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THE LAMENT OF CHATTERTON.

"It was a dream! I wake! Oh, felon Night!
To cheat my fancy with a false delight!
The simple soul, with fairy gold to pay-
For eye of mocking Morn, to turn to clay !
Drawing the curtain from the drowsy sense,
And grafting on it feelings too intense,
Too bright! too beautiful, alas! for true,
As sleeping flowers imbibe thy summer dew;
The sleeping soul imbibes thy fairy glow,
And from unreal bliss awakes to real woe.

"It was a dream! and yet how all distinct That angel-form! Methought my arm was link'd All fondly in her own, and from her eyes There beam'd a light-now love, now sweet surprise;

As tale I read of love, and fairy lore;

Her lips prais'd much-but, oh! her sweet eyes

more,

How wild my heart beat, and how wild doth beat,
As nestled in the wild flowers at her feet,
Beneath a lofty tree, whose branches made
A murmuring music as the west wind play'd
Among them sighing; and methought all round
Were hanging luscious fruits, on earth not found;
And rich wine sparkled in a fairy cup,

And I would drink-when all was shrivell'd up!

"It was a dream! Oh, that the blessed night
Had known no dawn that brought such sweet de-
light!

Vain wish! for slow and solemn on my ear
The morning-bell proclaims that day is near.

"Another day breaks on my wretched lair-
Another day of sadness and despair
And biting hunger! Round my lonely room
The wind is sighing, like the voice of Doom;
In low and plaintive wail it seems to say,
'Child of misfortune! rise to fast and pray.'

“Another day! and from my scanty bed
Again I raise my young, but weary head;
To do-ah! what to do? that is the word-
The still, small voice, that is for ever heard
Hissing its mocking mandate in my ear-
Go work, and win thyself a higher sphere,
Where want is not, and hunger is a name
To marvel at alone. Where tears of shame
And aching eyes and lonely hearts are not—
Unheard the cry of anguish, or forgot
If ever heard!'

"Ah, me! is it not mine
To bear my lot in silence, and not pine,
But hide me from the busy haunts of men,
And die like wounded beast within my den,
Without a murmur? Yet-oh, God!-to die,
And on this world for ever close my eye;
So young-so young! To waste away till death
Shall lay his frozen finger on my breath;
And, like a rigid icicle, shall bind

The bounding torrent of my dreaming mind.
The Mind! Oh, what a universe is there,
Yet mine is narrow'd, bounded by despair
Into a circle of intensest fire,

In which I, scorpion-like, go round the pyre
That shall consume me! But the scorpion's sting
Is left me yet. To use it is the thing!
Or to await the flames with scorching eye;

Or dart the venom to my brain, and die.

To die! and then, like vessel tempest toss'd, To find a haven when all hope was lost: To steer from out the howling wind and wave Into the peaceful silence of the grave. Eternal Sleep! perchance it may be soAh, better far than bear this mortal woe! To be-yet have no being-in this world; To see the Sun of gladness ever furl'd, That cheers all other bosoms with its ray: To wait and hope, and watch th' approach of day; And, like a rainbow, see it melt away: To see each lingering streak of light depart, And utter night sink down upon the heart. The stars of promise go out one by oneTo fear, to doubt, despair, and be undone ! "I have not yielded tamely to my fate,

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But borne it with a courage till of late;
But want and hunger and neglect have wrung
The wretched chain until the links have sprung,
And will no longer answer to the mind,
Which ever strives the broken chain to wind
Up, like a clock, to strike the stated time.
It will no more-the bell hath lost its chime;
Or, if it strike, it strikes no more in tune
With all around. Perchance it struck too soon,
When first 'twas wound up by the master-hand;
He gave it so-but gave me no command
To regulate its motions to the slow
And sordid movements of the world below.
I am not of it-for with gold 'tis bought;
He cannot buy whose only wealth is Thought.

Thought-busy thought!-up, up on eagle wings,
From its dark prison-house the spirit springs;
Up to the clouds, above the earth and storms,
Creating worlds, and peopling them with forms
All pure and lovely; beings without sin,
Blessed creations, with no guile within
To stain the purity of holy love,

That ever spreads its dove-like wings above-
Like a soft sun, without the scorching ray,
That burns and withers up an earthly day.
Bright worlds! where want and hunger are un-
known,

Or where each makes his brother's want his own.

