By staring in the face of all the winds,

The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay, So from the sad aspects of different things

Nor springs the beast of havock on his prey, My soul shall pluck a courage, and bear up

Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way, Against the past. And now-for Hindostan.

Till thou the guilty land hast sealed for wo.

God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign
HENRY HART MILMAN.

The billows of the proud their rage suppress;
The Rev. HENRY HART MILMAN, vicar of St Father of mercies! at one word of thine
Mary, in the town of Reading, is author of several

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness ! poems and dramas, recently collected and published and fountains sparkle in the arid sands, in three volumes. He first appeared as an author And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands, in 1817, when his tragedy of Fazio was published. And marble cities crown the laughing lands, It was afterwards acted with success at Drury Lane

And pillared temples rise thy name to bless. theatre. In 1820 Mr Milman published a dramatic O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke, O Lord ! poem, the Fall of Jerusalem, and to this succeeded The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate, three other dramas, Belshazzar, the Martyr of An- Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword, tioch, and Anne Boleyn, but none of these were de- Even her foes wept to see her fallen state; signed for the stage. He has also written a narra. And heaps her ivory palaces became, tive poem, Samor, Lord of the Bright City, and Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame, several smaller pieces. To our prose literature Mr Her temple sank amid the smouldering flame, Milman has contributed a History of the Jews, in For thou didst ride the tempest-cloud of fate. three volumes, and an edition of Gibbon's Rome, with notes and corrections. Mr Milman is a native O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam, of London, son of an eminent physician, Sir Francis

And the sad city lift her crownless head; Milman, and was born in the year 1791. He dis-And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam, tinguished himself as a classical scholar, and in 1815

Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the

dead. was made a fellow of Brazen-nose college, Oxford. He also held (1821) the office of professor of poetry The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers, in the university. The taste and attainments of On Carmel's side our maiden's cull the flowers, Mr Milman are seen in his poetical works; but he To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers, wants the dramatic spirit, and also that warmth of

And angel-feet the glittering Sion tread. passion and imagination which is necessary to vivify Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand, his sacred learning and his classical creations.

And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves ;

With fettered steps we left our pleasant land, (Jerusalem before the Siege.]

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves. Titus. It must be

The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep, And yet it moves me, Romans! It confounds And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep, The counsel of my firm philosophy,

’Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep, That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er,

Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves. And barren salt be gown on yon proud city.

The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy; As on our olive-crowned hill we stand,

Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children bome; Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters

He that went forth a tender yearling boy, Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come. As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,

And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear. How boldly doth it front us! how majestically! And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare; Like a luxurious vineyard, the hill-side

And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer, Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line,

Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blazed the Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still, and nearer

irradiate dome. To the blue heavens. There bright and sumptuous

palaces, With cool and verdant gardens interspersed ;

[Summons of the Destroying Angel to the City of There towers of war that frown in massy strength;

Babylon.] While over all hangs the rich purple eve,

The hour is come! the hour is come! With voice As conscious of its being her last farewell

Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee,
Of light and glory to that fated city.
And, as our clouds of battle, dust and smoke,

Cyrus, the Lord's anointed! And thou river,

That flowest exulting in thy proud approach
Are melted into air, behold the temple
In undisturbed and lone serenity,

To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls,
Finding itself a solemn sanctuary

And brazen gates, and gilded palaces, In the profound of heaven! It stands before us

And groves, that gleam with marble obelisks, A mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles !

Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights

Fretted and chequered like the starry heavens: The very sun, as though he worshipped there, I do arrest thee in thy stately course, Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs, And down the long and branching porticos,

By Him that poured thee from thine ancient fountain,

And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time, On every flowery-sculptured capital, Glitters the homage of his parting beams.

One of his holy streams, to lave the mounts

Of Paradise. Thou hear'st me: thou dost check
By Hercules! the sight might almost win
The offended majesty of Rome to mercy.

