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It will not be ;-away, bright cheat, away!
Cold, far too cold to love!-thy look grows strange;
I want the thousand thoughts that used to play,
Like lights and shadowings, in chequer'd change!
That smile!-I know thou art not like her, now, -
Within her land-where'er it be-of light,
She smiles not while a cloud is on my brow!-
When will it pass away-this heavy night!
Oh! will the cool, clear morning never come,
And light me to her, in her spirit's home!

THE GROTTO OF EGERIA.

A GUSH of waters!-faint, and sweet, and wild,
Like the far echo of the voice of years,-
The ancient nature, singing to her child
The self-same hymn that lull'd the infant spheres!
A spell of song not louder than a sigh,

Yet speaking like a trumpet to the heart,
And thoughts that lift themselves, triumphingly,
O'er time-where time has triumph'd over art,-
As wild-flowers climb its ruins, haunt it still;
While, still, above the consecrated spot,
Lifts up its prophet voice the ancient rill,
And flings its oracles along the grot.
But, where is she, the lady of the stream,
And he whose worship was, and is a dream?

Silent, yet full of voices!-desolate,

Yet fill'd with memories, like a broken heart! Oh! for a vision like to his who sate

With thee, and with the moon and stars, apart, By the cool fountain, many a livelong even,

That speaks, unheeded, to the desert, now, When vanish'd clouds had left the air all heaven, And all was silent, save the stream and thou,

Egeria!-solemn thought upon his brows,
For all his diadem; thy spirit-eyes
His only homage; and the flitting boughs
And birds, alone, between him and the skies!
Each outward sense expanded to a soul,
And every feeling tuned into a truth;

And all the bosom's shatter'd strings made whole,
And all its worn-out powers retouch'd with youth,
Beneath thy spell, that chasten'd while it charm'd,
Thy words, that touch'd the spirit while they
taught,

Thy look, that utter'd wisdom while it warm'd,
And moulded fancy in the stamp of thought,

And breathed an atmosphere below, above,
Light to the soul, and to the senses love!

Beautiful dreams! that haunt the younger earth,

In poet's pencil or in minstrel's song, Like sighs, or rainbows, dying in their birth, Perceived a moment, and remember'd long! But, no!-bright visions!-fables of the heart! Not to the past, alone, do ye belong; Types for all ages,-wove when early art

To feeling gave a voice to truth a tongue! Oh! what if gods have left the Grecian mount, And shrines are voiceless on the classic shore, And long Egeria by the gushing fount Waits for her monarch-lover never more,

Who hath not his Egeria ?-some sweet thought,
Shrouded and shrined within his heart of hearts,
More closely cherish'd, and more fondly sought,
Still, as the daylight of the soul departs;
The vision'd lady of the spring, that wells
In the green valley of his brighter years,
Or gentle spirit that for ever dwells,

And sings of hope, beside the fount of tears.

In the heart's trance the calenture of mind That haunts the soul-sick mariner of life, And paints the fields that he has left behind, Like green morganas, on the tempest's strife; In the dim hour when memory-whose song

Is still of buried hope sings back the dead, And perish'd looks and forms-aphantom-throng,With melancholy eyes and soundless tread, Like lost Eurydices, from graves, retrack

The long-deserted chambers of the brain, Until the yearning soul looks fondly back, To clasp them, and they vanish, once again; At even,-when the fight of youth is done, And sorrow-like the "searchers of the slain,". Turns up the cold, dead faces, one by one,

Of prostrate joys and wishes, but in vain ! And finds that all is lost, and walks around, Mid hopes that, each, has perish'd of its wound;

Then, pale Egeria! to thy moon-lit cave The madden'd and the mourner may retire, To cool the spirit's fever in thy wave, And gather inspiration from thy lyre;

In solemn musings, when the world is still, To woo a love less fleeting to the breast,

Or lie and dream, beside the prophet-rill That resteth never, while it whispers rest; Like Numa, cast earth's cares and crowns aside, And commune with a spiritual bride!

THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS, AT ATHENS.

THOU art not silent! - oracles are thine Which the wind utters, and the spirit hears, Lingering, mid ruin'd fane and broken shrine, O'er many a tale and trace of other years! Bright as an ark, o'er all the flood of tears That wraps thy cradle-land-thine earthly love, Where hours of hope, mid centuries of fears, Have gleam'd, like lightnings through the gloom above, [Jove! Stands, roofless to the sky, thy home, Olympian

Thy column'd aisles with whispers of the past Are vocal, and, along thine ivied walls, While Elian echoes murmur on the blast, And wild-flowers hang, like victor-coronals, In vain the turban'd tyrant rears his halls, And plants the symbol of his faith and slaughters; Now, even now, the beam of promise falls Bright upon Hellas, as her own bright daughters, And a Greek Ararat is rising o'er the waters!

