Her right hand, as it lies Across the slender wrist of the left arm Upon her lap reposing, holds- but mark How slackly, for the absent mind permits No firmer grasp a little wild-flower, joined As in a posy, with a few pale ears

Of yellowing corn, the same that overtopped

And in their common birthplace sheltered it "Till they were plucked together; a blue flower

Called by the thrifty husbandman a weed; But Ceres, in her garland, might have worn That ornament, unblamed. The floweret, held [knows, In scarcely conscious fingers, was, she (Her Father told her so) in Youth's gaydawn Her Mother's favourite; and the orphan Girl, [bright, In her own dawn-a dawn less gay and Loves it while there in solitary peace She sits, for that departed Mother's sake. -Not from a source less sacred is derived (Surely I do not err) that pensive air Of calm abstraction through the face diffused

And the whole person.

Words have something told More than the pencil can, and verily More than is needed, but the precious Art Forgives their interference-Art divine, That both creates and fixes, in despite Of Death and Time, the marvels it hath wrought.

Strange contrasts have we in this world of ours!

That posture, and the look of filial love
Thinking of past and gone, with what is left
Dearly united, migl be swept away
From this fair Portrait's fleshly Archetype,
Even by an innocent fancy's slightest freak
Banished, nor ever, haply, be restored
To their lost place, or meet in harmony
So exquisite; but here do they abide,
Enshrined for ages. Is not then the Art
Godlike, a humble branch of the divine,
In visible quest of immortality,
Stretched forth with trembling hope? In
every realm,

From high Gibraltar to Siberian plains,
Thousands, in each variety of tongue
That Europe knows, would echo this ap-
peal;

One above all, a Monk who waits on God
In the magnific Convent built of yore
To sanctify the Escurial palace. He,

Guiding, from cell to cell and room to room,
A British Painter (eminent for truth
In character, and depth of feeling, shown
By labours that have touched the hearts of
kings,

And are endeared to simple cottagers)
Left not unvisited a glorious work,
Our Lord's Last Supper, beautiful as when
first

The appropriate Picture, fresh from Titian ♪ hand,

Graced the Refectory: and there, while both Stood with eyes fixed upon that Masterpiece,

The hoary Father in the Stranger's ear Breathed out these words :-"Here daily do we sit,

Thanks given to God for daily bread, and here

Pondering the mischiefs of these restless Times,

And thinking of my Brethren, dead, dispersed,

Or changed and changing, I not seldom gaze

Upon this solemn Company unmoved
By shock of circumstance, or lapse of years,
Until I cannot but believe that they-
They are in truth the Substance, we the
Shadows."

So spake the mild Jeronymite, his griefs Melting away within him like a dream Ere he had ceased to gaze, perhaps to speak :

And I, grown old, but in a happier land, Domestic Portrait! have to verse consigned In thy calm presence those heart-moving words:

Words that can soothe, more than they agitate;

Whose spirit, like the angel that went down Into Bethesda's pool, with healing virtue Informs the fountain in the human breast That by the visitation was disturbed.

-But why this stealing tear? Companion mute,

On thee I look, not sorrowing; fare thee well,

My Song's Inspirer, once again farewell!

The pile of buildings, composing the palace and convent of San Lorenzo, has, in common Escurial, a village at the foot of the hill upon usage, lost its proper name in that of the

which the splendid edifice, built by Philip the Second, stands. It need scarcely be added, that Wilkie is the painter alluded to.

THE FOREGOING SUBJECT RESUMED.
AMONG a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's
skill,

Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong
And dissolution and decay, the warm
And breathing life of flesh, as if already
Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced
With no mean earnest of a heritage

Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too, With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture!

