They sip and find their honey-dreams are vain,
Then feebly hasten to their hives again.
The butterflies, by eager hopes undone,
Glad as a child come out to greet the sun,
Beneath the shadow of a sudden shower

Are lost-nor see to-morrow's April flower.'

We give our readers credit for being sharp-sighted enough to detect, without the aid of italics-by which we are apt to feel ourselves almost as much insulted as by the offer of a pair of spectacles-the minute touches and felicities of expression which give so much picturesque beauty to these sketches. The opening lines of May' would form a good subject for Wilkie, were it not that painting cannot be so picturesque as language, which can express, as Dugald Stewart remarks, picturesque sounds as well as sights, and picturesque sentiments also. The swarthy bee teazing the weeds that wear a flower,' the school-boy viewing with jealous eyes the 'clock,' the driving boy cracking his whip in starts of joy,' -these are images full of life and beauty, which cannot be expressed on the canvas. Having thus long dwelt upon the Spring, we must take one specimen from Summer.

'JULY.

July, the month of summer's prime,

Again resumes his busy time;

Scythes tinkle in each grassy dell
Where solitude was wont to dwell;
And meadows, they are mad with noise
Of laughing maids and shouting boys,
Making up the withering hay
With merry hearts as light as play.
The very insects on the ground
So nimbly bustle all around,
Among the grass, or dusty soil,
They seem partakers of the toil.
The landscape even reels with life,
While 'mid the busy stir and strife
Of industry, the shepherd still
Enjoys his summer dreams at will;
Bent o'er his hook, or listless laid
Beneath the pasture's willow shade,
Whose foliage shines so cool and gray
Amid the sultry hues of day,
As if the morning's misty veil
Yet lingered in its shadows pale;

Or lolling in a musing mood

On mounds where Saxon castles stood,

Upon whose deeply buried walls
The ivy'd oak's dark shadow falls,
He oft picks up with wondering gaze
Some little thing of other days,

Saved from the wrecks of time-as beads,
Or broken pots among the weeds,
Of curious shapes, and many a stone
From Roman pavements thickly strown;
Oft hoping, as he searches round,
That buried riches may be found,
Though, search as often as he will,
His hopes are disappointed still;
Or watching, on his mossy seat,
The insect world beneath his feet,
In busy motion, here and there,
Like visiters to feast or fair;
Some climbing up the rush's stem,
A steeple's height or more to them,
With speed that sees no fear to stop,
Till perched upon its spiry top,
Where they awhile the view survey,
Then prune their wings, and flit away;
And others journeying to and fro
Among the grassy woods below,
Musing, as if they felt and knew

The pleasant scenes they wandered through,
Where each bent round them seems to be
Huge as a giant timber-tree.

Shaping the while their dark employs
To his own visionary joys,

He pictures such a life as theirs,

As free from Summer's sultry cares,
And only wishes that his own

Could meet with joys so thickly sown :
Sport seems the all that they pursue,
And play the only work they do.

The cow-boy still cuts short the day
By mingling mischief with his play;
Oft in the pond with weeds o'ergrown,
Hurling quick the plashing stone
To cheat his dog, who watching lies,
And instant plunges for the prize;
And though each effort proves in vain,
He shakes his coat, and dives again,
Till, wearied with the fruitless play,
He drops his tail, and sneaks away,
Nor longer heeds the bawling boy,
Who seeks new sports with added joy:
Now, on some bank's o'erhanging brow,
Beating the wasp's nest with a bough,

Till armies from the hole appear,
And threaten vengeance in his ear,
With such determined hue and cry
As makes the bold besieger fly:
Then, pelting with excessive glee
The squirrel on the woodland-tree,
Who nimbles round from grain to grain,
And cocks his tail, and peeps again,
Half pleased, as if he thought the fra
Which mischief made, was meant for play;
Till scared and startled into flight,
He instant tumbles out of sight.
Thus he his leisure hour employs,
And feeds on busy meddling joys,
While in the willow-shaded pool
His cattle stand, their hides to cool.
Loud is the Summer's busy song:
The smallest breeze can find a tongue,
While insects of each tiny size
Grow teazing with their melodies;
Till noon burns with its blistering breath
Around, and day dies still as death.
The busy noise of man and brute
Is on a sudden lost and mute;
Even the brook that leaps along,
Seems weary of its bubbling song,
And, so soft its waters creep,
Tired silence sinks in sounder sleep.
The cricket on its banks is dumb;
The very flies forget to hum;

