72

Stanzas.

[April

STANZAS, WRITTEN UPON ROBERT, THE SON OF CAPTAIN S. SHAW, OF THE
ROYAL ARTILLERY, NOW A RESIDENT IN THE EAST INDIES-A CHILD FIVE
YEARS OF AGE.

1.

By JAMES CROSSLEY, ESQ.

A WITCHING child, to whom 'tis given
All hearts to challenge as thy due-
Thou fairest print of childhood's Heav'n
That ever Nature's pencil drew!
Delightful, as the holy hymn
Of meek and sainted cherubim,
And gladdening, as the fountain near
That greets the desert's wanderer-
Thy countenance I still behold

Pure, as if earth, and earth's despising,
Composed as if from marble cold

Thou wert but just to life arising-
Still do I see thy silk-fring'd eyes

With innocence and archness dawning-
Thy cheek, which health's rich painting dyes
With all the loveliest hues of morning-
The rose, which blushes on a skin
Transparent as the mind within;
Thy mouth, whose upper lip, to smother
Its rival, hides its under brother,
As if too jealous to reveal
The prisoner of its coral seal;
Till sund'ring, when it shows beneath
A lip where heav'n itself might breathe-
As leaves, when by the breeze untwin'd,
They show the downy peach behind.

2.

Born, where the giant Ganges pours
His streams magnificent along,
'Mid sunny groves and golden bow'rs,
Which breathe aloft immortal song;
'Mid solemn glades and thickets lorn,
By Brachman's worshipp'd footsteps worn;
And now a flow'r of Eastern birth
Transplanted to a colder earth-
Torn from its parent genial stem
To grace the Western diadem,
Oh! o'er its head, may each rough gale
Unhurting pass with arrowy fleetness
The gentlest breezes of the vale,

And but the gentlest, kiss its sweetness:
May o'er that flower some Sylph of Air

With more than parent's fondness hover;
Hang o'er its sweets with watchful care,

And all its budding charms discover-
Unfold its beauties one by one,
And ope its blossoms to the sun.

3.

Far, far from thee be sorrow's blight,
Remorse, or heart-corroding sadness;
Thy way may joy for ever light

With bounding mirth and heav'nly glad.

ness;

For sure thou should'st a temple be,
From such inviolate and free-
An angel-like constructed fane,

With nought of earthly mould or stain-
A mirror only sent from high,

To catch the glories of the sky;

And sure that forehead, white as snow,
That smooth and yet unwrinkled brow--
That face eternally serene-
That eye where Eden's self is seen-
To wound, to mark, destroy, déface,
And all their characters of grace,
With grief or sorrow's piercing edge,
'Twere sin-'twere more than sacrilege.

4.

Tho' Sorrow's lot is borne by each,
And Man's sad cup on earth is care,
And bold is he who Pain will teach,

To torture these, and those to spare,
Yet some should sure be left Mankind,
To gild this Lazar House with beams
The solace of their woes behind,
That emanate from Light's pure streams,
On life to throw one transient ray,
And give its night the blaze of day;
Some, some there are, to whom their weak-

ness

Itself, should strong protection yield,
Whom Innocence, and Angel Meekness,
Should cover as a seven-fold shield.
The great, unmourn'd, may fall or die,
But such shall have our sympathy.
When tempest's force, or lightning's stroke,
Cleaves from its base the lofty oak,
Unmov'd we see the mighty bound
That throws its greatness to the ground;
But who can see, and see unheeding,
The rose, but op'ning, fade away,
The mildew on its beauties feeding,
And blights corrode its sweets away?-
Or who can see, with eyes unwet,
Uptorn the lovely violet ?

5.

Such, oh! may such be ne'er thy fate;

Thy couch may withering anguish flee:
May all that decks the good and great,
Its trophies lend to honour thee,
And render thee while here a guest

Of joy the giver and partaker,
A thing not blessing more than blest,
An angel made, and angel maker,-
An orb, whose glorious course of fire
No clouds can veil, or length can tire,
Whose lamp of light, and sundrawn flame
Shall, like its source, be still the same;
Or, as the symphony that springs
From some unseen, ethereal strings,
Which hearing, man in wonder lost,

Gives to the breeze his soul, as tost

That sounds so sweet should stray below,

Its magic whispers come and go,
Lists to its notes, as sweet they play,
And hears his grosser parts away.
6.

'Tis sweet to pause as on we creep,
Up Life's precipitous ascent,

Hakon Jarl, a Tragedy; by Adam Oehlenschlager.

