A germ, preparing in the winter's frost

To rise, and bud, and blossom in the spring
An unfledg'd eagle, by the tempest toss'd,
Unconscious of his future strength of wing:
The child of trial-to mortality

And all its changeful influences given;
On the green earth decreed to move and die :
And yet, by such a fate, prepared for Heaven,
Soon as it breathes, to feel the mother's form
Of orbed beauty through its organs thrill:
To press the limbs of life with rapture warm,
And drink instruction of a living rill :

To view the skies with morning radiance bright,
Majestic, mingling with the ocean blue;
Or bounded by green hills, or mountains white,
Or purpled plains of rich and varied hue.
The nobler charms astonish'd to behold
Of living loveliness-to see it move,
Cast in expression's rich and varied mould,
Awakening sympathy, compelling love-

The heavenly balm of mutual hope to taste-
Soother of life! affliction's bliss to share,
Sweet as the stream amid the desert waste,
As the first blush of arctic daylight fair.

To mingle with its kindred; to descry

The path of power; in public life to shine;

To gain the voice of popularity—

The idol of to-day-the man divine:

To govern others by an influence strong

As that high law which moves the murmuring main-
Raising and carrying all its waves along

Beneath the full-orb'd moon's meridian reign:

To scan how transient is the breath of praise !-
A winter's zephyr trembling on the snow,
Chills as it moves; or as the northern rays,
First fading in the centre, whence they flow :
To live in forests, mingled with the whole
Of natural forms, whose generations rise
In lovely change-in happy order roll,
On land, in ocean, in the glittering skies :

Their harmony to trace, the Eternal Cause
To know in love, in reverence to adore;
To bend beneath the inevitable laws,

Sinking in death, its human strength no more!

Then, as awaking from a dream of pain,
With joy its mortal feelings to resign;

Yet all its living essence to retain,

The undying energy of strength divine.

To quit the burdens of its earthly days;

To give to Nature all her borrow'd powers;

Ethereal fire to feed the solar rays

Ethereal dew to glad the earth with showers.

In this Poem the spirit, the energy, the enthusiasm of his mind is displayed; the train of thought is the one that seems to have been most familiar to him, as it appears in many of the productions of his genius, and the imagery and the associations are such as Science suggested. Who is

the poet of the present day, however high his fame, and great his talents, who would feel wronged by having such lines attributed to him? There was a flame purer than that of the furnace, and that belonged not to the crucible, burning brightly in the Poet's mind. In 1814, we find the following lines:

MONT BLANC.

With joy I view thee, bath'd in purple light,
Whilst all around is dark: with joy I see

Thee rising from thy sea of pitchy clouds
Into the middle heaven-

As of a temple to the Eternal, rais'd

By all the earth, framed of the pillar'd rock,
And canopied with everlasting snow!

That lovely river, rolling at my feet

Its light green waves, and winding midst the rocks,
Brown in their winter's foliage, gain'd from thee
Its flood of waters, through a devious course,
Though it has lav'd the fertile plains, and wash'd
The city's walls, and mingled with the stream
Of lowland origin, yet still preserves

Its native character of mountain strength,
Its colour, and its motion. Such are those

Amongst the generations of mankind

To whom the stream of thought descends from Heaven
With all the force of reason and the power

Of sacred genius. Through the world they pass

Still uncorrupted, and on what they take

From social life, bestow a character

Of dignity: still greater they become;

But never lose their native purity.

The next is of more finished excellence-written soon after :

THE MEDITERRANEAN PINE. (Pinus Maritima.)

Thy hues are green as is the vernal tint
Of those fair meads where Isis rolls along

Her silver floods; and not amongst the snows,
Nor on the hoary mountains' rugged crest,

Is thy abode :-but on the gentle hill,
Amongst the rocks, and by the river's side,
Rises thy graceful and majestic form,
Companion of the olive and the vine,
And that Hesperian tree, whose golden fruit
Demands the zephyr warm'd by southern sands:
In Winter thou art verdant as in Spring:
Unchangeable in beauty, and thy reign
Extends from Calpe to the Bosphorus.
Beneath thy shade the northern African

Seeks shelter from the sunshine; and the Greek,
In Tempe's vale, forms from thy slender leaves
A shepherd's coronal. Fanes of the god

Of Egypt and of Greece majestic rise
Amidst thy shades; and to the Memory,
Oh lovely tree! thy resting-places bring

All that is glorious to our history!