Thou art not silent! when the southern fairIonia's moon-looks down upon thy breast,

Smiling, as pity smiles above despair, Soft as young beauty soothing age to rest,一 Sings the night-spirit in thy weedy crest, And she, the minstrel of the moonlight hours Breathes-like some lone one, sighing to be blestHer lay, half hope, half sorrow, from the flowers, And hoots the prophet owl, amid his tangled bowers! And, round thine altar's mouldering stones are born Mysterious harpings, wild as ever crept From him who waked Aurora, every morn, And sad as those he sung her, till she slept! A thousand and a thousand years have swept O'er thee, who wert a moral from thy spring, A wreck in youth! nor vainly hast thou kept Thy lyre: Olympia's soul is on the wing, And a new Iphitus has waked, beneath its string!

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I LEAVE thee now, my spirit's love!
All bright in youth's unclouded light;
With sunshine round, and hope above,
Thou scarce hast learnt to dream of night.
Yet night will come!-thy bounding heart
Must watch its idols melt away;
And, oh! thy soul must learn to part
With much that made thy childhood gay!
But should we meet in darker years,
When clouds have gather'd round thy brow,
How far more precious in thy tears,

Than in thy glow of gladness, now!

Then come to me,-thy wounded heart
Shall find it has a haven still,
One bosom-faithless as thou art,-
All-all thine own, mid good and ill!

Thou leavest me for the world! then go!
Thou art too young to feel it yet,
But time may teach thy heart to know
The worth of those who ne'er forget.

And, should that world look dark and cold,

Then turn to him whose silent truth Will still love on, when worn and old, The form it loved so well in youth!

Like that young bird that left its nest, Lured, by the warm and sunny sky, From flower to flower, but found no rest, And sought its native vale to die;

Go! leave my soul to pine alone;

But, should the hopes that woo thee, wither, Return, my own beloved one!

And let-oh, let us die together!

STANZAS TO A LADY.

THE rose that deck'd thy cheek is dead,
The ruby from thy lip has fled,

Thy brow has lost its gladness;
And the pure smiles that used to play
So brightly there, have pass'd away
Before the touch of sadness!-
Yet sorrow's shadows o'er thy face
Have wander'd with a mellowing grace.

And grief has given to thine eye
A beauty, such as yonder sky

Receives, when daylight's splendour
Fades in the holy twilight hour,
Whose magic hangs on every flower

A bloom more pure and tender; When angels walk the quiet even, On messages of love from heaven!

Thy low sweet voice, in every word, Breathes-like soft music far-off heard

The soul of melancholy!

And oh! to listen to thy sigh!

The evening gale that wanders by

The rose is not so holy!

But none may know the thoughts that rest
In the deep silence of thy breast!

For oh! thou art, to mortal eyes,
Like some pure spirit of the skies,
Awhile to bless us given;
And sadly pining for the day,
To spread thy wings, and flee away,

Back to thy native heaven!
Thou wert beloved by all before,
But now, a thing that we adore!

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

such verses.

AMERICAN readers have as yet seen but few | GREY; but Lady JANE GREY has left us no of the productions of this lady, but she has already made herself a home in the hearts of the people; a proof that the popular taste does not lie altogether in the direction of singsong echoes, sickly sentiment, or empty blank verse; and a proof, too, in her own case, that the most varied acquirements of learning do not impair the subtlest delicacy of thought and feeling.

MISS BARRETT, in her earlier works and first adventurous attempts, is the poetess of angels and seraphim, breathing a rare and elevated atmosphere, too rare for habitual contemplation. In her later style, she is the sweet poetess of meditation and thought, of a deep and pure spirituality, of

Philosophy, baptized

In the pure fountain of eternal love. Compare the eloquence of her poem entitled "Cowper's Grave," with what generally passes for Byronic eloquence, and mark the difference. Here is thought compact and close, enthusiasm fresh from the heart, noble domestic incident, and sorrow as gentle and as mild as ever breathed from a human bosom. Mark the pathos, the tenderness, the deep sympathy in the poem, "The Sleep."