From whose serene companionship I passed,

Pursued by thoughts that haunt me still; thou also

Though but a simple object, into light
Called forth by those affections that endear
The private hearth; though keeping thy
sole seat

In singleness, and little tried by time,
Creation, as it were, of yesterday-
With a congenial function art endued
For each and all of us, together joined,
In course of nature, under a low roof
By charities and duties that proceed
Out of the bosom of a wiser vow.
To a like salutary sense of awe,
Or sacred wonder, growing with the power
Of meditation that attempts to weigh,
In faithful scales, things and their oppo-
sites,

Can thy enduring quiet gently raise

A household small and sensitive,—whose love,

Dependent as in part its blessings are
Upon frail ties dissolving or dissolved
On earth, will be revived, we trust,
heaven.

STANZAS ON THE POWER OF SOUND.

ARGUMENT.

and severally.-Wishuttered (11th Stanza) that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation. (Stanza 12th.) The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universeimaginations consonant with such a theory.— Wish expressed (in 11th Stanza) realised, in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator. (Last Stanza) the destruction of earth and the planetary system-the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.

I.

THY functions are ethereal,
As if within thee dwelt a glancing Mind,
Organ of Vision And a Spirit aërial
Informs the cell of hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;
Strict passage, through which sighs are
brought,

And whispers, for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse
Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose
The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,

And requiems answered by the pulse that beats

Devoutly, in life's last retreats!

2.

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony.. Sources and effects of those sounds (to the close of 6th Stanza).-The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot. Origin of music, and its effect in early ages-how produced (to the middle of roth Stanza). -The mind recalled to sounds acting casually

They lull perchance ten thousand thousand

Thrilling the unweaponed crowd with plumeless heads;

Even She whose Lydian airs inspire
Peaceful striving, gentle play

Of timid hope and innocent desire
Fanned by the plausive wings of Love.
Shot from the dancing Graces, as they move

6.

How oft along thy mazes,

Regent of Sound, have dangerous Passions trod!

O Thou, through whom the Temple rings with praises,

And blackening clouds in thunder speak
God,

Betray not by the cozenage of sense
Thy Votaries, wooingly resigned

To a voluptuous influence

That taints the purer, better mind;
But lead sick Fancy to a harp

That hath in noble tasks been tried;
And, if the Virtuous feel a pang too sharp,
Soothe it into patience, -stay
The uplifted arm of Suicide;
And let some mood of thine in firm array
Knit every thought the impending issue
Ere Martyr burns, or Patriot bleeds!
needs,

7.

As Conscience, to the centre

Of Being, smites with irresistible pain,
So shall a solemn cadence, if it enter
The mouldy vaults of the dull Idiot's brain,
Transmute him to a wretch from quiet
hurled-

Convulsed as by a jarring din;
And then aghast, as at the world
Of reason partially let in

By concords winding with a sway
Terrible for sense and soul!

Or, awed he weeps, struggling to quell dismay.

Point not these mysteries to an Art
Lodged above the starry pole;
Of divine Love, where Wisdom, Beauty,
Pure modulations flowing from the heart

With Order dwell, in endless youth?
Truth

8.

Oblivion may not cover

All treasures hoarded by the Miser, Time. Orphean Insight! Truth's undaunted Lover, To the first leagues of tutored passion climb,

The pipe of Pan, to Shepherds
Couched in the shadow of Menalian Pines,
Was passing sweet; the eyeballs of the
Leopards,

That in high triumph drew the Lord of vines,

How did they sparkle to the cymbal's clang!
While Fauns and Satyrs beat the ground
In cadence, and Silenus swang
This way and that, with wild-flowers
crowned.

To life, to life give back thine Ear:
Ye who are longing to be rid

Of Fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin lid;

The Convict's summons in the steeple knell. The vain distress-gun," from a leeward shore,

Repeated-heard, and heard no more!

By one pervading Spirit

Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, [merit

As Sages taught. where faith was found to Initiation in that mystery old.

The Heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still

As they themselves appear to be,

Innumerable voices fill
With everlasting harmony;

The towering Headlands, crowned with mist,

Their feet among the billows, know
That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Ever waving to and fro,
Thy pinions, universal Air,

Are delegates of harmony, and bear Strains that support the Seasons in their round;

Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.

Catching the lustre they in part reproveNor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day,

COAST OF CUMBERLAND.)

WANDERER! that stoop'st so low, and