Silently, silently, on we trode and trode,
As if a spell had frozen up our words :-

White lay the wolds around us, ankle deep

In new-fallen snows, which champ'd beneath our tread ;
And, by the marge of winding Esk, which show'd

The mirror'd stars upon its map of ice,
Downwards in haste we journey'd to the shore
Of Ocean, whose drear, multitudinous voice
Unto the listening spirit of silence sang.

Oh, leaf! from out the volume of far years
Dissever'd, oft, how oft have the young buds
Of spring unfolded, have the summer skies
In their deep blue o'ercanopied the earth,
And autumn, in September's ripening breeze,
Rustled her harvests, since the theme was one
Present, and darkly all that Future lay,
Which now is of the perish'd and the past!
Since then a generation's span hath fled,

With all its varied whirls of chance and change-
With all its casualties of birth and death;
And, looking round, sadly I feel this world
Another, though the same;-another in

The eyes that gleam, the hearts that throb, the hopes,
The fears, the friendships of the soul; the same
In outward aspect-in the hills which cleave-

As landmarks of historical renown

With azure peaks the sky; in the green plain,
That spreads its annual wild-flowers to the sun;
And in the river, whose blue course is mark'd
By many a well-known bend and shadowy tree :-
Yet o'er the oblivious gulf, whose mazy gloom
Ensepulchres so many things, I see

As 'twere of yesterday-yet robed in tints
Which yesterday has lost, or never had-
The desolate features of that Polar morn,-
Its twilight shadows, and its twinkling stars-
The snows far spreading-the expanse of sand,
Ribb'd by the roaring and receded sea,
And, shedding over all a wizard light,
The waning moon above the dim-seen hills.

At length, upon the solitary shore

We walk'd of ocean, which, with sullen voice,
Hollow and never-ceasing, to the north

Sang its primeval song. A weary waste!

We pass'd through pools, where muscle, clam, and wilk,
Clove to their gravelly beds; o'er slimy rocks,
Ridgy and dark, with dank fresh fuci green,
Where the prawn wriggled, and the tiny crab
Slid sideway from our path, until we gain'd
The land's extremest point, a sandy jut,
Narrow, and by the weltering waves begirt
Around; and there we laid us down and watch'd,
While from the west the pale moon disappear'd,
Pronely, the sea-fowl and the coming dawn.

Now day with darkness for the mastery strove ;-
The stars had waned away-all, save the last

And fairest, Lucifer, whose silver lamp,

In solitary beauty, twinkling, shone

'Mid the far west, where, through the clouds of rack

Floating around, peep'd out at intervals
A patch of sky;-straightway the reign of night
Was finish'd, and, as if instinctively,

The ocean flocks, or slumbering on the wave
Or on the isles, seem'd the approach of dawn
To feel; and, rising from afar, were heard
Shrill shrieks and pipings desolate a pause
Ensued, and then the same lone sounds return'd,
And suddenly the whirring rush of wings
Went circling round us o'er the level sands,
Then died away; and, as we look'd aloft
Between us and the sky, we saw a speck
Of black upon the blue-some huge, wild bird,
Osprey or eagle, high amid the clouds
Sailing majestic, on its plumes to catch
The earliest crimson of the approaching day.

'Twere sad to tell our murderous deeds that morn.

Silent upon the chilly beach we lay

Prone, while the drifting snow-flakes o'er us fell,
Like nature's frozen tears, for our misdeeds

Of wanton cruelty. The eider ducks,

With their wild eyes, and necks of changeful blue,
We watch'd, now diving down, now on the surge
Flapping their pinions, of our ambuscade
Unconscious-till a sudden death was found:
While floating o'er us, in the graceful curves
Of silent beauty, down the sea-mew fell:
The gilinot upon the shell-bank lay
Bleeding, and oft, in wonderment, its mate
Flew round, with mournful cry, to bid it rise,
Then shrieking, fled afar; the sand-pipers,

A tiny flock, innumerable, as round

And round they flew, bewail'd their broken ranks :
And the scared heron sought his inland marsh.
With blood-bedabbled plumes around us rose

A slaughter'd hecatomb; and to my heart,
(My heart then open to all sympathies,)
It spoke of tyrannous cruelty-of man
The desolator; and of some far day,
When the accountable shall make account,
And but the merciful shall mercy find.