"Vain boast! for comes the lightning of the mind,
Which, lighting others, strikes its giver blind
With its intensity, and down he falls
Prostrate to earth; and, like a reptile, crawls
In his crush'd impotence; and lays his head
All humbly down, and feebly cries for bread :
And cries in vain! Oh, God! can this be he
Who lately dared to scale Eternity
And people worlds-who, grovelling in the dust,
Craves of his fellow-man, in vain, a crust?

"Oh, England-merry England!-can it be
That such the bitter doom decreed by thee,
To me, thy child, who cry to thee aloud-
With hands outstretched, and head all humbly
bow'd-

To grant me justice; hear, and then condemn,
If truth is not within me-if the gem

I proffer to thy judgment is not sound,
Then just my doom! But oh, if it be found
A pearl of price, at once the price be said;
For all thy youthful poet asks is Bread.
And once I dream'd of Fame; but that is past!
Yet grant the first, and I will win the last.

"It is in vain! perchance when I am dead;
When these sad eyes their latest tears have shed;

When this young, beating heart, so sad and crush'd,
In the cold silence of the grave is hush'd—
Some eye will scan the tracings I have left
Of high imaginings-the thoughts that reft
The life away, and 'midst the ruins find
The broken fragments of a noble mind;
And ask Who was he?' and will shed a tear
O'er the young poet in his humble bier.
Some other age will wipe away the shame,
This sordid one has heaped upon my name.
Pronounce the doom unjust that made my fate;
The prize will come-but it will come too late.

"Yes-all too late! The struggle is in vain!
Already madness hovers o'er my brain,
Like a dark raven; and my fancy turns
A traitor to me; and the taper burns-
Life's sickly taper-with a quivering flame;
And if to blow it out at once be shame-

"Oh, Holy Nature! I do call on Thee!
If to thy bosom back thy lost child flee;
If I should break the weary chain that binds
My wretched being to their sordid minds-
If I should hurl upon them back the scorn,
The cold neglect by me unjustly borne-
Bear witness, Thou, it was not till the spark-
They should have nourish'd-fled, and left me dark;
It was not till the last faint hope had flown,
And dizzy Reason totter'd on her throne.

"I call on Thee! for I have been thy child,

Up from my cradle-when my eyes first smil'd
Upon thy beauty-and to me each tone

Of thy sweet voice, each sigh, each gentle moan
Of the low wind, each rustling leaf of green,
Each warbling bird and tinkling rill have been
Familiar music, which my ear drank in
With trembling ecstacy; until within
Thy face was mirror'd as within a brook,
And I have sought thee in each shady nook;
In the high forest, in the lone recess
Of thine own tangled dell and wilderness-
Have stood beside the ever-sounding shore,
And woo'd the voice of thy deep ocean's roar;
Follow'd the lightnings in their dizzy play,
And seen the thunder-cloud put out the day-
Have mark'd the whirlwind rise at thy command,
And the red tempest dart from out thy hand;
Gaz'd on the fleecy clouds in upper sky,
Glow with the setting sunbeam and then die ;
Have seen thee gently lay thy hand on Day,
And the soft eve in twilight fade away;
Have heard the dew-drops trickle from Night's
pall,

And seen the moon to diamonds turn them all;
And I have pray'd with earnest voice and mild,
That thou would'st look with pity on thy child-
And when the high, the proud, the vain, have
slept,

Have bow'd me at thy footstool low, and wept Most bitter tears; that thou would'st comfort give, And bid this trusting bosom hope and live.

"And Thou, great Nature's God! how shall I dare
Lift up to Thee my wondering heart in prayer!
Oh, humbly in the dust I kneel and say,
My Father, let this spirit pass away!
Oh, guard me from the whisperings of despair-
The load is more than my young heart can bear!
If I have rash repin'd at Thy command,
Oh, lay more gently on, Thy healing hand,

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'Tis when fair Nature's hymn is heard afar,

And faintly tolls the distant vesper-bellChiming for dying Day a requiem-knell— Whilst pale upwakes our cherish'd, chosen star, When no rude boasting revelry can mar

The sweet serenity of hill and dell; The holy quiet which I love so wellWhen dark Âmbition's darts all powerless are. 'Tis when the soft wind stirs the laced trees,

When the wan moon sheds balm upon my breast, And songs from leafy coverts wing the breeze, That I can doom all harsher thoughts to rest; That I can say "Oh, Heaven! grant me theseWisdom and Peace: let worldlings take the rest!"

