Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,

And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had passed;
And his wife-by turns she wept and smiled,
As she looked on the father of her child,
Returned to her heart at last.

He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Astounded, the reeling deck he paces,
'Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces;
The whole ship's crew are there!
Wailings around and overhead,
Brave spirits stupified or dead,
And madness and despair.

father was a merchant; but, experiencing some reverses, he removed with his family to Wales, and there the young poetess imbibed that love of nature which is displayed in all her works. In her fifteenth year she ventured on publication. Her first volume was far from successful; but she persevered, and in 1812 published another, entitled The Domestic Affections, and other Poems. The same year she was married to Captain Hemans; but the union does not seem to have been a happy one. She continued her studies,

Rhyllon-the residence of Mrs Hemans in Wales.

1819 she obtained a prize of £50 offered by some patriotic Scotsman for the best poem on the subject of Sir William Wallace. Next year she published The Sceptic. In June 1821 she obtained the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the subject of Dartmoor. Her next effort was a tragedy, the Vespers of Palermo, which was produced at Covent Garden, December 12, 1823; but though supported by the admirable acting of Kemble and Young, it was not successful. In 1826 appeared her best poem, the Forest Sanctuary, and in 1828, Records of Woman. She afterwards produced Lays of Leisure Hours, National Lyrics, &c. In 1829 she paid a visit to Scotland, and was received with great kindness by Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and others of the Scottish literati. In 1830 appeared her Songs of the Affections. The same year she visited Wordsworth, and appears to have been much struck with the secluded beauty of Rydal Lake and Grasmere

O vale and lake, within your mountain urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit lands remote-
Isles of the blest-and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies.

Wordsworth said to her one day, 'I would not give up the mists that spiritualise our mountains for all the blue skies of Italy'-an original and poetical expression. On her return from the lakes, Mrs Hemans went to reside in Dublin, where her brother, Major Browne, was settled. The education of her family (five boys) occupied much of her time and attention. Ill health, however, pressed heavily on her, and she soon experienced a premature decay of the springs of life. In 1834 appeared her little

volume of Hymns for Childhood, and a collection of Scenes and Hymns of Life. She also published some sonnets, under the title of Thoughts during Sickness. Her last strain, produced only about three weeks before her death, was the following fine sonnet dictated to her brother on Sunday the 26th of April:How many blessed groups this hour are bending, Through England's primrose meadow-paths, their way Toward spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending,

Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day!
The halls, from old heroic ages gray,

Pour their fair children forth; and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways-to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness.

This admirable woman and sweet poetess died on the 16th May 1835, aged forty-one. She was interred in St Anne's church, Dublin, and over her grave was inscribed some lines from one of her own dirges

Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit rest thee now !
Even while with us thy footsteps trode,
His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!
Soul to its place on high!
They that have seen thy look in death,
No more may fear to die.

A complete collection of the works of Mrs Hemans, with a memoir by her sister, has been published in six volumes. Though highly popular, and in many respects excellent, we do not think that much of the poetry of Mrs Hemans will descend to posterity. There is, as Scott hinted, too many flowers for the fruit;' more for the ear and fancy, than for the heart and intellect. Some of her shorter pieces and her lyrical productions are touching and beautiful both in sentiment and expression. Her versification is always melodious; but there is an oppressive sameness in her longer poems which fatigues the reader; and when the volume is closed, the effect is only that of a mass of glittering images and polished words, a graceful melancholy and feminine tenderness, but no strong or permanent impression. The passions are seldom stirred, however the fancy may be soothed or gratified. In description, Mrs Hemans had considerable power; she was both copious and exact; and often, as Jeffrey has observed, a lovely picture serves as a foreground to some deep or lofty emotion.' Her imagination was chivalrous and romantic, and delighted in picturing the woods and halls of England, and the ancient martial glory of the land. The purity of her mind is seen in all her works; and her love of nature, like Wordsworth's, was a delicate blending of our deep inward emotions with their splendid symbols and emblems without.

The Voice of Spring.

I come, I come! ye have called me long,

I come o'er the mountains with light and song;
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-
flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers:
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains.
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,
And the reindeer bounds through the pasture free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright where my step has been.
I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep-blue sky,
From the night bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-bough into verdure breaks.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain-brows,
They are flinging spray on the forest-boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.
Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may now be your home.
Ye of the rose-cheek and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly;
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine, I may not stay.
Away from the dwellings of careworn men,
The waters are sparkling in wood and glen;
Away from the chamber and dusky hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth;
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And Youth is abroad in my green domains.
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn;
The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne,
For me I depart to a brighter shore-
Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.
I go where the loved who have left you dwell,
And the flowers are not Death's-fare ye well, fare-

well!

The Homes of England.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound
Through shade and sunny gleam,
And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The merry Homes of England!

Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love
Meet in the ruddy light!

There woman's voice flows forth in song,
Or childhood's tale is told,
Or lips move tunefully along
Some glorious page of old.
The blessed Homes of England!
How softly on their bowers
Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath-hours!

Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime
Floats through their woods at morn;
All other sounds, in that still time,
Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage Homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,
And round the hamlet-fanes.
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves,
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.
The free, fair Homes of England!
Long, long, in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall!
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flowery sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God!

The Graves of a Household.

They grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight--
Where are those dreamers now?

One, 'midst the forests of the west,
By a dark stream is laid-
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dressed
Above the noble slain :

He wrapt his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded 'midst Italian flowers-
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth-
Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, on earth!

The Treasures of the Deep.

Yet more, the depths have more! Thy waves have rolled

Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath filled up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry! Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play, Man yields them to decay!

Yet more the billows and the depths have more! High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast! They hear not now the booming waters roar

The battle-thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!

