weakness, and pray for the pardon of our crimes; that, having raised up this vivid perception of what we might do, suffer, and become, we may apply the rule to our fellows, and cease to be astonished, in some degree, at the shapes of atrocity into which some of them are transformed; and learn to bear with others as brethren, who have been tried tenfold beyond our own experience, or perhaps our strength.' Mrs Howitt has since presented several volumes in both prose and verse, chiefly designed for young people. The whole are marked by a graceful intelligence and a simple tenderness which at once charm the reader and win his affections for the author. Mountain Children. Dwellers by lake and hill ! Merry companions of the bird and bee! Go gladly forth and drink of joy your fill, With unconstrained step and spirits free! No crowd impedes your way, No city wall impedes your further bounds; Where the wild flock can wander, ye may stray The long day through, 'mid summer sights and sounds. The sunshine and the flowers, And the old trees that cast a solemn shade; The pleasant evening, the fresh dewy hours, And the green hills whereon your fathers played. The gray and ancient peaks Round which the silent clouds hang day and night; These are your joys! Go forth- For in his spirit God has clothed the earth, Ye sit upon the earth And a pure mighty influence, 'mid your mirth, Moulds your unconscious spirits silently. |