fitting foes; but you shall know that a woman's revenge is fatal. I know your secret caves, and dens, and passages; they hide you not from my eye; the waves cannot bear you where your actions are unknown to me; the moonbeam cannot pierce where my agents cannot follow; the winds that blow from every quarter do my errands and bring me tidings "

stead of doing so, they drew their cutlasses, and examined the priming of their pistols. A pistol was discharged,— another,—and another; the fight speedily became general; it was a moving battle, and took a direction towards the sea, probably from an instinctive desire in the minds of both parties for the open space, free air, and star-light of the beach. Parker, at this instant, stood at the inner end of the cave, with his back to the receding fight, and two armed foes opposed to him. One he cut down with his cutlass ; his pistol was cocked and pointed, with exact aim, at the breast of his remaining antagonist,-the only obstacle between him and the narrow subterranean passage to the wood; his finger was on the trigger, when a shrill sound echoed through the cave. Parker, apparently arrested by some vague fear, unconsciously lowered his pistolhand, turned his head in the direction whence the voice proceeded, and beheld, bounding towards him from the thickest of the deadly contest, the gipsy!

Although hardened by crime, and stupified by recent intoxication, Parker was not unshaken. The gipsy, as she finished speaking, glided into the wood. Long he looked in the direction in which she had disappeared; and several times he thought he heard her voice, but was at length convinced that the sounds were but the moaning and hooting of the wind. He reached his home, not more sullen, but sadder than usual; and it was not until the grog had flowed copiously, and the song had gone round among his comrades, that he forgot the adventure with the gipsy.

The next day the smugglers put to sea. On the fifth from that, a lugger was seen two or three miles from land; she was the contraband trader, only awaiting the protection of darkness to run her cargo. The smugglers felt unusual security on this occasion, for they had received information from their spies on shore, that the nearest party of the preventive service were not at their station, and had not been seen during the preceding day. They therefore very naturally concluded that the force was on the watch for smugglers elsewhere. The kegs were landed, and deposited in a secret cavern, in order to their being removed the following night. Parker and the men who lived in the neighbourhood were about to extinguish the lights in their lanterns, and proceed to their homes, when, from a winding passage, by which the smugglers could, upon an emergency, make their way under ground to the thickest and most tangled part of the little wood already mentioned, a party of the coast-blockade men presented themselves, and, at the same instant, a larger body from the the beach hemmed in the smugglers on that side. The latter were called on to surrender; but, in

He had thus placed himself in the power of

forward, and plunged his cutlass into the bowels of the smuggler. The latter fell to the earth, and the undischarged pistol was jerked from his hand two or three paces, by the shock. The gipsy sprang to his side, uttering a shout of derisive laughter, which, echoed as it was from the roof of the cavern, gave the idea of the ironical yell of a fiend. The wounded man raised to his persecutor a scowling look of mingled rage and fear. With a desperate effort he hurled himself some inches towards the still loaded pistol; a torrent of blood from his gaping wound was the consequence, and he sank on his arm, faint and exhausted by the exertion. A louder and a shriller shout arose from the lips of the gipsy.

Parker's attention was now attracted by the approach of Williams, the chief of the band; who was led by his captors back into his cave, bound and bleeding, but, apparently, not severely wounded. He bent towards Parker, and they shook hands in silence. The whole formed a picturesque group,-the mortally wounded smuggler; his leader and comrade wounded too, and a captive; the gipsy, her black tresses floating on the current of air which swept through the cavern, every feature kindled with fervour, and contorted with passionate triumph; her infant, unconscious of the strife of deadly weapons and fiendish human passions, sleeping at her back; three or four of the victors, some slightly wounded, all wearied with exertion or excitement, standing or leaning around. These, with a background formed by the sandy beach, on which groups combatants were yet struggling; the vast moaning ocean, and an illimitable arch of pale blue sky, studded with stars, were a subject worthy of the contemplation of the poet or of the painter.

of

The life of Parker was evidently fast ebbing. | He fixed his eyes on Williams, and exclaimed, convulsively, "My wife! my poor wife!" "Ha! ha ha!" exclaimed the gipsy, stepping nearer to him; "yes, thanks to what you have taught her, and the destitution in which you leave her, she will soon find her way to a gaol, or be sent to the tread-mill; and very good exercise it will be for her. Ha! ha! ha!"