Give back the lost and lovely! Those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long;
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless
gloom,

And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrownBut all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down;

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown! Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the Dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee !— Restore the Dead, thou Sea!

BERNARD BARTON.

BERNARD BARTON, one of the Society of Friends, published in 1820 a volume of miscellaneous poems, which attracted notice both for their elegant simplicity, and purity of style and feeling, and because they were written by a Quaker. The staple of the whole poems,' says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, is description and meditation-description of quiet home scenery, sweetly and feelingly wrought out-and meditation, overshaded with tenderness, and exalted by devotion-but all terminating in soothing and even cheerful views of the condition and prospects of mortality.' Mr Barton was employed in a banking establishment at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, and he seems to have contemplated abandoning his profession for a literary life. On this point Charles Lamb wrote to him as follows: Throw yourself on the world, without any rational plan of support beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you! Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you have but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them, rather than turn slave to the booksellers. They are Turks and Tartars when they have poor authors at their beck. Hitherto you have been at arm's length from them-come not within their grasp. I have known many authors want for breadsome repining, others enjoying the blessed security of a counting-house-all agreeing they had rather have been tailors, weavers-what not?-rather than the things they were. I have known some starved, some go mad, one dear friend literally dying in a workhouse. Oh, you know not-may you never know the miseries of subsisting by authorship!' There is some exaggeration here. We have known authors by profession who lived cheerfully and un-comfortably, labouring at the stated sum per sheet as regularly as the weaver at his loom, or the tailor on his board; but dignified with the consciousness of following a high and ennobling occupation, with all the mighty minds of past ages as their daily friends and companions. The bane of such a life, when actual genius is involved, is

Yet more,

Far off was the Deben, whose briny flood
By its winding banks was sweeping;
And just at the foot of the hill where I stood,
The dead in their damp graves were sleeping.
How lonely and lovely their resting-place seemed!
An enclosure which care could not enter;
And how sweetly the gray lights of evening gleamed
On the solitary tomb in its centre!
When at morn or at eve I have wandered near,
And in various lights have viewed it,

With what differing forms, unto friendship dear,
Has the magic of fancy endued it!
Sometimes it has seemed like a lonely sail,
A white spot on the emerald billow;
Sometimes like a lamb, in a low grassy vale,
Stretched in peace on its verdant pillow.
But no image of gloom, or of care, or strife,
Has it ever given birth to one minute;
For lamented in death, as beloved in life,
Was he who now slumbers within it.

He was one who in youth on the stormy seas
Was a far and a fearless ranger;

Who, borne on the billow, and blown by the breeze,
Counted lightly of death or of danger.

Yet in this rude school had his heart still kept
All the freshness of gentle feeling;
Nor in woman's warm eye has a tear ever slept
More of softness and kindness revealing.

And here, when the bustle of youth was past,
He lived, and he loved, and he died too;

Oh! why was affection, which death could outlast,
A more lengthened enjoyment denied to?
But here he slumbers! and many there are
Who love that lone tomb and revere it;
And one far off who, like eve's dewy star,
Though at distance, in fancy dwells near it.

BRYAN WALTER PROCTER.

BRYAN WALTER PROCTER, better known by his assumed name of Barry Cornwall, published, in 1815, a small volume of dramatic scenes of a domestic character, in order,' he says, 'to try the effect of a more natural style than that which had for a long time prevailed in our dramatic literature.' The experiment was successful; chiefly on account of the pathetic and tender scenes in Mr Procter's sketches. He has since published Marcian Colonna, The Flood of Thessaly, and other poems: also a tragedy, Mirandola, which was brought out with success at Covent Garden theatre. Mr Procter's later productions have not realised the promise of his early efforts. His professional avocations (for the poet is a barrister) may have withdrawn him from poetry, or at least prevented his studying it with that earnestness and devotion which can alone insure success. Still, Mr Procter is a graceful and accomplished writer. His poetical style seems formed on that of the Elizabethan dramatists, and some of his lyrical pieces are exquisite in sentiment and diction.

Address to the Ocean.

O thou vast Ocean! ever sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone.
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.

Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavily laden breast
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife.
The earth hath nought of this: no chance or change
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go:
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow:
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their wonted home;
And come again, and vanish; the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.
Oh! wonderful thou art, great element:
And fearful in thy spleeny humours bent,
And lovely in repose; thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves

Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,
I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach-
Eternity Eternity-and Power.

Marcelia.

It was a dreary place. The shallow brook
That ran throughout the wood, there took a turn
And widened: all its music died away,

And in the place a silent eddy told

That there the stream grew deeper. There dark trees Funereal (cypress, yew, and shadowy pine,

And spicy cedar) clustered, and at night

Shook from their melancholy branches sounds
And sighs like death: 'twas strange, for through the
day

They stood quite motionless, and looked, methought,
Like monumental things, which the sad earth
To mark a young girl's grave. The very leaves
From its green bosom had cast out in pity,
Disowned their natural green, and took black
And mournful hue; and the rough brier, stretching
His straggling arms across the rivulet,
Lay like an armed sentinel there, catching
With his tenacious leaf straws, withered boughs,
Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which
Swam with the current, and with these it hid
The poor Marcelia's deathbed. Never may net
Of venturous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shortened breath
The brook, and panting flies the unholy place,
And the white heifer lows, and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there: and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the evening mists,
And chequered as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen,
And fancy to myself that a sad voice,
Praying, comes moaning through the leaves, as 'twere
For some misdeed. The story goes-that some
Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world
Frowned upon) once strayed thither, and 'twas thought
Cast herself in the stream: you may have heard
Of one Marcelia, poor Nolina's daughter, who
Fell ill and came to want? No! Oh, she loved
A wealthy man, who marked her not. He wed,
And then the girl grew sick, and pined away,
And drowned herself for love.