Soul-sicken'd, satiate, and dissatisfied,
An alter'd being, homewards I return'd,
My thoughts revolting at the thirst for blood
So brutalizing, so destructive of

The finer sensibilities, which man

In boyhood owns, and which the world destroys.-
Nature had preach'd a sermon to my heart:
And from that moment, on that snowy morn,
I loathed the purpose and the power to kill.

POEMS BY M. M.

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S POSITION ON NEXT RESUMING POwer.

SOMETIMES we see events, impending through a long period and brooding over men's expectations, gathering silently under causes so determinate, and strengthened by tendencies concurring so entirely to one sole result, as at length to assume that character of grandeur which belongs to the inevitable. Such an event, so prepared by circumstances, so matured by a clamorous succession of public necessities, is the approaching return of Sir Robert Peel to power. It is an event not directly promoted by himself; not solicited by his supporters; favoured by no intrigues, pointing to no interest of faction; and yet it is universally felt to be certain. If of any administration whatever, formed in past times under any conflict of principles, we may assume of this, that it will rest upon the acquiescence of the nation. So long as a strife exists between an unlimited theory of Reform and a hostile policy of Conservation, it is hopeless for any minister to calculate upon a general popularity. That condition of luxury for a political leader would be a condition of torpor for the public service; and as little to be wished for by us as it is to be expected by him. But thus far we rely upon a pretty tolerant state of feeling towards Sir Robert, even in the most revolutionary section of our Reformers-that, of all Conservatives, he is notoriously the most indulgent towards the temper of occasional reform; reform as indicated by some real official experience, but not as the vis animatrix of a general revolutionary scheme; and next, because, from all the signs of the times, we judge that any such indefinite profession of reform, such an unconditional policy of change, has now lost any footing which it once had in the national mind. We do not believe that any general agitation for a purpose of general change, would now meet with the merest toleration. We are of opinion that the very acquiescence and tranquillity, which we are noticing in the public temper under the pros pect of a Peel administration, puts this question out of doubt. There is no man blind enough to suppose, that any large theoretic projects of recast

ing our constitution, could wear a pro-
mise of patronage or favour under
such a leader. And it is reasonable,
therefore, to conclude, that no such
projects any longer exist amongst a
party large enough to be formidable
for us or hopeful for themselves.

We believe the great Reform mania,
which has agitated our public atmo-
sphere in varying strength through the
last eleven years, to be now at length
ebbing to its very lees. It has passed
through all its natural stages; it has
and a-
had time to exhaust itself by a regular
commensurate experience;
mongst that body who ever lent it
the terror of a tumultuary support,
amongst the immense mass who un-
derstood it in the sense of a combined
plan for making a totally new distri-
bution of the national property, it has
gradually died away by such absolute
disappointment as will effectually gua-
rantee its profound abeyance, until
this generation has passed away with
all its recollections. To fancy that
poor labouring men, working for their
daily bread, would have made those
efforts and demonstrations which nine
and ten years ago they did make-on
no expectations more personal than of
that inconceivably small increment
for their political influence, which, in
the very highest result, could have
settled upon themselves individually

is a chimera too wild for discussion. For such a poor fractional privilege, which, by ceasing to be a narrow distinction, would cease even to be an ornament, these children of labour felt all the cynical scorn which it deserved.

What they had put their faithin-what they had been instructed to put their faith in-was a thorough, perfect, searching recast of the entire national property, by which thousands would suffer, but millions were to gain.

It does not reflect upon a poor man's understanding, that he should imagine such effects to be possible under such a division; nor, when we think of the plans agitated in many nations and in many times for a composition with the national creditor, does it necessarily reflect upon the quality of his conscience that he A poor man should contemplate such a re distribution as desirable.