PART v. MADEIRA POETIC. 65 



While for himself, at the very same time, he could only 



add- 



" But I, whom God hath summoned, here i' the core 



Feel life ebb gently, ere first manhood flee, 

 And walk, deep musing, on the solemn shore 

 That girds the Ocean of Eternity." 



" His filial arm its shield advanced 

 In time to save a father's life ; 

 But to his eye the missile glanced, 



And left Camdens maimed for life. 

 ' Oh my son ! my grief is tender,' 

 Sighed Hesperia's brave defender. 

 ' What ! an eye to save from dying 



Him from whom my life I drew ?' 

 Said the warrior-bard replying : 

 'Bounteous Nature gave me two !'" 



And again, as illustrative of his philosophy, and his own sad experiences 

 taken improvingly to his soul 



" A bubble on the topmost wave is Man, 



A moment shining 'mid tumultuous strife, 

 And bursting when his little course isj*an 

 Upon the tear-replenished sea of life. 



" Tis sickness wakes him from complacent dreams 



To thoughts repelled with smiles by haughty health ; 

 'Tis sickness prompts to higher, holier themes, 

 And weans from the absorbing world by stealth." 



Is there something in the Madeiran climate inclining to poetry, or does 

 some higher impulse successively lead poetical souls by nature, to dwell for 

 a while in those halcyon gardens of flowers ? For now we have another little 

 book of verse presented to us from thence. By a lady on this occasion ; and 

 so eminently taking up the religious vein, and carrying it forward, from the 

 vague generalities which it so seldom passes in ordinary poetry, up to its 

 precise applications in God's own history through Revealed Scripture, of 



F 



