Or to his ear, that gathers, in one sound,
The voices of adoring worlds around,
Comes there a breath of more delightful praise
Than the faint notes his poor disciples raise,
Ere on the treacherous main they sink to rest,
Secure as leaning on their Master's breast?

They sleep; but memory wakes; and dreams array Night in a lively masquerade of day;

The land they seek, the land they leave behind,
Meet on mid-ocean in the plastic mind;
One brings forsaken home and friends so nigh,
That tears in slumber swell the unconscious eye:
The other opens, with prophetic view,
Perils which e'en their fathers never knew
(Though schooled by suffering, long inured to toil,
Outcasts and exiles from their natal soil);
Strange scenes, strange men; untold, untried distress;
Pain, hardships, famine, cold, and nakedness,
Diseases; death in every hideous form,

On shore, at sea, by fire, by flood, by storm;
Wild beasts, and wilder men-unmoved with fear,
Health, comfort, safety, life, they count not dear,
May they but hope' a Saviour's love to show,
And warn one spirit from eternal wo:
Nor will they faint, nor can they strive in vain,
Since thus to live is Christ, to die is gain.

'Tis morn: the bathing moon her lustre shrouds ;
Wide over the east impends an arch of clouds
That spans the ocean; while the infant dawn
Peeps through the portal o'er the liquid lawn,
That ruffled by an April-gale appears,
Between the gloom and splendour of the spheres,
Dark-purple as the moorland heath, when rain
Hangs in low vapours over the autumnal plain :
Till the full sun, resurgent from the flood,
Looks on the waves, and turns them into blood;
But quickly kindling, as his beams aspire,
The lambent billows play in forms of fire.
Where is the vessel? Shining through the light,
Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight,
Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves her way
Through refluent foam and iridescent spray.

Night.

Night is the time for rest;

How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is and truth that seems,
Blend in fantastic strife;
Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

Night is the time for toil;

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang or heroes wrought.*

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;
Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perished young like things on earth!

Without any wish to make pedantic objections, we may be allowed to remark, that this stanza is inconsistent with natural truth and a just economy of life. Day is the time for toilnight is more proper for repose, and, if spent in mental labour, in addition to other duties pursued during the day, must redound to the injury of health.-Ed.

Night is the time to watch;

Ön ocean's dark expanse To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the home-sick mind
All we have loved and left behind.
Night is the time for care;

Brooding on hours misspent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent;

Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,
Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost.
Night is the time to muse;

Then from the eye the soul
Takes flight, and with expanding views
Beyond the starry pole,

Descries athwart the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.
Night is the time to pray;

Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;

So will his followers do;

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.
Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace,
Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease:
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign
To parting friends-such death be mine!

[Picture of a Poetical Enthusiast.]
[From the World Before the Flood."]
Restored to life, one pledge of former joy,
One source of bliss to come, remained-her boy!
Sweet in her eye the cherished infant rose,
At once the seal and solace of her woes;
When the pale widow clasped him to her breast,
Warm gushed the tears, and would not be repressed;
In lonely anguish, when the truant child
Leaped o'er the threshold, all the mother smiled.
In him, while fond imagination viewed
Husband and parents, brethren, friends renewed,
Each vanished look, each well-remembered grace
That pleased in them, she sought in Javan's face;
For quick his eye, and changeable its ray,
As the sun glancing through a vernal day;
And like the lake, by storm or moonlight seen,
With darkening furrows or cerulean mien,
His countenance, the mirror of his breast,
The calm or trouble of his soul expressed.

As years enlarged his form, in moody hours
His mind betrayed its weakness with its powers;
Alike his fairest hopes and strangest fears
Were nursed in silence, or divulged with tears;
The fulness of his heart repressed his tongue,
Though none might rival Javan when he sung.
He loved, in lonely indolence reclined,

To watch the clouds, and listen to the wind.
But from the north when snow and tempest came,
His nobler spirit mounted into flame;
With stern delight he roamed the howling woods,
Or hung in ecstacy over headlong floods.
Meanwhile, excursive fancy longed to view
The world, which yet by fame alone he knew;
The joys of freedom were his daily theme,
Glory the secret of his midnight dream;

That dream he told not; though his heart would ache,
His home was precious for his mother's sake.
With her the lowly paths of peace he ran,
His guardian angel, till he verged to man ;
But when her weary eye could watch no more,
When to the grave her lifeless corse he bore,
Not Enoch's counsels could his steps restrain;
He fled, and sojourned in the land of Cain.

