List; not a sigh!-though fall'n on evil days, Nightly he walks the bowers of Paradise. So on his brow-where grief has passed away- [From "Milton," Part iv.-"We regard this poem as one of great beauty. Difficult as was the subject, the author's treatment of it has been eminently successful, while the melody and exquisite construction of the verse are in accordance with the sentiments it conveys."-(Blackwood's Magazine.) "Neither in the fancy nor the form of this 'graceful poem,'": says The Quarterly Review, "is there aught for the ripeness of age, with all its gathered cultivation, refinement, and experience, to blush at or disown. The central figure, one of the grandest in our literary annals, is sketched with a loving reverence; the thread of romance is justifiably amplified, but not strained beyond the limits of the probable, whilst the accessories are all in perfect keeping and subordination. The result of the whole is a noble picture of the bard of Comus, in his youth, manhood, and age."] "THE GRAND DESIRE WHICH EVER FOR THE DISTANT SIGHS AND MUST PERFORCE ASPIRE."-LYTTON. "THAT GRAND AMBITION, WHEN BOYHOOD'S HEART SWELLS UP TO THE SUBLIME."-LORD LYTTON. "FOR IF THOU LOV'ST TRULY THOU CANST NOT DISSEVER THE GRAVE FROM THE OH, STRONG AS THE EAGLE, OH, MILD AS THE DOVE,-(LORD LYTTON) THE DESIRE OF FAME. Do I lament that I have seen the bays Denied my own, not worthier brows above,— Do I lament that roseate youth had flown No! for whoever with an earnest soul, Better than Fame is still the wish for Fame, The wish for Fame is faith in holy things To gladden the earth with beauty, or men's lives 273 HOW LIKE AND HOW UNLIKE, O DEATH AND O LOVE!"-LORD LYTTON. AND IF, NOTHING HOPING, THOU GAZEST ABOVE, IN DEATH THOU BEHOLDEST THE ASPECT OF LOVE."-LORD LYTTON. "LOSE WHAT THOU LOVEST, AND THE LIFE OF OLD IS FROM THINE EYES, O SOUL, NO MORE CONCEALED ;-(LORD LYTTON) "HAPPY THE MAN IN WHOM WITH EVERY YEAR-(LORD LYTTON) If vain for others, not in vain for me,— Who builds an altar, let him worship there; Not hallowed less the prayer. When by the altar sleeps the funeral stone, And Truth is seen alone: When causeless Hate can wound its prey no more, And fawns its late repentance o'er the dead, Or if you children, whose young sounds of glee Taking some spark to glad the earth, or light And one sad memory in the sons requite [These lines may be compared with Byron's verses, written on the occasion of his thirty-sixth birth-day. They resemble them in tone and metri cal form.] THE POPE AND THE BEGGAR. "The desires the chains, the deeds the wings." When reigned that clay the Hierarch Sire of Rome; NEW LIFE IS BORN, RE-BAPTIZED IN THE PAST."-LORD LYTTON. LOOK BEYOND DEATH, AND THROUGH THY TEARS BEHOLD THERE, WHERE LOVE GOES, THINE ANCIENT HOME."-LYTTON. "LIKE LIGHT, CONNECTING STAR AND STAR, DOES THOUGHT, TRANSMITTED, RUN-(LYTTON) HOW SWEET THE DAYS WE YEARN FOR, TILL FULFILLED!"- -LYTTON. THE POPE AND THE BEGGAR. And all was incense, solemn dirge, and prayer, Dost thou not soar away?" And the soul answered, with a ghastly frown, 275 It spoke, and where Rome's purple ones reposed Over that two-fold one! Without the church, unburied on the ground, There lay in rags a beggar newly dead; But round the corpse unnumbered lovely things, Formed, upward, upward, upward, with bright wings, "And what are ye, O beautiful?" "We are," Answered the cherubim, "his deeds!" And lightly passing, tier on tier, along IN THE ETERNAL SHALL WE SEIZE THE FLEETING NOW?"-LYTTON. RAYS THAT TO EARTH THE NEAREST ARE, HAVE LONGEST LEFT THE SUN."-LORD LYTTON. "MAPPED ARE THE KNOWN DOMINIONS OF THE THOUGHT,-(LYTTON) "Knew ye this beggar?" "Knew! a wretch who died Then did I muse, such are men's judgments; blind [From "Corn-Flowers," book ii.] "AS IN CREATION LIVES THE FATHER SOUL, SO LIVES THE SOUL HE BREATHED AMIDST THE CLAY; THE HOLLOW OAK. OLLOW is the oak beside the sunny waters drooping; Dream I now, or hear I now—far, their mellow whooping! Gay below the cowslip bank, see the billow dances, [From "Corn-Flowers," book ii., in "Collected Poetical Works."] BUT WHO SHALL FIND THE PALACE OF THE SOUL?"-LORD LYTTON. ROUND IT THE THOUGHTS ON STARRY AXLES roll, lifE FLOWS AND EBBS AWAY."-LORD LYTTON. |