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'Than ever yet to mortal bore
The fulness of despair!
'Henceforth to each for evermore

'An open hate we bear---
'Henceforth must jealousy and fear,
'And horror be thy daily cheer!

'Henceforth the bless'd sun shall look dark,
The earth grow red with blood,

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Thy haggard eyes shall dread to mark

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Thy mirror in the flood--

Thy flesh shall waste---the dewy sleep,
'The quiet pulse shall fly thee---

'For thou must know, A FOE shall keep
'Lone watch for ever by thee!

And thro' the night, and by the day,
'In bed---at board---at every tide
'Of time and place---that foe must stay
'To curse thee by thy side!

'And own a deep and solemn joy

'The while he feels himself decay,
'That the same death which must destroy
'Himself---rots thee away!---

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And now I seal my lips!' pp. 200-202.

This reply of Chang is well conceived, and expressed with very considerable power-though falling short of the preternatural energy which the frantic despair of such a situation might well inspire.

At length the aforesaid Mary becoming very uneasy about the consequences of Chang's desperation, prevails upon a surgeon to perform the long-desired operation. Chang, loosened from the intolerable bondage of an unnatural birth, is alone upon a hill-side commanding a wide and various prospect. A river is flowing at his feet, and all nature seems smiling upon him with sympathetic gladness. He breaks forth in a wild ecstatical glee.

"Ha! ha! roll on, thou glorious Wave!

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Sing out, thou fresh and mirthful Air!

'Joy! joy! my free heart now can brave

Your taunts 't was madness once to bear!

'The wild voice of your liberty

'Can mock my sullen soul no more!

'-How bright are ye, sweet Earth and Sky,

'That were so dark before!

[Motioning away a herd of cattle that approach towards him grazing.]

'Away! away! my heart is coy;
'Nature is now my Empire! None
'Shall share awhile my new-found throne!
'Ha! ha! the joy---the bounding joy
"To be alone---ALONE!'

And on he sped---and, aye, his tread
Was light as if his heart was there!
And his path beside the River's tide
Danced featly to the piping Air.

From the herbage young the laverock sprung,
And the bird with the jetty wing
That flieth low by the copse---also

Sang its hymn to the loving Spring!

And the Sun shone bright---and the happy light
On the greenwood glade was quivering,
While the birds in and out the boughs about
Made the deft leaves softly shivering.

Delight was mirrored on the Earth,
The very clouds were gay;

Time at the Spring that saw his birth,
Gives all the world a holy-day!

He came unto a silent pool,

Smooth lay the wave scarce rippleing,
For trees around the margent cool

Had dull'd the light wind's crisping wing.
Silent he stood, and gazed upon

His image in the water shown,

Around his form his glad hands passing,
That form alone the clear wave glassing.
Then his lips moved, but without speaking,
Smiles only round them mutely breaking;
And up to the delicious skies

He raised the deep joy of his eyes.

The fish were glancing through the tide,
The fairy birds rejoicing by,

Save these and God-were none beside

The witness of his ecstasy !" pp. 225-226.

We should conceive a more favourable idea of Mr. Bulwer's poetical talents from the minor pieces in this volume, than from the "Siamese Twins." His "Milton," although diffuse and somewhat cloudy and metaphysical, has passages of promise. But none of them would bear being quoted as fine specimens. Considered as a college performance, it is certainly clever. We like the lines on Wordsworth, although they are decidedly "lakish," and have all the faults but not all the beauties of that style. They are wordy and abstract, and cold withal, yet there is justness in the general conception of the

poet's character, and a good deal of felicity and copiousness of diction, united with rather poetical imagery. The lines in italics strike us as possessing no inconsiderable merit.

"How glorious and how beautiful a life

Must thine have been among the hills and streams!
From the far world, and its eternal strife,

But one gray shadow cast upon thy dreams,
Tinging their sacred and nymph-haunted glory
With something of a mournful---mortal hue.
Ah! if the Spirits of the olden story

Yet linger---and the Ascræau's verse be true,
If Unseen Habitants, yet earth-bound, rove
By the still brook, or the melodious grove,
And ever o'er Man's state the while they wonder,
With a high thought, but tender memory pouder:
If the pure ghosts of the Saturnian Race,

Who o'er the sinless pastures led their herds;
Oh! if they yet claim haunt and dwelling-place
Where the air gladdens with the summer-birds;
Methinks to them familiar thy, sublime

And undiurnal melody which breathes
A pastoral sweetness from the golden time:
And, as o'er ruin'd fanes the ivy wreaths,
So cling thy fancies in their green embrace
Around a dim and antique holiness;
And, with a loving yet a solemn grace,
At once a freshness and an awe expressed!

