Monthly Review of Literature. 207 



There, with white lilies starred, which told of hopes 



Reposing upon truth, lichens all-hued 



Its rocky margin streaked, and creeping plants 



Hung garlands round it, of an emerald green. 



Under its wave, fish, glistening on their course, 



Cross as the lightnings shot ; o'er it the bees 



Hummed with a grateful rapture as they worked, 



And all ephemeral things among the flowers 



Delighted in their lives, though short the gift. 



Vocal with birds, trees were dispersed above 



At graceful distances ; beneath, fleet deer, 



Far scattering with their horns the morning bloom, 



Came to the issuing stream, by obstacles 



Kindled, not hindered, as through opening vales, 



Herald of fruitful liberty, it ran. 



But all was uncongenial to Cain; 



The sweetness of the scene, where Love so spread 



Its signs of presence, only proved that state 



How desperate, such attractions could not heal. 



Alone, his wife and children unembraced, 



Next he essayed the forests, never pruned 



Since, quick as fountains, from the soil they burst ; 



Then edged with flowering brushwood, and within 



By wild vines interlaced, in snaky folds. 



Some fifty years had fed them ; and their ranks, 



Tier after tier, then nodded on the hills, 



And mocked at human empire : theirs the shade, 



Where melancholy grandeur slept unseen 



In secrecy, no beams from noon-day suns 



Permitted, but in trembling passages. 



No rain from most impetuous showers, but such 



As stealthily in black bright currents ran, 



Scooping the rugged branches. There Cain shunned 



The pure light of the sky, but not his mind : 



In gloom most dense his torturer that remained." 



Mr. Yorke, we suspect, is not wholly unacquainted with the muse of 

 Pollock. Let Icarus beware of imitating Daedalus. Verbum sapienti. 



The Ocean Queen and other Poems, by NEMO. Post 8vo. pp. 192. 



Sherwood. 



We have seldom met with a more wretched attempt at versification than the 

 gilt-edged volume before us. If the reader can conceive a would-be poet 

 sans fancy, sanx imagination, sans knowledge of life and character, sans know- 

 ledge of rhythm, sans knowledge of grammar, sans every thing in short, that 

 is requisite to make a poet and a scholar, he has NEMO before him. Ex ni- 

 hilo nihil Jit, it has been said. How the verses got into print, the list of sub- 

 scribers, the townsfellows and neighbours of the poet laureate of Chatham, 

 will abundantly show. Be assured however, learned Theban, that they will 

 not do for the London market. 



We extract the prefatory stanzas, which may be taken as a sample of the 

 whole: 



LABEN with Fancy's half-blown blossomings, 



And buds (not "buds of promise" would they were), 



My fledgeling Muse's votive offerings, 

 Fruits all unripe, selected with no care, 



