The Mother's Heart.

The earnest tearful prayer all wrath disarming!

When first thou camest, gentle, shy, and fond, Again my heart a new affection found,

My eldest-born, first hope, and dearest treasure,

My heart received thee with a joy beyond

All that it yet had felt of earthly pleasure;
Nor thought any love again might be
So deep and strong as that I felt for thee.

But thought that love with thee had reach'd its bound.

At length thou camest; thou, the last and
least;
Nick-named "the Emperor," by thy laughing
brothers,

Because a haughty spirit swell'd thy breast,
And thou didst seek to rule and sway the
others;
Mingling with every playful infant wile
A mimic majesty that made us smile:

And oh! most like a regal child wert thou!
An eye of resolute and successful scheming;

Haunting my walks, while summer-day was Fair shoulders curling lip and dauntless

dying;

Nor leaving in thy turn: but pleased to glide

Thro' the dark room where I was sadly lying,

Or by the couch of pain, a sitter meek,

brow

Fit for the world's strife, not for Poet's dreaming:

And proud the lifting of thy stately head,

Watch the dim eye, and kiss the feverish cheek. And the firm bearing of thy conscious tread.

Different from both! Yet each succeeding claim, Summer is gone: and autumn's soberer hues

The huntsman swift the flying game pursues,
Shouts the halloo! and winds his eager horn.

But in the mother's heart found room for all! "Spare me awhile, to wander forth and gaze

Not while the birds such lays of gladness sing; Our home-fire blazes broad, and bright, and Not while bright flowers around my footsteps

Rogers.

Samuel Rogers ward 1762 in London geboren, wo sein Vater als Bankier lebte, erhielt eine sehr sorgfältige Bildung, machte grössere Rejsen und trat dann in das väterliche Geschäft ein, seinen fortwährenden Aufenthalt in London, nur dann und wann durch einen Ausflug nach dem Festlande unterbrechend. Nach einigen Angaben starb er bereits 1832, nach Anderen, und dies scheint das Richtigere zu sein, lebt er noch in sehr hohem Alter.

Er gab heraus: Ode on Superstition and other Poems. London 1786. The pleasures of Memory, London 1792; Epistle to a Friend, London 1798; The vision of Columbus; Jacqueline; Human Life, London 1819; Poems, London 1815; Italy, London 1822, 5. Aufl. London 1830; Poems, London 1834, 2 Bde; u. A. m.

Sehr treffend characterisirt Sharon Turner ihn als Dichter in folgenden Zeilen:

Calm, elegant, correct, with finish'd touch,
That never leaves too little nor too much;
Attractive pictures and at times a gem
The Bard of Memory scatters round his stem,
A moral taste his graceful flower improves.
And strains melodious murmur as it moves;
Again thro' human life the music roves
And sweetly draws us to its ethic groves.

To an old Oak.

Round thee, alas! no shadows move,
From thee no sacred murmurs breathe!
Yet within thee, thyself a grove,
Once did the eagle scream above,
And the wolf howl beneath!

There once the steel-clad knight reclined,
His sable plumage tempest-toss'd:
And, as the death-bell smote the wind,
From towers long fled by human kind,
His brow the hero cross'd!

Then culture came, and days serene,

And village-sports, and garlands gay: Full many a pathway cross'd the green, And maids and shepherd-youths were seen To celebrate the May!

Father of many a forest deep,

Whence many a navy thunder fraught!
Erst in thy acorn-cells asleep,
Soon destined o'er the world to sweep,
Opening new spheres of thought!

Wont in the night of woods to dwell,
The holy Druid saw thee rise;
And, planting there the guardian-spell,
Sung forth, the dreadful pomp to swell
Of human sacrifice!

Thy singed top and branches bare

Now struggle in the evening sky;
And the wan moon wheels round to glare
On the long corse that shivers there
Of him who came to die!

Meeting with Lord Byron.

