We shall set down in order the few particulars which the volume itself enables us to collect, of the friendship whose earthly interruption it deplores. It was not of long life, nor had it its roots in Childhood. It was only of four years' duration, if we are not taking this elegy too literally. "The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased us well, But where the path we walked began And spread his mantle dark and cold; And bore thee where I could not see, Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste; And think that somewhere in the waste, The Shadow sits and waits for me."-P. 38. But though thus short its intensity was not unnatural ; for it seems to have had its origin in the noblest springs of youthful faith, when two minds, enthusiastic, pure, and richly gifted, strengthen in each other the holy aspirations which no experiences of men, and no failures of virtue in themselves, have yet dishonoured. A friendship that began and had all its being in that golden light of life may well consecrate the heart for ever. Its birth could not have been very remote from the genial remembrances here recorded. "I past beside the reverend walls In which of old I wore the gown; I roved at random through the town, CHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 49. And heard once more in college fanes And caught once more the distant shout, The same gray flats again, and felt Another name was on the door : I linger'd; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys Where once we held debate, a band Of youthful friends, on mind and art, When one would aim an arrow fair, But send it slackly from the string; And last the master-bowman, he Would cleave the mark. A willing ear From point to point with power and grace, To those conclusions when we saw And seem to lift the form, and glow And over those ethereal eyes The friendship begun at College was made more dear and intimate in the intercourses of a home in the country, when Arthur was the poet's guest. "Witch-elms that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright: How often, hither wandering down, The dust and din and steam of town: He brought an eye for all he saw; They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts O joy to him in this retreat, Immantled in ambrosial dark, To drink the cooler air, and mark The landscape winking through the heat: O sound to rout the brood of cares, O bliss, when all in circle drawn About him, heart and ear were fed Or in the all-golden afternoon A guest, or happy sister, sung, Or here she brought the harp and flung The "happy sister" was to have been the bond of their love. How beautifully this is told, and how lovely the vision of this life of related companionship! "When I contemplate all alone, The life that had been thine below, I see thee sitting crown'd with good, In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss, Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; Had babbled Uncle' on my knee; I seem to meet their least desire, To clap their cheeks, to call them mine, I see myself an honoured guest, While now thy prosperous labour fills With promise of a morn as fair; And all the train of bounteous hours The poet refuses to give any description of his lost friend; partly from the hopeless difficulty of conveying in words the impressions produced by personal power and converse; and partly in natural shrinking from that coldness of the world "which credits what is done," but has little care for unfulfilled promise, though it was Death that broke the earthly performance which is going on somewhere else. But he is not always able to retain this distrustful silence. We give one of several attempts to communicate the peculiar presence of his friend : "Heart-affluence in discursive talk From household fountains never dry; Seraphic intellect and force To seize and throw the doubts of man; The hearer in its fiery course; High nature amorous of the good, A love of freedom rarely felt, Of freedom in her regal seat Of England, not the schoolboy heat, And manhood fused with female grace All these have been, and thee mine eyes Have look'd on: if they look'd in vain My shame is greater who remain, Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.”—P. 168. Some of the most touching poems in the volume, for all have had the experience that inspired them, are those which celebrate the return of anniversaries after the death of one with whom all their joy and all their hope had been interwoven. We have the records of at least three Christmas days, and they mark the spiritual stages of grief. The first is but a patient, all enduring concession to custom: the holy emblems do not yet sway the |