TO A SKYLARK.

Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad day-light

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

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The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden,

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower :

Like a glow worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue

Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain awakened flowers,
All that ever was

Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass :

*

*

FROM LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.

THE PLAIN OF LOMBARDY.

Beneath is spread, like a green sea,

The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies,—
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,

Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;

And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,

Column, tower, and dome, and spire,

Shine like obelisks of fire,

Pointing with inconstant motion

From the altar of dark ocean

To the sapphire-tinted skies:
As the flames of sacrifice

From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City! thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen.

THE PLAIN OF LOMBARDY.
PLAIN

Or an air-dissolvéd star,

Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of heaven's profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath; the leaves unsodden,
Where the infant frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet ;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough dark skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine,
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit, which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie

By the glory of the sky;

Be it love, light, harmony,

Odour, or the soul of all,

Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe."

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FELICIA HEMANS.

(1793-1835.)

FEMALE authorship in England is of comparatively modern date. After the period when the maiden queen condescended to figure as a little occidental luminary in poetry, a single star or two glitters in the sky of the 17th century; they begin to assemble in greater numbers in the 18th, and in the conclusion of that century and the commencement of the present, the literature of England presents the names of many females in all departments of knowledge, of pre-eminent or of respectable merit.3

1 The zenith.

2 These lines exemplify the felt relation of Shelley's mind towards external nature, when "his spirit did not darken the stream of his verse;" they contain all things that are beautiful, but the God of nature is not there.

8 Not even excluding pure science, witness the works of Mrs. Somerville. The tone of the literature of the females of Britain is invariably wholesome, and contrasts with much of that of France. It is pleasing to reflect that a great portion of the lite

Mrs. Hemans, originally Miss Felicia Dorothea Browne, was the daughter of a merchant, a native of Ireland, and born in Liverpool in September 1793. The failure of her father in trade caused the retirement of the family into Wales, and the childhood of the poetess was spent among the inspiring scenery of Denbighshire. From a child she was a versifier, and produced her first publication at the age of fifteen. At that of eighteen, she was married to Captain Hemans. The union was unhappy; her husband six years afterwards, for his health, went to Italy, and, without any formal deed of separation, they never met again. Mrs. Hemans continued in her Welsh seclusion, the exertions of her pen, the education of her children, and the duties of religion and benevolence, furnishing her with ample employment. She died in Dublin, during a visit to her brother, Major Browne, in 1835.

Mrs. Hemans, like several modern writers, is most popular in her minor poems. Delicacy of feeling, warmth of affection and devotion, depth of sympathy with nature, and harmony and brilliancy of language, are the features of these charming little pieces. Her larger works have the same characteristics, but become languid and fatiguing from their very uniformity of sweetness. Over her whole poetry, in the phrase of Sir W. Scott, there is too much flower for the fruit. Her style has been peculiarly popular in America, and much of the later American poetry is moulded on it. The larger works of Mrs. Hemans are "The Sceptic ;" "The Vespers of Palermo" (a tragedy); "The Forest Sanctuary;" "Records of Woman."

FROM THE FOREST SANCTUARY.

THE VOICES OF HOME.

THE Voices of my home !---I hear them still!
They have been with me through the dreamy night-
The blessed household voices, wont to fill

My heart's clear depths with unalloy'd delight!

I hear them still, unchanged :-though some from earth
Are music parted, and the tones of mirth-

Wild, silvery tones, that rang through days more bright!
Have died in others,-yet to me they come,

Singing of boyhood back-the voices of my home!

They call me through this hush of woods reposing,
In the gray stillness of the summer morn;

They wander by when heavy flowers are closing,

And thoughts grow deep, and winds and stars are born;
Even as a fount's remember'd gushings burst

On the parch'd traveller in his hour of thirst,

E'en thus they haunt me with sweet sounds, till worn

By quenchless longings, to my soul I say-

O for the dove's swift wings, that I might flee away,—

rary industry of our authoresses has been devoted to education, the most important of a mother's duties. Besides direct works on this subject, and books compiled for school purposes, the most charming fictions have been made subsidiary to the same object by Mrs. Sherwood, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Mulock, etc.

A FATHER READING THE BIBLE.

And find mine ark !-yet whither?--I must bear
A yearning heart within me to the grave.

I am of those o'er whom a breath of air-
Just darkening in its course the lake's bright wave,
And sighing through the feathery canes-hath power
To call up shadows, in the silent hour,

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From the dim past, as from a wizard's cave !— So must it be!—These skies above me spread, Are they my own soft skies?-ye rest not here, my dead!

A FATHER READING THE BIBLE.

'Twas early day, and sunlight stream'd
Soft through a quiet room,
That hush'd, but not forsaken, seem'd,
Still, but with nought of gloom.
For there, serene in happy age,
Whose hope is from above,
A Father communed with the page
Of Heaven's recorded love.

Pure fell the beam, and meekly bright,
On his gray holy hair,

And touched the page with tenderest light,
As if its shrine were there!

But oh! that patriarch's aspect shone
With something lovelier far-

A radiance all the spirit's own,
Caught not from sun or star.

Some word of life e'en then had met
His calm benignant eye;

Some ancient promise, breathing yet
Of immortality!

Some martyr's prayer, wherein the glow

Of quenchless faith survives:
While every feature said "I know
That my Redeemer lives!"

And silent stood his children by,
Hushing their very breath,
Before the solemn sanctity

Of thoughts o'ersweeping death.
Silent-yet did not each young breast
With love and reverence melt?
Oh! blest be those fair girls, and blest
That home where God is felt!