In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on the silvery main,

They are flashing down the mountain-brows,
They are flinging spray on the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves,
Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may now be your home.
Ye of the rose-lip and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly;
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine-I may not stay.
Away from the dwellings of careworn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen;
Away from the chamber and dusky hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth;
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And Youth is abroad in my green domains.
The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn;
For me I depart to a brighter shore-

Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.

I go where the loved who have left you dwell,

And the flowers are not Death's-fare ye well, farewell!
The Homes of England.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the
sound

Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along

Some glorious page of old.

The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness
That breathes from Sabbath-hours!

church-bell'

Solemn, yet sweet, the
chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The Graves of a Household.

They grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight-
Where are those dreamers now?

One, 'midst the forest of the West,
By a dark stream is laid-
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded 'midst Italian flowers-
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee!

One sleeps where southern vines are They that with smiles lit up the hall,

dressed

Above the noble slain :

He wrapped his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And cheered with song the hearthAlas for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, O earth!

BERNARD BARTON.

BERNARD BARTON (1784-1849), one of the Society of Friends, published in 1820 a volume of miscellaneous poems, which attracted notice, both for their elegant simplicity, and purity of style and feeling, and because they were written by a Quaker. The staple of the whole poems,' says a critic in the Edinburgh Review,' is description and meditation-description of quiet home scenery, sweetly and feelingly wrought out—and meditation, overshaded with tenderness, and exalted by devotion; but all terminating in soothing, and even cheerful views of the condition and prospects of mortality.' Mr. Barton was employed in a banking establishment at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, and he seems to have contemplated abandoning his profession for a literary life. Byron remonstrated against such a step. 'Do not renounce writing,' he said, but never trust entirely to authorship. If you have a profession, retain it; it will be, like Prior's fellowship, a last and sure resource.'

Charles Lamb also wrote to him as follows: Throw yourself on the world, without any rational plan of support beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you have but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's-length from them-come not within their grasp. I have known many authors want for breadsome repining, others enjoying the blessed security of a countinghouse-all agreeing they had rather have been tailors, weaverswhat not?-rather than the things they were. I have known some starved, some go mad, one dear friend literally dying in a workhouse, Oh, you know not-may you never know-the miseries of subsisting by authorship!' There is some exaggeration here. We have known authors by profession who lived cheerfully and comfortably, labouring at the stated sum per sheet as regularly as the weaver at

his loom, or the tailor on his board; but dignified with the consciousness of following a high and ennobling occupation, with all the mighty minds of past ages as their daily friends and companions. The bane of such a life, when fervid genius is involved, is its uncertainty and its temptations, and the almost invariable incompatibility of the poetical temperament with habits of business and steady application. Yet let us remember the examples of Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope-all regular and constant labourers-and, in our own day, of Scott, Southey, Moore, and many others. The fault is more generally with the author than with the public. In the particular case of Bernard Barton, however, Lamb counselled wisely. He had not the vigour and popular talents requisite for marketable literature; and of this he would seem to have been conscious, for he abandoned his dream of exclusive authorship. Mr. Barton published several volumes of poetry, The Widow's Tale,' 'Devotional Verses,' &c. A pension of £100 a year was awarded to him in his latter days.

To the Evening Primrose.

Fair flower, that shunn'st the glare of day,
Yet lov'st to open, meekly bold,
To evening's hues of sober gray,
Thy cup of paly gold;

Be thine the offering owing long
To thee and to this pensive hour,
Of one brief tributary song,
Though transient as thy flower.

I love to watch, at silent eve,
Thy scattered blossoms' lonely light,
And have my inmost heart receive
The influence of that sight.

I love at such an hour to mark
Their beauty greet the night-breeze chill,
And shine, 'mid shadows gathering dark,
The garden's glory still.

For such, 'tis sweet to think the w
When cares and griefs the breast invade,
Is friendship's animating smile

In sorrow's dark'ning shade.

Thus it bursts forth, like thy pale cu
Glist'ning amid its dewy tears,
And bears the sinking spirit up
Amid its chilling fears.

But still more animating far,

If meek Religion's eye may trace,
Even in thy glimmering earth-born sta
The holier hope of Grace.

