And ever, ever to her lap he flies, When rosy sleep comes on with sweet surprise. FROM “COLUMBUS.” THE ANGEL TO COLUMBUS IN HIS DREAM. The wind recalls thee; its still voice obey: Not then to leave thee! to their vengeance cast To other eyes shall Mexico unfold Her feather'd tapestries and her roofs of gold: What though thy gray hairs to the dust descend, 1 The evil spirits of the storm. The admiral's voyage home was so extremely tempestuous, that, in despair, he committed his secret to the deep;" viz., an account of the discovery enclosed in a cask, in the hope that fortune might convey it to a civilized shore. 2 See Eschylus Eumenid., v. 246.-Columbus was doomed to much subsequent affliction. 3 Cortez was the discoverer and conqueror of Mexico; Balboa of the Pacific.-See Robertson's America. See Robertson, Book ii.; and Washington Irving's Columbus. There go the sons of him who discovered these fatal countries."-History by Don Ferdinand, the son of Columbus.-(Author's note.) The Florentine Amerigo Vespucci.-Robertson. That world a prison-house, full of sights of woe, Not thine the olive but the sword to bring; Not peace but war! yet from these shores shall spring Hence, and rejoice. The glorious work is done; REV. JAMES GRAHAME. (1765-1811.) JAMES GRAHAME exchanged the profession of a Scottish barrister for that of a curate in the Church of England. Amiable, modest, pious, and assiduous in his ecclesiastical ministrations, he was deeply regretted on his death in Scotland in 1811. His poetry consists of a drama, " Mary Queen of Scots ;" "The Sabbath," with which his name is chiefly associated; "The Birds of Scotland," ""British Georgics," &c. His writing is moulded on the model of Cowper, full of Scottish associations, earnest and beautiful in spirit; it is somewhat deficient in compactness of picture and harmony of numbers. ! Bloodhounds were employed by the Spaniards in tracking the "rebel" Indians. 2 The Spanish government rewarded with neglect and disgrace, Columbus forming the first example, almost all those whose conquests in America had added empires to the Spanish crown.-Many of the Spanish oppressors died violent deaths.-" Almost all," says Las Casas, "have perished: the innocent blood cried aloud for vengeance; the sighs and tears of so many victims went up before God."-(Author's note.) The prophecy of universal peace and pure Christianity in these countries is of course yet to be fulfilled. 3 Historians have enumerated her American possessions among the causes of the decline of the Spanish monarchy.-Robertson. THE SCOTTISH SABBATH SERVICE. Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile, Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe : Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-pav'd ground; Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes 66 THE SABBATH SERVICE OF THE SHEPHERD BOY." In some lone glen, where every sound is lulled And wonders why he weeps; the volume closed, Where humble lore is learn'd, while humble wort'ı Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen, The shepherd boy the Sabbath holy keeps. THE SABBATH OF WAR. Of all the murderous trades by mortals plied, 'Tis war alone that never violates The hallowed day by simulant respect, By hypocritic rest: no, no, the work proceeds. That give the sign to slip the leash for slaughter.1 Pealing with sulphurous tongue, speak death-fraught words :2 Of larks, descending to their grass-bowered homes, SCOTTISH SABBATH EVENING PICTURE. Oh Scotland! much I love thy tranquil dales; To commune with his God in secret prayer,— 1 "Church steeples are frequently used as signal posts." Slip the leash; comp."I see you stand, like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start."-Shakesp. Hen v., Act iii. Sc. 3. "Let slip the dogs of war."-Ib. J. Cæs., Act iii. Sc. 1. Alluding to church bells melted for French cannon. "After a heavy cannonade, the shivered branches of trees, and the corpses of the killed, are seen floating together down the rivers.” More happy far that man, though bowed down, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. (1770- .) A GREAT portion of Mr Wordsworth's life, since the completion of his education at Cambridge, has been passed amidst the mountain seclusion of Rydal Lake, in Westmoreland. His genius was complimented with the laureateship on the death of Mr Southey. No man, perhaps, ever made poetry, not merely the constructive part of the art, but its whole feelings and contemplations, so completely his occupation. His youth fell fortunately in an age when the poetical literature of England had begun to revive; but the criticism of the times, independently of political animosities, did not yet seem to have tempered its taste to the novel music of the "Lake" bards. Cowper, and Burns, and Crabbe had struck out new paths, and the academic steps of Wordsworth followed their track into nature with such literal fidelity as to border on the practical exaggeration of his own theory respecting the extent of field and minuteness of variety afforded by nature for the purposes of poetry. His new poetical experiment, in which Mr Coleridge shared, appeared in the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The poet and his associated friends struggled stoutly against the ridicule and hostility which their "school" drew down on them; and their perseverance has been rewarded in the popularity of much that was so mercilessly derided. The feelings touched by some of these pieces, their pathos, and truth to nature, won them way in popular estimation. Mr Wordsworth's great work, "The Excursion," is a portion of a philosophical poem, in three parts, to be entitled "The Recluse," 99.66 containing views of man, nature, and society," "having for its principal object the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement." The portion published presents a group of beautiful and profound thoughts,-of splendid and pathetic descriptions, united by a slight narrative, resulting from the poet's accidentally meeting a Scottish pedlar, "the grey-haired Wanderer," whose peculiar education has made him a moralist, a philosopher, and a Christian. They join, and are joined by, other personages, and the poem consists chiefly of a semi-dramatic exchange of argument and sentiment among the characters. The main moral seems to be to justify the ways of God to man, and to encourage the hopes of the wretched beyond the grave. The ethereal metaphysical speculations of the Excursion render the thought often obscure, or at least difficult to be apprehended; but the calm beauty of its pictures of solitude,—of lowly, suffering worth,—the fre 1 Compare Cowper's more rich and expanded picture-Task, Book vi., "He is the happy man," &c. 2 From the residence of Mr Wordsworth, Mr Southey, and Mr Coleridge, near each other among the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland, they and their "school" were termed in ridicule, by some of the reviews, the Lake Poets." 3 See Works, vol. iv., Edit 1827. 4 Mr Wordsworth's first publication was 1793. * Consult the noble "Prospectus" of the design, Works, vol. v., Preface, Edit. 1827 |