The schools where Socrates and Plato taught

The rocks where Grecian freedom made her stand

The Roman virtue-the Athenian art—

The hills from which descended to mankind

The light of faith; from which the shepherds gave
The oracles of Heaven, and Israel saw

The sacrificial offering of her guilt,

The blood of the Atonement, shed in vain ;
When Salem fell, and her offending race

Were scattered as the dust upon the blast.

The lines on Carrara, in the opening stanzas, have somewhat of Campbell's pencil; two of the following are curious, as showing that the Poet's imagination had not heat or power enough to fuse his metrical expression to sufficient ductility for his measure, and left them incorrectly rhymed.

Thine is no dark and dreary mine,

CARRARA.

No hidden quarry damp and cold, Thy courts in orient sunbeams shine, The morning tints thy rocks of gold. Thy rocks sublime, that still remain

As erst from chaos they arose ; Untouch'd by time, without its stain,

Pure as their canopy of snows.

Forms worthy of that magic art,

Which from the graver's potent hand,
Can bid the hues of beauty start,

And all expression's power command.
Forms worthy of that master's skill,
Which to the poet's dream hath given
The noblest front, the potent will,
Fix'd in the majesty of Heaven.

And that a softer charm has shed
On Cytherea's radiant head,
And kindled in her Grecian face
The immortality of grace.

Scenes blended with the memory

Of mighty works, can well supply
The food of thought—and scenes like these
Have other natural powers to please.*
Around transparent rivers flow,

Whose tints are bright as summer sky;
Upon their banks the olives grow,

The greener pine aspiring high,
Towers mid the cliffs; the chesnut loves
Thy slopes, where vines their tendrils
rear,

In the deep gloom the myrtle groves
Embalm the cool and quiet air.

There are some lines in the poem called 'The Sybil's Temple,' that show his love of nature and power of describing it; though we think it is discernible that Sir H. Davy's poetical power, his familiarity with his art, and his skill in commanding its resources, did not increase as might be expected.

I wonder not, that mov'd by such a faith,
Thou rais'd'st the Sybil's temple in the vale,
For such a scene were suited well to raise
The mind to high devotion; to create
Those thoughts indefinite, which seem above
Our sense and reason, and the hallow'd dream
Prophetic. In the sympathy sublime

With natural forms and sounds, the mind forgets
Its present being-images arise

Which seem not earthly-'midst the awful rocks
And caverns bursting with the living stream-
In force descending from the precipice,
Sparkling in sunshine, nurturing with dews
A thousand odorous plants and fragrant flowers,

In the sweet music of the vernal woods,

From winged minstrels, and the louder sounds
Of mountain storms, and thund'ring cataracts,

The voice of inspiration well might come.

We must now give such a poem as we might expect from the contemplations of the Philosopher of Nature.

* These stanzas might have been easily made correct; as,

And that a softer charm has shed

O'er Cytherea's radiant face;
And o'er each Grecian feature spread
The immortality of grace.

Scenes blended with the memory

Of mighty works-such scenes as these Can well the food of thought supply; And they have other powers to please.

The massy pillar of the earth,
The inert rocks, the solid stones,
Which give no power, no motion birth,
Which are to nature lifeless bones,
Change slowly; but their dust remains,
And every atom measured, weigh'd,
Is whirl'd by blasts along the plains,

Or in the fertile furrows laid.
The drops that from the transient shower
Fall in the noonday bright and clear,
Or kindle beauty in the flower,

Or waken freshness in the air.
Nothing is lost; the ethereal fire
Which from the furthest star descends,
Thro' the immensity of space

Its course by worlds attracted bends
To reach the earth; the eternal laws
Preserve one glorious, wise design;

Order amidst confusion flows,

And all the system is divine.
If matter cannot be destroy'd,
The living mind can never die;
If e'en creative when alloy'd,
How sure its immortality.
Then think that intellectual light,
Thou lovd'st on Earth, is burning still;
Its lustre purer and more bright,

Obscur'd no more by mortal will.
All things most glorious on the earth,
Tho' transient and short-liv'd they seem;
Have yet a source of heav'nly birth,

Immortal-not a fleeting dream.

The lovely changeful light of even,
The fading gleams of morning skies;
The evanescent tints of heaven
From the eternal sun arise.

