'The sky with burning towns flared red,
Nearer the noise of fighting rolled,
And brothers' blood by brothers shed,
Crept curdling over pavements cold.
"Then mark'd I how each germ of truth,
Which through the dotard's fingers ran,
Was mated with a dragon's tooth,

Whence there sprang up an armèd man.
'I shouted, but he could not hear;
Made signs, but these he could not see;
And still, without a doubt or fear,
Broadcast he scatter'd anarchy.

Long to my straining ears the blast
Brought faintly back the words he sung:-
"I sow again the holy Past,

The happy days when I was young.'

Lowell, vol. ii. p. 22.

There are some very pleasing stanzas in what is called A Railway Incident,' bearing upon the question which has been recently discussed, with amusing prejudice, by a popular lecturer on poetry. Our space will only allow of a selection, choosing what we like best:

'He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough
Press'd round to hear the praise of one
Whose heart was made of manly simple stuff,
As homespun as their own.

And, when he read, they forward lean'd,
Drinking with thirsty hearts and ears
His brook-like songs whom glory never wean'd
From humble smiles and tears.

'Slowly there grew a tender awe,
Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,
As if in him who read they felt and saw
Some presence of the bard.

*

'I thought, these men will carry hence
Promptings their former life above,
And something of a purer reverence
For beauty, truth and love.

'God scatters love on every side,
Freely among his children all,
And always hearts are lying open wide
Wherein some grains may fall.

'There is no wind but soweth seeds
Of a more true and open life,

Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-soul'd deeds,
With way-side beauty rife.

We find within these souls of ours
Some wild germs of a higher birth,

Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers
Whose fragrance fills the earth.

NO. LXXXI.-N.S.

• Within the hearts of all men lie
These promises of wider bliss,
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century;-

But better far it is to speak

One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men.

To write some earnest verse or line,
Which, seeking not the praise of art,
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine
In the untutor❜d heart.

He who doth this, in verse or prose,

May be forgotten in his day,

But surely shall be crown'd at last with those

Who live and speak for aye.'-Ibid. vol. i. p. 3.

We wish that Mr. Lowell had acted on his own decision. The simplest strain, well sung, has more power over the heart to awaken it to high thought than the most aspiring effort if it does not reach its aim. His poetry-that which is most characteristic, we would say is too ambitious, too laboured, his excitement too restless; and the result on the reader is weariness, and want of sympathy, not only as differing from his views, but as being tired of them. They all seem unreal and new-fangled and take no hold, not even as matter for contention and grave dissent. One volume of modern poetry we have reserved to the last, partly for the higher tone of its subject and principles, and a good deal because it resisted every classification. Juxtaposition seems the best order of arrangement where no affinity can be made out, and certainly the contrast between Mr. Lowell and the author of The Parish' is complete in most points. The one considers that even opinion stagnates and grows stale with time; and demands a constant fluctuation in our notions of right and wrong to keep them fresh; the other manifests an almost sentimental regard for the past, and has borrowed from the hues of its fair misty distances the tints with which to colour his notions of what the present actually is. The one dissents from every imaginable form in which the truth could be put, holding it to be an essence which cannot assume shape or definition; the other, as an orthodox Churchman, rejoices to see it clothed and embodied in doctrines-a fact to contemplate, and to adapt the current of our daily lives to.

But we must leave these contrasts and take up 'The Parish'

in its one point of resemblance with its various companions; the subject of our article obliging us to treat it primarily as a poem, not as a doctrinal and practical exposition of the principles of the Church. The writer (who is said to be one with the author of 'Parochial Work,') speaks modestly of his own power to use the form he has chosen

'The following records of parish life (he says) in a country village are drawn, in most cases, from facts, and may possess, consequently, that usefulness which belongs to narrations of that kind. They have been thrown into the form of blank verse from its being a more simple and easy mode for the expression of thoughts and descriptions of this sort. The author makes no pretension to writing a poem, but simply a few details and illustrations of Parochial work.'-Preface.

This is very unpretending, but it becomes a question whether a volume of more than 340 pages of blank verse should make no pretension to be a poem. We may be only expressing an isolated view, but we must say we consider few styles less fitted for plain narrative than prosaic blank verse. For ourselves, we find it the style of composition which has least hold on the thoughts, which can least compel attention-from which the mind most readily wanders. But this may be a matter of opinion, and applies more to narrative than to the accompanying thought and description. The author's style is easy and flowing, and a well-trained ear preserves him from more frequent lapses into unmistakeable prose than are inevitable where a plain tale has to be told. Yet such constantly recurring forms as

'The mention of the heath

And furzy common made me call to mind-'

The lane I spoke of—'

'I spoke about the lane—'

Which rather raised than slack'd my strong desire

For further information-'

'She ne'er had been in all her life before

Remarkable for doing things aright—'

are perpetually reminding the reader that the medium of expression is ill-chosen: much more where whole sentences occur with no more poetry in matter or cadence than the following. It is not that we would suggest better lines being substituted for them, but that poetry, or the form of poetry, do not fit such details and cannot make anything of them:

'She lack'd religion,—that was curse enough
In all her woe; but more than this; the poor
So little know of tact or management,-
Half of their griefs would never be at all
If they but knew the simple way to make

The best of what they have, and by kind voice
And well-kept house to win their husbands home.