The eyes of the dying man were withdrawn from his friend to the gipsy, and then closed, as if in despair. A minute or two elapsed, after

which, like the flame of an expiring taper, life seemed to make another effort: fixing his hazy eyes again on his comrade, Parker exclaimed, My children! O, my children!” “ Yes," shouted the hag, with a terrific scream of delight; "yes, thanks to what you have taught them, they will all be swinging by the neck some day. Ha! ha! ha!-ha! ha! ha!"

The dying man turned his eyes, which were now becoming fixed and glassy, on the spot lately occupied by the gipsy-she was gone.

We have heard it frequently remarked, by those whose talents and acquirements have led them to the perusal of the best works of the modern poets of England, that the poetry of William Wordsworth would never become popular; that his verse would be forgotten if once read; and that the sentiments he embodied in his poetry were decidedly adverse to those which have ever given to the poems of Scott and Byron, the loftier meed of national praise and popularity. We could go most fully into the subject, and prove the complete fallacy of such an assertion; but the most decided proof and sign that the poetry of Wordsworth is, and ever will be, read, and that his popularity as a great writer is on the increase, is made most clearly evident from the circumstance, that he has published, within the last year, the sweet volume of "Yarrow Revisited;" and that we have now lying before us the two earlier volumes of a complete series of his works.

William Wordsworth! what a glorious name is that! and what a world of serene and happy contemplation of the beautiful in nature is associated with it! The poetry of this gifted author has ever been read and understood by the pure and enthusiastic lovers of that art which beautifies and intellectualizes the visible world of creation around us, and lifts us up, in dreams and visions, from the golden thrones of earthly kings to the regions of the highest heaven, amid principalities, and powers, and spirits of a vast and eternal dominion. Yet though his poetry may lead us up into the realms of a more sublime and lofty imagination, he does yet throw the gleams of a rich and brilliant fancy over the low and humble features of personal life, as he sees it at the cottage door, or the flowery well-side of the humble and happy dwellers around the Rydal Mount. On this point of criticism we may quote his own most appropriate words, when he says, that "the imagination not only does not require for its exercise the intervention of supernatural agency, but that, though such agency be excluded, the faculty may be called forth as imperiously, and for kindred results of pleasure, by incidents within the

N.

compass of poetic probability in the humblest departments of daily life." And how beautifully does he thus link the harsher rudiments of this rule in prose, with the sweeter breathings of gentle poesy, when he sings of

A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl,

She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick, with many a curl,
That clustered round her head.

She had a mystic woodland air,
And she was wildly clad;
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
Her beauty made me glad.

We have always considered this beautiful apparelling of the lowly and the humble in the garments of poesy, this lifting up of the meekhearted and contrite dweller in the lonely valley and the silent woods, to be one of the great and powerful characteristics of Wordsworth's poetry. In the poems referring to the period of childhood, there are the hopes and fears belonging to these Eden hours of life, expressed in many rich stanzas of soft and touching warm-heartedness. The natural affections of the human heart thrill sweetly, as to the delightful sound of tenderest music, when he thus addresses a child six years old:

O blessed vision! happy child!
That art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears,

For what may be thy lot in future years.

O, too-industrious folly!

O, vain and causeless melancholy !
Nature will either end thee quite,
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth,
Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But at the touch of wrong, without a strife, Slips in a moment out of life,

Or how is the same sentiment breathed over again, chastened, though it be, by a sad beguiling sorrow:→→→→

She dwelt among th' untrodden ways,
Beside the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love;

A violet by a mossy stone,

Half hidden from the eye;

Fair as a star when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, O,

The difference to me!

