And now those waterfalls the ebbing river
Twice every day creates on either side,
Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred
grots they shiver,

In grass arch'd channels to the sun de-
nied;

High flaps in sparkling blue the farheard crow,

The silvered flats gleam frostily below, Suddenly drops the gull, and breaks the glassy tide."

We come now to one of the prettiest poems in the book, namely, the ode "To the Dandelion"; no impartial person capable of distinguishing merit, will read this gem of poetical art unmoved, or willingly deny the title of Poet to the author of its sunny imagery, graceful language, and original conception.

"Studies for two Heads" is graphic, and the portraits are taken in that spirit of analysis, and with that great knowledge of human nature, which Lowell constantly evinces. Metaphysical beauty, religious confidence, and philanthropy, lend their important influence in adorning the "Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing," and the "Fable for Critics" establishes the author's right to membership in that awful association. We shall now present the reader with "The Changeling," the last and perhaps the most beautiful of all the extracts we have taken from Lowell's poetry. It is truly a charming piece, highly imaginative, simple and pathetic, and invested with a nameless grace and etherial fascination.

"THE CHANGELING.

I had a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently backward

To the Heavenly Father's knee,
That I, by the force of nature,
Might in some dim wise divine
The depths of his infinite patience
To this wayward soul of mine.

I know not how others saw her,

But to me she was wholly fair,

And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,

And as many changes took,

As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples

On the yellow bed of a brook.

To what can I liken her smiling
Upon me, her kneeling lover,

How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
And dimpled her wholly over,
Till her outstretched hands smiled also,
And I almost seemed to see
The very heart of her mother

Sending sun through her veins to me!

She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
And it hardly seemed a day,

When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away;

Or perhaps those heavenly Zincali
But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage-door,
My little bird used her wings.

But they left in her stead a Changeling,
A little angel child,

That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled:
When I awake in the morning, I see it
Where she always used to lie,
And I feel as weak as a violet
Alone 'neath the awful sky;

As weak, yet as trustful also;
For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful Nature
Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
Rain falls, suns rise and set,
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
A poor little violet.

This child is not mine as the first was,

I cannot sing it to rest,

I cannot lift it up fatherly

And bless it upon my breast;

Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to,
Transfigures it's golden hair.

In N. P. Willis, the author of "Pencillings by the Way," we have another Poet, who, like Longfellow, possesses elegance and beauty of expression to such a degree, that all his other qualifications as a Poet, become overshadowed by their pre-eminence; and we are furnished by him with another potent argument against the insinuations of those who cannot behold anything in America which bears the slightest resemblance to refinement. This artistic elaboration is no where more apparent than in his Scriptural Poems, which are particularly remarkable for high polish, and incomparable smoothness. Willis is, however, deficient in originality, by which he is debarred from rivalling some of his more creative brethren in the arena of thought. If a palm should be allotted for elegant taste, and rythmical excellence, it may not be too much to say that this author would enter the lists, with a fair prospect of becoming the successful competitor for the prize. Wit of a very refined and elevated order, is another peculiarity of this Poet. His "Lady Jane," (which has a marked resemblance to "Don Juan,") has many brilliant passages, pregnant with satirical humour. Added to these, Willis possesses a fine imagination, great taste, and a sound judgment. In common with all the transatlantic bards, he is somewhat diffuse, but " the wheat is much more plentiful than the tares," and the fault is easily pardoned for the sake of his many beauties. "The healing of the Daughter of Jairus," is written in a strain of chaste and exquisite melody, displaying to very great perfection the rich and wide imagination of the author, his consummate taste and fluency. The lines which follow have all the "faint exquisite music of a dream."

"Like a form

Of matchless sculpture in her sleep she lay,
The linen vesture folded on her breast,
And over it her white transparent hands,
The blood still rosy in their tapering nails,
A line of pearl ran through her parted lips,
And in her nostrils, spiritually thin,
The breathing curve was mockingly like
life;

And round beneath the faintly tinted skin
Ran the light branches of the azure veins;
And on her cheek the jet lash overlay,
Matching the arches pencill'd on her brow,
Her hair had been unbound, and falling
loose

Upon her pillow, hid her small round ears
In curls of glossy blackness, and about

Her polished neck, scarce touching it, they
hung

Like airy shadows floating as they slept.
'Twas heavenly beautiful. The Saviour
raised

Her hand from off her bosom, and spread
out

The snowy fingers in his palm, and said,

Maiden! arise-and suddenly a flush Shot o'er her forehead, and along her lips, And through her cheek the rallied colour

ran;

And the still outline of her graceful form
Stirred in the linen vesture, and she clasp'd
The Saviour's hand, and fixing her dark
eyes

Full on his beaming countenance-arose !"

