ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN.

I SAW where in the shroud did lurk

A curious frame of Nature's work.

A flow'ret crushed in the bud,

A nameless piece of babyhood,
Was in her cradle-coffin lying:

Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:

So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb!

She did but ope an eye, and put

A clear beam forth, then straight up shut

For the long dark: ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.

Riddle of destiny, who can show

What thy short visit meant, or know

What thy errand here below?

Shall we say, that Nature blind

Check'd her hand, and changed her mind,

Just when she had exactly wrought

A finish'd pattern without fault?

Could she flag, or could she tire,

Or lack'd she the Promethean fire

(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?

Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure

Life of health, and days mature:

Woman's self in miniature!
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to lay beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;

So in mercy left the stock,

And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widow'd; and the pain,
When single state comes back again
To the lone man, who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimed life?
The economy of Heaven is dark;

And wisest clerks have missed the mark,
Why human buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral,

That has his day; while shrivel'd crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of an hundred years.
Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss,
Rites, which custom does impose,
Silver bells and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips,
Which pale death did late eclipse;
Music framed for infants' glee,

Whistle never tuned for thee;

Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,
Loving hearts were they which gave them.

Let not one be missing; nurse,

See them laid upon the hearse
Of infant slain by doom perverse.
Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave;
And we, churls, to thee deny
Thy pretty toys with thee to lie,
A more harmless vanity?

JAMES MONTGOMERY was born in Irvine, in Ayrshire, in 1771. His parents belonged to the church of the United Brethren, commonly called Moravians,-a sect by no means numerous in England, and still more limited in Scotland. Having previously sojourned for a short time at a village in the Irish county of Antrim, they placed the future Poet at the school of their society, at Fulnick, near Leeds, and embarked for the West-Indies, as missionaries among the negro slaves. They were the victims of their zeal and humanity; the husband died in Barbadoes, and the wife in Tobago.

After remaining two years at Fulnick, and, like other men of genius, disappointing the expectations of his friends, as a student "from very indolence," he was placed by them in a retail shop at Mirfield, near Wakefield. This ungenial employment he considered himself not being under indentures-at liberty to relinquish at the end of two years, with a view to try his fortune in the great world. After spending other two years at a village near Rotherham and a few months with a bookseller in London, he engaged as an assistant with Mr. Joseph Gales, of Sheffield, who published a newspaper;-to the management of which, in 1794, he succeeded. This, though conducted with comparative moderation, exposed him to much enmity—rather inherited by his predecessor than actually incurred by himself. The liberty of the press, in those days, was, like Faith, "the substance of things hoped for;" a sentence of condemnation, or even a word of reproach against men in “high places" was punished as libellous. Montgomery did not indeed share the fate of some of his stern sectarian forefathers; but, in lieu of maiming and pillory, he had to endure fine and imprisonment. Within eighteen months, and when he had scarcely arrived at manhood, his exertions in the cause of rational freedom had twice consigned him to a gaol. During the thirty years that followed, however, he was permitted to publish his opinions-without being the object of open persecution. Wearied out, at length, he relinquished his newspaper, in 1825. Recently one of the government grants to British Worthies has been conferred upon him; and -it must be recorded to his honour-by Sir Robert Peel. The Poet continues to reside at Sheffield,-esteemed, admired, and beloved: a man of purer mind, or more unsuspected integrity, never existed. He is an honour to the profession of letters; and, by the upright and unimpeachable tenor of his life-even more than by his

writings-the persuasive and convincing advocate of religion. In his personal appearance, Montgomery is rather below than above the middle stature: his countenance is peculiarly bland and tranquil; and, but for the occasional sparklings of a clear gray eye, it could scarcely be described as expressive.

Very early in life Montgomery published a volume of poems. They were not, it would appear, favourably received by the public; and, he writes, the disappointment of his premature poetical hopes brought with it a blight, which his mind has never recovered. "For many years," he adds, "I was as mute as a moulting bird; and when the power of song returned, it was without the energy, self-confidence, and freedom, which happier minstrels among my contemporaries have manifested." The Wanderer of Switzerland was published in 1806; the West Indies, in 1810; the World before the Flood, in 1813; Greenland, in 1819; the Pelican Island, in 1827: he has since contented himself with the production of occasional verses.

Those who can distinguish the fine gold from the "sounding brass" of poetry, must place the name of James Montgomery high in the list of British Poets; and those who consider that the chiefest duty of such is to promote the cause of religion, virtue, and humanity, must acknowledge in him one of their most zealous and efficient advocates. He does not, indeed, often aim at bolder flights of imagination; but if he seldom rises above, he never sinks beneath, the object of which he desires the attainment. If he rarely startles us, he still more rarely leaves us dissatisfied; he does not attempt that to which his powers are unequal,-and therefore is, at all times, successful. To the general reader, it will seem as if the early bias of his mind and his first associations had tinged— we may not say tainted-the source from whence he drew his inspirations, and that his poems are "sicklied o'er" with peculiar impressions and opinions which fail to excite the sympathy of the great mass of mankind. We should, however, recollect, that although he has chiefly addressed himself to those who think with him, his popularity is by no means confined to them; but that those who read poetry for the delight it affords them, and without any reference to his leading design, acknowledge his merit, and contribute to his fame.

MONTGOMERY.

THE GRAVE.

THERE is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found,—
They softly lie and sweetly sleep

Low in the ground.

The storm that wrecks the winter sky
No more disturbs their deep repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh

That shuts the rose.

I long to lay this painful head
And aching heart beneath the soil,-

To slumber in that dreamless bed,

From all my toil.

For misery stole me at my birth,
And cast me helpless on the wild :

I perish! O my mother earth

Take home thy child!

On thy dear lap these limbs reclined,
Shall gently moulder into thee;
Nor leave one wretched trace behind
Resembling me.