Yellow mid the sunshine, on the minster-clock,
Point at that hour? It is most horrible,
Speaking of midnight in the face of day.
During the very dead of night it stopp'd,
Even at the moment when a hundred hearts
Paused with it suddenly, to beat no more.
Yet, wherefore should it run its idle round?
There is no need that men should count the hours
Of time, thus standing on eternity.
It is a death-like image. How can I,
When round me silent nature speaks of death
Withstand such monitory impulses ?
When yet far off I thought upon the plague,
Sometimes my mother's image struck my soul,
In unchanged meekness and serenity,
And all my fears were gone. But these green banks,
With an unwonted flush of flowers o'ergrown,
Brown, when I left them last, with frequent feet
From morn till evening hurrying to and fro,
In mournful beauty scem encompassing
A still forsaken city of the dead.
O unrejoicing Sabbath! not of yore
Did thy sweet evenings die along the Thames
Thus silently! Now every sail is furl'd,
The oar hath dropt from out the rower's hand,
And on thou flowest in lifeless majesty,
River of a desert lately fill'd with joy!
O'er all that mighty wilderness of stone
The air is clear and cloudless, as at sea
Above the gliding ship. All fires are dead,
And not one single wreath of smoke ascends
Above the stillness of the towers and spires.
How idly hangs that arch magnificent
Across the idle river! Not a speck
Is seen to move along it. There it hangs,
Still as a rainbow in the pathless sky,
THE PLAGUE IN THE CITY.
Know ye what ye will meet with in the city? Together will ye walk through long, long streets, All standing silent as a midnight church. You will hear nothing but the brown red grass Rustling beneath your feet; the very beating Of your own hearts will awe you; the small voice Of that vain bauble, idly counting time, Will speak a solemn language in the desert. Look up to heaven, and there the sultry clouds, Still threatening thunder, lower with grim delight, As if the spirit of the plague dwelt there, Darkening the city with the shades of death. Know ye that hideous hubbub? Hark, far off A tumult like an echo! on it comes, Weeping and wailing, shrieks and groaning pray'r, And, louder than all, outrageous blasphemy. The passing storm hath left the silent streets, But are these houses near you tenantless ? Over your heads from a window, suddenly A ghastly face is thrust, and yells of death With voice not human. Who is he that flies, As if a demon dogg'd him on his path?
With ragged hair, white face, and bloodshot eyes,
Raving, he rushes past you; till he falls,
As if struck by lighting, down upon the stones,
Or, in blind madness, dash'd against the wall,
Sinks backward into stillness. Stand aloof,
And let the pest's triumphal chariot
Have open way advancing to the tomb,
See how he mocks the pomp and pageantry
Of earthly kings! a miserable cart,
Heap'd up with human bodies; dragg'd along
By pale steeds, skeleton-anatomies!
And onwards urged by a wan, meager wretch,
Doom'd never to return from the foul pit,
Whither, with oaths, he drives his load of horror.
Would you look in? Gray hairs and golden tresses,
Wan shrivell'd cheeks, that have not smiled for years,
And many a rosy visage smiling still;
Bodies in the noisome weeds of beggary wrapt,
With age decrepit, and wasted to the bone;
And youthful frames, august and beautiful,
In spite of mortal pangs-there lie they all,
Embraced in ghastliness! But look not long,
For happily mid the faces glimmering there,
The well-known cheek of some beloved friend
Will meet thy gaze, or some small snow-white hand,
Bright with the ring that holds her lover's hair.
AND lo! upon the murmuring waves
A glorious shape appearing!
A broad-wing'd vessel, through the shower
Of glimmering lustre steering!
As if the beauteous ship enjoy'd
The beauty of the sea,
She lifteth up her stately head
And saileth joyfully.
A lovely path before her lies,
A lovely path behind;
She sails amidst the loveliness
Like a thing with heart and mind.
Fit pilgrim through a scene so fair,
Slowly she beareth on;
A glorious phantom of the deep,
Risen up to meet the moon.
The moon bids her tenderest radiance fall
On her wavy streamer and snow-white wings,
And the quiet voice of the rocking sea
To cheer the gliding vision sings.
Oh! ne'er did sky and water blend
In such a holy sleep,
Or bathe in brighter quietude
A roamer of the deep.
So far the peaceful soul of heaven
Hath settled on the sea,
It seems as if this weight of calm
Were from eternity.
O world of waters! the steadfast earth
Ne'er lay entranced like thee!
Is she a vision wild and bright,
That sails amid the still moonlight
At the dreaming soul's command?
A vessel borne by magic gales,
All rigg'd with gossamery sails,
And bound for fairy-land!
Ah, no! an earthly freight she bears, Of joys and sorrows, hopes and fears; And lonely as she seems to be,
Thus left by herself on the moonlight sea
So ghost-like, with thy snow-white plumes,
At once from thy wild shriek I know
What means this place so steep'd in wo!
