We will give a remarkable instance of this want of power to rouse the feelings. It is some verses he has written on the death of a little child. Surely, few things are so susceptible of pathos as this ; but mark how hard, dry, and metaphysical the poet is.

ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD,

Returned this day, the south wind searches,
And finds young pines and budding birches,

But finds not the budding man;
Nature who lost him, cannot remake him,
Fate let him fall, fate can't retake him;

Nature, fate, men, him seek in vain.”

An American critic well observes on this, " that the voice of lamentation is lost in a vague speculation on fate, interesting only to the intellect." It is difficult to find a subject more capable of touching regrets than the death of a child, and still more difficult to find a poet who has so completely failed in awaking one tender memory.

We shall take advantage of this circumstance to contrast several poets under the same inspiration, and mark how different are all their moods. Nevertheless, all except Emerson have the chief weight on the human heart.

Wordsworth, in his lament for a daughter “Dead and gone,” puts the regrets of memory into an old man's mouth. Although years have passed since the blow fell, how fresh the wound still remains !

“Our work, said I, was well begun,

Then from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,

So sad a sigh has brought.

“ A second time did Matthew stop,

And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain top,

To me he made reply:

“ Yon cloud with that long purple cleft

Brings fresh into my mind,
A day like this which I have left

Full thirty years behind.

“ With rod and line I’sued the sport,

Which that sweet season gave,
And coming to the church, stopped short,

Beside my daughter's grave.

“ Nine summers had she scarcely seen,

The pride of all the vale,
And then she sang—she would have been

A very nightingale.

“ Six feet in earth my Emma lay,

And yet I loved her more,
For so it seemed, than till that day

I e'er had loved before."

And in another poem, how truly he touches the tenderest portion of the heart, when he says :

“ If there is one who need bemoan

His kindred laid in earth,
The household hearts that were his own,

It is the man of mirth.”

We turn from this strain of

pure

musical pathos,

“ Bringing the tears to the dim eyes,"

to another fine burst of natural sorrow; more sorrowful, inasmuch as Byron mixed up less natural objects than Wordsworth in his laments.

“ There have been tears, and breaking hearts for thee,

And mine were nothing had I such to give;
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
And saw around me the wide field revive,
With fruits and fertile.promise, and the spring
Came forth her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
I turned from all she brought, to all she could not bring.”

An English poet has touched upon the same subject ; as another illustration of the subject we quote it. We cannot here avoid remarking, that a very interesting volume might be made of selections from the works of the most eminent poets containing the expression of parallel feelings.

« ON A WITHERED FLOWER.

« Oh, wondrous power of thought,
This faded flower has brought,

Full on my mind one pleasant day in spring.

Once more the wind's sweet breath

Wakes from its silent death,
And that long-perished bird once more I hear it sing.

“ I feel a bright form stand,

One of the seraph band,
Close at my side as in the times gone by.

Once more his little feet

With my long steps compete,
I walk along, nor turn aside mine eye.

“ And now a mist of light

Grows stronger in my sight,
Shaping itself into a form most dear.

Features I deemed had gone

Once more I gaze upon,
My child-my buried child—I know that you are here.”

In subjects partaking of a more artificial nature our poet is more at home, and there we can award him high praise. There is a spirit in the following worthy Herrick, we had almost said Anacreon.

THE HUMBLE BEE.

“ Burly, dozing, humble bee,
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats thro' seas to seek ;
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid zone !

Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines :
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.

6 Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion;
Sailor of the atmosphere;
Swimmer thro’ the waves of air ;
Voyager of light and noon,
Epicurean of June :
Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum,
All without is martyrdom.
When the south wind in May days,
With a net of shining haze,
Silvers the horizon wall,
And with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With the color of romance,
And infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,
Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The
green

silence dost displace
With thy mellow, breezy bass.
Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone,
Tells of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers,
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found :