THE NILE.

IT flows through old hush'd Egypt and its sands, Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,

And times and things, as in that vision, seem Keeping along it their eternal stands,Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roam'd through the young world, the glory

extreme

Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.

Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.

ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL.

ABOU Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel, writing in a book of gold;
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold :
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision rais'd its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answer'd, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

The angel wrote and vanish'd. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And show'd the names whom love of God had

bless'd,

And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

SPRING IN RAVEΝΝΑ.

THE Sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May
Round old Ravenna's clear-shown towers and bay,
A morn, the loveliest which the year has seen,
Last of the spring, yet fresh with all its green;
For a warm eve, and gentle rains at night,
Have left a sparkling welcome for the light,
And there's a crystal clearness all about;
The leaves are sharp, the distant hills look out;

A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze;

The smoke goes dancing from the cottage trees;

And when you listen, you may hear a coil,
Of bubbling springs about the grassy soil:

And all the scene, in short-sky, earth, and sea-
Breathes like a bright-eyed face, that laughs out

openly.

'Tis Nature, full of spirits, waked and springing:The birds to the delicious time are singing,

Darting with freaks and snatches up and down,
Where the light woods go seaward from the town;
While happy faces, striking through the green
Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen;
And the far ships, lifting their sails of white
Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light,
Come gleaming up, true to the wish'd-for day,
And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the
bay.

TO A CHILD, DURING SICKNESS.

SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,

My little patient boy;
And balmy rest about thee
Smooths off the day's annoy.
I sit me down, and think

Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,
That I had less to praise.

Thy sidelong pillow'd meekness,
Thy thanks to all that aid,
Thy heart, in pain and weakness,
Of fancied faults afraid;
The little trembling hand

That wipes thy quiet tears,—
These, these are things that may demand
Dread memories for years.

Sorrows I've had, severe ones

I will not think of now;
And calmly midst my dear ones,
Have wasted with dry brow:
But when thy fingers press,
And pat my stooping head,
I cannot bear the gentleness,-
The tears are in their bed.

Ah! first-born of thy mother,
When life and hope were new;
Kind playmate of thy brother,
Thy sister, father, too:
My light where'er I go,

My bird when prison-bound,-
My hand in hand companion,-no,
My prayers shall hold thee round.

To say, "He has departed," -
"His voice, his face, -is gone;"
To feel impatient-hearted,
Yet feel we must bear on :

Ah, I could not endure

To whisper of such wo,
Unless I felt this sleep ensure
That it will not be so.

Yes, still he's fix'd and sleeping!
This silence too the while-

Its very hush and creeping
Seem whispering us a smile:-
Something divine and dim
Seems going by one's ear,
Like parting wings of cherubim,

Who say, "We've finish'd here."

S

MR. PROCTOR, better known as BARRY CORNWALL, was born in London, and educated at Harrow, where BYRON was among his classmates. On leaving school he entered the office of a solicitor at Calne, in Wiltshire: an uninteresting town, but celebrated for having been at various periods the residence of BOWLES, CRABBE, Coleridge, and MOORE, with all of whom PROCTOR became intimately acquainted. At the end of four years, passed in the study of his profession, he went to London, and was soon after called to the bar.

Mr. PROCTOR'S Dramatic Scenes-the work in which he first appeared as an author-were published in 1815. They were succeeded by A Sicilian Story, Marcian Colonna, The Flood of Thessaly, the tragedy of Mirandola, and several volumes of dramatic fragments, songs, and miscellaneous poems, which have together won him a very high position among contemporary poets. CHARLES LAMB said of his Fragments, that there was not one of them, had he found them among the Garrick Plays in the British Museum, to which he would have refused a place in his Dramatic Specimens. His songs are among the best in the English language. They are full of tenderness and enthusiasm, and if not as carefully finished as they might be, they flow musically and naturally like the unstudied effusions of an improvisator. PROCTOR has written besides his poems several works in prose, among which are a Life of Edmund Kean, a Life of Ben Jonson, and An Essay upon the Genius of Shakspeare.

