Love and Death.

Love wept, and spread his sheeny vans for

flight; What time the mighty moon was gathering light Yet, ere he parted, said, "This hour is thine: Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree And all about him rolled his lustrous eyes; Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, When, turning round a casia , full in view, So in the light of great eternity Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, Life eminent creates the shade of death; And talking to himself, first met his sight: The shadow passeth when the tree shall “You must begone,” said Death, "these walks

fall, are mine." But I shall reign for ever over all.”

How it t.

Mary Howitt, einer Quäkerfamilie angehörend und mütterlicher Seite von dem berühmten Charles Wood abstammend, welcher zuerst die Platina in England einführte, ward um 1806 zu Coleford in Gloucestershire geboren und vermählte sich in ihrem einundzwanzigsten Jahre mit dem gleichfalls als Schriftsteller ausgezeichneten William Howitt. Sie lebten nach ihrer Verheirathung anfangs zu Nottingham, dann zu Esher in Surrey und haben in den letzteren Jahren längere Zeit in Deutschland, namentlich in Heidelberg, zugebracht.

Theils in Verbindung mit ihrem Gatten, theils allein gab Mistress Howitt heraus: The Forest Minstrel, London 1823; the Desolation of Eyam and other Poems, London 1827; The seven Temptations, a series of dramatic poems, London 1834; ferner Jugendschriften wie: Sketches of Natural History, Tales in Verse, u. A. m. sowie einzelne Gedichte und Aufsätze in Zeitschriften und Almanachen.

Tiefe, echte Frömmigkeit, reiche Einbildungskraft, warmes Gefühl, Herrschaft über Sprache und Form und grosse Anmuth der Darstellung, haben ihren Leistungen viele Freunde erworben und ihr eine sehr ehrenvolle Stellung in der englischen literarischen Welt gesichert.

An old Man's Story. There was an old and quiet man,

A lovely thing on the wave was she, And by the fire sate he;

With her canvass set so gallantly "And now," he said, “to you I'll tell

Before a steady breeze.
A dismal thing, which once befel
In a ship upon the sea.

“For forty days, like a winged thing,

She went before the gale, “ 'Tis five-and-fifty years gone by,

Nor all that time we slackened speed,
Since, from the river Plate,

Turn'd helm, or alter'd sail.
A young man, in a home-bound ship,
I sailed as second mate.

“She was a laden argosy

Of wealth from the Spanish main, "She was a trim, stout-timbered ship,

And the treasure hoards of a Portuguese And built for stormy seas,

Returning home again.

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"But list ye me

on the lone high seas, “And when they spoke of the murdered man, As the ship went smoothly on,

And the El Dorado hoard, It chanced, in the silent, second watch,

They all surmised he had walked in dreams
I sate on the deck alone;

And had fallen over board.
And I heard, from among those iron chests,
A sound like a dying groan.

“But I, alone, and the murderer,

That dreadful thing did know,
How he lay in his sin

a murdered man, "I started to my feet, and, lo!

A thousand fathom low.
The captain stood by me;
And he bore a body in his arms,
And dropped it in the sea.

"And many days, and many more

Came on, and lagging sped;

And the heavy waves that sleeping sea "I heard it drop into the sea,

Were dark, like molten lead.
With a heavy, splashing sound,
And I saw the captain's bloody hands

“And not a breeze came, east orwest,
As he quickly turned him round;

And burning was the sky;
And he drew in his breath when me he saw

And stilling was each breath we drew
Like one convulsed, whom the withering awe

Of the air so hot and dry.
Of a spectre doth astound.

"Oh me! there was a smell of death
"But I saw his white and palsied lips,

Hung round us night and day;
And the stare of his ghastly eye,

And I dared not look in the sea below
When he turned in hurried haste away,

Where the old man's body lay.
Yet he had no power to fly;'
He was chained to the deck with his heavy “In his cabin, alone, the captain kept,

guilt,

And he bolted fast the door;
And the blood that was not dry.

And up and down the sailors walked,

And wish'd that the calm was o'er.
"'Twas a cursed thing,' said I, 'to kill
That old man in his sleep!

"The captain's son was on board with us, And the plagues of the storm will come from

A fair child, seven years old,
him,

With a merry look, that all men loved,
Ten thousand fathoms deep!

And a spirit kind and bold.

"And the plagues of the storm will follow us, “I loved the child, and I took his hand, For Heaven his groans hath heard!'

And made him kneel, and pray Still the captain's eye was fixed on me, That the crime, for which the calm was sent, But he answer'd never a word.

Might be purged clean away.

"For I thought that God would hear his prayer, I heard the dismal, drowning cries,
And set the vessel free;

Of their last agony.
For a dreadful thing it was to lie
Upon that charnel sea.