The Leper" is another instance of this easy flowing grace and rich melody; the language is exquisite and beautiful.

The same may be said of the Sacrifice of Abraham, which is characterized by a certain dignity, nearly akin to sublimity. These extracts will serve to exemplify another valuable peculiarity of this author, which is, the very great power he can exercise in eliciting our sympathies. He makes us enamoured of whatever he pleases, and invests his subjects with marvellous fascinations; "Thoughts while making the Grave of a new-born Child," will be generally received as an admirable example of the most exquisite tenderness, united with moral beauty of an exalted kind; true and deep love of nature are evident in all its passages; it merits introduction.

A love-Oh God! it seems so-that must flow

Far as thon fleest, and 'twixt heaven and me, Henceforward, be a bright and yearning chain

Drawing me after thee! And so, farewell! 'Tis a harsh world, in which affection knows No place to treasure up its loved and lost, But the foul grave! Thou who so late wast sleeping,

Warm in the close fold of a mother's heart, Scarce from her breast a single pulse receiving,

But it was sent thee with some tender
thought,

How can I leave thee here! Alas for man!
The herb in its humility may fall

And waste into the bright and genial air,
While we-by hands that minister'd in life
Nothing but love to us--are thrust away--
The earth flung in upon our just cold
bosonis,

And the warm sunshine trodden out for
ever!

Yet have I chosen for thy grave, my child,
A bank where I have lain in summer hours,
And thought how little it would seem like
death

To whisper the same peace to her who lies, Robb'd of her child and lonely. 'Tis the work

Of many a dark hour, and of many a prayer.
To bring the heart back from an infant
gone,

Hope must give o'er, and busy fancy blot
The images from an the silent rooms,
And every sight and sound familiar to her,
Undo its sweetest link- and so at last
The fountain-that, once struck, must flow
for ever-

Will hide and waste in silence. When the
smile

Steals to her pallid lip again, and spring
Wakens the buds above thee, we will come,
And, standing by thy music-haunted grave,
Look on each other cheerfully, and say:
A child that we have loved is gone to heaven,
And by this gate of flowers she pass'd away.”“

"Parrhasius," a poem too long for insertion, is written in a picturesque and graphic way; eminently dramatic, it places the Captive before our eyes; we behold his agonized features, and listen with horror to his groans. Added to these it affords us an admirable instance of the fearful exaggerations which follow an ill-directed ambition. The rich and cultivated imagination of Willis, his melody, delicate, and glowing colouring, and earnestness pervading all, are most happily associated in his beautiful Poem "To Ermengarde."

are very

The charming lines called "Spirit-Whispers," classical in their allegorical meaning, and chaste beauty.

"SPIRIT-WHISPERS.

Wake! poet, wake!-the moon has burst
Through gates of stars and dew,
And, wing'd by prayer since evening nurs'd,
Has fled to kiss the steeples first,

And now stoops low to you!
Oh, poet of the loving eye,

For you is dress'd this morning sky!

Oh, poet of the pen enchanted!

A lady sits beneath a tree!

At last the flood for which she panted-
The wild words for her anguish wanted,
Have gushed in song to thee!

Her dark curls sweep her knees to pray:'God bless the poet far away!'

King of the heart's deep mysteries!

Your words have wings like lightning
wove!

This hour, o'er hills and distant seas,
They fly like flower-seeds on the breeze,
And sow the world with love!
King of a realin without a throne,
Ruled by resistless tears alone!"

Our next quotation conveys the expression of the effect produced on the bard by the memory of his mother; it is delineated with a gigantic force which seems like inspiration mingled withal with child-like tenderness.

"BETTER MOMENTS.

My mother's voice! how often creep
Its accents on my lonely hours!
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer
While leaping pulses madly fly,
But in the still unbroken air,

Her gentle tone comes stealing by--
And years, and sin, and folly flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.

The evening hours, the birds, the flowers,
The starlight, moonlight-all that's meet
For heav'n in this lost world of ours-

Remind me of her teachings sweet.
My heart is harder, and perhaps

My thoughtlessness hath drunk up tears,
And there's a mildew in the lapse

Of a few swift and chequer'd years-
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.

I have been out at eventide

Beneath a moonlight sky of spring,
When earth was garnish'd like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing-
When bursting leaves, and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,
And all that make the pulses pass

With wilder fleetness, throng'd the
night-

When all was beauty-then have I

With friends on whom my love is flung, Like myrrh on winds of Araby,

Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung:

And when the beautiful spirit there
Flung over me its golden chain,
My mother's voice came on the air
Like the light dropping of the rain,
And resting on some silver star,

The spirit of a bended knee,
I've poured out low and fervent prayer
That our eternity might be

To rise in heaven, like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light.

