In his description of nature, and especially of night, the stars, the moon, the heavens, our poet often breaks upon us with a truly noble and poetic imagination:-- "How strangely fair, Yon round still star, which looks half-suffering from, And half-rejoicing in its own strong fire; Making itself a lonelihood of light." Of the moon he is a most permissible idolator:-- "See, The moon is up, it is the dawn of night. Stands by her side one bold, bright, steady star-- Star of her heart-- ... Mother of stars! the Heavens look up to thee: They shine the brighter but to hide thy waning; They wait and wane for thee to enlarge thy beauty; They give thee all their glory night by night; Their number makes not less thy loneliness Nor loveliness." This is of the full moon: what follows is addressed to her when she passes as the young moon, and brings her fresh bright crescent of light into the sky:-- "Young maiden moon! just looming into light-- I would that aspect never might be changed; Nor that fine form, so spirit-like, be spoiled With fuller light. Oh! keep that brilliant shape; Keep the delicious honour of thy youth, Sweet sister of the sun, more beauteous thou Than he sublime. Shine on, nor dread decay. It may take meaner things; but thy bright look, Smiling away on immortality, Assures it us----God will not part with thee, Fair ark of light, and every blessedness!" Here are some scattered fragments which pleased us very much, but which cannot be introduced under any formal classification. Describing his desertion of his first love, Angela, Festus says,-- "It was thus: I said we were to part, but she said nothing. There was no discord--it was music ceased-- Life's thrilling, bounding, bursting joy." Of books, he says,-- "Worthy books Are not companions--they are solitudes; We lose ourselves in them, and all our cares." Here is a charming picture,-- "Before us shone the sun. The angel waved her hand ere she began, As bidding earth be still. The birds ceased singing, And the trees breathing, and the lake smoothed down Each shining wrinklet, and the wind drew off. _Time leant him o'er his scythe, and, listening, wept._" Speaking of men of genius, he says,-- "Men whom we built our love round, like an arch Of triumph, as they pass us on their way To glory and to immortality." The vague aspirations of one living in his ideas is thus expressed,-- "I cannot think but thought On thought springs up, illimitably, round, As a great forest sows itself; but here There is nor ground nor light enough to live. * * * * *