166 Original Poetry. [VOL. 4 POETRY. From the London Monthly Magazines. We are indebted for the annexed Verses to the kindness of Mr. Crabbe, who has at our earnest request not only allowed us this gratification, but promised to communicate, at future periods, any of the shorter productions of his powerful pen, which may suit our miscellany. While we acknowledge this mark of one excellent Poet's approval of our publication, it gives us pleasure to add, both for our own sakes and our readers', that we are assured of similar treasures from the portfolios of several of the most distinguished Bards of the Age. VERSES, BY THE REV. G. CRABBE; Written on the night of the 15th of April, 17**, immediately before the perusal of a Letter then received. HROUGH many a year the Merchant Tviews With steady eye his distant gains; And what he seeks in time obtains. That pleasant view his cares beguile. Not such my fate---what years disclose And piece-meal on such minds bestow; The lively joys, the grievous woes! Shall this tremendous instant show; And feeble compensation make; That can distress, that can delight--- Refus'd; towards rest his steps he bent For new delay, though oft deny'd, At being sent away so soon. 64 4. "Alas! poor infant!" I exclaim'd, When doom'd to slumber with the dead." And more I thought---when up the stairs With "longing ling'ring looks" he crept, To mark of man, the childish cares, His playthings carefully he kept. Thus mortals on life's later stage, When nature claims their forfeit breath, Still grasp at wealth, in pain and age, And cling to golden toys in death. 6. "Tis morn! and see my smiling boy O, my Creator! when thy will Till thought,seuse, mem'ry--all are fled. * How different is the anecdote of the fore this great Princess drew her last breath, Empress Maria Theresa! A short time beshe lay in a kind of lethargy, with her eyes closed; and one of the ladies, her attendants, being questioned respecting the health of her imperial mistress, answered, "Her Majesty appears to be asleep." No,' said the Empress, I could go to sleep if I would, but I feel my last hour approach, and it shall not overtake me in my sleep.' Majestic husband of that learned stream, Yet greater praises by thy wave are won: H, dearer to a Father's beart, Athan all the gifts the world can give Ab! dear Maria! we must part, And yet on earth thy Parent live? To thee, to every duty true, To every Christian Virtue dear, How shall I bid the last adieu, And hovering, trembling, linger here? O! through the kindling bloom of youth If angel-graces ever shone--Ingenuous Candour, simple Truth--Heaven-born, I bail'd them all thine own! Farewell, my Love! again farewell! My fainting tongue would utter more--But, as Affection fain would tell What Memory sickens to explore; To bring back all my fondest care: Lo gleam on gleam---my dreary hour? O! 'tis Maria's self---her smile--- 167 I come! " dearer to my heart" P. From these paternal arms again !* *Maria, daughter of the Rev. Jer. Trist, of Behan Park, near Tregony; a most amiable and accomplished young lady. ON VIEWING THE DEAD BODY OF A BEAUTIFUL INFANT. T Nastentes morimur finisque Ab origine pendet-Horace. HERE is a smile upon that cheek--- Calm is that look, that brow is fair, The chill of death is on that cheek--- LINES ON HEARING THE CHURCH BELLS. A GLOOM will o'er my senses steal In early days, when fancy charm'd, Yet One, perhaps, whose soothing power bair CAROLINE G. THE SIBYL. A Sketch. O stood the Sibyl---stream'd her hoary Wild to the blast, and with a comet's glare Glow'd her red eye-balls midst the sunken [tomb ;--Of their wide orbs, like death-fires in a Slow, like the rising storm, in fitful moans, Broke from her breast the deep prophetic gloom toges-- Anon with whirlwind rush the Spirit came; force Her voice in thunder burst, her arins she death, Rode forth triumphant at her blasting breath; Their march she marshall'd, taught their ire to fall, And seem'd herself the emblem of them all. Aug. 1818. VIDEO. THE CANAL AND THE BROOK. [By the author of "Legends of Lampidosa," &c.] THE proud Canal, serene and deep, TBeneath it saw the streamlet creep--- The semblance and the light of Heaven! July 1818. V. [VOL. 4 From the Literary Gazette, Aug. 1818. THE PARTING. THE wind was wild, the sea was dark, The lightning Hash'd above, the bark That anchor'd in the rocky bay Bath'd its top pennon in the spray. Hollow and