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Harthley Coleridge, ein Sohn des grossen Dichters Samuel Taylor Coleridge, veröffentlichte im Jahre 1833 einen Band Gedichte, welche seiner hohen Abstammung keineswegs unwürdig sind. Es giebt wenig Sonette in der englischen Sprache, die durch Gedankenfülle und Versbau vorzüglicher wären. Coleridge starb zu Ryndal, Westerland, am 6 Januar 1849. Er war ein thätiger Mitarbeiter am Blackwood Magazin, ein sehr origineller und beliebter Schriftsteller und Verfasser einer bedeutenden Anzahl kleiner Gedichte von grossem Verdienst und poetischer Kraft.

Sonnet on Shakspeare.

The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean

Or the firm fatal purpose of the heart
Can make of man. Yet thou wert still the
same,

or the abysmal dark Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.

Of the unfathomed centre. Like that ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great poet, 'twas
thy art

To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny,

Sonnets to a Friend.

When we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:
Our love was nature; and the peace that
floated

On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:

One soul was ours, one mind, one heart de- | Where flowrets blow and whispering Naiads voted,

dwell.

That, wisely doting, asked not why it doted, Yet now we meet, that parted were so wide, And ours the unknown joy, which knowing O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side. kills.

But now I find how dear thou wert to me; That man is more than half of nature's treasure,

Of that fair beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;

And now the streams may sing for other's pleasure,

The hills sleep on in their eternity.

In the great city we are met again, Where many souls there are that breathe and die,

Scarce knowing more of nature's potency Than what they learn from heat, or cold, or rain

The sad vicissitude of weary pain:
For busy man is lord of ear and eye,
And what hath Natur but the vast void sky,
And the thronged river toiling to the main?
Oh! say not so, for she shall have her part
In every smile, in every tear that falls,
And she shall hide her in the secret heart,
Where love persuades, and sterner duty calls:
But worse it were than death, or sorrow's
smart,

To live without a friend within these walls.

We parted on the mountains, as two streams From one clear spring pursue their several ways;

And thy fleet course hath been through many

a maze

In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams
To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams
Brightened the tresses that old poets praise;
Where Petrarch's patient love and artful lays,
And Ariosto's song of many themes,
Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook,
As close pent up within my native dell,
Have crept along from nook to shady nook,

To Certain Golden Fishes.

Restless forms of living light,
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight
With a thousand shadowings;
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams.
Harmless warriors clad in mail
Of silver breastplate, golden scale;
Mail of Nature's own bestowing,
With peaceful radiance mildly glowing;
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,
Sport ye in your sea so narrow.
Was the sun himself your sire?
Were ye born of vital fire?
Or of the shade of golden flowers,
Such as we fetch from eastern bowers,
To mock this murky clime of ours?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance;
Seeming still to grow in size,
When ye would elude our eyes.
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem,
As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleamed in fair Cathay;
And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart,
It may be, that your ceaseless gambols,
Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,
Your restless roving round and round
The circuit of your cristal bound,
Is but the task of weary pain,
An endless labour, dull and vain;
And while your forms are gaily shining,
Your little lives are inly pining!
Nay but still I fain would dream
That ye are happy as ye seem.

Southey.

Mrs Southey, welche auch häufig unter dem Namen Caroline Bowles gefunden wird, hat sich als sehr fruchtbare Schriftstellerin ausgezeichnet. Unter ihren zahlreichen poetischen Schriften mögen hier nur einige angeführt werden: Ellen Fitzarthur 1820; The Widow's Tale and other Poems 1822; The Birthday and other Poems 1836; Solitary Hours 4838 u. a.

Caroline Southey ist eine der beliebtesten Dichterinnen der Gegenwart. Ihre poetischen Leistungen zeichnen sich durch Natürlichkeit, durch Reichthum der Gedanken und schönen Versbau aus.

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Miss Elizabeth Barrett, welche jetzt meist unter dem Namen Mrs Browning schreibt, lebt gegenwärtig in London. Sie hat sich nicht allein durch mehrere eigene poetische Schriften, wie „The Seraphim and other Poems" 1838, so wie Poetical Works in zwei Bänden 1844, sondern auch durch ihre Gelehrsamkeit und Uebersetzung des Prometheus von Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound and other Poems 1833, berühmt gemacht.

Barrett's Dichtungen sind nicht ohne Tiefe der Gedanken und ohne Wärme der Empfindung geschrieben.

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