268 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



BEAUTY. 



Under this expresstte title has th 

 author of " Silent Love" — the best of all 

 loves— produced "a poem." Clad in a neat 

 and modest garb, it sings eloquently and 

 sweetly of the goddess in whose praises we 

 would all gladly join ; for " Beauty" is every- 

 where. 



"We imagine the author to be young. We 

 will therefore kindly give him a passing 

 hint, to revise carefully everything he 

 commits to paper before it sees the light of 

 day. At page 40, he speaks of Adam's 

 helpmate, Eve, being " sculptured" by his 

 Lord. This implies effort, and is therefore 

 as incorrect as unpoetical. A slight 

 revision will set this and other little matters 

 straight in a future edition. We subjoin 

 one or two random extracts. 



All things are beautiful ! "lis bliss to see 



A living landscape with a canvass free ! 



No stinted laws, no trite artistic rule, 



No science learnt in wisdom's wisest school ; 



God is the painter, rainbow-tints the hues 



That give the lights and spread the distant 



blues ; 

 While towers and trees their perfect shadows 



And thus the dioramic pictures live ! 



We wander 'mong the wild umbrageous woods, 

 Threading our path among their solitudes — 

 The grass beneath our feet is full of life ; 

 Myriads of insects, in harmonious strife, 

 Fulfil their little errand on the earth 

 More punctually than man of lordly birth, 

 Rearing great cities with more care and skill 

 Than architect e'er did, or ever will ! 



We launch our yacht and sail the sparkling lake ; 

 What varied feelings in our breasts awake ! 

 The fluttering sails above, the waves below, 

 The heath-clad mountains moving as we go ! 

 The fairy islands pebbled round and round, 

 Like little floating worlds of hallowed ground ; 

 The sporting lambkins bleating on the hill, 

 And grandeur all around supinely still ! 



A ship, by gentle breezes onward led — 

 With all her snow-white canvass proudly spread — 

 Gracefully bending on the swelling sea, 

 With pennon waving from her topmast free, 

 Is surely Beauty. As she glides along — 

 Perhaps we hear the stalwart sailor's song ; 

 But while upon the beach we fondly stray, 

 Both song and vessel, dream-like, melt away ! 



Now turn we to the scenes in busy life — 

 Man elbowing man, amid the anxious strife ; 

 The feverish eye, the half-exhausted frame, 

 In gathering gold, to earn a transient name ; 

 This too, when age and riches bear them down ; 

 ! why has man so avaricious grown ? 

 E'en while they count their idol, beauteous gold ! 

 Death calls and lays them senseless in the mould. 



What is more lovely than the babe at rest ? 

 Lvin^ in cherub-laughter, loosely dress'd, 

 Within its curtain'd cradle, fair and soft, 

 With little dimpled fingers spread aloft, 

 As if it stretched those rounded, dimpled arms, 

 Enraptured by some unseen angel's charms, 

 All yet unspotted by disease or care ; — 

 Sweet Innocence ! how beautiful and fair ! 

 ***** 



All things are beautiful! Children at play, 

 'Mid garden-grounds, where sparkling waters 



stray ; 

 Where bees and butterflies companions seem, 

 Sporting together in the summer beam ; 

 Laughing and leaping, under shady trees, 

 Or lying on the earth in full-length 'd ease ; 

 Or chasing young companions round and round 

 The stately bowers that decorate the ground ! 



0, joyous childhood, unsuspicious, fair, 

 Stranger to ennui, heartlessness, and care : 

 What all the fears of life to such as thee ? 

 The world is yet a marvellous mystery ! 

 No vanish'd hopes, no wild, ambitious schemes ; 

 No spectral horrors haunt thy midnight dreams ; 

 No dread of waking, ere the dawn of day, 

 To grief, bereavements, troubles, or dismay ! 



The moral of this book is excellent, and 

 the author's aim deserves our warmest 

 commendation. He would have all the 

 world happy, and he has done his best to 

 make them so. 



'TIS TWENTY YEARS SINCE ! 



There are some quaint remarks in one 

 of James's novels, that please us vastly. 

 There is so much truth in them ! 



Whilst speaking about dates and dis- 

 tances, he says: — 



A frequent question with us is, " How long is 

 it ago?" The reply should be, in many cases, 

 " Oh, a long while ; long enough for young men 

 to grow old, and for old men to wither and rot. 

 Some twenty years ago or more. Lack-a-day, 

 how few twenties there are in life ! Twenty and 

 twenty are forty, and twenty are sixty ; how few 

 see the fourth twenty ! Who sees the fifth ? 



The first begins in the infant, with a passion 

 for milk — all mouth and no wit — and ends in the 

 youth with a love for sweet ankles and for cherry 

 lips ; all hearts and no brains. The second starts 

 on his course like a swallow catching insects, 

 and ends like a slough-hound upon the track of a 

 deer : ambition flies before and distances him still. 

 Then begins another twenty, with the hard brain, 

 and the hard heart ; your man of manifold expe- 

 riences, who finds no pleasure in pippins, and is 

 mailed against the dart of a dark eye. He must 

 have solid goods, forsooth, and so chooses gold, 

 which will not decay ; hut, good faith, it matters 

 little whether it be the possession which decays, 

 or the possessor, — whether the gilded coin rots, or 

 the fingers that clutch it : the two part company 

 all the same. Then comes the fourth twenty, 

 often begun, and seldom ended ; and we go 

 creeping backward, as if we would fain run away 