POEMS, BY THOMAS HO O D.*

Even had these poems been the work of some poetaster, bound downwards by the curse of mediocrity, we could not find in our hearts to be severe upon them; the loving and gentle spirit that breathes in every verse communicates to the sourest critic a portion of its own benevolence.

But so far from being the struggles of mediocrity, these two volumes display bright emanations from the very sun-god himself. They are not all of equal beauty-some rising to the mountain-tops, while others climb but a little way up the hill-side-but the veriest trifle has a grace and a fragrance about it, given perhaps by a single expression, a single image of exquisite beauty. For instance, the little piece called “The Exile," has the following thought

"So far from my own, love,
We know not our pain,
If death is between us,
Or only the main."

And in that entitled "The Lee-shore," amid
much that is merely fine sounding verse, occurs
the startling exclamation-

what

"Drive him out to sea!
"Let broad leagues dissever

Him from yonder foam,
Oh God! to think man ever
Comes too near his home."

But two or three of these fugitive pieces are perfect gems of beauty. "The Death-bed," a picture of serene dissolution and trembling love! So soft in the rhythm, moving through the verses as if fearing to disturb the dying, whose repose it pourtrays. It has long been a general and deserved favourite: we have known it since our childhood; it had its place in all our printed collections of poetry, and was not forgotten in the tidy MS. volume, carefully ruled, and garnished copiously with German text flourishes, in which we copied all our pet poems. Another equally interesting, but a stranger, which we never saw till we opened these volumes, is the "Address to a Child embracing his Mother," and the mournful dream in the woods about the "Elm Tree," in which there mingles something of that grotesque horror which seemed to fascinate Hood's mind with a strange influence. The minutely described Haunted House" is an evidence of this; the wilderness of this place makes Mariana's moated grange quite a lively and exciting dwellingplace. Dickens has, however, a picture in Humphrey's Clock," striking in its resemblance. We have before pointed out a certain affinity between the genius of Hood and the prose-poet Boz, which leads them to dwell on

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* Moxon.

the same sort of scenes and incidents, and to paint them with something of the same breadth of colouring. The decay, the desolation, the fearlessness of the wild birds, and the abundance of the undisturbed insects, are all painted with a reiteration of small touches which transport the reader bodily into the middle of the neglected rooms; and every now and then breaks in as from an uncontrollable impulse of dread, the burden of the whole

"For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted."

First he takes you to the door, shows you the neglected garden, the overthrown sun-dial, the rotting fruit-trees, the weed-entangled paths, and all the unwonted animals that have established themselves in the deserted premises; you then follow him within a ghostly hall, overrun with noisome insects and reptiles, inhabited by screech-owls and bats, and hung with tattered banners, crumbling slowly in the damp unwholesome air. The poet proceeds to convey you upstairs, suggesting at every step such fearful images of terror and guilt, that you tremble at the mere shadow of your hand as it turns over the page. From room to room you go, shuddering, gazing at old ghastly pictures, worm-eaten tapestry, all faded, as the guide points out, save—

"One ragged part,

Where Cain was slaying Abel."

You are desired to observe in the heraldic banner, and on the painted window, the still uneffaced and significant "bloody hand." Can you any longer doubt that murder has driven man from the dwelling, and haunted the place with a memory of guilt? At last you are taken to the room, you are shown the bed, whose curtains retain the broidery of the "bloody hand;" and the floor, whose boards are darkened with the long line of gory stains. Really, Hood seems to have revelled in these gloomy images. As a poem of unmitigated horror, this is approached by very few. The march of the stanzas answers so appropriately to the subject. No one understood this more than our poet; his facility of diction, his profuseness in rhymes, was long ago proved by his witty, comic poems, thrown off with an ease that astonished as much as it delighted. This command of language was invaluable when he turned his thoughts to graver themes. Many struggle vainly with powerful imaginations, which they can only clothe in feeble, ragged words; but whatever Hood saw in his mind, came boldly and eloquently to his lips his expressions are so direct, so apt, so apparently unstudied, he seems to be speaking

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prose which has involuntarily resolved itself into majestic, or tender poetry, as the subject might require.

