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The cold wan light that glimmers here, The sickly wild flowers may not cheer; If here, with solitary hum,

The wandering mountain-bee doth come,
'Mid the pale blossoms short his stay,
To brighter leaves he booms away.
The sea-bird, with a wailing sound,
Alighteth softly on a mound,
And, like an image, sitting there
For hours amid the doleful air,
Seemeth to tell of some dim union,
Some wild and mystical communion,
Connecting with his parent sea
This lonesome stoneless cemetery.
This may not be the burial-place
Of some extinguished kingly race,
Whose name on earth no longer known,
Hath mouldered with the mouldering stone.
That nearest grave, yet brown with mould,
Seems but one summer-twilight old;
Both late and frequent hath the bier
Been on its mournful visit here;
And yon green spot of sunny rest
Is waiting for its destined guest.
I see no little kirk-no bell

On Sabbath tinkleth through this dell;
How beautiful those graves and fair,
That, lying round the house of prayer,
Sleep in the shadow of its grace!
But death hath chosen this rueful place
For his own undivided reign!
And nothing tells that e'er again
The sleepers will forsake their bed-
Now, and for everlasting dead,
For Hope with Memory seems fled!
Wild-screaming bird! unto the sea
Winging thy flight reluctantly,
Slow floating o'er these grassy tombs
So ghost-like, with thy snow-white plumes,
At once from thy wild shriek I know
What means this place so steeped in wo!
Here, they who perished on the deep
Enjoy at last unrocking sleep;
For ocean, from his wrathful breast,
Flung them into this haven of rest,
Where shroudless, coffinless, they lie-
'Tis the shipwrecked seaman's cemetery.
Here seamen old, with grizzled locks,
Shipwrecked before on desert rocks,
And by some wandering vessel taken
From sorrows that seem God-forsaken,
Home bound, here have met the blast
That wrecked them on death's shore at last!
Old friendless men, who had no tears
To shed, nor any place for fears
In hearts by misery fortified,
And, without terror, sternly died.
Here many a creature moving bright
And glorious in full manhood's might,
Who dared with an untroubled eye
The tempest brooding in the sky,
And loved to hear that music rave,
And danced above the mountain-wave,
Hath quaked on this terrific strand,
All flung like sea-weeds to the land;
A whole crew lying side by side,
Death-dashed at once in all their pride.
And here the bright-haired fair-faced boy,
Who took with him all earthly joy,
From one who weeps both night and day
For her sweet son borne far away,
Escaped at last the cruel deep,
In all his beauty lies asleep;
While she would yield all hopes of grace
For one kiss of his pale cold face!

Oh! I could wail in lonely fear,
For many a woful ghost sits here,
All weeping with their fixed eyes!
And what a dismal sound of sighs
Is mingling with the gentle roar
Of small waves breaking on the shore;
While ocean seems to sport and play
In mockery of its wretched prey!

And lo! a white-winged vessel sails
In sunshine, gathering all the gales
Fast freshening from yon isle of pines
That o'er the clear sea waves and shines.
I turn me to the ghostly crowd,

All smeared with dust, without a shroud,
And silent every blue-swollen lip!
Then gazing on the sunny ship,
And listening to the gladsome cheers
Of all her thoughtless mariners,
I seem to hear in every breath
The hollow under-tones of death,
Who, all unheard by those who sing,
Keeps tune with low wild murmuring,
And points with his lean bony hand
To the pale ghosts sitting on this strand,
Then dives beneath the rushing prow,
Till on some moonless night of wo
He drives her shivering from the steep,
Down-down a thousand fathoms deep.

[The Shipwreck.]

[From the Isle of Palms."]

But list! a low and moaning sound
At distance heard, like a spirit's song,
And now it reigns above, around,
As if it called the ship along.
The moon is sunk; and a clouded gray
Declares that her course is run,
And like a god who brings the day,
Up mounts the glorious sun.

Soon as his light has warmed the seas,
From the parting cloud fresh blows the breeze;
And that is the spirit whose well-known song
Makes the vessel to sail in joy along.
No fears hath she; her giant form

O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
Majestically calm would go

'Mid the deep darkness white as snow!
But gently now the small waves glide
Like playful lambs o'er a mountain's side.
So stately her bearing, so proud her array,
The main she will traverse for ever and aye.
Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast ;—
Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last.
Five hundred souls in one instant of dread
Are hurried o'er the deck;
And fast the miserable ship

Becomes a lifeless wreck.

Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,

Her planks are torn asunder,

And down come her masts with a reeling shock, And a hideous crash like thunder.

Her sails are draggled in the brine,

That gladdened late the skies,

And her pendant, that kissed the fair moonshine,
Down many a fathom lies.

Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues
Gleamed softly from below,

And flung a warm and sunny flush

O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow,
To the coral-rocks are hurrying down,
To sleep amid colours as bright as their own.
Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;
And sights of home with sighs disturbed
The sleeper's long-drawn breath.

Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,

And the swallow's song in the eaves. His arms enclosed a blooming boy, Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy To the dangers his father had passed; And his wife by turns she wept and smiled, As she looked on the father of her child, Returned to her heart at last. He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll, And the rush of waters is in his soul. Astounded, the reeling deck he paces, 'Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces; The whole ship's crew are there! Wailings around and overhead, Brave spirits stupified or dead, And madness and despair.

*

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father was a merchant; but, experiencing some reverses, he removed with his family to Wales, and there the young poetess imbibed that love of nature which is displayed in all her works. In her fifteenth year she ventured on publication. Her first volume was far from successful; but she persevered, and in 1812 published another, entitled The Domestic Affections, and other Poems. The same year she was married to Captain Hemans; but the union does not seem to have been a happy one. She continued her studies,

acquiring several languages, and still cultivating poetry. In 1818 Captain Hemans removed to Italy for the benefit of his health. His accomplished wife remained in England, and they never met again. In

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Rhyllon-the residence of Mrs Hemans in Wales.

1819 she obtained a prize of £50 offered by some patriotic Scotsman for the best poem on the subject of Sir William Wallace. Next year she published The Sceptic. In June 1821 she obtained the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the subject of Dartmoor. Her next effort was a tragedy, the Vespers of Palermo, which was produced at Covent Garden, December 12, 1823; but though supported by the admirable acting of Kemble and Young, it was not successful. In 1826 appeared her best poem, the Forest Sanctuary, and in 1828, Records of Woman. She afterwards produced Lays of Leisure Hours, National Lyrics, &c. In 1829 she paid a visit to Scotland, and was received with great kindness by Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and others of the Scottish literati. In 1830 appeared her Songs of the Affections. The same year she visited Wordsworth, and appears to have been much struck with the secluded beauty of Rydal Lake and Grasmere

O vale and lake, within your mountain urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit lands remote-
Isles of the blest-and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies.

Wordsworth said to her one day, 'I would not give up the mists that spiritualise our mountains for all the blue skies of Italy'-an original and poetical expression. On her return from the lakes, Mrs Hemans went to reside in Dublin, where her brother, Major Browne, was settled. The education of her family (five boys) occupied much of her time and attention. Ill health, however, pressed heavily on her, and she soon experienced a premature decay of the springs of life. In 1834 appeared her little

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volume of Hymns for Childhood, and a collection of Scenes and Hymns of Life. She also published some sonnets, under the title of Thoughts during Sickness. Her last strain, produced only about three weeks before her death, was the following fine sonnet dictated to her brother on Sunday the 26th of April:How many blessed groups this hour are bending, Through England's primrose meadow-paths, their way Toward spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending,

Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day!
The halls, from old heroic ages gray,

Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways-to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness.

This admirable woman and sweet poetess died on the 16th May 1835, aged forty-one. She was interred in St Anne's church, Dublin, and over her grave was inscribed some lines from one of her own dirges

Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit! rest thee now !
Even while with us thy footsteps trode,
His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!
Soul to its place on high!
They that have seen thy look in death,
No more may fear to die.

