The forest tops are lowly cast o'er breezy hill and glen, As if a prayerful spirit passed on nature as on men. The clouds weep o'er the fallen world, e'en as repentant love, Is glorious with the spirit-march of messengers at prayer. As the key-note of Whittier's poetry, we might take his own quaint and beautiful lines: I love the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadia Sidney's silver phrase, Whittier's style is characterized by its pure, strong Saxon: it is said that he engenders his stirring and beautiful thoughts while walking abroad, and subsequently commits them to paper. One of his graver pieces, The Reward, commences thus: Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, And, through the shade Of funeral cypress, planted thick behind, Who hears no trace of Passion's evil force? Half of his future from him, but to win Alas! the evil, which we fain would shun, Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, If he hath been Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, His Dream of Summer is eminently poetic: Bland as the morning breath of June the southwest breezes play, * The Night is mother of the Day, the Winter of the Spring, And ever upon old Decay the greenest mosses cling. Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, who loveth all His works, has left His hope with all. What a grace and exquisite delicacy of touch characterize these lines: A beautiful and happy girl, with step as soft as summer air, And fresh young lip and brow of pearl, Shadowed by many a careless curl of unconfined and flowing hair: A seeming child in every thing, save thoughtful brow and ripening charms, As Nature wears the smile of Spring when sinking into Summer's arms. A mind rejoicing in the light which melted through its graceful bower, And stainless in its holy white, unfolding like a morning flower: woke, And, even when the tongue was mute, from eye and lip in music spoke. How thrills once more the lengthening chain of memory at the thought of thee ! Old hopes which long in dust have lain, Old dreams come thronging back again, and boyhood lives again in me; I feel its glow upon my cheek, its fulness of the heart is mine, As when I leaned to hear thee speak, or raised my doubtful eye to thine. I hear again thy low replies, I feel thy arm within my own, And timidly again uprise The fringed lids of hazel eyes with soft brown tresses overblown. Ah! memories of sweet summer eves, of moonlit wave and willowy way, Of stars, and flowers, and dewy leaves, and smiles and tones more dear than they! KEBLE'S lines on The Lilies of the Field are well worthy our reciting: Sweet nurslings of the vernal skies, bathed with soft airs, and fed with dew, What more than magic in you lies, to fill the heart's fond view? In sorrow, on life's downward way, Memorials prompt and true. Relics ye are of Eden's bowers, as pure, as fragrant, and as fair, As when ye crowned the sunshine hours of happy wanderers there. Fallen all beside,-the world of life, How is it stained with fear and strife! In Reason's world what storms are rife, What passions rage and glare! But cheerful and unchanged the while your first and perfect form ye show, The same that won Eve's matron smile in the world's opening glow. The stars of heaven a course are taught Too high above our human thought; Ye may be found if ye are sought, And as we gaze, we know. BURBIDGE's lines on a Mother's Love are very charming : A little in the doorway sitting, the mother plied her busy knitting; And her cheek so softly smiled, Wherever through the ages rise The atters of self-sacrifice, Where love its arnes. has opened with Br man for man has calmly died I see the fence white wings outspread That hovered vin the Master's head Lip from undated time they conce The martyr ones of heathend in and to His cross and passion bring Their fellersship of suffering John Gldhitter |