That mind in whose regard all things were placed
In views that softened them, or light that graced, -
That soul's example could not but dispense

A portion of its own blest influence;

Invoking him to peace and that self-sway
Which fortune cannot give, nor take away;

And, though he mourned her long, 'twas with such woe

As if her spirit watched him still below.

It is difficult to find a single passage, not too long for quotation, which will convey any tolerable notion of the power and beauty of Crabbe's poetry, where so much of the effect lies in the conduct of the narrative—in the minute and prolonged but wonderfully skilful as well as truthful pursuit and exposition of the course and vicissitude of passions and circumstances; but we will give so much of the story of the Elder Brother, in the Tales of the Hall, as will at least make the catastrophe intelligible. We select this tale, among other reasons, for its containing one of those preeminently beautiful lyric bursts which seem to contrast so strangely with the general spirit and manner of Crabbe's poetry. After many years, the narrator, pursuing another inquiry, accidentally discovers the lost object of his heart's passionate but pure idolatry living in infamy:

VOL. II.

Will you not ask, how I beheld that face,
Or read that mind, and read it in that place?
I have tried, Richard, ofttimes, and in vain,
To trace my thoughts, and to review their train
If train there were that meadow, grove, and stile,
The fright, the escape, her sweetness, and her smile;
Years since elapsed, and hope, from year to year,
To find her free and then to find her here!

But is it she?-O! yes; the rose is dead,
All beauty, fragrance, freshness, glory, fled;
But yet 'tis she-the same and not the same-
Who to my bower a heavenly being came;
Who waked my soul's first thought of real bliss,
Whom long I sought, and now I find her- this.
I cannot paint her- something I had seen
So pale and slim, and tawdry and unclean;
With haggard looks, of vice and woe the prey,
Laughing in languor, miserably gay:

Her face, where face appeared, was amply spread,
By art's warm pencil, with ill-chosen red,

65

The flower's fictitious bloom, the blushing of the dead:
But still the features were the same, and strange
My view of both the sameness and the change,
That fixed me gazing, and my eye enchained,
Although so little of herself remained;

It is the creature whom I loved, and yet

Is far unlike her would I could forget

The angel or her fall; the once adored

Or now despised! the worshipped or deplored! "O! Rosabella!" I prepared to say,

"Whom I have loved;" but Prudence whispered, Nay,

And Folly grew ashamed - Discretion had her day.
She gave her hand; which, as I lightly pressed,
The cold but ardent grasp my soul oppressed;
The ruined girl disturbed me, and my eyes
Looked, I conceive, both sorrow and surprise.

If words had failed, a look explained their style; She could not blush assent, but she could smile: Good heaven! I thought, have I rejected fame, Credit, and wealth, for one who smiles at shame ? She saw me thoughtful -saw it, as I guessed, With some concern, though nothing she expressed. "Come, my dear friend, discard that look of care," &c.

Thus spoke the siren in voluptuous style,
While I stood gazing and perplexed the while,
Chained by that voice, confounded by that smile.
And then she sang, and changed from grave to gay,
Till all reproach and anger died away.

"My Damon was the first to wake

The gentle flame that cannot die;
My Damon is the last to take

The faithful bosom's softest sigh:
The life between is nothing worth,

O! cast it from thy thought away;
Think of the day that gave it birth,

And this its sweet returning day.

"Buried be all that has been done,
Or
say that nought is done amiss;

For who the dangerous path can shun
In such bewildering world as this?
But love can every fault forgive,

Or with a tender look reprove;
And now let nought in memory live,

But that we meet, and that we love."

And then she moved my pity; for she wept,
And told her miseries, till resentment slept ;
For, when she saw she could not reason blind,
She poured her heart's whole sorrows on my mind,
With features graven on my soul, with sighs
Seen, but not heard, with soft imploring eyes,
And voice that needed not, but had, the aid
Of powerful words to soften and persuade.

"O! I repent me of the past;" &c.

Softened, I said, "Be mine the hand and heart,
If with your world you will consent to part.”
She would-she tried. Alas! she did not know

How deeply-rooted evil habits grow:

She felt the truth upon her spirits press,

But wanted ease, indulgence, show, excess,
Voluptuous banquets, pleasures - not refined,
But such as soothe to sleep the opposing mind-
She looked for idle vice, the time to kill,
And subtle, strong apologies for ill.
And thus her yielding, unresisting soul
Sank, and let sin confuse her and control:
Pleasures that brought disgust yet brought relief,
And minds she hated helped to war with grief.

I had long lost her; but I sought in vain
To banish pity; - still she gave me pain.

There came at length request

That I would see a wretch with grief oppressed,
By guilt affrighted — and I went to trace
Once more the vice-worn features of that face,
That sin-wrecked being! and I saw her laid

Where never worldly joy a visit paid:

That world receding fast! the world to come
Concealed in terror, ignorance, and gloom;
Sin, sorrow, and neglect; with not a spark
Of vital hope,- all horrible and dark.
It frightened me! I thought, and shall not I
Thus feel? thus fear?- this danger can I fly?
Do I so wisely live that I can calmly die?

And features wasted, and yet slowly came

The end; and so inaudible the breath,

And still the breathing, we exclaimed - 'Tis death!
But death it was not: when indeed she died

I sat and his last gentle stroke espied:

When as it came or did my fancy trace

That lively, lovely flushing o'er the face?

Bringing back all that my young heart impressed!

It came and went! She sighed, and was at rest!

From Moore, whose works are more, probably, than those of any of his contemporaries in the hands of all readers of poetry, we will make only one short extract—a specimen of his brilliant Orientalism, which may be compared with the specimen of Southey's in a preceding page. Here is the exquisitely beautiful description in the Fire Worshippers, the finest of the four tales composing Lalla Rookh, of the calm after a storm, in which the heroine, the gentle Hinda, awakens in the war-bark of her lover Hafed, the noble Gheber chief, into which she had been transferred from her own galley while she had swooned with terror from the tempest and the fight:

How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour when storms are gone!
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the dancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity.
Fresh as if day again were born,
Again upon the lap of morn!

When the light blossoms, rudely torn
And scattered at the whirlwind's will,
air still,

Hang floating in the

pure

Filling it all with precious balm,
In gratitude for this sweet calm : —
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left upon the grass and flowers
Sparkles, as 'twere that lightning gem
Whose liquid flame is born of them!
When, 'stead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears, -
As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own,
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs!
When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And even that swell the tempest leaves

Is like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts when newly blest

Too newly to be quite at rest!
Such was the golden hour that broke
Upon the world, when Hinda woke
From her long trance, and heard around
No motion but the water's sound
Rippling against the vessel's side,