Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do you not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!

How his grey skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and wreathing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament;
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain, the visible space.
Darker! still darker! the whirlwind's bear,
The dust of the plains to the middle air;
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,

And flood the sky with a lurid glow.

What roar is that? "Tis the rain that breaks

In torrents away from the airy lakes,

Heavily poured on the suddering ground,

And shedding a nameless horror around.

Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds, ye are lost in my eyes,

I seek you vainly, and see in your place

The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean, that fills the vale,
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all;
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.*

BYRANT.

HOOD'S POEMS.

NOTHING is more common now-a-days, than to hear of the degeneracy of poetry, and the little appreciation bestowed by the public taste on the poetical lucubrations of our modern bards. And the cry is, generally speaking, well founded. That much of the poetry which is daily poured from the press creates little sympathy, is nothing very extraordinary, the apathy is traceable to a very simple cause-the oversupply of an inferior article. The human heart is the same now as it was eighteen hundred years ago. Its feelings, affections, and sympathies, are awakened still by the same agencies as then. Half-a-century ago, the genius of Burns sent an electric thrill through the Scottish bosom; it has since been felt in every corner of the world, wherever a Scottish heart beats; nor do we see any evidence that its intensity is weakening. On the contrary, each successive year seems to add new power to the spell, and to stamp more indelibly the name of Robert Burns upon the human heart. And were another to rise up in our own day, gifted, like him, with the

*This poem, says Mr. Byrant, is nearly a translation from one by Jose Maria de Heredia, a native of the Island of Cuba, who published, at New York, a volume of poems in the Spanish language.

same rare and varied powers, he would receive the right hand of hearty welcome. In these days the poetry of mediocrity will not do; and we think we are justfied in saying, that nine-tenths of what we are favoured with is of that character. In this, as in other matters of taste, excellence must be gained, to secure and maintain general admiration. It is because this essential quality is absent, that little of the poetry of the day survives its birth. Poets and poems we possess in inexhaustible abundance and variety-poets in everything but head and heart-poems wanting in nothing but originality, common sense, and simple feeling. The general mind, sick to satiety with smooth rhymes, and the mawkish sentimentality therein embodied, neglects their effusions. Nevertheless, the outpourings of true genius are as much welcomed and appreciated as ever; and while human nature remains human nature, the chords of the heart will never cease to vibrate to the touch of a master-hand, be the theme what it may.

We look upon the poems of the late Thomas Hood, as forming one of the refreshing spots on the great field of modern poetry; and the public has shewn that when real, life-like poetry is presented, the taste for its enjoyment is as keen and deep as ever. The poems which have occasioned these remarks, are those of a great mind and a warm heart. It is but recently Britain-may we not add, the world?-was deprived of Thomas Hood, and all of us can yet recal the affecting description of his last moments. A beloved wife, and affectionate children dependent upon him for support, he toiled for that sacred object, even while the withering breath of mortal sickness was upon his frame. While the lamp of life was flickering in its socket, was this highly gifted man compelled to task his over-wrought mind to the utmost for bare subsistence." Work, work, work!" cried necessity, till the debilitated and shattered body became incapable to contain the large soul that struggled within.

Hood's character and mission were not understood in his lifetime. He was looked upon as an inimitable humorist and wit—an inveterate punster-a mighty word-conjurer-a living, bodily impersonation of an enlarged Joe Miller-quick and happy at seizing a witty point, and arraying it in the quaintest and most striking language. All this he doubtless was; but he was something greater. He was a poet whose soul was cast in nature's mould; and his published poems are his title to this high name. Like Burns, his works prove him to have been born a poet. Poetry was the celestial element of his being, and should have been the soul of his whole endeavours. What Thomas Carlyle so beautifully expresses of the great peasant-bard, is in a great measure applicable to Hood. "Lifted into that serene ether, whither he had wings given him to mount, he would have needed no other elevation. A virtue, as of green fields, dwells in his poetry; it is redolent of natural life, and of natural men. He has a consonance in his bosom for every note of human feeling the high and the low-the sad and the ludicrous-the mournful and the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his all-conceiving spirit." We see in him the gentle though trembling spirit of the woman; with the deep earnestness, the force and passionate ardour of the man; and thence arises the power that melts or inflames the heart at will.

The sketchy productions issued during his lifetime, though often touching

My reasons for this disbelief would very naturally arise from many causes, a few of which I will now merely allude to.

The imperfect manner in which plays are generally represented-the bombastic and ranting styles of delivery of many of the performers on every stage, whether metropolitan or provincial-the false and glittering trappings of dress-the automaton painting of the faces the empty and unmeaning gesturing-and the vain and vaunting stalking of the characters together with the rolling and unrolling of painted scenes the imitation thunder and lightning, &c.—these would certainly go far to convince me, at all moments of my observation, that I merely beheld hired minions, attempting to personify the characters and manners of those who had moved in higher life before them.

Yet, though I am inclined to give but little influence to the drama represented, I am, by no means, of the same opinion concerning the latent magic of reading; whether it be in the airy world of fiction and fancy, or in the more marked and material path of the drama.

What can equal the serenity of a comfortable study? You enter it with the candle in one hand and your novel in the other, taking particular care to shut the door behind you; you draw your table near the nice red fire, and place your arm-chair in the corner of the chimney, scarcely being able to get too near such a delightful companion of a winter's night; you next collect your footstools, and sit down in the most easy and reclining position for a long sederunt; you draw the candle near you, snuff it, and place the snuffers just at your elbow; you fill out a glass of clear spring water, take a mouthful, and then draw your hand over your brow-perhaps a bare and benevolent one-but no matter, for it looks the more intellectual; you next give a passing glance at the fire, pick up your first volume, lay yourself easily back in your chair, and the next moment you are in elysium!

