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ALFRED TENNYSON.

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one most penetrating to the heart, the most continuous, and most persevered in with passionate intensity, so that it becomes ineradicable from the sensibility and the memory, is "Locksley Hall." The story is very simple; not narrative, but told by the soliloquy of anguish poured out by a young man amid the hollow weed-grown courts of a ruined mansion. He loved passionately; his love was returned; and the girl married another-a dull, every-day sort of a husband. The story is a familiar one in the world-too familiar; but in Tennyson's hands it becomes invested with yet deeper life, a vitality of hopeless desolation. The sufferer invoking his betrayer, her beauty and her falsehood, by the memory of their former happiness, says that such a memory is the very crown of sorrow:

"Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,

In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his dranken sleep,

To thy widowed marriage-pillow, to the tears that thou shalt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never! never!" whispered by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance, in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain."

Of similar character and depth of tone is the poem of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere," who impelled to suicide one of the victims of her heartless beauty. The long-drawn music of her very name is suggestive of the proud pedigree to which she was ready to offer up any sacrifice. For continuity of affectionate tenderness and deep pathos in the closing scene, we should mention "The Lord of Burleigh," and the idyl of “Dora,” the style of both being studiously artless, the latter, indeed, having a scriptural simplicity which presents a curious contrast to the poet's early

manner.

We cannot pass by our especial favorite, The Lotos-Eaters. This is poetry of the very highest order-in every way charming-subject and treatment both. The state of mind described, is one which every cultivated mind will understand and enter into, and which a poet, in particular, must thoroughly sympathize with-that lassitude which is content to look upon the swift-flowing current of life, and let it flow, refusing to embark

thereon-a lassitude which is not wholly torpor, and which has mental energy enough to cull a justification for itself from all its stores of philosophy-a lassitude charming as the last thought, before sleep quite folds us in its safe and tried oblivion. No need to eat of the Lotos, or to be cast upon the enchanted island, to feel this gentle despondency, this resignation made up of resistless indolence and well reasoned despair. Yet these are circumstances which add greatly to the poetry of our picture. To the band of weary navigators who had disembarked upon this land

"Where all things always seemed the sameThe mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

IV.

"Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each; but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far, far away, did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores! and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave,
And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

V.

"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, We will return no more;'
And all at once they sang, Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.'"'

CHORIC SONG.

I.

"There is sweet music here, that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;

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Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep,

And through the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream the long-leav'd flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

11.

Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone?
We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown!

Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm,
Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings-
"There is no joy but calm !'

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

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IV.

"Hateful is the dark-blue sky,

Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah! why
Should life all labor be?

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasures can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence-ripen, fall, and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease!"

VI.

"Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,

And dear the last embraces of our wives,
And their warm tears: but all hath suffered change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold:
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle ?
Let what is broken so remain.
The gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labor unto aged breath."

VIII.

"We have had enough of action, and of motion, we Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,

Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined,
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind."
There are no qualities in Tennyson more cha-
racteristic than those of delicacy and refinement.
How very few are the poets who could equally
well have dealt with the dangerous loveliness of
the story of "Godiva."

"Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She lingered, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached
The gateway," &c.

The mind which can force up a vital flower of ideality through the heavy fermenting earth of

human experiences, must have a deep intellectual root and active life. Among these experiences we must of course include those inner struggles of the soul with its own thoughts; dealings with the revelations that seem to come from other states of existence; difficult contests between the mortal promptings and resistances that breed so many doubts and hopes, and things inscrutable; and thoughts that often present themselves in appalling whispers, against the will and general tone and current of the mind. Tennyson's intellectual habit is of great strength; his thoughts can grow with large progressive purpose either up or down, and the peculiarity is that in him they commonly do so to a "haunting music." No argument was ever conducted in verse with more admirable power and clearness than that of the "Two Voices." The very poetry of it magnifies itself into a share of the demonstration: take away the poetry and the music, and you essentially diminish the logic.

