Hunt. James Henry Leigh Hunt, der Sohn eines Geistlichen der anglikanischen Kirche, ward am 19. October 1784 zu Southgate in Middlesex geboren, besuchte die Schule von Christ's Hospital und widmete sich dann literarischen Bestrebungen. Ein eifriger Anhänger der Reform hatte er harte Verfolgungen auszustehn, die er jedoch mannhaft überwand. Er lebte eine Zeit lang in Italien, in näherer Verbindung mit Lord Byron und kehrte dann nach England zurück, wo er vorzüglich bei Zeitschriften betheiligt ist. Seine Dichtungen (Juvenilia, Feast of the Poets, Francesca da Rimini u. A. m.) erfreuen sich reicher Phantasie, grosser Lebhaftigkeit und warmen Gefühls, sind aber nicht immer frei von Affectation. Hails us with his bright stare, stumbling through And flutter round our rifled tops, like tickled Taste) how heav'n loves colour; flowers with flowers. See those tops, how beauteous! What fair service duteous Round some idol waits, as on their lord the Nine? Elfin court 'twould seem; And taught, perchance, that dream Which the old Greek mountain dreamt, upon nights divine. To expound such wonder Human speech avails not; How great Nature, clearly, joys in red and Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a glory green; What sweet thoughts she thinks Of violets and pinks, And a thousand flushing hues, made solely to be seen: exhales not. Think of all these treasures, Matchless works and pleasures, Every one a marvel, more than thought can say; Then think in what bright show'rs We thicken fields and bow'rs, Oh! pray believe that angels And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle Brought us in their white laps down, 'twixt their wanton May: golden pinions. And one day, as The nobles fill'd the on the court; And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sigh'd: And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show, Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below. Ramp'd and roar'd the lions, with horrid laughing jaws; They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws; With wallowing might and stifled roar, they roll'd on one another, Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous smother; The bloody foam above the bars came whizzing through the air: Said Francis, then, "Faith gentlemen, we're better here than there." The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit. You strange, astonish'd-looking, angle-fac'd, And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be, Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry, Legless, unloving, infamously chaste; The Fish turns into a Man, and then into a Spirit, and again speaks. Indulge thy smiling scorn, if smiling still, O man! and loathe, but with a sort of love; One of the spirits am I, that at their will dove fish, eagle, No hate, no pride, beneath nought, nor above, A visiter of the rounds of God's sweet skill. Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel. "And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so;" Man's life is warm, glad, sad, 'twixt loves and Replied the angel: Abou spoke more low, graves, But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then, Boundless in hope, honour'd with pangs Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." austere, Heaven-gazing; and his angel-wings he craves: A cold sweet silver life, wrapp'd in round waves, The angel wrote and vanish'd. The next night Norton. Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton, die Tochter von Thomas und die Enkelin von Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ward in London 1808 geboren, vermählte sich in ihrem neunzehnten Jahre mit dem Hon. George Chapple Norton und ward später von ihm, nach englischer Sitte, öffentlich vor Gericht der Untreue angeklagt, ging aber rein und fleckenlos aus diesem skandalösen Process, dem, wie es hiess, eine politische Intrigue zu Grunde lag, hervor. Eine Trennung von ihrem Gatten erfolgte; Mistress Norton nahm darauf ihren Wohnsitz auf längere Zeit in Paris. Sie hat zwei grössere Dichtungen The Sorrows of Rosalie und the Undying One, so wie viele kleinere lyrische Poesieen geschrieben, die sich sämmtlich durch Grazie, Energie und Gedankenfülle, weniger jedoch durch schöpferische Phantasie auszeichnen. Low she lies, who blest our eyes Yet there is a world of light beyond, Where we neither die nor sleep; The Mourners. She is there, of whom our souls were fond, The heart is cold, whose thoughts were told And she lies pale, who was so bright, |