Here, they who perish'd on the deep
Enjoy at last unrocking sleep,
In loneliness that rolls,
She hath a constant company,
In sleep, or waking revelry,
Five hundred human souls!
Since first she sail'd from fair England,
Three moons her path have cheer'd:
And another lights her lovelier lamp
Since the Cape hath disappear'd.
For an Indian isle she shapes her way
With constant mind both night and day:
She seems to hold her home in view
And sails, as if the path she knew;
So calm and stately is her motion
Across the unfathom'd trackless ocean.
WRITTEN IN A LONELY BURIAL GROUND ON THE NORTHERN COAST OF THE HIGHLANDS.
How mournfully this burial ground
Sleeps mid old Ocean's solemn sound,
Who rolls his bright and sunny waves
All round these deaf and silent graves!
The cold wan light that glimmers here,
The sickly wild-flowers may not cheer;
If here, with solitary hum,
The wandering mountain-bee doth come,
Mid the pale blossoms short his stay,
To brighter leaves he booms away.
The sea-bird, with a wailing sound,
Alighteth softly on a mound,
And, like an image, sitting there
For hours amid the doleful air,
Seemeth to tell of some dim union,
Some wild and mystical communion,
Connecting with his parent sea
This lonesome, stoneless ceme'try.
This may not be the burial-place
Of some extinguish'd kingly race,
Whose name on earth no longer known
Hath moulder'd with the mouldering stone.
That nearest grave, yet brown with mould,
Seems but one summer-twilight old;
Both late and frequent hath the bier
Been on its mournful visit here,
And yon green spot of sunny rest
Is waiting for its destined guest.
I see no little kirk-no bell
On Sabbath tinkleth through this dell,
How beautiful those graves and fair,
That, lying round the house of prayer,
Sleep in the shadow of its grace!
But death has chosen this rueful place
For his own undivided reign!
And nothing tells that e'er again
The sleepers will forsake their bed-
Now, and for everlasting dead,
For hope with memory seems fled!
Wild-screaming bird! unto the sea
Winging thy flight reluctantly,
Slow-floating o'er these grassy tombs,
For ocean, from this wrathful breast,
Flung them into this haven of rest,
Where shroudless, coffinless, they lie,-
'Tis the shipwreck'd seaman's cemet'ry.
Here seamen old, with grizzled locks,
Shipwreck'd before on desert rocks,
And by some wandering vessel taken
From sorrows that seem God-forsaken,
Home bound, here have met the blast
That wreck'd them on death's shore at last!
Old friendless men, who had no tears
To shed, nor any place for fears
In hearts by misery fortified,-
And, without terror, sternly died.
Here, many a creature, moving bright
And glorious in full manhood's might,
Who dared with an untroubled eye
The tempest brooding in the sky,
And loved to hear that music rave,
And danced above the mountain-wave,
Hath quaked on this terrific strand,-
All flung like sea-weeds to the land;
A whole crew lying side by side,
Death-dash'd at once in all their pride.
And here, the bright-hair'd, fair-faced boy,
Who took with him all earthly joy
From one who weeps both night and day
For her sweet son borne far away,
Escaped at last the cruel deep,
In all his beauty lies asleep;
While she would yield all hopes of grace
For one kiss of his pale, cold face!
Oh, I could wail in lonely fear,
For many a woful ghost sits here,
All weeping with their fixed eyes!
And what a dismal sound of sighs
Is mingling with the gentle roar
Of small waves breaking on the shore;
While ocean seems to sport and play
In mockery of its wretched prey!
And lo! a white-wing'd vessel sails
In sunshine, gathering all the gales
Fast-freshening from yon isle of pines,
That o'er the clear sea waves and shines.
I turn me to the ghostly crowd,
All smear'd with dust, without a shroud,
And silent every blue-swollen lip!
Then gazing on the sunny ship,
And listening to the gladsome cheers
Of all her thoughtless mariners,
I seem to hear in every breath
The hollow under-tones of death,
Who, all unheard by those who sing,
Keeps tune with low wild murmuring,
And points with his lean, bony hand
To the pale ghosts sitting on this strand,
Then dives beneath the rushing prow,
Till on some moonless night of wo
He drives her shivering from the steep
Down-down a thousand fathoms deep.
MAGNIFICENT creature! so stately and bright! In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight; For what hath the child of the desert to dread, Wafting up his own mountains that far beaming head;
Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale! Hail! king of the wild and the beautiful!-hail! Hail! idol divine!-whom nature hath borne O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the morn, Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain
As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore;
For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free,
Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee,
Up! up to yon cliff! like a king to his throne!
O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone-
A throne which the eagle is glad to resign
Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine.
