ΒΕΝΕΑΤH A PLACID BROW.
BENEATH a placid brow,
And tear-unstained cheek,
To bear as I do now
A heart that well could break;
To simulate a smile
Amid the wrecks of grief,
To herd among the vile,
And therein seek relief,-
For the bitterness of thought
Were joyance dearly bought.
When will man learn to bear
His heart nail'd on his breast,
With all its lines of care
In nakedness confess'd?-
Why, in this solemn mask
Of passion-wasted life,
Will no one dare the task
To speak his sorrows rife ?-
Will no one bravely tell
His bosom is a hell?
I scorn this hated scene
Of masking and disguise,
Where men on men still gleam,
With falseness in their eyes;
Where all is counterfeit,
And truth hath never say;
Where hearts themselves do cheat,
Concealing hope's decay,
And writhing at the stake,
Themselves do liars make.
Go, search thy heart, poor fool!
And mark its passions well;
'Twere time to go to school,-
'Twere time the truth to tell,-
'Twere time this world should cast
Its infant slough away,
And hearts burst forth at last
Into the light of day;-
"Twere time all learn'd to be
Fit for eternity!
THE CAVALIER'S SONG.
A STEED, a steed of matchlesse speed!
A sword of metal keene!
All else to noble heartes is drosse,
All else on earth is meane.
The neighyinge of the war-horse prowde,
The rowlings of the drum,
The clangor of the trumpet lowde,
Be soundes from heaven that come;
And O! the thundering presse of knightes Whenas their war-cryes swell,
May tole from heaven an angel bright,
And rouse a fiend from hell.
Then mounte! then mounte! brave gallants all,
And don your helmes amaine:
Deathe's couriers, fame and honour, call
Us to the field againe.
No shrewish teares shall fill our eye
When the sword-hilt's in our hand,-
Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe
For the fayrest of the land;
Let piping swaine, and craven wight
Thus weepe and puling crye,
Our business is like men to fight,
And hero-like to die!
WHAT IS GLORY? WHAT IS FAME?
WHAT is glory? What is fame ?
The echo of a long lost name;
A breath, an idle hour's brief talk;
The shadow of an arrant naught;
A flower that blossoms for a day,
Dying next morrow:
A stream that hurries on its way,
Singing of sorrow ;-
The last drop of a bootless shower,
Shed on a sere and leafless bower;
A rose, stuck in a dead man's breast,-
This is the world's fame at the best!
What is fame? and what is glory?
A dream, a jester's lying story,
To tickle fools withal, or be
A theme for second infancy;
A joke scrawled on an epitaph;
A grin at death's own ghastly laugh.
A visioning that tempts the eye,
But mocks the touch-nonentity;
A rainbow, substanceless as bright,
O'er hill-top to more distant height,
Nearing us never;
A bubble, blown by fond conceit,
In very sooth itself to cheat;
The witch-fire of a frenzied brain;
A fortune that to lose were gain;
A word of praise, perchance of blame;
The wreck of a time-bandied name,-
Ay, this is glory! this is fame!
THIS poet was born in London, in 1798. His father, a native of Scotland, was a book seller and publisher. The subject of our biography was educated at an academy in Camberwell, and after taking a sea-voyage for the benefit of his health, was apprenticed to an uncle to learn the art of engraving. Some verses which he published meantime in the "London Magazine," attracted so much attention as to induce him to abandon the graver for the pen, and he has been since known as a man of letters. He is the author of "Whims and Oddities," "The Comic Annual," and other humorous productions, some of which have had an unparalleled popularity; and he is deserving of great reputation for his admirable compositions of a more serious description, of which we give liberal specimens. His longest poem, "The Plea of the Mid
summer Fairies," was published in 1828, and is designed to celebrate by an allegory that immortality which SHAKSPEARE has conferred on the fairy mythology by his " Midsummer Night's Dream." "The Sylvan Fay," and "Ariel and the Suicide," in the following pages, are from this poem, and will give the reader an idea of its style. He soon after wrote "Tylney Hall," a novel, and on the death of THEODORE HOok became editor of Colburn's "New Monthly Magazine," which he conducted until the beginning of the present year, when he established "Hood's Comic Miscellany," a monthly periodical of which the character is sufficiently indicated by its title. The striking lyric entitled "The Song of a Shirt," appeared but a few weeks ago, and is the latest of Mr. Hood's compositions which we have seen.