A Fragment from Roger's Italy.
Much had passed

Since last we parted; and those five years,
Much had they told! His clustering locks were

turn'd

The hour we met; and, when Aurora rose,
Rising, we climbed the rugged Apennine.
Well I remember how the golden sun
Filled, with its beams, the unfathomable gulphs,
As on we travelled, and along the ridge
Mid groves of cork and cistus and wild fig,
His motley household came. Not last nor least,
Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea
Of Venice, had so ably, zealously
Served, and, at parting, flung his oar away,
To follow thro' the world; who without stain
Had worn so long that honourable badge,
The gondolier's, in a patrician house,
Arguing unlimited trust. — Not last nor least,
Thou, tho' declining in thy beauty and strength,
Faithful Moretto, to the latest hour
Guarding his chamber-door, and now along
The silent, sullen strand of Missolunghi
Howling in grief.

He had just left that place

Of old renown, once in the Adrian sea,
Ravenna; where, from Dante's sacred tomb
He had so oft, as many a verse declares,
Drawn inspiration; where at twilight-time
Thro' the pine-forest wandering with loose rein,
Wandering and lost, he had so oft beheld
(What is not visible to a poet's eye?)
The spectre-knight, the hell-hounds and their
prey,

The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth
Suddenly blasted. 'Twas a theme he loved,
But others claimed their turn: and many a
tower,

Shattered, uprooted from its native rock,
It's strength the pride of some heroic age,
Appeared and vanished (many a sturdy steer
Yoked and unyoked) while as in happier days
He poured his spirit forth. The past forgot,
All was enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured
Present or future.

He is now at rest,

And praise and blame fall on his ear alike,
Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone,
Gone like a star that thro' the firmament
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks,
Was generous, noble noble in its scorn
Of all things low or little; nothing there
Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,

Grey, nor did aught recall the youth that swam None more than I, thy gratitude would build
From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice,
Still it was sweet, still from his eye the thought
Flashed lightning-like nor lingered on the way,
Waiting for words. Far, far into the night
We sat, conversing no unwelcome hour,

On slight foundations: and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert.
Thy wish accomplished; dying in the land,
Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire,
Dying in Greece and in a cause so glorious!

wheel'd,

of tempest

When all was still in the destroying hour
No trace of man! no vestige of its power!

They in thy train ah little did they think, When round the Ark the birds
As round we went, that they so soon should sit
Mourning beside thee, while a nation mourned,
Changing her festal for her funeral song;
That they so soon should hear the minute-gun,
As morning gleamed on what remained of thee,
Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering
Thy years of joy and sorrow.

Thou art gone;
And he who would assail thee in thy grave,
Oh, let him pause! For who among us all,
Tried as thou wert even from thine earliest
years,

When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland-
boy

Tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame,
Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek,
Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine
Her charmed cup ah, who among us all
Could say he had not erred as much and more?

War and the Great in war let others sing,
Havoc and spoil, and tears and triumphing;
The morning-march that flashes to the sun,
The feast of vultures when the day is done;
And the strange tale of many slain for one!
I sing a Man amidst his sufferings here,
Who watch'd and serv'd in humbleness and fear;
Gentle to others, to himself severe.

Columbus.

Say who first pass'd the portals of the West,
And the great Secret of the Deep possess'd;
Who first the standard of his Faith unfurl'd
On the dread confines of an unknown World;
Sung ere his coming and by Heav'n design'd
To lift the veil that cover'd half mankind!....
'Twas night. The Moon, o'er the wide wave,
disclos'd

Her awful face; and Nature's self reposed;
When, slowly rising in the azure sky,
Three white sails shone but to no mortal eye,
Entering a boundless sea. In slumber cast,
The very ship-boy, on the dizzy mast,
Half breath'd his orisons. Alone unchang'd
Calmly, beneath, the great Commander rang'd,
Thoughtful not sad. "Thy will be done!" he
cried

-

He spoke, and, at his call, a mighty Wind,
Not like the fitful blast, with fury blind,
But deep, majestic, in its destin'd course,
Rush'd with unerring, unrelenting force,

From the bright East. Tides duly ebb'd and

flow'd;

Stars rose and set; and new horizons glow'd;
Yet still it blew! As with primeval sway
Still did its ample spirit, night and day
Move on the waters!

a sea without a shore,

Yet who but He undaunted could explore
A world of waves
Trackless and vast and wild as that reveal'd