THE USES OF POETRY.

"Oh! deem not, midst this worldly strife,

An idle art the poet brings;

Let high philosophy control,

And sages calm the stream of life;

"Tis he refines its fountain springs,

The nobler passions of the soul."-CAMPBELL.

THE study and cultivation of the noble art of poetry, is, it cannot but be feared, looked upon by the greater part of mankind as frivolous, and altogether unworthy of the attention of the wise and great. In fact, it too frequently happens that that love of the ideal, and that second sight which sees beyond the material and visible world,-which creates its own prospects, and brings into life objects which are invisible to all eyes but those of fancy,is ridiculed by mankind as romantic and absurd. The reasoning by which such ridicule is supported and backed, is equally contemptible with the feelings which prompt it. Can we suppose this great mind, which, the more we consider it, seems the more to be too big for its pigmy habitation, was given us to be limited by the narrow bounds of material and visible objects?

"What is a man,

If his chief good, and market of his time,

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more;
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason,

To fret in us unused."

No, indeed; it is this very limiting the flights of fancy-this very tying down the imagination to objects of this mass of clay, which perverts God's greatest blessing to a curse, and transforms the imagination-the "divinæ particulum auræ," from the delicate Ariel, to the gross and senseless Caliban.

Of the absurdity of limiting the faculty of imagination to the

ordinary things of life, to the material objects around us, very little need be said: it is the boundless space through which imagination travels, that gives us the only idea we can entertain of eternity. It is the imagination which peoples the earth, air, and sea, with form and fancies of its own, which, if they tend not to the general good, at least make life fairer, and the world less a mass of clay. Those who contend that the imagination can revel in merely transferring existing objects to visible scenes, need only to be reminded that the new-creations of the brain are ever more lovely than realities. I presume no one will deny that Shakspere's fairy scenes, and fanciful creations, are more beautiful and intellectual than the dreams of an overfed alderman; that Puck and his aërial fellows are, even though a mere creation, more admirable than the visions of gastronomy, or the ghosts of edibles.

"But," cry some few sturdy utilitarians, "of what real benefit to mankind are these visions of the fancy? In what one way do they tend to advance the happiness or diminish the misery of man?"

This is soon answered. The man of figures indeed may sneer at poetry; the materialist and the sensualist may scoff at the influence of the poet's pen; but it is simply for the reason that it can exert no influence on them. Poetry appeals only to the gentler and more refined feelings of man: it is the food of love, the inspiration of valour, the language of piety. To the sordid and the heartless, it cannot be a pleasure.

I can almost imagine poetry in its pure and unperverted state to be the very language of innocence. The infant in the cradle feels it; and, when all things else fail of amusing and delighting, some simple rhyme or unlettered song strikes home to the heart yet untaught by the world that there exist deceit and wrong, and fix in mute attention that baby ear, that as yet knows no sound but of love.

It must be remembered, too, that it was through the medium of divine poetry, that the oracles of God were delivered to man; and it was in strains of the loftiest and most inspired poetry that, from the earliest ages of the world, man has been accustomed to offer up his worship. It has prophesied the future; it has chronicled the past; it has been the delight of the good, and the ornament of the wise; and, let the world laugh at it as it will, is entitled to the highest reverence.

Its uses are so numerous and important, that I scarce know where to commence my enumeration of them; but, perhaps, none

of them shines forth so brightly as the power which it exercises on the heart. Eyes that have never wept at real woe, have acknowledged its power, and opened the flood-gates of the fountain of tears; hearts ungentle and untameable have learned to acknowledge the sway of poesy, and, although deaf to the cries of real woe, have grieved over the fictitious miseries of some offspring of the poet's brain.

Not only, however, does poetry exert an influence over the heart, but it also exalts and elevates the mind, rendering it more capable of appreciating refined and intellectual enjoyments, and preserving it from being debased by pursuits less noble. It may be denied by some this is the case, and instances have been brought forward of a contrary effect; but when I speak of poetry exalting the mind, I would be understood to mean simply that poetry which has for its object the painting of virtue in its own peculiar beauty, and vice in its native deformity.

