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554 
And as I twine the mournful wreath, 
I'll weave a melancholy song, 
And sweet the strain shall be, and long, 
The melody of death. 
“* Come fun’ral flow’r ! who lov’st to dwell 
With the pale corse in lonely toinb, 
And throw across the desert gloom 
A sweet decaying smell. 
Come press my lips, and lie with me 
Beneath the lowly Aldertree, —__ 
And we will sleep a pleasant sleep, 
And not acare shall dare intrude 
To break the marble solitude, 
So peaceful, and so deep. 
«« And hark! the wind-god as he flies 
Moans hollow in the forest trees, 
And sailing on the gusty breeze 
Mysterious music dies. 
POETRY. 
Sweet flow’r that requiem wild is mine, 
It warns me to the lonely shrine, 
The cold turf alfar of the dead ; 
My grave shall be in yon lone spot, 
Where as I lie by all forgot, 
A are ee thou wilt o’er my ashes 
shed.” 
This is a most interesting poem. We 
know no production of so young a poet 
that can be compared to it, and when 
we say this, we remember Cowley and 
Pope and Chatterton. 
The frequent allusions to ill health 
throughout this volume, give us a me- 
lancholy presentiment which we sincerely 
hope may be groundless. 
Art. VIII. Select Poems ; by the Author of Indian Antiquities. 8vo. pp. 120. 
HAPPY is the poet whose learning, or 
whose genius, enables him in an age 
when smoothness of numbers and cor- 
rectness of versification, even when com- 
bined with justness of sentiment and ele. 
gance of expression, can confer little dis- 
tinction on one of .the thousand votaries 
of the muses, to striké out a new path, 
and seize the envied prize of* novelty 
and originality. This happiness is Mr. 
Maurice’s in a considerable degree. The 
Crisis, a poem, addressed to Mr. Pitt, on 
the threatened French invasion in 1798, 
escapes the stigma of triteness even on 
the hacknied subjects of English freedom 
and heroism, and French ambition and 
atrocity, by the Vigour of its diction, the 
vividness of its painting, and the glow of 
its colouring. ‘The complimentary ad- 
dress to Mr. Pitt with which it opens, 
is most happily wound up in a noble 
simile. 
- &¢ For others let the fragrant incense burn, 
Wafted from adulation’s flaming urn ; 
Unaw'd by menaces, unwarp'd by praise, 
Proud sterling virtue seeks no borrow'd bays ; 
While Genius, tow’ring onits throne of light, 
Shines, in its own transcendent lustre, bright ; 
The flame it feels through kindred bosoms 
spreads, 
And wide the intellectual radiance sheds, 
As yon bright orb thatlights the distant pole, 
And warms the glitt’ring spheres that round 
it roll, 
Exhaustless, flames with undiminish’d beam, 
Nor iissesfrom its fount th’ immortal stream.” 
The apostrophe to the Egyptians, and 
exhortation to them to avenge the un- 
provoked attack of the French, is a pas- 
sage of great animation and picturesque 
beauty. But the poem to the memory 
of Sir William Jones, as the most charac- 
teristic of the volume, is the one which 
demands our most particular attention. 
The bard transports himself to the tomb 
of “ departed Genius,’”? on the distant 
shores of India, and after smiting “ the’ 
choral shell,” in a solemn and appro- 
priate symphony, ** the Genius of the” 
East” appears to him in a flood of glory. 
‘¢ Not that dire spectre, who, in later days, 
In Asia’s courts rears high her pageant 
shrine, ‘ 
Who spurus the martial plame, and loves'to 
blaze 
In waste ofdiamonds from Golconda’s mines 
Oh! not that bloated monster, stain’d with 
blood, 
Who on pale harams vents her murd’rous 
TAGE 5 
To screaming infants tends th’impoison'd food, 
And to the bow-string dooms enfeebled 
age: 
But she, of elder birth, whose righteous sway 
Asia’s undaunted sons exulting own'd, 
When liberty diffus’d her halcyon day, 
And yirtue rul’d the helm, with Cyrus 
thron’d.” 
This majestic female, after pouring 
forth a tribute of well-deserved applause 
to the memory of the deceased, proceeds 
to trace the progress of science from its 
first dawn on the mountains of Taurus, 
throughout the east, and at length to the 
western empire of Rome; branding, as 
she proceeds, all the mighty desolators 
of the earth who, in their turns, quench- 
ed in blood the sacred fire of learning, 
and involved the world in darkness ; and 
extolling their milder descendants under 
whose influence peaceful arts again floue 
rished, and the intellectual flame was re~ 
kindled. 
eee ee ee 
