forty years hence ? The engrossing interest of any period is naturally excited by the passing events and productions of that period; and doubtless the men of future generations will fancy their own bards and battles far mightier, and more honourable, than those in which we now exult. It is scarcely to be expected that our voluminous poets will find a place in the libraries of that period. But their lyrics cannot so glide into oblivion ; independently of the living beauty with which hosts of them are invested, too many duplicates are extant ;-here, and there, and every where, will they be found like the poet's daisies

In shoals and bands a morrice train.

But it is time Mrs. Hemans' poetry were allowed to speak for itself; in making our extracts from it, we have really been as much puzzled as a child gathering flowers in a lovely garden-now attracted by a rosestraightway allured by a lily-now tempted by a stately tulip-and again unsettled by a breathing violet, or well-attired woodbine.' We do think, however, that the Voice of Spring' is the pride of Mrs. H.'s parterre; the rose of her poetry.

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 that 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 chesnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers,

And the ancient groves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veil'd 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 looked 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 rein-deer bounds o'er the pasture free,
And the pine hath a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright, where my foot has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing 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-branch 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 o'er 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 be now your home,
Ye of the rose-lip 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 care-worn men
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!
Away from the chamber and sullen 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.

But ye!-ye are changed since ye met me last!
There is something bright from your features passed!
There is that come over your brow and eye
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die!
-Ye smile! but your smile hath a dimness yet-
Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?

Ye are changed, ye are changed!-and I see not here
All whom I saw in the vanished year!

There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright,
Which tossed in the breeze with a play of light;
There were eyes, in whose glistening laughter lay
No faint remembrance of dull decay!

There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;

There were voices that rung through the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!

Are they gone? is their mirth from the mountains passed?
-Ye have look'd on death since ye met me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o'er you now,
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to earth's embrace,
She hath taken the fairest of beauty's race;
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown,
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!

They have gone from amongst you, the young and fair,
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!

-But I know of a land where there falls no blight,
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light!

Where Death 'midst the blooms of the morn may dwell
I tarry no longer-farewell, farewell!

The summer is coming, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!

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-farewell, farewell!

THE LOST PLEIAD.

And is there glory from the heavens departed?
-Oh void unmarked!-thy sisters of the sky
Still hold their place on high,

Though from its rank thine orb so long hath started,
Thou! that no more art seen of mortal eye!

Hath the Night lost a gem, the regal Night?
-She wears her crown of old magnificence,
Though thou art exiled thence!

No desert seems to part those orbs of light,
Midst the far depths of purple gloom intense.

They rise in joy, the starry myriads burning!
The shepherd greets them on his mountains free,
And from the silvery sea

To them the sailor's wakeful eye is turning;

-Unchanged they rise, they have not mourned for thee!
Could'st thou be shaken from thy radiant place,
Even as a dew-drop from the myrtle spray,
Swept by the wind away?

Wert thou not peopled by some glorious race,
And was there powers to smite them with decay?
Why, who shall talk of Thrones, of Sceptres riven?
-It is too sad to think on what we are,

When from its height afar,

A world sinks thus! and yon majestic Heaven
Shines not the less for that one vanished star!

This and the following poem exhibit Mrs. Hemans' keen perception of the picturesque, whether in thought, feeling, or incident. They also display her great power of illustrating and varying a single idea-' drawing all things to one.'-In her best pieces, it is very interesting to watch the progress of the thought or feeling in all its stages; from the germ in the first verse, to the climax in the last.

BRING FLOWERS.

BRING flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup ere the wine is poured:
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,
Their breath floats out on the southern gale,
And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.
Bring flowers to strew in the Conqueror's path,-
He hath shaken thrones with his stormy wrath!
He comes with the spoils of nations back,
The vines lie crushed in his chariot track,
The turf looks red where he won the day,-
Bring flowers to die in the Conqueror's way!
Bring flowers to the Captive's lonely cell,
They have tales of the joyous woods to tell;
Of the free blue streams, and the glowing sky,
And the bright world shut from his languid eye;
They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours,

And a dream of his youth.-Bring him flowers, wild flowers.
Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the Bride to wear!

They were born to blush in her shining hair.
She is leaving the home of her childish mirth,
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth,
Her place is now by another's side,—

Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young Bride!
Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early dead!

For this through its leaves hath the white-rose burst,
For this in the woods was the violet nurst.

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are Love's last gift,-Bring flowers, pale flowers!
Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer,
They are Nature's offering, their place is there!

They speak of hope to the fainting heart,

With a voice of promise they come and part,
They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,

They break forth in glory-Bring flowers, bright flowers!

The Siege of Valencia' abounds with admirable, but it contains few quotable passages. As a dramatic poem the interest of parts must in great measure depend on their reference to the whole, and to detach a number of beauties from their context, is as unfair and unsatisfactory, as to cut the flowers from a piece of embroidery, or the figures out of a picture. There is however one passage complete in itself, which we shall give. It occurs in the scene where Gonzalez, the governor, announces to his wife that their two sons can only be rescued from impending death by an immediate surrender of the city. The whole scene is wrought up with extraordinary power; and the way in which Elmina pleads with her husband, forgetful of every character but the mother-every consideration but her ' pretty little ones,'-pierces to the heart.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

LOVE! love!-There are soft smiles and gentle words,
And there are faces, skilful to put on

The look we trust in-and 'tis mockery all!

