BARRY CORNWALL'S SONGS.

" ENGLAND," observes the author in his preface, "is singularly bar- ren of song-writers;" good song-writers, he should have said : the fact is, they abound in no country. Song-writing is the most difficult species of poetry ;—failure is not to be recovered—one slip ruins the whole attempt. A good song is a little piece of perfection, and perfection does not grow in every field. There must be felicity of

idea, lightness of tone, exquisiteness or extreme naturalness and proprietyof expression ; and this within the compass ofa few verses.

And this is not all: the writer must betray a sustained tone of enthu- siasm: the song should have neither beginning nor end,—L must seem a snatch from out of a continuous strain of Melody—something that swells upon the ear, as if the previous parts had been unheard, and which dies away as if the air had carried its notes afar, and the sounds were wafted along to other lands. Men of genius

are now and then born song-writers ;—such were HORACE and BURNS, such is BERANGER. England has not had hers yet, and perhaps never may have. Englishmen are not nationally cal-

culated to make song-writers ; but individual genius makes light of running counter to a whole nation of habits, and there is no saying that we may not have our true lyricist yet. Song-writing is most likely to spring up among people greatly susceptible of the charms of music, and inventive of airs which, by some peculiar charm they possess, spread over all the country, sink deep in the memory, and come spontaneously on the thoughts in moments of sadness or joy, and, in short, become what are called national. National songs go with national airs, and spring up with circum- stances. The English have few native airs, and as few native • songs of any excellence. When an Englishman is in love, does he sing? In camp, what wretched braying goes by that name ! at table, what have we of the generous, jovial sort? Gene- rally speaking, our table songs—always excepting our glees—are pieces of bald sentiment, when they are English ; but more gene- rally, they are borrowed from the Scotch, the Irish, and other

national song-writers. Gaiety, and that gaiety showing itself mu- sically, is not English : when we are poetically given, it is in the

sad piping strain of the forlorn, deserted, or hopeless lover. Gaiety is not English : we can be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs ; but we ever want the essen- • tial quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget restlessly on the ground.

• BARRY CORNWALL steps forth to prove the truth of our propo- sition. If there is one true spirt of true gaiety in all his volume

of Songs, we will forfeit our Library and all its celebrity. There is boisterous mirth, if you please,—as if the writer or the singer were determined to roar himself out of a fit of despair ; there is drunken and maudlin jollity ; there is also much sparkling of words—make- believe champagne, not so good as clever gooseberry—in short, an effervescence more like a bowl of whipped cream than a glass from the true Heliconian bubbling spring. Where there is ge- nuine mirth—as if to prove our proposition still farther—it is complete undertaker's merriment, sepulchral in its subject, ghastly in its images, horrible in its whole conception ; un- holy jollity—a jig among the tombs—the feast of worms. Such is the song about that lively old fellow King Death, with his coal- black wine. Of the forced mirth, a specimen may be seen in the Hurrah for Merry England! A more doleful shout we never heard : it reminds us of the starved cheers of the gaunt and

famine-struck mob in the Siege of Calais, who attempt to raise a

shout, when they can only compass a long lugubrious howl, after the manner of a cat that has been three days in a trap.

Hurrah, for William of England ! Our friend—as a king should be; Who casteth aside Man's useless pride, And leans on his people free. Hurrah for the King of England ! The boast of merry England.

Merry England with a witness, if this be one of its songs ! A Bacchanalian song, set to music by Mr. H. PHILLIPS, is

another attempt at gaiety. Sing! who sings To her who weareth a hundred rings Ah ! who is this lady fine?

The VINE, boys, the VINE! The mother of mighty wine.

A roamer is she O'er wall and tree, And sometimes very good company.

Alack a-day, poor Mother Vine ! if this is all that the poet can Say of her. Once there was a little voice, Merry as the month of May, That did cry, " Rejoice ! Rejoice ! " Now 'tis—flown away.. It was, we have no doubt, a very little puny voice, and small

hope as there that it will be ever heard again by one who thus la-

ments its departure. Such small beer dribble never comes from the heart of a true song-writer. The man that can say there never was "so fair a thing, "nothing so brave," "nothing so free" as a certain wild'cherry-tree, may have pretty fanciful ideas ; he may have an imagination apt to run riot in soft sentimentality or re- fined sensualities ; but he is no song-writer.

