and with Pope

"The tables in fair order spread;

Viands of various kinds allure the taste,
Of choicest sort and savour, rich repast!"

The discovery of a new star in the constellation MAGA is an event in astronomy; and you can see it on a clear night with the naked eye, close to NORTH.

Words are wanting to express our delight—at this time of day-in hailing A NEW CONtributor. Alas! we had almost said

"Our tuneful brethren all are dead!"

Those who are gone our grief believes to have been the best-and, ungratefully forgetful of the survivors' groans, "All are buried!"

The poet will not fail to admire the tasteful skill with which we have gathered a few of his stray strains about poets and poetry, negligently scattered here and there through what 'twould be a misnomer to call an MS. volume; and these we first present to the admiration and love of all our friends, young and old, hinting to them that they must read slowly, and at the close of each effusion pause and ponder, for here is much meaning in few words-in modern poetry a rare merit-nor less so, we fear, if our own be an average specimen, in modern prose.

PROSE AND SONG.

I looked upon a plain of green,

That some one called the Land of Prose,
Where many living things were seen,

In movement or repose.

I look'd upon a stately hill

That well was named the Mount of Song,
Where golden shadows dwelt at will
The woods and streams among.

But most this fact my wonder bred,
Though known by all the nobly wise,
It was the mountain streams that fed
The fair green plain's amenities.

THE SHAFTS OF SONG.

Thou who deem'st the poet's lay
Should be always soft and cooing,
And no harsher word should say
Than befits a beardless wooing,

Think, the bee can sting the foe,
Who would rob its honey'd bowers,
And Apollo bears a bow,

Though his head be crown'd with flowers.

Seas that win a fond devotion,

Whelm our too adventurous kind;

And the sun, whose radiant motion

Feeds the world, can strike thee blind.

DREAMING AND WAKING.

I dreamt a green and golden earth,
A still renew'd, immortal birth,

But 'mid that world so fairly beaming,
I knew, with grief, that I was dreaming.

That grief awoke me, and I found
A lovelier vision spread around,
And, sweeter than my slumber's flowers,
Bedeck'd this common world of ours.

THE POET.

Bard, the film so thin and bright,
Woven in thy conscious loom,
Wanting superhuman light,

Is a cobweb in a tomb.

THE TOMB OF SIMONIDES.

O! stranger, turn thou not away;
Simonides is here asleep.

Could he but breathe his plaintive lay,
Thou needs must pause and weep.

Refuse not to the Poet's grave
The tear his song would surely have.

AN EPITAPH.

O! stranger, could thy fancy know
The dreams of him who sleeps below,

They must so bright and lovely be,
To dwell with one so pure as he,
That thou would'st surely long to go
And rest with him who sleeps below.
But, ah! his visions none may see,
Save souls that are as pure as he.

THE POET'S HOME.

In the cavern's lonely hall,
By the mighty waterfall,
Lives a spirit shy and still,

Whom the soften'd murmurs thrill,
Heard within the twilight nook,
Like the music of a brook.

Poet! thus sequester'd dwell,
In thy fancy's haunted cell,
That the floods abroad may be
Like a voice of peace to thee,
While thou giv'st to Nature's tone
Soul and sweetness all thy own.

Hear, but, ah! intrust thee not
To the waves beyond thy grot,
Lest thy low and wizard strain
Warble through the storm in vain,
And thy dying songs deplore

Thou must see thy cave no more.

The first and the last of these poemata dulcia it especially delighteth us to dwell on, though we believe that all between are beautiful; for they express, in finer form and fairer colours, thoughts we ourselves have more than once imperfectly uttered-these to live, ours to perish. All our great prose-writers owe the glory of their power to our great poets. Even Hobbes translated Homer as well as Thucydides the epic in his prime after he was eighty -the history at forty; and it is fearful to dream what the brainful and heartless metaphysician would have been had he never heard of the Iliad and the Odyssey. What is the greatest of the great prose-writers in comparison with a great poet? Nay-we shall not be deterred by the fear of self-contradiction, from asking who is a great prosewriter? We cannot name one; they all sink in Shak

speare. The human mind is seen transcendent solely in song.

But our poet has a wider scope in his philosophical verses, and speaks of the whole of human life.

"Without the smile from partial beauty won,

Oh! what were man? A world without a sun"

finely asks and answers Campbell; and, suppose the world without poetry, truly exclaim we, how absurd would look the sun! Strip the word "phenomena" of its poetical meaning, and forthwith the whole human race, " moving about in worlds realized," would be as Bagmen. But, thank heaven! we are makers all. Inhabiting, we verily believe, a real substantial and palpable world, which, nevertheless, shall one day perish like a scroll, we build our bowers of joy in the apparent-and lie down to rest in a drapery of dreams.

"The Poet's Home!" We have a poem of our ownif the honourable gentlemen will allow us to call it sowith that title lying by us-five thousand lines of blank verse-which we shall leave to our executors, with permission of our moths and mice. We are satisfied with our popularity as a "warbler of poetic prose"-not the sole point of resemblance, surely, in us to Sir Philip Sidney-and look forward with pleasing apprehension to our posthumous fame as a poet, when, by some fortunate chance, some indefatigable antiquary, in course of a lifelong dedication to the restitution of decayed intelligences, shall dig up our remains. Meanwhile, let us expand our wings, and, crushing through our cage, be off like an eagle to the mountains!

"And set the prisoner free!”

A simple line, but glorious-and we bless the name of mercy as we cleave the clouds. Higher than the Andes, we hang over Westmoreland, an unobserved-but observant star. Mountains, hills, rocks, knolls, vales, woods, groves, single trees, dwellings, all asleep! O lakes! but ye are, indeed, by far too beautiful! O fortunate isles! too fair for human habitation, fit abode for the blest!

It

will not hide itself-it will not sink into the earth-it will rise, and risen, it will stand steady with its shadow in the overpowering moonlight, that ONE TREE! that ONE HOUSE -and well might the sight of ye two together-were it harder-break our heart. But hard at all it is not-there

fore it is but crushed.

Sweet Rydal Mount!

Thou risest pitifully to with

draw our soul from beauty too severe, and already we feel thy

“Fine fit image of a poet's soul,

So still, so solemn, so serene!"

Can it be that there we are utterly forgotten! No star hanging higher than the Andes in heaven-but sole-sitting at midnight in a small chamber—a melancholy man we are-and there seems a smile of consolation, O Wordsworth! on thy sacred bust.

Candles are the cheerfullest of all lights, and so felt Shakspeare as he said "Heaven's candles are burnt out." Ours are yet half a foot long, and being about as thick's our wrist, will enable us to outwatch the Bear and to blind Bootes. What a queer name for the capital of an island— Wick! Yet are all men wick-ed-a most vile pun, and old as the Dusty Miller. "Thou flaming minister!" thank you for illuminating this somewhat cramped and crabbed manuscript 'tis the "green light" Ossian loved to think on after his loss of eyes. Coleridge attributed the beautiful words to Wordsworth; but Darwin borrowed them from the Son of the Mist, and now they are the common property of the race of men.

Look in our last Number-and in "Our Two Vases," and you will find some fine stanzas entitled "Remorse." Here is their noble counterpart-" Penitence."

THE PENITENT.

Within a dark monastic cell

A monk's pale corpse was calmly laid,

His lips of quiet seemed to tell,

And light above the forehead played.