A faithless mist, a desert-vapour, wearing

The brightness of clear waters, thus to cheat

The thirst that semblance kindled !-There is none,

In all this cold and hollow world-no fount

Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
A mother's heart. It is but pride, wherewith
To his fair son the father's eye doth turn,
Watching his growth. Ay, on the boy he looks,
The bright glad creature springing in his path,
But as the heir of his great name, the young,
And stately tree, whose rising strength ere long
Shall bear his trophies well.-And this is love!
This is man's love!-What marvel? You ne'er made
Your breast the pillow of his infancy,

While to the fulness of your heart's glad heavings
His fair cheek rose and fell; and his bright hair

Waved softly to your breath!-You ne'er kept watch
Beside him, till the last pale star had set,
And morn all dazzling as in triumph, broke
On your dim weary eye; not your's the face
Which early faded through fond care for him,
Hung o'er his sleep, and, duly as Heaven's light,
Was there to greet his wakening. You ne'er smoothed
His couch, ne'er sung him to his rosy rest,

Caught his least whisper, when his voice from your's
Had learned soft utterance; pressed your lip to his,
When fever parched it; hushed his wayward cries,
With patient, vigilant, never-wearied love!

No! these are woman's tasks!-In these her youth
And bloom of cheek, and buoyancy of heart,
Steal from her all unmarked!

Could any but a woman, a true woman, have written the last passage? And is not one such appeal to the deepest, because the holiest feelings of our nature, feelings founded, sanctioned, and upheld by God himself, far better worth, than the ravings of love-lorn maidens, and desperate cavaliers ? Passion is a poetical cant word of the day; it is something worse unfortunately—a kind of literary demon, upon whose shrine good sense, good feeling, and good taste, are to be recklessly immolated. Nothing is supposed to be said strongly that is said simply; every line must produce

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an effect;' every word must tell;'-in fact, what Goldsmith said truly in one sense, is now equally true in another—

Who peppers the highest is surest to please.

The human heart is to be treated like Lord Peter's coat in the Tale of a Tub-authors need mind nothing, so they do but tear away.'

Powerful

is another cant word, which palms off every delineation that is monstrous and absurd. Language is powerful, when epithets succeed each other as fast and heavily as the strokes of a blacksmith's hammer ;-ideas are powerful, when they cannot be defined; but, like Ossian's ghosts, reveal themselves in mist and shadow ;-and characters and incidents are powerful, when they make us wonder what is to follow after! Those who catered for the Nursery in the olden times, had very correct notions on these points. Jack the Giant Killer is truly powerful! Blue Beard is fraught with passion! Mrs. Hemans' admirable taste completely guards her from these, the besetting sins of our lighter literature; and yet, when she unreservedly surrenders the pencil to the guidance of her own heart and fancy, her pictures are as beautiful for their fervid colouring, as they invariably are for their correct and vigorous outlines. But it is a remarkable circumstance, that Mrs Hemans has so rarely, that we might also say, has never, made personal feeling the subject of her poetry. This unusual reserve has proceeded from delicacy of taste, but it has, we think, diminished the interest of her works, because the reader could never, so to speak, individualize the poet.

Young, and mediocre authors, generally injure themselves by a contrary line of conduct; they absolutely wear out a reader's patience by the continual recurrence of Stanzas to -,' and 'Stanzas on But with

an author of acknowledged genius, and established fame, the case is different. We are not satisfied with seeing them in character, we wish to be admitted behind the scenes;-having bowed before them as enchanters, we long to associate with them as friends-to hear them with their own voices tell us of their own feelings, or at least their opinions on subjects common to all. It is this, even more than their beauty, which renders the private sonnets of Milton and Shakespeare so intensely interesting; it was well-managed egotism that first made Lord Byron the idol of the public ;nay, we do not scruple to assert, that the most generally popular productions of our modern poets are those which have had a reference to private feeling. It is Wordsworth's She was a Phantom'-and Coleridge's Genevieve'-and Scott's Introductions to Marmion'-and Burns' To Mary in Heaven'-and Leigh Hunt's Lines to his Child'-and Shelley's 'Stanzas written in the Bay of Naples'—and a host of other pieces we could name, that have excited the deepest interest. It is a high, but it is also a deserved compliment, that we mean to pay Mrs. Hemans, when we express a wish that she would oftener be to us an unveiled prophetess; and without the intervention of history, ancient or modern-classical or romantic-impart to us her own impressions on subjects that come more immediately home to the human heart, and are more intimately connected with the course of human life. In The Sceptic' she has done this in a most interesting as well as masterly style. We shall indulge in a pretty long extract from this poem.