Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

Swift to be hurl'd

Anywhere, anywhere

Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,
No matter how coldly

The rough river ran,—

Over the brink of it,

Picture it,-think of it,

Dissolute Man!

Lave in it, drink of it

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently, kindly,-

Smooth, and compose them;

And her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Through muddy impurity,

As when with the daring
Last look of despairing

Fixed on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,

Spurred by contumely,

Cold inhumanity,

Burning insanity,

Into her rest,

Cross her hands humbly,

As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behaviour,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

The vigour of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the

poem.

Among the minor

poems of Lord Byron, is one which has never received from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves :—

Though the day of my destiny's over,

And the star of my fate hath declined,

Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted

It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,

As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.

Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
To pain-it shall not be its slave.

There is many a pang to pursue me :

They may crush, but they shall not contemn-They may torture, but shall not subdue me"T is of thee that I think-not of them.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,

Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,

Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,

Though parted, it was not to fly,

Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'T was folly not sooner to shun :
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,

I have found that whatever it lost me,

It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,

Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that which I most cherished

Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree,

And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is the soul-clevating idea, that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of Fate while, in his adversity, he still retains the unwavering love of

woman.

From Alfred Tennyson-although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived—I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen. I call him, and think him the noblest of poets-not because the impressions he produces are, at all times, the most profound-not because the poetical excitement which he induces is, at all times, the most intense-but because it is, at all times, the most ethereal-in other words, the most elevating and the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess: "

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavoured to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is, strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the Soul-quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart-or of that Truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade, rather than to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary-Love-the true, the divine Eros-the Uranian, as distinguished from the Dionæan Venus-is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth-if, to be sure, through the attain