-Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring?-O, aye; the cloister pump, I presume!"

It is, however, but just to notice the passages which are rendered with more success. The circumstance of laying the ore in the earthen mould prepared for its reception suggests to the mind of the poet the following beautiful sentiments.

To guardianship of sacred earth

Commit we what through toil we speed;

Even as the sower strows the seed,
And hopes to hail it springing forth,
With aid of Heaven, in plenteous birth;
-More precious tribute on the bed
Of hidden soil our hands bestow;

Well deeming, that from charnel freed,
'Twill goodlier in revival blow.

From the dome,

With heavy roll,

List the din

Of funeral-toll.

Oh! solemn strike those echoes of the knell
That wafts a pilgrim to his silent cell.
-Ah!-the spouse-the loved one is it
-Ah! the tender mother 'tis !

Whom the prince of shades doth visit,
And from clasp of love doth seize ;
-From amid the circle torn
Of the pledges to him born;-
Those that on her faithful breast
Oft were lain to seraph-rest;
-Ah! for ever burst asunder,

Bonds, that lent the home its life,
-Gone, amid the shades to wander,
Is its boast, the tender wife!—
-None shall shield it now from evil,

None shall watch its welfare more;
-Stranger-rule profuse shall revel,

Where true love hath sway'd before!'

It is the peculiar gift of genius that it sees brightness "in stones, and good in every thing;" like the magic hazel wand which involuntary points to hidden springs, the poet draws forth beauty, where common eyes only perceive barrenness. How finely does Schiller, in describing the breaking of the mould, a difficult and delicate operation, introduce an allusion to that whirlwind the French Revolution, which did indeed deal" convulsion through the dome," and how new, yet natural, is the transition from the circumscribed yet dangerous ore, to that mighty spirit which once awakened in a nation, who can say to it, thus far

The master bids the mould be riving,
With hand of craft, in season meet;
-But wo!—if with its limits striving,
Self-freed, expand the flooded heat;
-Wide-wasting, with the thunder's clamour,
It deals convulsion through the dome;
As issuing from infernal cavern,

It scatters round its fiery foam.
Where undirected passions strive,
Nought perfect thence shall man derive!
-Where banded throngs their rights assert,
Relief is vague ;-the triumph short.
-Dire !-when within the peopled town,
Sedition fires her secret train;

And frantic tribes to arms have flown,
Scorning the bonds that should restrain ;
-Then, Uproar gives the bell to bray,
And loudly for contention plead;
Of joy the glad sonorous lay
Is signal for revolt decreed!
"Freedom and native right! the call;-
-Unpractised burghers grasp the sword;
The spacious street, the council hall
Infests the exterminating horde ;
Then woman, like hyæna seen,
'Mid horrors wears no face of woe;

-The panther seeks with thirst less keen,
The life-blood of each kindred foe ;
Nought reverenced more ;-none more from bane,
Through timid circumspection awed;
Worth yields to sterner hands the rein,
And Vice stalks unreproved abroad ;-
-Dread is the lion in his wrath ;
The tiger's tooth is a dismay ;-
-Direst of all that cross our path,
The monster, man, to dreams a prey!
-Lost! who to ever-blinded guides
Surrender Heaven's own gifted light;
For them it streams not ;--it but prides
In cities' brand and harvests' blight.

The Ideal is written with great feeling, and the original verse is inimitable for its easy liquid melody. The two first stanzas have not justice done them in the translation.

And wilt thou, faithless! thus depart,
With all thy bright imaginings?
Each early joy, each cherish'd smart,
With thee, betaking to their wings?
-Can nought thy brief delay compel,
Oh! season of fresh life and glee?

-In vain!-thy waves incessant swell
The current of eternity!

Those suns no longer round me glare,
That lit my youth's confiding way;
Subdued the aspirations are,

That ruled my breast with tyrant-sway;
-Vanish'd the hopes, that led to trust
In beings, seen but while I dreamed;
Austere realities have thrust

In shadow, all divine that seemed.'

The lines

'Can nought thy brief delay compel,
Oh! season of fresh life and glee?'

have nothing of the earnestness and beauty of the German.
Kann nichts dich, Fliehende, verweilen,

O meines Lebens goldne Zeit ?'*

In the second verse the similies are entirely changed, as will appear from our literal version.

