The one she stroked my milk-white chin, In my ear one softly sings: "Rise up, rise up, thou Younker brave, And trip in our moon-light rings! "Rise up, rise up, thou Younker brave, And trip in the moon-light ring, And my Maidens each one of the silvery tone, Shall their loveliest ditties sing." And then began her song to sing The loveliest of all the train,- The noisy stream it flowed no more, But stands with feeling listening; The fishes all in the silvery wave, Now up, now down, are springing; The small birds are seen in the coppice green To sport their songs while singing. "Listen, O listen, thou Younker brave! If with us thou wilt gladly be, We'll teach thee to chime the Runic rhyme, And write the Gramarye. "We'll teach thee how the savage bear With words and spells we charm; And here they danced, and there they danced, And all Love's lures are trying; Listen, O listen, thou Younker proud! Our vengeance shall wake, and nought shall it slake But thy blood this green turf dyeing!" And then-O happy, happy chance! His song Chanticleer begun, Else left were I still on the fairy kill With the Fairy Fair to won. And hence I warn each goodly youth, Who strolls by yon streamlet fair, That he lay him not down on the Elf-hill's crown, Nor seek to slumber there. VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF A VERY Written after witnessing her last Moments. I CANNOT weep, yet I can feel The pangs But ah! what sighs or tears can heal II. What art thou, spirit undefined, That passest with Man's breath away! That givest him feeling, sense, and mind,. And leavest him cold, unconscious clay! III. A moment gone I looked, and lo Sensation throbbed through all this frames Those beamless eyes were raised in woe; That bosom's motion went and came. IV. The next a nameless change was wrought, Those lips will never more repeat The welcome lesson conned with care; Those little hands will ne'er essay To ply the mimic task again, VII. That heart is still-no more to move: That speaks a Parent's welcome home, And thou, with years and sufferings bowed, X. I cannot weep, yet I can feel The pangs that rend a Parent's breast; But ah! what sorrowing can unseal Those eyes, and wake the Slumberer's rest? J. M DIARMID, These Lines appeared anonymously a few weeks ago in a Scotch Weekly Paper; but we have discovered the Author, and believe he will not be displeased to see them reprinted with his name in this Miscellany. 4 L REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Poetical Epistles, and Specimens of Translation. 12mo. Edinburgh, Constable & Co., 1813. THIS elegant little volume is manifestly the production of a man of erudition, taste, sensibility, and genius. It abounds with imagery;-it is everywhere animated with easy, natural, and lively feeling;-and it exhibits numerous examples of extreme felicity in language and versification, perfectly decisive of the accomplished scholar. Its very faults and defects (and they are both multifarious and glaring), instead of offending, really impart to our minds a kind of confused pleasure, arising, we conceive, from that kindliness and good will towards the anonymous Poet, which his happy, careless, and indolent nature irresistibly excites,-so that we come at last to look on his occasional weaknesses and vagaries as characteristic traits peculiar to himself, and which endear him to us almost as much as his many high and valuable qualities. We never read poems which so clearly bear the marks of having been written purely for the gratification of the author, without any intention, or even prospect, of publication. They contain just such thoughts, feelings, and remembrances, as are likely to arise in the heart and mind of an amiable and enlightened man, when indulging poetical reveries in his solitary study or evening-walk; and thus, though they are often vaguely, obscurely, and indefinitely, conceived and expressed, there is always about them a warmth, a sincerity, and earnestness, which force us to overlook every fault in composition, while the happier passages are distinguished by an ease, freedom, elegance, and grace, truly delightful, and not to be surpassed in the very best specimens of our opuscular poetry. Yet with all this merit, we believe the volume has attracted little attention. In the present day, unless a poet stand in the first class, he has but little chance of being read at all; and the ignorant are now as fastidious as the learned. But this is certain, that every true lover of poetry will be happy to listen to the sacred song, from whatever source it flows,-whether from the bright and conspicuous shrine to which all eyes are turned, or from the obscure and shaded fountain which flows but to cheer its own solitude. In an age when great poets exist, there must likewise exist many minds of the true poetical character, but with humbler faculties and lowlier aspirations. From