But grieve not o'er its broken strings, Nor think its soul hath died, While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings, As once o'er Avon's side;-- While gentle summer sheds her bloom, And dewy blossoms wave, Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb And Nelly's nameless grave. Thou glorious island of the sea! Though wide the wasting flood That parts our distant land from thee, We claim thy generous blood. Nor o'er thy far horizon springs One hallowed star of fame. But kindles, like an angel's wings, Our western skies in flame! CHAPTER IX. NAMING THE NEW MAGAZINE. In the year 1857, Mr. Phillips, of the firm of Phillips & Sampson, undertook the publication in Boston, of a new literary magazine. They were fortunate in securing James Russell Lowell as editor, and one condition he made upon accepting the office was, that his friend, Doctor Holmes, should be one of the chief contributors. It was the latter, also, who was called upon to name the new magazine. Thus was the _Atlantic Monthly_ launched upon the great sea of literature--a periodical that has never lost its first high prestige. When Doctor Holmes sat down to write his first article for the new magazine, he remembered that some twenty-five years before, he had begun a series of papers for a certain _New England Magazine_, published in Boston, by J. T. & E. Buckingham, with the title of _Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_. Curious, as he says, to try the experiment of shaking the same bough again and finding out if the ripe fruit were better or worse than the early wind-falls, he took the same title for his new articles. "The man is father to the boy that was," he adds, "and I am my own son, as it seems to me, in those papers of the _New England Magazine_." To show the reader some family traits of this "young autocrat," we quote from these earlier articles the following fine extracts: "When I feel inclined to read poetry, I take down my dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The author may arrange the gems effectively, but their shape and lustre have been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me the finest simile from the whole range of imaginative writing, and I will show you a single word which conveys a more profound, a more accurate, and a more eloquent analogy.