What, then, are the dwellers in houses of clay, They are crushed before the moth; They are beaten down from morning to evening; When in the early morn our youthful poet saw dimly gathered around Thebes the warriors of Ilium, he might have mourned over them in thoughts of more beautiful tenderness, had he gone for imagery to the Bible rather than to Homer; for, if a heather moralist could teach him to say, "As are the generations of leaves, so also are those of men," the son of Amoz would have told him that "We all do fade as a leaf, Our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” And when the student-poet, "wandering in amazement," sought an interpretation of the magnificent ruins, how majestically might prophetic utterances have spoken to him of the ruin of Egypt, and of Thebes, as determined in the counsels of the Highest, and as unfolded to the rapt vision of his servants, ages before the accomplishment of the Divine decree! Here then, reader, you may have proof that the strongest and most cultivated intellect is poor in purpose, and inferior in grace and sublimity, if it does not drink deep draughts from the founts of inspiration. "The vision and the faculty divine," are those of a Christian eye, and a Christian mind. There is nothing so great and so noble as the teaching of God's word. But, having said so much about this particular prize poem, it will scarcely be fair to our readers, unless we give them some abridgment of it. We will take care the abridgment shall do full justice to the author. The poet lies in slumber; but in imagination strays through the ancient world. He stands in the halls of Carthage; now he is at Athens, amidst the shrines of Pallas and Apollo, and the gods of Greece. Then, moving with rapid wing, he alights in the Senate which gave laws to the world. Then the dreamer wanders from the seat of iron empire, to the silent Lybian desert, haunts the banks of old Nilus, sees the flashing torrent of its dark blue waters, as they harry seaward- -sees them in the beauteous turmoil of the cataract : "Down plunging, lost in clouds of glittering spray, Then, in the distance, the dreamer sees the frowning towers of a mighty and embattled city, rising in solitary grandeur to his view: "And as near I came, Precipitous walls, and clustered palaces, Shone to the eye, like those rich-jewelled domes That genii built in old Arabian tale, Rich with the treasures of the land and sea. The gates lay broken down; I entered in Of some ill-omened bird, scared from his haunt Lay bound in slumber; through the long blank street To mock the wonder of a later age. And through tall windows, rich with coloured stones The surrounding sculptures are eloquent of war, with all its parade and horrible details. They also picture the scenes of human life, and present its ever shifting panorama, torch-lit processions, with festal music, and guest-thronged banquets : "And other sights were there: the Libyan gods Nor these alone, but men whose deeds of fame Of brotherhood in great and glorious deeds. And former scenes, forgotten to the sense, But the poet finds it necessary to enlarge the very simple machinery which has hitherto sufficed for the working of his poem. He needs a living voice as an interpreter of these hieroglyphics of the chambers which are solemn and silent as death. He penetrates a dim inner recess. There, amidst gloomy draperies, and sad as if sorrowfully tending some dying couch, in this inner chamber "A lonely woman sat; a single lamp Burned on before her, like a little star Scarce seen through drifting clouds when all the night I stood in silence, loth too soon to wake Some readers may call this too familiar; savouring too much of warm, living humanity, to harmonize with sepulchral ruins, where bygone ages are entombed. But, he is dreaming, this Oxford poet, in the Sheldonian Theatre, be it remembered; and he recites to a vast throng of the youth and beauty of England. Pardon his anachronism of feeling, and listen with him to this lonely woman as she questions the daring young wanderer, who has broken in upon her mysterious seclusion:: "At last she spoke, her voice And who art thou,' she said, 'whose careless step In sad succession, like a funeral train That knows no end; and never breaks the morn, Led on by idle fancy have I come, But wandering in amazement, from among When dwelt the gods on earth, and raised them up Of white Olympus when his topmost snows The cloud-capped rock above a waste of sea. This lonely woman-how fortunate that he should find her in the "dim inner chamber!"-calls up visions from the past, and describes the night and morning of this wondrous city, bidding its crowded streets and active life rise at her summons:— "I turned me at her bidding, and beheld Huge granite rocks, and moulding into form |