The joys and griefs that plume the wings I saw the same blithe day return, I matched with Scotland's heathery hills Their wood hymns chanting over. O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, No longer common or unclean, The child of God's baptizing. With clearer eyes I saw the worth And if at times an evil strain, To lawless love appealing, It died upon the eye and ear, The discord and the staining. Ilis worth, in vain bewailings; Sweet soul of song!-I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings! Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty- But think, while falls that shade between Not his the song whose thunderous chime The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor; But who his human heart has laid To nature's bosom nearer? Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer? Through all his tuneful art how strong The human feeling gushes! The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes. Give lettered pomp to teeth of time, JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. MUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold, Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Then felt I like some watcher of the skies UHLAND. JOHN KEATS Ir is the poet Uhland, from whose wreathings Of rarest harmony I here have drawn, To lower tones and less melodious breathings, Some simple strains, of youth and passion born. His is the poetry of sweet expressionOf clear, unfaltering tune, serene and strong Where gentlest thoughts and words, in sof procession, Move to the even measures of his song. Delighting ever in his own calm fancies, UHLAND. He sees much beauty where most men see naught Looking at nature with familiar glances, And weaving garlands in the groves of thought. He sings of youth, and hope, and high endeavor; He sings of love-oh crown of poesy!Of fate, and sorrow, and the grave-forever The end of strife, the goal of destiny. He sings of fatherland, the minstrel's gloryHigh theme of memory and hope divineTwining its fame with gems of antique story, In Suabian songs and legends of the Rhine; In ballads breathing many a dim tradition, Nourished in long belief or minstrel rhymes, Fruit of the old romance, whose gentle mission Passed from the earth before our wiser times. 655 As who beholds, across the tracts of ocean, The golden sunrise bursting into light. Wide is its magic world-divided neither In fancied fortunes to forget his own? THE GRAVE OF A POETESS. Just within hearing of some village-bell, Then o'er her grave the star-paved sky will beam; While all around the fragrant wild-flowers blow, Well do they know his name among the And sweet birds sing her requiem to the wa mountains, CHARADE. COME from my first, ay, come! The battle dawn is nigh; And the screaming trump and the thundering drum. Are calling thee to die! Fight as thy father fought; Fall as thy father fell; Thy task is taught; thy shroud is wrought: So forward and farewell! Toll ye my second! toll! Fling high the flambeau's light: And sing the hymn for a parted soul Beneath the silent night! The wreath upon his head, The cross upon his breast, Let the prayer be said, and the tear be shed, So, take him to his rest! Call ye my whole, ay, call The lord of lute and lay; And let him greet the sable pall With a noble song to-day; Go, call him by his name! No fitter hand may crave To light the flame of a soldier's fame WINTHROP MACKWORTH Praed. TO MACAULAY. THE dreamy rhymer's measured snore High-crested Scott, broad-breasted Burns; And shows the British youth, who ne'er Will lag behind, what Romans were, When all the Tuscans and their Lars Shouted, and shook the towers of Mars. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR ODE. BARDS of passion and of mirth, Thus ye live on high, and then Bards of passion and of mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new! JOHN KRAT THE MINSTREL. A POET'S THOUGHT. SONNET. 657 'WHAT Voice, what harp, are those we hear WHо best can paint th' enamelled robe of Beyond the gate in chorus? Go, page!-the lay delights our ear; So speaks the king: the stripling flies— "Hail, princes mine! Hail, noble knights! All hail, enchanting dames! spring, With flow'rets and fair blossoms well be dight; Who best can her melodious accents sing, With which she greets the soft return of light; Who best can bid the quaking tempest rage, And make th' imperial arch of heav'n to groan What starry heaven! What blinding lights! Breed warfare with the winds, and finely Whose tongue may tell their names? In this bright hall, amid this blaze, The minnesinger closed his eyes; He struck his mighty lyre: Then beauteous bosoms heaved with sighs, Be given the bard in guerdon. "Not so! Reserve thy chain, thy gold, For those brave knights whose glances, Fierce flashing through the battle bold, Might shiver sharpest lances! Bestow it on thy treasurer thereThe golden burden let him bear With other glittering burdens. "I sing as in the greenwood bush The cageless wild-bird carols- Themselves are gold and laurels! They set it down; he quaffs it all"Oh! draught of richest flavor! Oh! thrice divinely happy hall Where that is scarce a favor! If heaven shall bless ye, think on me; JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (German). Translation of JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN. wage RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. I. Even such a happy child of earth am I; THERE was a roaring in the wind all night-Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty. The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright- VI. My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, As if life's business were a summer mood The jay makes answer as the magpie chat- As if all needful things would come unsought To genial faith, still rich in genial good; ters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of But how can he expect that others should I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, By our own spirits we are deified; We poets in our youth begin in gladness, VIII. I was a traveller then upon the moor; Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, IV. When I with these untoward thoughts had Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the The oldest man he seemed that ever wore might Of joy in minds that can no further go, In our dejection do we sink as low— gray hairs. IX. As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie And fears and fancies thick upon me came--Wonder to all who do the same espy Dim sadness, and blind thoughts, I knew not, By what means it could hither come, and ner could name. V. I heard the skylark warbling in the sky; whence; So that it seems a thing endued with sense- self |