POETRY.
When first the lofty lakeland hymn From Grasmere's brink, and Loughrigg's side, And Rotha's waters floated wide, And of pure song upsprang the fount In the grave air of Rydal mount.
O'er that charmed world of stream and steep Long hung a waiting silence deep, The listening fells bent low to hear If magic whispers stirred the mere; No cry inspired down Easedale brake To end the slumber of the lake, Each eve dumb shadows drowned the vale, And Fairfield's lighted brow grew pale.
At last, in the dull void, One came To lift afresh the lyric flame, Than the great Master less austere, His note more tender, but as clear, And Arnold's fine alertness sped Up the high path where Wordsworth led.
Meanwhile on ears that hungered long Outburst a clash of chiming song, As colour, passion, insight, fire Throbbed through the strength of Browning's lyre,
Gentlier from hers—his mystic moon—
Who for her ripe power passed too soon, But left a noble memory where The lilies scent the Tuscan air ; As Patmore hymned in limpid line Angelic woman, life divine, And brought to homes where mortals are Light from the dreamer's hovering star; As in the "idle singer's" strain A saddened Chaucer breathed again ; As tones superb our souls regaled, As goldenest heights of grace were scaled,•-■
The peaks of purest music won,—
When the land listed Tennyson.
Now of the silvery choir that late August Victoria's time made great, But two remain : one long ago Retold that tale of love and woe Which flashed through Marlowe's lurid honk Moved Goethe's calm to melting power ; The other curbs, as years steal by, The audacious fire that flared so high, And ringed with splendour wild and keen
The fair head of his fated Queen.
Of such as still may claim to keep The flowers fresh on Parnassus steep None we count great, if few are small, Mechanic polish evens all, And thin bells tinkle where should be Full tones of vigorous minstrelsy.
Haply of these another twain
May stay the realm's immortal strain;
One breathes with easy force and true Through olden pipes a music new ; The other 'mid the Berkshire hills A reed of changing cadence fills, Light, soft, pathetic as the sigh Of the gray murmuring river nigh.
JOSEPH TRUMAN',
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