There the bright heather springs up in love of thy
breast,
Lo! the clouds in the depths of the sky are at rest;
And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill!
In the hush of the mountains, ye antlers, lie still!-
Though your branches now toss in the storm of
delight
Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height, One moment-thou bright apparition delay! Then melt o'er the crags, like the sun from the day.
His voyage is o'er-As if struck by a spell, He motionless stands in the hush of the dell; There softly and slowly sinks down on his breast, In the midst of his pastime enamour'd of rest. A stream in a clear pool that endeth its raceA dancing ray chain'd to one sunshiny placeA cloud by the winds to calm solitude drivenA hurricane dead in the silence of heaven.
Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee: Magnificent prison enclosing the free; With rock wall-encircled, with precipice crown'dWhich, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound. Mid the fern and the heather kind nature doth keep One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep; And close to that covert, as clear to the skies When their blue depths are cloudless, a littlelake lies, Where the creature at rest can his image behold, Looking up through the radiance, as bright and as bold.
Yes: fierce looks thy nature, e'en hush'd in
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In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath,In the wide raging torrent that lends thee its roar,In the cliff that once trod must be trodden no more, Thy trust-mid the dangers that threaten thy reign: -But what if the stag on the mountain be slain? On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay, Like a victor that falls at the close of the dayWhile the hunter and hound in their terror retreat From the death that is spurn'd from his furious feet; And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies, As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.
LINES WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN.
To whom belongs this valley fair,
That sleeps beneath the filmy air,
Even like a living thing?
Silent as infant at the breast,
Save a still sound that speaks of rest,
That streamlet's murmuring!
The heavens appear to love this vale; Here clouds with scarce-seen motion sail,
Or mid the silence lie!
By the blue arch, this beauteous earth, Mid evening's hour of dewy mirth, Seems bound unto the sky.
O that this lovely vale were mine!
Then, from glad youth to calm decline,
My years would gently glide;
Hope would rejoice in endless dreams,
And memory's oft-returning gleams
By peace be sanctified.
There would unto my soul be given, From presence of that gracious heaven,
And thoughts would come of mystic mood,
To make in this deep solitude
Eternity of Time!
And did I ask to whom belong'd
This vale? I feel that I have wrong'd
Nature's most gracious soul!
She spreads her glories o'er the earth,
And all her children, from their birth,
Are joint heirs of the whole!
Yea, long as nature's humblest child Hath kept her temple undefiled
By sinful sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own;
He is a monarch, and His throne
Is built amid the skies!
MR. KNOWLES was born at Cork, about the year 1789. His father, a near relative of the celebrated RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, was a popular teacher of elocution in that city. Young KNOWLES was at a very early age placed at a school in England, where the bent of his genius was shown in his fondness for dramatic literature, and his attempts in dramatic composition. His first effort was called The Chevalier Grillon. At sixteen he wrote a tragedy in five acts, which is still extant, entitled The Spanish Story; eight years after, the tragedy of Hersilia; and in his twenty-sixth year his first successful piece, The Gipsy, which was performed at Waterford, with EDMUND KEAN in the character of the hero. This was succeeded by Brian Boroighme, Caius Gracchus, Virginius, William Tell, Alfred the Great, The Hunchback, The Wife of Mantua, The Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green, The Love Chase, Woman's Wit, The Wrecker's Daughter, Love, John di Procida, The Maid of Mariendorpt, The Secretary, and other plays, all of which have been acted with applause in the British and American theatres. Although there are many striking and beautiful passages in the writings of KNOWLES, he is deserving of little praise as a poet. It would not be difficult to find a very large number of pieces, among the unacted dramas of the last ten years, superior to his in every quality but effectiveness for the stage. He
tists; and endeavoured, not altogether without success, to fashion himself upon the best models they produced. His dialogue is spirited and dramatic, the action of his pieces fine, their morality unexceptionable, and the sympathy he manifests with human nature deep and healthy. But he has incongruously blended modern manners, opinions, feelings, incidents, and actions, with the antique; his versification is often careless and inharmonious; and he is deficient in the important poetical faculty of constructiveness. Virginius, The Hunchback, and some of his other pieces, are, however, among the most successful dramatic compositions of the age, and after the making of all abatements, he is the best playwright who has written in England during the present century.
The greatest poet of the world was an actor, and KNOWLES has thought it no disgrace to follow so illustrious an example. I remember having seen him in one of his own characters on the Park stage in New York in 1835, a year in which FANNY KEMBLE, in whom SIDDONS seemed to live anew, transiently restored to the stage the glory of its palmier days. As an actor, however, he was never successful. He still appears occasionally in the British theatres; but probably only in some of the less important characters of his own pieces. Mr. KNOWLES is a general favourite in society, and is not more respected for his abi
has carefully studied the Elizabethan drama- | lities than for his manly virtues.