Abrupt thy waters as the Arab chief
His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved

Yet toiling Persian breaks the ruining mound, [Hymn of the Captive Jews.)

I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength; (From • Belshazzar.']

And, through the deep and roaring Naharmalcha, God of the thunder! from whose cloudy seat

Roll on as proudly conscious of fulfilling The fiery winds of desolation flow :

The omnipotent command! While, far away, Father of vengeance ! that with purple feet,

The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved, Like a full wine-press, tread'st the world below: Save by the rippling moonshine, heaves on high

a

Its foaming surface like a whirlpool-gulf,

To mourn their fading forms with childish tears. And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide. Gray birch and aspen light she loved, that droop But silent as thy billows used to flow,

Fringing the crystal stream; the sportive breeze And terrible, the hosts of Elam move,

That wantoned with her brown and glossy locks; Winding their darksome way profound, where man The sunbeam chequering the fresh bank; ere dawn Ne'er trod, nor light e'er shone, nor air from heaven Wandering, and wandering still at dewy eve, Breathed. Oh! ye secret and unfathomed depths, By Glenderamakin's flower empurpled marge, How are ye now a smooth and royal way

Derwent's blue lake, or Greta's wildering glen. For the army of God's vengeance ! Fellow-slaves Rare sound to her was human voice, scarce heard, And ministers of the Eternal purpose,

Save of her aged nurse or shepherd maid Not guided by the treacherous, injured sons

Soothing the child with simple tale or song. Of Babylon, but by my mightier arm,

Hence all she knew of earthly hopes and fears, Ye come, and spread your banners, and display Life's sins and sorrows : better known the voice Your glittering arms as ye advance, all white Beloved of lark from misty morning cloud Beneath the admiring moon. Come on! the gates Blithe carolling, and wild melodious notes Are open--not for banqueters in blood

Heard mingling in the summer wood, or plaint Like you! I see on either side o’erflow

By moonlight, of the lone night-warbling bird. The living deluge of armed men, and cry,

Nor they of love unconscious, all around Begin, begin! with fire and sword begin

Fearless, familiar they their descants sweet The work of wrath. Upon my shadowy wings Tuned emulous; her knew all living shapes I pause, and float a little while, to see

That tenant wood or rock, dun roe or deer, Mine human instruments fulfil my task

Sunning his dappled side, at noontide crouched, Of final ruin. Then I mount, I fly,

Courting her fond caress; nor fled her gaze And sing my proud song, as I ride the clouds, The brooding dove, but murmured sounds of joy. That stars may hear, and all the hosts of worlds, That live along the interminable space,

The Day of Judgnient. Take up Jehovah's everlasting triumph!

Even thus amid thy pride and luxury, [The Pair Recluse.]

Oh earth! shall that last coming burst on thee, [From Samor, Lord of the Bright City.']

That secret coming of the Son of Man,

When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine, Sunk was the sun, and up the eastern heaven, Irradiate with his bright advancing sign: Like maiden on a lonely pilgrimage,

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan, Moved the meek star of eve; the wandering air Breathed odours; wood, and waveless lake, like man, Still to the noontide of that nightless day

Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away; Slept, weary of the garish, babbling day.

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain. Dove of the wilderness, thy snowy wing

Along the busy mart and crowded street, Droops not in slumber; Lilian, thou alone,

The buyer and the seller still shall meet, 'Mid the deep quiet, wakest. Dost thou rove,

And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain ; Idolatrous of yon majestic moon,

Still to the pouring out the cup of wo; That like a crystal-throned queen in heaven,

Till earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro, Seems with her present deity to hush

And mountains molten by his burning feet, To beauteous adoration all the earth?

