• What harmonious pensive changes Wait upon her as she ranges Roun' through this Pile of state, Now a step or two her way Some jealous and forbidding cell, And where no flower hath leave to dwell.' pp. 7—8. • Comes she with a votary's task, Rite to perform, or boon to ask? Can she be grieved for quire or shrine, For what survives of house where God pp. 9-10. The succeeding five cantos are devoted to 'A tale of tears, a mortal story,' and narrate the fate of the Nortons. We think it is simply and beautifully told, and we shall not do it into prose. The story is, however, so much more like history, than romance, so destitute of plot, and so purely tragical, that it forms a much better subject for a ballad, than for a poem of seven cantos, in which the reader is led to expect core of incident and detail. Francis Norton, the elder brother, who vainly endeavours to dissuade his father from joining the discontented earls in the ill advised rebellion, is made to predict to his sister, in the following pathetic lines, the fatal issue of the adventure to his family For we must fall, both we and ours,- The Hawk forget his perch,-the Hound One desolation, one decay!' The fourth canto opens with a passage of exquisite de scription. From cloudless ether looking down, The Moon, this tranquil evening, sees On the steep rocks of winding Tees;— Of quiet to the neighbouring fields; He who in proud prosperity Of colours manifold and bright Walked round, affronting the day-light; Where he is perched, from yon lone Tower With glittering finger points at nine. Ah! who could think that sadness here A soft and lulling sound is heard The garden pool's dark surface-stirred The same fair Creature which was nigh When Francis uttered to the Maid His last words in the yew-tree shade.' - The sixth canto narrates the death of Francis, and with this the interest of the Poem, as a tale, terminates. The seventh is wholly occupied in depicting the gradual process by which the mind of Emily attained a state of holy fortitude and peaceful resignation, and the pleasure which she received in her solitude, from the mute sympathy of the only friend left her, the sharer of her youthful pleasures, and the remembrancer of all the painful past, the sylvan doe of other years.' The natural workings of the heart are, in this canto, minutely and faithfully portrayed, and the feelings of the Solitary are evidently the transcript of character. The whole is calculated to leave the impression of a quiet landscape at sunset; but com→ paratively few persons will receive this impression, or partake in the mystical fondness of the poet for Emily's faithful follower, which leads him to dilate upon the subject to extravagance. We cannot in justice to our Author, refuse admission to the following extracts. 'Tis done ;-despoil and desolation Is stripped; the ravage hath spread wide There seated, may this Maid be seen, Erewhile a covert bright and green, And where full many a brave Tree stood; With the sweet Bird's carolling.', pp. 112-113. * * And so-beneath a mouldered tree, A self-surviving leafless Oak, Of ravage saved-sate Emily. * 1 There did she rest, with head reclined, To live and die in a shady bower, • When, with a noise like distant thunder, Hath stopped, and fixed its large full eye A Doe most beautiful, clear-white, A radiant Creature, silver-bright! Thus checked, a little while it stayed; And, by her gushing thoughts subdued, She melted into tears A flood of tears, that flowed apace Upon the happy Creature's face.' pp. 115-117. • When Emily by morning light Went forth, the Doe was there in sight. Did she behold--saw once again; Shun will she not, she feels, will bear ;- Herself, in spots unseen before.' pp. 119-120. * With her Companion, in such frame Undisturbed and undistrest, Into a soul which now was blest When the Bells of Rylstone played Had in her Childhood read the same, But now, when such sad change was wrought, Their part in this effectual prayer.' pp. 122-123. On favouring nights, she loved to go; There ranged through cloister, court, and aisle, Attended by the sofi-paced Doe; Nor did she fear in the still moonshine And, when she from the abyss returned Of thought, shẹ neither shrunk nor mourned; Was happy that she lived to greet Her mute Companion as it lay In love and pity at her feet! How happy in her turn to meet That recognition' the mild glance Beamed from that gracious countenance; Communication, like the ray Of a new morning to the nature And prospects of the inferior Creature!' |