Though Tennyson often writes, or rather sings apparently from his own personality, you generally find that he does not refer to himself, but to some imaginary person. He permits the reader to behold the workings of his individuality, only by its reflx action. He comes out of himself to sing a poem, and goes back again; or rather sends his song out from his shadow under the leaf, as other nightingales do; and refuses to be expansive to his public, opening his heart on the hinges of music, as other poets do. We know nothing of him except that he is a poet; and this, although it is something to be sure of, does not help us to pronounce distinctly upon what may be called the mental intention of his poetry. Tennyson gives one the idea of a poet who is not in a fixed attitude; not resolute as to means, not determined as to end-sure of his power, sure of his activity, but not sure of his objects. We seem to look on while a man stands in preparation for some loftier course-while he tries the edge of his various arms and examines the wheels of his chariots, and meditates, full of youth and capability, down the long slope of glory. He constantly gives us the impression of something greater than his works. And this must be his own soul. He may do greater things than he has yet done; but we do not expect it. If he do no more, he has already done enough to deserve the lasting love and admiration of posterity.

THE CORAL MASON AND MASONRY.

BY REV. HENRY T.

CHEEVER.

"Turrets of stone, though huge and gray,
Have crumbled and past in dust away;
Cities that sank in the sea of yore,
Have turned to slime by the fetid shore;
But when shall crumble the coral wall,
That parts the billows so bright and tall?
Ho! who can fashion a work like me,
The mason of God in the boundless sea ?"

IN the course of certain researches into the coral formations around New Holland, it was observed by Captain Flinders, what we have taken note of elsewhere, that to be constantly covered with water seemed necessary to the continued existence and activity of the coral animalcules. It cannot indeed be perceived that they are living at all, except in holes upon the coral reef itself that are below low-water mark, where we have often watched the progress of their rising structures, when we could not detect with the closest inspection the busy little builders themselves; yet imagination has been busy in tracing their work as Æneas was, under the cloud, at young Carthage:

"Miratur molem Æneas, magalia quondam ;
Miratur portas, strepitumque, et strata viarum
Fervet opus."

Almost as fast as they build, the coral-sand, always suspended and washed about in sea-water, fills up the little cells, and pores, and interstices of the minute masonry, while broken remnants of dead coral and other matter thrown up by the sea are caught and cemented to the growing wall, and form a solid mass with it as high as the common tides reach. When that limit is attained, and the surface of the reef is now out of or even with the water, the labor of the coralligenous zoophyte is over, the sea gradually recedes, the rampart rises, the limed debris or fragments upon it, being now rarely covered with water and dried by the sun, lose their adhesiveness and become brittle remnants, forming what is called sometimes a key upon the top of the reef, from the Spanish Cayo.

This new bank is, of course, not long in being visited by sea-birds; salt-plants take root upon it, branches of floating sea-weed are caught and entangled by it; muscles, and crabs, and echinuses, and turtles, and krakens, perhaps crawl upon it,

and leave their shells, and a soil begins to be form ed. By and by a cocoa-nut or the drupe of a tropical Pandanus is thrown ashore; land-birds light on it and deposit the seeds of shrubs and trees, and augment it, may be, with a layer of guano; every high tide, and still more, every gale adds something to the bank in the shape of matterwrecks, organic or inorganic; at length appears the blue hummock of a tropical island, and last of all comes man to take possession, cast there by Providence and glad not to have the sea his grave, or in quest of discovery and gain. We have repeatedly seen and stepped upon progressive and unfinished parts of creation like this, where, as traced by a poet-observer of the processes of Nature

"The atom thrown from the boiling deep,
The palm-tree torn from its distant steep,
The grain by the wandering wild-bird sown,
The seed of flowers by the tempest strown,
The long kelp forced from its rocky bed,
And the cocoa-nut, on the waters shed;
They gather around the coral's lee,
And form the isle of the lonely sea."

There is an island in Australia called Half-way Island, from the fact, we believe, that nature does not yet seem done with it, or to have finished its creation; yet above the reach of the highest spring tides or the wash of the surf in the heaviest gale, A navigator who has visited it says, that he distinguished in the coral-rock which forms its basis the sand, coral, and shells formerly thrown up and cemented together by the lime always held in solution by sea-water. Small pieces

of wood also, pumice-stone, and other extraneous bodies which chance had mixed with the calcareous substances when the cohesion began, were enclosed in the rock, and in some cases were still separable from it without much force. We have observed the same at the lonely South Pacific

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THE CORAL MASON AND MASONRY.

island of Rimatara, over whose verdure-clad coral remains we once had a joyous day's ramble. The same is true, also, as the writer has often noticed, of reefs at the Sandwich Islands, where, as at Honolulu for instance, blocks of it are quarried from exposed reefs, and used for building purposes, to which it is well adapted, beside supplying a quantity of lime as inexhaustible as the coal-pits of Great Britain are of coal.

