sisted, not in having been the servant of Elizabeth, or the councillor of James, but the bosom friend of the author of the Arcadia. Of such a man we are not to judge by those productions which opportunity allowed him to bring forth. He never, we are told by one most competent to speak, wrote anything for fame; his chief object was to improve the life of himself and others. But he did not labour without his reward. His apology for poetry appeared at a most dark and inauspicious season; yet that stream of sweetly-uttered knowledge, to employ his own words, did not flow in vain; those high-erected thoughts found echoes in other hearts. Of the dignified and Christian strain of his eloquence, you have only to open his Defence to be convinced. The harp of Sion has never been lauded in a more glowing or beautiful eulogium. The highest compliment I can bestow upon the poetry of his friend, Lord Brooke, is, that it has obtained the praise of Southey. Their history has the romance of poetry. They were born, I think, in the same year, educated at the same school, and grew up together in the most affectionate intercourse. Tradition still points out the terrace near Sir Fulke's seat in Warwickshire, where the friends were wont to take their morning walks. THE REMAINS OF A LATE SIZAR OF QUEEN'S. Lighted by that dim torch our sorrow bears, We sadly trace thy coffin with our tears-HENRY KING. THE Author of the following verses is equally beyond the reach of praise or of censure; he is deaf to the voice of the charmer, charm she never so wisely. Death, that constant and tender friend of the forsaken, has at length rocked the sufferer asleep upon his cold pillow. Yet it would have poured some consolation into his wounded and bruised spirit, to have known, that the harp-string to which he had intrusted his name, should win some hearts to its music; that his memory should survive in a few pure and affectionate bosoms. The following poems, with many others, were the amusement of his leisure hours. What he might have accomplished under a kinder fortune, and in a happier condition of mind, it will not benefit him to inquire; but it cheered him to reflect, when all worldly hopes had faded from his heart, that he had written no line which, for its moral tendency, he would "wish to blot." At that awful hour, he felt this assurance to be better than fame. TO A CHILD IN PRAYER. FOLD thy little hands in prayer, Thine eyes are passion-free; And pleasant thoughts, like garlands, bind thee Now thy young heart, like a bird, But Winter cometh, and decay Shall waste thy verdant home away— Thy bosom is a house of glee, And gladness harpeth at the door; Her lips with music running o'er: Now thy mother's voice abideth Round thy pillow in the night; But that sweet voice will fade away; By thee no more those feet will stay- THE LAND OF THORNS. I beheld a strong city in the mountains, in which abode the wise, raising their heads in silence towards heaven, but nobles and servants descended from the city into the plain, and came into the Land of Thorns. And, lo! on a sudden there was a loud cry; fire had broken forth, and great terror had seized the hearts of all. That city, said Zal, is the House of Continuance, the Land of Thorns, the abode of evil here below, where joy and delight, and pain and sorrow, are mingled together; in yonder tower, are numbered the respirations of thy bosom. A storm cometh thence; an earthquake rocks the ground; loud sounds ascend from the deep; but all evil remains in the Land of Thorns, and man goeth to the City in the Clouds.ATKINSON'S Abridgment of the Shah Nameh of Ferdausi. We have left the blue unclouded sky, With weary step and weeping eye, To wander in the LAND OF THORNS! We will not sorrow or repine, Though lone and drear our journey be, For still thine eyes of mercy shine; Father of love! we still have Thee! We still have Thee! the pilgrim's sighs, And in the night-time, round our bed, Thy arm uplifts our aching head, Our half-breathed words to Thee are known. We grieve not that in former years— Thou gavest us the bread of tears, The Persian poet fondly thought, That when the storms of life were past, Into a bower of beauty brought, His happy soul would rest at last. To us a brighter hope is given, When death this mortal frame unshrouds ; We have our Garden-in the Heaven, Our City-in the clouds! |