This work is designed to form a collection of the choicest Poetry in the English language. Nothing but what is really good will be admitted. No original poetry will find a place.
JOHN CROCKFORD, 29, ESSEX STREET,
STRAND.
The notices were curtailed in consequence of objections made to them by readers. We have taken the trouble to count the letters. Nine have expressed a wish that we would give nothing but the author's name and omit all criticism. Eight have complained, like our present correspondent, that we have complied with the request of the nine. What is an Editor to do?
Will "R. T.” favour us with copies of the poems of Allingham and Kingsley to which he alludes as having appeared in Fraser.
The following will appear. "E. W." "Pæan." "J. Locke" (Dublin), "Gaston" "R. G." (Exeter), "Elf" (Belfast), “K.” (Edinburgh), "Reader" (Jersey), "Caroline," "G. N.” (Windsor), "Francis S." (Dublin.)
The following are not suited to our pages: "Ianthe," "G. Leith" "D. C. L." "F." (Oxford), "Belgravia," "I. O. U.” (Bodmin), "Lavinia," "Ion," "D." (Manchester), "F. R. S." "Admirer" (Leeds.)
AS BEAUTIFUL POETRY is a good medium for Advertisements, and as only a few can be inserted, the following will be the Scale of Charges:
BEAUTIFUL POETRY, Parts I. to IV., price is each.
SACRED POETRY, a collection of the best devotional poetry. No. V., price 3d, and Part I., price 18.
WIT and HUMOUR, No. IX., price 3d, and l'arts I. and II., price 1s. each.
BEAUTIES OF FRENCH LITERATURE, translated, with MEMOIRS. No. VI., price 3d, and Part I., price 18.
BEAUTIFUL PROSE, by the Editors of "Beautiful Poetry," in fortnightly numbers at 3d.
This is another beautiful production of the pen of the Rev. JOHN MOULTRIE, whose Three Sons has already appeared in this collection and will be remembered by every reader.
BENEATH the chancel's hallow'd stone,
Exposed to every rustic tread,
To few, save rustic mourners, known,
My brother, is thy lowly bed.
Few words upon thy rough stone graven
Thy name-thy birth-thy youth declare--
Thy innocence-thy hopes of heaven,
In simplest phrase recorded there.
No 'scutcheons shine, no banners wave,
In mockery, o'er my brother's grave;
The place is silent. Rarely sound
Is heard these ancient walls around,
Nor mirthful voice of friends that meet
Discoursing in the public street;
Nor hum of business dull and loud,
Nor murmur of the passing crowd,
Nor soldier's drum, nor trumpet's swell,
From neighbouring fort or citadel:
No sound of human toil or strife
In death's lone dwelling speaks of life,
Or breaks the silence, still and deep,
Where thou, beneath thy burial stone,
Art laid in that unstartled sleep
The living eye hath never known.
The lonely sexton's footstep falls
In dismal echoes on the walls,
As slowly pacing through the aisle
He sweeps the unholy dust away,
And cobwebs which must not defile
Those windows on the sabbath day!
And passing through the central nave
Treads lightly on my brother's grave.
But when the sweet-toned sabbath-chime,
Pouring its music on the breeze,
Proclaims the well-known holy time
Of prayer, and thanks, and bended knees,
When rustic crowds devoutly meet,
And lips and hearts to God are given,
And souls enjoy oblivion sweet
Of earthly ills, in thoughts of heaven,
What voice of calm and solemn tone
Is heard above thy burial stone?
What form, in priestly meek array,
Beside the altar kneels to pray?
What holy hands are lifted up
To bless the sacramental cup?
Full well I know that reverend form,
And if a voice could reach the dead,
Those tones would reach thee, though the worm,
My brother, makes thy heart his bed;
That sire, who thy existence gave,
Now stands beside thy lonely grave.
It is not long since thou wert wont
Within these sacred walls to kneel;
This altar, that baptismal font,
These stones, which now thy dust conceal;
The sweet tones of the sabbath bell,
Were holiest objects to thy soul;
On these thy spirit loved to dwell,
Untainted by the world's control.
My brother, these were happy days,
When thou and I were children yet!
How fondly memory still surveys
These scenes the heart can ne'er forget;
My soul was then, as thine is now,
Unstain'd by sin, unstung by pain;
Peace smiled on each unclouded brow—
Mine ne'er will be so calm again.
How blithely then we hail'd the ray
Which usher'd in the sabbath day;
How lightly then our footsteps trod
Yon pathway to the house of God!
For souls in which no dark offence
Hath sullied childhood's innocence
Best meet the pure and hallow'd shrine
Which guiltier bosoms own divine.
I feel not now as then I felt:
The sunshine of my heart is o'er: The spirit now is changed which dwelt Within me in the days of yore.
But thou wert snatch'd, my brother, hence
In all thy guileless innocence:
One sabbath saw thee bend the knee,
In reverential piety.—
(For childish thoughts forgiveness crave)—
The next beam'd brightly on thy grave.
'The crowd, of which thou late wert one
Now throng across thy burial stone:
Rude footsteps trample on the spot
Where thou liest mouldering, not forgot:
And some few gentler bosoms weep
In silence o'er thy last long sleep.
I stood not by thy feverish bed,
I look'd not on thy glazing eye,
Nor gently lull'd thy aching head,
Nor view'd thy dying agony.
I felt not what my parents felt-
The doubt-the terror-the distress:
Nor vainly for my brother knelt :-
My soul was spared that wretchedness:
One sentence told me in a breath
My brother's illness and his death!
And days of mourning glided by,
And brought me back my gaiety:
For soon in childhood's wayward heart
Doth crush'd affection cease to smart.
Again I joined the sportive crowd
Of boyish playmates, wild and loud:
I learnt to view with careless eye
My sable garb of misery:
No more I wept my brother's lot-
His image was almost forgot:
And every deeper shade of pain
Had vanish'd from my soul again.
The well-known morn I used to greet
With boyhood's joy at length was beaming,
And thoughts of home and rapture sweet
In every eye but mine was gleaming:
But I, amidst that youthful band
Of bounding hearts and beaming eyes,
Nor smiled nor spoke at joy's command,
Nor felt those wonted ecstacies!
|