A Poet's Prayer. Almighty Father! let thy lowly child, system; but they are more calculated to attract attention by their refined and happy diction, than to melt us by their feeling. Several of them, as The Soldier's Tear, She wore a Wreath of Roses; Oh, no, we never mention Her; and We met-'twas in a Crowd, attained to an extraordinary popularity. Of his livelier ditties, I'd be a Butterfly was the most felicitous: it expresses the Horatian philosophy in terms exceeding even Horace in gaiety. What though you tell me each gay little rover Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day: Surely 'tis better, when summer is over, To die when all fair things are fading away. THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY. MR BAYLY was, next to Moore, the most successful song-writer of our age, and he composed a surprising number of light dramas, some of which shew a likelihood of maintaining their ground on the stage. He was born in 1797, the son of an eminent and wealthy solicitor, near Bath. Destined for the church, he studied for some time at Oxford, but could not settle to so sober a profession, and ultimately came to depend chiefly on literature for support. His latter years were marked by misfortunes, under the pressure of which he addressed some beautiful verses to his wife: Oh! hadst thou never shared my fate, But thou hast suffered for my sake, Like fearless lips that strive to take My fond affection thou hast seen, To think more happy thou hadst been And has that thought been shared by thee? Ah, no! that smiling cheek Proves more unchanging love for me But there are true hearts which the sight How unlike some who have professed But ah! from them to thee I turn, The love that gives a charm to home, This amiable poet died of jaundice in 1839. His songs contain the pathos of a section of our social THE REV. JOHN KEBLE. In 1827 appeared a volume of sacred poctry, entitled The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holidays Throughout the Year. The work had extraordinary success: the fifty-first edition (1857) is now before us. The object of the author was to bring the thoughts and feelings of his readers into more entire unison with those recommended and exemplified in the English Prayer-Book, and some of his little poems have great tenderness, beauty, and pure devotional feeling. Thus, on the text: So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city' (Genesis, xi. 8), we have this descriptive passage: Since all that is not Heaven must fade, Upon the home I love: The crash of tower and grove. Far opening down some woodland deep And wild-flower wreaths from side to side What ruthless Time has wrought. Another text (Proverbs, xiv. 10) suggests a train of touching sentiment: Why should we faint and fear to live alone, Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die, Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own, Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh? Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart, Our eyes see all around in gloom or glowHues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart. The following is one of the poems entire: Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.-Habakkuk, ii. 3. The morning mist is cleared away, Nor yet th' autumnal breeze has stirred the grove, Skirts soberly the tranquil scene, The redbreast warbles round this leafy cove. Sweet messenger of 'calm decay,' Saluting sorrow as you may, As one still bent to find or make the best, 'Tis a low chant, according well With the soft solitary knell, As homeward from some grave beloved we turn, Or by some holy death-bed dear, Most welcome to the chastened ear Of her whom Heaven is teaching how to mourn. O cheerful tender strain! the heart That duly bears with you its part, Singing so thankful to the dreary blast, Though gone and spent its joyous prime, And on the world's autumnal time, 'Mid withered hues and sere, its lot be cast: That is the heart for thoughtful seer, That is the heart for watchmen true As o'er the Church the gathering twilight falls : Forced from his shadowy paradise, His thoughts to Heaven the steadier rise: There seek his answer when the world reproves : Contented in his darkling round, If only he be faithful found, When from the east th' eternal morning moves. The author of The Christian Year is the REV. JOHN KEBLE, vicar of Hursley, near Winchester. He studied and took his degree of M.A. at Oriel College, and was some time Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. He is author also of Lyra Innocentium: Thoughts in Verse on the Ways of Providence towards Little Children; The Child's Christian Year; &c., published in 1846. He edited an edition of Hooker's works, Oxford, 1836. NOEL THOMAS CARRINGTON. A Devonshire poet, MR CARRINGTON (1777-1830), has celebrated some of the scenery and traditions of his native district in pleasing verse. His works have been collected into two volumes, and consist of The Banks of Tamar, 1820; Dartmoor (his best poem), 1826; My Native Village; and miscellaneous pieces. The Pixies of Devon. [The age of pixies, like that of chivalry, is gone. There is, perhaps, at present, scarcely a house which they are reputed to visit. Even the fields and lanes which they formerly frequented seem to be nearly forsaken. Their music is rarely heard; and they appear to have forgotten to attend their ancient midnight dance.-Drew's Cornwall.] They are flown, Beautiful fictions of our fathers, wove And fondly loved and cherished: they are flown And night is strangely mute! the hymnings high- The very streams And by gifted eyes were seen The sunbeam, and now rode upon the gale The seasons came In bloom or blight, in glory or in shade; FITZGREENE HALLECK. Without attempting, in our confined limits, to range over the fields of American literature, now rapidly extending, and cultivated with ardour and success, we have pleasure in including some eminent transatlantic names in our list of popular authors. MR HALLECK became generally known in this country in 1827 by the publication of a England. In this volume are some fine verses on * It shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not volume of Poems, the result partly of a visit to be clear, nor dark.-Zechariah, xiv. 6. 