Who was her father? Had she a brother? Yet, than all other? Alas, for the rarity Home she had none. Sisterly, brotherly, Feelings had changed; Where the lamps quiver With many a light The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver, But not the dark arch, Or the black flowing river: Swift to be hurl'd,— In she plunged boldly, Dissolute man! Lave in it, drink of it, Take her up tenderly, Ere her limbs frigidly Dreadfully staring Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fixed on futurity. Perishing gloomily, Cold inhumanity Into her rest. Cross her hands humbly, Over her breast! Owning her weakness, Her evil behavior, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour! The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem. Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves: Though the day of my destiny's over, The faults which so many could find; And the love which my spirit hath painted Then when Nature around me is smiling, Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, If their billows excite an emotion, Though the rock of my last hope is shivered, They may crush, but they shall not contemn; Though human, thou didst not deceive me; Though slandered, thou never couldst shake: Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, And more than I once could foresee, From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, It hath taught me that which I most cherished, In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, Which speaks to my spirit of thee. Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of fate, while in his adversity he still retains the unwavering love of woman. From Alfred Tennyson-although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived-I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen. I call him and think him the noblest of poets, not because the impressions he produces are, at all times, the most profound; not because the poetical excitement which he induces is, at all times, the most intense; but because it is, at all times, the most ethereal,-in other words, the most elevating and the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess": Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean! Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail That sinks with all we love below the verge, So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square,- Dear as remember'd kisses after death, |