In all these gentle strains, there is embodied the natural breathings of the happiest and softest affections of the heart; the joyous wish, and the saddening reflection, are all mutually blended together in one sweet undersong of tenderest lamentation. There is no repining at the cares and anxieties of life; no jarring discord at the intrusion of that sickening sorrow which mortifies and abases the rising pride and boasted greatness of the worldling into the dust; but every pain and pang of mind or body are met with the spirit of a pure and humble resignation, derived from the lonely study and the peaceful contemplation of the inner workings of the mortal mind, and the external development of the solemn loveliness and grandeur of nature. In support of this, let us refer the reader to the "Lament of Mary Queen of Scots," "The Last of the Flock," and "The Affliction of Margaret;" which latter, in itself, enshrines all the feelings of a young mother yearning for a lost child, and mutely sorrowing in the depths of penitential affliction. So many

are the mirrored sentiments and feelings of the heart depicted by this gifted author, and which we must quote, that the readers of the "Miscellany" may strictly understand the truth and force of our remarks,-that we have only room for some of the concluding stanzas from this latter beautiful poem.

Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings,
And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
They mount-how short a voyage brings
The wanderers back to their delight!
Chains tie us down by land and sea;
And wishes, vain as mine, may be
All that is left to comfort thee.

Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,
Maimed, mangled by inhuman men ;
Or thou, upon a desert thrown,
Inheritest the lion's den;

Or hast been summoned to the deep,
Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep
An incommunicable sleep.

I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me:-'tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between the living and the dead;
For, surely, then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night,
With love and longings infinite.

My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass;
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass :
I question things, and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind.

Beyond participation lie
My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief.
Then come to me, my son, or send
Some tidings that my woes may end;

I have no other earthly friend!

We question whether the most industrious searcher after the pathos of the affections would find any poem wherein those feelings were so exquisitely combined as in this beautiful lamentation. The moaning of some imprisoned bird sighing for freedom-the crushing suspense of anxiety and sorrow the nervous and agitated trembling of the spirit, depicted with such fearful strength and power in the four first stanzas-the summing up of a mother's heartfelt prayer-and the tender and touching appeal to the lost or wandering son, in the last lines, are such as will strike to the heart of the most careless reader. It is a requiem sung by a mourning mother, and consecrated therefore to the holiest affections.

But we have now to speak of those poems which have attracted the more noted attention of those who have looked up to Wordsworth with the affection of sons and students-who have dwelt upon, and lingered over, those finer and richer beauties of the mental worlds of thought, fancy, and imagination, which they display in such rich and pre-eminent abundance. In the beautiful tale of "Vaudracour and Julia," he has given the record of two beings who

From their cradles up,

With but a step between their several homes,
Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
And petty quarrels had grown fond again;
Each other's advocate, each other's stay;
And, in their happiest moments, not content
If more divided than a sportive pair

Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth

Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight. Vaudracour loves in his earlier years, and, entranced by the spells of the young affections of his heart,

He beheld

A vision, and adored the thing he saw.
Arabian fiction never filled the world
With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements,

Before his eyes, to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sacred shrine ;
Her chamber window did surpass in glory.
The portals of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him :-pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, overblest to move
Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;
A man too happy for mortality!

They are separated, and after a long and vigilant search united again, but only for a few brief moments-that in sweet love-time make so many years; they depart, Vaudracour resolving

A sacrifice of birthright to attain

A final portion from his father's hand;

Which granted, bride and bridegroom then would flee
To some remote and solitary place,
Shady as night, and beautiful as heaven,
Where they may live, with no one to behold
Their happiness, or to disturb their love.