“There was a curse in the wind that blew,

A curse in the boiling wave;

And the captain knew that vengeance came "Yet I told him not wherefore he prayed,

From the old man's ocean grave.
Nor why the calm was sent;
I would not give that knowledge dark

“And I heard him say, as he sate apart, To a soul so innocent.

In a hollow voice and low,

''Tis a cry of blood doth follow us, "At length I saw a little cloud

And still doth plague us so!'
Arise in that sky of flame;
A little cloud, but it grew, and grew,

"And then those heavy iron chests, And blackened as it came.

With desperate strength took he,
And ten of the strongest mariners

Did cast them into the sea.
“And we saw the sea beneath its track
Grow dark as the frowning sky;

“And out from the bottom of the sea, And water-spouts, with a rushing sound,

There came a hollow groan; Like giants, passed us by.

The captain by the gunwale stood,

And he looked like icy stone, "And all around, 'twixt sky and sea,

And he drew in his breath with a gasping sob, A hollow wind did blow;

And a spasm of death came on. And the waves were heaved from the ocean

depths,

"And a furious boiling wave rose up, And the ship rocked to and fro.

With a rushing, thundering roar;
I saw the captain fall to the deck,

But I never saw him more.
“I knew it was that fierce death calm
Its horried hold undoing ;

“Two days before, when the storm began, And I saw the plagues of wind and storm

We were forty men and five; Their missioned work pursuing.

But ere the middle of that night

There were but two alive. “There was a yell in the gathering winds, A groan in the heaving sea;

“The child and I, we were but two,
And the captain rushed from the hold below, And he clung to me in fear;
But he durst not look on me.

Oh! it was pitiful to see
That meek child in his misery,

And his little prayers to hear! "He seized each rope with a madman's haste,

And he set the helm to go; And every sail he crowded on

"At length, as if his prayers were heard, As the furious winds did blow.

'Twas calmer,

and anon

The clear sun shone, and warm and low, “And away they went, like autumn leaves A steady wind from the west did blow, Before the tempest's rout;

And drove us gently on.
And the naked masts with a crash came down,
And the wild ship tossed about.

"And on we drove, and on we drove,

That fair young child and I;
“The men to spars and splintered boards But his heart was as a man's in strength,
Clung, till their strength was gone;

And he uttered not a cry.
And I saw them from their feeble hold
Washed over, one by one.

“There was no bread within the wreck,

And water we had none; "And 'mid the creaking timber's din,

Yet he murmured not, and cheered me And the roaring of the sea,

When my last hopes were gone :

Ye sit upon the earta

Children of pleasant song
Twining its flowers, and shouting, full of glee; Are taught within the mountain solitudes;

And a pure mighty influence, 'mid your mirth For hoary legends to your wilds belong,
Moulds your unconscious spirits silently. And yours are haunts where inspiration broods.

Hence is it that the lands
Of storm and mountain have the noblest sons; Then go forth, earth and sky
Whom the world reverences, the patriot To you are tributary; joys are spread

bands

Profusely, like the summer flowers that lie Were of the hills like you, ye little ones! In the green path, beneath your gamesome tread!

Hervey.

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Thomas R. Hervey ward um 1816 in der Nähe von Paisley geboren, erhielt seine Erziehung in Manchester und lebt hier als practischer Jurist. Er veröffentlichte the Poetical Sketch-Book 1835, the Book of Christmas und einzelne Gedichte in Zeitschriften. Seine Poesieen wenn gleich nicht ersten Ranges zeichnen sich durch reiche Phantasie und treffliche Diction sehr vor theilhaft aus.

A Twilight Landscape.

Along the green meadows, when life was in

prime, Oh! come at this hour, love! the daylight is And worshipped its face in the stream:

gone,

When our hopes were as sweet, and our life-path
And the heavens weep dew on the flowers;

as bright,
And the spirit of loneliness steals, with a moan, And as cloudless, to fancy's young eye,
Through the shade of the eglantine bowers : As the star-spangled course of that phantom of
For, the moon is asleep on her pillow of clouds,

light, And her curtain is drawn in the sky;

Along the blue depths of the sky! And the gale, as it wantons along the young Then come in this hour, love! when twilight has buds,

hung Falls faint on the ear like a sigh!

Its shadowy mantle around;
The summer-day sun is too gaudy and bright And no sound, save the murmurs that breathe
For a heart that has suffered like mine;

from thy tongue, And, methinks, there were pain, in the noon of Or thy footfall scarce heard on the ground!

its light,

Shall steal on the silence, to waken a fear To a spirit so broken as thine!

When the sun that is gone, with its heat,
The birds, as they mingled their music of joy, Has left on the cheek of all nature a tear,
And the roses that smiled in the beam,

Then, hearts that are broken should meet!
Would but tell us of feelings for ever gone by,
And of hopes that have passed like a dream!
And the moonlight, pale spirit! would

speak of the time When we wandered beneath its soft gleam,

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