·

A complete collection of the works of Mrs Hemans, with a memoir by her sister, has been published in six volumes. Though highly popular, and in many respects excellent, we do not think that much of the poetry of Mrs Hemans will descend to posterity. There is, as Scott hinted, too many flowers for the fruit; more for the ear and fancy, than for the heart and intellect. Some of her shorter pieces and her lyrical productions are touching and beautiful both in sentiment and expression. Her versification is always melodious; but there is an oppressive sameness in her longer poems which fatigues the reader; and when the volume is closed, the effect is only that of a mass of glittering images and polished words, a graceful melancholy and feminine tenderness, but no strong or permanent impression. The passions are seldom stirred, however the fancy may be soothed or gratified. In description, Mrs Hemans had considerable power; she was both copious and exact; and often, as Jeffrey has observed, 'a lovely picture serves as a foreground to some deep or lofty emotion.' Her imagination was chivalrous and romantic, and delighted in picturing the woods and halls of England, and the ancient martial glory of the land. The purity of her mind is seen in all her works; and her love of nature, like Wordsworth's, was a delicate blending of our deep inward emotions with their splendid symbols and emblems without.

The Voice of Spring.

I come, I come! ye have called me long,

I come o'er the mountains with light and song;
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-
flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers:
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains.
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the reindeer bounds through the pasture free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright where my step has been.
I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep-blue sky,
From the night bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain-brows,
They are flinging spray on the forest-boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.
Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may now be your home.
Ye of the rose-cheek and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly;
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine, I may not stay.
Away from the dwellings of careworn men,
The waters are sparkling in wood and glen;
Away from the chamber and dusky hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth;
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And Youth is abroad in my green domains.
The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn;
For me I depart to a brighter shore-
Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.
go where the loved who have left you dwell,
And the flowers are not Death's-fare ye well, fare-

I

well!

The Homes of England.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.

The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers

Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath-hours!

Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage Homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet-fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves,
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free, fair Homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!

The Graves of a Household.

They grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea..

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight-
Where are those dreamers now?

One, 'midst the forests of the west,
By a dark stream is laid-
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dressed
Above the noble slain :

He wrapt his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded 'midst Italian flowers-
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth-
Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, on earth!

The Treasures of the Deep.

What hidest thou in thy treasure-caves and cells,
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main?
Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-coloured shells,
Bright things which gleam unrecked of and in vain.
Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!

We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the depths have more! What wealth untold,

Far down, and shining through their stillness, lies! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,

Won from ten thousand royal Argosies. Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main! Earth claims not these again!

Yet more, the depths have more! Thy waves have rolled

Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath filled up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry! Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play, Man yields them to decay!

Yet more! the billows and the depths have more! High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast! They hear not now the booming waters roar

The battle-thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!

Give back the lost and lovely! Those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long;
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless
gloom,

And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown-
But all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down;

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown! Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the Dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee !Restore the Dead, thou Sea!

BERNARD BARTON.

BERNARD BARTON, one of the Society of Friends, published in 1820 a volume of miscellaneous poems, which attracted notice both for their elegant simplicity, and purity of style and feeling, and because they were written by a Quaker. The staple of the whole poems,' says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, is description and meditation-description of quiet home scenery, sweetly and feelingly wrought out-and meditation, overshaded with tenderness, and exalted by devotion-but all terminating in soothing and even cheerful views of the condition and prospects of mortality.' Mr Barton was employed in a banking establishment at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, and he seems to have contemplated abandoning his profession for a literary life. On this point Charles Lamb wrote to him as follows: 'Throw yourself on the world, without any rational plan of support beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you have but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's length from them-come not within their grasp. I have known many authors want for breadsome repining, others enjoying the blessed security of a counting-house-all agreeing they had rather have been tailors, weavers-what not?-rather than the things they were. I have known some starved, some go mad, one dear friend literally dying in a workhouse. Oh, you know not-may you never know the miseries of subsisting by authorship!" There is some exaggeration here. We have known authors by profession who lived cheerfully and comfortably, labouring at the stated sum per sheet as regularly as the weaver at his loom, or the tailor on his board; but dignified with the consciousness of following a high and ennobling occupation, with all the mighty minds of past ages as their daily friends and companions. The bane of such a life, when actual genius is involved, is

And thus, while I wandered on ocean's bleak shore,
And surveyed its vast surface, and heard its waves roar,
I seemed wrapt in a dream of romantic delight,
And haunted by majesty, glory, and might!

