TO MY BROTHERS. SMALL, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals, And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles, What are this world's true joys,--ere the great Voice, KEEN fitful gusts are whispering here and there Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air, Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily, That in a little cottage I have found : To one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven,-to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart's content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair And gentle tale of love and languishment? Returning home at evening, with an ear Catching the notes of Philomel,-an eye Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, He mourns that day so soon has glided by : E'en like the passage of an angel's tear, That falls through the clear ether silently. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. MUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold, That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: When a new planet swims into his ken; He stared at the Pacific-and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-Silent, upon a peak in Darien. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. THE poetry of earth is never dead : When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead : That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights; for, when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. HENRY KIRKE WHITE was born at Nottingham on the 21st of August, 1785, in which town his father was a butcher. He gave early indications of the genius for which he was afterwards distinguished. At the age of fourteen, the loom of the hosier was selected as the future occupation of the poet, but his mother succeeded in having him placed in the office of an attorney. Desirous of academic distinction, he was induced in furtherance of his project, to publish in 1803 a small volume of poetry. The harsh treatment this met with in a review was the means of introducing him to Mr. Southey, who proved a kind and generous friend. At length the object of the young poet was gained; he was entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he rapidly gained the highest university honours. His devotion to study had however so much weakened his frame that life itself was the sacrifice, and he died on the 19th of October, 1806, in the twenty-first year of his age. TO MY MOTHER. AND canst thou, Mother, for a moment think, Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink. TO APRIL. EMBLEM of life, see changeful April sail And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail; TO A NOVEMBER MOON. SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge |