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nity, of which the true substantive vastness swallows up the star shadows-blotting them out as nonentities from the perception of the angels." And again: "the stars, through what we consider their materiality, escape the angelic sense, just as the unparticled matter or space, through what we consider its immateriality, eludes the perception of organic and incarnate beings."

Inferences of much interest might be drawn from these cursory remarks. We might infer, for instance, that there was, and is, no alternative for Man-but Revelation or Despair. Nature can, at the utmost, do little for us, and can tell us very little. This the highest of philosophers have ever felt (including some of the Alchymists), and hence they have tried to get behind nature-and to get so behind it as to turn it to their will. In this they have all miserably failed; and ever shall. One only possessed this ineffable secret-one only ever stood behind the tremendous veil of creation-and why?— Because he was originally divine-because he came from the Excellent Glory (which is, perhaps, another name for that "unparticled matter," that sublime reality of existence which is within all things), as well as confirmed his power by "privilege of virtue." HE alone, even in the days of his flesh, with open face, looked at the Glory of God; and this power gives already in some measure, and shall yet more fully bestow upon his faithful and simple-hearted followers, that they, too, may behold, as in a glass-mightier than the mirror of all the stars-the inmost glory of the Lord.

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Once more, how overwhelmingly grand the views opened up by such thoughts as these! Here are new heavens and a new earth. Here, in every death, is a rehearsal of that scene in which the heavens are to flee away. The sight of those fair, yet terrible and tantalizing heavens of ours is at the deathmoment of every Christian exchanged for that of spiritual scenes, which no eye hath seen, and no ear heard. That majestic universe, which was the nursery of the budding soul, dissolves like a dream, and that soul is admitted within the veil of the unseen, and begins to behold matter as it is, space as it is, GoD as he is, and to know now what is the meaning of the words, "the light inaccessible and full of glory." Nor will the soul, thus introduced, sigh for the strange and fiery "star

shadows" which surrounded its infancy.

There was much in them that was beautiful; but there was much also that was fearful, perplexing, and sad. But here, in this spirit-land, the sun of truth shines. That city has no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine on it. The mind shall there begin to see without cloud, or shadow, or reflected radiance, Knowledge, Essence, Eternity, GOD, and shall look back upon the stars as but the bright toys of its nursery, childish things it has surmounted and put away. Further we dare not penetrate-here let the curtain drop-but let it drop to the music of one solemn word, from the only Book which has given us authentic and commanding tidings from that inner world. "Seeing, therefore, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness ?"

A Cluster of New Poets.

NO. I.-SYDNEY YENDYS.

THIS book we hesitate not to pronounce the richest volume of recent poetry next to "Festus." It is a "wilderness" of thought a sea of towering imagery and surging passion. Usually a man's first book is his richest, containing, as it generally does, all the good things which had been accumulating in his portfolio for years before he published. But while "The Roman was full of beauties, "Balder" is overflowing, and the beauties, we think, are of a rarer and profounder sort. There was much poetry in "The Roman," but there was more rhetoric. Indeed, many of the author's detractors, while granting him powers of splendid eloquence, denied him the possession of the purely poetic element. "Balder" must, unquestionably, put these to silence, and convince all worth convincing, that Yendys is intensely and transcendently a poet.

In two things only does "Balder" yield to "The Roman." It has, as a story, little interest, being decidedly subjective rather than objective; and, secondly, its writing is not, as a whole, so clear. In "The Roman," he was almost always distinctly, dazzlingly clear. The Monk was never in a mist for a moment; but Balder, as he has a Norse name, not unfrequently speaks or bellows from the centre of northern darkWe speak, we must say, however, after only one reading; perhaps a second may serve to clear up a good deal that seems obscure and chaotic.

ness.

"Balder." By the author of "The Roman.”

The object of the poet is to show that natural goodness, without the Divine guidance, is unable to conduct even the loftiest of the race to any issue but misery and despair. This he does in the story of Balder-a man of vast intelligence, and aspiring to universal intellectual power--who, partly through the illness of his wife, represented as the most amiable of women, and partly through his own unsatisfied longings of soul, is reduced to absolute wretchedness, and is left sacrificing her life to his disquietude and baffled ambition. The poem has one or two interlocutors besides Balder and Amy, but consists principally of soliloquies uttered and songs sung by these two in alternate scenes, and has very little dramatic interest. It is entitled "Balder, Part First;" a title which pretty broadly hints that a second poem-with a far sublimer argument (the inevitable sequel of the former), showing how, since natural goodness fails in reforming the world, or making any man happy, Divine goodness must be expected to perform the work-may be looked for.

We pass from the general argument and bearing of the poem, to speak more in detail of its special merits and defects. The great merit of the book, as we have already hinted, is its Australian wealth of thought and imagery. Bailey must look after his laurels; Tennyson, Smith, and Bigg are all in this one quality eclipsed by Yendys. Nor are the pieces of gold small and of little value; many of them are large nuggets-more precious than they are sparkling. Here, for instance, is a cluster of noble similitudes, reminding you of Jeremy Taylor's thick rushing "So have I seen: "

"Nature from my birth

Confess'd me, as one who in a multitude
Confesseth her beloved, and makes no sign;
Or as one all unzoned in her deep haunts,
If her true love come on her unaware,
Hastes not to hide her breast, nor is afraid;
Or as a mother, 'mid her sons, displays
The arms their glorious father wore, and, kind,
In silence, with discerning love commits
Some lesser danger to each younger hand,
But to the conscious eldest of the house

The naked sword; or as a sage, amid
His pupils in the peopled portico,

Where all stand equal, gives no precedence
But by intercalated look and word

Of equal seeming, wise but to the wise,
Denotes the favor'd scholar from the crowd;
Or as the keeper of the palace-gate
Denies the gorgeous stranger, and his pomp
Of gold, but at a glance, although he come
In fashion as a commoner, unstarr'd,
Lets the prince pass."

By what a strong, rough, daring figure does Balder describe the elements of his power :

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Of what follows death he says—

"The first, last secret all men hear, and none
Betray."

"My hand shakes;

But with the trembling eagerness of him
Who buys an Indian kingdom with a bead."

"Fancy, like the image that our boors

Set by their kine, doth milk her of her tears,
And loose the terrible unsolved distress

Of tumid Nature."

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