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Hunt.

James Henry Leigh Hunt, der Sohn eines Geistlichen der anglikanischen Kirche, ward am 19. October 1784 zu Southgate in Middlesex geboren, besuchte die Schule von Christ's Hospital und widmete sich dann literarischen Bestrebungen. Ein eifriger Anhänger der Reform hatte er harte Verfolgungen auszustehn, die er jedoch mannhaft überwand. Er lebte eine Zeit lang in Italien, in näherer Verbindung mit Lord Byron und kehrte dann nach England zurück, wo er vorzüglich bei Zeitschriften betheiligt ist.

Seine Dichtungen (Juvenilia, Feast of the Poets, Francesca da Rimini u. A. m.) erfreuen sich reicher Phantasie, grosser Lebhaftigkeit und warmen Gefühls, sind aber nicht immer frei von Affectation.

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Hails us with his bright stare, stumbling through And flutter round our rifled tops, like tickled

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Taste) how heav'n loves colour;

flowers with flowers.

See those tops, how beauteous!

What fair service duteous

Round some idol waits, as on their lord the

Nine?

Elfin court 'twould seem;

And taught, perchance, that dream

Which the old Greek mountain dreamt, upon

nights divine.

To expound such wonder Human speech avails not;

How great Nature, clearly, joys in red and Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a glory

green;

What sweet thoughts she thinks

Of violets and pinks,

And a thousand flushing hues, made solely to

be seen:

exhales not.

Think of all these treasures,

Matchless works and pleasures,

Every one a marvel, more than thought can say;

Then think in what bright show'rs

We thicken fields and bow'rs,

Oh! pray believe that angels
From those blue dominions,

And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their wanton May:

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golden pinions.

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And one day, as The nobles fill'd the

on the court;
benches round, the ladies
by their side,

And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sigh'd:

And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,

Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramp'd and roar'd the lions, with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws; With wallowing might and stifled roar, they roll'd on one another,

Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous smother;

The bloody foam above the bars came whizzing through the air:

Said Francis, then, "Faith gentlemen, we're better here than there."

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The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit.
To fish.

You strange, astonish'd-looking, angle-fac'd,
Dreary-mouth'd, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be
grac'd,

And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be, Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry, Legless, unloving, infamously chaste;

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The Fish turns into a Man, and then into a Spirit, and again speaks.

Indulge thy smiling scorn, if smiling still,

O man! and loathe, but with a sort of love;
For difference must itself by difference prove,
And, with sweet clang, the spheres with music
fill.

One of the spirits am I, that at their will
Live in whate'er has life

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dove

fish,

eagle,

No hate, no pride, beneath nought, nor above,

A visiter of the rounds of God's sweet skill.

Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
An angel, writing in a book of gold;
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold:
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision rais'd its head,
Answer'd, "The names of those who love the
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Lord,"

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so;"

Man's life is warm, glad, sad, 'twixt loves and Replied the angel: Abou spoke more low,

graves,

But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Boundless in hope, honour'd with pangs Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

austere,

Heaven-gazing; and his angel-wings he craves:
The fish is swift, small-needing, vague yet
clear,

A cold sweet silver life, wrapp'd in round waves,
Quicken'd with touches of transporting fear.

The angel wrote and vanish'd. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And shew'd the names whom love of God had
bless'd,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Norton.

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, die Tochter von Thomas und die Enkelin von Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ward in London 1808 geboren, vermählte sich in ihrem neunzehnten Jahre mit dem Hon. George Chapple Norton und ward später von ihm, nach englischer Sitte, öffentlich vor Gericht der Untreue angeklagt, ging aber rein und fleckenlos aus diesem skandalösen Process, dem, wie es hiess, eine politische Intrigue zu Grunde lag, hervor. Eine Trennung von ihrem Gatten erfolgte; Mistress Norton nahm darauf ihren Wohnsitz auf längere Zeit in Paris.

Sie hat zwei grössere Dichtungen The Sorrows of Rosalie und the Undying One, so wie viele kleinere lyrische Poesieen geschrieben, die sich sämmtlich durch Grazie, Energie und Gedankenfülle, weniger jedoch durch schöpferische Phantasie auszeichnen.

Low she lies, who blest our eyes
Through many a sunny day;
She may not smile, she will not rise,
The life hath past away!

Yet there is a world of light beyond,

Where we neither die nor sleep;

The Mourners.

She is there, of whom our souls were fond,
Then wherefore do we weep?

The heart is cold, whose thoughts were told
In each glance of her glad bright eye;

And she lies pale, who was so bright,
She scarce seemed made to die.
Yet we know that her soul is happy now,
Where the saints their calm watch keep;
That angels are crowning that fair young brow,-
Then wherefore do we weep?

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