These very sweet and touching stanzas bear the unknown signature of M. G. T. Whoever be the Writer, they indicate a well-tuned ear and a feeling heart, two of the chief requisites for poetical excellence. We shall take for our next specimen, a spirited ballad by William Kennedy,-whose contributions are always marked by indications of genuine and original talent, mingled with a large alloy of false taste. In the present instance, his verse is much more correct and musical than in his usually wild, unequal, and dark-fancied strains.

'CROMWELL AT MARSTON MOOR.

"Be fervent in spirit!" old Oliver said,
As the bands of the faithful to battle he led ;

"Nor the race to the swift, nor the fight to the strong,
The hand of the Lord smites the doers of wrong.

073

"The servants of Baal, and the boy Palatine, Laugh the godly to scorn, when drunken with wine; 1*།;:1; & Vain boasters!-there 's One who his people will hear, i And scatter the might of the proud cavalier.”

The lips of his legion are busy in prayer

The Bible is mantled-the broad sword is bare ;
And fixed in their features as riders of stone,
The gauntleted yeomen press dauntlessly on.

'Oh, heedless thy warning, brave Newcastle, given
To hot-blooded Rupert by destiny driven !
The Royalist chivalry ranged on the moor-
Already he welcomes his triumph as sure.

'Can a fanatic rabble a moment sustain

The charge of the gallants that shine in his train?
Can the treason-stained puritan churls repel

The weapons by loyal lords wielded so well?

Young champion of greatness, the time has gone by,
When the grim feudal banner obscured freedom's sky,
The plough-share is rusting-the hind 's to the fray-
And woe to the master that meets him to-day!

a

'Deep mutter the cannon-the war-trumpets sound-
The storm of the onset bursts darkly around;
And deadly the contest, and dismal the flood,
On England's own soil, of her children's best blood.
'As the steed of the hunter aroused by the horn,
Bounds o'er the light ranks of the husbandman's corn;
So, onward against the gay guards of the crown,
Dash their short-shorn foemen and trample them down,
Where valour was fainting, there Fairfax was seen; A
Through the crush of the flying, swept Lambert the keen,

., But steel-tempered Cromwell stood first of the field;
By him and his troopers was victory sealed.

'Not useless the combats for liberty won,

Though a Cromwell undo what a Cromwell has done :
Their very remembrance is strength in the hour,
When the sword is unsheathed against insolent power.'
(The Amulet.)

The Literary Souvenir, however, decidedly takes the lead of the Annuals, this year, in the poetical department. We have already extracted one beautiful specimen. Miss Bowles has some very elegant and pleasing verses, To my little Cousin, with her first Bonnet.' Mr. Praed has contributed several brilliant jeux d'esprit: the easy and graceful manner in which he sports with verse, is truly enviable. A Song, by W. C. Bryant, is worthy of being set to music by Mozart. Wordsworth might have written the Three Guests; and with this compliment, Mrs. Howitt will, we hope, be satisfied: it is a legend of purgatory, very horrible, and, to our taste, unpleasing.The Lost Spirit we dare not transcribe; it is thrilling, awful, true: who can have written it? Miss Jewsbury? Marian Lee' is pretty. The Indian Girl's Lament,' by an American poet, and Ruins,' by an anonymous one, are highly respectable. The Violet,' by L. E. L., answers so well to its title, that we must gather it.

THE VIOLET.

Why better than the lady rose

Love I this little flower?

Because its fragrant leaves are those

I loved in childhood's hour.

Though many a flower may win my praise,

The violet has my love;

I did not pass my childish days
In garden or in grove:

My garden was the window-seat,
Upon whose edge was set

A little vase,-the fair, the sweet,-
It was the violet.

It was my pleasure and my pride ;-
How I did watch its growth!

For health and bloom what plans I tried,
And often injured both.

I placed it in the summer shower,

I placed it in the sun;

And ever, at the evening hour,
My work seemed half undone.

The broad leaves spread, the small buds grew,

How slow they seemed to be;

At last, there came a tinge of blue,—
'Twas worth the world to me!

At length the perfume filled the room,
Shed from their purple wreath;
No flower has now so rich a bloom,
Has now so sweet a breath.

I gathered two or three,-they seemed
Such rich gifts to bestow;
So precious in my sight, I deemed

That all must think them so.

"Ah! who is there but would be fain
To be a child once more;

If future years could bring again

All that they brought before.

My heart's world has been long o'erthrown,
It is no more of flowers;

Their bloom is past, their breath is flown,
Yet I recal those hours.

Let nature spread her loveliest

By spring or summer nurst;
Yet still I love the violet best,
Because I loved it first.'

L. E. L.

As a companion piece, we shall give some very pleasing and musical stanzas by the Editor, to whose taste the general character of the volume does no small credit.

