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And where'er thy footsteps tread,
See the lowly flow'rets spread.
Twined in thy yellow hair,
Bring the daisy, fresh and fair;
While thine eye, of matchless hue,
Mocks the violet so blue,
Sweet the rose upon thy cheek
More than mortal grace shall speak;
While thy parted lips exhale,
All the perfume of the gale.
Come, oh! come, and let me see,
Joy, and hope, and peace, with thee.
Let thy glance, with 1 fe divine,
O'er my precincts meekly shine;
Haste, oh! hasten to the bow'r,

Bring the wreath, and bring the flow'r,
Sport amid the lucid tide,

See the meadows in their pride,
Mark the lambkins in their play:
Come, thou lov'd one, come away.
Nature's choristers advance,
Celling to the jocuod dance;
hear their voices as they rise,
Mailing sweet the vaulted skies;
Weary Earth.....she waits like me,
See, she longs, she pants for thee.
Come, oh! come then, balmy Spring,
All thy beauties bither bring;
Come and grace this lov'd retreat,
Come and share my rustic seat;
Come, oh! come, with all thy charms,
Come, and bless thy lover's arms.
Think not time nor summer's ray
Shall my passion melt away,
Or that autumn's yellow hair
Will to me seem bright or fair.
Thou art as the op'ning day,
Summer sets in Autumn's ray;
Hope of bliss thy glances east,
Summer smiles when thou art past.
Fair is autumn with her train,
Sweeping o'er the loaded plain;
Fair the crowded board she brings,
And fresh the fruitage of her springs,
Fair is Autumn, but her charms
Soon are lost in Winter's arms.
Promis'd hope, tay joys, my fair,
Sweet as roses in the air.

Haste, then hasten to my bow'r,
Bring the wreath, and bring the flow'r.

From the Panorama, Nov. 1818.

[VOL. 4 4.

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CENE-A Coal Mine that has not been entered since the great explosion, A.D. 1754.-FIRE DAMP seated in a massy elbow chair, with his hands in his pockets; a white night-cap considerably soiled, on his head, and, to all appearance frightened out of his wits.

Carburets, &c. &c. stand around at respectful distances, but none of them visible by reason of PITCH-DARKNESS.

FIRE DAMP rises and takes a turn---(not only revolving on his own axis, but with a mutual revolution among his particles), he soliloquizes after the manner of Comedians."

SHALL who claim these mansions as my

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Quit my domains, and abdicate my throne
Before this upstart mortal, who would be
Prince of the Air, and govern even me?
Shall he, another Tamerlane, confine
Me, the illu-trious Monarch of the Mine;
And make the object of his barbarous age
A poor, insulted prisoner in a cage?
A stave a paltry instrument of his
Shall I disgrace my ancestors for this?
Give up my empire and existence too
To feed his Lamp ? no---burn me if I do---
My Royal father (blessings on his head)
Exploded now and number'd with the dead,
Maintain'd his honour with his latest breath,
Dreaded through life, and desperate in

death.

When dire COMBUSTION ventur'd to attack ON THE DEATH OF A BEAUTIFUL These murky regions, how he drove him

BOY.

BY J. W. LAKE.

back--

Destroy'd--annihilated---put him out,
And slew his comrades in the general rout.

I SAW thee, sweet Boy, in the blush of thy He died, like Samson, at his slav rose

yonth,

He with slaughter'd

Like a flower in its loveliness blowing, All bright in the beaming and beauty of truth, And thine eye in its innocence glowing.

I saw thee---nor thought in the bue of that wreath

Which the rose and the lily had wove, On by fair budding cheek the foul mildew of death

Would blight the fond promise of love.

Ilov'd thee, sweet Boy, for in thee were enshrin'd

What my youth and my promise had known,

Ere Ingratitude rose, like the dark desart wind,

Ere Misery made me her own.

fors.

Born at that moment in his watery grave---
Not yet a gas---an embryo in the wave---
I well remember with what joy I view'd
Our royal cavern with their bodies strew'd.
Dimpling I smil'd to catch the widows' tear,
The orphans' moan was music to my ea
Each lengthen'd sigh---each agonizing » oan
I mock'd with hollow murmurs of my on,
And joy'd to think that, one day, decompos'd,
No more by liquid particles enclos'd,
I too might emulate my father's death,
And slay my thousands with my parting
breath.

