Their first sweet blossoms. They were low like me, Young, lowly bushes, I a little child, gone; They are And the great elder by the mossy pales How sweet the blackbird sang in that old tree! Sweeter, methinks, than now, from statelier shades They've felled that too-the goodly harm- That with its fragrant clusters overhung store Of juicy berries for the Christmas wine Such as my father in our archery games away, And so some relic daily disappears, Something I've loved and prized; and now the last Almost the last-the poor old milestone falls, And in its place this smooth, white, perked up thing, With its great staring figures." No change would our bitter-sweet Conservative suffer; and had her will been the rule of action, strange results, she confesses, "Would shock the rational community." No farmer should clip one straggling hedge-on pain of transportation for life; no road-surveyor change one rugged stone, nor pare one craggy bank, nor lop one wayside tree, unless bent to be hanged. "I'd have the road One bowery arch, what matter it so low No mail might pass beneath? For aught I care The post might come on foot-or not at all. In short, in short, it's quite as well, per haps, I can but rail, not rule. Splenetic wrath The fulness of a vexed spirit out Caroline was an only child. There is little or nothing said about any companions of her own age-and yet as she seems never to have felt the want of them, why should we? though sometimes we have been expecting to see somo elf like herself come gliding into the poem. A loving heart is never The at a loss for objects of its love. natural affections attach themselves to the thoughts or ideas of all life's holiest relations; and doubtless the glad her dreams. Perhaps had the house girl had then brothers and sisters in been full of them in flesh and blood, she had never been a poetess. Solitary but never sad, and alone, except with mute creatures, in her very pastimes, yet never out of sight of parental eyes, or reach of parental hands, her thoughtful nature became more and more thoughtful in her happiness flowing ever from and around and back upon herself, and thus she learnt to think on her own heart, and to hark to the small still voice that never deecives, "While life is calm and innocent." Merry as she is, and frolicsome "As a young fawn at play," there is a repose over the poem which "Soon came the days, child, Untiring now, in many a lengthened walk, Yet resting oft (his arm encircling me) On the old mile-stone, in our homeward way." mother may have died. A thought crosses us here that her Yet her name is mentioned in a subsequent passage; but this leaves us in uncertainty, for the order of time is not alobey the bidding of some new-risen ways preserved, and the transitions thought. The gloom hanging over the beginning of the following passage My father loved the patient angler's art; looks like that of death:And many a summer day, from early morn To latest evening, by some streamlet's side We two have tarried; strange companionship! A sad and silent man; a joyous child.- My father's eyes were often on his child Learnt intuitively to hold my peace Spoke the perturbed spirit-only then Stooping toward me; so I reached at last Mine arm about his neck, and clasped it close, Printing his pale brow with a silent kiss." And fretted o'er with curious groining dark, Like vault of Gothic chapel, was the roof Of that small cunning cave- The Nereid's Grot!' I named it learnedly, for I had read streams Abiding co-existent. So methought care With the contents (most interesting then) Of the well-plenished basket: simple viands, And sweet brown bread, and biscuits for dessert, And rich, ripe cherries; and two slender flasks, Of cyder one, and one of sweet new milk, Mine own allotted beverage, tempered down To wholesome thinness by admixture pure From the near streamlet. Two small sil ver cups Set out our grand buffet-and all was done; But there I stood immovable, entranced, Absorbed in admiration-shifting oft My ground contemplative, to re-peruse In every point of view the perfect whole Of that arrangement, mine own handy. work, Then glancing skyward, if my dazzled eyes Shrank from the sunbeams, vertically bright, Away, away, toward the river's brink Should dart far off to deeper solitudes. prompt, Kindly considerate of the famished child : And all in order left-the mimic fly Examined and renewed, if need required, Or changed for other sort, as time of day, Or clear or clouded sky, or various signs Of atmosphere or water, so advised Th' experienced angler; the long line afloat The rod securely fixed; then into mine When to the hall of princely Kenilworth All that is perfectly beautiful-" one song that will not die "-and so is all the rest of the picture. The banquet over, and grateful acknowledgment made, her father goes again to the stream, bidding her take care" that nothing may be lost," and she, understanding well