The rising moon has hid the stars Her level rays like golden bars Lie on the landscape green With shadows brown between. Love lifts the boughs whose shadows deep Are life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep, And kisses the closed eyes Of him who slumbering lies. Friends my soul with joy remembers! How like quivering flames they start, When I fan the living embers On the hearth-stone of my heart. Hearest thou voices on the shore, That our ears perceive no more Deafened by the cataract’s roar? And from the sky, serene and far, A voice fell like a falling star. Some of these passages cannot be fully appreciated apart from the context—but we address these who have read the book. Of the translations we have not spoken. It is but right to say, however, that “The Luck of Edenhall” is a far finer poem, in every respect, than any of the original pieces. Nor would we have our previous observations misunderstood. Much as we admire the genius of Mr. Longfellow, we are fully sensible of his many errors of affectation and imitation. His artistical skill is great, and his ideality high. But his conception of the _aims_ of poesy _is all wrong_; and this we shall prove at some future day—to our own satisfaction, at least. His didactics are all _out of place_. He has written brilliant poems—by accident; that is to say when permitting his genius to get the better of his conventional habit of thinking—a habit deduced from German study. We do not mean to say that a didactic moral may not be well made the _under-current_ of a poetical thesis; but that it can never be well put so obtrusively forth, as in the majority of his compositions. There is a young American who, with ideality not richer than that of Longfellow and with less artistical knowledge, has yet composed far truer poems, merely through the greater propriety of his themes. We allude to James Russel Lowell; and in the number of this Magazine for last month, will be found a ballad entitled “Rosaline,” affording excellent exemplification of our meaning. This composition has unquestionably its defects, and the very defects which are never perceptible in Mr. Longfellow—but we sincerely think that _no American poem equals it_ in the higher elements of song. ----- [5] We allude here chiefly to the “David” of Coëtlogon, and _only_ to the “_Chûte d’un Ange_” of Lamartine. [6] C. Julia Nyberg, author of the “Dikter von Euphrosyne.” * * * * * _The Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of Henry Lord Brougham, to which is Prefixed a Sketch of his Character. Two volumes. Lea and Blanchard._