Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Such was the dream or vision of Sir Launfal. We need hardly add that,
when he awoke from it, he exclaimed that the Holy Grail was already
found--bade his servants hang up his armour on the wall, and open his
gates to the needy and the poor.
We shall venture upon one more quotation before we quit Mr Lowell.
We must premise that we do not always mark by asterisks the omission
that we make, when that omission creates no obscurity whatever in the
passage. The following poem we take the liberty of abridging, and
we print it, without any interruption of this kind, in its abridged
form. In this form it will perhaps remind our readers of some of those
tender, simple, and domestic lyrics in which German poetry is so rich.
There is no other language from which so many beautiful poems might be
collected which refer to childhood, and the love of children, as from
the German. It has sometimes occurred to us that our poetesses, or fair
translators of poetry, might contrive a charming volume of such lyrics
on childhood.
THE CHANGELING.
"I had a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently onward
To the Heavenly Father's knee.
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.
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.
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.
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 its golden hair."
We have still a brief space for _Mr Holmes_. It is fit that, amongst
our list, there should be one representative of the comic muse. Mr
Holmes, however, is not always comic. Some of his serious pieces are
not without a certain manly pathos. Some, too, are of a quite didactic
character, and have the air of college exercises. But it is only a few
of his lighter pieces we should feel any disposition to quote, or refer
to. Mr Holmes portrays himself to us as a boon companion;--a physician
by profession, and one to whom poetry has been only an occasional
amusement--one of those choice spirits who can set the table in a roar,
and who can sing himself the good song that he indites. Such being the
case, we have only to lay down the critical pen to court amusement
ourselves, and conclude our paper by sharing with the reader a few
specimens of wit or humour.
Civilised life in New York, or Boston, seems to have the same
disagreeable accompaniments as with us--as witness.
THE MUSIC-GRINDERS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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