And, save the waggon rocking round,
The landscape sleeps without a sound.
The breeze is stopped; the lazy bough
Hath not a leaf that dances now;
The tottergrass upon the hill,

And spider's threads are standing still;
The feathers dropped from moorhen's wing,
Which to the water's surface cling,

Are stedfast, and as heavy seem

As stones beneath them in the stream; Hawkweed and groundsel's fanning downs Unruffled keep their seedy crowns ;

And in the oven-heated air,

Not one light thing is floating there,
Save that to the earnest eye,
The restless heat seems twittering by.
Noon swoons beneath the heat it made,
And flowers e'en wither in the shade;
Until the sun slopes in the west,
Like weary traveller, glad to rest

On pillowed clouds of many hues:
Then nature's voice its joy renews,
And checquer'd field and grassy plain
Hum, with their summer songs again,
A requiem to the day's decline,
Whose setting sunbeams coolly shine,
As welcome to day's feeble powers,
As falling dews to thirsty flowers.
The mower now gives labour o'er,
And on his bench beside the door
Sits down to see his children play,
Smoking a leisure hour away;

While from her cage the blackbird sings,
That on the woodbine arbour hings:
And all with soothing joys receive

The quiet of a Summer's eve.'

Nothing, we think, can be more perfect than this summer picture of still life, with its entomological embellishments. While we dwell upon the scene, we seem to become boys again, and long to have a pelt at that same squirrel. And though our heart has never danced with daffodils, as Mr. Wordsworth has it, many a time have we watched the insect sports which Clare has so happily described. But, perhaps, we should have done better to select extracts more intelligible to the uninitiated in these minute mysteries of nature. The volume appears without any table of contents, and we must therefore supply one. The Shepherd's Calendar is followed by three beautiful narrative poems, entitled, The Sorrows of Love, The Progress of Love, and The Memory of Love; and a Pastoral, or what some would have called an eclogue, entitled, The Rivals. The remainder consists of miscellaneous poems. Among these, it is with sincere satisfaction that we perceive an occasional thoughtful reference to such topics as death and eternity; the total avoidance of which in most of the poems, excites the fear, that the Poet has not yet learned to look upon the beauties of Nature as faint types at best of a far more exceeding and eternal glory, has not yet drunk into that spirit which should enable him, amid the scenes of his rural wanderings, to

lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, My Father made them all..

We do not now speak as critics, for it were not fair to find fault with his poems for what they do not contain; nor would we wish the Poet to affect sentiments he does not feel, and to hitch in an awkward sentence or two of a religious complexion. There are tongues in trees' and sermons in stones' and in this species of divinity, Clare's poetry is not deficient. It is for his

own sake, as much as for that of his readers, that we could wish him oftener to

reach the Bible down from off the shelf,

To read the text, and look the psalms among ;

till, haply, he might imbibe from the sacred page a higher inspiration, and perceive, not only how the heavens declare the glory of God," but that "the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, and his testimonies sure, making wise the simple." Then, should he live, as we hope he will, to produce a fourth volume, we should expect to find him reaching a higher strain.

sprung

The present volume, as compared with Clare's first efforts, exhibits very unequivocal signs of intellectual growth, an improved taste, and an enriched mind. This progressive improvement is one of the surest indications of a mind endowed with the vigorous stamina of genius. When he first appeared before the public, it was as a Northamptonshire peasant, in fact a day labourer; and the public were led to wonder how an individual so circumstanced should have been capable of writing genuine poetry,-how such a flower should have up under the very harrow of poverty. It is seven years since that volume appeared, and we reflect with satisfaction, that, from our Journal, Clare met with (we believe) the earliest notice and the most cordial praise. We could not, however, refrain from expressing our doubt as to the possible effect of further cultivation upon the native originality of his mind. We hardly ventured to hope that he would so far excel his early efforts as he has since done. In the preface to the present volume, he expresses a just and manly confidence of success. 'I hope,' he says, my low station in life will not be set off as a foil against my verses; and I am sure I do not wish to bring it forward as an excuse for any imperfections that may be found in them.' We like this spirit. There is a sort of praise which, in its tone, differs little from contempt, and with which no poet would be satisfied. His compositions may now challenge admiration on the ground of their intrinsic merit and interest. Although we have already extracted somewhat largely, it would hardly be doing justice to the volume, to withhold a specimen of his success in narrative poetry; but we can make room for only a short specimen, with which we shall conclude this article.

. I sat beside her bed:

He asked her how she was, and hung his head.

The tears burst from her eyes; she could not speak.
Upon her hand her sorrow-wasted cheek