tree. York city, and when near Bloomingdale, they observed a cottager in the act of sharpening his axe under the shadow of a noble ancestral His friend, who was once the proprietor of the estate on which the tree stood, suspecting that the woodman intended to cut it down, remonstrated against the act, and accompanying the protest with a ten-dollar note, succeeded in preserving from destruction this legendary memorial of his earlier and better days. Now for the song: Woodman, spare that tree!-touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me, and I'll protect it now. Are spread o'er land and sea,—and wouldst thou cut it down? When but an idle boy, I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy, here, too, my sisters played ; My heart-strings round thee cling, close as thy bark, old friend ! Old tree! the storm still brave; and, woodman, leave the spot ; While I've a hand to save, thy axe shall harm it not. This lyric is also by the same author : To me the world's an open book, of sweet and pleasant poetry; grass, And in the cool, fresh evening breeze, that crisps the wavelets as they pass. The flowers below, the stars above, in all their bloom and brightness given, Are, like the attributes of love, the poetry of earth and heaven. Thus Nature's volume, read aright, attunes the soul to minstrelsy, Tinging life's clouds with rosy light, and all the world with poetry. ROGERS seems to have imbibed much of the spirit of Goldsmith in his poetry, as Campbell did that of Rogers. There is not only an analogy between The Pleasures of Hope and The Pleasures of Memory, beyond the mere titles; it is also observable in the style and structure of the poems. Rogers was engaged for nine years. upon his first poem, and nearly the same space of time upon his Human Life, while his Italy was not completed in less than sixteen years. He was a princely patron of poor poets and artists, and had learned the luxury of doing good,"-but he was possessed of ample means for the gratification of his noble purpose, as well as his artistic taste. His house in St. James's Place-a costly museum of art—was, for many years, the resort of the most eminent men of letters from all parts of the world. He expended upwards of twenty thousand pounds upon the illustrated edition of his works, the beautiful engravings of which have scarcely to this day been surpassed. The life of this remarkable man was extended beyond the average term of human existence. When more than ninety, and a prisoner in his chair, he still delighted to watch the changing colours of the evening sky-to repeat passages of his favourite poets-or to dwell on the merits of the great painters whose works adorned his walls. There is such quiet, pensive music in his Pleasures of Memory, that it would be difficult to select a passage that would fail to please : here is one :— Ethereal power! whose smile of noon, of night, Instils that musing, melancholy mood, Which charms the wise, and elevates the good ;— Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; Each, as the varied avenues of sense Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense, Brightens or fades, yet all, with magic art, Control the latent fibres of the heart. There is a favourite passage from his Human Life, too good to pass over:— The lark has sung his carol in the sky, The bees have hummed their noontide harmony; Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer, The babe, the sleeping image of his sire. A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail So soon the child a youth, the youth a man, Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin; Mid many a tale told of his boyish days, "'Twas on these knees he sate so oft, and smiled." Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees He rests in holy earth, with them that went before! It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone! Rogers's Lines to a Butterfly are replete with grace and beauty : Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept. And such is man: soon from his cell of clay To burst a seraph in the blaze of day. We might cull many pearls of thought from this poet, but we have only space for the following: The soul of music slumbers in the shell A guardian angel o'er his life presiding, The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still. Far from the joyless glare, the maddening strife, And all the dull impertinence of life. Let us turn now, with LAURA A. BOIES, to a sweet domestic study-that of Little Children : There is music, there is sunshine, where the little children dwell,— There is music in their voices, there is sunshine in their love, skies : Lurking in each roguish dimple, nestling in each ringlet fair; own, And the magic of their presence round about our hearts is thrown. |