then my own;
Endearing her for whom they fell,
And Thee, for having loved so well.

But now no more--nor let a Brother,
Louise, regretful see,
That still 'tis sorrow to another,
That he should happy be.
Those were, I trust, the only tears
That day shall cost through coming years.

Smile with us. Happy and light-hearted,
We three the time will while.
And, when sometimes a season parted,
Still think of us, and smile.
But come to us in gloomy weather;
We'll weep, when we must weep, together.

Now, what is the reason of the great difference between these extracts
and that from the _Star in the East_?--a difference which the earlier
date of the latter, so far from accounting for, only makes the more
extraordinary. In some instances, the interval of time is very short,
but at all events more effort and turgidness might have been expected
in the earlier poems, more simplicity and care and a more subdued tone
in the later. We suspect a reason, which both poets and poetical
readers are too apt to leave out of sight. There is a want of _truth_
in the _Star in the East_--not that the author is otherwise than quite
in earnest--but his earnestness seems rather an artificial glow, to
which he has been worked up by reading and conversation of a
particular cast, than the overflowing warmth of his own natural
feelings, kindled by circumstances in which he was himself placed. In
a word, when he writes of the success of the Bible Society, and the
supposed amelioration of the world in consequence, he writes from
report and fancy only; but when he speaks of a happy home, of kindly
affections, of the comforts which piety can administer in
disappointment and sorrow; either we are greatly mistaken, or he
speaks from real and present experience. The poetical result is what
the reader has seen:

----mens onus reponit, et peregrino
Labore fessi venimus Larem ad nostrum--

We turn gladly from our fairy voyage round the world to refresh
ourselves with a picture, which we feel to be drawn from the life, of
a happy and innocent fireside. Nor is it, in the slightest degree,
derogatory to an author's talent to say that he has failed,
comparatively, on that subject of which he must have known
comparatively little.

Let us here pause a moment to explain what is meant when we speak of
such prospects as are above alluded to, being shadowy and unreal in
respect of what