The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch, The least glance better understood than words, As but to lovers a true sense affords ; Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurd All these were theirs, for they were children still, And children still they should have ever been; A nymph and her beloveð, all unseen To pass their lives in fountains and on flowers, Moons changing had roll'd on, and changeless found By the mere senses; and that which destroys INVOCATION TO THE SPIRIT OF ACHILLES. Beautiful shadow Of Thetis's boy! Who sleeps in the meadow Whose grass grows o'er Troy: From the red earth, like Adam, Thy likeness I shape, As the being who made him, Whose actions I ape. Thou clay, be all glowing, Of mould, in which grew And drank the best dew! Let his limbs be the lightest Which clay can compound, And his aspect the brightest On earth to be found! Elements, near me, Be mingled and stirr'd, Know me, and hear me, And leap to my word! This earth's animation! His stand in creation! ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR. Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824. 'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move: My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; The fire that on my bosom preys The hope, the fear, the jealous care, But 'tis not thus-and 'tis not here Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, The sword, the banner, and the field, Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!) Tread those reviving passions down, If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live? Is here:-up to the field, and give Seek out-less often sought than foundA soldier's grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest. WILLIAM TENNANT. [TENNANT, born at Anstruther, Fifeshire, in 1786, was in early life a schoolmaster, and later on Professor of Oriental Languages at St. Andrew's. Anster Fair, by which he is known to poetry, was written in 1811 and published in 1812. The Thane of Fife, a long narrative poem, published in 1822, was a failure, and the same may be said of his Hebrew Dramas and his tragedies of Cardinal Bethune and John Balliol. He died in 1848.] The author of Anster Fair is an extraordinary instance of a single-poem poet. When Byron translated the first Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, he spoke of the Italian poet as 'the founder of a new style of poetry lately sprung up in England,' explaining that he 'alluded to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft.' Tennant, however, anticipated the ingenious Whistlecraft in the introduction of this new style into the English poetry of the nineteenth century. He was the first to use with masterly effect the style which Byron associated for all time with Don Juan. After taking rank at an early age among the masters of mock-heroic, he abandoned this field, essayed the true-heroic, and failed, but never returned to his first love. Whether Tennant's poetic vein was exhausted, or crushed beneath his weight of learning, or simply abandoned as out of keeping with his grave and reverend professorial character, we have no means of knowing. The abundance and freshness of the vein almost negatives the hypothesis of exhaustion. Even when read after Don Juan, Anster Fair must excite admiration by the flexibility and rapid freedom of its verse. There is no trace of poverty in the ornaments embroidered on the fantastically cut garment; the artist runs riot in the wealth of his fantastic imagination, spending prodigally as if from an inexhaustible purse. Tennant has told us himself that it was in laughing over Peebles to the Play the humorous extravaganza ascribed to James I of Scotland, that |