in 1841, with nine other poems. There followed at intervals-"I watched the Heavens" (1842); "The Queen's Ball" (1847); "Valley of the Rea" (1851); "The Morlas" (1853). The whole of these are included, with short additions, in the volume of 1890 already named; but a considerable number bearing the same mint-mark of genius remain to be collected some day.

'Paul Ferroll" (1853)—a sensational novel, and others, kept her before the public, still as V. But neither the longer poems (ut supra) nor the lesser additions, approached the high level of the inspired "IX," albeit there are "brave translunary things in all, touches that betoken the cunning hand and the visionary eyes-those "larger other eyes" that see into the mystery and sadness of nature and human nature.

In after-editions Mrs. Clive capriciously withdrew the last of the nine poems and went on adding. Even the slightest additions show inestimable technique if in common with her longer poems of "The Queen's Ball," " Valley of the Rea," and "The Morlas," they are somewhat thin of substance. None the less there is none that will not reward study or fail to yield "immortal phrases five words long." Certain recall Shakespeare's splendid metaphor of the dolphin showing its shining back above the element it moves in; for the most commonplace flash out in unforgettable things.

Our poetess died by a lamentable fire accident while seated in her boudoir and among her papers on the 13th of July, 1873.

We have selected, as fairly representative, four out of the IX, Poems "-viz., "At Llyncwmstraethy,"

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"Heart's "The Grave," "Former Home," and Ease," and the autobiographic poem mentioned. It needs no italics to accentuate the weight of thought, the iridescence of fancy, the felicity of metaphor, or the choiceness of epithet of these poems.

ALEXANDER B. GROSART.

IX POEMS.

1840.

CAROLINE CLIVE.

1.-AT LLYNCWMSTRAETHY.

S one, whose country is distraught with war,

AS

Where each must guard his own with watchful hand,

Roams at the evening hour along the shore,

And fain would seek beyond a calmer land;

So I, perplexed on life's tumultuous way,
Where evil pow'rs too oft my soul enslave,
Along thy ocean, Death, all pensive stray,

And think of shores thy further billows lave.

And glad were I to hear the boatman's cry,
Which to his shadowy bark my steps should call,
To woe and weakness heave my latest sigh,
And cease to combat where so oft I fall.

Or happier, where some victory cheer'd my breast,
That hour to quit the anxious field would choose
And seek th' eternal seal on virtue's rest,

I

Oft won, oft lost, and oh, too dear to lose!

II. THE GRAVE.

STOOD within the Grave's o'ershadowing vault;
Gloomy and damp it stretched its vast domain;
Shades were its boundary, for my strained eye sought
For other limit to its width in vain.

Faint from the entrance came a daylight ray,
And distant sound of living men and things;
This, in th' encount'ring darkness pass'd away,
That, took the tone in which a mourner sings.

I lit a torch at a sepulchral lamp,

Which shot a thread of light amid the gloom
And feebly burning 'gainst the rolling damp,
I bore it through the regions of the tomb.

Around me stretch'd the slumbers of the dead,
Whereof the silence ach'd upon mine ear;
More and more noiseless did I make my tread,
And yet its echoes chill'd my heart with fear.

The former men of every age and place,

From all their wanderings gather'd round me lay; The dust of wither'd Empires did I trace, And stood 'mid generations pass'd away.

I saw whole cities, that in flood or fire

Or famine or the plague, gave up their breath; Whole armies whom a day beheld expire,

By thousands swept into the arms of Death.

I saw the old world's white and wave-swept bones,
A gaunt heap of creatures that had been;
Far and confus'd the broken skeletons

Lay strewn beyond mine eye's remotest ken.

Death's various shrines-the urn, the stone, the lampWere scatter'd round, confus'd, amid the dead; Symbols and types were mould'ring in the damp, Their shapes were waning, and their meaning fled.

Unspoken tongues, perchance in praise or woe,
Were character'd on tablets Time had swept;
And deep were half their letters hid below

The thick small dust of those they once had wep

No hand was there to wipe the dust away;
No reader of the writing trac'd beneath;
No spirit sitting by its form of clay;

No sigh nor sound from all the heaps of death.

One place alone had ceased to hold its prey;
A form had press'd it and was there no more;
The garments of the grave beside it lay,

Where once they wrapp'd him on the rocky floor.

He only with returning footsteps broke

Th' eternal calm wherewith the tomb was bound ; Among the sleeping dead alone He woke,

And bless'd with outstretch'd hands the host around.

Well is it that such blessing hovers here,

To soothe each sad survivor of the throng Who haunt the portals of the solemn sphere, And pour their woe the loaded air along.

They to the verge have follow'd what they love,
And on th' insuperable threshold stand;
With cherish'd names its speechless calm reprove,
And stretch in the abyss their ungrasp'd hand.

But vainly there the mourners seek reliet

From silenc'd voice and shapes Decay has swept, Till Death himself shall medicine their grief, Closing their eyes by those o'er whom they wept.

All that have died, the earth's whole race, repose Where Death collects his treasures, heap on heap; O'er each one's busy day the night shades close,

Its actors, sufferers, schools, kings, armies-sleep.