MISS BARRETT's productions are unique in this age of lady authors. They have the "touch of nature," in common with the best; they have, too, sentiment, passion, and fancy in the highest degree, without any imitation of NORTON, HEMANS, or LANDON. Her excellence is her own; her mind is coloured by what it feeds on; the fine tissue of her flowing style comes to us from the loom of Grecian thought. She is the learned poetess of the day, familiar with HOMER and ÆSCHYLUS and SOPHOCLES; and to the musings of Tempe she has added the inspiration of Christianity, "above all Greek, all Roman fame." She has translated the Prometheus, to the delight of scholars, and has contributed a series of very valuable prose papers "On the Poetry of the Early Church," to the London "Athenæum." Her reading Greek recalls to US ROGER ASCHAM's anecdote of Lady JANE

A striking characteristic of Miss BARRETT'S verse, is its prevailing seriousness, approaching to solemnity-a garb borrowed from the " sceptred pall" of her favourite Greek drama of fate. She loses much with the general reader, by a dim mysticism; but many of her later poems are entirely free from any such defect. The great writers whom she loves will teach her the plain, simple, universal language of poetry.

Her dreams and abstractions, though "caviàre to the generale," have their admirers, who will ever find in pure and elevated philosophy, expressed in the words of enthusiasm, the living presence of poetry. On Parnassus there are many groves: far from the dust of the highway, embosomed in twilight woods, that seem to symbol Reverence and Faith trusting on the unseen, we may hear, in the whispering of the trees, the wavering breath of insect life, the accompaniment of our poet's strain. Despise not dreams and reveries. With COWLEY, Miss BARRETT vindicates herself. The father of poets tells us, even dreams, too, are from God."

Miss BARRETT has published two volumes of poetry, "Prometheus Bound, and Miscellaneous Poems," in 1833, and "The Seraphim and other Poems," in 1838; and we understand that she has a forthcoming volume in the press. It will be a welcome one to all lovers of true poetry.

In our judgment, Miss BARRETT is destined, in due time, to take her place at the head of the female poets of Great Britain. The noble ardour with which she writes, makes us believe that this new volume will go far toward determining the question.

Of her personal history, we know very little. She resides in London, and is one of the stars in a brilliant constellation of scholars, philosophers, and poets. She was a contributor, with WORDSWORTH, HUNT, and HORNE, to "Chaucer Modernized," and besides her prose writings in "The Atheneum," has written for that admirable gazette some of her finest poems.

COWPER'S GRAVE.

I will invite thee, from thy envious herse
To rise, and 'bout the world thy beams to spread,
That we may see there's brightnesse in the dead.
HABINGTON.

It is a place where poets crown'd
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 poets! from a maniac's tongue
Was pour'd 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,
Groan'd 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 sadness that is calm, not gloom,

I learn to think upon him; With meekness that is gratefulness, On God, whose heaven hath won himWho suffer'd once the madness-cloud Towards His love to blind him; But gently led the blind along,

Where breath and bird could find him;

And wrought within his shatter'd brain
Such quick poetic senses,

As hills have language for, and stars
Harmonious influences!

The pulse of dew upon the grass
His own did calmly number ;
And silent shadow from the trees
Fell o'er him like a slumber.

The very world, by God's constraint, From falsehood's chill removing, Its women and its men became Beside him true and loving!

And timid hares were drawn from woods
To share his home-caresses,
Uplooking to his human eyes,
With sylvan tendernesses.

But while in blindness he remain'd,
Unconscious of the guiding,
And things provided came without
The sweet sense of providing,
He testified this solemn truth,
Though frenzy desolated,-
Nor man nor nature satisfy
Whom only God created !

Like a sick child, that knoweth not

His mother while she blesses,
And droppeth on his burning brow
The coolness of her kisses ;
That turns his fever'd eyes around-
"My mother! where's my mother?"-
As if such tender words and looks
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,
Th' 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

Th' atoning drops avertedWhat tears have washed them from the soulThat 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 orphan'd 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 earth's worst frenzies, marring hope,
Should mar not hope's fruition:
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see
His rapture, in a vision!

NAPOLEON'S RETURN.

NAPOLEON! years ago, and that great word,
Compact of human breath in hate and dread
And exultation, skied us overhead-
An atmosphere, whose lightning was the sword,
Scathing the cedars of the world, drawn down
In burnings, by the metal of a crown.

