KNOWLEDGE. 'Tis midnight! Round the lamp which o'er 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! 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 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 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 To think, is but to learn to groan To feel amid the world alone, An alien on a desert shore; To lose the only ties which seem To find love, faith, and hope, a dream, And turn to dark despair from heaven! 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; That strongly loathing, greatly broke. I thought we knew him: What, it's you, The padded man that wears the stays; Who killed the girls, and thrilled the boys 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, Nor like a gentleman at ease, With moral breadth of temperament. And what with spites and what with fears, It's always ringing in your ears They call this man as great as me. What profits now to understand 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; 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, Three wives sat up in the light-house tower, And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; Though storms be sudden and waters deep, Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, THE DAY OF THE LORD. The day of the Lord is at hand, at hand! The nations sleep starving on heaps of gold; The night is darkest before the morn; And the day of the Lord is at hand. Gather you, gather you, angels of God 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 In the griefs of Long-ago. Tombs where lonely love repines, Though the doom of swift decay 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: |