I have been on the dewy hills,

When night was stealing from the dawn, And mist was on the waking rills,

And tints were delicately drawn

In the grey East-when birds were waking
With a low murmur in the trees,
And melody by fits was breaking

Upon the whisper of the breeze-
And this when I was forth, perchance
As a worn reveller from the dance-
And when the sun sprang gloriously
And freely up, and hill and river

Were watching upon wave and tree
The arrows from his subtle quiver-
I say a voice has thrill'd me then,
Heard on the still and rushing light,
Or, creeping from the silent glen,
Like words from the departing night,
Hath stricken me, and I have press'd
On the wet grass my fever'd brow,
And pouring forth the earliest
First prayer, with which I learn'd to bow,
Have felt my mother's spirit rush
Upon me as in by-past years,

And, yielding to the blessed gush

Of my ungovernable tears,

Have risen up-the gay, the wild-
Subdued and humble as a child."

In the pretty Lyric which immediately ensues, we are furnished with a terse and elegant specimen of descriptive beauty, characterized by comprehensiveness of expression: it conveys

more to the mind than if it were decked out in diffuse and

elaborated imagery.

"MAY.

Oh, the merry May has pleasant hours,
And dreamily they glide,

As if they floated like the leaves
Upon a silver tide;

The trees are full of crimson buds,
And the woods are full of birds,
And the waters flow to music,

Like a tune with pleasant words.
The verdure of the meadow-land
Is creeping to the hills,
The sweet blue-bosom'd violets
Are blowing by the rills;
The lilac has a load of balm

For every wind that stirs,

And the larch stands green and beautiful
Amid the sombre firs.

There's perfume upon every wind-
Music in every tree-

Dews for the moisture-loving flowers-
Sweets for the sucking bee;

The sick come forth for the healing south,
The young are gathering flowers,

And life is a tale of poetry,

That is told by golden hours.

It must be a true philosophy,
That the spirit when set free
Still lingers about its olden home,
In the flower and the tree,

For the pulse is stirr'd as with voices heard
In the depth of the shady grove,

And while lonely we stray through the

fields away,

The heart seems answering love."

"On seeing a beautiful Boy at play," possesses much finish, and contains bursts of rapture equalling the outpourings of the loftiest world poets; to use the words of the poem itself, it is "like a painter's fine conception."

"ON SEEING A BEAUTIFUL BOY AT PLAY.

Down the green slope he bounded. Raven curls

From his white shoulders by the winds were swept,

And the clear colour of his sunny cheek
Was bright with motion. Through his open
lips

Shone visibly a delicate line of pearl,
Like a white vein within a rosy shell,
And his dark eye's clear brilliance, as it lay
Beneath his lashes, like a drop of dew
Hid in the moss, stole out as covertly
As starlight from the edging of a cloud,
I never saw a boy so beautiful.

His step was like the stooping of a bird,
And his limbs melted into grace like things
Shaped by the wind of summer. He was

like

A painter's fine conception-such an one
As he would have of Ganymede, and weep
Upon his pallet that he could not win

The vision to his easel. Who could not
paint

The young and shadowless spirit? Who
could chain

The sparkling gladness that lives,
Like a glad fountain, in the eye of light,
With an unbreathing pencil? Nature's gift
Has nothing that is like it. Sun and stream,

And the new leaves of June, and the young
lark

That flees away into the depths of heaven,
Lost in his own wild music, and the breath
Of spring-time, and the summer eve, and

noon

In the cool autumn, are like fingers swept
Over sweet-toned affections-but the joy
That enters to the spirit of a child
Is deep as his young heart: his very breath,
The simple sense of being is enough
To ravish him, and like a thrilling touch,
He feels each moment of his life go by.

Beautiful, beautiful childhood! with a joy
That like a robe is palpable, and flung
Out by your every motion! delicate bud
Of the immortal flower that will unfold
And come to its maturity in heaven!
I weep your earthly glory. 'Tis a light
Lent to the new born spirit that goes out
With the first idle wind It is the leaf
Fresh flung upon the river, that will dance
Upon the wave that stealeth out its life,
Then sink of its own heaviness. The face
Of the delightful earth will to your eye
Grow dlm; the fragrance of the many
flowers

Be noticed not, and the beguiling voice
Of nature in her gentleness will be
To manhood's senseless ear inaudible,
I sigh to look upon thy face, young boy!"

Eschewing all sensual gratification, and all the syren persuasions of ambition, the Poet exhibits in "The table of Emerald," the possession of a well organized mind, and an elevated and highly intellectual taste. The "Extract from a Poem" is philosophical in its tendency: defending the honorable ambi