Do what I may, go where I will, Thou meet'st my sight; A form of light! Casa Wappy! With glance of stealth; In buoyant health : Casa Wappy! Thy bat, thy bow, But where art thou ? Casa Wappy! To glad, to grieve- On summer's eve; Casa Wappy! The chamber fills; Reddens the hills : Casa Wappy! Of casual mirth, An inward birth : Casa Wappy! In life's spring bloom, The silent tomb. Casa Wappy! Revive again) For aye remain ? Casa Wappy! Thus man could die, And Truth a lie; Casa Wappy! Then be to us, O dear, lost child ! With beam of love, Smiling above; Casa Wappy! Fond, fairest boy, With him in joy: Casa Wappy! Pride of my heart! Thus torn apart: Casa Wappy! That time is past, Abundant recompense, -Wordsoorth. Life was to us a fairy scene; And the keen blasts of worldly wo Had seared not then its pathway green. Youth and its thousand dreams were ours, Feelings we ne'er can know again; And frames unworn by mortal pain : That clusters round thy forehead now; Left even one furrow on thy brow. Thine eyes are blue as when we met, In love's deep truth, in earlier years; Thy cheek of rose is blooming yet, Though sometimes stained by secret tears; But where, oh! where's the spirit's glow, That shone through all-ten years ago ! I, too, am changed—I scarce know why Can feel each flagging pulse decay; And youth and health, and visions high, Melt like a wreath of snow away; Time cannot sure have wrought the ill; Though worn in this world's sickening strife, In soul and form, I linger still In the first summer month of life; The wreck of hopes that thou must share, When all around me seemed so fair. We've wandered on in sunny weather, When winds were low, and flowers in bloom, And hand in hand have kept together, And still will keep, 'mid storm and gloom; Endeared by ties we could not know When life was young-ten years ago! Has fortune frowned ? Her frowns were vain, For hearts like ours she could not chill; But ours grew fonder, firmer still. Steadfast in calms, in tempests tried ; Together cleave life’s fitful tide; And watched our first-born blossom die! Then wept till feeling's fount was dry? Was it not sweet, in that dark hour, To think, 'mid mutual tears and sighs, And burst to bloom in Paradise ? To share its sunny beams with thee; To have thee near to weep with me. From what we were in earlier youth, Hath left us love in all its truth; My Mother's Grave. (By Thomas Aird.] O rise and sit in soft attire, Wait but to know my soul's desire! I'd call thee back to days of strife, To wrap my soul around thy life! Ask thou this heart for monument, And mine shall be a large content. A crown of brightest stars to thee ! How did thy spirit wait for me, And nurse thy waning light, in faith That I would stand 'twixt thee and death; Then tarry on thy bowing shore, Till I have asked thy sorrows o'er. I came not—and I cry to save Thy life from out the oblivious grave, One day; that I may well declare, How I have thought of all thy care, And love thee more than I have done ; And make thy day with gladness run. I'd tell thee where my youth hath been ; Of perils past-of glories seen : I'd speak of all my youth hath done And ask of things, to choose and shun; And smile at all thy needless fears, But bow before thy solemu tears. Come, walk with me, and see fair earth, The ways of men, and join their mirth! Sleep on--for mirth is now a jest ; Nor dare I call thee from thy rest; Well hast thou done thy worldly task ; Thy mouth hath nought of me to ask ! Men wonder till I pass away-, They think not but of useless clay: Alas! for age, this memory! But I have other thoughts of thee; And I would wade thy dusty grave, To kiss the head I cannot save. O life and power ! that I might see The Death of the Warrior King. [By Charles Swain.) There are noble heads bowed down and pale, Deep sounds of wo arise, a The hue of death is gathering dark Look to the waters !-asleep on their breast, Seems not the ship like an island of rest ? Bright and alone on the shadowy main, Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain! Who-as she smiles in the silvery light, Spreading her wings on the bosom of night, Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky, Where banner, helm, and falchion gleamed, A phantom of beauty—could deem with a sigh, And flew the bolts of war. That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin, When, in his plenitude of power And that souls that are smitten lie bursting within ! He trod the Holy Land, Who, as he watches her silently gliding, Remembers that wave after wave is dividing Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever, Hearts which are parted and broken for ever? Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave, The deathbed of hope, or the young spirit's grave! 'Tis thus with our life, while it passes along, For dearly as he loved renown, Like a vessel at sea, amidst sunshine and song! Gaily we glide, in the gaze of the world, With streamers afloat, and with canvass unfurled; All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes, Then seemed the bard to cope with Time, Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs: And triumph o'er his doom Fading and false is the aspect it wears, Another world in freshness burst As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears; Oblivion's mighty tomb! And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know, Again the hardy Britons rushed Like lions to the fight, Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning belów; While horse and foot-helm, shield, and lance, Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore, Swept by his visioned sight! Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er. Prayer. (By W. Beckford, author of · Vathek.'] Like the low murmur of the secret stream, Are sights and sounds the dying king Which through dark alders winds its shaded way, Shall see shall hear no more! My suppliant voice is heard: Ah! do not deem That on vain toys I throw my hours away. In the recesses of the forest vale, Where the fresh breezes of the morn prevail, I wander lonely, communing with God. When the faint sickness of a wounded heart Creeps in cold shudderings through my sinking frame, I turn to thee—that holy peace impart, Which soothes the invokers of thy awful name! (By T. K. Hervey.] O all-pervading Spirit! sacred beam! Morn on the waters! and, purple and bright, Parent of life and light ! Eternal Power ! Bursts on the billows the flushing of light; Grant me through obvious clouds one transient gleam O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun, Of thy bright essence in my dying hour! [By Walter Paterson.] Can I let fall my eye, but it will gaze, As if no power again its beam could raise, Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part, To look on aught above, or all around; Passing away, like a dream of the heart! And aye upon the greenest, oldest mound, Who-as the beautiful pageant sweeps by, That lies on those who lived in earliest days, Music around her, and sunshine on high To me the most unknown, it most delays, Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow, With strongest spell of strange enchantment bound. Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below! Sure not for those whom I did never know Can I let fall so big and sad a tear. The oldest grave receives the soonest bier: Ode on the Duke of Wellington, 1814. [By John Wilson Croker.] Victor of Assaye's orient plain, Victor of all the fields of Spain, Victor of France's despot reign, Thy task of glory done! Welcome! from dangers greatly dared ; From triumphs with the vanquished shared ; From nations saved, and nations spared ; Unconquered Wellington! Thy generous soul had blushed : The tyrant thou hast crushed. The impious thrall to burst ; And in that art the first. His proud meridian height. The memory of his light. If any power can, any how, Fresh air, by act of parliament. In this period many translations from classic and foreign poets have appeared, at the head of which stands the version of Dante by the Rev. H. F. CARY -universally acknowledged to be one of the most felicitous attempts ever made to transfuse the spirit and conceptions of a great poet into a foreign tongue. The third edition of this translation was published in 1831. Versions of Homer, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Oberon of the German poet Wieland, have been published by WILLIAM SOTHEBY, whose original poems have already been noticed. The comedies of Aristophanes have been well translated, with all their quaint drollery and sarcasm, by Mr MITCHELL, late fellow of Sidney-Sussex college, Cambridge. LORD STRANGFORD has given translations from the Portuguese poet Camoens; and Dr John BOWRING, specimens of Russian, Dutch, ancient Spanish, Polish, Servian, and Hungarian poetry. A good translation of Tasso has been given by J. H. WIFFEN, and of Ariosto by MR STEWART Rose. LORD FRANCIS EGERTON, MR BLACKIE, and others, have translated the Faust of Goëthe; and the general cultivation of the German language in England has led to the translation of various imaginative and critical German works in prose. Mr J. G. Lockhart's trans| lation of Spanish ballads has enriched our lyrical poetry with some romantic songs. The ballads of Spain, like those of Scotland, are eminently national in character and feeling, and bear testimony to the strong passions and chivalrous imagination of her once high-spirited people. SCOTTISH POETS. ROBERT BURNS. [The November Fog of London.] [By Henry Luttrel.) First, at the dawn of lingering day, It rises of an ashy gray ; Then deepening with a sordid stain Of yellow, like a lion's mane. Vapour importunate and dense, It wars at once with every sense. The ears escape not. All around Returns a dull unwonted sound. Loath to stand still, afraid to stir, The chilled and puzzled passenger, Oft blundering from the pavement, fails To feel his way along the rails ; Or at the crossings, in the roll Of every carriage dreads the pole. Scarce an eclipse, with pall so dun, Blots from the face of heaven the sun. But soon a thicker, darker cloak Wraps all the town, behold, in smoke, Which steam-compelling trade disgorges From all her furnaces and forges In pitchy clouds, too dense to rise, Descends rejected from the skies; Till struggling day, extinguished quite, At noon gives place to candle-light. O Chemistry, attractive maid, Descend, in pity, to our aid : Come with thy all-pervading gases, Thy crucibles, retorts, and glasses, Thy fearful energies and wonders, Thy dazzling lights and mimic thunders; Let Carbon in thy train be seen, Dark Azote and fair Oxygen, And Wollaston and Davy guide The car that bears thee at thy side. After the publication of Fergusson's poems, in a collected shape, in 1773, there was an interval of about thirteen years, during which no writer of eminence arose in Scotland who attempted to excel in the native language of the country. The intellectual taste of the capital ran strongly in favour of metaphysical and critical studies ; but the Doric muse was still heard in the rural districts linked to some popular air, some local occurrence or favourite spot, and was much cherished by the lower and middling classes of the people. In the summer of 1786, ROBERT BURNS, the Shakspeare of Scotland, issued his first volume from the obscure press of Kilmarnock, and its influence was immediately felt, and is still operating on the whole imaginative literature of the kingdom.