THE HUSK AND THE GRAIN.

Found in a number of Hood's Magazine, where it appeared anonymously.

WEEP! woman, weep! drop thy tears of agony,
He whom thou mournest, lieth dead and cold;
Heave! woman, heave! the sigh that never cooleth,
Born of the misery that never waxeth old.

He, who at morning cheer'd and sustain'd thee,
With sweet words and tender, tender and sweet,
'Till earth, with her troubles, look'd fairer than heaven,
Lies with the worms there-under thy feet.

Crawling, they suck the lips that gave thee pleasure; Cruelly they pierce the eyes of love and light: Feast on the neck on which thou lay'st enraptured, Sweetly entranced through all the hours of night.

Rigid is the tongue on which thy soul linger'd;
Livid is the hand, once how delicate and fair;
Pulseless the heart; and colder than the damp-drops
Eating the gold in his bright yellow hair.

Weep! woman, weep! drop thy tears of agony,
He whom thou mournest lieth dead and cold!
Heave! woman, heave! the sigh that never cooleth,
Born of the misery that never waxeth old.

Hush! widow, hush! stay thy tears of agony,

;

He whom thou mournest never touch'd the sod Raise! widow, raise! the eye of faith and gladness,Behold, thou poor heart, the gentleness of God!

He, who at evening, sitting beside thee,
Open'd the Book of wisdom and of love,
Soothingly enjoin'd thee to lean upon its promises,
Trusts to thee now in a calmer world above.

Brighter than stars is the light that pervades him,
Sweeter than perfume his free and happy breath,
Purer than chastity the thoughts that engage him,
Loosen'd from the earth by the iron hand of death.

Angels have ask'd to be his dear companion,

Still thou must have his watchfulness and care,
Go where thou wilt, he shall follow and uphold thee,
Hovering about thee-a Spirit of the Air!

THE WORLD IS FULL OF BEAUTY.

By GERALD MASSEY.

THERE lives a voice within me, a guest-angel of my heart, And its sweet lispings win me, till the tears a-trembling

start;

Up evermore it springeth, like some magic melody,
And evermore it singeth this sweet song of songs to me-
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Night's starry tendernesses dower with glory evermore,
Morn's budding, bright, melodious hour comes sweetly as of

yore;

But there be million hearts accurst, where no sweet sunbursts shine,

And there be million hearts athirst for Love's immortal

wine.

This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;

And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

If faith, and hope, and kindness pass'd, as coin, 'twixt heart and heart,

How, thro' the eye's tear-blindness, should the sudden soul upstart!

The dreary, dim, and desolate, should wear a sunny bloom, And Love should spring from buried Hate, like flowers o'er

Winter's tomb.

This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;

And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Were truth our uttered language, Angels might talk with

men,

And God-illumined earth should see the Golden Age again;

The burthen'd heart should soar in Mirth like Morn's young prophet-lark,

And Misery's last tear wept on earth, quench Hell's last cunning spark.

For this world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Lo! plenty ripens round us, yet awakes the cry for bread, The millions still are toiling, crusht, and clad in rags, unfed! While sunny hills and valleys richly blush with fruit and

grain,

But the paupers in the palace rob their toiling fellow-men.
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

Dear God! what hosts are trampled 'mid this killing crush for gold!

What noble hearts are sapp'd of love! what spirits lose life's hold!

Yet a merry world it might be, opulent for all, and aye, With its lands that asks for labour, and its wealth that wastes

away.

This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;

And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

The leaf-tongues of the forest, and the flow'r-lips of the sod

The happy Birds that hymn their raptures in the ear of God

The summer wind that bringeth music over land and sea, Have each a voice that singeth this sweet song of songs to

me

This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above;
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love.

THE DEATH OF THE POET.

A passage in SHELLEY'S exquisite poem, Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude.

WHEN on the threshold of the green recess

The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,

Did he resign his high and holy soul

To images of the majestic past,

That paused within his passive being now,

Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone

Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
Of that obscurest chasm;-and thus he lay,
Surrendering to their final impulses

The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,
The torturers, slept: no mortal pain or fear
Marred his repose, the influxes of sense,
And his own being unalloyed by pain,
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
At peace, and faintly smiling his last sight
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
It rests, and still as the divided frame

Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
That ever beat in mystic sympathy

With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:
And when two lessening points of light alone
Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir

The stagnate night :-till the minutest ray

Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
It paused-it fluttered. But when heaven remained
Utterly black, the murky shades involved

An image, silent, cold, and motionless,

As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.

VOL. V.

L

75

Even as a vapour fed with golden beams
That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame-
No sense, no motion, no divinity-

A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
The breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream
Once fed with many-voiced waves—a dream

Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,
Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

O, for Medea's wondrous alchymy,

Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam
With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale
From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,
Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
Which but one living man has drained, who now,
Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
No proud exemption in the blighting curse
He bears, over the world wanders for ever,
Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream
Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
Raking the cinders of a crucible

For life and power, even when his feeble hand
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled
Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn
Robes in its golden beams,-ah! thou hast fled!
The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
In vesper low or joyous orison,

Lifts still its solemn voice:-but thou art fled-
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
Of this phantasmal scene who have to thee
Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips
So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes
That image sleep in death, upon that form
Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
Be shed-not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,