Oh ! .there never was yet so fair a thing, By racing river or bubbling spring, Nothing that ever so gaily grew Up from the ground when the skies were blue,

Nothing so brave—nothing so free, As thou—my wild, wild cherry-tree. Jove! how it danced in the gusty breeze ! Jove! how it frolicked amongst the trees ! Dashing the pride of the poplar down, Stripping the thorn of his hoary crown: Oak or ash—what matter to thee? 'Twits the same to my wild, wild cherry-tree.

What can be said of a man found throwing himself into lays terics over a "wild, wild cherry-tree ?" Much licence is allowed to the poet ; but if we saw any respectable middle-aged gentleman throwing up his hat and crying " Hurrah ! for the wild, wild cherry- tree," we know what we should think of him. Anti this is a song which we have seen pointed out by a weekly critic of some note, as "at once wild, poetic, and original." As for its wildness, it is more than wild—it is wild, wild • and in respect of originality, we would say, it is unique; it is unlike any thing that went before, or is likely to come after. It is, in fact, a specimen of the mock merri- ment: a song-writer must be merry, and this poet seems to have said—" Jove ! I'll show you some gaiety : was ever any body as. gay as I will be?—only let me once mount my wild, wild cherry- tree,' and no tight-rope dancer ever cut such capers-

, Beautiful berries! beautiful tree; Hurrah! for the wild, wild cherry-tree.'

The songs, or rather the small poems, which we admire in this collection, are nearly all sad or tender : it is these alone that the author writes with either nature or feeling. If in any of those we have selected for the gratification of our readers, a light strain is discerned, it is either humorous or mixed with a spirit of bitter- ness; for that there is a single line of true gaiety in the whole vo- lume, we again deny.

PAST TIMES.

Old Acquaintance, shall the nights You and I once talked together,

Be forgot like common things,—

Like some dreary night that brings Nought save foul weather?

We were young, when you and I Talked of golden things together,— Of love and rhyme, of books and men:

Ah ! our hearts were buoyant then

As the wild-goose feather!

Twenty years have fled, we know, Bringing care and changing weather;

But hath th' heart no backward flights,

That we again may see those nights, And laugh together?

Jove's eagle, soaring to the sun,

Renews the past year's mouldet ing feather :

Ah, why not you and I, then, soar From age to youth,—and dream once more Long nights together?

PEACE! WHAT DO TEARS AVAIL?

Peace ! what do tears avail ?

She lies all dumb and pale, And from her eye

The spirit of lovely life is fading,—

And she must die !

Why looks the lover wroth? the friend upbraiding?* Reply, reply!

Hath she not dwelt too long, 'Midst pain, and grief, and wrong? Then, why not die? Why suffer again her doom of sorrow, And hopeless lie? Why nurse the trembling dream until to-morrow ?' Reply, reply !

Death! take her to thine arms, In all her stainless charms, And with her fly To heavenly haunts, where, clad in brightness, The Angels lie ! Wilt bear her there, 0 Death! in all her whiteness? Reply, reply !

THE NIGHT IS CLOSING ROUND, MOTHER.

The night is closing round, Mother ! The shadows are thick and deep ! . All round me they cling, like an iron ring, And I Cannot—cannot sleep!

Ah, Heaven !—thy hand, thy hand, Mother ! Let me lie on thy nursing breast! They have smitten my brain with a piercing pain :— But 'tis gone l—and I now shall rest.

/ could sleep along, long sleep, Mother! So, seek me a calm cool bed : You may lay me low, in the virgin snow, With a moss-bank for my head.

I would lie in the wild, wild woods, Mother! Where nought but the birds are known ;

Where nothing is seen, but the branches green,

And flow'rs on the greensward strewn. No lovers there witch the air, Mother! Nor mock at the holy sky :

One may live and be gay, hire a summer day,

And at last, like the Summer, die !

THE STRANGER.

A stranger came to a rich man's door, And smiled on his mighty feast ; And away his brightest child he bore, And laid her toward the East.

He came next spring, with a smile as gay, (At the time the East wind blows,) And another bright creature he led away, With a cheek like a burning rose.

And he came once more, when the spring was blue, And whispered the last to rest, And bore her away,—yet nobody knew The name of the fearful guest !

Next year, there was none but the rich man left,—

Left alone in his pride and pain, Who called on the Stranger, like one bereft, And sought through the land,—in vain !

He came not : lie never was heard nor seen

Again ; (so the story. saith : ) But, wherever his terrible smile had been,

Men shuddered, and talked of—Death!

