D. M. MOIR (DELTA). (1798-1851.) DAVID MACBETH MOIR (better known by his signature of Delta in Blackwood's Magazine) was a medical practitioner in Musselburgh. He was an amiable man, strongly attached to literature, but still rendering it subordinate to his professional duties. His poetry is soft and tender, but deficient in originality and vigour. His works have been collected and published in two volumes, 1852, with a memoir by Thomas Aird. Mr. Moir was author of a prose tale, illustrative of Scottish Life, entitled Mansie Wauch, and also of a volume of Lectures on Poetry. THE SILENT EVE. Lo! in the south a silver star, THE BARD'S WISH. Oh! were I laid In the greenwood shade, Beneath the covert of waving trees; And the ills below, That render life but a long disease! No more to weep, To slumber on long ages through ;— Of eve, or the morning's silver dew! For all my dreams, And vision'd gleams, STANZAS WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT. Are not like those of this earthly span ; For ever away From the noise of strife, and the haunts of man. STANZAS WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT. 'Tis night-and in darkness the visions of youth Flit solemn and slow in the eye of the mind: The hope they excited hath perished, and truth Laments o'er the wrecks they are leaving behind. 'Tis midnight-and wide o'er the regions of riot Are spread, deep in silence, the wings of repose; And man, soothed from revel, and lulled into quiet, Forgets in his slumbers the weight of his woes. How gloomy and dim is the scowl of the heaven, To omen a something like hope to the breast. The bosom of man in his solitude feels! Where, where are the spirits in whom was my trust, 519 While I, in a populous solitude, languish 'Mid foes that beset me, and friends that are cold: Ah! the pilgrim of earth oft has felt in his anguish, That the heart may be widowed before it is old! Affection can sooth but its votaries an hour, Let the storms of adversity lour; 'tis in vain, Though friends should forsake me, and foes should combine; Such may kindle the breasts of the weak to complain, They only can teach resignation to mine: For, far o'er the regions of doubt and of dreaming, The spirit beholds a less perishing span ; And bright through the tempest the rainbow is streaming, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. THIS lady was by the general critical consent of her contemporaries placed at the head of English poetesses. In extent of learning, and depth of feeling and imagination, she is unrivalled; but her works are occasionally disfigured by mysticism and extravagance. She first appeared before the public as a translator, having, when very young, rendered the "Prometheus Bound" of Eschylus into English verse. This work was published in 1833. A dangerous illness, protracted for years, confined Miss Barrett to her chamber, and during this time she studied the classic authors, and " gave herself, heart and soul," as her friend Miss Mitford has related, "to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess." In 1844 she published a collection of her Poems in two volumes. She afterwards married Mr. Robert Browning, also a poet, and removed to Italy. She was in Florence during the revolutionary outbreak of 1848; and her feelings and impressions, at this exciting period, she has embodied in a narrative poem, entitled "Casa Guidi Windows." In this work the poetess evinces a warm sympathy with the Italians in their struggle for national independence, while many of her sketches of scenery and character are graphic and spirited. Her next work, "Aurora Leigh," 1856, is a novel in blank verse, designed to convey the highest convictions of the authoress on nature and art. The plot is complicated and improbable, and the course of the story is interrupted by metaphysical and polemical discussion, with much rambling, commonplace dialogue. But, notwithstanding these defects, the poem is a work of real genius COWPER'S GRAVE. 521 and intellectual power. The smaller pieces of Mrs. Browning have always been the most popular of her productions. Some of her sonnets are not unworthy of Wordsworth; while, in her happiest descriptive passages and chivalrous love stories, she has much of Tennyson's power of word-painting, and delicate, subtle imagination. In other pieces, as "Bertha," "The Cry of the Children," and "Cowper's Grave," we have a strain of natural and affecting pathos. Mrs. Browning died at Florence in 1861, and a volume of unpublished remains was collected and printed after her death. LOVE-A SONNET. I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, "Guess now who holds thee?" "Death," I said; but there COWPER'S GRAVE. I. It is a place where poets crown'd may feel the heart's decaying, II. O poets! from a maniac's tongue was pour'd the deathless singing; III. And now what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory; And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, He wore no less a loving face, because so broken-hearted. IV. He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration; Named softly as the household name of one whom God hath taken! V. With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him; With meekness that is gratefulness to God, whose heaven hath won him ; Who suffer'd once the madness-cloud to His own love to blind him, But gently led the blind along where breath and bird could find him. VI. And wrought within his shatter'd brain such quick poetic senses As hills have language for, and stars harmonious influences! The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number; And silent shadows from the trees refresh'd him like a slumber. VII. Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home caresses, Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses; The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing, Its women and its men became beside him true and loving! VIII. And though in blindness he remained unconscious of that guiding, |