For him, eternity hath tenfold day: [way. We feel, we know, 'tis thus-yet nature will have

What though amidst us, like a blasted oak,

Sadd'ning the scene where once it nobly reign'd, A dread memorial of the lightning stroke, Stamp'd with its fiery record, he remain'd; Around that shatter'd tree still fondly clung

Th' undying tendrils of our love, which drew Fresh nurture from its deep decay, and sprung Luxuriant thence, to Glory's ruin true; While England hung her trophies on the stem, That desolately stood, unconscious e'en of THEM.

Of them unconscious! Oh, mysterious doom!
Who shall unfold the counsels of the skies?
His was the voice which roused, as from the tomb,
The realm's high soul to loftiest energies!
His was the spirit o'er the isles which threw
The mantle of its fortitude; and wrought
In every bosom, powerful to renew

Each dying spark of pure and generous thought;
The star of tempests! beaming on the mast,1
The seaman's torch of Hope, midst perils deepen-
ing fast.

Then from th' unslumbering influence of his worth, Strength, as of inspiration, fill'd the land;

A young but quenchless flame went brightly forth, Kindled by him-who saw it not expand! Such was the will of heaven. The gifted seer, Who with his God had communed, face to face, And from the house of bondage and of fear,

In faith victorious, led the Chosen Race; He through the desert and the waste their guide, Saw dimly from afar the promised land-and died.

O full of days and virtues! on thy head

Centred the woes of many a bitter lot; Fathers have sorrow'd o'er their beauteous dead, Eyes, quench'd in night, the sunbeam have forgot;

Minds have striven buoyantly with evil years, And sunk beneath their gathering weight at length;

But Pain for thee had fill'd a cup of tears,
Where every anguish mingled all its strength;
By thy lost child we saw thee weeping stand,
And shadows deep around fell from th' Eternal's
hand.

1 The glittering meteor, like a star, which often appears about a ship during tempests; if seen upon the main-mast, is considered by the sailors as an omen of good weather.See DAMPIER's Voyages.

Then came the noon of glory, which thy dreams
Perchance of yore had faintly prophesied ;
But what to thee the splendour of its beams?
The ice-rock glows not midst the summer's

pride!

Nations leap'd up to joy-as streams that burst,

At the warm touch of spring, their frozen chain, And o'er the plains, whose verdure once thy nursed, Roll in exulting melody again;

And bright o'er earth the long majestic line Of England's triumphs swept, to rouse all hearts -but thine.

Oh! what a dazzling vision, by the veil

That o'er thy spirit hung, was shut from thee, When sceptred chieftains throng'd with palms to hail

The crowning isle, th' anointed of the sea! Within thy palaces the lords of earth

Met to rejoice-rich pageants glitter'd by, And stately revels imaged, in their mirth, The old magnificence of chivalry.

They reach'd not thee-amidst them, yet alone, Stillness and gloom begirt one dim and shadowy throne.

Yet there was mercy still! If joy no more
Within that blasted circle might intrude,
Earth had no grief, whose footstep might pass o'er
The silent limits of its solitude!

If all unheard the bridal song awoke

Our hearts' full echoes, as it swell'd on high; Alike unheard the sudden dirge, that broke

On the glad strain, with dread solemnity! If the land's rose unheeded wore its bloom, Alike unfelt the storm that swept it to the tomb.

And she who, tried through all the stormy pastSeverely, deeply proved, in many an hourWatch'd o'er thee, firm and faithful to the last,

Sustain'd, inspired, by strong affection's power; If to thy soul her voice no music bore

If thy closed eye and wandering spirit caught No light from looks, that fondly would explore Thy mien, for traces of responsive thought; Oh! thou wert spared the pang, that would have thrill'd

Thine inmost heart, when death that anxious bosom still'd.

Thy loved ones fell around thee. Manhood's prime, Youth with its glory-in its fulness, age

All, at the gates of their eternal clime

Lay down, and closed their mortal pilgrimage;

The land wore ashes for its perish'd flowers,

The grave's imperial harvest. Thou meanwhile Didst walk unconscious through thy royal towers, The one that wept not in the tearful isle! As a tired warrior, on his battle-plain, Breathes deep in dreams amidst the mourners and the slain.

And who can tell what visions might be thine? The stream of thought, though broken, still was pure!

Still o'er that wave the stars of heaven might shine
Where earthly image would no more endure!
Though many a step, of once familiar sound,
Came as a stranger's o'er thy closing car,
And voices breathed forgotten tones around,

Which that paternal heart once thrill'd to hear:
The mind hath senses of its own, and powers
To people boundless worlds, in its most wander-
ing hours.

