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KNOWLEDGE.

'Tis midnight! Round the lamp which o'er
My chamber sheds its lonely beam,
Is widely spread the varied lore

Which feeds in youth our feverish dream

The dream the thirst

the wild desire, Delirious yet divine to know;

Around to roam above aspire

And drink the breath of Heaven below!

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Alas! what boots the midnight oil?

the Sky,

The madness of the struggling mind? Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil Which only leaves us doubly blind!

What learn we from the Past?

the same

Dull course of glory, guilt and gloom:

I ask'd the Future, and there came
No voice from its unfathom'd womb.

The Sun was silent, and the Wave;

The Air but answer'd with its breath; But Earth was kind; and from the grave Arose the eternal answer Death!

And this was all! We need no sage
To teach us Nature's only truth.

O fools! o'er Wisdom's idle page

To waste the hours of golden youth!

In Science wildly do we seek

What only withering years should bring
The languid pulse the feverish cheek
The spirits drooping on their wing!

To think, is but to learn to groan
To scorn what all besides adore

To feel amid the world alone,

An alien on a desert shore;

To lose the only ties which seem
To idler gaze in mercy given!

To find love, faith, and hope, a dream,

And turn to dark despair from heaven!

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We close our remarks on Lord Lytton's poetry by quoting Tennyson's stinging reply to Lord Lytton's attack on him in the New Timon. To thoroughly appreciate the force of the retort, it is necessary to know, that Lord Lytton, a very dressy man, was suspected by the public of resorting to certain means, for the adornment of his person, which may be excusable in women, but are generally looked on as ridiculous in a man. The verses, which originally appeared in 1846 in the London Punch, are here given in full:

THE NEW TIMON AND THE POET.

We know him out of Shakespeare's art,

And those full curses which he spoke;
The old Timon, with his noble heart,

That strongly loathing, greatly broke.
So died the Old; here comes the New.
Regard him; a familiar face;

I thought we knew him: What, it's you,

The padded man that wears the stays;

Who killed the girls, and thrilled the boys
With dandy pathos when you wrote;

O Lion! you that made a noise,

And shook a mane en papillotes,

And once you tried the Muses too,

You failed, Sir; therefore now you turn;

You fall on those who are to you

As captain is to subaltern1).

But men of long-enduring hopes,

And careless what the hour may bring,

Can pardon little would-be Popes 2)

And Brummels 3) when they try to sting.

An artist, Sir, should rest in Art,

And waive a little of his claim;

To have a great poetic heart

Is more than all poetic fame.

1) The self-assertion in these two lines somewhat impairs the effect of the retort.

Alexander Pope.

The reference is to Beau Brummel, a famous dandy in the latter part of George the Third's reign.

But you, Sir, you are hard to please,
You never look but half content,

Nor like a gentleman at ease,

With moral breadth of temperament.

And what with spites and what with fears,
You cannot let a body be;

It's always ringing in your ears

They call this man as great as me.

What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt
A dapper boot a little hand

If half the little soul is dirt?

You talk of tinsel! Why, we see

Old marks of rouge upon your cheeks.

You prate of Nature! You are he

That spilt his life upon the cliques.

A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame;
It looks too arrogant a jest
The fierce old man to take his name

You bandbox! Off, and let him rest.

We should greatly hesitate to certify the accuracy and justice of everything in these lines, but Lord Lytton certainly gave the provocation.

Rev. Charles Kingsley.

The Rev. Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), sometime Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, and afterwards Canon of Westminster, has written some good poetry, though he is best known to the general public by his novels and other works in prose. In 1847 he published a dramatic poem, called the Saint's Tragedy, based on the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary; and he afterwards wrote Andromeda, and a number of minor poetical effusions. Two specimens of Kingsley's poetry are subjoined:

THREE FISHERS.

Three fishers went sailing out into the west,

Out into the west, as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who loved him best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town.

For men must work and women must weep,
And there's little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbour be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the light-house tower,

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,
And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown.
But men must work and women must weep,

Though storms be sudden and waters deep,
And the harbour be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town.
For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

THE DAY OF THE LORD.

The day of the Lord is at hand, at hand!
Its storms roll up the sky:

The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold;
All dreamers toss and sigh;

The night is darkest before the morn;
When the pain is sorest the child is born,

And the day of the Lord is at hand.

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Gather you, gather you, angels of God
Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth;
Come! for the Earth is grown coward and old;
Come down and renew us her youth.
Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring, and Love,
Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above,
To the day of the Lord at hand.

In these lines "the day of the Lord" is not used in a religious, but in a social and political sense; and refers to that moral and intellectual elevation which Kingsley believed the human race capable of attaining.

Lord Houghton.

Richard Moncton Milnes, later Lord Houghton (1808-1885), published four volumes of poems between 1840 and 1844, the first of which was called, Poetry

for the People. In 1848 he produced the Life and Remains of Keats. Of his pleasing, graceful, and thoughtful style the following verses will serve as a specimen :

LONG-AGO.

On that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high:
Sorrows that are sorrows still
Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill

In the griefs of Long-ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,
Ghastly tenements of tears,
Wear the look of happy shrines
Through the golden mists of years:
Death to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow;
Oh! we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-ago!

Though the doom of swift decay
Shocks the soul where life is strong,
Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and overlong
Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its heaven,
And the past its Long-ago.

THE HOWITTS.

William and Mary Howitt published a great deal of both prose and poetry, under their joint names, from the year of their marriage (1823) up to the time of Mr. Howitt's death (1879). Of kindred tastes, they spent many long happy years together in literary labour and fellowship. The following stanzas in their earliest published volume, the Forest Minstrel, place before us an attractive picture of the felicity of so well assorted a union as theirs:

Away with the pleasure that is not partaken!

There is no enjoyment by one only ta'en:
I love in my mirth to see gladness awaken
On lips, and in eyes, that reflect it again.

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