69

There, when he heard the voice of Jubal's lyre,
Instinctive genius caught the ethereal fire;
And soon, with sweetly-modulating skill,
He learned to wind the passions at his will;
To rule the chords with such mysterious art,
They seemed the life-strings of the hearer's heart!
Then glory's opening field he proudly trod,
Forsook the worship and the ways of God,
Round the vain world pursued the phantom Fame,
And cast away his birthright for a name.

Yet no delight the minstrel's bosom knew,
None save the tones that from his harp he drew,
And the warm visions of a wayward mind,
Whose transient splendour left a gloom behind,
Frail as the clouds of sunset, and as fair,
Pageants of light, resolving into air.

The world, whose charms his young affections stole,
He found too mean for an immortal soul;
Wound with his life, through all his feelings wrought,
Death and eternity possessed his thought:
Remorse impelled him, unremitting care
Harassed his path, and stung him to despair.
Still was the secret of his griefs unknown;
Amidst the universe he sighed alone;
The fame he followed and the fame he found,
Healed not his heart's immedicable wound;
Admired, applauded, crowned, where'er he roved,
The bard was homeless, friendless, unbeloved.
All else that breathed below the circling sky,
Were linked to earth by some endearing tie;
He only, like the ocean-weed uptorn,
And loose along the world of waters borne,
Was cast, companionless, from wave to wave,
On life's rough sea-and there was none to save.

[The Pelican Island.]

Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel-upward from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.
Worth all the dead creation, in that hour,
To me appeared this lonely Nautilus,
My fellow-being, like myself alive.

Entranced in contemplation, vague yet sweet,
I watched its vagrant course and rippling wake,
Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.

It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing;
While the last bubble crowned the dimpling eddy,
Through which mine eyes still giddily pursued it,
A joyous creature vaulted through the air-
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long, light wings, that flung a diamond-shower
Of dewdrops round its evanescent form,
Sprang into light, and instantly descended.
Ere I could greet the stranger as a friend,
Or mourn his quick departure, on the surge

A shoal of dolphins, tumbling in wild glee,
Glowed with such orient tints, they might have been
The rainbow's offspring, when it met the ocean
In that resplendent vision I had seen.
While yet in ecstacy I hung o'er these,
With every motion pouring out fresh beauties,
As though the conscious colours came and went
At pleasure, glorying in their subtle changes-
Enormous o'er the flood, Leviathan

Looked forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent
Two fountains to the sky, then plunged amain
In headlong pastime through the closing gulf.

The Recluse.

A fountain issuing into light

Before a marble palace, threw
To heaven its column, pure and bright,
Returning thence in showers of dew;
But soon a humbler course it took,
And glid away a nameless brook.
Flowers on its grassy margin sprang,

Flies o'er it eddying surface played,
Birds 'midst the alder-branches sang,

Flocks through the verdant meadows strayed;
The weary there lay down to rest,
And there the halcyon built her nest.
'Twas beautiful to stand and watch

The fountain's crystal turn to gems,
And from the sky such colours catch
As if 'twere raining diadems;
Yet all was cold and curious art,
That charmed the eye, but missed the heart.
Dearer to me the little stream

Whose unimprisoned waters run,
Wild as the changes of a dream,

By rock and glen, through shade and sun;
Its lovely links had power to bind
In welcome chains my wandering mind.
So thought I when I saw the face
By happy portraiture revealed,
Of one adorned with every grace,

Her name and date from me concealed,
But not her story; she had been
The pride of many a splendid scene.
She cast her glory round a court,

And frolicked in the gayest ring,
Where fashion's high-born minions sport
Like sparkling fire-flies on the wing;
But thence when love had touched her soul,

To nature and to truth she stole.

From din, and pageantry, and strife,

'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains, She treads the paths of lowly life,

Yet in a bosom-circle reigns,

No fountain scattering diamond-showers,
But the sweet streamlet watering flowers.

The Grave.

There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found,
They softly lie and sweetly sleep
Low in the ground.

The storm that wrecks the winter sky
No more disturbs their deep repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh
That shuts the rose.

I long to lay this painful head
And aching heart beneath the soil,
To slumber in that dreamless bed
From all my toil.

For misery stole me at my birth,
And cast me helpless on the wild:
I perish; O, my mother earth!

Take home thy child!

On thy dear lap these limbs reclined,
Shall gently moulder into thee;
Nor leave one wretched trace behind
Resembling me.

Hark! a strange sound affrights mine ear;
My pulse, my brain runs wild-I rave:
Ah! who art thou whose voice I hear!
'I am the Grave!

418

Though long of winds and waves the sport,
Condemned in wretchedness to roam,
Live! thou shalt reach a sheltering port,
A quiet home.

To friendship didst thou trust thy fame?
And was thy friend a deadly foe,
Who stole into thy breast, to aim
A surer blow?