417 Praise to the bard! His words are driven The birds of fame are flown! Mr Halleck is a native of Guildford, Connecticut, born in 1795. He resided some time in New York, following mercantile pursuits. In 1821 he published Fanny, a satirical poem in the style of Don Juan. Next appeared his volume of poems, as already stated, to which additions were made in subsequent republications. His works are included in one volume, and it is to be regretted that his muse has not been more prolific. Marco Bozzaris. [The Epaminondas of modern Greece. He fell in a nightattack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platea, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were: To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain.'] At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour In dreams, through camp and court, he bore In dreams his song of triumph heard, As Eden's garden bird. At midnight, in the forest shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, True as the steel of their tried blades, There had the Persian's thousands stood, And now there breathed that haunted air An hour passed on, the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke to hear his sentries shriek: Bozzaris cheer his band: 'Strike, till the last armed foe expires, They fought, like brave men, long and well, They piled that ground with Moslem slain, They conquered-but Bozzaris fell, Bleeding at every vein. His few surviving comrades saw Then saw in death his eyelids close Like flowers at set of sun. Come to the bridal-chamber, Death! With banquet-song, and dance, and wine; But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be. Come, when his task of fame is wrought; Come with her laurel-leaf blood-bought; Come in her crowning hour, and then Thy sunken eyes' unearthly light To him is welcome as the sight Of sky and stars to prisoned men ; Of brother in a foreign land; Bozzaris! with the storied brave Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime; She wore no funeral weeds for thee, Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from Death's leafless tree In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb; But she remembers thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone. For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babe's first lisping tells; For thine her evening-prayer is said Talk of thy doom without a sigh; For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's; WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, He was This most popular of the American poets is a native of the state of Massachusetts, born in 1794. With a precocity, rivalled only by that of Chatterton, he published in his fourteenth year a political satire, The Embargo, which is represented as having been highly successful. From this perilous course of political versifying, the young author was removed by being placed at Williams College. admitted to the bar, and practised for several years with fair success, but in 1825 he removed to New York, and entered upon that literary life which he has ever since followed. In 1826 Mr Bryant became editor of the New York Evening Post, and his connection with that journal still subsists. His poetical works consist of Thanatopsis-an exquisite solemn strain of blank verse, first published in 1816; The Ages, a survey of the experience of mankind, 1821; and various pieces scattered through periodical works. Mr Washington Irving, struck with the beauty of Bryant's poetry, had it collected and published in London in 1832. The British public, he said, had expressed its delight at the graphic descriptions of American scenery and wild woodland characters contained in the works of Cooper. "The same keen eye and just feeling for nature,' he added, 'the same indigenous style of thinking and local peculiarity of imagery, which give such novelty and interest to the pages of that gifted writer, will be found to characterise this volume, condensed into a narrower compass, and sublimated into poetry.' From this opinion Professor Wilsonwho reviewed the volume in Blackwood's Magazine -dissented, believing that Cooper's pictures are infinitely richer in local peculiarity of imagery and thought. The chief charm of Bryant's genius,' he considered, 'consists in a tender pensiveness, a moral melancholy, breathing over all his contemplations, dreams, and reveries, even such as in the main are glad, and giving assurance of a pure spirit, benevolent to all living creatures, and habitually pious in the felt omnipresence of the Creator. His poetry overflows with natural religion-with what Wordsworth calls the religion of the woods.' This is strictly applicable to the Thanatopsis and Forest Hymn, but Washington Irving is so far right that Bryant's grand merit is his nationality and his power of painting the American landscape, especially in its wild, solitary, and magnificent forms. His diction is pure and lucid, with scarcely a flaw, and he is a master of blank verse. [From Thanatopsis."] Not to thy eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes To that mysterious realm, where each shall take [The Wind-flower.] Lodged in sunny cleft Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone The little wind-flower, whose just-opened eye Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at, Startling the loiterer in the naked groves With unexpected beauty, for the time Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. The Disinterred Warrior. Gather him to his grave again, And solemnly and softly lay, Beneath the verdure of the plain, The warrior's scattered bones away. Pay the deep reverence taught of old, The homage of man's heart to death; Nor dare to trifle with the mould Once hallowed by the Almighty's breath. The soul hath quickened every part- And then to mark the lord of all, The forest hero, trained to wars, Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall, And seamed with glorious scars, Walk forth, amid his train, to dare This bank, in which the dead were laid, Was sacred when its soil was ours; Hither the artless Indian maid Brought wreaths of beads and flowers, And the gray chief and gifted seer Worshipped the God of thunders here. But now the wheat is green and high The weapons of his rest; And there in the loose sand is thrown Ah, little thought the strong and brave, Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth, Or the young wife that weeping gave Her first-born to the earth, That the pale race, who waste us now, Among their bones should guide the plough! They waste us-ay, like April snow In the warm noon we shrink away; And fast they follow as we go Towards the setting day- But I behold a fearful sign, To which the white man's eyes are blind; Their race may vanish hence like mine, And leave no trace behindSave ruins o'er the region spread, And the white stones above the dead. Before these fields were shorn and tilled, Full to the brim our rivers flowed; The melody of waters filled The fresh and boundless wood; And torrents dashed, and rivulets played, And fountains spouted in the shade. Those grateful sounds are heard no more: The realm our tribes are crushed to get, May be a barren desert yet! Some poet-translators of this period merit honourable mention. ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM. The REV. FRANCIS WRANGHAM (1769-1843), rector of Hummanby, Yorkshire, and Archdeacon of Chester, in 1795 wrote a prize-poem on the Restoration of the Jews, and translations in verse. He was the author of four Seaton prize-poems on sacred subjects, several sermons, an edition of Langhorne's Plutarch, and dissertations on the British empire in the East, on the translation of the Scriptures into the Oriental languages, &c. His occasional translations from the Greek and Latin, and his macaronic verses, or sportive classical effusions among his friends, were marked by fine taste and felicitous adaptation. He continued his favourite studies to the close of his long life, and was the ornament and delight of the society in which he moved. HENRY FRANCIS CARY. The REV. HENRY FRANCIS CARY (1772-1844), by his translation of Dante, has earned a high and lasting reputation. He was early distinguished as |