Then, be his weakness pitied and forgiven, If, when the moon illumes her deep blue sea, Wander through endless years, by silver'd arch and tree. Charles Reece Pemberton, here alluded to by Elliott, is better known as Pel Verjuice, the Wanderer. He was a man of pure heart and clear intellect, and so deeply imbued with the spirit of Freedom that the formalities of life were like fetters to him. I feel justified in placing the following sketch by Pemberton in my book of poems; for in thought, fire, and feeling, it is poetry, though not in rhyme." MOSELY COMMON.-But the common !---I saw it three years ago, and God be praised, it was not civilised. There is nothing in the whole range of English scenery, no beauty nor ornament, neither natural nor artificial glory, among all its delicious and enchanting variety, that glads my eyes and heart so fully and so instantaneously as a common of gorse-bush, and fern. Sheep were on this common, descendants in the tenth generation, perhaps, of my old friends, bobbing their noses into and nibbling the short soft grass-soft and slippery is that grass, on a sunny day, as my lady's velvet pelisse, or the tip of her ear. There, too, stood yet, the circle of aged firs, a vegetated druidical temple of firs. They were none of your prim, straight, smirking-looking things, that you see 'stuck in a modern shrubbery,' like a string of boardingschool misses, ranged at question and answer; but stout, hearty, jolly old fellows, sturdy in the chest and waist, and such muscular and sinewy arms thrown out, as if they would knock the wind down. You may see something like them at Guy's Cliff, in the avenue, which they form; but, oh, they are babies compared to those on my common. Well, so they stood, solemnly waving their dark garments in the breeze, or motionless in their silent and deep worship of nature. Magnificence dreaming! Nothing there was touched by the hand of civilization, thank God. Yes, one change had been made, and I felt that the milk of human kindness was not all soured within me.This was a fanciful and beautiful improvement. An extensive old gravel-pit had been spread with productive earth and mould, without diminishing its depth perceptibly, or changing its outlines in the least-all the abruptness, hillocks, undulations, hollows, and projections were carefully preserved, then turfed and planted with shrubs, roots, and moss, which, when I saw them, were flourishing with seventeen years of glory, making one of the most perfect specimens of romantic solitude I ever enjoyed. Who did it? Take nine-tenths of the saints out of the calendar to make room for him."-History of Pel Verjuice, the Wanderer, by January Searle. 2 Q APRIL-TEARS AND SMILES. CHARLES REECE PEMBERTON, BORN AT PONTYPOOL, SOUTH WALES, JANUARY 23, 1790, DIED AT BIRMINGHAM, MARCH 3, 1840, BURIED IN KEY HILL CEMETERY. HER cheek is pale, her eyes are wet, Her voice in murmurings Grieves lowly to the morn, that yet Why linger ye, O, laughing hours? The paleness fleets, the tears are dry, The sunshine over earth and sky Its brightness flings. Come revel through my laughing hours, DECEMBER. CHARLES REECE PEMBERTON. THE whispering foliage-song no more But hush! 'twill chorus as before The spirit-leaves are sleeping: December's breath awhile shall be The cradle of their memory. Though flowers not now their varied hues In charmed union mingle; Yet look! the eye more richly views The flower in beauty single : And old December's smile shall be The perfumed tints of blazonry. Though warblers from the grove are gone, Here's yet a joyous fellow; For hark! 'tis robin's song, no one Was ever half so mellow: And old December chirps to be So welcomed by that minstrelsy. Though cold and storm-fill'd clouds career, They make-turn round, the hearth is here-- Then hail, December! let the soul Make bright-for it can change the whole To beauty rich and cheering. Old guest to thoughts in harmony, December ever welcome be. TO MY WIFE. JOHN BOLTON ROGERSON, BORN IN MANCHESTER, JANUARY 20, 1809. THY cheek is pale with many cares, Thy brow is overcast, And thy fair face a shadow wears, That tells of sorrows past; |