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.*
'T was in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool, And four-and-twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt," Like troutlets in a pool.
Away they sped with gamesome minds,
And souls untouch'd by sin;
To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.
Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran,-
Turning to mirth all things of earth,
As only boyhood can;
But the Usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!
His hat was off, his vest was apart,
To catch heaven's blessed breeze;
For a burning thought was in his brow,
And his bosom ill at ease:
* The late Admiral Burney went to school at an establishment where the unhappy Eugene Aram was usher, subsequent to his crime. The admiral stated, that Aram was generally liked by the boys; and that he used to discourse to them about murder, in somewhat of the spirit which is attributed to him in this poem.
So he lean'd his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees!
Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er,
Nor ever glanced aside;
For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide :
Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.
At last he shut the ponderous tome;
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strain'd the dusky covers close,
And fix'd the brazen hasp:
"O God, could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"
Then leaping on his feet upright,
Some moody turns he took,一
Now up the mead, then down the mead,
And past a shady nook,And, lo! he saw a little boy
That pored upon a book!
"My gentle lad, what is't you readRomance or fairy fable?
Or is it some historic page,
Of kings and crowns unstable ?"
The young boy gave an upward glance,"It is The Death of Abel.' "
The Usher took six hasty strides,
As smit with sudden pain,-
Six hasty strides beyond the place,
Then slowly back again;
And down he sat beside the lad,
And talk'd with him of Cain;
And, long since then, of bloody men,
Whose deeds tradition saves;
Of lonely folk cut off unseen,
And hid in sudden graves;
Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn,
And murders done in caves;
And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod,-
Ay, how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod;
And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God!
He told how murderers walk'd the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,-
With crimson clouds before their eyes,
And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!
"And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth, Their pangs must be extreme,
Wo, wo, unutterable wo
Who spill life's sacred stream!
For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder in a dream!
"One that had never done me wrongA feeble man, and old;
I led him to a lonely field,
The moon shone clear and cold: Now here, said I, this man shall die,
And I will have his gold!
"Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,
And one with a heavy stone,
One hurried gash with a hasty knife,-
And then the deed was done:
There was nothing lying at my foot,
But lifeless flesh and bone!
"Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,
That could not do me ill;
And yet I fear'd him all the more,
For lying there so still:
There was a manhood in his look,
That murder could not kill!
"And, lo! the universal air
Seem'd lit with ghastly flame,-
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
Were looking down in blame:
I took the dead man by the hand,
And call'd upon his name!
"O God, it made me quake to see
Such sense within the slain!
But when I touch'd the lifeless clay,
The blood gush'd out amain!
For every clot, a burning spot,
Was scorching in my brain!
"My head was like an ardent coal,
My heart as solid ice;
My wretched, wretched soul, I knew,
Was at the Devil's price:
A dozen times I groan'd; the dead
Had never groan'd but twice!
"And now from forth the frowning sky,
From the heaven's topmost height,
I heard a voice-the awful voice
Of the blood-avenging sprite:-
Thou guilty man! take up thy dead
And hide it from my sight!'
"I took the dreary body up,
And cast it in a stream,-
A sluggish water, black as ink,
The depth was so extreme.
My gentle boy, remember this
Is nothing but a dream!
"Down went the corse with a hollow plunge,
And vanish'd in the pool;
Anon I cleansed my bloody hands
And wash'd my forehead cool,
And sat among the urchins young
That evening in the school!
"O heaven, to think of their white souls,
And mine so black and grim!
I could not share in childish prayer,
Nor join in evening hymn:
Like a devil of the pit I seem'd,
Mid holy cherubim!
"And peace went with them one and all,
And each calm pillow spread;
But guilt was my grim chamberlain
That lighted me to bed,
And drew my midnight curtains round,
With fingers bloody red!
"All night I lay in agony,
In anguish dark and deep;
My fever'd eyes I dared not close,
But stared aghast at sleep;
For sin had render'd unto her
The keys of hell to keep!
