Has fortune frowned? Her frowns were vain, Twin barks on this world's changing wave, And watched our first-born blossom die ? To think, 'mid mutual tears and sighs, Our bud had left its earthly bower, And burst to bloom in Paradise? What to the thought that soothed that wo Yes, it is sweet, when heaven is bright, Then dry those tears-though something changed Sweet feelings we would not forego For life's best joys ten years ago. My Mother's Grave. [By Thomas Aird.] O rise and sit in soft attire, A crown of brightest stars to thee! I came not-and I cry to save Men wonder till I pass away- O life and power! that I might see I might have lived, and thou on earth, I feel as in the world alone. The wind that lifts the streaming tree- I feel a hand untwist the chain, Of mother's love, with strange cold pain Because my life of thee was part, And decked with blood-drops of thy heart: Because I know there is not one My punishment that I was far I could not come to bind thy brow: Alas for me! that hour is old, My hands, for this, shall miss their hold: Yet, sweet thy rest from mortal strife, Thou carest not now for soft attire, The Death of the Warrior King. There are noble heads bowed down and pale, And tears flow fast around the couch I saw him in the banquet hour To seek his favourite minstrel's haunt, He loved that spell-wrought strain Then seemed the bard to cope with Time, While horse and foot-helm, shield, and lance, But battle shout and waving plume, Are sights and sounds the dying king It was the hour of deep midnight, When, with sable cloak and 'broidered pall, Dull and sad fell the torches' glare On many a stately crestThey bore the noble warrior king To his last dark home of rest. The Convict Ship. [By T. K. Hervey.] Morn on the waters! and, purple and bright, And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale; Night on the waves!-and the moon is on high, Look to the waters !-asleep on their breast, "Tis thus with our life, while it passes along, As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears; Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below; Prayer. [By W. Beckford, author of Vathek."] Like the low murmur of the secret stream, In the recesses of the forest vale, On the wild mountain, on the verdant sod, Where the fresh breezes of the morn prevail, I wander lonely, communing with God. When the faint sickness of a wounded heart Creeps in cold shudderings through my sinking frame, I turn to thee that holy peace impart, Which soothes the invokers of thy awful name! O all-pervading Spirit! sacred beam! Parent of life and light! Eternal Power! Grant me through obvious clouds one transient gleam Of thy bright essence in my dying hour! Sonnet written on the Burial-ground of his Ancestors. [By Walter Paterson.] Never, O never on this sacred ground Can I let fall my eye, but it will gaze, That lies on those who lived in earliest days, The oldest grave receives the soonest bier: It is not for the dead my tears do flow, But for the living that must soon lie here. Ode on the Duke of Wellington, 1814. Victor of Assaye's orient plain, Welcome! from dangers greatly dared; Unconquered! yet thy honours claim Thy generous soul had blushed: The blood-the tears the world has shedThe throngs of mourners-piles of deadThe grief-the guilt-are on his head, The tyrant thou hast crushed. Thine was the sword which Justice draws; The impious thrall to burst; And in that art the first. And we, who in the eastern skies His proud meridian height. [The November Fog of London.] [By Henry Luttrel.] First, at the dawn of lingering day, It rises of an ashy gray; Then deepening with a sordid stain Of yellow, like a lion's mane. Vapour importunate and dense, It wars at once with every sense. The ears escape not. All around Returns a dull unwonted sound. Loath to stand still, afraid to stir, The chilled and puzzled passenger, Oft blundering from the pavement, fails To feel his way along the rails; Or at the crossings, in the roll Of every carriage dreads the pole. Scarce an eclipse, with pall so dun, Blots from the face of heaven the sun. But soon a thicker, darker cloak Wraps all the town, behold, in smoke, Which steam-compelling trade disgorges From all her furnaces and forges In pitchy clouds, too dense to rise, Descends rejected from the skies; Till struggling day, extinguished quite, At noon gives place to candle-light. O Chemistry, attractive maid, Descend, in pity, to our aid: Come with thy all-pervading gases, Thy crucibles, retorts, and glasses, Thy fearful energies and wonders, Thy dazzling lights and mimic thunders; Let Carbon in thy train be seen, Dark Azote and fair Oxygen, And Wollaston and Davy guide The car that bears thee at thy side. If any power can, any how, O join (success a thing of course is) In this period many translations from classic and foreign poets have appeared, at the head of which stands the version of Dante by the REV. H. F. CARY -universally acknowledged to be one of the most felicitous attempts ever made to transfuse the spirit and conceptions of a great poet into a foreign tongue. The third edition of this translation was published in 1831. Versions of Homer, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Oberon of the German poet Wieland, have been published by WILLIAM SOTHEBY, whose original poems have already been noticed. The comedies of Aristophanes have been well translated, with all their quaint drollery and sarcasm, by MR MITCHELL, late fellow of Sidney-Sussex college, Cambridge. LORD STRANGFORD has given translations from the Portuguese poet Camoens; and DR JOHN BOWRING, specimens of Russian, Dutch, ancient Spanish, Polish, Servian, and Hungarian poetry. A good translation of Tasso has been given by J. H. WIFFEN, and of Ariosto by MR STEWART ROSE. LORD FRANCIS EGERTON, MR BLACKIE, and others, have translated the Faust of Goëthe; and the general cultivation of the German language in England has led to the translation of various imaginative and critical German works in prose. MR J. G. LOCKHART's translation of Spanish ballads has enriched our