Now, now, alas! sad rumours reach my ears,
Destroy my rest, and fill my soul with fears.
But ATMOSPHERIC, my good friend, arrives,
And with his presence sick'ning hope revives.

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(ATMOSPHERIC sighs---but is manifestly unable to speak.)

Oh how I envy thee---the light-wing'd
breeze

Bears thee aloft o'er continents and seas;
No bonds confine thee---thou art free to rove
The perfum'd garden and the spicy grove,
Steal odours from Hymettus, and then sail
To shed the fragrance over Tempe's vale ;
To sip at will the pearly dews of night,
Or bask and wanton in the solar light;
Or faint and scorch'd. beneath the fervid
beam,

To sweep the surface of the rippling stream.
Oh how I envy thee---debarr'd the light,
And fix'd forever in eternal night,

I know no change for should I quit my
place,

And seek for freedom in the realms of space,
If dire COMBUSTION meet me, how could 1,
Unmix'd and uncompress'd, the fiend defy?
Or, too much mix'd, altho' the fiend I miss'd,
Diluted, dissipated, I should not exist.
(ATMOSPHERIC with eagerness---but evidently
scarcely recovered from a state of exhaus-
tion.)

327

Or, where the Desert's whirlwind columns*
rell;

Or, to the ice-bergs crashing round the Pole;
Or, on the dome which feels the earthquake
Or, in the cloud that swathes the young
shock;
Siroc ;

Or, where the Rhetian avelanche bad swell'd
To Heaven---suspended rather than upheld---
An Eagle hovering o'er the Ring-dove's nest :
Far, far above the valley's scene of rest---
With red, dilated eye, and monster form---
He follows close the Spirit of the storm---
Who, like a wrathful seraph, rides the wind
In awful beauty. Fell, nor far behind,
A hell-scaped, nameless, brood comes yelling

on,

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Some mutter hollow warnings in the blast--Some file the forest, some the heathy mountain--

Some hurl the hanging rock to cheak the
fountain---

Some lure the nighted traveller to the lake,
Or plant his foot upon the startled snake---
And crush the social circle in its fall;
Some snap the roof-tree o'er the antient hall,

Even while around the blazing hearth theg

press,

And pity those at sea, or shelterless !
Each plies his demon task ere night be
door--

For well they know they must not meet the

Sun:

Whilst Nature sobs, convulsed, o'er field and flood,

To mark her Spring thus blighted in the

bud!

tress,

No more, my friend---I cannot stay to hear-Arm with dispatch---the enemy is near--Swift he approaches---even while I speak, Trembling, I hear his dirty basket creakHe comes--the Magic Lantern I discern; Now, fire and fury-blaze, blow up, and burn. (Enter Sir HUMPHry Davy with a Safety Lamp in one hand, and Newman's Blow Pipe in the other.)---FIRE DAMP makes an attack On the Lamp, but the retreat of his forces becut off as fast as they come to the attack, he is destroyed by inches. In the course of the struggle he utters many exclamations, but Heaven in thy mercy soothe Her wild disnone of them reducible to writing. What remains of him, Sir HUMPHRY compresses into his Blow Pipe, and sends up from it a sky-rocket of ignited platina. On seeing the signal, old KING COAL, comes forward from the back of the stage, where he has been conSned by the usurper.---He compliments the Hero on his victory, and is in turn congratu- The perjured Murderer, the Mutineer: lated on his restoration.---Sir HUMPHRY Let not that wretch fold wife or infant more, invites him to dinner; be courteously dechines Whose gold is alchymised from Africk's the invitation, (evidently mistaking him for the Duke of the same name)---but calls for his fidlers three "--they play. The whole concludes with a grand dance of Pick-axes and Shovels, singing--

Hurrah,---the Tyrant is dead,

DAVY bath slain him, and cut off his head;
DAV▾ hath slam the Philistine at last,
And DAVY's locker shall hold him fast.

Exeunt omnes.

From the Literary Gazette.

DESTRUCTION.