Live! and repine not o'er his loss,
A loss unworthy to be told:
Thou hast mistaken sordid dross
For friendship's gold.
Go, seek that treasure, seldom found,
Of power the fiercest griefs to calm,
And soothe the bosom's deepest wound
With heavenly balm.

Did woman's charms thy youth beguile,
And did the fair one faithless prove?
Hath she betrayed thee with her smile,
And sold thy love?

Live! 'twas a false bewildering fire:
Too often love's insidious dart
Thrills the fond soul with wild desire,
But kills the heart.

Thou yet shalt know how sweet, how dear,
To gaze on listening beauty's eye!
To ask and pause in hope and fear
Till she reply!

A nobler flame shall warm thy breast,
A brighter maiden faithful prove;
Thy youth, thine age, shall yet be blest
In woman's love.

Whate'er thy lot, whoe'er thou be,
Confess thy folly-kiss the rod,
And in thy chastening sorrows see
The hand of God.

A bruised reed he will not break;
Afflictions all his children feel;
He wounds them for his mercy's sake;
He wounds to heal!

Humbled beneath his mighty hand,
Prostrate his Providence adore:
"Tis done!-Arise! He bids thee stand,
To fall no more.

Now, traveller in the vale of tears!
To realms of everlasting light,

Through time's dark wilderness of years,
Pursue thy flight.

There is a calm for those who weep,

A rest for weary pilgrims found;
And while the mouldering ashes sleep
Low in the ground;

The soul, of origin divine,
God's glorious image, freed from clay,
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine
A star of day!

The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky;
The soul, immortal as its sire,
Shall never die.'

The Field of the World.

Sow in the morn thy seed,

At eve hold not thine hand; To doubt and fear give thou no heed, Broad-cast it o'er the land.

Beside all waters sow;

The highway furrows stock; Drop it where thorns and thistles grow; Scatter it on the rock.

The good, the fruitful ground,

Expect not here nor there;

O'er hill and dale, by plots, 'tis found;
Go forth, then, everywhere.

Thou know'st not which may thrive,
The late or early sown;

Grace keeps the precious germs alive,
When and wherever strown.

And duly shall appear,

In verdure, beauty, strength,
The tender blade, the stalk, the ear,
And the full corn at length.

Thou canst not toil in vain:
Cold, heat, and moist, and dry,
Shall foster and mature the grain,
For garners in the sky.
Thence, when the glorious end,
The day of God is come,

The angel-reapers shall descend,
And heaven cry-'Harvest home.'

Aspirations of Youth.

Higher, higher, will we climb,

Up to the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time
In our country's story;

Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls.

Deeper, deeper, let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and learning's spoil,
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.
Onward, onward, may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty.
Minds are of celestial birth,
Make we then a heaven of earth.
Closer, closer, let us knit

Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit,
In the wildest weather;
O! they wander wide who roam
For the joys of life from home.

The Common Lot.

Once, in the flight of ages past,

There lived a man: and who was he?

Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembled thee.

Unknown the region of his birth,

The land in which he died unknown:
His name has perished from the earth
This truth survives alone:

That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear,
Alternate triumphed in his breast;
His bless and wo-a smile, a tear!
Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirits' rise and fall;
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffered-but his pangs are o'er;

Enjoyed-but his delights are fled;
Had friends-his friends are now no more;
And foes-his foes are dead.

He loved-but whom he loved the grave
Hath lost in its unconscious womb:
O she was fair! but nought could save
Her beauty from the tomb.

He saw whatever thou hast seen;

Encountered all that troubles thee:
He was whatever thou hast been;
He is what thou shalt be.

The rolling seasons, day and night,

Sun, moon, and stars, the earth and main, Erewhile his portion, life and light, To him exist in vain.

The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye
That once their shades and glory threw,
Have left in yonder silent sky

No vestige where they flew.
The annals of the human race,
Their ruins, since the world began,
Of him afford no other trace

Than this-there lived a man!

Prayer.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire
Uttered or unexpressed;
The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burthen of a sigh,
The falling of a tear;
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech That infant lips can try;

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach The Majesty on high.

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air;

His watchword at the gates of death:
He enters heaven by prayer.
Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice
Returning from his ways;
While angels in their songs rejoice,
And say,' Behold he prays!'
The saints in prayer appear as one,
In word, and deed, and mind,
When with the Father and his Son
Their fellowship they find.

Nor prayer is made on earth alone:
The Holy Spirit pleads;
And Jesus, on the eternal throne,
For sinners intercedes.

O Thou, by whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way,
The path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!

Home.