The following lines, written at the Baths of Lucca, 1819, will be read with pleasure:

TO THE FIRE-FLIES.

Ye morning stars, that flit along the glade!
Ye animated lamps, that midst the shade

Of ancient chesnuts, and the lofty hills

Of Lusignano, by the foaming rills

That clothe the Serchio in their evening play!

So bright your light, that in the unbroken ray

Of the meridian noon it lovely shines;

How gaily do ye pass beneath the vines

Which clothe the mount slopes! how thro' the groves
Of Lucca do ye dance! the breeze that moves
Their silver leaves a mountain zephyr's wing,
Has brought you here to cheer our tardy spring.
Oft have I seen ye midst thy orange bowers,
Parthenope! and where Velino pours
Its thund'ring cataracts; but ne'er before
So high upon the mountains, where ye soar,
E'en in mid air, leaving those halcyon plains
Where Spring or Summer everlasting reigns;
Where flowers and fruit matur'd together grow,
To visit our rude peaks, where still the snow
Glitters e'en in the genial mirth of flowers,
But brightly do ye move in fiery showers,
Seem like the falling meteor from afar,
Or like the kindred of the erring star.

May not the stars themselves, in orbits whirl'd,
Be but a different animated world?

In which a high and lofty breath of life,
Of winds and insects calms the awaking strife,
Commands the elements, and bids them move
In animation to the voice of love.

If our poetical taste do not deceive us, the above lines will be approved; the thoughts and images are pleasing, and the versification

* This stanza also might have been regularly constructed, as,

Nought's lost; the etherial fire in race

Swift from the furthest star descends;
And thro' the immensity of space
Its course by worlds attracted bends.

and language poetical and correct; but in some verses, written so late as 1823, towards the close of Davy's career, there are many marks of an imperfect and unfinished taste, that does not do justice to the feeling and the thoughts. We shall now close our specimens of this great Philosopher's poetical talent, with some lines written at Ravenna, 1827, in which his faults and his excellence are alike displayed, and over which the melancholy of his dying hours has shed its autumnal fragrance.

Oh! couldst thou be with me, daughter of Heaven,

Urania! I have now no other love!

For time has wither'd all the beauteous flowers

That once adorn'd my youthful coronet.
With thee I still may live a little space,
And hope for better intellectual light;
With thee I may e'en still, in vernal times,
Look upon Nature with a poet's eye,
Nursing those lofty thoughts that in the mind
Spontaneous rise, blending their sacred powers
With images from fountain and from flood:
From chesnut groves, amid the broken rocks,
Where the blue Lina pours to meet the wave
Of foaming Serchio, or midst the odorous heath

And cistus flowers, that clothe the stream-worn sides
Of the green hills, whence in their purity

The virgin streams arise of Mountain Tiber,
Not yet polluted by the lowland rills,

Or turbid with the ruins of the plains,

As when in sullen majesty he murmurs

By the imperial city's fallen walls,

Laying bare the bones of heroes, and the monuments
Of generations of the ages past.

Or rest might find on that cloud-cover'd hill,
Whose noble rocks are cloth'd with brightest green,
Where thousand flowers of unknown hues and names

Scent the cool air, rarely by man inhal'd,

But which the wild bee knows, and ever haunts,
And whence descends the balmy influence

Of those high waters, tepid from the air

Of ancient Apennines, whose sacred source
Hygeia loves; there my weary limbs

I might repose beneath the grateful shade

Of chesnuts, whose worn trunks proclaim the birth
Of other centuries.

DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE.

(Continued from Vol. VI. p. 578.)

1811.-Dec. 9. Looked over a splendid folio, including two volumes of Vandyck's Portraits. The lives are very fairly written. Of Snyders it is happily, and I think justly remarked, that—" tout ce que pouvoit Reubens pour exprimer les figures, les desirs, et les passions des creatures raisonnables, Snyders le pouvoit pour les fruits et les animaux irraisonnables." -There is a stupendous blunder in the Life of Inigo Jones. He is made sole architect of St. Paul's Cathedral as it now appears, and the volume is dated 1759!

Dec. 13. Began the second volume of Davies's Dramatic Miscellanies. The dramatic anecdotes they contain are infinitely amusing, and the particular strictures and critiques appear in general just and happy. We see nothing here of the Tom Davies whom Boswell has commemorated; but instead of it, an acute and elegant judge of dramatic talent, both in the GENT. MAG. VOL. VII.

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