their writings, much, perhaps, may be learned, which is not to be found in strains of higher mood, and which bears more directly on the business and duties of life. They stand more nearly on a level with their readers; their thoughts and sympa thies are more kindred and congenial with the ordinary thoughts and sympathies of man; their souls more closeÎy inhabit, and more carefully traverse, this our every-day world; and the sphere of their power is in the hallowed circle of domestic happiness. Let no one, therefore, deceive himself into a belief, that he does in his heart rationally love poetry, unless he is above being chained by the fascination of great names, and delighted to meet with imagery, sentiment, and pathos, even in a small, obscure, and anony mous volume like this, which, evidently written by a man of genius and virtue, is given to the public from no desire of fame, but from the wish to impart to others the calm, unostentatious, and enlightened happiness which, during the composition of it, he himself must have enjoyed in thoughtful and philosophical retirement. The volume consists partly of original compositions, and partly of translations from Euripides, Anacreon, and Tyrtæus ;-from Horace, from Dante, from Petrarch, and from Klopstock. The original compositions are in the form of Poetical Epistles. The first of these Epistles seems to have been written as far back as the year 1799, when, it appears, from several passages, the author was a member of the University of Oxford. The first part of it contains a description of a pedestrian tour through the Highlands of Scotland, performed by the author, in company with the friend to whom the Epistle is addressed; a transition is made, from a well-merited compliment to Mrs Grant, the celebrated writer of the Letters from the Mountains, to the many persons of learning and genius whom Scotland has in modern times produced; an attempt is made to characterize their peculiar endowments; and the Epistle concludes with some personal feelings and hopes, and fears and aspirations, of the author, in a supposed colloquy between himself and the enlightened friend with whom he holds his poetical correspondence. h The principal merit of this poem is the very great skill with which the character of epistolary composition is preserved. Though abounding in si description, the writer always bears in mind, that the person to whom he is writing is as familiar with the objects described as he himself is; and, therefore, he rather recalls the remembrance of them by short and vivid touches than by any protracted and laborious delineation. It is an admirable specimen of a poetical journal. 3297 The following passage has, we think, very extraordinary merit-it is simple, clear, and descriptive. "The waves were crimson'd by the setting sun Retiring Staffa met the ruddy rays, And veil'd her columns in a rosy haze; By craggy shores and cliffs of dusky hue, But now the laden waves scarce lick'd their And each brown shadow on the waters cast, Now in each narrow channel dark they slept. Through cells once vocal to the monk and nun, cornice bore O'er royal tombs in grass and weeds o'errun, The Poet describes equally well the beautiful scenery of Balachuilish-the savage solitude of Glencoe the quiet serenity of Glenroy-and the dreamlike and breathless slumber of Loch Laggan. We quote the description of the last scene, for the sake of the elegant tribute to the genus of a most excellent person. "How deep thy still retreat, O Laggan lake! Who yet will hide me in thy birchen brake? Across the path, as man were never known; While from their driving fleece, the torrents Down the rude rocks in long cascade are O you would think on that lone hill that none That gifted Spirit whose descriptions warm, charm, By the green tomhans of this fairy wood, The second Epistle is addressed to the Poet's Wife, and contains remembrances of, and reflections on, all the most interesting feelings and incidents of his boyish and youthful days, interspersed with grateful acknowledgments of his present happiness, and many affecting expressions of contentment with his peaceful lot. That man is to be pitied who can read this Epistle without sincere admiration of the writer's accomplishWith proud composure ey'd the desert main.ments, and affection for his amiaWe gain'd the bay, and trembling touch'd,ble and simple character. What can - 11, the fandad; angon's mighty hand, a 2 long, 6 a towels While from her highest mound the ruin'd 1-190x £fana "ours edi,ammes ny for On which, of old, religion's Stretch'd from die skies, and half in clouds of conceala, v स Stampa le broad signet of the law reveal'd. remembrance of his boyish happiness? be more touching than the following 4 Free as the gales, and early as the dawn' Porth did we By along the level lain, Why should our manhood be ambition's slave, Pour from the