THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD. They grew in beauty, side by side, The same fond mother bent at night One, 'midst the forests of the west, The Indian knows his place of rest, The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one- One sleeps where southern vines are drest, He wrapt his colours round his breast And one-o'er her the myrtle showers And parted thus they rest, who play'd They that with smiles lit up the hall, Alas! for love, if thou wert all, Ꮓ THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP. What hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells? We ask not such from thee. Yet more, the Depths have more!-What wealth untold, Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main! Yet more, the Depths have more!-Thy waves have roll'd Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old, Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry! Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play, Man yields them to decay! Yet more! the Billows and the Depths have more! Give back the lost and lovely!-Those for whom To thee the love of woman hath gone down; Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, O'er youth's bright locks and beauty's flowery crown, Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the Dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!— Restore the Dead, thou Sea! DEATH-SONG OF THE SWAN. No "Summer, I depart! O light and laughing summer, fare thee well! song the less through thy rich woods will swell, For one, one broken heart. And fare ye well, young flowers! Ye will not mourn; ye will shed odour still, And ye, bright founts, that lie Far in the whispering forests, lone and deep, Will ye not send one tone Of sorrow through the pines?-one murmur low? No, ever glad and free! Ye have no sounds a tale of death to tell, But thou, sweet boon, too late Pour'd on my parting breath, vain gift of song! Only to wake the sighs Of echo-voices from their sparry cell; From National Lyrics. THIS amiable young man, who gave such high promises of excellence which he was not permitted to realize, was of humble origin, being the son of a livery. stable keeper in Moorfields, where he was born on the 29th of October, 1796. He received a classical education at Enfield, after which he was apprenticed to Mr. Hammond, a surgeon, at Edmonton. As he inherited, however, a small independence, he soon quitted this uncongenial occupation, and devoted himself exclusively to study and poetry: The young poet was of a sickly constitution and extreme sensibility, so that the aliment by which his mind was nourished into precocious vigour, contained also the seeds of premature decay and death. He was indeed a creature all impulse and feeling, who glowed, trembled, or wept, in the extreme, according as the mood predominated. In consequence of Keats's enthusiasm for poetry, he obtained through Mr. Clarke, the son of his schoolmaster, an introduction to Leigh Hunt-but perhaps he would have been more fortunate if he had found a director possessed of a colder heart, and a sterner system of criticism. As it was, Hunt received the young aspirant with enthusiasm, and the latter copied in return the peculiarities of his Mentor to exaggeration even to caricature. Mr. Hunt introduced Keats to public notice as a poet, in The Examiner, in 1817, and this was enough to whet the attention of political criticism, and prepare every literary Tory for the onset. In his affectionate Cicerone, however, Keats found an able defender and steady friend, so that while one party vehemently opposed, another as fervently advocated, the claims of the youthful author. The next publication of Keats was Endymion, a work overflowing with poetical richness but by how much it surpassed his first production, was the increased malignity of criticism. It is painful also to mention upon this head, that the editor of The Quarterly Review, himself a person who had been raised from humble unnoticed youth to patronage and eminence, forgot the mercy he had received from others in the truculent bitterness with which he anatomized the work, and the fierce condemnation which he pronounced upon it. It is said, that he had expressed his intention to denounce the Endymion even before he saw it. It unfortunately happened also that Keats, in his peculiarities of style and expression, had laid himself too open to ridicule but it should have been remembered that these were only the faults of a young mind, which a few years would have corrected; and that they were nobly redeemed by qualities of the highest promise, and which it was their duty, as it might afterwards have been their boast, to have cherished. The poetical soil was surpassingly rich, and was therefore well worth weeding; but instead of this, it was sown with salt, and trodden under foot. By this time, the naturally delicate constitution of the young poet showed symptoms of consumption, and the languor and pain of disease were embittered by the malignity he had experienced. A milder climate was judged necessary for his health, and Keats left England for Italy in 1820. But, as in most cases of this nature, the remedy was tried too late, for he expired at Rome on the 24th of February, in the following year. Even his anticipations of death were poetical, for he declared, during the last stages of his decline, that he already felt the daisies growing over him. His remains were deposited in the cemetery of the Protestants at Rome, at the foot of the pyramid of Caius Cestius, near the Porta San Paolo, where a tomb has been raised to his memory bearing he following inscription: This Grave contains all that was mortal of a Young English Poet, who, on his death-bed, in the bitterness of his heart at the malicious power of his Enemies, desired these words to be engraved on his tombstone HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER. Feb. 24, 1821. I need not any hearing tire, Him all in all unto her doting self. Who would not be so prison'd? but, fond elf, Faint through his careless arms; content to see |