There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;
In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend;
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the Larrow way of life!
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of loves and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man?-a patriot ?-look around;
O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home!

THE HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.

The HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER (1770-1834) published occasional poems of that description named vers de société, whose highest object is to gild the social hour. They were exaggerated in compliment and adulation, and wittily parodied in the Rejected Addresses.' As a companion, Mr Spencer was much prized by the brilliant circles of the metropolis; but falling into pecuniary difficulties, he removed to Paris, where he died. His poems were collected and published in 1835. Sir Walter Scott, who knew and esteemed Spencer, quotes the following fine lines' from one of his poems, as expressive of his own feel

ings amidst the wreck and desolation of his fortunes at Abbotsford :

The shade of youthful hope is there,
That lingered long, and latest died;
Ambition all dissolved to air,

With phantom honours by his side.
What empty shadows glimmer nigh?

They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love!
Oh! die to thought, to memory die,

Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!

Mr Spencer translated the Leonora of Bürger with great success, and in a vein of similar excellence composed some original ballads, one of which, marked by simplicity and pathos, we subjoin :

Beth Gelert, or the Grave of the Greyhound. The spearmen heard the bugle sound, And cheerly smiled the morn; And many a brach, and many a hound, Obeyed Llewelyn's horn.

And still he blew a louder blast,

And gave a lustier cheer,
'Come, Gelert, come, wert never last
Llewelyn's horn to hear.

Oh where does faithful Gêlert roam,
The flower of all his race

So true, so brave-a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase?'

'Twas only at Llewelyn's board

The faithful Gelert fed;

He watched, he served, he cheered his lord, And sentineled his bed.

In sooth he was a peerless hound,

The gift of royal John;

But now no Gelert could be found,

And all the chase rode on.

And now, as o'er the rocks and dells

The gallant chidings rise,
All Snowden's craggy chaos yells
The many-mingled cries!

That day Llewelyn little loved

The chase of hart and hare;

And scant and small the booty proved,

For Gelert was not there.
Unpleased Llewelyn homeward hied,
When, near the portal seat,
His truant Gélert he espied,
Bounding his lord to greet.

But, when he gained his castle-door,
Aghast the chieftain stood;

The hound all o'er was smeared with gore;
His lips, his fangs, ran blood.
Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprise;
Unused such looks to meet,

His favourite checked his joyful guise,
And crouched, and licked his feet.
Onward, in haste, Llewelyn passed,
And on went Gêlert too;
And still, where'er his eyes he cast,
Fresh blood-gouts shocked his view.
O'erturned his infant's bed he found,

With blood-stained covert rent;
And all around the walls and ground
With recent blood besprent.

He called his child-no voice replied-
He searched with terror wild;
Blood, blood he found on every side,
But nowhere found his child.

'Hell-hound! my child's by thee devoured,'

The frantic father cried;

And to the hilt his vengeful sword
He plunged in Gêlert's side.
His suppliant looks, as prone he fell,
No pity could impart;
But still his Gêlert's dying yell
Passed heavy o'er his heart.
Aroused by Gêlert's dying yell,
Some slumberer wakened nigh:
What words the parent's joy could tell
To hear his infant's cry!
Concealed beneath a tumbled heap
His hurried search had missed,
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
The cherub boy he kissed.

Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread,
But, the same couch beneath,

Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead,
Tremendous still in death.

Ah, what was then Llewelyn's pain'
For now the truth was clear;
His gallant hound the wolf had slain
To save Llewelyn's heir:

Vain, vain was all Llewelyn's wo;
'Best of thy kind adieu!

The frantic blow which laid thee low
This heart shall ever rue.'

And now a gallant tomb they raise,
With costly sculpture decked;
And marbles storied with his praise
Poor Gelert's bones protect.

There, never could the spearman pass,
Or forester unmoved;

There, oft the tear-besprinkled grass
Llewelyn's sorrow proved.

And there he hung his horn and spear,

And there, as evening fell,

In fancy's ear he oft would hear
Poor Gelert's dying yell.

And, till great Snowden's rocks grow old,

And cease the storm to brave,

The consecrated spot shall hold
The name of Gêlert's Grave.'

If the stock of our bliss is in stranger hands vested,
The fund ill secured, oft in bankruptcy ends;
But the heart issues bills which are never protested,
When drawn on the firm of-wife, children, and
friends.

Though valour still glows in his life's dying embers,
The death-wounded tar, who his colours defends,
Drops a tear of regret as he dying remembers

How blessed was his home with-wife, children, and friends.

The soldier, whose deeds live immortal in story,
Whom duty to far distant latitudes sends,
With transport would barter old ages of glory

For one happy day with-wife, children, and friends.