lyrical poetry with some romantic songs. The ballads of Spain, like those of Scotland, are eminently national in character and feeling, and bear testimony to the strong passions and chivalrous imagination of her once high-spirited people. SCOTTISH POETS. ROBERT BURNS. After the publication of Fergusson's poems, in a collected shape, in 1773, there was an interval of about thirteen years, during which no writer of eminence arose in Scotland who attempted to excel in the native language of the country. The intellectual taste of the capital ran strongly in favour of metaphysical and critical studies; but the Doric muse was still heard in the rural districts linked to some popular air, some local occurrence or favourite spot, and was much cherished by the lower and middling classes of the people. In the summer of 1786, ROBERT BURNS, the Shakspeare of Scotland, issued his first volume from the obscure press of Kilmarnock, and its influence was immediately felt, and is still operating on the whole imaginative literature of the kingdom.* Burns was The edition consisted of 600 copies. A second was published in Edinburgh in April 1787, no less than 2800 copies being subscribed for by 1500 individuals. After his unexampled popularity in Edinburgh, Burns took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries, married his bonny Jean,' and entered upon his new occupation at Whitsunday 1788. He had obtained an appointment as an exciseman, but the duties of this office, and his own convivial habits, interfered with his management of the farm, and he was glad to abandon it. In 1791 he removed to the town of Dumfries, subsisting entirely on his situation in then in his twenty-seventh year, having been born in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, on the 25th of January 1759. His father was a poor farmer, a man of sterling worth and intelligence, who gave his son what education he could afford. The whole, however, was but a small foundation on which to erect the miracles of genius! Robert was taught Robert Burns. English well, and 'by the time he was ten or eleven years of age, he was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles.' He was also taught to write, had a fortnight's French, and was one summer-quarter at land-surveying. He had a few books, among which were the Spectator, Pope's Works, Allan Ramsay, and a collection of English songs. Subsequently (about his twenty-third year) his reading was enlarged with the important addition of Thomson, Shenstone, Sterne, and Mackenzie. Other standard works soon followed. As the advantages of a liberal education were not within his reach, it is scarcely to be regretted that his library was at first so small. What books he had, he read and studied thoroughlyhis attention was not distracted by a multitude of volumes-and his mind grew up with original and robust vigour. It is impossible to contemplate the life of Burns at this time, without a strong feeling of affectionate admiration and respect. His manly integrity of character (which, as a peasant, he guarded with jealous dignity), and his warm and true heart, elevate him, in our conceptions, almost as much as the native force and beauty of his poetry. the excise, which yielded L.70 per annum. Here he published, in 1793, a third edition of his poems, with the addition of Tam o' Shanter, and other pieces composed at Ellisland. He died at Dumfries on the 21st of July 1796, aged thirty-seven years and about six months. The story of his life is so well known, that even this brief statement of dates seems unnecessary. In 1798 a fourth edition of his works was published in Edinburgh. Two years afterwards, in 1800, appeared the valuable and complete edition of Dr Currie, in four volumes, containing the correspondence of the poet, and a number of songs, contributed to Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, and Thomson's Select Scottish Melodies. The editions of Burns since 1800 could with difficulty be ascertained; they were reckoned a few years ago at about a hundred. His poems circulate in every shape, and have not yetgathered all their fame.' We see him in the veriest shades of obscurity toiling. when a mere youth, like a galley-slave,' to support his virtuous parents and their household, yet grasping at every opportunity of acquiring knowledge from men and books-familiar with the history of his country, and loving its very soil-worshipping the memory of Scotland's ancient patriots and defenders, and exploring every scene and memorial of departed greatness-loving also the simple peasantry around him, 'the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers.' Burning with a desire to do something for old Scotland's sake, with a heart beating with warm and generous emotions, a strong and clear understanding, and a spirit abhorring all meanness, insincerity, and oppression, Burns, in his early days, might have furnished the subject for a great and instructive moral poem. The true elements of poetry were in his life, as in his writings. The wild stirrings of his ambition (which he so nobly compared to the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave'), the precocious maturity of his passions and his intellect, his manly frame, that led him to fear no competitor at the plough, and his exquisite sensibility and tenderness, that made him weep over even the destruction of a daisy's flower or a mouse's nest, these are all moral contrasts and blendings that seem to belong to the spirit of romantic poetry. His writings, as we now know, were but the fragments of a great mind-the hasty outpourings of a full heart and intellect. After he had become the fashionable wonder and idol of his day-soon to be cast into cold neglect and poverty!