Its loss inspires a brief regret;

Its loveliness is ne'er forgot;
We know full well 't is shining yet,

Although we may behold it not.
And thus the spirit which is gone,

Is but absorbid in glory's blaze;
'In beaming brightness burning on,

Though lost unto our finite gaze.

There are, who watch'd it to the last;

There are, who can forget it never;
May these when death's dark shade is past,

Partake with joy its light forever!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

SPIRITS.

First Faun. Canst thou imagine where those spirits live,
Which make such delicate music in the woods?
We haunt within the least frequented caves
And closest coverts, and we know these wilds,
Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft ;
Where may they hide themselves ?
Secoyd FAUN.

"T is hard to tell:
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say,
The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun
Sucks from the faint water-flowers that pave
The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float
Under the green and golden atmosphere,
Which noon-tide kındles through the woven leavcs;
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,
The which they breathed within those lucent domes,
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night,
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed,
And bow their burning crest, and glide in fire
Under the waters of tse earth again.

First Faux. If such live thuis, have others other lives,
Under pink blossoms or within the bells
Of meadow flowers, or folded violets decp,
Or on their dying odours, when they die,
Or on the sunlight of the sphered dew?

TO A SKYLARK.

Hail to thee blithe spirit !

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest;
Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and svaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are brightning,

Thou dost doat and run ;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,

In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,-

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud.
As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beains, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour,
With music sweet as love, which overdows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its acrial hue,
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view;

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass.
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was
Joyous, clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass :

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain ?
What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ?

*

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell the saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground !

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

LEIGH HUNT.

TO HIS SON, SIX YEARS OLD, DURING SICKNESS.

SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,

My little patient boy ;
And balmy rest about thee
Smooth's off the day's annoy.

I sit me down, and think

Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,

That I had less to praise,

Thy sidelong pillowed meekness,

Thy thanks to all that aid,
Thy heart, in pain and weakness,
Of fancied faults afraid;

The little trembling hand

That wipes thy quiet tears,
These, these are things that may demand

Dread memories for years.

Sorrows I've had, severe ones,

I will not think of now;
And calmly, midst my dear ones,
Have wasted with dry brow;

But when thy fingers press

And pat my stooping head,
I cannot bear the gentleness,-

The tears are in their bed.

Ah, first-born of thy mother,

When life and hope were new,
Kind playmate of thy brother,
Thy sister, father, too ;

My light, where'er I go,

My bird, when prison-bound,
My hand in hand companion,—no,
My prayers shall hold thee round.

“He has departed”—
“ His voice-his face-is gone;"
To feel impatient-hearted,
Yet feel we must bear on;

Ah, I could not endure

To whisper of such woe,
Unless I felt this sleep ensure

That it will not be so,

To say,

Yes, still he 's fixed and sleeping !

This silence too the while
Its very hush and creeping
Seem whispering us a smile:-

Something divine and dim

Seems going by.one's ear,
Like parting wings of Cherubim,

“ We've finished here."

Who say,

JOHN WILSON.

Wilson's poetry possesses a quiet beauty, gentle and soothing in its influence. He resembles Wordsworth, more perhaps in some respects, than any other writer. He reminds us too of Grahame, to whose memory he has offered so beautiful a tribute. Yet he cannot with propriety be called an imitator, for his poems are abundant in the truth and freshness of nature, and display much originality. They are delightful in their moral influence, full of sweet, doinestic, affectionate thoughts, aloof from all misanthropy, and tinged with the mild, benevolent spirit of religion. They are such as we should expect from the author of The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life.

TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. JAMES GRAHAME, THE POET

OF SCOTLAND.
With tearless eyes and undisturbed heart,
O Bard! of sinless life and holiest song,
I muse upon thy death-bed and thy grave;
Though round that grave the trodden grass still lies
Besmeared with clay; for many feet were there,
Fast-rooted to the spot, when slowly sank
Thy coffin, Grahame! into the quiet cell.
Yet, well I loved thee, even as one might love
An elder brother, imaged in the soul
With solemn features, half-creating awe,
But smiling still with gentleness and peace.
Tears have I shed when thy most mournful voice
Did tremblingly breathe forth that touching air,
By Scottish shepherd haply framed of old,
Amid the silence of his pastoral hills,
Weeping the flowers on Flodder-field that died.
Wept, too, have I, when thou didst simply read
From thine own lays, so simply beautiful,
Some short pathetic tale of human grief,