Moreover poetry is the best and most delightful companion on the journey of life. It points out beauties which we should otherwise pass over, and strews the path with flowers which would otherwise be rough and wearisome. It is never without its charm; it people's solitudes with form of beauty, and silence with sounds of delight; it amuses and consoles in adversity, and embraces every pleasure in prosperity; it is ever presenting some new object to the eyes of fancy, and is never without some tale to beguile the hour. The poet is the only man who can really enjoy life, because he is the only man who can create new scenes and images; to him there comes nothing without its charm; it is he that can

"Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

If in a happy mood, the angels of fancy bring him fresh goblets of pleasure to taste; if in gloomy melancholy, they come and minister to him.

It appears to be too common an idea, that melancholy is the constant attendant of poetry. This is a very mistaken idea. Moore, in one of his beautiful Irish melodies has unconsciously betrayed the true poetical feeling, namely, the keen enjoyment of pleasure, and the bitter sense of pain :

"No! life is a waste of wearisome hours,

Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns ;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touched by the thorns."

Let no one then declare poetry to be useless; it has furnished the stage with the precepts of morality, and has added a charm to all the beauties of life. Who, that is endowed with a poetic feeling, can go forth among the charms of nature, and not feel that poetry has laid her spells upon them all? To every flower that grows in the garden of life, there is a beauty given by nature,-to many an odour and a sweetness; but to these graces, poesy has added ideal charms, and created where it could not improve. It has grown with civilization, and will continue to grow with it; and wherever it goes, it will carry with it a refinement peculiar to itself. It will diffuse knowledge which would otherwise have been confined by narrow limits; it will find entry where things 'less aëry would fail to gain admittance; and go where it will throughout the great globe of earth, it will carry with it its horn of plenty, and scatter its delights with unsparing hand, till an Eden smile where a desert frowned; and where it cannot find real beauty, will create ideal. C. H. H.

THE STAR IN THE BROOK.

LONE tenant of the boundless field of heaven,
That field yet reddened by the blood of Day,
And Night's great victory, shines Hesperus,
The glittering herald of advancing hosts

Of heavenly stars. The brook swells at our feet
Singing of Evening, fallen champion
Of vanquished Day; swiftly it glideth on;
Wave hurries wave, and, mirrored in its glass,
Beameth the herald star, as though his path
Led through these waters to another heaven.
Wave hurries wave, still waves glide swiftly on;
Still on the wave, he glides not with the current ;
But, near yon water-lily, motionless

He rests, though restless waters change beneath him.
Thus it is with the soul of Innocence.

On earth its beam may dwell, yet moves it not
With breaking wave and ever-changing current.
Life may stream round it o'er Life's stony course,
And float on into storms and bitterness,

Yet still, unmoved, it shines.

For, as in brooks

Stars are but pictures, echoes of a shape,

So while on earth that spirit's form doth seem,
Heaven is its home,-its earth some angel-dream.

HAL.

EMILIA GALOTTI.

A Tragedy.

(Translated from the German of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.)

ACT V.

(Scene as in Acts III and IV.)

SCENE I.-MARINELLI. The PRINCE.

MAR. Here, out of this window may your highness see him. He is pacing to and fro in the arcade. See now he stoops, he is entering. No, he turns back again.-He is not quite at rest yet with himself. But far calmer-or he seems so. 'Tis the same to us! That of course! And whatever the two women may bave put into his head, will he dare to have it seen?-Battista tells me that his wife is at once to send the carriage out. For he came on horseback.-Mark now, my lord, when he appears before you, how submissively he will thank your highness for the gracious protection extended to his family in this unhappy accident; he will commend himself and his daughter to your continued grace; will carry her quietly to town, and await with the deepest humility what further interest it may please your highness to take in his dear, unhappy girl.

PRINCE. But if he should not be so tame? And hardly, hardly will he be so. I know him too well.-If at the most he should conceal his suspicions, repress his wrath: but instead of taking Emilia to the town, convey her home to him? retain her near him? or, it may be, shut her up in a nunnery beyond my jurisdiction? How then?

MAR. A trembling love looks far into the distance. Truly, -But he will not

PRINCE. But if he should! How then? what will it profit us then that the ill-fated Count has lost his life in the affair?

MAR. Why glance so mournfully aside? Forwards! is the conqueror's thought: let friend or let foe fall beside him.— And what then! Even though the old miser would do that which you now fear, my Prince :-(reflecting.) It will do! I have it!Farther than a Would most certainly he shall not bring it! Certainly not!-But we must not let him from our sight!—(returns to the window.) A little more and we had been surprised! He comes!