What troubles she met with on the way, I watched them long in my curious dream, No creeds to guide them, or MSS., For all had put on Christ's righteousness. Mrs. Cleveland. Poetry. I consider Poetry in a twofold view, as a spirit and a manifestation. Perhaps the poetic spirit has never been more justly defined, than by Byron in his Prophecy of Dante, -a creation "From overfeeling good or ill, an aim At an external life beyond our fate." This spirit may be manifested by language, metrical or prose, by declamation, by musical sounds, by expression, by gesture, by motion, and by imitating forms, colors and shades; so that literature, oratory, music, physiognomy, acting, and the arts of painting and sculpture may all have their poetry; but that peculiar spirit, which alone gives the great life and charm to all the efforts of genius, is as distinct from the measure and rhyme of poetical composition, as from the scientific principles of drawing and perspective. Is living with its spirit; and the waves And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veiled, And mantled with its beauty; and the walls That close the universe with crystal in, Are eloquent with voices, that proclaim The year leads round the seasons, in a choir For ever charming, and for ever new, Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gay, The mournful, and the tender, in one strain, Which steals into the heart, like sounds that rise Far off, in moonlight evenings, on the shore Of the wide ocean resting after storms; Or tones that wind around the vaulted roof, And pointed arches, and retiring aisles Of some old, lonely minster, where the hand, Skillful, and moved with passionate love of art, Plays o'er the higher keys, and bears aloft The peals of bursting thunder, and then calls, By mellow touches, from the softer tubes, Voices of melting tenderness, that blend With pure and gentle musings, till the soul, Commingling with the melody, is borne, Rapt, and dissolved in ecstasy, to Heaven. "T is not the chime and flow of words, that move In measured file, and metrical array; T is not the union of returning sounds, Nor all the pleasing artifice of rhyme, And quantity, and accent, that can give This all-pervading spirit to the ear, Or blend it with the movings of the soul. 'T is a mysterious feeling, which combines Man with the world around him, in a chain Woven of flowers, and dipped in sweetness, till He taste the high communion of his thoughts, With all existences, in earth and Heaven, That meet him in the charm of grace and power. "T is not the noisy babbler, who displays, And rounded period, poor and vapid thoughts, Well I remember, in my boyish days, How deep the feeling when my eye looked forth How my heart gladdened, as the light of spring And, oh! I stood, in breathless longing fixed, Nor less the swelling of my heart, when high Woven of bright Apollo's golden hair. Nor, when that arch, in winter's clearest night, Down the long galaxy, a flood of snow, Bathing the heavens in light, the spring that gushed, In overflowing richness, from the breast Of all-maternal nature. These I saw, And felt to madness; but my full heart gave No utterance to the ineffable within. Words were too weak; they were unknown, but still And all the deepest flow of sounds, that e'er Hallowed and rendered glorious, cannot tell Those feelings, which have died, to live no more. Percival Wool Gathering and Mouse Hunting. Here we stop for the night. You are shown into a room that has not been opened since its occupant left it, and is unsavory and untidy to the last degree. An appeal to the gentlemanly clerk secures a change for the better; but there is a hole by the fireplace in Number Two that looks suspicious. You cross-examine the porter, who assures you that it has no significance whatever. A mouse in that room is an event of which history gives no record. Nevertheless, you take the precaution to stuff the hole with an old New York Herald, and are awakened at midnight by the dreadful rustling of paper. A dreadful gnawing succeeds the dreadful rustling, and away goes a boot in the direction of the sound. There is a pause broken only by heart throbs! Then another gnawing, followed by a boot till the supply is exhausted. Then you begin on the pillows. A longer pause gives rise to the hope that order is about to reign in Warsaw, and you are just falling asleep again, when a smart scratching close to your ear, shoots you to the other side of the room with the conviction that the mouse is running up the folds of the curtain at the head of your bed. In a frenzy you ring violently, and ask through the door for a chambermaid. "Can't have no chambermaid this time o' night," drawls the porter sleepily. "Then send up a mouse-trap." "Aint no mouse-trap in the house." "Then bring a cat!" "Dunno nothin' about it," and he scuffs his slippered feet down the long gallery, growling audibly, poor fellow, half suspecting evidently that he is the victim of a joke; but alas! it is no joke. You mount sentry on the foot of the bed, facing the enemy. He emerges from the curtain, runs up and down the slats of the blind in innocent glee, flaunts across the window-seat, flashing every now and then into obscurity; and this is the worst of all. When you see him he is in one place, but when you do not see him he is everywhere. You hold fast your umbrella, and from time to time make vigorous raps on the floor to keep him out of your immediate vicinity, and so the night wears wearily away. Your refreshing sleep turns into a campaign against a mouse, for which agreeable entertainment you pay in the morning three dollars and a half; and |