O beautiful ASTARTE-Star of Love, Mistress of Passion,-Queen of all delights, Inciting us by day, and making bright the darkness of our nights. O Planet full of tenderness and hope, And song, whose echo on the burning brain O Being whom the sacred ancients drew, Deeming her fairer than all things that move, As Woman,-Mistress of the trembling soul,Mother, and God of Love! How like the dew on flowers its lustre fell As if some envious demon, angry-eyed And jealous, saw the scene, with power to blight The sleeper's bliss, a sullen gloom obscured the starry world of night. And suddenly, the tall primeval trees Shook in the wind, and through the ebon skies The quivering vivid lightning leapt athwart Brunhilda's dazzled eyes! Startled, the girl awoke, and like a roe, Seeking its covert, fled-with look askance, whose beauty filled her trance. Searching the spot made sacred by the Shape, In vain; the Form had flown; yet in her heart She saw it still, imploring in its mien, Bowing to her as passionate Antony bowed to Egypt's black-eyed queen. A few short seconds brought her to her bower, Falls, like the pitying tears of angel eyes that A long, ancestral line by glorious deeds had made mourn o'er mortal pain. VOL. X. 20 the maid's domains. " "Daughter," replied the sage, my simplest word Might make thee marble; I possess the skill; Nay, start not, tremble not; I own the power to serve thee, and the will. "Sit down, compose thyself, and eat, and sleep; Food and repose will arm thee for the hour Of awful mystery, when the dead and damned, -angels and fiends,-have power." "Brunhilda," (how she started at her name") "Obey!" and she obeyed, and lay at rest. Composed in all her limbs: not calmer sleeps the halcyon on its nest. It was a huge, dark cave where she lay down. With awful chambers, full of midnight glo.in. But regular as summer seas her wave-like breat went through the room. "Maiden, awake," exclaimed the Eremite: "The hour is nigh-arise, unveil thine eyes. Already morning breaks the murky gloom et distant Indian skies. "Still we have time." Brunhilda stood erect "Now, maid, thy will?" "Give me to sea his face, And learn his name, that I may seek him out he abide in space. "He is a king (I know it by his crown); And of some glorious land, whose wealth as far Excels our own, as Saturn's rays transcend es other meaner star." "Maiden, not so. There are in earth and sur In fire and water, spirits of various forms, Some hideous as the goat-like Fauns of old; others. of angel charms; "And all of these at times have power "If thou hast courage, I will call them forth. Some, from the woods, where they abi.e from glens An old, old man-old as the trees around, stood Hidden in hoary forests; from the streams; † 1 in her wondering eyes. caves and granite dens;" "Even from the farthest star of night, that shines On the remotest verge of polar skies, They shall attend my summons:-once again his form shall fill thine eyes. "Thou wilt see hideous sights,-terrific shapes; Beings existing ere the world was made,Horrors innumerable,-forms to freeze thy soulstill, still be not afraid. "These things must thou endure, and many more, To crown thy love-pause, ere it be too late!" Played in her eyes; with Arabesque-like shapes Toiling at sooty furnaces, whose fires Leapt to the dome, now shaped like human tongues, now sharp, like gilded spires. Some figures stood a thousand feet in height; Others were dwarfish; some had bat-like wings; Some seemed like slaves, while others wore the crowns and robes of demon kings. With them, the Monarch of that central world, His large, full orbs compressed in silent thought, "I am the daughter of a race of kings, and will Sat swathed with jewelled stars which flashed pursue my fate: "Mortal or spirit, I will make him mine;— He loves me, that I know: pass earth, come air," Exclaimed the maid; "better a myriad deaths than this confirmed despair!" "Sit in this circle; speak not; hold thy breath. Whatever terrors may afflict thine eyes, Be firm, be calm, for after darkest storms are seen serenest skies. "Behold!" and lo, the Hermit took his wand, And waved it, when the cavern rolled apart, And like a burning sun, a mirror shone, the wonder of his art. The Eremite stepped within the mystic ring, And solemnly commenced to chaunt a strain, Whose echoes filled the cave, and died in gloom, moaning, like one in pain. Slowly a cloud disturbed the shining glass, Flowing and floating, and strange shadows passed; Now rose the music of the lute and flute; now rolled the clarion's blast. And after, lands where never mortal trod, Filled with ideal forms to mortal eyes, Whose glorious hues of flower and leaf and fruit betrayed immortal skies, Came, like a dream, and died; then, azure seas With emerald isles, enclosed by golden strands, Arose, camera-like, with stately shapes, stalking the shining sands. And all was gloom; and then, cloud followed cloud, Through