And heaven his presence own, all red with furnace Might seem the solemn silent mountain tops

heat. Stand up and worship! the translucent streams Down the hills glittering, cherish the pure light

The hundred-gated cities then, Beneath the shadowy foliage o'er them flung

The towers and temples, named of men At intervals; the lake, so silver-white,

Eternal, and the thrones of kings; Glistens; all indistinct the snowy swans

The gilded summer palaces, Bask in the radiance cool. Doth Lilian muse

The courtly bowers of love and ease, To that apparent queen her vesper hymn?

Where still the bird of pleasure sings : Nursling of solitude, her infant couch

Ask ye the destiny of them! Never did mother watch; within the grave

Go, gaze on fallen Jerusalem! She slept unwaking: scomful turned aloof

Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, Caswallon, of those pure instinctive joys

'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled ; By fathers felt, when playful infant grace,

The skies are shrivelled like a burning scroll, Touched with a feminine softness, round the heart And one vast common doom ensepulchres the world. Winds its light maze of undefined delight,

Oh! who shall then survive ? Contemptuous : he with haughty joy beheld

Oh! who shall stand and live ? His boy, fair Malwyn; him in bossy shield

When all that hath been is no more ; Rocked proudly, him upbore to mountain steep

When for the round earth hung in air, Fierce and undaunted, for their dangerous nest

With all its constellations fair To battle with the eagle's clam'rous brood.

In the sky's azure canopy; But she, the while, from human tenderness When for the breathing earth, and sparkling sea, Estranged, and gentler feelings that light up

Is but a fiery deluge without shore, The cheek of youth with rosy joyous smile,

Heaving along the abyss profound and darkLike a forgotten lute, played on alone

A fiery deluge, and without an ark? By chance-caressing airs, amid the wild

Lord of all power, when thou art there alone Beauteously pale and sadly playful grew,

On thy eternal fiery-wheelēd throne, A lonely child, by not one human heart

That in its high meridian noon Beloved, and loving none: nor strange if learnt Needs not the perished sun nor moon : Her native fond affections to embrace

When thou art there in thy presiding state, Things senseless and inanimate; she loved

Wide-sceptred monarch o'er the realm of doom : All flowrets that with rich embroidery fair

When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest Enamel the green earth-the odorous thyme,

womb, Wild rose, and roving eglantine; nor spared

The dead of all the ages round thee wait:

REV. GEORGE CROLY.

And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn

Homeward by hundred thousands, column-deep, Like forest-leaves in the autumn of thine ire:

Broad square, loose squadron, rolling like the flood Faithful and True! thou still wilt save thine own! When mighty torrents from their channels leap, The saints shall dwell within the unharming fire, Rushed through the land the haughty multitude, Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm.

Billow on endless billow; on through wood, Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side,

O'er rugged hill, down sunless, marshy vale, So shall the church, thy bright and mystic bride, The death-devoted moved, to clangour rude Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm.

Of drum and horn, and dissonant clash of mail, Yes, ʼmid yon angry and destroying signs,

Glancing disastrous light before that sunbeam pale. O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines ;

Again they reached thee, Borodino! still We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam,

Upon the loaded soil the carnage lay,
Almighty to avenge, almightiest to redeem!

The human harvest, now stark, stiff, and chill,
Friend, foe, stretched thick together, clay to clay;
In vain the startled legions burst away;

The land was all one naked sepulchre;
The Rev. GEORGE Croly, rector of St Stephen's,

The shrinking eye still glanced on grim decay, Walbrook, London, is, like Mr Milman, a correct Still did the hoof and wheel their passage tear, and eloquent poet, but deficient in interest, and con- Through cloven helms and arms, and corpses mouldersequently little read. His poetical works are, Paris

ing drear, in 1815; The Angel of the World; Gems from the Antique, &c. Mr Croly has published several works The field was as they left it; fosse and fort in prose : Salathiel, a romance founded on the old Steaming with slaughter still, but desolate; legend of the Wandering Jew; a Life of Burke, in The cannon flung dismantled by its port; two volumes; and a work on the Apocalypse of St

Each knew the mound, the black ravine whose strait John. This gentleman is a native of Ireland, and Was won and lost, and thronged with dead, till fate was educated at Trinity college, Dublin.