the meaning of the injunction, acts accordingly. Of our well-light'ned basket-largess left For our shy woodland hosts, some special treat In fork'd branch or hollow trunk for him The prettiest, merriest, with his frolic leaps And jet black sparkling eyes, and mimic wrath Clacking loud menace. Yet before me lay The long bright summer evening. Was it long, Tediously long in prospect? Nay, good sooth! The hours in Eden never swifter flew With Eve yet innocent, than fled with me Their course by thy fair stream, sweet Royden vale!" Carry has been accustomed, on such occasions, to extract, with "permitted hand," from a certain pouch, ample and deep, within the fisher's coat, an old clumsy russet-covered book, which furnished enjoyment, increasing with renewed and more intimate experience --a copy of old Isaac Walton! And there, "The river at my feet, its mossy bank, Clipt by that covered oak my pleasant seat, Still as an image in its carved shrine, Half hidden (the large hat flung careless off), In a gold gleaming shower of auburn curls." Nor is there in print or manuscript a more faithful character than is here afterwards drawn in lines of light, by woman's hand, of gentle Isaac. We know not whether the long quotation given above or the following be the more delightful. "Dear garden! once again with lingering look Reverted, half remorseful, let me dwell Upon thee as thou wert in that old time Of happy days departed. Thou art changed, And I have changed thee-Was it wisely done? Wisely and well they say who look thereon With unimpassioned eye-cool, clear, undimmed By moisture such as memory gathers oft In mine, while gazing on the things that are Not with the hallowed past, the loved the lost, Associated as those I now retrnes With tender sadness. The old shrubbery walk Straight as an arrow, was less graceful far Than this fair winding among flowers and turf, Till with an artful curve it sweeps from sight To reappear again, just seen and lost Among the hawthorns in the little dell. Less lovely the old walk, but there I ran Holding my mother's hand, a happy child; There were her steps imprinted, and my father's, And those of many a loved one, now laid low In his last resting place. No flowers methinks That now I cultivate are half so sweet, So bright, so beautiful as those that bloomed In the old formal borders. These clove pinks Yield not such fragrance as the true old And laid it on her lap without a word; Then hung upon her shoulder, shrinking back With a child's bashfulness, all hope and fear, Shunning and courting notice ; But I kept Profoundly secret, certain floral rites Observed with piously romantic zeal Through half a summer. Heaven forgave full sure The unconscious profanation, and the sin, If sin there was, be on thy head, old friend, Pathetic Gesner! for thy touching song (That most poetic prose) recording sad The earliest annals of the human race, And death's first triumph, filled me, heart and brain, With stirring fancies, in my very dreams Exciting strange desires to realize, What to the inward vision was revealed, Haunting it like a passion. For I saw, Plain as in substance, that first human home In the first earthly garden; -saw the flowers Set round her leafy bower by banished Ephraim, the old gardener, is a welldrawn character, and so is Priscilla his wife. The picture of their household is painted with infinite spirit, and to the very life. Wilkie would be pleased with it-nor do we know that Miss Bowles's pen is not almost equal, in such protraiture, to his pencil, as it used to be long ago, when the great master chiefly busied himself with the shows of humble life. Of all the many articles of choice furniture, and rarities not correctly included in that term, the most attractive to Carry's 66 Rapt soul, settling in her eyes," was a Cuckoo Clock! To our mind there is in the passage descriptive of her sudden and permanent passion for this rare device, the most vivid evidence of the poetical character, while to our heart the close is the perfection of the pathetic. "But chief-surpassing all-a cuckoo clock! That crowning wonder! miracle of art! How have I stood entranced uncounted minutes, With held-in breath, and eyes intently fix'd On that small magic door, that when complete Th' expiring hour-the irreversibleFlew open with a startling suddenness That, though expected, sent the rushing blood In mantling flushes o'er my upturn'd face; And as the bird (that more than mortal fowl!) With perfect mimicry of natural tone, Note after note exact time's message told, How my heart's pulse kept time with the charm'd voice! And when it ceased made simultaneous pause As the small door clapt to, and all was still. "Long did I meditate-yea, often dream By day and night, at school-time and at play Alas! at holiest seasons, even at church The vision haunted me,-of that rare thing, And his surpassing happiness to whom Of future independence: Not like those |