Power and Gentleness, or the Cataract and the
Streamlet.

its uncertainty and its temptations, and the almost
invariable incompatibility of the poetical tempe-
rament with habits of business and steady ap-
plication. Yet let us remember the examples of
Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope-all regular and
constant labourers-and, in our own day, of Scott,
Southey, Moore, and many others. The fault is
more generally with the author than with the book-
seller. In the particular case of Bernard Barton,
however, Lamb counselled wisely. He has not the
vigour and popular talents requisite for marketable
literature; and of this he would seem to have been
conscious, for he abandoned his dream of exclusive
authorship. Mr Barton has since appeared before
the public as author of several volumes of miscella-Tinged by the sunbeams with reflected dyes,
neous poetry, but without adding much to his repu-
tation. He is still what Jeffrey pronounced him
'a man of a fine and cultivated, rather than of a bold
and original mind.' His poetry is highly honourable
to his taste and feelings as a man.

To the Evening Primrose.

Fair flower, that shunn'st the glare of day,
Yet lov'st to open, meekly bold,

To evening's hues of sober gray,
Thy cup of paly gold;

Be thine the offering owing long

To thee, and to this pensive hour,
Of one brief tributary song,
Though transient as thy flower.

I love to watch, at silent eve,
Thy scattered blossoms' lonely light,
And have my inmost heart receive
The influence of that sight.

I love at such an hour to mark
Their beauty greet the night-breeze chill,
And shine, 'mid shadows gathering dark,
The garden's glory still.

For such, 'tis sweet to think the while,
When cares and griefs the breast invade,

Is friendship's animating smile

In sorrow's dark'ning shade.

Thus it bursts forth, like thy pale cup,
Glist'ning amid its dewy tears,
And bears the sinking spirit up
Amid its chilling fears.

But still more animating far,

If meek Religion's eye may trace,

Even in thy glimmering earth-born star,
The holier hope of Grace.

The hope, that as thy beauteous blooin
Expands to glad the close of day,
So through the shadows of the tomb
May break forth Mercy's ray.

Stanzas on the Sca.

Oh! I shall not forget, until memory depart,
When first I beheld it, the glow of my heart;
The wonder, the awe, the delight that stole o'er me,
When its billowy boundlessness opened before me.
As I stood on its margin, or roamed on its strand,
I felt new ideas within me expand,
Of glory and grandeur, unknown till that hour,
And my spirit was mute in the presence of power!
In the surf-beaten sands that encircled it round,
In the billow's retreat, and the breaker's rebound,
In its white-drifted foam, and its dark-heaving green,
Each moment I gazed, some fresh beauty was seen.

Noble the mountain stream,
Bursting in grandeur from its vantage-ground;
Glory is in its gleam
Of brightness-thunder in its deafening sound!
Mark, how its foamy spray,

Mimics the bow of day
Arching in majesty the vaulted skies;

Thence, in a summer-shower,
Steeping the rocks around-0! tell me where
Could majesty and power

Be clothed in forms more beautifully fair?
Yet lovelier, in my view,

The streamlet flowing silently serene;
Traced by the brighter hue,

And livelier growth it gives-itself unseen!

It flows through flowery meads,
Gladdening the herds which on its margin browse;
Its quiet beauty feeds

The alders that o'ershade it with their boughs.

Gently it murmurs by

The village churchyard: its low, plaintive tone,
A dirge-like melody,

For worth and beauty modest as its own.

More gaily now it sweeps

By the small school-house in the sunshine bright;
And o'er the pebbles leaps,

Like happy hearts by holiday made light.

May not its course express,

In characters which they who run may read,
The charms of gentleness,

Were but its still small voice allowed to plead?

What are the trophies gained

By power, alone, with all its noise and strife,
To that meek wreath, unstained,
Won by the charities that gladden life?

Niagara's streams might fail,

And human happiness be undisturbed:
But Egypt would turn pale,

Were her still Nile's o'erflowing bounty curbed!

The Solitary Tomb.

Not a leaf of the tree which stood near me was stirred,
Though a breath might have moved it so lightly;
Not a farewell note from a sweet singing bird
Bade adieu to the sun setting brightly.

The sky was cloudless and calm, except

In the west, where the sun was descending;
And there the rich tints of the rainbow slept,

As his beams with their beauty were blending.

And the evening star, with its ray so clear,
So tremulous, soft, and tender,

Had lit up its lamp, and shot down from its sphere
Its dewy delightful splendour.

And I stood all alone on that gentle hill,
With a landscape so lovely before ine;
And its spirit and tone, so serene and still,
Seemed silently gathering o'er me.

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