Had fixed upon the victor-half undone.
There was the hill, from which their eyes

elate Pericles and Aspasia.

Had seen the burst of Moscow's golden zone;

But death was at their heels; they shuddered and
This was the ruler of the land,

rushed on.
When Athens was the land of fame;
This was the light that led the band,

The hour of vengeance strikes. Hark to the gale!

As it bursts hollow through the rolling clouds,
When each was like a living flame;

That from the north in sullen grandeur sail
The centre of earth's noblest ring,
Of more than men, the more than king.

Like floating Alps. Advancing darkness broods

Upon the wild horizon, and the woods,
Yet not by fetter, nor by spear,

Now sinking into brambles, echo shrill,
His sovereignty was held or won :

As the gust sweeps them, and those upper floods
Feared-but alone as freemen fear;

Shoot on their leatless boughs the sleet-drops chill, Loved—but as freemen love alone;

That on the hurrying crowds in freezing showers distil.
He waved the sceptre o'er his kind

They reach the wilderness! The majesty
By nature's first great title-mind !

Of solitude is spread before their gaze,
Resistless words were on his tongue,

Stern nakedness-dark earth and wrathful sky.
Then Eloquence first flashed below;

If ruins were there, they long had ceased to blaze ; Full armed to life the portent sprung,

If blood was shed, the ground no more betrays,
Minerva from the Thunderer's brow !

Even by a skeleton, the crime of man;
And his the sole, the sacred hand,

Behind them rolls the deep and drenching baze,
That shook her Ægis o'er the land.

Wrapping their rear in night; before their fan
And throned immortal by his side,

The struggling daylight shows the unmeasured desert
A woman sits with eye sublime,
Aspasia, all his spirit's bride;

Still on they sweep, as if their hurrying march
But, if their solemn love were crime,

Could bear them from the rushing of His wheel Pity the beauty and the sage,

Whose chariot is the whirlwind. Heaven's clear Their crime was in their darkened age.

arch

At once is covered with a livid veil;
He perished, but his wreath was won ;

In mixed and fighting heaps the deep clouds reel;
He perished in his height of fame:

Upon the dense horizon hangs the gun,
Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun,

In sanguine light, an orb of burning steel;
Yet still she conquered in his name.

The snows wheel down through twilight, thick and
Filled with his soul, she could not die;
Her conquest was Posterity!

Now tremble, men of blood, the judgment has begun! [The French Army in Russia.]

The trumpet of the northern winds has blown,

And it is answered by the dying roar (From Paris in 1815.']

Of armies on that boundless field o'erthrown: Magnificence of ruin! what has time

Now in the awful gusts the desert hoar In all it ever gazed upon of war,

Is tempested, a sea without a shore, Of the wild rage of storm, or deadly clime,

Lifting its feathery waves. The legions fly; Seen, with that battle's vengeance to compare ?

Volley on volley down the hailstones pour; How glorious shone the invader's

Blind, famished, frozen, mad, the wanderers die,

pomp afar! Like pampered lions from the spoil they came;

And dying, hear the storm but wilder thunder by. The land before them silence and despair,

Such is the hand of Heaven! A human blow The land behind them massacre and flame;

Had crushed them in the fight, or flung the chain Blood will have tenfold blood. What are they now? Round them where Moscow's stately towers were low A name.

And all bestilled. But Thou! thy battle-plain

wan.

dun;

Was a whole empire ; that devoted train

susceptible, and romantic, she early commenced Must war from day to day with storm and gloom writing poetry. The friendship of Mr Jerdan, of the (Man following, like the wolves, to rend the slain), Literary Gazette, facilitated her introduction to the Must lie from night to night as in a tomb, Must fly, toil, bleed for home; yet never see that home.

