They move, a throng of mitre, cross, and

cope,

In pale and vision'd lastre. Sudden ope
The chancel gates; the stately abbot comes.
Down to the ground are stoop'd the knight-
ly plumes,

And every lady bows her gemmed tiar,
That shoots down light like an earth-stoop-
ing star.

THE HYMN.

"Open ye gates of peace, receive the bride, In beauty come to pledge her virgin vow. Oh! not with mortal thoughts those cheeks are dyed,

Those downcast eyes not touch'd with mor

tal woe;

Her's are the thoughts that light the seraph's glow,

When, veiling his bright forehead with his
plume,

He lays before the throne his chaplet low.
Daughter of princes, heir of glory, come!
Open ye gates of peace. She triumphs o'er
the tomb."

“Come, beautiful, betrothed! The bitter
sting

Of hope deferr'd can reach no bosom here,
Here life is peace, unwreck'd by dreams
that spring

From the dark bosom's living sepulchre.
At these high gates die sorrow, sin, and fear.
Woe to the heart where passion pours its tide;

Soon sinks the flood to leave the desart there;
Here love's pure stream with hues of heaven
is dyed.

Come, stainless spouse. Ye gates of peace
receive the bride !"

In the low echoes of the anthem's close
The murmurs of a distant chorus rose.
A portal open'd, in its shadow stood
A sable pomp, the hallow'd sisterhood,
They led a white-robed form, young, deli-

cate,

Where life's delicious spring was opening yet:
Yet was the stately, and, as up the aisle
She moved, her proud, pale lip half wore a

smile:

Her eye was firm, yet those who saw it near,
Saw on its lash the glistening of a tear.
All to Sidonia's passing daughter bow'd,
And she returned it gravely, like one vow'd
To loftier things. But, once she paused;
and press'd

With quick, strange force her slight hand
to her breast,

And her wan cheek was redden'd with a glow
That spread its crimson to her forehead's

snow,

As if the vestal felt the throes that wreak
Their stings upon young hearts about to

break;

She struggled, sigh'd; her look of agony
Was calm'd, and she was at Sidonia's knee.
Her father's chasing tears upon her fell;
His gentle heart abhorr'd the convent cell ;

Even now he bade her pause. She look'd to heaven,

One long, wild pressure to his cheek was given,

Her pale lip quiver'd, would not say “ farewell.'

The bell gave one deep toll, it seem'd her knell ;

She started, strove his strong embrace to

sever,

Then rush'd within the gate-that shuts for ever.

But so much of the merit of Sebastian lies in the story itself, that we shall not diminish the interest by quoting more, or by any attempt with which our readers will read it, at analysis. We have already, we are sure, done enough to call attention to Mr Croly's volume, and that is all the service of which such a volume can ever stand in need. We regard it, indeed, as the earnest of far better things; but even if nothing more were to follow, we feel satisfied that it would entitle its author to a permanent and a lofty place among the poets of his country.

It is very delightful to us, and we are sure it will be so to all men of

right feeling, to observe, that all the rising poetical genius of England is not infected either with the affectations or the bad principles of those who would fain be considered as having taken the lead in a sort of poetical revolution amongst us. On the contrary, of the four young poets who have made any impression lately on the public mind, there are three to whose writings we can turn with well nigh unmingled satisfaction. MILMAN, CORNWALL, and CROLY, are all, so far as we can see, possessed of a lity under which every English poet proper sense of that great responsibilies, and determined to conduct themselves as becomes their dignity. In all the writings of these men, it is easy to discover faults of youth; but in all of them, the faults are of the right kind-faults, namely, of redundance, not of poverty-faults of careless execution, not of cold conception. They poets that have immediately preceded are all of them imitators of the great them in the march of our literatureit was impossible, probably, that they should have been otherwise-but none of them are servile in their imitation, and they are all, in the best sense of the word, original poets. They may all, without doubt, become still more

