"I knew," said Mary, drawing her breath more freely, as they were now out of reach of the musketry-"I knew my squire's truth, promptitude, and sagacity. I must have him dear friends with my no less true knights, Douglas and Seyton -but where, then, is Douglas ?" "Here, madam," answered the deep and melancholy voice of the boatman who sat next her, and who acted as steersman. "Alas! was it you who stretched your body before me," said the Queen, "when the balls were raining around us ?" "Believe you," said he, in a low tone, "that Douglas would have resigned to any one the chance of protecting his Queen's life with his own?" The dialogue was here interrupted by a shot or two from one of those small pieces of artillery called falconets, then used in defending castles. The shot was too vague to have any effect, but the broader flash, the deeper sound, the louder return which was made by the midnight echoes of Bennarty, terrified and imposed silence on the liberated prisoners. The boat was run alongside of a rude quay or landing-place, running out from a garden of considerable extent, ere any of them again attempted to speak. They landed, and while the Abbot returned thanks aloud to Heaven, which had thus far favored their enterprise, Douglas enjoyed the best reward of his desperate undertaking, in conducting the Queen to the house of the gardener. THERE IS A SWEETNESS IN WOMAN'S DECAY.-JAMES G. PERCIVAL, There is a sweetness in woman's decay, When the light of beauty is fading away, When the bright enchantment of youth is gone, And the tint that glow'd, and the eye that shone, And the lip that vied with the sweetest flower Or ever was steep'd in fragrant dew, * And a veil of spotless purity Has mantled her cheek with its heavenly dye, And there is a blending of white and blue, In the flush of youth, and the spring of feeling, The spirit may burn with a brighter power; When the tide of life, from its secret dwelling, O! then, when the spirit is taking wing, How fondly her thoughts to her dear ones cling; So fondly the panting camel flies, Where the glassy vapor cheats his eyes; And the dove from the falcon seeks her nest, POETS AND POËSY.-LAMARTINE. ONE of the most natural and universal faculties of man is that of reproducing, internally by imagination and thought, and externally by art and speech, the material and moral universe in the midst of which he has been placed by Providence. Man is the reflecting mirror of nature. Every thing is recreated by him, and, through poetry, every thing is reanimated and receives new life. It is another state of existence, which God has permitted man to make, by multiplying external being in his thoughts and in his words-an inferior power but not the less real-which truly creates, although it only does so from the elements, the images, and recollections of what nature has embodied before him—an imitation like the sport of a child, yet still the play of the mind upon the impressions which it receives from nature-a play in which we continually reiterate the fleeting image of the external and internal worlds, which expands, passes away, and renews itself unceasingly before us. Therefore doth poetry mean CREATION. Memory is the first element of this creation, because it is by memory that we retrace upon our minds the image of things that have passed. The muses, symbols of inspiration, were said by the ancients to be the daughters of memory. Imagination is the second; for imagination colors and animates the outline drawn by memory. Sensitiveness is the third; because, on the sight or remembrance of past events presenting itself to the mind, sensitiveness causes us to receive physical or moral impressions almost as strong and intense as would be the impression of the events themselves if actually occurring before our eyes. Judgment is the fourth; for by it alone are we taught in what order, in what proportions, in what relations, and in what true harmony to combine and arrange these remembrances or phantasms-these historical or imaginary incidents or feelings that we make them conform as much as possible to nature, to probability, and to truth, so that they may produce upon ourselves and upon others an impression as complete as if the fiction were reality. The fifth element necessary to this creation or to this poësy is the gift of expressing by language what we observe and feel internally-of producing outwardly what stirs us from withinto paint with words, to give to words, as we may say, the color, the impression, the movement, the pulsation, the life, the joy, or the grief felt by our own hearts at the sight of the object which we imagine. Lastly, the sixth element necessary to this creation, which we call poësy, is that the poet's ear should possess musical feeling; for he sings where others speak, and all song requires music to mark its melody, and to render it more sonorous and more voluptuous to our senses and to our mind. But the poet, as I have described him, must not only be gifted with a vast memory, a copious imagination, a keen sensitiveness, a clear judgment, a strong power of expression, a musical feeling as well of time as of harmony-he must be a deep philosopher, for wisdom is the soul of his song; he must be a legislator, for he should understand the laws which control the relations of men to each other, which are to society and to nations what mortar is to buildings; he must have the warrior's spirit, for he has to sing of the battle-field and the storm of towns, the march and flight of armies; he must have the soul of a hero, for he relates the achievements and the devoted sacrifices of the great; he must be a historian, for his poems are narratives; he must be eloquent, for his characters must harangue and debate; he must have traveled, for he describes, earth, sea, and mountains, the productions of nature, the monuments of inen, and the manners of people; he must know animated and inorganic matter, geography, astronomy, navigation, agriculture, the arts, and even the common trades of his time, for his songs extend over heaven, earth, and ocean, and he draws his metaphors, his illustrations, and his comparisons from the motion of the stars, the handling of vessels, the forms and habits of the wildest and the tamest beasts-a seaman among sailors, a herdsman among graziers, a laborer among lab rers, a smith among smiths, a workman among workmen, even a beggar among the beggars at the palace or the cottage gate. His mind should be simple as a child's; tender, compassionate, and pitiful as a woman's; firm and inflexible as that of a judge or of a patriarch; for he tells of the sports, the innocence, and the candor of childhood, the loves of men and beauteous maidens, the af fections and the woes of the heart, and the sympathy of compassion with misery; he writes with tears; his master-piece is to make them flow. He should be able to inspire men with pity, the most beautiful, because the most unselfish of human sympathies. Lastly, he should be truly pious, filled with the presence and worship of the Almighty, for he speaks as much of heaven as of earth. His mission is to make men aspire to the invisible and superior world; to force all things, even though inanimate, to proclaim the name of the Most High, and to impress all the emotions he excites in the mind or in the heart with that immortal, infinite, and undefinable character which is, as it were, the atmosphere and invisible element of the Divinity. Such should be the perfect poet; a living epitome of all the gifts, all the perceptions, all the endowments, all the wisdom, all the tenderness, all the virtuous and heroic instincts of the soul-a creature as perfect as our imperfect humanity will allow. TRUE WOMAN.-MOTHER WELL. No quaint conceit of speech, To echo woman's praise; She is the faithful mirror Of thoughts that brightest be Of feelings without error, Of matchless constancie; When art essays to render More glorious heaven's bow To paint the virgin splendor Of fresh-fallen mountain snow New fancies will I find, To laud true woman's mind. |