To the Memory of a Lady. • Thou thy worldly task hast done.'-Shakspeare. High peace to the soul of the dead,

From the dream of the world she has gone! On the stars in her glory to tread,

To be bright in the blaze of the throne. In youth she was lovely; and Time,

When her rose with the cypress he twined, Left the heart all the warmth of its prime,

Left her eye all the light of her mind. The summons came forth—and she died !

Yet her parting was gentle, for those Whom she loved mingled tears at her side

Her death was the mourner's repose.
Our weakness may weep o'er her bier,

But her spirit has gone on the wing
To triumph for agony here,
To rejoice in the joy of its king.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.
This lady, generally known as “L. E. L.,' in con-
sequence of having first published with her initials
only, has attained an eminent place among the
female poets of our age. Her earliest compositions

Birthplace of Miss Landon. world of letters, but it also gave rise to some reports injurious to her character, which caused her the most exquisite pain. Her father died, and she not only maintained herself, but assisted her relations by her literary labours, which she never relaxed for a moment. In 1838 she was married to Mr George Maclean, governor of Cape-Coast castle, and shortly afterwards sailed for Cape-Coast with her husband. She landed there in August, and was resuming her literary engagements in her solitary African home, when one morning, after writing the previous night some cheerful and affectionate letters to her friends in England, she was (October 16) found dead in her room, lying close to the door, having in her hand a bottle which had contained prussic acid, a portion of which she had taken. From the investigation which took place into the circumstances of this melancholy event, it was conjectured that she had undesigningly taken an over-dose of the fatal medi. cine, as a relief from spasms in the stomach. Having surmounted her early difficulties, and achieved an easy competence and a daily-extending reputation, much might have been expected from the genius of L. E. L., had not her life been prematurely terminated. Her latter works are more free, natural, and forcible than those by which she first attracted

notice. were Poetical Sketches, which appeared in the Lite

Change. rary Gazette: afterwards (1824) she published the Improvisatrice, which was followed by two more

I would not care, at least so much, sweet Spring, volumes of poetry. She also contributed largely to

For the departing colour of thy flowers

The green leaves early falling from thy boughs, magazines and annuals, and was the authoress of a Thy birds so soon forgetful of their songs, novel entitled Romance and Reality. From a publi- Thy skies, whose sunshine ends in heavy showers; cation of her Life and Literary Remains, edited by

But thou dost leave thy memory, like a ghost, Mr L. Blanchard, it appears that her history was in

To haunt the ruined heart, which still recurs

To former beauty; and the desolate the main a painful one; and yet it is also asserted Is doubly sorrowful when it recalls that the melancholy of her verses was a complete It was not always desolate. contrast to the vivacity and playfulness of her man- When those eyes have forgotten the smile they wear now, ners in private life. She was born at Hans Place, When care shall have shadowed that beautiful brow; Chelsea, in 1802, the daughter of Mr Landon, a When thy hopes and thy roses together lie dead, partner in the house of Adairs, army agents. Lively, I And thy heart turns back pining to days that are fied

L. E, Landon

&

71

Then wilt thou remember what now seems to pass
Like the moonlight on water, the breath-stain on glass ;

The Grasp of the Dead.
Oh! maiden, the lovely and youthful, to thee, 'Twas in the battle-field, and the cold pale moon
How rose-touched the page of thy future must be! Looked down on the dead and dying;
By the past, if thou judge it, how little is there And the wind passed o'er with a dirge and a wail,
But blossoms that flourish, but hopes that are fair;

Where the young and brave were lying.
And what is thy present? a southern sky's spring, With his father's sword in his red right hand,
With thy feelings and fancies like birds on the wing. And the hostile dead around him,
As the rose by the fountain flings down on the wave Lay a youthful chief: but his bed was the ground,
Its blushes, forgetting its glass is its grave;

And the grave's icy sleep had bound him.
So the heart sheds its colour on life's early hour; A reckless rover, 'mid death and doom,
But the heart has its fading as well as the flower. Passed a soldier, his plunder seeking.
The charmëd light darkens, the rose-leaves are gone, Careless he stept, where friend and foe
And life, like the fountain, floats colourless on.