* Burns was * The edition consisted of 600 copies. A second was published in Edinburgh in April 1787, no less than 2800 copies being subscribed for by 1500 individuals. After his unexampled popularity in Edinburgh, Burns took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries, married his 'bonny Jean,' and entered upon his new occupation at Whitsunday 1788. He had obtained an appointment as an exciseman, but the duties of this office, and his own convivial habits, interfered with his management of the farm, and he was glad to abandon it. In 1791 he removed to the town of Dumfries, subsisting entirely on his situation in Robert Burns. then in his twenty-seventh year, having been born We see him in the veriest shades of obscurity toiling, in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, on the 25th of when a mere youth, like a galley-slave,' to support January 1759. His father was a poor farmer, a his virtuous parents and their household, yet graspman of sterling worth and intelligence, who gave ing at every opportunity of acquiring knowledge his son what education he could afford. The whole, from men and books—familiar with the history of however, was but a small foundation on which to his country, and loving its very soil—worshipping erect the miracles of genius! Robert was taught the memory of Scotland's ancient patriots and de fenders, and exploring every scene and memorial of departed greatness-loving also the simple peasantry around him, “the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers.' Burning with a desire to do something for old Scotland's sake, with a heart beating with warm and generous emotions, a strong and clear understanding, and a spirit abhorring all meanness, insincerity, and oppression, Burns, in his early days, might have fur. nished the subject for a great and instructive moral poem. The true elements of poetry were in his life, as in his writings. The wild stirrings of his ambition (which he so nobly compared to the blind gropings of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave'), the precocious maturity of his passions and his intellect, his manly frame, that led him to fear no competitor at the plough, and his exquisite sensibility and tenderness, that made him weep over even the destruction of a daisy's flower or a mouse's nest, these are all moral contrasts and blendings that seem to belong to the spirit of romantic poetry. His writings, as we now know, were but the fragments of a great mind—the hasty outpourings of a full heart and intellect. After he had become the fashionable wonder and idol of his day—soon to be cast into cold neglect and poverty !-some errors and frailties threw a shade on the noble and affecting image, but its higher lineaments were never destroyed. The column was defaced, not broken ; and now that the mists of prejudice have cleared away, its just proEnglish well, and by the time he was ten or eleven portions and exalted symmetry are recognised with years of age, he was a critic in substantives, verbs, pride and gratitude by his admiring countrymen. and particles. He was also taught to write, had Burns came as a potent auxiliary or fellow-worker a fortnight's French, and was one summer-quarter with Cowper, in bringing poetry into the channels of at land-surveying. He had a few books, among truth and nature. There were only two years between which were the Spectator, Pope's Works, Allan Ram- the Task and the Cotter's Saturday Night. No say, and a collection of English songs. Subsequently poetry was ever more instantaneously or univer(about his twenty-third year) his reading was en- sally popular among a people than that of Burns in larged with the important addition of Thomson, Shen- Scotland. It seemed as if a new realm had been stone, Sterne, and Mackenzie. Other standard works added to the dominions of the British musea new soon followed. As the advantages of a liberal edu- and glorious creation, fresh from the hand of nature. cation were not within his reach, it is scarcely to be There was the humour of Smollett, the pathos and regretted that his library was at first so small. What tenderness of Sterne or Richardson, the real life of books he had, he read and studied thoroughly- Fielding, and the description of Thomson-all united his attention was not distracted by a multitude of in delineations of Scottish manners and scenery by volumes—and his mind grew up with original and an Ayrshire ploughman! The volume contained robust vigour. It is impossible to contemplate the matter for all minds—for the lively and sarcastic, the life of Burns at this time, without a strong feeling wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and of affectionate admiration and respect. His manly the man of the world. So eagerly was the book integrity of character (which, as a peasant, he sought after, that, where copies of it could not be guarded with jealous dignity), and his warm and obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and true heart, elevate him, in our conceptions, almost sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. as much as the native force and beauty of his poetry. The subsequent productions of the poet did not materially affect the estimate of his powers formed the excise, which yielded L.70 per annum. Here he published, from his first volume. His life was at once too idle in 1793, a third edition of his poems, with the addition of Tam and too busy for continuous study; and, alas! it was o' Shanter, and other pieces composed at Ellisland. He died too brief for the full maturity and development at Dumfries on the 21st of July 1796, aged thirty-seven years of his talents. Where the intellect predominates and about six months. The story of his life is so well known, equally with the imagination (and this was the case that even this brief statement of dates seems unnecessary. In with Burns), increase of years generally adds to the 1798 a fourth edition of his works was published in Edinburgh. strength and variety of the poet's powers; and we Two years afterwards, in 1800, appeared the valuable and com- have no doubt that, in ordinary circumstances, plete edition of Dr Currie, in four volumes, containing the correspondence of the poet, and a number of songs, contributed to Burns, like Dryden, would have improved with Johnson's Soots Musical Museum, and Thomson's Select age, and added greatly to his fame, had he not elodies. The editions of Burns since 1800 could fallen at so early a period, before his imaginawith difficulty be ascertained ; they were reckoned a few tion could be enriched with the riper fruits of years ago at about a hundred. His poems circulate in every knowledge and experience. He meditated a nashape, and have not yet ' gathered all their fame.' tional drama; but we might have looked with more Scottish a |