that, blazing with unspeakable and naked splendour,

for they have no veil, roll through,

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the bright

Celestial sphere,

So rich with jewels hung, that night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear

in the golden hours of morning, with all their pomp and music, their sunshine and songs of birds—in the dreamy twilight witchery of the time when

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evening with the spectral fingers draws

Her star-sprent curtain round the head of earth".

and, for genius claims kindred with the very workings of Nature herself, in the roar of the wintry forest, when its skeleton trees are shaken by a mighty wind-in the wild grouping of fantastic moon-lit clouds-in the dizzy height of the aërial mountain-in the surf that complains to the shore-in the rustling agitation of the corn-field, when "waves of shadow" sweep - over the wheat"—in the hum, the glow, the exultation that teem audibly and visibly through creation in the noon of a summer's day, when earth rejoices in the fulness of her life and beauty? for, as is sweetly sung in Beattie's "Minstrel,"

Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields !
The warbling woodlands, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,

And all that echoes to the song of even,

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of Heaven,

Oh! how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?"

Moreover, in the crumbling ruins of some once proud and powerful fortress, where the ivy clings, and the long rank herbage luxuriates, like the false parasites of departed greatness-in the solemn vastness of sea and sky, which in all its sublimity and infinitude so far surpasses the sights of earth-in the unruffled repose of the dim sequestered lake,

"Its still waters--still and chilly;

With the snows of the lolling lily"

in the gnarled old oak with its knotted head and threatening-looking leafless arms and strange form, where Time, helped by the winds, and heats, and frosts of centuries, has been the artist, for no knife or chisel has touched the work-in the features of wild Alpine scenery, where in the savage gorges reigns per

petual but sublime desolation, where the very silence is appalling, broken only by the roar of the distant cataract, and the lonely thunder of the avalanche-in the harp of Æolus, the strings of which are mute till the chance breeze passing wakes them into passionate melody-in the murmur of

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the autumnal wind, that fitful plays

A wailing dirge unto the dying year,

Amid the silence of the midnight hour,

Moan'd through the ivied window of a mouldering tower "

in the serene and peaceful course of domestic life, for the loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about her-and, above all, in the majesty of woman's charms—in the lustre of her eye,

where lurks that nameless spell

Which speaks, itself unspeakable”—

in the fascination of her smile-in the low mellifluous

tone of her voice, delicious as

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music by the night wind sent,

Through strings of some still instrument,"

and that might resemble

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour"

as well as in her winning, her bewitching endearments; her unostentatious acts of kindness and of mercy; her glowing enthusiasm for the beautiful; and the purity, strength, and sincerity of her love. It is, indeed, a soul-elevating idea, that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of Fate, while, in his adversity, he still retains the unvarying love of woman :—

"Where is the heart that hath not bow'd

A slave, eternal Love, to thee;
Look on the cold, the gay, the proud,

And is there one among them free?"

The poet, moreover, to employ Longfellow's affecting stanza, resigns to those sordid ones, of whom

"Each soul is worth so much on change,
And mark'd, like sheep, with figures;"

cut a leaf from a ledger and you have their

:

"The longing for ignoble things,

The strife for triumph more than truth,

The hardening of the heart, that brings

Irreverence for the dreams of youth."

As I have previously remarked, poetry is by no means confined solely to the highly educated, or the upper ranks. Its true, its melting witchery hath full oft illumined the bosom of the poor man, and cheered him with an influence all its own: for there are, indeed, riches which are not composed of metallic substances. And what hath it not enabled some such to achieve ; how hath it not included some such in its gorgeous pageant, and showered down the laurels upon them in rich profusion? Look back to Burns, and now to Gerald Massey. The light and rapture of Minstrelsie, like God's own blessed sunshine, often throb within and about the cottage-home. Perhaps as glowing a sketch of what the real, the enduring poet should be -the one who, at the very commencement of his career, like a star in the firmament at the approach of twilight, gives token of future lustre; the one so eminently raised above

Whose sails were never to the tempest given,"

and the one who,

with lofty soul and undecaying might, Paints what he feels in characters of light,"