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We fall upon our faces, trying to go;

And, underneath our heavy eyelids trooping.
The reddest flower would look as pale as SHOW.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring

Through the coal-dark, underground-
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.

For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning-
Their wind comes in our faces-

Till our hearts turn-our heads, with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places.

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling-
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall-
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling-
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day, the iron wheels are droning,
And sometimes we could pray,

"O ye wheels"-breaking out in a mad moaning-
"Stop! be silent for to-day !"

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Ay! be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to month!

Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing

Of their tender human youth!

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals.

Let them prove their inward souls against the notion

That they live in you, or under you, O wheels !

Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

Grinding life down from its mark;

And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.

The 'Sonnets from the Portuguese are as passionate as Shakspeare's Sonnets, and we suspect the title, 'from the Portuguese,' has no better authority than Sir Walter Scott's Old Play' at the head of the chapters of his novels. The first of these so-called translations is eminently beautiful-quite equal to Wordsworth, or to Words**odel, Milton:

Sonnet.

I thought once how Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears.
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove :

Guess now who holds thee?'-Death!' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang: Not Death, but Love.'

An interval of some years elapsed ere Miss Barrett came forward with another volume, though she was occasionally seen as a contributor to literary journals. She became in 1846 the wife of a kindred spirit, Robert Browning, the poet, and removed with him to

Italy. In Florence she witnessed the revolutionary outbreak of 1848, and this furnished the theme of her next important work, 'Casa Guidi Windows,' a poem containing the impressions of the writer upon events in Tuscany of which she was a witness' from the win. dows of her house, the Casa Guidi in Florence. The poem is a spirited semi-political narrative of actual events and genuine feelings. Fart might pass for the work of Byron-so free is its versification, and so warm the affection of Mrs. Browning for Italy and the Italians but there are also passages that would have served better for a prose pamphlet. The genius of the poetess had become practical and energetic-inspirited by what she saw around her, and by the new tie which, as we learn from this pleasing poem, now brightened her visions of the future:

The sun strikes, through the windows, up the floor:
Stand out in it, my young Florentine,

Not two years old, and let me see thee more! ..
And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine,
And from my soul, which fronts the future so,
With unabashed and unabated gaze,

Teach me to hope for, what the angels know
When they smile clear as thou dost.

In 1856 appeared ‘Aurora Leigh,' an elaborate poem or novel in blank verse, which Mrs. Browning characterises as the most mature' of her works, and one into which her highest convictions upon life and art are entered.' It presents us, like Wordsworth's 'Prelude,' with the history of a poetical mind—an autobiography of the heart and intellect; but Wordsworth, with all his contempt for literary 'conventionalities.' would never have ventured on such a sweeping departure from established critical rules and poetical diction as Mrs. Browning has here carried out. There is a prodigality of genius in the work, many just and fine remarks, ethical and critical, and passages evincing a keen insight into the human heart as well as into the working of our social institutions and artificial restraints. A noble hatred of falsehood, hypocrisy, and oppression breathes through the whole. But the materials of the poem are so strangely mingled and so discordant-prose and poetry so mixed up together-scenes of splendid passion and tears followed by dry metaphysical and polemical disquisitions, or rambling common-place conversation, that the effect of the peem as a whole, though splendid in parts, is unsatisfactory.

An English Landscape.— From ' Aurora Leigh.'

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While breaking into voluble ecstacy,

I flattered all the beautecas country round,
As poets use the skis, the clouds, the fields,
The happy violets, hiding from the roads
The primroses run down to, carrying gold-
The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push out
Their tolerant horns and patient churning mouths
"Twixt dripping ash-boughs-hedgerows all alive
With birds, and gnats, and large white butterflies,
Which look as if the May-flower had caught life
And palpitated forth upon the wind-

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Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist;
Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills,
And cattle grazing in the watered vales.
And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods,
And cottage gardens smelling everywhere,
Confused with smell of orchards. See,' I said,
'And see, is God not with us on the earth?
And shall we put Him down by aught we do?
Who says there's nothing for the poor and vile,
Save poverty and wickedness? Behold!'
And ankle-deep in English grass I leaped,

And clapped my hand, and called all very fair.

In 1860, Poems Before Congress' evinced Mrs. Browning's unabated interest in Italy and its people. This was her last publication. She died on the 29th of June, 1861, at the Casa Guidi, Florence; and in front of the house, a marble tablet records that in it wrote and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, by her song, created a golden link between Italy and England, and that in gratitude Florence had erected that memorial. In 1862 the literary remains of Mrs. Browning were published under the title of Last Poems.'

We subjoin a piece written in the early, and we think the purest style of the poetess :

Cowper's Grave.

It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying,
It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying.
Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence, languish.
Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish.

O noets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing!
O Christians, at your cross of hope, a hopeless hand was clinging!
O men. this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling,
Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling!

