Lives one in all this scene below,
Where troubles stalk around,
Who from the very touch of woe
Has strange exemption found.

With spirits lighter than the play
Of moonlight on the wave,

A frame where health with even sway
Maintains the law she gave.

A mind in whose gigantic grasp

All science lives enrolled;

A memory whose tenacious clasp
Can all the past unfold.

A soul where blazing genius breaks
In visions from on high,

And ever thinking fancy wakes
Her world of ecstacy?

No! such exuberance of bliss
Was never in a world like this!

"Tis all a dream, a beau ideal---
Seldom imagined, never real;

By reason crushed, as when you stir
You break the filmy gossamer.

THE MANIAC.

MORAL reflections are not easily clothed in the smiling robes of poetry, because they possess neither the levity of its lighter graces, nor the pathos of its deeper tones. When they are grafted, however, upon a pathetic subject, they are capable of producing an admirable effect. The piety that arises from sympathy is of a much higher order than that which emanates from a cold sense of duty. We have seldom met with moral reflections so happily introduced, or which leave a more pleasing impression on the mind, than those which occur in the following lines. They render us pious, and so far from resisting the hallowed emotion, we yield to it with pleasure, an effect entirely arising from our sympathy with the Maniac, or rather from our fears of that mental anarchy to which our nature is exposed. The effect, however, would have been stronger had the reflections been grafted on the story of some particular maniac.-ED.

To see the human mind o'erturn'd,-- -
Its loftiest heights in ruin laid,

And reason's lamp, which brightly burn'd,
Obscur❜d or quench'd in frenzy's shade;

A sight like this may well awake
Our grief, our fear,---for nature's sake.

It is a painful, humbling thought
To know the empire of the mind,
With wit endow'd, with science fraught,
Is fleeting as the passing wind;
And that the richest boon of Heaven
To man is rather LENT than GIVEN.

To-day he sits on Reason's throne,
And bids his subject powers obey;
Thought, memory, will,all seem his own,
Come at his bidding, list his sway ;---
To-morrow from dominion hurl'd,
Madness pervades the mental world!

Yet think not, though forlorn and drear
The Maniac's doom,---his lot the worst ;
There is a suffering more severe

Than these sad records have rehears❜d :
"Tis his---whose virtue struggles still
In hopeless conflict with his will.

There are before whose mental eye

Truth has her chastest charms display'd,
But gaudier phantoms, fluttering by,
The erring mind have still betray'd;
"Till gathering clouds, in awful might,
Have quench'd each beam of heavenly light.

There are whose mental ear has heard

The "still small voice!" yet, prone to wrong, Have proudly, foolishly preferr'd

The sophist's creed, the syren's song ;-
And staked, upon a desperate throw,
Their hopes above,---their peace below.

There are, in short, whose days present
One constant scene of painful strife;

Who hourly for themselves invent

Fresh conflicts;---'till this dream of Life Has made their throbbing bosoms ache,

And yet, alas! they fear to wake.

With theirs compared, the Maniac's doom,
Though abject, must be counted blest;
His mind, though often veil'd in gloom,

At times may know a vacant rest:---
Not so while thought and conscience prey
Upon the heart which slights their sway.

O THOU! Whose cause they both espouse,
In mercy bid such conflict cease;
Strengthen the wakening sinner's vows,
And grant him penitence and peace :---
Or else, in pity, o'er the soul

The dark'ning clouds of madness roll.

London Magazine.

SONNET

By a Person who never could write one.

THIS person could have written a sonnet had he recollected these two lines in the Dunciad ;

"How here he sipped, how there he plundered snug, And sucked all o'er like an industrious bug."-ED.

Sonnets are things I never yet could write:
And yet can give no reason. Why the deuce
Should not I-such a genius-write a spruce,
Neat, pretty, little, tender sonnet? Try't.
Well how shall I begin? Hem! now for a flight!
'O silver-shafted maid! bright Luna'---Truce,
Good pen! with this; sure every scribbling wight
Writes sonnets at the moon: I'll no excuse.-

Come, try another.

making,

Scritch-scratch---Poh! you're

Truly, a pretty piece of business of it; scrawling,
Blotting, and Oh's, and Ah's, and zig-zag drawling
Over my beautiful gilt sheet. If the king

Gave me his crown I could not do it. Tut! man.
Well, here goes! now!---A...... Dam'me if I can.

London Magazine.

SONNET.

THE RHINE VISITED.*

THIS Sonnet is beautifully picturesque, but we must say that, for our own parts, we could never relish this prosaic, tame, monotonous, and creeping structure of verse. It may have charms, however, for other ears, particularly those who find a charm in every thing that is in fashion and request.-ED.

'Twas yet a dream!-The golden light of day
Shone with so tranquil loveliness around,
O'er the blue waters, cliffs, and ruins grey,
There reign'd a thoughtful stillness so profound,
All seem'd a vision that might fade away,
A fleeting spell that magic art had wound;
No sunlight, 'twas the moon whose lustre lay,
So sweet and silent on that fairy ground!

* Vide Wordsworth's "Yarrow Unvisited."