N. P. WILLIS, a warm admirer of the poet, has given in his Pencillings by the Way an interesting account of his visit to him in 1838. "With the address he had given me at parting," says Mr. WILLIS, "I drove to a large house in Bedford square; and, not accustomed to find the children of the muses waited on by servants in livery, I made up my mind, as I walked up the broad staircase, that I was blundering upon some Mr. PROCTOR of the exchange, whose respect for his poetical namesake, I hoped, would smooth my apology for the intrusion. Buried in a deep morocco

chair, in a large library, notwithstanding, I found the poet himself-choice old pictures filling every nook between the book-shelves, tables covered with novels and annuals, rolls of prints, busts and drawings in all the corners; and, more important for the nonce, a table at the poet's elbow, set forth with as sensible a breakfast as the most unpoetical of men could desire."

Mr. PROCTOR married a daughter of BASIL MONTAGU, the best of Lord BACON's editors, and a friend and patron of literary men. "The exquisite beauty of the Dramatic Scenes," our traveller informs us, "interested this lovely woman in his favour before she knew him, and far from worldly-wise as an attachment so grounded would seem, I never saw two people with a more habitual air of happiness. I thought of his touching song,

'How many summers, love,
Hast thou been mine?"

and looked at them with an irrepressible feeling of envy. A beautiful girl of eight or nine years, the 'golden-tressed Adelaide,' delicate, gentle, and pensive, as if she was born on the lip of Castaly, and knew she was a poet's child, completed the picture of happiness.......

"I took my leave of this true poet after half a day passed in his company," continues Mr. WILLIS, "with the impression that he makes upon every one of a man whose sincerity and kind-heartedness were the most prominent traits in his character. Simple in his language and feelings, a fond father, an affectionate husband, a business-man of the closest habits of industry-one reads his strange imaginations, and high-wrought and even sublimated poetry, and is in doubt at which most to wonder the man as he is, or the poet as we know him in his books."

An edition of Mr. PROCTOR'S English Songs and other Short Poems was published in London by Moxon in the summer of 1844; and they have been reprinted in this country by Ticknor and Company of Boston. I believe no edition of his dramatic writings has appeared in the United States. The selections in this volume are from the last English edition.

In wrath, in pain,

That the sole boon for lives of toil

Demand they from their natural soil :Oh, not in vain!

One single year, and some who now Come forth, with oaths and haggard brow,

Read prayer and psalm,

In quiet homes: their sole desire
Rude comforts near their cottage fire,
And Sabbath calm.

But hunger is an evil foe:

It striketh truth and virtue low,

And pride elate:

Wild hunger, stripp'd of hope and fear! It doth not weigh; it will not hear;

It cannot wait.

For mark what comes:-To-night the poor

(All mad) will burst the rich man's door, And wine will run

In floods, and rafters blazing bright

Will paint the sky with crimson light,
Fierce as the sun;

And plate carved round with quaint device,
And cups all gold will melt, like ice

In Indian heat!

And queenly silks, from foreign lands, Will bear the stamps of bloody hands And trampling feet:

And murder-from his hideous den

Will come abroad and talk to men,

Till creatures born

For good (whose hearts kind pity nursed) Will act the direst crimes they cursed

But yester-morn.

O God! since our bad world began, Thus hath it been-from man to man

War, to the knife!

For bread for gold-for words for air!
Save us, O God! and hear my prayer!
Save, save from shame-from crime-despair,
Man's puny life!

STANZAS.

THAT was not a barren time

When the new world calmly lay

Bare unto the frosty rime,
Open to the burning day.

Though her young limbs were not clad

With the colours of the spring,
Yet she was all inward glad,
Knowing all she bore within,
Undeveloped, blossoming.

There was beauty, such as feeds
Poets in their secret hours;
Music mute; and all the seeds
And the signs of all the flowers.

There was wealth, beyond the gold
Hid in oriental caves;
There was all we now behold
'"Tween our cradles and our graves.

Judge not, then, the poet's dreams
Barren all, and void of good:
There are in them azure gleams,
Wisdom not all understood.

Fables, with a heart of truth;
Mysteries, that unfold in light;
Morals, beautiful for youth;
Starry lessons for the night.

Unto man, in peace and strife,
True and false, and weak and strong,

Unto all, in death and life,

Speaks the poet in his song.