And all their harmless claws disclose, While softly from thy whiskered cheek Do rustics rude thy tricks admire ; Whence hast thou, then, thou witless puss, The magic power to charm us thus ? An emblem, viewed with kindred eye, Ah! many a lightly-sportive child, Nor, when thy span of life be past, And children show, with glistening eyes, WELCOME BAT AND OWLET GRAY. O WELCOME bat and owlet gray, Nn ALFRED TENNYSON is, we understand, the son of a clergyman residing in Lincolnshire: he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree. He has a brother, Charles, who has published a volume of graceful and beautiful "Sonnets;" and another brother, Frederick, is said to possess considerable poetical powers. Their two sisters, also, are, we are told, distinguished by rare abilities. Their home is likened by a correspondent to " a nest of nightingales." Mr. Hunt, who has favoured us with some remarks upon the poetry of Alfred Tennyson, states, that "he is of the school of Keats; that is to say, it is difficult not to see that Keats has been a great deal in his thoughts; and that he delights in the same brooding over his sensationsand the same melodious enjoyment of their expression. In his desire to communicate this music, he goes so far as to accent the final syllables in his participles passive,-as pleached, crownéd, purple-spikéd, &c.,—with visible printers' marks, which subjects him, but erroneously, to a charge of pedantry; though it is a nicety not complimentary to the reader, and of which he may as well get rid. Much, however, as he reminds us of Keats, his genius is his own: he would have written poetry had his precursor written none; and he has, also, a vein of metaphysical subtlety, in which the other did not indulge, as may be seen by his verses entitled, 'A Character,' those 'On the confessions of a Sensitive Mind,' and numerous others. He is, also, a great lover of a certain home kind of landscape, which he delights to paint with a minuteness that, in the Moated Grange,' becomes affecting, and, in the Miller's Daughter,' would remind us of the Dutch school if it were not mixed up with the same deep feeling, though varied with a pleasant joviality. Mr. Tennyson has yet given no such evidence of sustained and broad power as that of 'Hyperion,' nor even of such gentler narrative as the Eve of St. Agnes,' and the poems of Lamia,' and 'Isabella,' but the materials of the noblest poetry are abundant in him." Hitherto he has but tried the strength of his wings; he is, no doubt, preparing for a more daring flight than he has yet ventured. There are, it is certain, many and glaring faults in his poems: he seems, by his frequent repetitions of them, to consider as beauties things which are unquestionably blemishes. His veneration for the old Poets, and his love for those among his contemporaries who have based their style upon them, have led him to adopt the puerilities in which the age of Elizabeth was fertile: he frequently mistakes affectation for simplicity, and occasionally fancies that to be natural which borders upon burlesque. Thus, several of the most beautiful of his compositions are marred by some jarring word or conceit. In one of the sweetest of them all,-" the Miller's Daughter," and in one of the most exquisite stanzas of it, we find an example: "Look through mine eyes with thine. True wife, Round my true heart thine arms entwine; My other dearer life in life, Look through my very soul with thine. Untouched with any shade of years, May those kind eyes for ever dwell; They have not shed a MANY tears, Dear eyes! since first I knew them well." Such faults are by no means rare among the poems of Mr. Tennyson. We need, however, but refer to our extracts for proof that his beauties are striking and numerous; and that a little more care would render them exquisitely perfect. We cannot but agree with Mr. Hunt, that "the materials of the noblest poetry are abundant in him;" they will become useless, if neglected. Mr. Tennyson has published two volumes; and the last is not the best. Our extracts are, with but one exception, made from the former. It is to be regretted that the reputation which this work obtained for him did not induce him to write with a higher object than that of amusing and gratifying the reader, by a collection of brief and comparatively unimportant poems; or that until he had succeeded in producing something more worthy of his genius, he did not abstain from appearing a second time before the public. The world will look with anxiety to the next; it will decide the point which is still undecided-whether another great Poet is to be added to the long list which the present century has supplied to us, or whether the industry and energy of the author of" Poems, chiefly Lyrical," are not equal to his delicacy and imagination. His compositions are, undoubtedly, brilliant and beautiful: their merit is sufficient to justify the praise he has received; and it is only because he has afforded ample proof of his capacity to do better, that we lament he has not yet fulfilled the earliest promise of his genius. He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, Perforce, like those whom Gideon schooled with briars. MARIANA. WITH blackest moss the flower plots Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, "My life is dreary, Her tears fell with the dews at even, Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" Upon the middle of the night, Waking, she heard the night fowl crow: She only said, "The day is dreary, |