TO A CHILD BLOWING BUBBLES,

BY ALARIC A. WATTS.

Thrice happy Babe! what golden dreams are thine,
As thus thou bidd'st thine air-born bubbles soar ;-
Who would not Wisdom's choicest gifts resign,

To be, like thee, "a careless child" once more!
To share thy simple sports, thy sinless glee,

Thy breathless wonder, thy unfeigned delight,-
As, one by one, those sun-touched glories flee,
In swift succession, from thy straining sight!
To feel a power within himself to make,

Like thee, a rainbow wheresoe'er he goes;
To dream of sunshine, and like thee to wake
To brighter visions from his charmed repose!
Who would not give his all of worldly lore,—
The hard-earned fruits of many a toil and care,-
Might he but thus the faded past restore,

Thy guileless thoughts and blissful ignorance share?

VOL. IV.-N.S.

3 E

T

Yet life hath bubbles too,—that soothe awhile
The sterner dreams of man's maturer years;
Love-Friendship-Fortune-Fame-by turns beguile,
But melt 'neath Truth's Ithuriel-touch, to tears!

Thrice happy child! a brighter lot is thine!
(What new illusion e'er can match the first!)
We weep to see each cherished hope decline;

Thy mirth is loudest when thy bubbles burst.'

And now, after this exhibition of poetical specimens, the remarks which prefaced them may appear fastidious. But we must recur to our position, that, in genuine poetry, fresh drawn from the living fountains of fancy and nature, the present day is singularly deficient. Poetry is doubtless an art, but its genuine materials are of slow and delicate growth, not to be obtained at all seasons, or in sufficient quantities to supply the demands of the manufacturer. Hence a spurious article, produced by the forcing-glass, is substituted, which looks so much like nature's own production, that the colours might deceive the bees, but there is no smell. The generality of readers, however, are not bees, but only butterflies, to whom the secrets of nature's chemistry are unknown, and whose desultory, superficial, fluttering range over the parterre, does not enable them to detect the difference. We believe that the age is far too busy for poetry;-that the course of thought, the march of intellect, is too rapid for its gentle movements. How slow is the course of a stream to a traveller hurrying forward! Thought itself now works by steam. Books are got up by steam-so many thousands per month. Every body reads a book in a hurry, and when he finds something in it that requires a slower rate of attention, he puts it off for a more convenient season. Nothing but what is brief, striking, intense, obvious, tangible, suits the habits of the day. Who has leisure for that converse with nature and his own heart, of which poetry is the native dialect, and from which alone it can be learned or understood?

We make these remarks in no querulous mood, but with a view to account for the decline, not so much of genius, as of a taste for excellence, which is, we think, perceptible, and the deteriorating effect of which extends to those writers who are capable of better things. Those who write for the moment and for the many, must, indeed, conform themselves to the taste and character of the age; and with it, they will pass away. They have their reward. In the mean time, the permanent interests of literature require that its guardians should uphold a higher standard, and not suffer the staple commodity to perish. We have still poets among us. There is John Clare, whose name we miss from these Annuals: is he already gone by?—

Montgomery, we see, has indignantly taken to prose, which he always writes like a poet. The oaten stop of the Ettrick Shepherd is not of great power or compass, but its simple tones touch the heart like the sounds of nature. For instance, there is a sweet little poem of his in The Remembrance,' which we must not transcribe, because it is a sort of Nursery ditty, and we should run the risk of being laughed at for admiring it, but it is a perfect lullaby. Listen.

Where the pools are bright and deep,
Where the grey trout lies asleep ;-
Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,--
Where the hazel bank is steepest,

Where the shadow falls the deepest— '

By what slight touches does Genius effect its object, such as, in this instance, only a quiet observer of nature would recognise, or a lover of nature feel. From the same volume, we are tempted to extract the following descriptive lines: they are not of a very high order, and the closing line is defective in point of rhyme, but they shew observation and taste, and moreover, a. correct notion of the Sonnet.

FROST-WORK.

6 BY R. F. HOUSMAN.

Stay yet awhile, ye visionary bowers!
A little while your mimic shapes retain,

Thus pencilled forth upon the teeming pane,
By wizard frost how finely! Night's keen hours
Beheld this werk accomplished !-Groves and towers
Are here; and mountains, a stupendous chain,

O'erlooking Ocean's solitary plain;

And living rills, and plats of garden flowers!
Alas, how fugitive! Even as I speak,
The fairy spectacle dissolves-recedes:

Where now the crested hill, the glittering peak,

The groves, the temples, and the shining seas?
Though pure as Virtue's blameless reveries,
The transitory vision breaks and fades.'

(The Remembrance.)

The Remembrance' contains some other very pleasing pieces from the same Contributor; but we can make room for only one more poem, which must be the simply touching stanzas, entitled,