Still onward; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical,
Through little crystal arches low
Down from the central fountain's flow
Fall'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid!

Above through many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-coloured shells
Wandered engrained. On either side
All round about the fragrant marge,
From fluted vase, and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some drooping low their crimson bells
Half-closed, and others studded wide
With disks and tiars, fed the time
With odour in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Far off, and where the lemon grove
In closest coverture upsprung,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul as he sung.
Not he: but something which possessed
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepressed,
Apart from place, withholding time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Black-green the garden bowers and grots
Slumbered: the solemn palms were ranged
Above, unwooed of summer wind.

A sudden splendour from behind.
Flushed all the leaves with rich gold green,
And flowing rapidly between

Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond plots
Of saffron light. A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid!

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,

Grew darker from that under-flame;
So, leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank

In cool soft turf upon the bank,

Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Thence through the garden I was drawn-
A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-checkered lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound.

And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries of scented thorn,

Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks

Graven with emblems of the time,
In honour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat,

Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,

After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From wreathed silvers, look'd to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the moonèd domes aloof
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd
Hundreds of crescents on the roof

Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays

Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony,
In many a dark delicious curl,
Flowing below her rose-hued zone;
The sweetest lady of the time,
Well worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropped a rich
Throne o' the massive ore, from which
Down drooped, in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diapered

With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold,
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirred
With merriment of kingly pride,

Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him-in his golden prime,

THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID!

Our critique is near its conclusion; and in correcting it for press, we see that its whole merit, which is great, consists in the extracts, which are "beautiful exceedingly." Perhaps, in the first part of our article, we may have exaggerated Mr Tennyson's not unfrequent silliness, for we are apt to be carried away by the whim of the moment, and in our humorous moods, many things wear a queer look to our aged eyes, which fill young pupils with tears; but we feel assured that in the second part we have not exaggerated his strength-that we have done no more than justice to his fine faculties—and that the millions who delight in Maga will, with one voice, confirm our judgment—that Alfred Tennyson is a poet.

A

But, though it might be a mistake of ours, were we to say that he has much to learn, it can be no mistake to say that he has not a little to unlearn, and more to bring into practice, before his genius can achieve its destined triumphs. puerile partiality for particular forms of expression, nay, modes of spelling and of pronunciation, may be easily overlooked in one whom we must look on as yet a mere boy; but if he carry it with him, and indulge it in manhood, why it will make him seem silly as his sheep; and should he continue to bleat so when his head and beard are as grey as ours, he will be truly a laughable old ram, and the ewes will care no more for him than if he were a wether.

Further he must consider that all the fancies that fleet

across the imagination, like shadows on the grass of the treetops, are not entitled to be made small separate poems of— about the length of one's little finger; that many, nay, most of them, should be suffered to pass away with a silent "God bless ye," like butterflies, single or in shoals, each family with its own hereditary character mottled on its wings; and that though thousands of those grave brown, and gay golden images will be blown back in showers, as if upon balmy breezes changing suddenly and softly to the airt whence inspiration at the moment breathes, yet not one in a thousand is worth being caught and pinned down on paper into poetry "gently as if you loved him "—only the few that are bright with the " beauty still more beauteous "-and a few such belong to all the orders-from the little silly moth that extinguishes herself in your taper, up to the mighty Emperor of Morocco at meridian wavering his burnished downage in the unconsuming sun who glorifies the wondrous stranger.

Now, Mr Tennyson does not seem to know this; or if he do, he is self-willed and perverse in his sometimes almost infantile vanity; (and how vain are most beautiful children!) and thinks that any Thought or Feeling or Fancy that has had the honour and the happiness to pass through his mind, must by that very act be worthy of everlasting commemoration. Heaven pity the poor world, were we to put into stanzas, and publish upon it, all our thoughts, thick as motes in the sun, or a summer evening atmosphere of midges!

Finally, Nature is mighty, and poets should deal with her on a grand scale. She lavishes her glorious gifts before their path in such profusion, that Genius-reverent as he is of the mysterious mother, and meeting her at sunrise on the mountains with grateful orisons-with grateful orisons bidding her farewell among the long shadows that stretch across the glens when sunset sinks into the sea-is yet privileged to tread with a seeming scorn in the midst of imagery that to common eyes would be as a revelation of wonders from another world. Familiar to him are they as the grass below his feet. In lowlier moods he looks at them—and in his love they grow beautiful. So did Burns beautify the daisy-"wee modest crimson-tipped flower!" But in loftier moods, the "violet by the mossy stone" is not "half-hidden to the eye -it is left unthought of to its own sweet existence. The poet

then ranges wide and high, like Thomson, in his "Hymn to the Seasons," which he had so gloriously sung, seeing in all the changes of the rolling year "but the varied god,"-like Wordsworth, in his Excursion, communing too with the spirit "whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.” Those great men are indeed among

the

"Lights of the world and demigods of fame;"

but all poets, ere they gain a bright name, must thus celebrate the worship of nature. So is it, too, with painters. They do well, even the greatest of them, to trace up the brooks to their source in stone-basin or mossy well, in the glen-head, where greensward glades among the heather seem the birthplace of the Silent People-the Fairies. But in their immortal works they must show us how "red comes the river down;" castles of rock or of cloud-long withdrawing vales, where mid-way between the flowery foreground, and in the distance of blue mountain-ranges, some great city lifts up its dim-seen spires through the misty smoke beneath which imagination hears the hum of life—" peaceful as some immeasurable plain,” the breast of old ocean sleeping in the sunshine-or as if an earthquake shook the pillars of his caverned depths, tumbling the foam of his breakers, mast-high, if mast be there, till the canvass ceases to be silent, and the gazer hears him howling over his prey-See-see!-the foundering wreck of a threedecker going down head-foremost to eternity.

With such admonition, we bid Alfred Tennyson farewell.