A radiance lit the maiden's face,

Though fixed in death her eye;
A smile had met the angel's kiss
That stole her parting sigh!

And round her cold lips still that smile
A holy brightness shed,

As though she joyed her sinless soul
To Him who gave had fled.

The mother clasped her senseless form,
And shrieked in wild despair,

And kissed the icy lips and cheek,

And touched the dewy hair.

"No warmth-no life-my child, my child! Oh for one parting word,

One murmur of that lute-like voice,
Though but an instant heard!

"She is not dead-she could not die

So young, so fair, so pure;

Spare me, in pity spare this blow!

All else I can endure.

Take hope, take peace, this blighted head
Strike with thy heaviest rod;

But leave me this, thy sweetest boon,
Give back my child, O God!"

The suppliant ceased; her tears were stayed;
Hushed were those wailings loud;

A hallowed peace crept o'er her soul;
Her head to earth was bowed
Low as her knee; for as she knelt,

About her, lo! a flood

Of soft, celestial lustre fell

A form beside her stood.

And slowly then her awe-struck face
And frighted eyes she raised;

Her heart leaped high: those clouded orbs
Grew brighter as she gazed;
For oh! they rested on a shape

Majestic-yet so mild,
Imperial dignity seemed blent
With sweetness of a child.

It spake not, but that saintlike smile
Was full of mercy's light,
And power and pity from those eyes
Looked forth in gentle might;
Those angel looks, that lofty mien,
Have breathed without a word-
"Trust, and thy faith shall win thee all:
Behold, I am thy Lord!"

He turns, and on that beauteous clay
His god-like glances rest;
Commandingly the pallid brow
His potent fingers pressed:
The frozen current flows anew
Beneath that quickening hand;
The pale lips, softly panting, move;
She breathes at his command!

The spirit in its kindred realm
Has heard its Master's call;
And back returning at that voice,
Resumes its earthly thrall.

And now from 'neath those snowy lids
It shines with meeker light,

As though 't were chastened, purified,
By even that transient flight.

Loud swells the mother's cry of joy:
To Him how passing sweet!
Her child she snatches to her breast,
And sinks at Jesus' feet.
"Glory to thee, Almighty God!
Who spared my heart this blow;
And glory to thine only Son-

My Saviour's hand I know!"

THE DYING IMPROVISATORE.-MRS. HEMANS.

The spirit of my land!

It visits me once more !—though I must die
Far from the myrtles which thy breeze has fann'd,
My own bright Italy!

It is, it is thy breath,

Which stirs my soul e'en yet, as wavering flame
Is shaken by the wind;-in life and death
Still trembling, yet the same.

Oh! that love's quenchless power
Might waft my voice to fill thy summer sky,
And through thy groves its dying music shower,
Italy! Italy!

The nightingale is there,

The sunbeams's glow, the citron-flower's perfume,
The south-wind's whisper in the scented air,-
It will not pierce the tomb!

15*

Never, oh! nevermore,

On thy Rome's purple heaven mine eye shall dwell,
Or watch the bright waves melt along thy shore-
My Italy, farewell!

Alas!-thy hills among,

Had I but left a memory of my name,

Of love and grief one deep, true, fervent song,
Unto immortal fame!

But, like a lute's brief tone,

Like a rose-odor on the breezes cast,
Like a swift flush of day-spring, seen and gone,
So hath my spirit pass'd!

Pouring itself away

As a wild bird amidst the foliage turns
That which within him triumphs, beats, or burns,
Into a fleeting lay;

That swells, and floats, and dies,
Leaving no echo to the summer woods
Of the rich breathings and impassion'd sighs,
Which thrill'd their solitudes.

Yet, yet remember me,

Friends, that upon its murmurs oft have hung,
When from thy bosom, joyously and free,
The fiery fountain sprung.

Under the dark, rich blue

Of midnight heavens, and on the star-lit sea,
And when woods kindle into spring's first hue,
Sweet friends, remember me !

And in the marble halls,

Where life's full glow the dreams of beauty wear,
And poet-thoughts embodied light the walls,
Let me be with you there!

Fain would I bind for you

My memory with all glorious things to dwell;
Fain bid all lovely sounds my name renew,
Sweet friends, bright land, farewell!

CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAKSPEARE.-CArlyle.

SHAKSPEARE, we may say, embodies for us the outer life of our Europe as developed in the middle ages. Its chivalries, courtesies, humors, ambitions, what practical way of thinking, acting, looking at the world men then had. Just when that chivalry way of life had reached its last finish, and was on the point of breaking down into slow or soft dissolution, as we now see it everywhere, this sovereign poet, with his seeing eye, with his perennial singing voice, was sent to take note of it, to give longenduring record of it.

Of this Shakspeare of ours, perhaps the opinion one sometimes hears a little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the right one; I think the best judgment, not of this country only, but of Europe at large, is slowly pointing to the conclusion, that Shakspeare is the chief of all poets hitherto; the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left record of himself in the way of literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth; placid joyous strength; all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil unfathomable sea! It has been said, that in the constructing of Shakspeare's dramas, there is, apart from all other "faculties," as they are called, an understanding manifested, equal to that in Bacon's Novum Organum. That is true; and it is not a truth that strikes every one. would become more apparent if we tried, any of us for himself, how, out of Shakspeare's dramatic materials, we could fashion such a result! The built house seems all so fit-every way as it should be, as if it came there by its own law and the nature of things, we forget the rude disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The very perfection of the house, as if nature herself had made it, hides the builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any other man, we may call Shakspeare in this: he discerns, knows as by instinct, what condition he works under, what his materials are, what his own force and its relation to them is. It is not a transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is deliberate illumination of the whole matter; it is a calmly seeing eye; a great intellect, in short.

It

Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called portrait painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out

decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is this too but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakspeare's morality, his valor, candor, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world! No twisted, poor convex-concave mirror, reflecting all objects with its own convexities and concavities; a perfectly level mirror; that is to say withal, if we will understand it, a man justly related to all things and men, a good man. It is truly a lordly spectacle how this great soul takes in all kinds of men and objects, a Falstaff, an Othello, a Juliet, a Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us in their round completeness; loving, just, the equal brother of all.

If I say that Shakspeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakspeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of. Novalis beautifully remarks of him, that those dramas of his are products of nature too, deep as nature herself. I find a great truth in this saying. Shakspeare's art is not artifice; the noblest worth of it is not there by plan or precontrivance. It grows up from the deeps of nature, through this noble sincere soul, who is a voice of nature. The latest generations of men will find new meanings in Shakspeare, new elucidations of their own human being; new harmonies with the infinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas, affinities with the higher powers and senses of man." This well deserves

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meditating. It is nature's highest reward to a true simple great soul, that he get thus to be a part of herself. Such a man's works, whatsoever he with utmost conscious exertion and forethought shall accomplish, grow up withal unconsciously, from the unknown deeps in him::—as the oak-tree grows from the earth's bosom, as the mountains and waters shape themselves; with a symmetry grounded on nature's own laws, conformable to all truth whatsoever. How much in Shakspeare lies hid; his sorrows, his silent struggles known to himself; much that was not known at all, not speakable at all: like roots, like sap and forces working under ground! Speech is great; but silence is greater.