so-and we hope they will. Of the three we know not which is our chief favourite, or even on which of them our greatest expectations depend. Mr Cornwall has many beauties of a more delicate order than either Mr Milman or Mr Croly has ever exemplified, and we rather think he has more of the dramatic tact than either of them is ever likely to attain. Mr Milman, again, has a richer eye, and a more powerful grasp than either of his rivals-he is the likeliest of the three, in our opinion, to produce a great narrative poem, destined to take its place among the arnμara is an of our liter

ature. Mr Croly, too, has points on which he appears superior to both of these. He comes nearer than either of them to the burning intense rapidity of Lord Byron's outline, and has a march in his versification that is as graceful as energetic. We observe that he has in the press, " Specimens of the living English Poets," on the plan of Mr Campbell's work; and from the power of thought and the accuracy of taste displayed in the present volume, we are inclined to augur very highly of his success in this bold attempt.

HUBERT;

Or, The Veteran of India.

PART I.

WHERE Indian village 'mid the grove of palms,
Her shadowed cots conceals; and devious path
Now guides the traveller past the peasant's door ;
Where sable child, amid his eager play,

Disparts from sparkling eye his clustered locks,
To gaze at man of Europe passing strange ;-
Now winds through garden rich with trees of fruit,
Where slenderest arec waves her silvery stalk
Amid her brethren palms; or widening leads
Where eager damsels crowd the morning well,
Their earliest, coolest, draught unsoiled to draw ;
And Indian beauty shews her sable charms,
In sylph-like grace, not undelightful seen,
Or speaks in downcast eyes, as traveller looks,
Her ebon-mantled blush: There, built apart,
Where opener site invites the seaward breeze,
A neater house mid verdant garden stands;
Whose herbs and flowerets, watered due at eve,
Defy the sun, and thrive in arid sand.
There lives a man of Europe; brown with toil,
And many a fiery climate; hoar with age,
Yet cheerful, healthy; living now at ease,
A soldier long; receiving here reward
Of many a day of toil and scene of blood :
For years on upland Indian plains has lived,
With men whose unaccustomed ears would shrink
To hear an English word: has fought the wars
Of England, only Englishman, the rest
A band of sable warriors, trained to know
The arts of British battle; Veteran now,-

The areca palms, though scarcely thicker than a man's arm, rise to the same height with the tall cocoa nut and date palms around them; and the number of their long slen der stems, intermingled with the other trees, adds much to the romantic appearance of the Indian gardens. Not being of sufficient strength to bear a man's weight, (though the wood is slow of growth and extremely hard), their nuts are gathered by the bandarries, or climbers, by reaching from the adjacent trees.

In childhood came to Ind: can recollect
But few and faint the early scenes of home;
Where born, he scarcely knows: a wood, a hill,
Perchance a glittering lake, recalls to mind,
Or antique spire of grove-embosomed church;
On these with fondness dwell his thoughts entranced,
As men recall the faintly imaged face

Of mother dead in early infancy;

Or like the dream mid reaper's hour of rest,
Who sinks to sleep beside his gathered sheaves,
And wakes, by comrade called to join the toil
Of harvest's eager field ;-from beauteous dream,
To busy work aroused. His Indian cot

Is deck'd with pictured scenes of British clime;
Perchance some church on verdant hillock placed,
With space of sacred ground, where frequent stands
The monument of village ancestry;

Or, haply, scene of many a childish sport,
Some frozen lake by skaiters lightly skimmed,
Where high cascade from wintry rocks is urged,
And forms its spray to thousand glittering shapes
Of caves and forests wild; by Indian guest
Oft deemed the magic halls to Genii given,
Where shadowy trees with jewels sparkling bloom.
And oft the Veteran's dreaming fancy seeks,
Amid these random scenes, resemblance faint,
Of youthful haunts by flickering memory loved
In age and foreign land. Of earliest friends
That with him left their native English shore,
But one, perchance, or two are now alive,
And those in other kingdoms; all the rest,
Like snowdrop flowers that fade from warmer sun,
Have withering died; and yearly crowds of more
Have since arrived, and withered too like them-
Leaving few relicts; like the aged trees,