In these volumes we find those two extraordinary poems, which electrified every one when they appeared last year in the periodicals of the day- The Song of the Shirt," and "The Bridge of Sighs." The former, with its powerful moral teaching, and wild resounding music, procured at once the admiration it deserved: perhaps its effect was heightened by its place, side by side, with the broad humour of "Punch." But it struck out a new path in lyrical poetry; it flung all conventional phrases and images to the winds, and stood out sublimely bold in its severe simplicity. "The Bridge of Sighs" was worthy to follow this first outbreak of humanity; and though in the same style as its predecessor, its rich redundancy of rhymes, and breathlessly rapid cadences, prevented any appearance of mannerism. We never read anything which so immediately fixed itself on our memory: the vividness of the description, the warmth of the sympathy, the tender pity and indignant reproach, hurry away the mind. So brief a poem ! so full of passion and purpose! The laconic sternness of the harrowing picture of utter despair, which the following lines contain, is beyond criticism :—

"Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery
Swift to be hurl'd
Anywhere, anywhere,

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Out of the world!"

Many others there are in these volumes, written in the same spirit, though under moments of less striking inspiration. "The Lady's Dream" is one, and would have been highly esteemed, had not its more illustrious companions overshadowed it. "The Dream of Eugene Aram" is an old acquaintance, and in Hood's most powerful vein. Gentle as his muse was, she had a strange hankering after murders. Allusions to this deadly crime abound in Hood's poems, and all his ghosts are ghosts of murdered men. He had not a very spiritual idea of raw head and bloody bones" of spectres; the his English nursery coloured his visions of the other world with too much crimson. The English notions of ghosts are contemptible at the best; nothing but murder can waken these snoring spectres, and then they are sure to creep about, clanking heavy chains, or groaning and grunting like an overfed pig. The Highlanders, the Irish, the Germans, even the chilly-climed Norwegians had more dignified imaginations regarding spectres, than the fat beef-eaters of "Merrie England." It was the spirit of the murdered that returned, according to them; they never laid any stress on the grievous workings of a troubled conscience, which, according to more poetic superstitions, could even rouse the lifeless clay from its repose. The solicitude for the dear ones left on earth, which could summon the blessed from heaven's happiness to console and strengthen the sorrowing, was un

known to the English believer in spirits: in short, his was the spirit of fear, not the spirit of faith; and his supernatural visions were full of crime and horror. This national charac teristic is illustrated by Hood's poems: his ghosts are truly English, so are his fairies. Here is a long and rather tedious production, called "The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," evidently written many years ago, before the poet had discovered that in the recesses of the human heart lay his real knowledge, and in the dragging them to light his real strength. This piece is dedicated to Charles Lamb, and indeed bears on its surface the impress of Lamb's taste and genius; it is graceful, quaint, full of pret tinesses, just as one of Lamb's poems would have been; but it is not worthy of Hood.

When, in his later years of poetizing, his genius grew to manhood, it put away the childish affectations which disfigure this and other poems in the volume, and make one yawn, or smile, but do not touch us with real emotion. What might we not have expected from the grand sunburst of his evening, had he been spared a few years longer of existence! He had reached his true home, and no longer stumbled in the misty ways of mannerism and imitation, "The two Peacocks of Bedfont," "Here and Leander," and others of the same elaborate and diffuse style, will never win for their creator the universal fame which his last matchless lyrics struck at once from the glowing heart of Britain. Yet still, even in these there are stanzas of true worth, and the smaller ones of less pretension are perfect in their degree. "The Two Swans" we must enter a claim against, for its utter unintelligibility; it may be an allegory, it may be merely the dream of one of the dreamiest of the Transcendentalists, but it is not, or ought not to be, a poem of Thomas Hood's. It is a mystery from beginning to end, and not a whit more poetical than the "Mysteries," whose unmeaning jingles were recited for the delectation of our forefathers of pious mummery memory. There is a beautiful thought in a fearfully sad "Ode to Melancholy:"

"Forgive, if somewhile I forget,

In woe to come, the present bliss,
As frighted Proserpine let fall

Her flowers at the sight of Dis.
Even so the dark and bright will kiss,
The sunniest things throw sternest shade,
And there is even a happiness

That makes the heart afraid!"

and

How very, very true! Who, in the utmost pride of prosperity, in the fullest overflowing of grateful joy, has not felt this shudder, the very excess of rapture making us tremble for the reaction?

