Come thou to my bower deep in the dell, Thou Queen of the land 'twixt heaven and hell,— I have sought for thee in the blue harebell, For I feared thou hadst drank of its potion deep, Then into the wild rose I cast mine eye, And trembled because the prickles were nigh, I have opened the woodbine's velvet vest, And looking to a twinkling star for thee, Then would I sigh and turn me around, Nought cheered me, on which the daylight shone, But now have I found thee, thou vagrant thing, But it was in a home so passing fair That an angel of light might have lingered there; It was in a palace never wet by the dew, Where the sun never shone, and the wind never blew, And never was kissed by the breeze of day; As sweet as the woodland airs of even, And soft as the down of the solan's breast. Yes, now have I found thee, and thee will I keep, Though the earth should quake when nature is still, And the thunders growl in the breast of the hill. Though the moon should scowl through her pall of gray, And the stars fling blood on the Milky Way; Since now I have found thee I'll hold thee fast Till thou garnish my song,-it is the last : And I'll call it a Queen for the sake of thee. As a contrast, we copy the honourable picture of domestic happiness and affection which Allan Cunningham has painted, with his pen dipped in all the colours of truth. THE POET'S BRIDAL DAY SONG. O! my love's like the steadfast sun, Even while I muse, I see thee sit We stayed and wooed, and thought the moon Set on the sea an hour too soon; Or lingered 'mid the falling dew, When looks were fond and words were few. Though I see smiling at thy feet Five sons and ae fair daughters sweet; Have dimmed thine eye, and touched thy rose; All that charms me of tale or song; When words come dowu like dews unsought And fancy in her heaven flies free They come, my love, they come from thee. O, when more thought we gave of old What things should deck our humble bower! And hope, that decks the peasant's bower, A mother's heart shine in thine eye; And proud resolve and purpose meek, Speak of thee more than words can speak; I think the wedded wife of mine The best of all that's not divine! Poets can imagine what they please. How different from the foregoing is the following, signed Bion, but evidently by a hand of superior order! FIDELITY. (From the Spanish.) One eve of beauty, when the sun To gold converting, one by one, And eyes that might the world have cheated, She stooped, and wrote upon the sand, I could have sworn 'twas silver flowing. The Syren wrote upon the shore- And then her two large languid eyes And was the fool she chose to make me. As much the woman as the sand. It is one of the charms of this little book, that every new subject changes its tone, and that we are amused by the transitions, from grave to gay—from serious to sportive. Thus Mr. Montgomery, in his 'Friends,' again recalls us to sober thoughts. Friend after friend departs; Who hath not lost a friend? Beyond the flight of time,— Beyond the reign of death,- There is a world above Formed for the good alone; Thus star by star declines, Till all are past away; As morning high and higher shines Nor sink those stars in empty night, But hide themselves in Heaven's own light. Mr. Bowles has a very striking dramatic sketch on a historical passage, of which it is rather extraordinary that Shakspeare did not make any use in his Richard III.; we allude to the flying of Elizabeth with her second son to the sanctuary, as related by Speed. But this is too long for quotation, and we must be contented with the following neat Apologue from the same pen. THE SWALLOW AND THE RED-BREAST. The swallows at the close of day, To climes where soon the winter drear As council and advice to take, " 'Tis true, (the red-breast answered meek,) To every change alike resigned, I fear not the cold winter's wind. When spring returns, the circling year But whilst my warm affections rest I learn to pity those that roam, And love the more my humble home." We cannot say that any of the productions in this volume, high as is their merit, have pleased us more than the following. The two leading ideas in the first part are most poetically expressed, and the application in the end is very effective. It is written by Mr. Hervey, whose Australia we recently reviewed, and is entitled The Convict Ship.' Morn on the waters!-and, purple and bright, Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail, And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale; Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky, Seems not the ship like an island of rest? Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain ! Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave, With streamers afloat, and with canvass unfurled; All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes, Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs ; Fading and false is the aspect it wears, As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears ; And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know, Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below; Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore TALES OF IRISH LIFE. THESE tales are sixteen in num ber, and embellished with many excellent designs by Cruikshank, which form no small addition to their own intrinsic worth. But the principal feature in their character is, their moral tendency and attraction by novelty it should, we imagine, be no slight constraint upon the will of any man of taste, to read one tale out of the sixteen without reading all; for while the reader is made to enter, as it were, into the prejudices, notions, and spirit of a people, of whose real character, Englishmen, notwithstanding the proximity of England to Ireland, comparatively speaking, know nothing, he is at the same time entertained with the narration of well known circumstances, wrought into story so happy and so agreeable, as even to gain the good opinion of the lover of novel writing and romance. How well the tales are also calculated to please and instruct the Irish, the following will, we are convinced, sufficiently testify. The short space to which we are limited, leaves us under the necessity of abridging it considerably. HENRY AND ELIZA. "Henry's application to a friend in Dublin procured him a situation in the counting-house of an extensive bleacher within twelve miles of Armagh. Flattering as the situation was, he could not but join in the regret which his mother testified that he should go to the North; for the Turks have not a stronger prejudice against the Persians than the catholics of Munster have against the protestants of Ulster : and, in truth, it must be observed, the criminal hatred is reciprocal. Remote causes and the existing difference in religious sentiments have created in the two districts rival parties, who join opposition of opinion to the most malignant animosity. The Orangemen of the North and the Ribandmen of the South, whatever their partizans may say of either, at least equal one another in hatred, folly, and bigotry. "Man is the slave of circumstances; and, however unwilling Henry might be to trust himself to the fury of the Orange North, he thought it well to comply with the appointment, flattering himself that his sedulous forbearance from party disputes and religious animosities would secure him from insult; and that, however the Northerns might despise and ridicule his faith, they still would be obliged to respect his forbearance from wilfully giving any offence. His mother took every parental care to fortify the mind of her son against the attacks which she apprehended the proselyting ministers of a condemned creed would make upon his unprotected youth. She also instilled into his breast the most prominent objection to the established Church, at the same time not forgetting to remind him of the essential articles of her own, telling him that it availeth a man nothing to gain the whole world and lose his own soul.' Mrs. Fitzgerald, though she had Protestant friends whom she acknowledged to be the best and kindest, was still so far immersed in error that she adhered to |