gloomy as the grave Then gathering wild, with thundering sweep, Roll'd to the shore the mighty wave, Flash'd its white foam-sheet up the steep. Shouts of pursuit were on the wind; The sight was terror---but behind Told where the human hunters wheel'd Trumpet and yell, and clash of shield Where, Bertha, was thy courage then? Thro' the last valley's forest glen. She cheer'd her warrior, tho' his side Up the rude mountain-path her hand Still with the gushing blood was dyed, Sustain'd his arm, and dragged his brand, Paused on the promontory's head, Nor shrank nor sighed; and when his tread She smiled, altho' her lip was pale As the torn silver of his mail. All there was still---the shouts had past, Sunk in the rushings of the blast; Below, the vapour's dark grey screen Then swept the circle of the hill, Shut out from view the long ravine, Like billows round an Ocean isle. The ray the parting sunbeam flung, In white, cold radiance on them hung; They stood upon that lonely brow Like Spirits loosed from human woe, And pausing, ere they thread the plume Above that waste of storm and gloom. To linger there was death, but there Was that which masters death, Despair--And even Despair's high master, Love. Her heart was like her form, above The storms, the stormier thoughts that Earth Makes the dread privilege of our birth. Passion's wild tame was past, but he Who pined before her burning eye, The numbered beatings of whose heart Told, on that summit, they must part--He was life, soul, and world to her; Beside him, what had she to fear? Life had for her nor calm nor storm While she stood gazing on that form, And clasped his hand, tho' lost and lone, His dying hand, but all her own. She knelt beside him, on her knee She raised his wan cheek silently: She spoke not, sighed not; to his breast, Her own, scarce living now, was prest, And felt,---if where the senses reel, O'er wrought---o'er flooded---we can feel The thoughts, that when they cease to be Leave life one vacant misery--She kiss'd his chilling lip, and bore The look that told her all was o'er. The echoes of pursuit again To the whirlwind's roar and the dash of the spray. T WONDERS OF THE NEW WORLD. From the Literary Gazette. MEXICO, AND ITS GLACIERS. IN TWO LETTERS FROM A HAMBURGH GENTLEMAN TO HIS FRIEND IN THAT CITY. Letter II. HE environs of Mexico gain much great quantities, so that at every step by this high region of ice and snow, we slipped backwards. This very and afford a most beautiful, as it is in troublesome and tedious walk damped its kind, a very singular prospect. The our hopes of success, though we very city and adjoining district not only en- soon came to places, where the temjoy a very great advantage above the pests had carried away the fine sand, other parts of this country, from the ice and left behind the coarse only, so that which is to be had at all times of the we could tread firmer, and found great year, but are chiefly indebted for a mild relief from the change, which continued climate to this frozen region, which still farther up, where the steep surface cools and tempers the atmosphere of was covered with pieces of pumice stone, Mexico. Inconsiderable as the dis- so that our steps did not sink in at all. tance of the Glaciers seems when ob- In this manner we continued our jourserved from Mexico, it took me more ney for a considerable time, and arrived than a day to reach on horseback a lit- at an unavoidable and very dangerous tle plain, where I erected a tent, and place, where we had to walk over large made all the preparations for ascending pieces of rock, which lay loose in the the Popocatepetl the next day. I found sand, and detached by our weight, the whole south side of the Pico free from ice, but on the north it reached far down. After a very disagreeable night, during which, in spite of every precaution, I could not sleep for the frost and cold, I set out before day-break on my journey, and took only one companion with me, leaving the rest of my people to watch my tent, horses, and mules. The beginning of our ascent was not very steep, but very fatiguing, from our feet always sinking in the soft sand which the volcano had thrown out in X ATHENEUM. Vol. 4. rolled down, bearing other fragments in their course. Our peril was imminent, and could only be averted by getting quickly out of the way of the pieces of rock as they descended. The most dangerous and troublesome