We are about to introduce to the acquaintance of our readers, a great poet of Denmark, whose compositions, in his native language, have rendered him the chief living pride of his own country; while his German versions of these same compositions have entitled him, according to the judgment of his most enlightened contemporaries, to sit with the full privileges of an honoured denizen among the heirs and representatives of the illustrious founders of the modern poetry of Gerinany. The most severe of German critics are constrained to admit, that Oehlenschlager writes the language of Schiller as correctly, as if its accents had been the earliest that ever fell on his ear-so that we might very safely have considered him in the light of a proper German classic, and proceeded to analyze his works in part of the same series which has already made known to the readers of England the merits of Adolphus Müllner, and Francis Grillparzer. But every man of genius owes to his own country the sacred debt of cultivating, preserving, and cherishing her language; and as Oehlenschlager has, in spite of many temptations, adhered through life to this rule of duty, we should think ourselves very much to blame were we to treat him merely as a German poet. The literature of which he is the chief living ornament, is indeed closely allied to that of Germany; but it has been developed, notwithstanding, in a manner perfectly independent. It is as different from the literature of Germany as the literature of Germany is from that of England-or as the literature of Porfugal is from that of Castille. Acting upon the same general principle of art, which has swayed the greatest of

the German masters in their most successful efforts, the Danes have, in consequence of this very adherence, become poets of a totally different order from the Germans. Like them, they are intensely national-and that single circumstance points out abundantly both the nature of the resemblance they bear to them, and the wide measure of the difference which obtains between them. Drawing their imagery from the kindred, but far purer sources of Scandinavian mythology and romance-and applying these, and all the other instruments of their art, to the illustrations of the history, the manners, and the old life of a kindred also, but nevertheless a very different people, the poets who sing of the downfall of Odin, and the rearing of the Cross among the rough Earls of the Baltic shores, are in no danger of being confounded, by such as have studied their works, with those that record the proud visions of Wallenstein, and the mild generosity of Eg

mont.

Of all the modern Danish Poets, Oehlenschlager is the most deeply and essentially imbued with this prevailing spirit of Scandinavian thought. Almost all the tragedies he has written

and all his excellent tragedies, with the one splendid exception of the Coneggio-are founded on incidents of the old history of the Norsemen. The wild unbridled spirits of those haughty Sea-kings that carried ravage and terror upon all the coasts of Europe-the high, warm, unswerving love of those northern dames that welcomed them on their return to their native ice-girt fastnesses-the dark ferocious superstitions which made these bold men the willing sport and tools of demons-their sacrifices of

That strives to darken its last purple radiance! Weak Harald Schaafell, and his brothers,

Far through the land is hated; that men wait

But for a warrior of the rightful line

To tear him from the throne. If this succeeds,

Then let him disembark. On the firm
ground

Right gladly will I try the chance of war ;
But if the bait allures not,-why, 'tis well,
Then let him go.

Thor. Now, Sir, I understand,

And am obedient.

Hak. Thou shall not in vain

Have served me, Thorer.

Tho. That, indeed, I know,

Hakon; at which instant the marble statue of Odin falls to the ground. Hakon endeavours to persuade them that the marble has long been in a state of decay; but after their departure, expresses, in a soliloquy, his sensibility to the event as a disastrous

omen.

The concluding scene of the first act has been much approved by a contemporary critic, Francis Horn. In it, Hakon is represented as visiting the old Smith already alluded to. After expressing his admiration of Gudrun, (whom her father by this time has locked up in a cellar with iron doors) he tries on his crown, which, being framed on an old measure of the Norwegian kings, is too large, and falls down over his eyes. He threatens the unsuccessful maker, and gives him three days to complete his work ;-on which Bergthor

observes:

I am an old man; and my hoary head
Is like a snow-crown'd rock. Thou giv'st
And Heaven, perchance, may not allow three
three days,

hours!

The second act opens with the first interview between the crafty ambassador of Hakon and king OlafCarlshofort and Jostein, are also preat which the cousins of the latter,

sent.

Olaf thus beautifully describes the feelings by which he had been guided to visit his native land.

Olaf. How stands old Norway, then, dear friends?-I go,

As you perchance have heard, to Russia.There lately died my foster-father Waldemar

Hakon's rewards are princely, yet without The kingdom is disordered ;-and his son,

them

Iman, my friend, defends the Christian faith.

I hasten to his aid in war and council,-
With soldiers, priests, and ships. We sail'd
right onward;

I had no thought of Norway. Yet behold
Out of the sea, from far, the well-known

rocks

Rose on my sight. There with their massy boughs

The dark tall pine trees seem'd to beckon to me!

Then all at once, the azure waves that play'd