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Loud neighs the steed from out the stall: what form is gliding near?

No latch is raised, no step is heard, but a phantom fills the space

A sheeted spectre from the dead, with cold and leaden face.

What boots it that no other eye beheld the shade appear!
The guilty lady's guilty soul beheld it plain and clear,
It slowly glides within the room, and sadly looks
around

And stooping, kissed her daughter's cheek with lips that gave no sound.

Then softly on the step-dame's arm she laid a death-cold hand,

Yet it hath scorched within the flesh like to a burning brand.

And gliding on with noiseless foot, o'er winding stair and hall,

She nears the chamber where is heard her infant's trembling call.

She smoothed the pillow where he lay, she warmly tucked the bed,

She wiped his tears, and stroked the curls that clustered round his head.

The child, caressed, unknowing fear, hath nestled him to rest;

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The Mother folds her wings beside the Mother from the Blest!

"The Acorn" has been often mentioned as the best of Mrs. Smith's poems, and in many respects it is. It has more completeness than "The Sinless Child," and excels it in vigor, as well as in the minor merit of versification. It by no means equals it, how

ever, in fancy, or in originality of its conception. The subject of "The Acorn " is not a novel one.

Many of the sonnets and shorter compositions, in the volume before us, are exceedingly beautiful. All are replete with that delicacy which is the distinguishing trait of the fair author. The two stanzas entitled "Presages" will exemplify this trait and Mrs. Smith's general manner, perhaps, more strikingly than anything we could cite of similar length.

There are who from their cradle bear
The impress of a grief —

Deep, mystic eyes, and forehead fair,

And looks that ask relief;

The shadows of a coming doom,

Of sorrow and of strife,

When Fates conflicting round the loom,
Wove the sad web of life.

And others come, the gladsome ones,
All shadowless and gay,
Like sweet surprise of April suns,

Or music gone astray;
Arrested, half in doubt we turn
To catch another sight,
So strangely rare it is to learn
A presage of delight.

The poem entitled "The Water" is singularly happy, both in its conception and execution. We copy the two first stanzas, not only for their excellence, but by way of collating them with the opening lines of "Rain in Summer,' a poem by Professor Longfellow, published in the August number of "Graham's Magazine."

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How beautiful the water is!
Didst ever think of it,
When it tumbles from the skies,
As in a merry fit?
It jostles, ringing as it falls,
On all that 's in its way—
I hear it dancing on the roof,
Like some wild thing at play.

'T is rushing now adown the spout
And gushing out below,
Half frantic in its joyousness,

And wild in eager flow.

The earth is dried and parched with heat,
And it hath longed to be
Released out the selfish cloud,

To cool the thirsty tree.

Longfellow's poem commences thus :

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,

How beautiful is the rain!

How it clatters upon the roofs,

Like the trample of hoofs !

How it gushes, and struggles out

From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane,

It pours and pours,

And swift and wide,

With a muddy tide,

Like a river down the gutter roars

The rain, the welcome rain !

If this is not a plagiarism, and a very bold one, on the part of Professor Longfellow, will anybody be kind enough to tell us what it is?

Mrs. Smith's book is a neat 16mo of more than Its mechanical execution is altogether reflecting credit on the taste and liberality of Mr. Redfield.

200 pages. excellent

WILEY AND PUTNAM'S LIBRARY OF CHOICE READING. No. XIX. PROSE AND VERSE. BY THOMAS HOOD, PART II.

[Text: Broadway Journal, Aug. 23, 1845.]

WEEK before last we had some general comments on Hood's genius and peculiarities, and gave a detailed account of the contents of Part I. of his writings, as republished in the "Library of Choice Reading.' Of Part II. therefore, we have little to say. except that it is fully as interesting as its predecessor. It embraces The Great Conflagration — A Tale of a Trumpet Boz in America - Copyright and Copywrong Prospectus to Hood's Magazine The Haunted House Life in the Sick Room- An Auto

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graph - Domestic Mesmerism. The Elm TreeLay of the Laborer - The Bridge of Sighs - The Lady's Dream — and The Song of the Shirt.

Of these the most remarkable are those which we have italicized. They convey, too, most distinctly the genius of the author. nor can any one thoughtfully read them without a conviction that hitherto that genius has been greatly misconceived without perceiving that even the wit of Hood had its birth in a taint of

melancholy perhaps hereditary-and nearly amounting to monomania.

Its

The Song of the Shirt" is such a composition as only Hood could have conceived, or written. popularity has been unbounded. Its effect arises from that grotesquerie which, in our previous article, we referred to the vivid Fancy of the author, impelled by hypochondriasis : but The Song of the Shirt ” has scarcely a claim to the title of poem. This, however, is a mere question of words, and can by no means affect the high merit of the composition whatever appellation it may be considered entitled.

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"The Bridge of Sighs," on the contrary, is a poem of the loftiest order, and in our opinion the finest written by Hood— being very far superior to "The Dream of Eugene Aram.” Not its least merit is the effective rush and whirl of its singular versification— so thoroughly in accordance with the wild insanity which is the thesis of the whole.

DASHES AT LIFE WITH A FREE PENCIL. By N. P. WILLIS. PART III. LOITERINGS OF TRAVEL. NEW YORK. J. S. REDFIELD.

[Text: Broadway Journal, Aug. 23, 1845.]

WE have so frequently spoken in the warmest terms of admiration, of the brilliant and versatile abilities of Mr. Willis, that there is really nothing left for us to say - upon the issue of this the third instalment of "The Loiterings." Of its author the world has been willing to admit - what is a great deal to admit of anyone, in

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