Whose babes, perchance, this night are fath

erless :

If any fali, to guilt decree its fate---
Nor leave the loving heart all desolate!
Blast with thy withering frown his cursed

career,

gore:

Lanch thy red arrow at the pirate's deck,
Nor leave, for hope, the remnant of a wreck.
On these thy violated laws resent---
Ob! spare the weak, and shield the innocent!
EUSTACE.

"We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight surely the most magnificent in the world: in that vast expanse of desert, from W. and to NW. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at diderent distances, at times moving with great relerity, at others stalking with majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were cOIL❤ ing in a very few moments to overwhelm us,

DESTRUCTION walks abroad---escap- and small quantities of sand, didey would

Wach chained him to Vesuvius' fiery womb;
Or, in the stunning Maelstroom's black abyss;
Or, on the peak of Benmore's precipice;

retreat, so as to be almost out of sight, their
more than once reach us: again they
tops reaching to the very clouds."--BRUCE.
See Southey's " Thalaba,” Book IV.

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....

VENETIAN.

WHEN thou art far, remember--

To meet but strangers there!

[VOL.4

O, I would hang my head most sorrowful, And think on them, Earth's woe-worn wanderers,

Whom I had smil'd and wept with--nay, would sue

To have my griefs again

(And I have had no niggard share, God
knows!)

To feel the balm of natural sympathy
many Samaritan still

W Not that I did unclench thy gall- Whichaounds of bruised hearts--altho

ing chains,

Nor made my gold thy freedom's talisman,
Nor that I gave thee to thy friends again---
A man who lov'd thee not, even for his whim,
Or the world's praise, or to atone to heaven,
By doing good to one, for thousands wrong'd,
Might do yet more than so---

Remember,

That I did break the chains within my breast
Which held thee captive there---

That I paid down a ransom from that mine,
A bleeding heart,

More precious, and more dear to part withal,

The Priest and Levite pass o' th' other side.---
Behold thy galley!

Like a constrained bird it flaps its wings,
As tho' it felt impatience:
Away---I will not hold thee longer---go!
The gale blows fresh, and from the top-mast

head

Doth make the striped and gaudy pennant
point

Its shivering finger tow`rds the orient---
Look, 'tis thy land it points to !

TURK.

Than that which blush'd in Ophir's yellow Nay, let me ease my heart before I go--

veins--

That I, in yielding thee unto thy friends,
Do leave myself most friendless---
Farewell---remember this!

TURK.

Believe me, brave Italian!

I never felt so deep a trouble here---
No, not when first I left my father's house
In boyhood---shuddering, when the hills

above

Our home became invisible, as if

One word, one brief word more---'twill be

the last!

O, I shall tame my fierce-brow'd countrymen
To gentleness, when that I tell them all
Thy kindness to a conquer'd enemy !---
That thou didst take from my indignant lip
The bitter cup of bondage---

That thou didst draw me to thy bosom then---
-- who had been an adder to thy race---
Nor dreaded, when thy warmth of heart had
thaw'd

The very air breath'd strange and careless The torpor of degraded slavery, lest I

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EXTRACTED FROM A MS. LETTER OF THE BARON VON LAUERWINKEL.

T HE manner in which you express by a higher standard than they might yourself concerning the poetry of otherwise have judged it necessary to Moore, is not unlike that which I have apply. By rejecting, in behalf of their met with in many of your English jour- favourite, the honours which we wilnals, and is withal sufficiently natural to lingly grant to a minor poet, they have a person of your age and habits. Like compelled us to look at his productions you I admire the lively and graceful with a severer eye, and to satisfy ourgenius of this man; like you I appre- selves that he is by no means a great ciate the amiable temperament and dis- one. positions which lend a charm to his To tell you the truth, had Mr.Moore verses, more touching than any thing been Frenchman or an Italian, I am which liveliness, grace, and genius alone sorry to say it, had he been born a could confer; but I cannot consent for a countryman of my own-had similar moment to class Mr. Moore with the great pretensions been preferred in favour of poets of England-no more can I per- similar productions among any other suade myself that he is likely to go down European people,-I know not that I to posterity as the national poet of Ire- should have been inclined to weigh land. The claim which has lately been them so scrupulously, or perhaps justiset up for him is one of no trifling im- fied in rejecting them so decidedly. It port. It would not only assign to him is the belief of the most orthodox dia share of the same magnificent honours vines, that the guilt of a careless Chriswhich have of right descended to Byron, tian is greater than that of an ignorant Wordsworth, and Campbell, but min- Heathen, even although the offences of gle with his laurels another wreath such the two men may have been externally as the grateful affection of your own and apparently alike. " Of him to whom country has already woven for Scott much is given the more shall be requirand Burns. The friends of Mr. Moore, ed." I must do justice to your country or the admirers of his genius, have done even although it should be at the exno service either to the poet or to his pense of your favourite. The English works by their injudicious praises and poet who fails to be held great, chiefly their extravagant demands. The only because he chooses not to be pure, falls effect of their zeal is, to make reflective a splendid sacrifice before the altar to men try the productions of their idol which he was brought an unacceptable