"All night I lay in agony,
From weary chime to chime,
With one besetting horrid hint,
That rack'd me all the time, -
A mighty yearning, like the first
Fierce impulse unto crime!
"One stern, tyrannic thought, that made
All other thoughts its slave;
Stronger and stronger every pulse
Did that temptation crave,-
Still urging me to go and see
The dead man in his grave!
"Heavily I rose up, -as soon
As light was in the sky,-
And sought the black accursed pool
With a wild misgiving eye;
And I saw the dead in the river bed,
For the faithless stream was dry!
"Merrily rose the lark, and shook
The dew-drop from its wing:
But I never mark'd its morning flight,
I never heard it sing:
For I was stooping once again
Under the horrid thing.
"With breathless speed, like a soul in chase,
I took him up and ran,-
There was no time to dig a grave
Before the day began:
In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves,
I hid the murder'd man!
"And all that day I read in school,
But my thought was other where;
As soon as the mid-day task was done,
In secret I was there:
And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,
And still the corse was bare!
"Then down I cast me on my face,
And first began to weep,
For I knew my secret then was one
That earth refused to keep;
Or land or sea, though he should be
Ten thousand fathoms deep!
"So wills the fierce avenging sprite,
Till blood for blood atones!
Ay, though he's buried in a cave,
And trodden down with stones,
And years have rotted off his flesh-
The world shall see his bones!
"O God, that horrid, horrid dream
Besets me now awake!
Again-again, with a dizzy brain,
The human life I take;
And my red right hand grows raging hot,
Like Cranmer's at the stake.
" And still no peace for the restless clay
Will wave or mould allow;
The horrid thing pursues my soul,-
It stands before me now!"
The fearful boy look'd up, and saw
Huge drops upon his brow!
That very night, while gentle sleep
The urchin eyelids kiss'd,
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walk'd between,
With gyves upon his wrist.
THE SYLVAN FAIRY.
THEN next a merry woodsman, clad in green,
Stept vanward from his mates, that idly stood
Each at his proper ease, as they had been
Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood,
And wore the livery of Robin Hood,
Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup,-
So came this chief right frankly, and made good
His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up,
Doffing his cap, which was an acorn's cup:ï
"We be small foresters and gay, who tend
On trees, and all their furniture of green,
Training the young boughs airily to bend,
And show blue snatches of the sky between:-
Or knit more close intricacies, to screen
Birds' crafty dwellings as may hide them best,
But most the timid blackbird's-she, that seen,
Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest,
Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast.
"We bend each tree in proper attitude,
And founting willows train in silvery falls;
We frame all shady roofs and arches rude,
And verdant aisles leading to Dryad's halls,
Or deep recesses where the echo calls ;-
We shape all plumy trees against the sky,
And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals,-
When sometimes, as our tiny hatchets ply,
Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh.
"Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell,
And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind,
That haply some lone musing wight may spell
Dainty Aminta, -Gentle Rosalind,-
Or chastest Laura,-sweetly call'd to mind
In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down;-
And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined
And fragrant ivy, or rich moss, whose brown
Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down.
"And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer,
We bear the seedling berries, for increase, To graft the Druid oaks, from year to year, Careful that misletoe may never cease ;Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace
Of sombre forests, or to see light break
Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake, Spare us our lives for the green Dryad's sake."
LET me remember how I saved a man,
Whose fatal noose was fasten'd on a bough,
Intended to abridge his sad life's span;
For haply I was by when he began
His stern soliloquy in life's dispraise,
And overheard his melancholy plan,
How he had made a vow to end his days,
And therefore follow'd him in all his ways.
Through brake and tangled copse, for much he loath'd
All populous haunts, and roam'd in forests rude, To hide himself from man. But I had clothed My delicate limbs with plumes, and still pursued, Where only foxes and wild cats intrude, Till we were come beside an ancient tree
Late blasted by a storm. Here he renew'd His loud complaints, choosing that spot to be The scene of his last horrid tragedy.
It was a wild and melancholy glen,
Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark, Whose roots, like any bones of buried men, Push'd through the rotten sod for fear's remark;
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