THE LEVELLER.

The king lie reigns on a throne of gold, Fenced round by his "power divine ;" The baron he sits in his castle old, Drinking his ripe red wine : But below, below, in his ragged coat, The beggar he toilet!, a hungry note, And the spinner is bound to his weary thread, And the debtor lies down with an aching head. So the world goes! So the stream flows !

Yet there is a fellow, whom nobody knows, Who maketh all free On land and sea, And forceth the rich like the poor to flee !

The lady lies down in her warm white lawn, And dreams of her pearled pride; The milkmaid sings to the wild-eved dawn,

Sad songs on the cold hill-side

And the saint he leaves (while he prattles of faith) Good deeds to the sinner, as scandal saith, And the scholar he bows to the face of brass, And the wise man he worships the golden ass ! So the world goes, Sze.

TILE QUADROON.

Say they that all beauty lies

In the paler maiden's hue? Say they that all sofin,-;

Save front eyes of April bhue ?

ise thou, like a night in June, Beautiful Quadroon!

CODIC,—all dark and bright, as skies

With the tender starlight bung !

Loose the hoe from out thioe eyes !

Loose the angel from thy tinerue !

Let them hear heaven's own sweet tune,

.Beautiful Quadroon !

Tell them—Beauty (horn above)

Front no shade nor hue cloth fly: All she asks is mind, is love, And both upon thine aspect lie,—

Like the light upon the moon, Beautiful Quadroon !

THE PAST.

This common field, this little brook—

What is there hidden in these two, That I so often on them look, Oftener than on the heavens blue?

No beauty lies upon the field;

Small music (loth the river Tield;

And yet I look and look again, With something of a pleasant pain.

'Tis thirty—can't be thirty years,

Since last I stood upon this plank,

Which o'er the brbok its figure rears, And watch'd the pebbles as they sank? How white the stream ! I still remember Its margin glassed by boar December, And how the sun fell on the snow : Ah ! can it be so long ago ?

It cometh back ;—so blithe, so bright, It hurries to my eager ken, As though but one short winter's night Had darkened o'er the world since then.

It is the same clear dazzling scene ;- Perhaps the grass is scarce as green ; Perhaps the river's troubled voice

Both not so plainly say—" Rejoice."

Yet Nature surely never ranges, Ne'er quits her gay and flowery crown ;— But, ever joyful, merely changes The primrose for the thistle-down. 'Tis we alone who, waxing old, Look on her with an aspect cold, Dissolve her in our burning tears, Or clothe her with the mists of years !

Then, why should not the grass be green? And why should not the river's song Be merry,—as they both have been When I Was here an urchin strong? Ah, true—too true! I see the sun Through thirty winter years hath run, For grave eyes, mirrored in the brook, Usurp the urchin's laughing look!

So be it ! I have lost,—and won !

For, once, the past was poor to trie,--= The future dim : and though the sun Shed life and strength, and I was free, I felt not—knew no grateful pleasure : All seemed but as the common measure: But Now—the experienced spirit old Turns all the leaden past to gold !

The duties of a song are happily and critically expressed in a song on songs.

SONG SHOULD BREATHE.

Song should breathe of scents and flowers; Song should like a river flow ; Song should bring back scenes and hours That we loyed—ah, long ago !

Song from baser thoughts should win us ; Song should charm us out of woe; Song should stir the heart within us, Like a patriot's friendly blow. Pains and pleasures, all man doeth,

War and peace, and right and wrong,— All things that th.e soul subdueth

Should be vanquished, too, by song. Song should spur the mind to duty ; Nerve the weak and stir the strong: Every deed of truth and beauty Should be crowned by starry song !

The " Petition to Time" is, on the whole, perhaps, the best and most beautiful thing in the book; it is the only song which comes from the man as the Songs of BURNS used to come.

PETITION TO TIME.

Touch us gently, Time ! Let us glide adown thy stream Gently,—as we sometimes glide Through a quiet dream !

Humble voyagers are We,

Husband, wife, and children three— (One is lost,—an angel, fled

To the azure overhead!) Touch us gently, Time ! We've not proud nor soaring wings : Oar ambition, our content Lies in simple things. Humble voyagers are We, O'er Life's dim unsounded sea, • Seeking only some calm clime :— Touch us gently, gentle Time !

If any Fong in the present collection lives, it will be this Peti- tion : it deserves be in all elegant extracts and popular selections for a hundred years to come.