-some errors and frailties threw a shade on the noble and affecting image, but its higher lineaments were never destroyed. The column was defaced, not broken; and now that the mists of prejudice have cleared away, its just proportions and exalted symmetry are recognised with pride and gratitude by his admiring countrymen. No Burns came as a potent auxiliary or fellow-worker with Cowper, in bringing poetry into the channels of truth and nature. There were only two years between the Task and the Cotter's Saturday Night. poetry was ever more instantaneously or univer sally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. It seemed as if a new realm had been added to the dominions of the British muse-a new and glorious creation, fresh from the hand of nature. There was the humour of Smollett, the pathos and tenderness of Sterne or Richardson, the real life of Fielding, and the description of Thomson-all united in delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by an Ayrshire ploughman! The volume contained matter for all minds-for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. So eagerly was the book sought after, that, where copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. The subsequent productions of the poet did not materially affect the estimate of his powers formed from his first volume. His life was at once too idle and too busy for continuous study; and, alas! it was too brief for the full maturity and development of his talents. Where the intellect predominates equally with the imagination (and this was the case with Burns), increase of years generally adds to the strength and variety of the poet's powers; and we have no doubt that, in ordinary circumstances. Burns, like Dryden, would have improved with age, and added greatly to his fame, had he not fallen at so early a period, before his imagination could be enriched with the riper fruits of knowledge and experience. He meditated a national drama; but we might have looked with more 1 confidence for a series of tales like Tam o' Shanter, which (with the elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson, one of the most highly finished and most precious of his works) was produced in his happy residence at Ellisland. Above two hundred songs Burns's House, Dumfries. overpowering feeling takes possession of the imagination. The susceptibility of the poet inspired him with real emotions and passion, and his genius reproduced them with the glowing warmth and truth of nature. Tam o' Shanter' is usually considered to be Burns's masterpiece: it was so considered by himself, and the judgment has been confirmed by Campbell, Wilson, Montgomery, and almost every critic. It displays more various powers than any of his other productions, beginning with low comic humour and Bacchanalian revelry (the dramatic scene at the commencement is unique, even in Burns), and ranging through the various styles of the descriptive, the terrible, the supernatural, and the ludicrous. The originality of some of the phrases and sentiments, as Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious- the felicity of some of the similes, and the elastic But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben! I'm wae to think upo' yon den, Even for your sake! The Jolly Beggars is another strikingly original production. It is the most dramatic of his works, and the characters are all finely sustained. Of the Cotter's Saturday Night, the Mountain Daisy, or the Mouse's Nest, it would be idle to attempt any eulogy. In these Burns is seen in his fairest colours were, however, thrown off by Burns in his latter years, and they embraced poetry of all kinds. Mr Moore became a writer of lyrics, as he informs his readers, that he might express what music conveyed to himself. Burns had little or no technical knowledge of music. Whatever pleasure he derived from it, was the result of personal associations-the words to which airs were adapted, or the locality with which they were connected. His whole soul, however, was full of the finest harmony. So quick and genial were his sympathies, that he was easily stirred into lyrical melody by whatever was good and beautiful in nature. Not a bird sang in a bush, nor a burn glanced in the sun, but it was eloquence and music to his ear. He fell in love with every fine female face he saw; and thus kindled up, his feelings took the shape of song, and the words fell as naturally into their places as if prompted by the most perfect knowledge of music. The inward melody needed no artificial accompaniment. An attempt at a longer poem would have chilled his ardour; but a song embodying some one leading idea, some burst of passion, love, patriotism, or humour, was exactly suited to the impulsive nature-not with all his strength, but in his happiest and of Burns's genius, and to his situation and circumstances. His command of language and imagery, always the most appropriate, musical, and graceful, was a greater marvel than the creations of a Handel or Mozart. The Scottish poet, however, knew many old airs-still more old ballads; and a few bars of the music, or a line of the words, served as a keynote to his suggestive fancy. He improved nearly all he touched. The arch humour, gaiety, simplicity, and genuine feeling of his original songs, will be felt as long as rivers roll and woods are green.' They breathe the natural character and spirit of the country, and must be coeval with it in existence. Wherever the words are chanted, a picture is presented to the mind; and whether the tone be plaintive and sad, or joyous and exciting, one most heartfelt inspiration-his brightest sunshine and his tenderest tears. The workmanship of these leading poems is equal to the value of the materials. The peculiar dialect of Burns being a composite of Scotch and English, which he varied at will (the Scotch being generally reserved for the comic and tender, and the English for the serious and lofty), his diction is remarkably rich and copious. No poet is more picturesque in expression. This was the result equally of accurate observation, careful study, and strong feeling. His energy and truth stamp the highest value on his writings. He is as literal as Cowper. The banks of the Doon are described as faithfully as those of the Ouse; and his views of human life and manners are as real and as finely moralised. His range of subjects, however, was 73 |