ANASTASIUS TO HIS CHILD, ALEXIS, SLEEPING. Sleep, oh, sleep, my dearest one, If my tears thy pillow steep, Thy cheek is pillow'd on mine arm, I love to view thy beauteous face, To cheer me thro' the day's long toiling; I love its every change to trace, Shaded by thought-in pleasure smiling: Amid the world, with pride I see But, oh, this hour is most-most dear, And fix on thee my every feeling; When thou dost seem all-all mine own. To live, breathe, smile, for me alone. And, oh, to guard thee thus from ill, No other joy can rank before it. When ev'n thy sleep seems conscious still How true a love is watching o'er it! Such perfect confidence is shown In this defenceless hour alone. Sleep, thou can'st not know the love, Which passes all of outward showing; Much may my looks, words, actions prove, But how much more untold is glow- And now, in silent loneliness, A tender sadness melts my soul, And Memory, with her train attending, Seems all her pages to unroll, While Hope her airy dreams is blending. My tears are sweet; yet see not thou, Lest thou mistake their drops for woe. I think of all I am, the while, Of guilt's dark hours, and life all blasted, And thou the only thing to smile Upon the heart, so wildly wasted: Oh, what can tell the rush of thought, With joy, grief, rapture, anguish, fraught! But with a thrill of keener pain, A shuddering dread has now o'er come me, That dries those kindly tears again,— Oh, should the future tear thee from me! Ah me, ah me! I hold thee nowShall I ask ever-where art thou? I cannot call thee back again, Nor o'er again these joys be living, And thousand worlds were pledg'd in vain, To give what now this hour is giving; But I shall writhe in fruitless woe, With pangs, which-no, I do not know. Yet wherefore thus perversely run To boded ill from present pleasure? I know not why; but lives there one, Who binds his life in one rich trea sure, Whom the wild thought has never crost, "What should I feel, were this but lost?" The Sonnets are in general more or less good. The following is in the spirit of Cowper: TO PEACE. While rapt I lie near this lone waterfall, While o'er me, high in air, yon cedars tall Wave their wide arms; come, gentlest Peace! and hush And, if thou canst, thy empire past recal Within my breast. Ah, wherefore shouldst thou fly? The following is tender : THE LOVE, THAT CANNOT die. Oh, dearer than the dearest, thro' this sea That there are streams, which cannot cease to flow, That there are rays which must for ever shine? What should they reck, or ken of things divine? There are likewise a few religious pieces, containing more devotion than poetry. It is a common, and, to a considerable extent, a just remark, that religious poetry seldom succeeds. To what is this failure, so far as it exists, to be attributed? Are we to ascribe it to the overawing nature of the subject? or is it that poets set themselves formally down to write on religious subjects, and that constraint is fatal to genius? or that those who have made the attempt were for the most part deficient in ability? or that their abilities lay in another direction? It is a delicate and a difficult subject; nor is this, perhaps, the place for its discussion. We wish, however, that it were otherwise. The disunion between moral and intellectual beauty is surely an unnatural one. We wish to see all the rays of excellence converge to one point. We wish to see its various branches prove their relationship by a kindly coalition. We had intended to make some remarks on the melancholy spirit which prevails throughout the present volume, with a reference to the religious sentiments of the writer; but as we are not invested in the judicial robe of the " British Review," or the "Christian Observer," and as besides "The Etonian" is but a novice in such matters, we can only venture a word or two. Mr. Townsend must be well aware that many persons object to Christianity (we speak not of any particular system, but to religion in the abstract,) as inspiring gloom; or, at least, as not affording the consolations which its votaries ascribe to it; and they ground their opinion on the lives and writings of many of its followers. It is easy to reply, that melancholy arising from constitutional or other causes, has been erroneously attributed to religion; that Cowper's mind was naturally disordered; and that Young and Johnson would have been happier if they had been more religious. This may be very true; but will it satisfy the objectors? or is it to be expected that they will take the trouble to investigate all the individual cases? Mr. Townsend has doubtless the promotion of Christian piety at heart; but did it never occur to him, that the publication of a work, in which its power to comfort the afflicted is so little displayed, was so far calculated to prejudice the cause, by adding another to the list of discouraging examples? The authority of Cowper will probably be canonical with our writer. "True Piety is cheerful as the day: Can weep, indeed, and have a suffering groan For others' woes-but smiles upon her own." But we are advancing beyond our depth; and shall therefore conclude with apologizing to Mr. Townsend for our hasty criticism, and with assuring him that we shall be happy to meet him again. A Whimsey. WRITTEN IN A LADY'S ALBUM. "When thought is warm, and fancy flows, What will not argument sometimes suppose?" Cowper. SHOULD chance send down to distant time And downcast Sorrow, in her shroud; And young Hope, laughing through the cloud; And Nature, in her robe of green, Shall 'midst the varied group be seen. Their hearts, as o'er the page they stray, Shall feel its sympathetic sway; And worth shall kindle at the lays And beauty heave the half-heard sigh -And they shall think upon the lot -And while delighted they survey They'll think well pleas'd of her, whose hand And bade them bloom in endless prime, G. M. Essay on Lions. "This. This is old Ninny's tomb. Thes. Well run, Thisbe. Dem. And then came Pyramus. Lys. And so the lion vanished." MIDSUM. NIGHT'S DREAM. It is not a little remarkable, that among the many eminent Naturalists, ancient and modern, with whose writings we are acquainted, no one, as far as we know, has made any mention of that extraordinary species, the British Lion. Juvenal says, that the English whale or shark was the largest of its kind; and common experience will teach us, that although since his time this animal has taken to a land life, yet even still he retains many traits of his original character, and can drink and duck, bite and spout, better than any Frenchman or gudgeon of them all. But no poet has celebrated, or philosopher described, the much more astonishing creature of British growth which we first mentioned. The silence of foreigners we shall attribute to envy; but the silence of our own countrymen is to us quite inexplicable, seeing that this famous island has not wanted most able heralds of her fame, in all its parts; and even Goldsmith has devoted sundry pages of accurate English to so common an object as a cow. Every one has heard of the African Lion, and of the Asiatic |