eastern hill his living rays? childhood past, Memory returns with love that still can last; Wherever, since, our vagrant course has been, Whatever troubled hours have come between, Those simple beauties, which could first engage Our hearts, still please through each suc ceeding age; Nor are they yet so sunk in meaner care, That nature's image quite its impress there!" There is much feeling in the following passage: "Can I forget the hallow'd hour I past In Grasmere chapel, in the lonely waste, Driven by the rains that patter'd on the lake, (Perhaps no holier cause) repose to take? The simple people to each separate hand Divided, youths and maids in different band; Of the great power of God, their pastor spoke; Responsive from the hills loud thunders broke, From the black-smoking hills whose wavering line Through lead-bound panes was dimly seen to shine. I felt the voice of Man and Nature roll The deep conviction on my bending soul! What if, amid the rural tribe, unknown, From Wordsworth's eye some moral glory shone, Some beam of poesy and good combin'd, That found the secret foldings of my mind?" We shall finish our quotations from this part of the volume, with a short, vivid, and accurate, picture of one of the most beautiful scenes in the south of Scotland. "How laugh'd thine eyes, when from the Whence Tweed's rich valley burst upon the Bright in the orient gleam the waters shone, Here flowing free, there ridg'd with shelv ing stone: Each side the banks with fields and trees were green, High waving on the hills were harvests seen, The nodding sheaf mov'd heavily along, And jocund reapers sang their morning song: Calm slept the clouds on cloven Eildon laid, And distant Melrose peep'd from leafy shade.” The translations are, we think, more unequal than the original composi tions, some of them being excessively bad, and others most admirable. The cause of this seems to have been an occasional desire to indulge in fantastic ingenuity of versification and expression, in which the worthy Translator not unfrequently exhibits a most portentous forgetfulness of common sense, and employs a sort of language to our ears wholly unintelligible. When not beset by these unlucky fits of ingenuity, he catches the spirit of the original with great felicity; and his translations, or rather imitations of Horace, are indisputably the most eleish language. He has proved, by his gant and graceful of any in the Engtranslations of several of the Odes, "how gracefully any short and classical composition may be arranged in a form which at once ensures brevity, and unites elegance with the most varied and perfect melody of versification." What can be finer than the air he has thrown over the 32d Ode of Book I. "Possimus si quid," &c. "O lyre, if vacant in the leafy shade, The translation from Tyrtæus is very dull, but the fault is in the original. Tyrtæus, it is said, roused the martial enthusiasm of the Spartans by his poetry. If so, it is a proof tha the Spartans had no taste for nothing can be heavier and more spiritless than his remains. The Poet-Laureate, Pye, translated some of those martial effusions with kindred lumpishness and a few lines read to a volunteer company by their Colonel, set the soldiers whele rendered them still more sominto a sound sleep on parade. Polniferous, for they overcame the wakefulness of the Cornish miners; and, lastly, Professor Young of Glasgow recited them in choice English, to two hundred sleeping tyros, in the Greek class-room of that university. We himself fell fairly asleep during the had forgotten Mr Charles Elton, who of translation-and the present version seems to have been made between a snore and a yawn, and is the most powerful soporific in the whole materia poetica. We decline quoting any part of it, lest our readers should be unable to peruse the rest of this article. process The Translator, however, soon gets upon better ground, and gives us about twenty select sonnets from Petrarch. We have compared his translations with those of Mrs Dobson, Dr Nott, and many anonymous writers, and they far outshine them all, both in fidelity and elegance. It is a most miserable mistake to believe, that Petrarch has no genuine sensibility. Is not his 24th Sonnet of Book II. most pathetic? It is thus exquisitely rendered: "The eyes, the arms, the hands, the feet, the face, Which made my thoughts and words so warm and wild, That I was almost from myself exil'd, Diffus'd o'er earth an Eden heavenly mild : What are they now? Dust, lifeless dust, alas! And I live on! a melancholy slave, Reft of the lovely light that cheer'd the wave; Toss'd by the tempest in a shatter'd bark, The flame of genius, too, extinct and dark, Here let my lays of love conclusion have; Mute be the lyre; tears best my sorrows eg Canoest dyror One other quotation, and we must say good-bye to this accomplished scholar and gentleman. mark." |