Nor might the phantoms to thy spirit known
Be dark or wild, creations of remorse;
Unstain'd by thee, the blameless past had thrown
No fearful shadows o'er the future's course:
For thee no cloud, from memory's dread abyss,
Might shape such forms as haunt the tyrant's

eye;

And, closing up each avenue of bliss,

Murmur their summons, to "despair and die!" No! e'en though joy depart, though reason cease, Still virtue's ruin'd home is redolent of peace.

They might be with thee still-the loved, the tried, The fair, the lost-they might be with thee still! More softly seen, in radiance purified

From each dim vapour of terrestrial ill. Long after earth received them, and the note

Of the last requiem o'er their dust was pour'd, As passing sunbeams o'er thy soul might float Those forms, from us withdrawn-to thee restored!

Spirits of holiness, in light reveal'd,

To commune with a mind whose source of tears was seal'd.

Came they with tidings from the worlds above,

Those viewless regions where the weary rest? Sever'd from earth, estranged from mortal love, Was thy mysterious converse with the blest? Or shone their visionary presence bright With human beauty?-did their smiles renew Those days of sacred and serene delight, When fairest beings in thy pathway grew?

Oh! heaven hath balm for every wound it makes, Healing the broken heart; it smites, but ne'er forsakes.

These may be fantasies-and this alone,

Of all we picture in our dreams, is sure; That rest, made perfect, is at length thine own, Rest, in thy God immortally secure !

Enough for tranquil faith; released from all [brow, The woes that graved heaven's lessons on thy No cloud to dim, no fetter to enthrall,

Haply thine eye is on thy people now; Whose love around thee still its offerings shed, Though vainly sweet, as flowers, grief's tribute to the dead.

In ruins, from whose stones Ambition rear'd
His lonely pyramid of dread renown.
But when the fires that long had slumber'd, pent
Deep in men's bosoms, with volcanic force,
Bursting their prison-house, each bulwark rent,
And swept each holy barrier from their course,
Firm and unmoved, amidst that lava-flood,
Still, by thine arm upheld, our ancient landmarks
stood.

Be they eternal!-be thy children found

Still to their country's altars true like thee! And while "the name of Briton" is a sound

Of rallying music to the brave and free, With the high feelings at the word which swell, To make the breast a shrine for Freedom's flame, Be mingled thoughts of him who loved so well, Who left so pure, its heritage of fame! Let earth with trophies guard the conqueror's dust, Heaven in our souls embalms the memory of the just.

All else shall pass away!-the thrones of kings,
The very traces of their tombs depart;
But number not with perishable things

The holy records Virtue leaves the heart,
Heir-looms from race to race! And oh! in days
When, by the yet unborn, thy deeds are blest,
When our sons learn "as household words" thy
praise,

Still on thine offspring may thy spirit rest! And many a name of that imperial line, Father and patriot! blend, in England's songs, with thine!

["The last poem is to the memory of his late Majesty: unlike courtly themes in general, this is one of the deepest and most lasting interest. Buried as the King had long been in mental and visual darkness, and dead to the common joys of the world, his death, perhaps, did not occasion the shock, or the piercing sorrow which we have felt on some other public losses; but the heart must be cold indeed that could, on reflection, regard the whole fortune and fate of that vene

rable, gallant, tender-hearted, and pious man, without a more than common sympathy. There was something in his character so truly national-his very errors were of so amiable a kind, his excellences bore so high a stamp, his nature was so genuine and unsophisticated, he stood in his splendid court, amidst his large and fine family, so true a husband, so good a father, so safe an example-he so thoroughly understood the feelings, and so duly appreciated the virtues, even the uncourtly virtues of his subjects-and, with all this, the sorrows from heaven rained down upon his head in so 'pitiless and pelting a storm:' all these-his high qualities and unparalleled sufferings-form such a subject for poetry, as nothing, we should imagine, but its difficulty and the expectation attending it, would prevent from being seized upon by the greatest poets of the day. We will not say that Mrs Hemans has filled the whole canvass as it might have been filled, but unquestionably her poem is beyond all comparison with any which we have seen on the subject; it is full of fine and pathetic passages, and it leads us up through all the dismal colourings of the foreground to that bright and consoling prospect which should close every Christian's reflections on such a matter. An analysis of so short a poem is wholly unnecessary, and we have already transgressed our limits; we will, therefore, give but one extract of that soothing nature alluded to, and release our readers :—

'Yet was there mercy still! If joy no more,' etc.

