SHE WORE A WREATH OF ROSES. She wore a wreath of roses, The night that first we met; I saw her but a moment, Yet methinks I see her now, A wreath of orange blossoms When next we met she wore; Th' expression of her features Was more thoughtful than before; I saw her but a moment, Yet methinks I see her now, And once again I see that brow, She weeps in silent solitude, And there is no one near To press her hand within his own, I saw her broken-hearted, Yet methinks I see her now ISLE OF BEAUTY. Shades of evening! close not o'er us, Morn, alas! will not restore us Yonder dim and distant isle. Still my fancy can discover Sunny spots where friends may dwell; Darker shadows round us hover: Isle of beauty, fare thee well! 'Tis the hour when happy faces Who shall sing our songs to-night? Round our ship the waves are breaking. W. M. Praed. Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802- 1839] was born in London, and educated at Eton and Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1829, and obtained a seat in Parliament in the following year. About the same time his health began to fail, and he died of consumption at the early age of 37. His poems were collected, and published in 1864, preceded by a biographical notice by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. From his numerous poems we select one which must stir the heart of every German reader. The subject is the last interview of Arminius [Hermann der Deutsche] and his unpatriotic brother Flavius, as he had chosen to call himself, on the opposite banks of the Weser, some time after the defeat of Varus, and subsequent to the capture of Thusnelda. We learn from Tacitus [Annals II. 9, 10] that at first each of the brothers endeavoured to gain over the other to his own party, but as the arguments and persuasions on both sides proved equally unavailing, they parted in resentment, but not before Arminius had overwhelmed his recreant brother with reproaches such as Praed has here attributed to him. The indignant patriot is supposed to speak at the moment when Flavius, calling aloud for his horse and his arms, made a show of crossing the river, to inflict a chastisement on his fraternal foe. Back, back! he fears not foaming flood Who fears not steel-clad line: No warrior thou of German blood, No brother thou of mine. Go, earn Rome's chain to load thy neck, But would'st thou have me share the prey? The Varian bones that day by day I would not be for earth or sky Ho, call me here the wizard, boy, To agonise but not destroy, To curse, but not to kill. When swords are out, and shriek and shout No fetter on man's arm or heart I curse him by the gifts the land The breakers of the Roman rod, Oh, misery! that such a ban On such a brow should be; Why comes he not, in battle's van And worthy of a brother's pride, But it is past! where heroes press, His brethren are the free. They come around: one hour, and light To-night, to-night, when we shall meet The canker of Rome's guilt shall be So shall he fall in shame. Allan Cunningham. Allan Cunningham, born in Dumfriesshire in Scotland, in the year 1784, lived till 1842. He wrote poems and songs, chiefly but not exclusively in the Scottish dialect, and a drama with the title: Sir Marmaduke Maxwell. One of his finest effusions is the sea-song, A wet sheet and a flowing sea: 1) The lee side of a ship is the side opposite to that against which the wind blows. There's tempest in you horned moon, Thomas Hood. - We now come to a poet whose merits are so manifold and strangely diverse we mean Thomas Hood [1798-1845] that we feel puzzled to know whether we should call him a serious or a comic writer. Perhaps no man was ever at once such a consummate master of the art of provoking immoderate laughter, of eliciting sympathy with the unfortunate, and of melting his readers into tears. His friend, Charles Lamb, described him admirably in his punning application of the popular phrase, that he carried two faces [a serious and a comic one] under one hood. This remarkable man was born in London, though his father was a native of Dundee in Scotland. Young Hood was first sent to a private school kept by two maiden sisters with the strange name of Hogsflesh, and then transferred to a "finishing school" in the neighbourhood of London. His father died in 1811, and the boy's health becoming delicate, his mother sent him to his relations in Dundee, where he remained two years. On his return to London he was sent to his maternal uncle, Mr. Sands, to learn the art of engraving; and he made such good progress that he afterwards usually furnished the illustrations for his own poems; but it was not long till he resolved to maintain himself exclusively by his pen. His earliest productions were contributions to the London Magazine, in which journal the first series of his Whims and Oddities originally appeared. A second and a third series were given to the world between 1826 and 1828; and in 1829 he commenced the Comic Annual, which continued for nine years, and was very profi |