ress.

II.
The blind their eyes, that laugh with light, un-

close; Love Thee! oh, clad in human lowliness, And babes, unchid, Thy garment's hem caIn whom each heart its mortal kindred knows, Our flesh, our form, our tears, our pains, our I see Thee doom'd by bitterest pangs to woes;

die, A fellow-wanderer o'er earth's wilderness! Up the sad hill, with willing footsteps move, Love Thee! whose every word but breathes With scourge, and taunt, and wanton agony;

to bless!

While the cross nods, in hideous gloom, above, Through Thee, from long-seald lips, glad lan- Though all

even there

be radiant Deity! guage flows; Speechless I gaze, and my whole soul is love!

Ebenezer Elliott.ward am 17. März 1781 zu Masbro, einem Dorfe in der Nähe von Sheffield geboren. Er hat dasselbe nie verlassen und lebt daselbst als Schmied, nebenbei einen Eisenhandel treibend. Seine Bildung verdankt er sich selbst durch anhaltende Lectüre. Seine Gedichte erschienen gesammelt in drei Bänden, London 1835.

Elliott wird gewöhnlich the Corn-Law Rhymer genannt, weil er in einer Sammlung Poesieen, welche unter dem Titel Corn-Law-Rhymes im Jahre 1832 an das Licht trat, heftig und mit grosser Kraft die Sache des durch die englischen zum Vortheil der Landbesitzer bestehenden Korngesetze unterdrückten Volkes führte. Hier wie in allen seinen politischen Gedichten ist er schroff, hart und unversöhnlich voll Hass gegen die Bevorzugten und Alles von der schwärzesten Seite auffassend. Im Allgemeinen aber besitzt er tiefes Gefühl, reiche Naturanschauung, Phantasie und seltene Herrschaft über die Sprache und schliesst, obwohl nur ein Naturdichter, sich Männern wie Crabbe, Wordsworth, Cowper und Burns als ein würdiger und reichbegabter Genosse an.

The Wonders of the Lane.
Strong climber of the mountain's side,

Though thou the vale disdain,
Yet walk with me where hawthorns hide

The wonders of the lane.
High o'er the rushy springs of Don

The stormy gloom is rollid;
The moorland hath not yet put on

His purple, green, and gold.
But here the titling spreads his wing,

Where dewy daisies gleam;
And here the sun-flower of the spring

Burns bright in morning's beam.
To mountain winds the famish'd fox

Complains that Sol is slow,
O'er headlong steeps and gushing rocks

His royal robe to throw.
But here the lizard seeks the sun,

Here coils in light the snake;

And here the fire-tuft hath begun

Its beauteous nest to make.
Oh, then, while hums the earliest bee

Where verdure fires the plain,
Walk thou with me, and stoop to see

The glories of the lane!
For , oh, I love these banks of rock,

This roof of sky and tree,
These tufts, where sleeps the gloaming clock,

And wakes the earliest bee!
As spirits from eternal day

Look down on earth secure;
Gaze thou, and wonder, and survey

A world in miniature;
A world not scorn'd by Him who made

Even weakness by his might;
But solemn in his depth of shade,

And splendid in his light.
Light! not alone on clouds afar

O'er storm-loy'd mountains spread,

The violet by the moss'd grey stone

Hath laid her weary head;
But thou wild bramble! back dost bring,

In all their beauteous power,
The fresh green days of life's fair spring,

And boyhood's blossomy hour.
Scorn'd bramble of the brake! once more

Thou bid'st me be a boy,
To gad with thee the woodlands o'er,

In freedom and in joy.

L a m b.

Charles Lamb ward am 11. Februar 1775 in London geboren, erhielt seine wissenschaftliche Bildung im Christ's Hospital, bekleidete darauf ein Amt bei dem South-Sea-House und später bei der ostindischen Compagnie. Im Jahre 1825 wurde er mit einer ansehnlichen Pension in den Ruhestand versetzt. Er starb am 27. December 1831.

Lamb's Schriften kamen zuerst gesammelt heraus London 1818, 2 Bde in 8. Dann nach seinem Tode Prose-Works, London 1836, 3 Bde in 8.; Poetical Works, London 1836, 1 Bd in 8. So vorzüglich Lamb auch als Prosaist sich zeigte, so haben wir hier uns doch nur mit der letzteren Sammlung zu beschäftigen. Sie sind meist lyrischen Inhaltes, mehr tändelnd als begeistert, aber voll inniger Zartheit und Anmuth, Beweise jener hohen eigenthümlichen Liebenswürdigkeit, welche von Allen, die je mit ihm in Berührung standen, auf das Lebhafteste gerühmt wird. Sprache und Weise derselben nähern sich mehr den Dichtern aus der Periode der Elisabeth als denen der Ge vart, aber gerade das verleiht den Poesieen Lamb's einen ganz besonderen Reiz.

My sprightly neighbour, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore

Some summer morning,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet fore-warning?

'Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.
No more I hear her footsteps in the shade:
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wandering, where, in happier
days,

I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid.
I passed the little cottage which she lov'd,
The cottage which did once my all contain;
It spake of days which ne'er must come again,
Spake to my heart, and much my heart was
moved.

"Now fair befal thee, gentle maid!" said I,
And from the cottage turned me with a sigh.

Sonnets.

Was it some sweet device of faëry

That mocked my steps with many a lonely glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair hair'd maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,
Impregning with delights the charmed air,
Enlighted up the semblance of a smile

In those fine eyes? methought they spake the
while

Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair
To drop the murdering knife, and let go by
His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade
Still court the footsteps of the fair hair'd maid?
Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh?
While I forlorn do wander reckless where,
And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.

Methinks how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind

On an Infant dying as soon as born.
I saw where in the shroud did lurk
A curious frame of Nature's work.
A flow'ret crushed in the bud,
Was in her cradle-coffin lying:
A nameless piece of babyhood,

Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:
So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb!
She did but ope an eye, and put

A clear beam forth, then straight up shut
For the long dark: ne'er more to see

Through glasses of mortality.

Riddle of destiny, who can show

What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?

Shall we say, that Nature blind

Check'd her hand, and changed her mind,
Just when she had exactly wrought
A finish'd pattern without fault?

Or lack'd she the Promethean fire

Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild eyed maid! Could she flag, or could she tire,
Beloved! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true love, or of friend forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gentle sort, on those who practise not
Or love or pity, though of woman born.

(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd)
That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure
Life of health, and days mature:
Woman's self in miniature!
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to make beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;
So in mercy left the stock,

And cut the branch; to save the shock

When last I roved these winding wood walks Of young years widow'd; and the pain,

green

Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet,
Oft times would Anna seek the silent scene,

When single state comes back again
To the lone man, who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimed life?