ADDRESS TO A WILD DEER. MAGNIFICENT creature! so stately and bright! In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight; For what hath the child of the desert to dread, Wafting up his own mountains that far beaming head; Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale !— Hail! king of the wild and the beautiful!—hail! Hail! idol divine !-whom nature hath borne O'er a hundred hill-tops since the mists of the morn, Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain and moor, As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore; Lo! the clouds in the depths of the sky are at rest; Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height, Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee: Yes: fierce looks thy nature, e'en hush'd in repose In the depths of thy desert regardless of foes, In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath,In the wide raging torrent that lends thee its roar,In the cliff that once trod must be trodden no more,Thy trust-mid the dangers that threaten thy reign: -But what if the stag on the mountain be slain? On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay, Like a victor that falls at the close of the dayWhile the hunter and hound in their terror retreat From the death that is spurn'd from his furious feet; And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies, As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies. LINES WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN. To whom belongs this valley fair, Even like a living thing? That streamlet's murmuring! The heavens appear to love this vale; By the blue arch, this beauteous earth, Seems bound unto the sky. O that this lovely vale were mine! There would unto my soul be given, And thoughts would come of mystic mood, And did I ask to whom belong'd JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES. MR. KNOWLES was born at Cork, about the year 1789. His father, a near relative of the celebrated RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, was a popular teacher of elocution in that city. Young KNOWLES was at a very early age placed at a school in England, where the bent of his genius was shown in his fondness for dramatic literature, and his attempts in dramatic composition. His first effort was called The Chevalier Grillon. At sixteen he wrote a tragedy in five acts, which is still extant, entitled The Spanish Story; eight years after, the tragedy of Hersilia; and in his twenty-sixth year his first successful piece, The Gipsy, which was performed at Waterford, with EDMUND KEAN in the character of the hero. This was succeeded by Brian Boroighme, Caius Gracchus, Virginius, William Tell, Alfred the Great, The Hunchback, The Wife of Mantua, The Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green, The Love Chase, Woman's Wit, The Wrecker's Daughter, Love, John di Procida, The Maid of Mariendorpt, The Secretary, and other plays, all of which have been acted with applause in the British and American theatres. Although there are many striking and beautiful passages in the writings of KNOWLES, he is deserving of little praise as a poet. It would not be difficult to find a very large number of pieces, among the unacted dramas of the last ten years, superior to his in every quality but effectiveness for the stage. He has carefully studied the Elizabethan drama LOVE'S ARTIFICE. I SAID it was a wilful, wayward thing, And so it is, fantastic and perverse! Which makes its sport of persons and of seasons, Takes its own way, no matter right or wrong. It is the bee that finds the honey out, Where least you dream 't would seek the nectarous store. And 'tis an errant masker-this same love- | tists; and endeavoured, not altogether without success, to fashion himself upon the best models they produced. His dialogue is spirited and dramatic, the action of his pieces fine, their morality unexceptionable, and the sympathy he manifests with human nature deep and healthy. But he has incongruously blended modern manners, opinions, feelings, incidents, and actions, with the antique; his versification is often careless and inharmonious; and he is deficient in the important poetical faculty of constructiveness. Virginius, The Hunchback, and some of his other pieces, are, however, among the most successful dramatic compositions of the age, and after the making of all abatements, he is the best playwright who has written in England during the present century. The greatest poet of the world was an actor, and KNOWLES has thought it no disgrace to follow so illustrious an example. I remember having seen him in one of his own characters on the Park stage in New York in 1835, a year in which. FANNY BUTLER, in whom SIDDONS seemed to live anew, transiently restored to the stage the glory of its palmier days. As an actor, however, he was never successful. He still appears occasionally in the British theatres; but probably only in some of the less important characters of his own pieces. Mr. KNOWLES is a general favourite in society, and is not more respected for his abilities than for his manly virtues. Gruff Dutchman; still is love behind the mask! Is oft its own dupe, like a thorough cheat; It falls on its knees, making most piteous suit LAST SCENE IN JOHN DI PROCIDA. [Isoline follows John di Procida and his son, her husband, against Messina, of which city her father is governor. As the castle falls into the hands of the Liberator, she, unknown to either party, reaches the garden, and pauses, exhausted, listening to the tumult of the battle.] Iso. Thus far in time-thus far in safety! Wer't Another stride, ere take it, I had dropped. The work is going on! Oh, spare my fatherSpare him, and deal with me! Hark! Massacre Has left this quarter free; within the city Holding her gory reign. She does not riot Within the castle yet. He yet may live! [here? Limbs, hold me up. Don't fail me. My father!