Welcome Bat and Owlet Gray.

O welcome bat and owlet gray,
Thus winging lone your airy way;
And welcome moth and drowsy fly,
That to mine ear come humming by;
And welcome shadows long and deep,
And stars that from the pale sky peep!
O welcome all! to me ye say,
My woodland love is on her way.

Upon the soft wind floats her hair,
Her breath is in the dewy air,
Her steps are in the whisper'd sound
That steals along the stilly ground.
O dawn of day, in rosy bower,
What art thou in this witching hour!
O noon of day, in sunshine bright,
What art thou to the fall of night!

Tennyson.

Alfred Tennyson ward um 1816 geboren, ist der Sohn eines Predigers in Lincolnshire, studirte zu Cambridge und hat bis jetzt zwei Bände Poesieen veröffentlicht, in welchen er sich Keats zum Vorbilde genommen. Seine Leistungen zeichnen sich durch reiche Phantasie, Kraft und Leichtigkeit aus, doch hascht er oft nach eigenthümlichen Ausdrücken und Empfindungen, deren Gesuchtheit ihre Wirkung schwächt.

He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, With blackest moss the flower plots
Madman! to chain with chains, and bind Were thickly crusted, one and all;

with bands The rusted nails fell from the knots
That island queen that sways the floods and That held the peach to the garden wall.

lands

The broken sheds looked sad and strange,
From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, Unlifted was the clinking latch,
When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands, Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
With thunders, and with lightnings, and with Upon the lonely moated grange,

smoke,

She only said, “My life is dreary, Peal after peal, the British battle broke,

He cometh not,” she said ; Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands.

She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore

I would that I were dead!"
Heard the war moan along the distant sea,
Rocking with shattered spars, with sudden fires
Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more

Her tears fell with the dews at even,
We taught him; late he learned humility,

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; Perforce, like those whom Gideon schooled with She could not look on the sweet heaven,

briars.

Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky,

She drew her casement curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.

I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kissed me

Laughingly, laughingly.
Oh! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.

From the diamond ledges that jut from the

dells:
For I would not be kiss'd by all who list,

Of the bold merry mermen under the sea;
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea;
Then all the dry pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea

Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

The Mermaid.

Who would be
A mermaid fair,

Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,

In a golden curl,
With a comb of pearl,

On a throne ?

Lilia n.

Airy, fairy Lilian,

Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,

Laughing all she can;
She'll not tell me if she love me,

Cruel little Lilian.

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I combed I would sing and say,
“Who is it loves me? who loves not me?”
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall,

Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown,

Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold

Springing alone,

With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne

In the midst of the hall;
Till that great sea-snake under the sea,
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps,
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the

gate,
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.
But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low flowing

locks;
And lightly vault from the throne and play

With the mermen in and out of the rocks; We would run to and fro, and hide and seek

On the broad seawolds i' the crimson shells, Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.

any came near I would call, and shriek, And adown the steep like a wave I would leap,

When my passion seeks

Pleasance in love-sighs,
She, looking through and through me,
Thoroughly to undo me,

Smiling, never speaks :
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her purfled wimple,

Glancing with black-beaded eyes
Till the lightning laughters dimple,

The baby roses in her cheeks,
Then away she flies.

Prythee weep, May Lilian!

Gaiety without eclipse

Wearieth me, May Lilian;
Through my very heart it thrilleth

When from crimson threaded lips
Silver treble laughter trilleth;

Prythee weep, May Lilian,

Praying all I can,
If prayers will not hush thee,

Airy Lilian,
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee,

Fairy Lilian.

But if

Love and Death.

Love wept, and spread his sheeny vans for flight;

Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath,
So in the light of great eternity

What time the mighty moon was gathering light Yet, ere he parted, said, "This hour is thine:
Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise,
And all about him rolled his lustrous eyes;
When, turning round a casia, full in view,
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew,
And talking to himself, first met his sight:
"You must begone," said Death, "these walks
are mine."

Life eminent creates the shade of death;
The shadow passeth when the tree shall

fall,

But I shall reign for ever over all."

Howitt.

Mary Howitt, einer Quäkerfamilie angehörend und mütterlicher Seite von dem berühmten Charles Wood abstammend, welcher zuerst die Platina in England einführte, ward um 1806 zu Coleford in Gloucestershire geboren und vermählte sich in ihrem einundzwanzigsten Jahre mit dem gleichfalls als Schriftsteller ausgezeichneten William Howitt. Sie lebten nach ihrer Verheirathung anfangs zu Nottingham, dann zu Esher in Surrey und haben in den letzteren Jahren längere Zeit in Deutschland, namentlich in Heidelberg, zugebracht.

Theils in Verbindung mit ihrem Gatten, theils allein gab Mistress Howitt heraus: The Forest Minstrel, London 1823; the Desolation of Eyam and other Poems, London 1827; The seven Temptations, a series of dramatic poems, London 1834; ferner Jugendschriften wie: Sketches of Natural History, Tales in Verse, u. A. m. sowie einzelne Gedichte und Aufsätze in Zeitschriften und Almanachen.

Tiefe, echte Frömmigkeit, reiche Einbildungskraft, warmes Gefühl, Herrschaft über Sprache und Form und grosse Anmuth der Darstellung, haben ihren Leistungen viele Freunde erworben und ihr eine sehr ehrenvolle Stellung in der englischen literarischen Welt gesichert.

"But I saw his white and palsied lips,
And the stare of his ghastly eye,

When he turned in hurried haste away,
Yet he had no power to fly;`

He was chained to the deck with his heavy "In his cabin, alone, the captain kept,

guilt,

And the blood that was not dry.

And he bolted fast the door;
And up and down the sailors walked,
And wish'd that the calm was o'er.

"The captain's son was on board with us,
A fair child, seven years old,
With a merry look, that all men loved,
And a spirit kind and bold.

"And the plagues of the storm will follow us, "I loved the child,

For Heaven his groans hath heard!' Still the captain's eye was fixed on me, But he answer'd never a word.

And made him kneel, and pray

That the crime, for which the calm was sent,
Might be purged clean away.