ALMERIA.

No, all is hushed and still as death.--'Tis dreadful!
How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.
Give use thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;
Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear
Thy voice--my own affrights me with its echoes.


He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet;
he feels what he remembers to have felt before, but he feels it with
great increase of sensibility; he recognises a familiar image, but
meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty and
enlarged with majesty. Yet could the author, who appears here to
have enjoyed the confidence of Nature, lament the death of Queen
Mary in lines like these:-


"The rocks are cleft, and new-descending rills
Furrow the brows of all the impending hills.
The water-gods to floods their rivulets turn,
And each, with streaming eyes, supplies his wanting urn.
The fauns forsake the woods, the nymphs the grove,