HEAVEN.

O Heaven!-O beautiful and boundless sky!

Upon whose breasts stars and pale planets lie,

Unnumbered and innumerable, ever

Mocking with bright'ning eyes man's vain endeavour Thou radiant wilderness, through which the moon

Moves like a spirit, without voice or tune
Accompanied, or song or choral shout,

Save what the universal spheres send out
For aye,―inaudible, though vast and deep,—
Thou world of worlds, within whose arms the sun
Awakens; and, when his bright task is done,
Like a reposing child, lies down to sleep,
Amongst thy golden bowers!-

-O gentle heaven!

Art thou indeed the home,-the happy shore,
Where creatures wearied of this earth are driven,—
Where hate is not,-where envy cannot soar,

And nought save unimaginable love,

And tenderest peace (a white and winged dove,)
And beauty and perennial bloom are seen,

And angels breathing in Elysian air

Divinest music, and young shapes, more fair

Than Houris pacing soft through pathways ever green!

Barry Cornwall.

MONODY ON R. B. SHERIDAN.

When the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment, on the bridge where time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,

A holy concord, and a bright regret,

A glorious sympathy with suns that set ?
'Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness-but full and clear,
A sweet dejection-a transparent tear,
Unmixed with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame, and secret without pain.

Even as the tenderness that hour instils When summer's day declines along the hills,

So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes,
When all of genius which can perish dies.
A mighty spirit is eclipsed-a power

Hath passed from day to darkness-to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeathed—no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of fame!
The flash of wit, the bright intelligence,
The beam of song, the blaze of eloquence,
Set with their Sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
Which all embraced-and lightened over all,
To cheer-to pierce-to please-or to appal.
From the charmed council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;

In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied, t

The praised-the proud-who made his praise their pride.
When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan
Arose to heaven in her appeal from man. ::

His was the thunder his the avenging rod,

The wrath-the delegated voice of God!

Which shook the nations through his lips and blazed

Till vanquished senates trembled as they praised.

And here, oh! here, where yet, all young and warm

The gay creations of his spirit charm,...

The matchless dialogue the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit!

CE

The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring

Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring;
These wonderous beings of his fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat;
A halo of the light of other days,

Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.
But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause-ah! little do they know
That what to them seemed vice might be but woe.
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fixed for ever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name,
And folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands centinel-accuser-judge and spy.
The foe the fool-the jealous and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,

Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the pyramid of calumny.

These are his portion-but if joined to these
Gaunt poverty should league with deep disease,
If the high spirit must forget to soar,

And stoop to strive with misery at the door,
To sooth indignity-and face to face
Meet sordid rage-and wrestle with disgrace;
To find in hope but the renewed caress,
The serpent fold of further faithlessness,—
If such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given,
Bear hearts electric—charged with fire from heaven,
Black with the rude collision, inly torn,

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne,
Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere, that nurst
Thoughts which have turned to thunder, scorcht, and burst.

But far from us and from our mimic scene

Such things should be—if such have ever been;