"It is time to close this article. Our readers will have seen, and we do not deny, that we have been much interested by our subject. Who or what Mrs Hemans is, we know not: we have been told that, like a poet of antiquity

Tristia vitæ

Solatur cantu,'

If it be so, (and the most sensible hearts are not uncommonly nor unnaturally the most bitterly wounded,) she seems, from the tenor of her writings, to bear about her a higher and a surer balsam than the praises of men, or even the sacred muse' herself can impart. Still there is a pleasure, an innocent and an honest pleasure, even to a wounded spirit, in fame fairly earned; and such fame as may wait upon our decision, we freely and conscientiously bestow. In our opinion, all her poems are elegant and pure in thought and language; her later poems are of higher promise, they are vigorous, picturesque, and pathetic."- Quarterly Review, vol. xxiv.]

1 This critique, from the pen of the venerable and distinguished Editor, William Gifford, Esq., comprehended strictures on "The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy,"-"Tales and Historia Scenes in Verse," "Translations from Camoens," etc.,-"The Sceptic," and "Stanzas to the Memory of the late King."

THE MAREMMA.

["NELLO DELLA PIETRA had espoused a lady of noble family at Sienna, named Madonna Pia. Her beauty was the admiration of Tuscany, and excited in the heart of her husband a jealousy, which, exasperated by false reports and groundless suspicions, at length drove him to the desperate resolution of Othello. It is difficult to decide whether the lady was quite innocent, but so Dante represents her. Her husband brought her into the Maremma, which, then as now, was a district destructive of health. He never told his unfortunate wife the reason of her banishment to so dangerous a country. He did not deign to utter complaint or accusation. He lived with her alone, in cold silence, without answering her questions, or listening to her remonstrances. He patiently waited till the pestilential air should destroy the health of this young lady. In a few months she died. Some chronicles, indeed, tell us that Nello used the dagger to hasten her death. It is certain that he survived her, plunged in sadness and perpetual silence. Dante had, in this incident, all the materials of an ample and very poetical narrative. But he bestows on it only four verses. He meets in Purgatory three spirits. One was a captain who fell fighting on the same side with him in the battle of Campaldino; the second, a gentleman assassinated by the treachery of the House of Este; the third was a woman unknown to the poet, and who, after the others had spoken, turned towards him with these words:

Recorditi di me; che son la Pia,
Sienna mi fe, disfecemi Maremma,

Salsi colui che inanellata pria
Disposando m' avea con la sua gemma.'"
PURGATORIO, cant. v.

-Edinburgh Review, No. lvii.]

THERE are bright scenes beneath Italian skies, Where glowing suns there purest light diffuse, Uncultured flowers in wild profusion rise, And nature lavishes her warmest hues;

But trust thou not her smile, her balmy breathAway! her charms are but the pomp of Death!

He in the vine-clad bowers, unseen, is dwelling, Where the cool shade its freshness round thee throws;

His voice, in every perfumed zephyr swelling,
With gentlest whisper lures thee to repose;
And the soft sounds that through the foliage sigh
But woo thee still to slumber and to die.

Mysterious danger lurks, a syren there,
Not robed in terrors, or announced in gloom,
But stealing o'er thee in the scented air,

And veil'd in flowers, that smile to deck thy tomb;
How may we deem, amidst their deep array,
That heaven and earth but flatter to betray?

Sunshine, and bloom, and verdure! Can it be
That these but charm us with destructive wiles?
Where shall we turn, O Nature, if in thee
Danger is mask'd in beauty-death in smiles?
Oh! still the Circe of that fatal shore,
[yore!
Where she, the Sun's bright daughter, dwelt of

There, year by year, that secret peril spreads.
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o'er many a landscape sheds,
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain;
O'er fairy bowers and palaces of state
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.

And pillar'd halls, whose airy colonnades
Were form'd to echo music's choral tone,
Are silent now, amidst deserted shades,
Peopled by sculpture's graceful forms alone;
And fountains dash unheard, by lone alcoves,
Neglected temples, and forsaken groves.

And there, where marble nymphs, in beauty gleaming,

Midst the deep shades of plane and cypress rise. By wave or grot might Fancy linger, dreaming Of old Arcadia's woodland deities.

Wild visions!—there no sylvan powers convene: Death reigns the genius of th' Elysian scene.

Ye, too, illustrious hills of Rome! that bear
Traces of mightier beings on your brow,
O'er you that subtle spirit of the air
Extends the desert of his empire now;
Broods o'er the wrecks of altar, fane, and dome,
And makes the Cæsars' ruin'd halls his home.

Youth, valour, beauty, oft have felt his power.
His crown'd and chosen victims: o'er their lot
Hath fond affection wept-each blighted flower
In turn was loved and mourn'd, and is forgot.
But one who perish'd, left a tale of woe,
Meet for as deep a sigh as pity can bestow.

A voice of music, from Sienna's walls,

Is floating joyous on the summer air;
And there are banquets in her stately halls,
And graceful revels of the gay and fair,