which appeared the light of many stars; And shadowy figures rolled across the skies in still more shadowy cars. Then all was glorious light and burning flame, And salamandrine forms ran to and fro, And tossed the fires toward heaven, and leapt, and danced in their volcanic glow. And now, huge caverns, filled with sparkling spar, Columns and friezes, formed of precious and fell from where his goblins wrought. The wealth of all the world within her glance, Brunhilda stood, gazing with eyes that wore The antique earnestness of marble orbs sculptured in years of yore, Herself a The Eremite saw, and waved his magic Thrice through the midnight air, while stern command sat on his outstretched hand. "Spirit," he sang, "whose shade I see, appear,— Living before me: by the name of Him who Awhile forsake thy caverns and appear, made all things, appear! "Maiden," the Eremite said, "he comes in peace; Else stunning thunders would afflict our ears, And night and earth be shaken with the fall of countless ruined spheres." The air was full of music; everywhere The sound of song swam, like a floating swan, Who hymns his farewell to the dying moon at the approach of dawn. And rising, like a God, the Being stood In all his grandeur, by the enchanted ring: Not nobler to Seméle's eyes the splendour of the Olympian king! "Monarch," continued the old Eremite, "A mortal maiden, who adores in dreams Thy glorious beauty, and has left for thee her native hills and streams, "Would break with daring hands the adamant bars That separate spirit and matter, and would beScorning the chains of sense and flesh, an Element with thee." "Father," replied the king, “her love has lain, For many months, like lead, upon my breast; Hers is a royal soul and eagle-like, and seeks an eagle's nest. "Tell her, for I cannot,-Fate makes me dumb; For spirits have a language of their own, And floored with jewels, such as never shone in To seek me in my inner realm, and claim my gems, earthly diadems, hand, and love, and throne. VIEWS FROM A CORNER. A single step, and, like a falling star, The maiden fell, down, down, till with a bound Beneath her lay the faded form she left, Reaching the earth, she sank again, and lay-a Before her stood her glorious, mystic Love, devo corpse along the ground. When she returned to seeming consciousness, She lay in Paradise, and in her eyes tion in his eyes. "Come to my heart, my queen," the Being cried: Were jewelled columns stretching far away till Immortal like myself, my passionate one, my lost in jewelled skies; And in her ears-a voice-how sweet it was! The love-lorn nightingale, when first it breathed Its flame in cadences of fiery song, such concords never wreathed! "Sweet love," it sang, "whose passion, born of Has borne thee to me through the realms of beautiful, my bride!" * * * * * A castled ruin frowns upon the Rhine; Its walls are crumbling and its roof decayed, And glistening like fallen stars its shards of casements line the glade. The peasant pauses, passing by the spot, Not vainly didst thou strive with fate, nor foolishly And who (so saith the legend) long ago perished yield up thy breath: III. OF MERCURY, HUMAN AND MINERAL. THE depression of mercury, in the thermometer, is by no means a measure of the vital depression in mercurial temperaments. These lack occasion in sunny and flowering months, and something of the better incitement which snow and winter moons can lend; for though your star Mercury is a hot-tempered god, his children love the icy keenness of a bracing air, better than the enervating glow of his favourite sun. Old Burton, anatomizing melancholy, says, "Mercurialists are solitary, much in contemplation, subtile, philosophers, and musing much about such matters;" which, better than Acres' mental analysis, is about half right. Subtle, indeed, should be the element which takes its name from either quicksilver or the thief-god; but solitude and contemplation are not so obvious consequences. In the more Frenchy sense of humour and fantasticality, and general wideawakeness, we find it developed among us, and keen winds develope it more than the dog-star can. As the subtle, almost spiritual, metal goes down, this subtler, and more intangible essence goes up, steadily up, till it overflows in a Christmas or New Year's ball, a sleigh-ride, or the less noisy, but not less joyous, evening circle of country neighbours, uninvited but always welcome. Cracking nuts and jokes, and entering so far into the hosiery business, as to retail yarns of the brightest kind, they can crowd a world of comfort into the three hours of a winter evening; then regularly at the first stroke of the nine-o'clock curfew-bell, make as many several packages of themselves as there are persons, all safely folded, and directed home. Among the younger fry, which, like all very precious goods, are packed in smaller parcels, the proper precaution of" this side up with care," is |