Lay alike in their life-blood reeking.
Said I, when thy beauty's sweet vision was fled, Drawn by the shine of the warrior's sword,
How wouldst thou turn, pining, to days like the dead ! The soldier paused beside it:
Oh! long ere one shadow shall darken that brow,

He wrenched the hand with a giant's strength,
Wilt thou weep like a mourner o'er all thou lov'st now; But the grasp of the dead defied it.
When thy hopes, like spent arrows, fall short of their He loosed his hold, and his English heart
mark;

Took part with the dead before him ; Or, like meteors at midnight, make darkness more dark : And he honoured the brave who died sword in hand, When thy feelings lie fettered like waters in frost,

As with softened brow he leant o'er him. Or, scattered too freely, are wasted and lost :

A soldier's death thou hast boldly died,
For aye cometh sorrow, when youth hath passed by-- A soldier's grave won by it:
Ah! what saith the proverb? Its memory's a sigh. Before I would take that sword from thine hand,

My own life’s blood should dye it.
Crescentius.

Thou shalt not be left for the carrion crow,
I looked upon his brow-no sign

Or the wolf to batten o'er thee;
Of guilt or fear was there;

Or the coward insult the gallant dead,
He stood as proud by that death-shrine

Who in life had trembled before thee.'
As even o’er despair
He had a power; in his eye

Then dug he a grave in the crimson earth,
There was a quenchless energy,

Where his warrior foe was sleeping;

And he laid him there in honour and rest,
A spirit that could dare
The deadliest form that death could take,

With his sword in his own brave keeping !
And dare it for the daring's sake.
He stood, the fetters on his hand,

[From The Improvisatrice.')
He raised them haughtily;

I loved him as young Genius loves, And had that grasp been on the brand,

When its own wild and radiant hearen It could not wave on high

Of starry thought burns with the light, With freer pride than it waved now;

The love, the life, by passion given.
Around he looked with changeless brow

I loved him, too, as woman loves-
On many a torture nigh;

Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn :
The rack, the chain, the axe, the wheel,

Life had no evil destiny And, worst of all, his own red steel.

That, with him, I could not have borne! I saw him once before ; he rode

I had been nursed in palaces;
Upon a coal-black steed,

Yet earth had not a spot so drear,
And tens of thousands thronged the road,

That I should not have thought a home And bade their warrior speed.

In Paradise, had he been near! His helm, his breastplate, were of gold,

How sweet it would have been to dwell, And graved with many dint, that told

Apart from all, in some green dell
Of many a soldier's deed;

Of sunny beauty, leaves and flowers;
The sun shone on his sparkling mail,

And nestling birds to sing the hours ! And danced his snow-plume on the gale.

Our home, beneath some chestnut's shade,

But of the woven branches made:
But now he stood chained and alone,
The headsman by his side,

Our vesper hymn, the low wone wail

The rose hears from the nightingale;
The plume, the helm, the charger gone;

And waked at morning by the call
The sword, which had defied

Of music from a waterfall.
The mightiest, lay broken near;

But not alone in dreams like this,
And yet no sign or sound of fear
Came from that lip of pride ;

Breathed in the very hope of bliss,

I loved: my love had been the same And never king or conqueror's brow

In hushed despair, in open shame. Wore higher look than did his now.

I would have rather been a slave,
He bent beneath the headsman's stroke

In tears, in bondage by his side,
With an uncovered eye;

Than shared in all, if wanting him,
A wild shout from the numbers broke

This world had power to give beside! Who thronged to see him die.

My heart was withered and my heart It was a people's loud acclaim,

Had ever been the world to me: The voice of anger and of shame,

And love had been the first fond dream, A nation's funeral cry,

Whose life was in reality. Rome's wail above her only son,

I had sprung from my solitude, Her patriot and her latest one.

Like a young bird upon the wing,