He saw with consternation,

And back to hell his way did he take,
For the Devil thought by a slight mistake
It was general conflagration.

THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMB-STONE.

SEE the apology for the “Fire, Famine, and Slaughter,” p. 221. This is the first time the author ever published these lines. He would have been glad, had they perished; but they have now been printed repeatedly in mag azines, and he is told that the verses will not perish. Here, therefore, they are owned, with a hope that they will be taken-as assuredly they were composed-in mere sport.

THE Devil believes that the Lord will come,
Stealing a march without beat of drum,
About the same time that he came last,

On an old Christmas-day in a snowy blast:

Till he bids the trump sound, neither body nor soul stirs, For the dead men's heads have slipt under their bolsters.

Oh! ho! brother Bard, in our church-yard,
Both beds and bolsters are soft and green;

Save one alone, and that's of stone,

And under it lies a Counsellor keen.

'Twould be a square tomb, if it were not too long,

And 'tis fenced round with irons sharp, spearlike, and strong.

This fellow from Aberdeen hither did skip,

With a waxy face, and a blubber lip,

And a black tooth in front, to show in part
What was the color of his whole heart.
This Counsellor sweet,

This Scotchman complete,

(The Devil scotch him for a snake) I trust he lies in his grave awake.

On the sixth of January,

When all around is white with snow,
As a Cheshire yeoman's dairy;
Brother Bard, ho! ho!

Believe it, or no,

On that stone tomb to you I'll show
Two round spaces void of snow.

I swear by our Knight, and his forefathers' souls,
That in size and shape they are just like the holes
In the house of privity

Of that ancient family.

On those two places void of snow,

There have sate in the night for an hour or so,

Before sunrise and after cock-crow,

He kicking his heels, she cursing her corns,
All to the tune of the wind in their horns,
The Devil, and his Grannam,

With a snow-blast to fan 'em ;

Expecting and hoping the trumpet to blow,
For they are cock-sure of the fellow below.

LINES

TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABUSIVE REVIEW.

WHAT though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking chorus
From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak :
So was it, neighbor, in the times before us,
When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak,
Romped with the Graces; and each tickled Muse
(That Turk, Dan Phœbus, whom bards call divine,
Was married to-at least, he kept-all nine)
Fled, but still with reverted faces ran;

Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse,
They had allur'd the audacious Greek to use,
Swore they mistook him for their own good man.
This Momus-Aristophanes on earth

Men called him-maugre all his wit and worth
Was croaked and gabbled at. How, then, should you,
Or I, friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew?
No! laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee,
"I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me!"

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT.

SINCE all that beat about in Nature's range,
Or veer or vanish; why shouldst thou remain
The only constant in a world of change,
O yearning thought! that liv'st but in the brain?
Call to the hours, that in the distance play,
The faery people of the future day--
Fond thought! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou art she,
Still, still as though some dear embodied good,
Some living love before my eyes there stood
With answering look a ready ear to lend,

I mourn to thee and say—“ Ah! loveliest friend!

That this the meed of all my toils might be,
To have a home, an English home, and thee !"
Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one.

The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon,
Lulled by the thrush, and wakened by the lark,
Without thee were but a becalmed bark,

Whose helmsmnan on an ocean waste and wide
Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.
And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when
The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's mazɛ
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,
Sees full before him, gliding without tread,
An image with a glory round its head;
The enamored rustic worships its fair hues,
Nor knows he makes the shadow he pursues!

THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT.

ERE the birth of my life, if I wished it or no,
No question was asked me-it could not be so!
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try,
And to live on be Yes; what can No be? to die

NATURE'S ANSWER.

Is't returned, as 'twas sent ?
Think first, what you are!

Is't no worse for the wear? Call to mind what you were!

I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,

Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope.
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?
Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare!

Then die-if die you dare!

* This phenomenon, which the author has himself experienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transactions, is applied figuratively in the following passage of the Aids to Reflection.

"Pindar's fine remark respecting the different effects of music, on different characters, holds equally true of Genius; as many as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own being, that moves before him with a glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre."-Aids to Reflection, Works, I. p. 249.

THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY DATE-TREE. A LAMENT

I SEEM to have an indistinct recollection of having read either in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew writers, an apologue or Rabbinical tradition to the following purpose:

While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, exclaimed: “Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so! for the Man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise." And the word of the Most High answered Satan: "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself."

The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned by Linnæus, of a date-tree in a nobleman's garden which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never produced fruit, till a branch from another date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. from which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting; and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the author, at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integrity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite

metre.

I.

BENEATH the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the thrones of frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. "What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own." The presence of a one,

The best belov'd, who loveth me the best,

is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen and crushes it into flatness.