Poor Susan, ill brought up in days gone by,
Made home a scene of miserable want

And wild disorder; so excuse he found

To make the tap-room his resort at night.'-Parish, p. 182.

Or where it advocates, with great justice, the duty of encouraging the poor to make more of a gala and festival of the wedding-day, saying if the rich had

'presided at the feast,

And tried by gifts to make its simple fare
A little dainty,—spoken with respect
Of the event, nor let the children joke
About the wedding in the servants' hall,-
Aided the small beginnings with the gift
Of household furniture, to make the home
Respectable.'-P. 124.

We have fears that the reader will forget to profit by the really good advice in thinking how wondrously prosy it sounds. Nor does the author need to be told that this is not poetry. But we suspect the real, though probably unconscious reason for its outer form being chosen, is to be found in the fact that improbabilities can be told better in verse than in prose, and that the measure and rhythm of his blank verse, even where wholly separated from the thought and expression of poetry, veils and glosses over inconsistencies till they may pass for poetical possibilities. The life and habits of a rural population, such as the author has chosen to depict them, would have been mistaken for a dream or an allegory if put in simple prose. For instance, after detailing the due observance of the fasts and festivals of the year at this period, he says:

'In every home S. John the Baptist's feast

Was kept with holy care.'

What should we think if we saw this as a matter-of-fact statement, and were told it was in an English village in the present century?

The whole plan is equally indebted to this plausible medium. The narrator arrives at a village one summer afternoon, and wandering to the churchyard, finds a venerable old man resting on a mossy stone and contemplating the grave of his late pastor, but a few days before entombed there. Attracted by what he hears, the traveller remains for a day or two the guest of this old man, and each evening they repair to the churchyard, where, by the grave of the departed, the poet learns from the peasant all the matter and material of the present volume. It is on the character of this village pastor that the author has bestowed his greatest care. He desires to picture that temperament which shall have most influence over others, those principles and that mode of life which shall effect the greatest spiritual benefit on

the souls committed to his care. For such a purpose he takes a passionate and eager nature, which religion and trial, and a keen sense of its own demerits, chasten and subdue into an almost morbid sensitiveness. His childhood had been full of love to God, and simple faith.' The fault of his youth had been an undue devotion to the Beautiful in creation, which struggled with and often overcame the Supreme love.

'Whate'er he gazed at was to him a cause
Of sad regret, and left a painful void,

Exhausting the vast soul of what it loved :
It made death's prospect dreary, and the hour
Of his departure all too wan for thought:
The holy rule became reversed,—for life
To him was gain and death a loss: it took
The heart from prayer, and made its music thin
And almost meaningless. Whene'er he used to look
On some sweet object of the natural world-
The merry leaves of June, the scarlet flower,
The ebon trees against the twilight glow,
The woodbine winding by the cottage door,
The village child, with blue uplifted eye,
Who met him kindly in the harvest field,

Crowned with long bind-weed, stolen from the hedge,
A glow of happy heat would flush within;
Then, like a shadow, chilling all its warmth
Cast by an unseen spectre, came the wish
To love the dying creature more than Him
"God blest for ever."-Parish, p. 12.

Now we are convinced that this is not natural, at least it is but half the truth of any mind. Objects of pure beauty, to which attach no thoughts of selfish passion, have too much of God in them to alienate from God: a mind may be in this morbid condition, but it is not love of beauty which is the cause; and the character of Ernest being not fully drawnthough to a very great length-is an untrue as well as a painful picture. The author would represent a mind devoted to the service of God and His creatures, performing all his duties to the best of his powers, and that amid scenes most congenial to his nature, as yet living in habitual gloom and dejection. It is true he says his life was cheerful,' but the whole tone concerning him conveys quite a contrary impression. Fear overcomes hope he is for ever bowed down by a consciousness of sin; and he who is described as serving God from his childhood with all his heart, and resisting and striving against the besetting sins of his nature, is all his life long subject to a bondage.

As a refuge against the dangers to which his temperament was exposed, Ernest entered into holy orders, devoted himself with fervent zeal to the charge of his village flock. In order to become acquainted with all the trials of the poor,