The hope that as thy beauteous bloom
Expands to glad the close of day,
So through the shadows of the tomb
May break forth Mercy's ray.

Power and Gentleness, or the Cataract and the Streamlet.

Noble the mountain-stream,

Bursting in grandeur from its vantage-ground;
Glory is in its gleam

Of brightness-thunder in its deafening sound!

Mark, how its foamy spray,

Tinged by the sunbeams with reflected dyes,

Mimics the bow of day

Arching in majesty the vaulted skies;

Thence, in a summer-shower,

Steeping the rocks around-Oh, tell me where
Could majesty and power

Be clothed in forms more beautifully fair?

Yet lovelier, in my view,
The streamlet flowing silently serene;
Traced by the brighter hue,

And livelier growth it gives-itself unseen!

It flows through flowery meads,

Gladdening the herds which on its margin browse;
Its quiet beauty feeds

The alders that o'ershade it with their boughs

Gently it murmurs by

The village churchyard; its low, plaintive tone,
A dirge-like melody,

For worth and beauty modest as its own

More gaily now it sweeps

By the small school-house in the sunshine bright;
And o'er the pebbles leaps,

Like happy hearts by holiday made light.

May not its course express,

In characters which they who run may read,
The charms of gentleness,

Were but its still small voice allowed to plead ?
What are the trophies gained

By power, aloue, with all its noise and strife,
To that meek wreath, unstained,
Won by the charities that gladden life?

Niagara's streams might fail,

And human happiness be undisturbed:

But Egypt would turn pale,

Were her still Nile's o'erflowing bounty curbed!

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.

Under the name of 'Barry Cornwall,' a new poet appeared in 1815, as author of a small volume of dramatic scenes of a domestic character, written in order to try the effect of a more natural style than that which had for a long time prevailed in our dramatic literature.' The experiment was successful, chiefly on account of the pathetic and tender scenes in the sketches. To this dramatic volume succeeded three volumes of poems-'A Sicilian Story, Marcian Colonna,' and The Flood of Thessaly,' all published under the nom de plume of Barry Cornwall, which became highly popular. His next work was a tragedy, 'Mirandola,' 1821, which was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre, the two principal parts being acted by Macready and Charles Kemble. This also was successful. The subsequent productions of the poet were Effigies Poetica' and 'English Songs.' The latter are perhaps the best of Barry Cornwall's works, and the most likely to live: they have the true lyrical spirit. Besides these, the author produced two prose works, a 'Life of Edmund Kean,' the actor, and a biographical sketch of his early friend Charles Lamb. BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (1790-1874) was a native of London, and was the schoolfellow of Byron and Peel at Harrow. He was a barrister at law and one of the Commissioners of Lunacy. Living to a great age, he enjoyed the regard and esteem of a large circle of

friends and of the literary society of London. In 1857 a windfall came to Mr. Procter and to certain other poets. Mr. John Kenyon, a wealthy West Indian gentleman, fond of literary society, and author of a 'Rhymed Plea for Tolerance,' left more than £140,000 in legacies to individuals whom he loved or admired. Included in this number were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, £4000; her husband, £6500; and to Mr. Procter also £6500.

Address to the Ocean.

O thou vast Ocean! ever-sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!

Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone.
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west

At once, and on thy heavily-laden breast

Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life

Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife.

The earth hath nought of this: no chance or change
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare

Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;

But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow:

But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their wonted home;
And come again, and vanish; the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies

Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.
Oh! wonderful thou art, great element:
And fearful in thy spleeny humours bent,
And lovely in repose; thy summer form

Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves

Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,

I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,

Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,

And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach-
Eternity-Eternity-and Power.

Marcelia.

It was a dreary place. The shallow brook

That ran throughout the wood, there took a turn

And widened: all its music died away

And in the place a silent eddy told

That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees
Funereal-cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,

And spicy cedar-clustered, and at night

Shook from their melancholy branches sounds

And sighs like death: 'Twas strange, for through the day

They stood quite motionless, and looked, methought,

Like monumental things, which the sad earth

From its green bosom had cast out in pity,