Page images
PDF
EPUB

the stone is laid over my head, how can literary fame appear to me, to any one, but as nothing? I believe, when I am gone, justice will be done to me in this way-that I was a pure writer. It is an inexpressible comfort, at my time of life, to be able to look back and feel that I have not written one line against religion or virtue." Is not this claim, which has been in his case well attested by the public censorship, the highest meed of praise that can be awarded to genius?

Campbell's funeral was a grand spectacle. As the solemn procession moved towards the open grave in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, every voice was hushed, except that of the clergyman echoing along the vaulted aisles of the venerable pile—“I am the resurrection and the life." As the sad groups gathered around the grave, the solemn stillness was broken by a sweet strain of rich melody, alternating with grand bursts of chorus from the organ: it was the Dead March in Saul.

A touching incident occurred just as the corpse was about being sprinkled with its native earth;-a Polish officer came forward with a handful of dust, brought for the occasion from the tomb of Kosciuzko, and scattered it upon the coffin. It was a worthy tribute of affectionate regard to the memory of him who had done so much to immortalize the man and the cause.

This sweet lyric we derive from our American poetess, MRS. OSGOOD:

She comes, in light, aërial grace; o'er Memory's glass the vision

flies;

Her girlish form, her glowing face, her soft, black hair, her beaming

eyes.

I think of all her generous love; her trustful heart, so pure and

meek;

Her tears an April shower-that strove with sunshine on her

changing cheek.

She knows no worldly guile or art, but Love and Joy have made

her fair:

And so I keep her in my heart, and bless her in my silent prayer.

[graphic]

Pass we now to the serio-comic HOOD,-a poet whose memory is "emblazoned with a halo of light-hearted mirth and pleasantry," but whose coruscations of wit and fancy do not more charm us, than do the genial charities and deep human sympathies which characterize his graver productions. If he was the "prince of punsters,' he was also pre-eminently the poet of pathos; for, as a portrayer of life in its various phases, his rich and graceful imagery, and vivid descriptions of sorrow and suffering, were no less conspicuous than the kindly spirit with which his sarcasms and satires are tempered,

so that while they cauterize, they cure. How much of human suffering has been mitigated, how many a home of sadness consoled, by the pleadings of his powerful pen! The spirit of his playful productions, so chaste, and so glittering with sportive gayety and humour, are yet enriched with the pure gold of wisdom, so that while they charm the imagination, they also benefit the heart.

Hood's fragile constitution was invaded, during his whole life, by a slow wasting disease, and it was terminated by protracted suffering. Referring to his own physical debility, he thus writes :-"That man who has never known a day's illness is a moral dunce,—one who has lost the greatest moral lesson in life,-who has skipped the finest lecture in that great school of humanity, the sick-chamber. Let him be versed in metaphysics, profound in mathematics, a ripe scholar in the classics, a bachelor of arts, or even a doctor in divinity,— yet he is one of those gentlemen whose education has been neglected. For all his college acquirements, how inferior he is in wholesome knowledge to the mortal who has had a quarter's gout, or a half-year of ague, how infinitely below the fellow-creature who has been soundly taught his tic-douloureux, thoroughly grounded in rheumatism, and deeply red in the scarlet fever!"

It was while suffering from bodily sickness that poor Hood composed those touching and immortal poems,-The Bridge of Sighs, The Lady's Dream, The Lay of the Labourer, and The Song of the Shirt. It was the last-named that his wife at once pronounced one of the best things he ever wrote. Her verdict turned into a prophecy, for it obtained an immediate and long-continued popularity, and was also translated into several foreign languages :

O, men, with sisters dear! O, men, with husbands and wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out, but human creatures' lives!
Stitch, stitch, stitch, in poverty, hunger, and dirt;
Sewing at once, with a double thread, a shroud as well as a shirt!
But why do I talk of death—that phantom of grisly bone?

I hardly fear his terrible shape, it seems so like my own;

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Then give the

soul

little

[ocr errors]

A cecure for love & hope

or only times, for grief.

« PreviousContinue »