That, scattered lonely o'er some range of heath,
But shew where ancient forest once has been;
Or, like the isles that mid some flooded land,
Rise, monuments of countries drowned beneath.
Sad relicts they! through many a peril come
Of battle, siege, and long and deadly march
In burning sun, or floods of Indian rain;
And often snatched from brink of yawning grave,
When sickness raged destroying; grateful some,
Expectant still of death; while others live

And careless laugh, and think their frames are made
Of stuff too hard for Indian clime to wear.
Not he of whom I speak; his dangers past

Have taught that Heaven has power to try him still;
For hard adversity had tamed his youth,

And discipline instilled; as cautious hind
(When round his infant wheat the wintry frost
Has bound protecting soil, and guards its roots)
Sends forth his eager flock, the ranker shoots

To tame; and sees, when comes the softening spring,
Its roots more deeply firm, its verdant blade

To stronger height, and richer harvest grown.
Thus Heaven had Hubert's young luxuriance tamed
By many an ill; and thus had kindly given
For suffering youth, a firm and wiser age.
Through many a soldier's danger he had passed,
Where hard escape had trained his grateful heart
VOL. VIII.

D

To thoughts submiss; had lived in deathful lanas
Where chilly night descends with wings of ice
On plains still faint with heat of feverish day ;-
Where sluggish morn reclines in aguish pain,
Amid her gathered mists, till saddened sun,
Seen through the vapoury mass slow rising dim,
Bids shivering men rush forth from couches chill,
To catch his earliest gleam, whose waxing heat,
Soon sickening grows, and scorches all the air.
Here fever's serpent fangs had stung the camp,
Like fiery snake, winged viewless through the air;
And round him, dropping fast, had comrades fallen.
Oft,-very oft,-from march of fainting day,
To gladsome rest arrived, one friendly hand

With him had reared the tent, had strewed the couch,
Had spread their wearied camel's store of food,
Then sat to talk of British home beloved,
Till eve's repast; yet, ere the hour had come
So near esteemed, the burning shaft of death,
That friend had felt,-slow carried forth a corse
Beyond the camp; whose every nightly site,
Might Indian wanderers know by range of graves
Amid their desart seen. Such dangers passed,
Had taught the Veteran old to own the hand
Of God in all, and still entreat his care:
And, next to Heaven, with grateful heart he tells
Of friends of former days; among them all
Her dearest, whose connubial care had soothed
His bitterest ills; in sickness dressed his couch,
Contrived some kindlier drink, some easier food,
When loathing heart had long rejected all,
And fainted, sick of life; had watched his bed
When death seemed watching near her; fanned his face
With cooling air, and warded off the fly,

That, ominous of death, alighting pressed

His moveless lips. What though her cheek was dark?
Though Moorish prattle mixed with English word,
Spoke quaintly oft? And though her Indian modes
Seemed oft demure and shy? Was love like her's
Deserving less of all an English heart

Can grateful give? Or can her fondling pride
In English husband less affection meet

From him whom thus she loved? Beside him now,
At sultry noon, she loves at ease to sit,

Beneath the cooler shade, and, pleased, beholds
Her friends and Indian neighbours crowd to seek
His aid or counsel, him advise or help,
And sometimes chide-superior still to all,
And still beloved-by her beloved the most.

Here too, at times, the Veteran's daughter comes
The young Phoolranee, bred from earliest youth
In modes demure of Indian maid to live,
And all retired their haram-veil to wear:
Yet had the damsel's heart in childhood learned,
(In tales of wonder told by British sire,)
Of dames who lived in England's freer world,
The friends, not slaves of men; as hears the nun,
With beating breast, some strange and glowing tale

Phoolranee, the Queen of Flowers: it is used by the Hindoos rather as a term of endearment than as a proper name.

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