Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!
Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And youth is abroad in my green domains.

But yeye are changed since ye met me last! There is something bright from your features pass'd! There is that come over your brow and eye Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die! -Ye smile! but your smile hath a dimness yet: Oh! what have you look'd on since last we met?

Ye are changed, ye are changed!-and I see not here

All whom I saw in the vanish'd year!

There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright,

Which toss'd in the breeze with a play of light; There were eyes in whose glistening laughter lay No faint remembrance of dull decay!

There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head, As if for a banquet all earth were spread; [sky, There were voices that rang through the sapphire And had not a sound of mortality!

["The Voice of Spring,' perhaps the best known and best loved of all Mrs Hemans' lyrics, was written early in the year 1823; and is thus alluded to in a letter to a friend, who had lately suffered a severe and sudden bereavement :- The Voice of Spring' expresses some peculiar feelings of my own. Although my life has yet been unvisited by any affliction so deeply impressive, in all its circumstances, as the one you have been called upon to sustain; yet I cannot but feel every year, with the return of the violet, how much the shadows of my mind have deepened since its last appearance; and to me the spring, with all its joy and beauty, is generally a time of thoughtfulness rather than mirth. I think the most delightful poetry I know upon the subject of this season, is contained in the works of Tieck, a German poet, with whom you are perhaps acquainted; but the feelings he expresses are of a very different character from those I have described to you, seeming all to proceed from an overflowing sense of life and joy.' "This indefinable feeling of languor and depression produced by the influence of spring, will be well understood by many a gentle heart. Never do the

'Fond strange yearnings from the soul's deep cell
Gush for the faces we no more shall see,'

with such uncontrollable power, as when all external nature breathes of life and gladness. Amidst all the bright and joyous things around us, we are haunted with images of death and the grave. The force of contrast, not less strong than that of analogy, is unceasingly reminding us of the great gulf that divides us from those who are now gone down in silence. Some unforgotten voice is ever whisperingAnd I too in Arcadia!' We remember how we were wont to rejoice in the soft air and pleasant sunshine; and these things can charm us no longer, because they are not.' The farewell sadness of autumn, on the contrary-its falling

Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains pass'd?

Ye have look'd on death since ye met me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o'er you now-
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to earth's embrace-
She hath taken the fairest of beauty's race,
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown:
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!

They are gone from amongst you, the young and fair,

Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair! But I know of a land where there falls no blight-I shall find them there, with their eyes of light! Where Death midst the blooms of the morn may dwell,

I tarry no longer-farewell, farewell!

The summer is coming, on soft winds borne-
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore-
Ye are mark'd by care, ye are mine no more;
I go where the loved who have left you dwell,
And the flowers are not Death's. Fare ye well,
farewell!

leaves, and universal imagery of decay, by bringing more home to us the sense of our own mortality, identifies us more closely with those who are gone before, and the veil of sepa ration becomes, as it were, more transparent. We are impressed with a more pervading conviction that we shall go to them; while, in spring, every thing seems mournfully to echo, they will not return to us!'

"These peculiar associations may be traced in many of Mrs Hemans' writings, deepening with the influence of years and of sorrows, and more particularly developed in the poem called 'Breathings of Spring.' And when it is remembered that it was at this season her own earthly course was finished, the following passage from a letter, written in the month of May, some years after the one last quoted, cannot be read without emotion - Poor A. H. is to be buried to-morrow. With the bright sunshine laughing around, it seems more sad to think of; yet, if I could choose when I would wish to die, it should be in spring-the influence of that season is so strangely depressing to my heart and frame.'”—Memoir, p. 66-68.

"The Voice of Spring,' one of the first of what may be called Mrs Hemans' fanciful lyrics, which presently became as familiar as the music of some popular composer when brought to our doors by wandering minstrels."—CHORLEY'S Memorials, vol. i. p. 113.

"But it is time Mrs Hemans' poetry were allowed to speak for itself; in making our extracts from it, we have really been as much puzzled as a child gathering flowers in a lovely garden -now attracted by a rose-straightway allured by a lily-now tempted by a stately tulip-and again unsettled by a breath. ing violet, or well-attired woodbine.' We do think, how. ever, that the Voice of Spring' is the pride of Mrs H.'s parterre-the rose of her poetry."-(A. A. WATTS.)-Literary Magnet, 1826.]