Then I turned, and on those bright hopes pondered
Whereof yon gay fancies were the type;
And my hand mechanically wandered

Towards my left-hand pocket for a pipe.
Ah! why starts each eyeball from its socket,
As, in Hamlet, start the guilty Queen's?
There, deep-hid in its accustomed pocket,
Lay my sole pipe, smashed to smithereens!

On, on the vessel steals;
Round go the paddle-wheels,
And now the tourist feels
As he should;

For king-like rolls the Rhine,
And the scenery's divine,

And the victuals and the wine
Rather good.

From every crag we pass'll
Rise up some hoar old castle;
The hanging fir-groves tassel
Every slope;

And the vine her little arms stretches
O'er peasants singing catches-

And you'll make no end of sketches,
I should hope.

We've a nun here (called Therèse),
Two couriers out of place,

One Yankee, with a face

Like a ferret's:

And three youths in scarlet caps
Drinking chocolate and schnapps-
A diet which perhaps

Has its merits.

Then sinks behind yon ridge;
And the usual evening midge
Is settling on the bridge
Of my nose.

And keen's the air and cold,
And the sheep are in the fold,
And Night walks sable-stoled
Through the trees;

And on the silent river

The floating starbeams quiver ;—
And now, the saints deliver
Us from fleas.

Avenues of broad white houses,
Basking in the noontide glare ;-
Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from,
As on hot plates shrinks the bear;—

Elsewhere lawns, and vista'd gardens,
Statues white, and cool arcades,
Where at eve the German warrior
Winks upon the German maids ;-

Such is Munich:-broad and stately,
Rich of hue, and fair of form;
But, towards the end of August,
Unequivocally warm.

There, the long dim galleries threading,
May the artist's eye behold,
Breathing from the "deathless canvas"

Records of the years of old:

Pallas there, and Jove, and Juno,

"Take" once more "their walks abroad,"

Under Titian's fiery woodlands

And the saffron skies of Claude :

There the Amazons of Rubens

Lift the failing arm to strike,
And the pale light falls in masses
On the horsemen of Vandyke;

And in Berghem's pools reflected
Hang the cattle's graceful shapes,
And Murillo's soft boy-faces

Laugh amid the Seville grapes;

And all the purest, loveliest fancies
That in poet's souls may dwell
Started into shape and substance
At the touch of Raphael.-

Lo! her wan arms folded meekly,
And the glory of her hair
Falling as a robe around her,

Kneels the Magdalene in prayer;

And the white-robed Virgin-mother
Smiles, as centuries back she smiled,
Half in gladness, half in wonder,

On the calm face of her Child :—

And that mighty Judgment-vision
Tells how man essayed to climb
Up the ladder of the ages,

Past the frontier-walls of Time ;

Heard the trumpet-echoes rolling
Through the phantom-peopled sky,
And the still voice bid this mortal
Put on immortality.

Thence we turned, what time the blackbird

Pipes to vespers from his perch, And from out the clattering city Past into the silent church;

Marked the shower of sunlight breaking

Through the crimson panes o'erhead,

And on pictured wall and window
Read the histories of the dead:

Till the kneelers round us, rising,

Crossed their foreheads and were gone;
And o'er aisle and arch and cornice,

Layer on layer the night came on.

(From "Verses and Translations." Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co. By permission of the Author.)

THE ONE THOUGHT.

ALEXANDER PETÖFI,

(The Magyar Poet.)

ONE thought lies heavy on my heart,
One only thought-that I,
On the soft bed of indolence,
May pass away and die;

May fade as slowly fades the flower
When wanes its little day,

A beauteous, but a useless life,
To lead and then decay;—
May pale as pales the flickering light
Of morning's latest star,

When comes the Day-God from the east
In his triumphant car:

Great Father! grant this may not be,
Let not my Magyar name
Be linked with such a fate as this,
With such a death of shame.

A rock torn from a mountain-brow,
A storm-uprooted tree,

A lightning-struck and blasted trunk,
No! rather let it be :

A death where meets a fettered race,
Tired with its galling chain,

In mustered rank and serried line
Upon the battle plain,

With red flag flashing to the breeze
Its characters of gold,

The sacred signal there inscribed
For despots to behold,-

The signal that sends far and wide
The summons to be free,

To east to west, to north to south,
"For the world's liberty!"
There would I fight the glorious fight,
There in my heart's blood lie,
And, battling in a glorious cause,
Be well content to die!

(Copyright Translation-Contributed.)

MR. TONKS'S GREAT CHRISTMAS FAILURE.
ALBERT SMITH.

[Albert Smith was born in 1812, and was educated with a view to his following the profession of a surgeon. He began life as the assistant in his father's medical practice at Chertsea, and subsequently commenced on his own account as a surgeon-dentist in Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road. He began his literary career by contributing to "The Mirror," a weekly periodical, which, under the editorship of Mr. John Timbs, had a long and successful career. On the establishment of "Bentley's Miscellany," he sent in his first prose sketch of any length, "A Rencontre with the Brigands," which was accepted. From this time forth he plied a busy pen, contributing to Punch in its earlier days (when Punch was hot and strong, and not a mere safety valve for the superfluous steam of the Times), "The Natural History of Evening Parties," and the "Physiology of the London Medical Student." He next contributed The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury" to "Bentley's," and took to writing for the stage, but it was during the last ten years of his life, when he started and continued that celebrated "Ascent of Mont Blanc," which everybody went to see, that Albert Smith may with truth be said to have become "the pet of the public." Enjoying a very numerous circle of acquaintances, authors, artists, and the like, and the idol of his Club, Mr. Smith did not, it is to be feared, allow himself all the repose necessary to his mental exertions. Shortly