28 ATHENEUM. Vol. 4.

330

Remarks on the Poetry of Thomas Moore.

shame;"

[VOL. 4 offering. Even genius will not save not spill. The muse which he has him; and yet the highest genius will do profaned asserts her privilege even in much. We listen with sorrow to the her degradation. The sculptor or the pernicious sophisms, and gloomy des- painter may destroy his work, or, if it pondings, which deform and darken has parted from his hands, it may be the native majesty of Byron ; but hope veiled by its possessor; but the impure and trust are mingled with our sorrow, poet has roused a demon which he has and we cannot suppose it would be no spell to lay. The foul spirit has reless than blasphemy to despair of such ceived wings with its evocation, and the a spirit. In Moore the redeeming unhappy sorcerer is doomed, wherever power is less. He possesses not, what- he may go, to hear their infernal flap, ever his nobler brother may do, the and tread on the vestiges of their blightcharm which might privilege him to ing. Year after year may pass, and pass through the fire and be unsinged. repentance may sit in the place of vice, But the genius of a poet is estimated "But tears which wash out guilt can't wash out by every man according to his own private feeling, and it may therefore be as and Mr. Moore, when he is stretched well to lay it for a moment out of the upon the bed of death, will understand question. Since the publication of what it was that troubled, with a tenLalla Rookh, the admirers of Moore fold pang, the last agonies of Rochester. have chosen to talk as if his genius It had been well, however, if, when were of the first order, and yourself, I Mr. Moore learned to despise himself observe, are of the same way of think- for gross impurity, he had not stopped ing. On this point we are not likely half-way in his reformation. It had to agree. But however wavering may been well, that instead of lopping off be the standard of some of the late ad- the most prominent branches, he had mirers of Mr. Moore, I well know that torn up the roots also, and for ever withyou at least will have no objections to ered the juices of his tree of evil. Did try the MORALITY of any poet by the he imagine that the harlot would purify only standard which is unchanging and her nature by the assumption of a veil, unerring. If you find that the elements or that his ideas would be remembered of his elegant compositions are essen- with impunity, only because hi words tially and hopelessly impure, you will might be recited without a blush? His have no hesitation in agreeing with me, muse has abused the passport, which that, whatever his original genius may hypocrisy or self-ignorance procured have been, the use to which he has ap- her; and they who adopt the sentiments plied it has taken from him all right to of the bard of the Melodies and Lalla the place, or the communion, of the Rookh, although indeed they need not great poets of England. That man be confounded with the disciples of must think lightly and erringly, who Little, must remain for ever unworthy doubts the eternal union of the high- and incapable of understanding or enest intellect with the highest virtue. I joying those pure and noble thoughts, doubt not that I shall speedily bring which form the brightest ornament of you to be of the same mind with my- their productions, with whom Mr. self, respecting the tendency of Mr. Moore would fain have himself to be Moore's performauces; and if you do associated. The whole strain of his so, you will, in the sequel, have less music is pitched upon too low a key. difficulty in embracing my opinion con- If he never sinks into absolute pollution, cerning its inspiration also. neither dares he for a moment rise to Of the early productions, by which the the true sublime of purity. He writes name of this poet was rendered notori- for women chiefly, and woman is at all ous, I shall say nothing. He himself times his principal topic. How strange professes to be ashamed of them, and I that he should never have been able to doubt not the sincerity of his ofes- flatter his audience by dignifying his sions. He is, moreover, sufficiently theme! How strange, that he, who punished by their existence. The poi- seems to understand so well every mison which he has once mingled he can- nor, superficial, transitory charm, should

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