I SAID it was a wilful, wayward thing,
And so it is, fantastic and perverse!
Which makes its sport of persons and of seasons,
Takes its own way, no matter right or wrong.
It is the bee that finds the honey out,
Where least you dream 't would seek the nectarous
And 'tis an errant masker-this same love-
That most outlandish, freakish faces wears
To hide his own! Looks a proud Spaniard now;
Now a grave Turk; hot Ethiopian next;
And then phlegmatic Englishman; and then
Gay Frenchman; by-and-by Italian, at
All things a song; and in another skip,
Gruff Dutchman; still is love behind the mask!
It is a hypocrite! looks every way
But that where lie its thoughts! will openly
Frown at the thing it smiles in secret on;
Shows most like hate, e'en when it most is love;
Would fain convince you it is very rock
When it is water! ice when it is fire!
Is oft its own dupe, like a thorough cheat;
Persuades itself 'tis not the thing it is;
Holds up its head, pursues its brows, and looks
Askant, with scornful lip, hugging itself
That it is high disdain-till suddenly
It falls on its knees, making most piteous suit
With hail of tears and hurricane of sighs,
Calling on heaven and earth for witnesses
That it is love, true love nothing but love!
LAST SCENE IN JOHN DI PROCIDA.
[Isoline follows John di Procida and his son, her husband, against Messina, of which city her father is governor. As the castle falls into the hands of the Laberator, she, unknown to either party, reaches the garden, and pauses, exhausted, listening to the tumult of the battle.]
Iso. Thus far in time-thus far in safety! Wer't Another stride, ere take it, I had dropped. The work is going on! Oh, spare my fatherSpare him, and deal with me! Hark! Massacre Has left this quarter free; within the city Holding her gory reign. She does not riot Within the castle yet. He yet may live! [here? Limbs, hold me up. Don't fail me. Who comes My father! Father!
Governor, (entering hastily and wildly.)
Whosoe'er thou art,
Stop not my way!
Iso. Dost thou not know me?
Gov. No!
In times like these men know not one another.
Holding together, they together fall,
As men in knots do drown. In scattering
Is chance of safety. Do not hold me, friend.
Let go. Look to thyself. Let every one
Look to himself. He's lost that casts his eye
Upon another's jeopardy. His own
Asks all his care. Let go!-Away!-Away!
Iso. (thrown upon her knees, as he rushes off.)
He does not know me!-He's my father, and
He does not know me! He's distracted-mad!
Fain would I follow him, but cannot. No,
My knees refuse to raise me.
Fernando, (rushing in.) Isoline!
Iso. (throwing herself into his arms.) Fernando! my Fernando! true, to death! My husband-mine own love!-I die for joy! And bioss thee, my Fernando, for my death!
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Andrea, (rushing in.) Hold! 'tis the son of
John of Procida!
Guis. The son of John of Procida!
Fer. Too late!
Take her! preserve from insult-pay all honours-
For her sake, not for mine, and lay us side
By side. I pant for death, and not the life
Would hold my spirit from rejoining hers. [Dies.
Enter John of Procida.
Pro. It is not there! I came to see his corse,
But not to smite him. No! I would not stain
This day of freedom with the narrow deed
Of personal vengeance. To the swords of others
I would have left him, satisfied if they
The debt exacted that was due to mine.
But they, intent on their own quarry, mine
Have suffered to escape, and vengeance, now
Balked, by its own remissness, of its prey,
Gnashes the teeth in vain!
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And he was born my son! Live! you did right.
His father says it. Yet, he was my son !
Guis. I knew not that.
Pro. And had you known it, still
You had done right-I say it-I-his father!
And yet, he was my son!
Iso. (recovering.) My lord! my husband!-
Fernando!-draw me closer to thy breast!
Hold off! Whoartthou? Where's Fernando? Who
Is that?
And. Fernando's father!
Iso. So it is!
And we are safe! Are we not, sir! [reels forward.
Pro. O, Heaven!
Iso. You will not let them murder us? You
You can't! else nature has no truth in her,
And never more be trusted! Never more!
If fathers will not stretch an arm to save
Their children's throats, let mothers' breasts run dry,
And infants at the very founts of life
Be turn'd to stones! Sir! father! where's your son?
Ah, you repulse me not! You let me come
Closer to you. Where's my Fernando, father?
What! do you draw me to you! Would you take me
Into your very bosom? There then!
[Throws her arms about his neck.] Now, Fernando, what's to fear? Now, mine own love, We shall be happy! happy! blessed happy! Why don't you answer me? Where is he, father? I left him here! Where I have been I know not, I recollect a sickness as of death, And now it comes again. My brow grows chill And damp-I'll wipe it! Blood! what brings it
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