'Musing on Man' amid the mountains lone,
What must have pass'd in thy unfathom❜d breast!
How, on the lyre, within, must many a tone,
Solemn and deep, have risen---unconfess'd,
Save to thyself, and the still ear of GOD!

And from the full and silent Heart of Things,
As o'er the hills thy unwatched footsteps trod,

Didst thou not draw the patriarchal springs
Of love for Man and Nature, which the hues
Of thy transparent verse all livingly suffuse?
Higher thy theme than Cæsar's, or the Pomp
Borne o'er the dusty earth in weary gaud;
Ambition's mask, and Glory's brazen tromp,

The embattled Murder, and the ermin'd Fraud!
Sweeter thy theme than aught which thro' the lays
Of the Rose Garden's sons may softly flow!
And earthlier fires before the Rhean blaze

Lit on thine altar-sicken from their glow!
Man in his simple grandeur, which can take

From Power but poor increase: the Truth which lies
Upshining in the Well of Homely Life;"

.

The Winds, the Waters, and their Mysteries→→

The Morn and moted Noon, the Stars which make
Their mirror in the heart; the Earth all rife
With warnings and with wisdom; the deep lore
Which floateth airlike over lonely places---
These made thy study and thy theme; and o'er
The Beauty of thy Soul no Paphian Graces,
But a religious and a reverent Awe,

Breathed Sanctity and Music-inspiration,
Not from the dark Obscure of priestly law,

But that which burns---the Centre of Creation---
A Love, a Mystery, and a Fear-the unseen
Source of all worship since the world hath been!
How must thy lone and lofty soul have gone
Exulting on its way, beyond the loud
Self-taunting mockery of the scoffers, grown
Tethered and dull'd to Nature, in the crowd!
Earth has no nobler no more moral sight

Than a great poet whom the world disowns,
But stills not, neither angers: from his height,
As from a star, float forth his spherelike tones;
He wits not whether the vex'd herd may hear
The music wafted to the reverent ear;

And far Man's wrath, or scorn, or heed, above,
Smiles down the calm disdain of his majestic love!"

pp. 295, 296.

Upon the whole, however, we should think it more profitable to Mr. Bulwer, both for his present emolument and his future reputation, to confine himself to prose. He writes very good novels-if not the best, as they certainly are not, yet second only to those which are surpassed by none. But the gods have not made him a true poet. He can aspire to nothing that is not within the reach of persevering and cultivated mediocrity. But cui bono add another lack-lustre name to the "galaxy," as it is called, of (unreadable) "British Poets?" He may be right in thinking that the present age is not very apt to admire any kind of poetry; but it is still more certain, that there is only one kind of poetry which will be read by posterity, and such, we will undertake to predict, will never be the fruit of his pen.

Our readers will have observed that we say nothing of the satirical allusions in the "Siamese Twins." We are of course, at this distance, unable properly to appreciate or even to perceive their application. We have treated the book exclusively in reference to its fitness to be republished and read in America, and to those attributes which are not confined by locality.

ART. VIII.-Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus. By WASHINGTON IRVING. 1 vol. 8vo. Philadelphia. 1831.

THE success of Columbus in discovering the new world, opened to the adventurous spirits of Europe, and especially of Spain, a sphere of enterprise full of peril and privation, but as they fondly dreamed, of corresponding riches and renown. Without going out of our way, as we think Mr. Irving has done, to ascribe the ardour and fearlessness with which this field of dangerous distinction was occupied, to the fierce and long-continued warfare between Spaniard and Moor, or to the more general influence of chivalry, we can find, in the cupidity and ambition of human nature, motives sufficiently strong to have tempted to their ruin, men less fitted, by their nurture and discipline, to encounter the hardships and dangers of an unknown and unconquered world.

But there was not mingled with these allurements of anticipated wealth and power any foreboding of disappointment or discomfiture. The early voyagers had returned flushed with triumph, and covered with glory. Their accidents, by flood and field, were so mixed up with tales of surprising novelty and wonderful romance, that instead of inspiring dread, they excited ambition and whetted avarice. Every scene was gilded with the brightness of their own fancies, or had caught a hue from the brilliant dreams of their enthusiastic commander. Whatever miseries they may have endured in this country of their creation, were forgotten or despised, while they described, in glowing language, not only the bright skies and blue waters and verdant fields which they had seen, but pictured, beyond the happy shores which discovery had attained, fairy-lands of unbounded wealth and surpassing magnificence.

This was not all. The feverish excitement and restless curiosity which had been awakened, might have been calmed, had not reality almost outdone imagination. But scarcely had one voice of wonder died away upon the listening ears of Europe, than another caught the sound, and proclaimed some mightier marvel. Scene opened after scene, in apparently illimitable prospect, until the mind was lost in the vastness of its conceptions, and hope became a burning passion, and usurped the place of reason.

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