But we must not thus rifle the hive of its honey; we should fill pages with sweet and lovely thoughts, for which instead we will refer you to the poems themselves. Only, ere we depart, we must take a hasty glance at our old friend, "Miss Kilmansegg," that extraordinary compound of wit and wisdom, of frolic and

sober sadness; its puns and quibbles, its eccen- | and calculating as themselves, and having once tric couplets and triplets, and quadruplets (if got over the delirious happiness and agonizing there is such a word), go skipping and whiz- disappointment of a disinterested first love, are zing, and crackling through the story, like a as ready to sell themselves, and to use all series of little electric shocks, such as are to trickeries and deceptions in that sale as their be had every second at the Polytechnic. The mercenary abettors can desire-all these classes, Muse here is a harlequin, dressed in divers and many, many more, may learn a secret or colours, and medley patchwork, and so ex- two, really worth knowing, from the " Golden ceedingly mercurial in her leaps, that few slow- Legend of Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious paced, jog-trotting brains can ever hope to fol- Leg." P. P. C. low her. But alas, the whole brilliant firework shower is drenched at last in a shower of blood; nothing would content the inexorable poet but a murder for a finale! And though the lesson may be a forcible one, the poem loses all its sprightly grace and quizzical humorousness in so unseemly an ending: so fertile a fancy as the author's could easily have punished his gold

VISIONS IN A LIBRARY.

BY JOHN DIX.

(Author of "The Life of Chatterton," &c.)

besotted heroine in a thousand ways, without "My eyes make pictures when they are shut."

dashing out her brains with her own leg! Surely this is neither poetical justice nor Bow-street justice; a sad look-out it would be for half England's great millionaires! Yet the moral of this tragi-comic poem is worthy of consideration. If man does not live by bread alone, still less is it by show and finery, the rocks on which the social happiness of Britain is now daily wrecked.

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Everybody must keep up appearances; and to do this they must have money; and as very few, even among the higher classes, have money, they must stoop, flatter, cringe, deceive, resort to every mean and pitiful expedient, in order to save their beloved gentility in the eyes of their neighbours. Few people love money for money's sake, but they love it for the appearances it can create. However small a man's income is, he brings up his children as if to a large fortune: the daughters throw away hundreds in forcing music into their unmusical natures, or acquiring useless amusements, which their parents, if they do not marry, will grudge them the means of continuing; and their husbands, if they do, will supersede by the sterner duties of making a grand show on small expenditure, in the housekeeping department. The sons - but what a melancholy theme is this! How are gentlemen to support themselves now-a-days? Those that have handsome faces turn fortune-hunters, and justify, by their sordid speculations, the severest satires of Hood. Oh that all could profit by the warning of even a comic poem! there are many lines in it, that, rightly understood, would open the eyes of the money-lovers. They who cannot do without a carriage, because "it looks so odd," they who cannot ask a friend to dinner, without giving champagne and silver plate, beevery one does it;" they whose sons must go to college, and spend half their fortune in disreputable debts, because "they will want good connexions, only to be found there," among young men of twice their own rank and fortune, who teach nothing but expensive habits, and forget the pupil when they go abroad into the world; they who ruin the pure minds of their daughters by manoeuvring to get them married, till the young creatures are as artificial

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COLERIDGE.

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Little need for trifling story

To beguile the hours away;
Heavy tomes, huge clasp'd and hoary,
Better suit than tinkling lay.

See them in proportions stately—
Iron-clasp'd and oaken-bound-
As they side-by-side sedately

Fill their places near the ground;

As if well they knew their station,
And for all the ranks o'erhead
They afforded a foundation,
Sterling lustre furnished.

Farewell to outdoor existence !

Lo! the ruddy flame ascends;
What care I for change or distance,
I am now with changeless friends.

So with eyes half-clos'd and dreaming
Sit I in my study nook,
Summoning, unto my seeming,

Scribe of many a pleasant book.

And the ancient chair before me

Hath bright tenants for mine eyes;
But no secret fear comes o'er me-
All I feel is glad surprise.

* Southey.

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