It has been attempted to retain and to dispose the characteristics of the general poetry, whence this is an abstract, according to an order which should allow them the prominency and effect they seem to possess when considered in the larger, not exclusively the lesser works of the poet. A musician might say, such and such chords are repeated, others made subordinate by distribution, so that a single movement may imitate the progress of the whole symphony. But there are various ways of modulating up to and connecting any given harmonies; and it will be neither a surprise nor a pain to find that better could have been done, as to both selection and sequence, than, in the present case, all care and the profoundest veneration were able to do.

R. B.

LONDON : November, 1865.

1

HECTOR IN THE GARDEN.

NINE years old! The first of any

Seem the happiest years that come:
Yet when I was nine, I said

No such word ! I thought instead
That the Greeks had used as many

In besieging Ilium.

Nine green years had scarcely brought me

To my childhood's haunted spring ;
I had life, like flowers and bees,

In betwixt the country trees,
And the sun the pleasure taught me

Which he teacheth everything.

If the rain fell, there was sorrow,

Little head leant on the pane,
Little finger drawing down it

The long trailing drops upon it,
And the “Rain, rain, come to-morrow,"

Said for charm against the rain.

Such a charm was right Canidian

Though you meet it with a jeer!
If I said it long enough,

Then the rain hummed dimly off
And the thrush with his pure Lydian

Was left only to the ear ;

And the sun and I together

Went a-rushing out of doors :
We our tender spirits drew

Over hill and dale in view,
Glimmering hither, glimmering thither,

In the footsteps of the showers.
Underneath the chestnuts dripping,

Through the grasses wet and fair,
Straight I sought my garden-ground

With the laurel on the mound,
And the pear-tree oversweeping

A side-shadow of green air.
In the garden lay supinely

A huge giant wrought of spade !
Arms and legs were stretched at length

In a passive giant strength,
The fine meadow turf, cut finely,

Round them laid and interlaid.

Call him Hector, son of Priam !

Such his title and degree.
With my rake I smoothed his brow,

Both his cheeks I weeded through,
But a rhymer such as I am

Scarce can sing his dignity.

a

Eyes of gentianellas azure,

Staring, winking at the skies,
Nose of gillyflowers and box;

Scented grasses put for locks,
Which a little breeze at pleasure

Set a-waving round his eyes :
Brazen helm of daffodillies,

With a glitter toward the light ;
Purple violets for the mouth,