-Father! Who comes In times like these men know not one another. As men in knots do drown. In scattering Iso. (thrown upon her knees, as he rushes off.) Fernando, (rushing in.) Isoline! Iso. (throwing herself into his arms.) Fernando! my Fernando! true, to death! My husband-mine own love !-I die for joy! And bless thee, my Fernando, for my death! [Swoons in his arms. Fer. Love! wife! choice pattern of thy partial sex! My Isoline! She's dead! she's dead! she's dead! Guiscardo, (enters, sword drawn.) Fernando! Fer. Here, Guiscardo! Andrea, (rushing in.) Hold! 'tis the son of Guis. The son of John of Procida! Take her! preserve from insult-pay all honours- Pro. It is not there! I came to see his corse, The debt exacted that was due to mine. And we are safe! Are we not, sir? [reels forward. Pro. O, Heaven! Iso. You will not let them murder us? You will not! You can't! else nature has no truth in her, Be turn'd to stones! Sir! father! where's your son? [Throws her arms about his neck.] Now, Fernando, what's to fear? Now, mine own love, We shall be happy! happy! blessed happy! Why don't you answer me? Where is he, father? I left him here! Where I have been I know not, I recollect a sickness as of death, And now it comes again. And damp-I'll wipe it! here? My brow grows chill Blood! what brings it Whose blood is this? And. Blood has been shed to-day. No vestment in Messina, but you'll find Some trace upon't. Iso. Where is my husband, sirs? Is this Fernando's blood? We were together, Pro. Remove her, friend; Take and remove her hence. I lack the strength. Iso. (to Andrea.) No, I will not hence! Pro. We must remove her hence. Come with me, child. Iso. Child! do you call me child? Child! is a sweet name! Pro. Come, my daughter. Iso. Daughter! That's sweeter yet than child. Nothing so sweet After the name of wife; but wife's not sweeter Than husband. Husband? That's the sweetest name Of all! My husband is your son! and sonThere is a sweet name too! No sweeter name Than son! Do you not think so? Pro. Come. Iso. I Come! We are going to Fernando. Are we not? Iso. There! You know as well as I! Stand off! [Breaks away. Fernando! my Fernando! dead? "Ay, dead Indeed, when I do call on thee, and thou Return'st no answer! My Fernando! dead! Ah! it is well! Here's silence coming too For me, love. I do feel the frost of death Biting my limbs, and creeping towards my heart, Colder and colder-all will soon be ice. "Tis winter ere its time! but welcome, since 'Tis shared with you, Fernando. Mercy, Heaven! 'Tis kind-'tis pitiful to suffer me On thy dead lips to breathe my life away. [Dies. And. Let me conduct thee hence, O Procida! Grief doth benumb his every faculty. Stephano, (entering with others.) Where is John of Procida? And. Behold him. Ste. Health To thee and to Messina, which, to-day, Through thee, beholds her grievous yoke thrown off. To say he loved, As some high contest there were pending, 'twixt ARTIFICE DISOWNED BY LOVE. I CANNOT think love thrives by artifice, Or can disguise its mood, and show its face. I would not hide one portion of my heart Where I did give it and did feel 'twas right, Nor feign a wish, to mask a wish that was, Howe'er to keep it. For no cause except Myself would I be loved. What were 't to me, My lover valued me the more, the more He saw me comely in another's eyes, When his alone the vision I would show, Becoming to? I have sought the reason oft, They paint love as a child, and still have thought It was because true love, like infancy, Frank, trusting, unobservant of its mood, Doth show its wish at once, and means no more! PRIDE OF RANK. DESCENT, You'll grant, is not alone nobility, Will you not? Never yet was line so long, For arms, for counsel, so superlative Or safeguard; and with title to endow him, TELL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. YE crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! I hold to you the hands you first beheld, To show they still are free. Methinks I hear A spirit in your echoes answer me, And bid your tenant welcome to his home Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look! How high you lift your heads into the sky! How huge you are! how mighty and how free! How do you look, for all your bared brows, More gorgeously majestical than kings Whose loaded coronets exhaust the mine! Ye are the things that tower, that shine, whose smile Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms, Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear Of awe divine, whose subject never kneels In mockery, because it is your boast To keep him free! Ye guards of liberty, I'm with you once again!—I call to you With all my voice! I hold my hands to you To show they still are free! I rush to you As though I could embrace you! LOST FREEDOM OF SWITZERLAND. On! with what pride I used To walk these hills, and look up to my God, In my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake, Has check'd that wish, and I have raised my head, Is this the daughter of a slave? I know Speak for me, friends! |