"And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep, And change eternal death into a night Of glorious dreams-or if eyes needs must weep, Could make their tears all wonder and delight, She in her crystal vials did closely keep : If men could drink of those clear vials 'tis said The living were not envied of the dead. "This lady never slept, but lay in trance All night within the fountain-as in sleep. Like fire-flies-and withal did ever keep, The tenor of her contemplations calm, "The silver noon into that winding dell, With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; A green and glowing light, like that which drops From folded lilies in which glow worms dwell, When earth over her face night's mantle wraps; Between the severed mountains lay on high Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. # "And where, within the surface of the river The works of man pierced that serenest sky With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight To wander in the shadow of the night. "With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Past through the peopled haunts of human kind, Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, Through fane and palace court and lab'rinth min'd, With many a dark and subterranean street Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep, She past, observing mortals in their sleep. "A pleasure sweet, doubtless, it was to see Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep: Here lay two sister-twins in infancy; There, a lone youth, who in his dreams did weep; Within, two lovers linked innocently In their loose locks which over both did creep "And she saw princes couched under the glow Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court In dormitories ranged, row after row, She saw the priests asleep,-all of one sort, For all were educated to be so. The peasants in their huts, and in the port And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. "She all those human figures breathing there And often, through a rude and worn disguise, And then, she had a charm of strange device, There are single passages of remarkable beauty to be found even in Shelley's faultiest productions. Here are two or three of them :"Unpavillioned heaven is fair, Whether the moon, into her chamber gone, And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast." "Like the young moon When on the sunlit limits of the night Her white shell trembles in the crimson air. A silver music on the mossy lawn." "Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone "A haven, beneath whose translucent floor Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven." "A green and glowing light, like that which drops "And thou art far Asia! who, when my being overflowed, These are certainly exquisite passages, and you may mark them on every page. It is poetry of a peculiar and hitherto unfashionable school, but, if we are not much mistaken, the poetry of Shelley will take a high stand in the literature of the age. We will give one more extract to show his manner more distinctly. The novelties in the literary world for the last month are few, and of that character which cannot come properly under the slight criticism of our Table. Devereux and Captain Hall are not gentlemen to be passed lightly by. The latter has come up to our expectation, and, we thank heaven, he is properly appreciated on both sides the water. We had the pleasure of travelling some distance with him both in Canada and the United States, and have seen his modus operandi in both to our heart's content. He certainly has the faculty of making himself disagreeable to his own countrymen, and ours in a very remarkable degree. We shall read his book again, and review it at leisure. A virgin volume of our own, last and least, lies modestly on the extremest verge of our table. If the world were a candid world, we could take up that thin octavo and criticise it more justly than it ever will be criticised. It is a false notion that the writer is no judge of his own book. Verses in manuscript and verses in print, in the first place, are very different things, and the mood of writing and the mood of reading what one has written, are very different moods.. We do not know how it is with others, but we open our own volume with the same impression of strangeness and novelty that we do another's. The faults strike us at once, and so do the beauties, if there are any, and we read coolly in a new garb, the same things which upon paper, recalled the fever of composition, and rendered us incapable of judgment. As far as we can discover by other's experience and our own, no writer understands the phenomena of composition. It is impossible to realize, in reading, that which is, to him, impassioned, the state of feeling which produced it. His own mind is to himself a mystery and a wonder. The thought stands before him, visible to his outward eye, which he does not remember has ever haunted him. The illustration from nature is often one which he does not remember to have noticed the trait of character or the peculiar pencilling of a line in beauty altogether new and startling. He is affected to tears-or mirth, his taste is gratified or shocked, his fancy amused or his cares beguiled, as if he had never before seen it. It is his own mind, but he does not recognise it. He is like the peasant child taken and dressed richly; he does not know himself in his new andornments. There is a wonderful metamorphosis in print. The Author has written under strong excitement, and with a developement and reach of his own powers, which would amuse him were he conscious of the process. There are dim and far chambers in the mind which are never explored by reason. I magination in her rapt frenzy wanders blindly there sometimes, and brings out their treasures to the light-ignorant of their value and almost believing that the dreams when they glitter are admired. There are phantoms which haunt the perpetual twilight of the inner mind, which are arrested only by the daring hand of an overwrought fancy, and like a deed done in a dream, the difficult steps are afterwards but faintly remembered. It is wonderful how the mind accumulates by unconscious observation-how the tint of a cloud, or the expression of an eye, or the betrayal of character by a word, will lie for years forgotten in the memory till it is brought out by some searching thought to its owner's wonder. The book which lies before us, in that fair print, has scarce a figure which we can trace to its source, or a feeling which we can rememher to have nursed. We could criticise it, therefore, as well as another, if not, indeed (because it is after our own taste) far better. We have a great mind to do it as it is. It would at least be a new attempt in our innocent republic of letters-but though the "judicious" might not "grieve," the " unskilful" might laugh," and upon our own book with all our philosophy, we are, moderately sensitive. We have written no preface, and with a simple dedication to the friend whom, of all we can number, we have most tried and trusted, we send it out upon the world. There is much in it which we would gladly recal-parts, we confess, upon which we are willing to trust our doubtful reputation. We have found the fabled "trumpet" a capricious thing "like a ring of bells Whose sound the wind still alters," and our nerves are strung for any note from its faintest to its fullest. We do not deny that we have been swayed and benefitted even by the roughest criticism, though we sometimes have misgivings whether it was always a difference for the better. However that may be, we will dismiss our book and the subject, consoling ourself, if we have exchanged peculiarity for popularity, with the assertion of Ugo Foscolo, that "even Petrarch felt bound to discharge the unfortunate duty of all writers by sacrificing his own taste to that of his cotemporaries." CHANTRY'S WASHINGTON. Grave, grand,-sublime !-thy simple majesty, So, o'er a thraldom-shackled hemisphere Did'st thou look forth, erewhile, and mad'st it Free. And throned monarchs sitting by the West Old hoary thrones of ancient dignity: t |