He should fetch from the eastern island
The songs that the Peris sing,
And when evening is clear and silent
Spells to thy ear would bring,
And with his mysterious strain
Would entrance thy weary brain—
Love's own music, dearest!
No Phoenix, alas! will hover,
Sent from the morning star;
And then thou must take of thy lover
A gift not brought so far;
Wanting bird and gem and song,
Ah! receive and treasure long
A heart that loves thee, dearest !
THE NIGHT IS CLOSING ROUND, MOTHER.
For variety's sake we cull a flower from the garland of lyrics woven by BARRY CORNWALL. It is full of pathos and poetry; it tells a tale of blighted love; and imaginatiou furnishes to the reader a sad history of the girl, who is supposed to address to her mother this song.
The night is closing round, mother!
The shadows are thick and deep!
All round me they cling, like an iron ring,
And cannot-cannot sleep!
Ah, Heaven! thy hand, thy hand, mother—
Let me lie on thy nursing breast;
They have smitten my brain with a piercing pain-
But 'tis gone! and I now shall rest.
I could sleep a long long sleep, mother!
So, seek me a calm cool bed;
You may lay me low in the virgin snow,
With a moss-bank for my head.
I would lie in the wild wild woods, mother!
Where nought but the birds are known ;
Where nothing is seen but the branches green,
And flow'rs on the greensward strown.
No lovers there witch the air, mother!
Nor mock at the holy sky:
One may live and be gay, like a summer day,
And at last, like the summer-die!
To bend upon the mountains high
The quiet of a loving eye.
I saw them and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high-their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow:
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channelled rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-walled distant town,
And whiter sails go skimmering down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view.
A small green isle-it seemed no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flowers growing,
Of gentle breath and hue:
The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly.
A DOMESTIC QUARREL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
By BARHAM, from The Ingoldsby Legends, a specimen of the best comic poetry.
MRS. PRYCE's tongue ran long, and ran fast;
But patience is apt to wear out at last,
And David Pryce in temper was quick,
So he stretch'd out his hand, and caught hold of a stick;
Perhaps in its use he might mean to be lenient,
But walking just then was not very convenient,
So he threw it, instead,
Direct at her head,
It knocked off her hat;
Down she fell flat;
Her case, perhaps, was not much mended by that:
But whatever it was, whether rage
Produced apoplexy, or burst a vein,
Or her tumble produced a concussion of brain,
I can't say for certain; but this I can—
When, sober'd by fright, to assist her he ran,
Mrs. Winnifred Pryce was as dead-as Queen Anne!
The fearful catastrophe,
Named in my last strophe,
As adding to grim Death's exploits such a vast trophy,
Soon made a great noise; and the shocking fatality
Ran over, like wildfire, the whole Principality.
And then came Mr. Ap Thomas the coroner,
With his jury to sit, some dozen or more, on her.
Mr. Pryce, to commence
"His ingenious defence,"
a powerful appeal" to the jury's "good sense;" The world he must defy,
Any presumption of " malice prepense."
The unlucky lick
From the end of his stick
He "deplored," he was apt to be rather too quick;
But, really, her prating
Some trifling correction was just what he meant; all
The rest, he assured them, was 66
Then he call'd Mr. Jones,
Who deposed to her tones,
And her gestures, and hints about "breaking his bones."
While Mr. Ap Morgan, and Mr. Ap Rhyse
Declared the deceased
Had styled him "a Beast,"
And swore they had witnessed with grief and surprise
The allusions she made to his limbs and his eyes.
The jury, in fine, having sat on the body
The whole day, discussing the case and gin-toddy,
Returned about half-past eleven at night
The following verdict, we find-"Sarved her right!"
From an old number of the Dublin University Magazine, where it appeared anonyinously.
SURE we witness, day by day,
Proof enough that all things gay
From our sight must pass away!
The cistus' tender flow'rs, at morn
In their pearly beauty born,
Ere the evening shrink and die,
Falling earthward silently.
The rose, whose inmost dewy cup
The early sunbeams lifted up,
Unveiling many a ruddy streak,
Lovely as a child's fair cheek,
At nightfall gleameth pale and wan,
Like the cheek of a dying man.
Gently, with a rustling sound,
Shrivell'd lime-leaves reach the ground;
Fairy knells, that tell how soon
Passeth now the year's glad noon.
Flowers we loved have come and gone—
Miss we not many a one
Whose sweet life, alas! is done?
Feel we not a cooler breath
Steal the oaken boughs beneath?
See we not the wood-crown'd height
Changing in our daily sight?
Ah! we cannot, if we will,
Dream that time is standing still.
Well we know the summer hours
Wither like their own frail flowers;
We can number what have past,
Each one swifter than the last.
Dial! here we need not thee,
Marking off our hours of glee,
With thine iron finger's shade
On the iron index laid.
Faded blossom, wither'd leaf,
Mix with joy enough of grief,
Warning us that time is brief:
Gloomy heart must his have been
Who placed thee in this sylvan scene.
Gentle grief is that which breathes
From the cistus' dying wreaths-
From the rose, whose faded bloom
Is like the carving on a tomb-
From the lime-leaves, as they fall
With murmur faintly musical.
Calmly we can bear to see
Changes sad as these may be,—
Calmly see the flowers decay,
Perchance because we've past our May,
And we are alter'd, e'en as they!
We know, too, they shall come again,
With springtide sun and April rain;
And e'en in this we sympathise,
Trusting all in us that dies
Of youth and joy shall bloom once more,
When we land on Eden's shore:
Therefore are we calm at heart,
Though the beautiful depart.
Stern, cold monitor! with thee
We have no such sympathy.
Noting but the hours that run
Gaily in the laughing sun;
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