But, alas! this golden dream was formed but to be broken: Vaudracour's father sets three hired bratoes to seize his son, and for the murder he commits on one, he is thrown into prison. Julia is sent to a convent, lingers, pines, and dies. Vaudracour at the termination of his sentence retires to a lonely dwelling, amid whose

Solitary shades

His days he wasted, an imbecile mind! The Idiot Boy," " Michael," "The Armenian Lady's Love," and "The Prioress's Tale," are all examples of the same high standard of refined poetry and sentiment with the above which we have given. In those beautiful selections of verse, in which he, by a theory peculiar to minds of deep and excessive contemplation, has giveu wings to the waftings of a pure and delighted "fancy," there are many sweet and gentle songs, which we must from want of room pass over; merely naming some few by name, and quoting others of most touching and tender sentiment, which embody in their very echoes all that is meek and lovely in the thoughts springing up within and around us in the natural and moral worlds. "The Waterfall and the Eglantine," "The Oak and the Broom," "The Seven Sisters," and "The Pilgrim's Dream," are of the number of these. The following we quote, selecting some stanzas from the two first, and giving the two latter entire.

TO THE DAISY.

In youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent,
Of pleasure high and turbulent,

Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,-
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And nature's love of thee partake,
Her much-loved daisy!

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few grey hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;

Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight

When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train, Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane, Pleased at his greeting thee again;

Yet nothing daunted,

Nor grieved if thou be set at nought; And oft alone, in nooks remote,

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such are wanted.

If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine, lie
Near the green holly,

And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower, Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, Have I derived from thy sweet power

Some apprehension,

Some steady love, some high delight, Some memory that had taken flight, Some chime of fancy, wrong or right, Or stray invention

A little Cyclops, with one eye
Staring to threaten and defy,
That thought comes next-and instantly
The freak is over,

The shape will vanish-and, behold!
A silver shield with boss of gold,
That spreads itself, some faëry bold
In fight to cover.

I see thee glittering from afar,
And then thou art a pretty star;
Not quite so fair as many are

In heaven above thee;
Yet like a star with glittering crest,
Self-poised in air thou seemest at rest:
May peace come never to his nest

Who shall reprove thee!

Bright flower! for by that name at last,
When all my reveries are past,

I call thee, and to that cleave fast,
Sweet, silent creature!

That breath'st with me in sun and air,
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair
My heart with gladness, and a share
Of thy meek nature.

TO THE SMALL CELANDINE.

PANSIES, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little celandine.

Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal ;
Telling tales about the sun,

When we've little warmth or none.

Drawn by what peculiar spell,
By what charm for sight or smell,
Do those winged dim-eyed creatures,―
Labourers sent from waxen cells,-
Settle on thy brilliant features,
In neglect of buds and bells
Opening daily at thy side,
By the season multiplied?

Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming spirit!
Careless of thy neighbourhood,
Thou dost show a pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane; there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,

But 'tis good enough for thee.

Prophet of delight and mirth,
Ill-requited upon earth,
Herald of a mighty band,
Of a joyous train ensuing,
Serving at my heart's command,
Tasks that are no tasks renewing,
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise of what I love.

Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure,
Sighed to think I read a book
Only read, perhaps, by me;
Yet I long could overlook
Thy bright coronet, and thee,
And thy arch and wily ways,
And thy store of other praise.

Blithe of heart, from week to week
Thou dost play at hide-and-seek;
While the patient primrose sits
Like a beggar in the cold,
Thou, a flower of wiser wits,
Slip'st into thy sheltering hold;
Bright as any of the train
When ye all are out again.

Thou art not beyond the moon,
But a thing "beneath our shoon:"
Let the bold adventurer thrid,
In his bark, the polar sea;
Rear who will a pyramid;
Praise it is enough for me,
If there be but three or four
Who will love my little flower.

THE DANISH BOY.

A FRAGMENT.

I.

BETWEEN two sister moorland rills There is a spot that seems to lie Sacred to flowerets of the hills, And sacred to the sky.

And in this smooth and open dell

ADDRESS TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER.
Hast thou then survived

Mild offspring of infirm humanity,

Meek infant! among all forlornest things
The most forlorn-one life of that bright star
The second glory of the heavens?-Thou hast,
Already hast, survived that great decay,
That transformation through the wide earth felt,
And by all nations. In that Being's sight
From whom the race of human kind proceed,
A thousand years are but as yesterday;
And one day's narrow circuit is to Him
Not less capacious than a thousand years.