Extinguished are the bright suns
That lit my youthful path;

The visions have melted

That once swelled my intoxicated heart;

It is gone the sweet faith,

In beings born of my dreams;

Rude realities have spoiled

What was once so fair and so divine.

The next verses are better, and come nearer the original, except that Schiller's simple expression, To me, sang the torrent's silver fall,' is better than For me, the torrent breathed a tone.'

'As erst, with ecstacy possess'd,

Pygmalion clasped the marble round,
Till from the frozen cheek he pressed
The glow of feeling fresh unbound ;
-So with the warmth that youth inspired,
Round Nature's form my arms I flung,
Till the enchantress glowed, respired,
Upon my raptured breast of song ;
And sympathizing in my flame,

The dumb was vocal heard around;

The kiss of love responsive came,
Each throb of heart an echo found;
-The plant, the flower, but lived for me;
For me, the torrent breathed a tone;

* Can nought delay thy flying,
O! my life's golden time?

Even things that senseless wont to be,
To my existence owed their own.
Expanded then within my breast
Conception of a wondrous whole;
On life's career to venture, pressed,
And steeped in luxury my soul;
-How mighty then this world was held,
While yet expectance was in bud!
-How little hath been since reveal'd,
-That little-how ungraced and crude!
On wing, that soared o'er all supreme,
Unshackled yet with anxious care,
Possess'd alone with rapture's dream,
The stripling sprang to his career;
-The region of the faintest star

Was scarce of enterprise the bourne ;
Nought high was deemed, nonght rated far,
Whence, unattain'd, his flight would turn.
How rapid was his course impell'd!-
Who of success a doubt might raise ?
-How round his car of life they held,
The glad companionship, their maze!
-Love-with the train that waits his call,
And Fortune's glittering array;
Fame with her star bright coronal,

And Truth broad-beam'd upon by day.
But ah! ere half the course was run,
The fickle band in nought availed,
Relaxed his speed each faithless one,
And all in brief succession failed;
-Fortune escaped with rapid flight,
The quest of knowledge nought resolved;
Uncertainty's eclipsing blight

The radiant form of Truth involved.
I marked the garland of renown
About unworthy temples wove;

And ah! with one short spring out-blown,
The season spent of primal love;
—And drearier ever, and more dread,
The rugged path before me lay,
And scarce attained even hope to shed
A glimmer o'er my darksome way.
Of many that beset me round,

Who hath unwearied to me clung?
-In whom is now my solace found?
Who tends me, to the last, along?
-Thou! who for every wound hast balm ;
-Friendship!-assuager of all pain;
-Kind sharer of life's every qualm;
-Oh! early sought-nor sought in vain.

Among the ballads, a species of writing in which the Germans excel the best, are the Diver and the Hostage. The combat with the Dragon, of famous memory, is translated very tamely. The lament of Cassandra is, however, pleasingly rendered; and the measure the author has chosen, is very appropriate to the plaintive style of the poem. There was revelry in Ilion,' and her princes hastened to the nuptial feast of Priam's daughter and Pelides' son.' Amidst the general rejoicings only one breast is sad. Cassandra, tormented by prognostics of coming evil, loathes the sight of transient happiness, and flies to sacred shades to indulge her melancholy. The expression of the misery the fatal gift of prescience inflicts, is very striking.

"There's a torch that yonder lightens,
But 'tis not in Hymen's hand,
To the clouds it lengthening brightens,
Not as altar-fuming brand;
There's a festival preparing,
But, through sad presaging skill,
Gods already in my hearing,
Doom it instrument of ill!

" Boots it to admit Intrusion,

Where Disaster broods beneath?
Life hath charms but in delusion-
Knowledge is already death!
Take this brightness from my vision,
Let me less intensely see;
Dreadful 'tis, the mortal organ
Of thy fatal truths to be.
"Oh restore me to my blindness!
Waken me to bosom-shine!
None e'er heard my song of gladness
Since I spake with voice divine;
With the future thou endow'st me,
Of the present thou bereavest,
Of the passing bliss defrauded,
Take again the boon thou leavest.
"Ne'er hath bridal garland lighted
On this heavy brow of mine,
Since my ministry was plighted
At thy mischief.boding shrine.
Droopingly my life-bud opened,
Only woke my voice to moan;
Every ill that lit on kindred

Left me anguish'd as mine own.

The translator has not shown much discrimination in his selection from Schiller's poems. Polycrates' Ring might have been well replaced by the Child Murderess-a poem of great Vol. III.

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