Napoleon! Foemen, while they cursed that name,
Shook at their own curse; and while others bore
Its sound, as of a trumpet, on before,
Brass-fronted legions follow'd, sure of fame-
And dying men, from trampled battle-sods,
Near their last silence, utter'd it for God's.

Napoleon! Sages with high foreheads droop'd,
Did use it for a problem; children small
Leapt up as hearing in't their manhood's call:
Priests bless'd it from their altars, overstoop'd
By meek-eyed Christs, and widows with a moan
Breathed it, when question'd why they sate alone.

And this name brake the silence of the snows
In Alpine keeping, holy and cloud-hid!
The mimic eagles dared what nature's did,
And over-rush'd her mountainous repose
In search of eyries: and th' Egyptian river
Mingled the same word with its grand "for ever."

Yea! this, they shouted near the pyramidal
Egyptian tombs, whose mummied habitants,
Pack'd to humanity's significance,
Motion'd them back with stillness! Shouts as idle
As the hired artists' work in myrrh and spice,
Swathing last glories round the Ptolemies.

The world's face changed to hear it. Kingly men
Came down, in chidden babes' bewilderment,
From autocratic places_each content
With sprinkled ashes for anointing! then
The people laugh'd, or wonder'd for the nonce,
To see one throne a composite of thrones.

Napoleon! The cavernous vastitude
Of India felt, in motions of the air,

The name which scatter'd in a ruining blare
All Europe's landmarks, drawn afresh in blood!
Napoleon! from the Russias, west to Spain!
And Austria trembled till we heard her chain.

And Germany was 'ware and Italy
Forgot her own name so_her laurel-lock'd,
High-ghosted Cæsars passing uninvoked,
She crumbled her own ruins with her knee,
To serve a newer! But the Gaulmen cast
A future from them, nobler than her past.

For, verily, though Gaul augustly rose
With that raised name, and did assume by such
The purple of the world, none gave so much
As she, in purchase to speak plain, in loss
Whose hands to freedom stretch'd, dropp'd para-
lyzed

To wield a sword, or fit an undersized

King's crown to a great man's head! And though

along

Her Paris streets, did float on frequent streams
Of triumph, pictured or enmarbled dreams,
Dreamt right by genius in a world gone wrong,
No dream of all, was beautiful to see,
As the lost vision of her liberty.

Napoleon! 't was a high name lifted high!
It met at last God's thunder, sent to clear
Our compassing and covering atmosphere,
And open a clear sight, beyond the sky,
Of supreme empire! This of earth's was done-
And kings crept out again to feel the sun.

The kings crept out the people sate at home,-
And finding the long-advocated peace
A pall embroider'd with worn images
Of rights divine, too scant to cover doom,-
Gnawed their own hearts, or else the corn that grew
Rankly, to bitter bread, on Waterloo!

A deep gloom center'd in the deep repose
The nations stood up mute to count their dead-
The bearer of the name which vibrated
Through silence, -trusting to his noblest foes,
When earth was all too gray for chivalry-
Died of their mercies, midst the desert sea.

O wild St. Helen! very still she kept him,
With a green willow for all pyramid,
Stirring a little if the low wind did,-
More rarely, if some pilgrim overwept him
And parted the lithe boughs, to see the clay
Which seem'd to cover his for judgment-day.

Nay! not so long! France kept her old affection,
As deeply as the sepulchre the corse,-
And now, dilated by that love's remorse
To a new angel of the resurrection,
She cries, "Behold, thou England, I would have
The dead thou wottest of, from out that grave."

And England answers in the courtesy
Which, ancient foes turn'd lovers, may befit
"Take back thy dead! and when thou buriest it,
Throw in all former strifes 'twixt thee and me."
Amen, mine England! 'tis a courteous claim-
But ask a little room too... for thy shame!

Because it was not well, it was not well,
Nor tuneful with thy lofty-chanted part
Among the Oceanides, that heart
To bind and bare, and vex with vulture fell.
O mine own England! would, we had to seek
All crimson stains upon thy breast-not cheek!

Would hostile fleets had scarr'd thy bay of Tor,
Instead of the lone ship, which waited here
Until thy princely purpose should be clear,
Then left a shadow-to pass out no more!
Not for the moonlight. _ not for a noontide sun!
Green watching hills, ye witness'd what was done!

But since it was done, -in sepulchral dust,
We fain would pay back something of our debt
To Gaul, if not to honour, and forget
How, through much fear, we falsified the trust

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