And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story,

How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory,

And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed,
He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted.

He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation,

And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration
Nor ever shall he be. in praise, by wise or good forsaken.

Named softly as the household name of one whom God hath taken.

With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him

With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven hath won him,
Who suffered once the madness-cloud to His own love to blind him,
But gently lea the blind along where breath and bird could find him,

And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic senses
As hills have language for, and stars, harmonious influences.
The pulse of dew upon the grass, kept his within its number,
And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber

Wild timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home caresses,
Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernes es.

The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing,
Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving.

And though, in blindness, he remained unconscious of that guiding,
And things provided came without the sweet sense of providing.
He testified this solemn truth, while frenzy desolated-

Nor man nor nature satisfy whom only God created.

Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother whilst she blesses
And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses-
That turns his fevered eyes around- My mother! where's my mother?'
As if such tender words and deeds could come from any other!-

The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending o'er him,
Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore him!-
Thus, woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever gave him.
Beneath those deep pathetic eyes, which closed in death to save him.
Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth could image that awaking.
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him breaking,
Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted.
But felt those eyes alone, and knew- My saviour! not deserted !'
Deserted! Who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested, ⚫
Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was manifested?

What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops averted?
What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted?

Deserted! God could separate from His own essence rather;

And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father.
Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry his universe hath shaken-

It went up single, echoless, My God, I am forsaken !'

It went up from the Holy's lips amid his lost creation,

That, of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation!

That carth's worst frenzies, marring hope, should mar not hope's fruition,
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a vision.

ROBERT BROWNING.

The head of what has been termed the psychological school of poetry is MR. ROBERT BROWNING, who for more than thirty years has been recognised as one of our most original and intellectual poets. Latterly, the public-to use his own words

The British Public, ye who like me not

(God love you !), whom I yet have laboured for,

have been more indulgent to the poet, and more ready to acknowledge his real merits. Mr. Browning first attracted attention in 1836, when he published his poem of Paracelsus.' He had previously published anonymously a poem entitled 'Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession.' 'Paracelsus evinced that love of psychological analysis and that subtle imagination more fully displayed in the author's later works. It is the history of a soul struggling and aspiring after hidden knowledge, power, and happiness

All ambitious, upwards tending.

Like plants in mines, which never saw the sun

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but is thwarted and baffled in the visionary pursuit. For an author of twenty-four years of age this was a remarkable poem. Mr. Browning next tried the historical drama. In 1837, his tragedy of 'Strafford' was brought on the stage, the hero being personated by Macready, a favourite actor. It was played several nights, but cannot be said to have been successful. Mr. Horne, in his New Spirit of the Age,' characterises it as a piece of passionate action with the bones of poetry.' Van Dyck's portrait of Strafford, so well known from copies and engravings, will always, we suspect, eclipse or supersede any pen-and-ink delineation of the splendid apostate. The poet now went to Italy, where he resided several years, and in 1841 he sent forth another psychological poem-'the richest puzzle to all lovers of poetry which was ever given to the world a thin volume entitled Sordello.'

·

Mr. Browning's subsequent works were in a dramatic form and spirit, the most popular being 'Pippa 1 asses,' forming part of a series called Bells and Pomegranates' (1841-44), of which a second collection was published containing some exquisite sketches and monologues. Pippa is a girl from a silk-factory, who passes the various persons of the play at certain critical moments, in the course of her holiday, and becomes unconsciously to herself a determining influence on the fortune of each. In 1843 the poet produced another regular drama, a tragedy entitled 'A Blot in the Scutcheon,' which was acted at Drury Lane with moderate success, and is the best of the author's plays. Next to it is King Victor and King Charles,' a tragedy in four acts, in which the characters are well drawn and well contrasted. Altogether Mr. Browning has written eight plays and two short dramatic sketches, A Soul's Tragedy' and 'In a Balcony.' Some of the others- The Return of the Druses,' 'Colombe's Birthday,' and 'Luria'—are superior productions both in conception and execution. Two narrative poems, Christmas Eve' and 'Easter Day,' present the author's marked peculiarities-grotesque imagery, insight into the human heart, vivid painting, and careless, faulty versification. In principle, the poet is thoroughly orthodox, and treats the two great Christian festivals in a Christian spirit. Of the lighter pieces of the author, the most popular is The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a Child's Story,' told with inimitable liveliness and spirit, and with a flow of rattling rhymes and quaint fancies rivalling Southey's "Cataract of Lodore. This amusing production is as unlike the usual style of its author as 'John Gilpin' is unlike the usual style of Cowper.

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In 1855 the reputation of Mr. Browning was greatly enhanced by the publication of a collection of poems, fifty in number, bearing the comprehensive title of Men and Women.' In 1864 another volume of character sketches appeared, entitled 'Dramatis Personæ;' and in

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