retiring footsteps of the language of "Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bird of the meadow, take thy rest, little redbreast, take thy rest. God shall a wake thee in his own good time, and he has made thee a little bough to repose thee on, a bough canopied with the leaves of the birch tree. Sleep stands at the door, and says, Is there not a little child here asleep in the cradle-a little child wrapt up in swaddling clothes-a child reposing under a coverlet of wool?" Many examples might be given to illustrate the same subject. The speech of Logan, the American Indian, whose whole family had been murdered by the British. "There flows not one drop of Logan's blood in the veins of any human being." The song of the African woman in Mungo Park's Travels, the bold expressions and magnificent imagery which pervades the early Runic poetry, all point the same way, and prove the same thing. To accumulate examples would tend to fatigue rather than to convince. Here then we close this subject, but we shall proceed, in a second Essay, to consider the early connection which took place between Poetry and Music, the marriage of Music to immortal Verse, and the effects which resulted from this noble alliance. W. REMARKS ON MARCIAN COLONNA. It THE poetry of Barry Cornwall has already been duly appreciated. seldom aims at any high flights, and is constructed of no very sturdy materials; but it is extremely perfect within its own range: it expresses with excellent effect all the particulars of the softer passions, and yet it is chiefly in the repose of passion, when it can look back upon itself, either from the point of satisfaction or of despair, that the genius of this elegant poet is most at home. He is admirable in his and solitary melancholy is all that remains to the survivor. We think it is in sketches of this kind that Mr Cornwall's forte lies, and in these, indeed, he is, probably, unrivalled. He dallies with the innocence of love and the fine antique air of his versification and expression, borrowed from the tenderer parts of our old dramatists, and reflecting, at times, the glow of classical or Italian imagery, is admirably adapted to the simple pathos of his conceptions. We will own, therefore, that it is on such passages of his present poem, although an attempt of a higher kind, and aiming at a wider range of emotion, than any of his former productions, that we still delight to pause. We are not particularly attached to his mad hero, or to his more laboured descriptions, which are introduced with somewhat too evident an ambition. We are much better pleased with his Julia, and her natural tenderness-and it is rather to her than to her lover that we shall call the attention of our readers. Marcian, the second son of a noble Italian family, was confined in a convent by his parents, who cared for nothing but their first-born, and who were very happy, from Marcian's evident tendency to insanity, to find a pretext for putting him out of the -She dwelt upon that night till pity grew Into a wilder passion: the sweet dew That linger'd in her eye for pity's sake,’ Was (like an exhalation in the sun) Dried and absorbed by love. Oh ! love can take What shape he pleases, and when once begun His fiery inroad in the soul, how vain lives, Master and lord, 'midst pride and tears and pain. " This is remarkably soft and beautiful, and although the poet immediately subjoins, now may we seek Colonna," -we are really not disposed to seek him, nor have we any satisfaction in his maniac extravagantimes visits and soothes him; it arose cies. A heavenly vision, indeed, somefrom the dim recollection of Julia, but his own vivid imagination embodied these faint traces of remembrance, almost, into a living image. His brother, meanwhile, died, and he is sent for to cheer the solitude of his de spairing parents, his mind having gradually resumed a calmer and firmer tone. His chief delight now, was in wandering about the ruins of Rome. -One morning, as he lay half listlessly Within the shadow of a column, where His forehead met such gusts of cooling air As the bright summer knows in Italy, A gorgeous cavalcade went thundering by, Dusty and worn with travel: As it passed Some said the great Count had returned, at last, From his long absence upon foreign lands: 'Twas told that many countries he had seen, (He and his lady daughter,) and had been A long time journeying on the Syrian sands, And visited holy spots, and places where The Christian roused the Pagan from his lair, And taught him charity and creeds divine, By spilling his bright blood in Palestine. Vitelli and his child returned at last, After some years of wandering. Julia Had been betrothed and widow'd Her husband Orsini, to whom she had been given much against her will, was a brute and a tyrant, but, to the great delight of all connected with him, was drowned, one fine day, when he was sailing along the sea