From an admirable little work on corals, published not long since in the Scientific and Natural History Series of the London Tract Society, and containing a number of very accurate woodcuts, representing different species of coral polypi and corallines, we learn that coral is found in different parts of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, not only attached to rocks, but also to movable bodies, as stone vases and fragments of lava. It is also discovered at different depths, but thrives best in a warm and sunny aspect. Light operates powerfully in its growth; and its deposition by the living creature is by no means rapid. It is thought to require eight years for a stem of Mediterranean or Red Sea coral to obtain the average height of ten or twelve inches, in water from three to ten fathoms deep; ten years if the water is fifteen fathoms; twenty-five or thirty years if the water is a hundred fathoms; and at least forty years if the depth is one hundred and fifty fathoms. It is more beautiful in shallow water, where the light reaches it, than where an immense body, absorbing most of the luminous rays, deprives it of their curiously modifying influence. Having attained its full growth, it is soon pierced in every part by worms, which attack even the hardest rocks; it then loses its solidity, and but slight shocks detach it from its base. The polypi perish, and the coral stem, by attrition with the sea-worn pebbles, as it rolls along, is soon reduced to powder, or coral sand.

Captain Hall says of the reefs in the seas about Loo Choo, Indian Ocean, what I have often heard American whalemen say of those in the Mozambique Channel, which is the region of ocean most prolific in curious shells, that when the sea has left a reef for some time between the tides, it becomes dry, and appears to be a compact rock, exceedingly hard and ragged. But no sooner does the tide rise again, and the waves begin to wash over it, than millions of worms protrude themselves from holes on the surface, which were before quite invisible. "These animals are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, and in such prodigious numbers, that in a short time the whole surface of the rock appears to be alive and in motion. The most common of the worms was in the form of a star, with arms from four to six inches

long, which it moved about with a rapid motion, in all directions, probably in search of food. Others were so sluggish, that they were often mistaken for pieces of the rock; these were generally of a dark color, and from four to five inches long and two or three round. When the rock was broken from a spot near the level of high water, it was found to be a hard, solid stone; but if any part of it were detached at a level to which the tide reached every day, it was discovered to be full of worms of all different lengths and colors, some being as fine as a thread, and several feet long, generally of a very bright yellow, and sometimes of a blue color; while others resembled snails, and some were not unlike lobsters and prawns in shape, but soft, and not above two inches long."

There is a variety of coral of microscopic minuteness in its structure, of which the naturalists Ehrenberg and D'Orbigny have discovered hundreds of fossil species; and their minute shelly cases enter into the composition of chalk-beds, compact mountain-limestone, the sea-sand of Europe, the Mauritius, the Sandwich Islands, and the sands of the Lybian Desert even. Some idea of the minuteness of these fossil moss-corals may be formed from the fact, that in the finest levigated whiting, multitudes are present without having suffered change in the preparation of the chalk. Only let the microscope be employed, and it is said that a Mosaic work of moss-coral animalcules may be seen, of varied and beautiful forms, on the chalk coating of the walls of a room. The best way of observing them is to place a drop of water on a delicate film of mica, and to add to it as much fine chalk powder as the top of a pen-knife will take up. Spread this out like a very thin layer, then drain off the water, and with it the floating particles; when the layer is quite dry, coat it over with pure Canada balsam, holding it while this is being done over a spirit lamp. Then the powder, examined through a microscope, will be found chiefly composed of minute cells, the relics of moss-corals.

A man naturally asks, in studying the diversities of corals, and the curiously modified forms of beauty they assume, What ends do they serve? and what is all this for? And it were a good answer in the words of the Psalmist, when he was attempting to uncover and describe some of the curious processes of Nature, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works in wisdom thou hast made them all!" Aside from the utilitarian ends, they serve in building up from the bed of ocean places of habitation for man and beast, and thus affording the material in such exhaustless affluence, out of which art may construct temples for God, and

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