It is not to be expected that in such a favourable situation you shall long remain perfectly conscious of your real condition. Fancy at once gets you upon her wings, and off you fly together, o'er sea and land, mountain and valley, by caves and cataracts, through fragrant groves and vernal glades, till you are probably set down amid the sable inhabitants of Africa, or the white bearded, purblind people of Greenland. Wherever her wandering majesty is pleased, in her supreme wisdom, to convey you, there you see all, and seem familiar with it. Every character is performing substantially his or her part before you. The lover smiles laciviously beside his mistress-the general is leading forth, with enthusiasm, his brave men to battle-the weather-beaten mariner guides his bounding vessel over the trackless main-or the rural shepherd leads forward his flock to the green pastures and the crystal waters; all appears reality; there is no mincing of words, no broken English, no Yorkshire barking, no cockneyfied Scotch; all the characters being silent, they only speak in rotation, as your eye glances over them, so that you are neither startled with a croaking voice, nor a monotonous and illiterate delivery.

Again, if a palace or spacious hall is spoken of, there it stands before you, with all its furniture, paintings, drapery, tapestry, &c. You look upon no daubed canvass, no false colouring; according to what you may

have seen, so does fancy, aided by association, create the dazzling apart ments before your eye, and, with a finishing touch, renders them all material. If a wood is described, already do you behold it waving in the breeze: if a caravan, crossing some dreary desert, there you behold the weary equipages wending over the burning sands, like the great spirit of solitude, and the ambitious travellers trembling at the thought of the approaching Simoon: if thunder and lightning is described, already the celestial artillery is pealing on your ears, and the electricity of heaven eclipsing your dazzled eye-sight for a moment: if a hurricane at sea, the shattered bark is before you, with all its helpless beings clinging to the shrouds, and the waves opening their jaws to suck them down: if a whirlwind on shore, you see the ancient ruin tossed widely over the plain below.

Such is the power, the magic of reading, that all is real; and the mind, being opened by the key of fancy, falls into the most delightful belief imaginable-feeling sorry or glad with each character, and deeply interested in the fate and fortune of the hero or heroine of the tale.

What promotes this reality or belief, may be the quietude of the place where you are reading, with the solemnity and solitude of a midnight hour; yet I have heard of readers enjoying the same unbroken felicity, with noisy children running and screaming around them, nay, even with them on their knee; never once losing the power of a solitary sentence, nor being so much as sensible of the discordant tones echoing around them, so very disagreeable and deafening to others not employed in the fanciful feeding of the mental man.

I am, therefore, of the opinion that tragedies, while being represented, have but little, if any power of fettering the feelings into a belief of reality; but that interesting works of fiction, while being read, have the mastery of engaging the whole mind with the impression of present truth.

NO. V.

THE HURRICANE.

LORD of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!

And, lo! on the wings of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven, sails
Silent, and slow, and terribly strong,

The mighty shadow is borne along,

Like the dark eternity to come;

While the world below, dismayed and dumb,

Through the calm of the thick, hot atmosphere,
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear,
They darken fast, and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze;

And he sends through the shade a funereal ray-
A glare that is neither of night nor day-
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard,

2 B

upon a vein of deep feeling, did not prepare the public mind for the high intellectual, and, we may add, moral gratification, which his two posthumous volumes, lately published, afford. Much of his time was absorbed in magazine literature, and this is not precisely the best field for exhibiting the true powers of a writer to advantage. He is often compelled to furnish his contributions within a limited period; and this limitation is necessarily adverse to a full, free, and fair handling of his subject. But even with this unceasing drain upon his mind, Hood was slowly and silently rearing the monument of his future fame. These volumes cannot fail to secure him a high place among the poets of England; and their perusal only leads us to regret, that the mind which has effected so much, was not permitted to accomplish more.

Hood's sympathies, we are all aware, were eminently alive to the interests of the lower classes, and some of his most stirring pieces are consecrated to the cause of oppressed humanity. All of his poems, not merely imaginative, have a moral aim; and this lends to them a dignity and a holiness, which must ever render the poet and the man dear to every wellwisher of our species.

The sensation produced by the "Song of the Shirt" is not yet forgotten; and it must have been a rich reward to his benevolent heart, to know that it was the means of effecting a melioration in the condition of the oppressed females on whose behalf it was written.

The "Dream of Eugene Aram" is another piece bearing the mark of the writer's peculiar genius. The poem is founded upon an actual occurrence. A tutor, highly educated, accomplished, and intellectual, murders an old man to obtain possession of his money. The poet narrates the story in the form of a dream; and the thoughts and passions of the unhappy murderer, previous and subsequent to the horrid deed, and also during its commission, are portrayed in colours of terrible vividness. What an awful appearance of truth does the following verse, for example, wear. The deed is done, and the murderer, transfixed with horror, contemplates his bloody work, lying at his feet a mass of "lifeless flesh and bone."

"Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,

That could not do me ill;

And yet I feared him all the more,

For lying there so still;

There was a manhood in his look

That murder could not kill."

The piece entitled "Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq.," is, of its kind, excelled, perhaps, by none in the collection. This gentleman had taken the trouble to characterize some of the poet's productions as "profaneness and ribaldry;" and though he bastinadoes the censor very specially, the poem is made the vehicle of the author's sentiments against intolerance, cant, bigotry, hypocrisy, and, in short, against everything that would appropriate the name of religion without imbibing its spirit. Occasionally, it must be confessed, in the course of the poem, things sacred and common are jumbled together, in a manner reckless and reprehensible, and most offensive to a really religious mind. We do not like to hear God and his religious ordinances spoken of in tones of every-day familiarity. Sacred