in his pleasure barge. At least, as our poet says, "This was the tale." And Julia saw the youth she loved again : Her figure came before him like a dream Over the terrors of his wildest hour? He listened now, to mark if he could hear The voice that lulled him,-but she never spoke ; For in her heart her own young love awoke From its long slumber, and chained down her tongue, And she sate mute before him: he, the while, Stood feasting on her melancholy smile VOL. VII. There is nothing more tremendously difficult, than to get lovers in certain circumstances to speak out. They will fly from one another to the most than secure their happiness by a simple distant points of the compass, rather meeting, and one or two little words. There is certainly in the magnetic virtue, which draws them together, a great repelling power likewise,-feelings of the most extraordinary nature, which commonly occur, too, on the most mal-a-propos occasions, are for ever throwing them out, and particu larly, if there is, on one side, a vein of insanity to manage, as was the case with poor Marcian, it is almost impossible to bring them to the point. and, being a widow, we may suppose, Julia, no doubt, was nothing loath, she had no maiden bashfulness to give her lover unnecessary trouble; but Colonna would rather muse upon her image in his old odd way, in his favourite walks, than venture into her company, which he might have done, any day, merely by crossing the street. the flame Of love burned brightly in Colonna's breast, But while it filled it robbed his soul of rest: At home, abroad, at morning, and at noon, In the hot sultry hours, and when the moon Shone in the cool fresh sky, and shaped those dim And shadowy figures once so dear to him,Where'er he wandered, she would come upon His mind, a phantom like companion; Yet, with that idle dread with which the heart Stifles its pleasures, he would ever depart And loiter long amongst the streets of Rome, When she, he feared, might visit at his home. A strange and sad perverseness; he did fear To part with that pale hope which shone at last Glimmering upon his fortunes. B There was no moral obstacle to prevent them being together as much as they pleased. Marcian had no wife, and Julia supposed her husband at the bottom of the sea. Had there been any objection of this serious nature, we cannot but say that it would have been Marcian's duty to have carried his self-denial still farther, and to have driven her from his thoughts as well as from his eyes. It was a mere accident at last which broke the ice, and we advise all young ladies who have such beings as a Marcian to deal with, (though, if they do not wish to run ultimately the risk of being poisoned, they had much better chuse among a different class of lovers,) just to throw loose the reins, and let fortune order for them as she will. We must give our readers the scene of this eclaircissement, though somewhat long, as it is written in our poet's best manner. It is at the beginning of the second canto, and opens with a fine invocation to love. And aid me as I try gently to tell At once I pass unto a blyther time. Into the Roman suburbs; Many a star Shone out above upon the silent hours, Save when, awakening the sweet infant flowers, The breezes travell'd from the west, and then A small cloud came abroad and fled again. Sent up in homage to the quiet moon. He mused, 'till from a garden, near whose wall He leant, a melancholy voice was heard Singing alone, like some poor widow bird That casts unto the woods her desert call. It was the voice-the very voice that rung Long in his brain that now so sweetly sung. He passed the garden bounds, and lightly trod, Checking his breath, along the grassy sod, (By buds and blooms half-hidden, which the breeze Had ravished from the clustering orange trees,) Until he reached a low pavilion, where Then, shaking back her locks, with upward eye, And lips that dumbly moved, she seemed to try To catch an old disused melody- Be now forgot)-I recollect the song, SONG. Whither, ah! whither is my lost love straying Upon what pleasant land beyond the sea? Tell him, sweet winds, that in my woman's bosom My young love still retains its perfect power, Or, like the summer blossom, That changes still from bud to the fullblown flower, Grows with every passing hour. Say, (and say gently,) that, since we two parted, How little joy-much sorrow-I have known: Only not broken-hearted, Because I muse upon bright moments gone, And dream and think of him alone. The lady ended, and Colonna knelt Before her with outstretched arms: He felt That she, whom in the mountains far away His heart had loved so much, at last was his. "Is there, oh! is there in a world like this" (He spoke) "such joy for me? Oh! Julia, Art thou indeed no phantom which my brain Has conjured out of grief and desperate pain And shall I then from day to day behold Thee again, and still again? Oh! speak |