part of our journey was however already accomplished, and the highest part of the Popocatepetl seemed to lie within our reach, when we were suddenly forced to return to the place whence we set out at day-break. For some time there had appeared in 170 The Glaciers of Mexico. [VOL. 4 the atmosphere the well-known phe- following day, but the next morning, at nomenon of the White Vapour, which day-break, the whole Pico was covered deprives the inhabitants of Mexico of with snow, and as it still continued to the beautiful prospect of Popocatepetl; snow on the third day, I struck my only, as I advanced nearer, it was again tent, and returned to Mexico. visible, and accompanied with the re- A short time after this journey I markable circumstance, that the vapours visited the eastern group of mountains, and the summit of the volcano formed which is covered far and wide with snow a plain, upon which, from the place and ice. As this way is much shorter where I stood, though at a great dis- and more convenient than that to tance, the smallest cloud of the multitude Popocatepetl, I thought I should be which floated on the upper surface of able to accomplish the whole (setting this strange aërial sea, but did not sink out from the nearest place,) in one day; down any lower, was perceptible. The but here, too, unexpected obstacles oclittle clouds which were very distant in curred, which obliged me to seek a reopposite directions, on the east and treat for the night in a rocky cave, surwest, advanced from both sides, though rounded with a thick wood. At daythere was not a breath of wind, to the break I scrambled up to a rather sloping summit of the volcano. Their course frozen plain, where I found forty Mexwas slow, but they at last reached the icans employed in breaking pieces of Pico; and now presented a scene un- ice, each about a hundred weight: paralleled in its kind. There arose a these were laden upon asses, and carried real battle between the clouds, which to Mexico, to be deposited in the recame from the east and west, to the top servoirs, where, of course, much less of the volcano, and which arriving at arrives than is loaded upon the mounthe summit of the Pico did not mix for tains, because the ice thaws the whole a long time, but offered the extraordinary way, notwithstanding the precaution appearance, as if they wanted to drive which is observed to convey it over the their opponents from the space; for warm plains only by night. sometimes they rose over each other, In New Spain there are many high then crossways through each other, till mountains, which retain the fallen snow at last, in masses continually increasing, for some days, weeks, or months; from they united and sent forth repeated claps which also ice or snow is collected and of thunder and flashes of lightning. I preserved in ice-cellars for domestic use. stood, as it were rooted to the spot, gazing with admiration and delight on this sublime phenomenon, but as the masses of clouds became larger and thicker, so that they wholly enveloped me and my companion, and the thunder However grateful the inhabitants of and lightning increased, I thought it New Spain are for the ice which Proviadvisable not to remain any longer. At dence so kindly gives them; the inhabifirst I was obliged to pick my way back tants of the North of Germany must be through the loose pieces of rocks with equally thankful that they have not such great caution; but as soon as I reached a Popocatepetl or Pico of Orizaba. the sand, I made great leaps, flying Had they such a mountain, the mass of sometimes with a whole bed of sand ice would descend much lower than in a long way down, and in this manner Mexico. You, my friends, would be descended, in a few moments, the Pico, obliged to go clad in furs in the middle which it had cost me so much trouble of summer; your fruits would seldom to mount. My safe arrival at the or never ripen, and in the pavilion upon bottom gave great joy to my people, your beautiful Jungfernstieg (ladies whom I had left behind, and who had walk) in Hamburg, nobody would ever been greatly alarmed for my safety think of calling for ice creams. during the thunder-storm. I intended to ascend the volcano again on the One of these, a very remarkable mountain, which I have also visited, is the Volcano of Colima, where ice and snow are generally found for nine months together. I remain your's, &c. |