When cumbering flesh, no more can stay Mind on its unobstructed way.

And as these thoughts their image gain
Within the mirror of my brain,

I smother the superfluous sigh
And say I'll go there when I die.

The Three Guests.

HE World was dark, and comfortless, and chill,
The haunt of sordid care, and hideous ill;
Till three bright guests, beyond all utterance bright,
Trod the dull orb, and woke it into light.

First Beauty came, from soft Italian bowers,
Nursed mid the stealthy dew of summer flowers,
She came with faltering step and downcast eye,
She came with mantling blush and melting sigh,
She came with brow of sway and glance of flame,
In doubt, in hope, in ecstasy she came.

In each mood various, as in each supreme,
She scattered conquest from her rosy beam,
Subdued alike the needy Heirs of toil,
The Lords of luxury, the Sons of spoil,
Each sterner passion in its turn controlled,
The thirst of Empire, and the lust of gold,
And saw before her bow the wise and brave,
Cæsar her suppliant, Solomon her slave.
Next bounded forth young Poesy-her hair

In golden tresses floated on the air,

Her roving eye a wayward lustre shed,
But lofty thought sat throned on her head;

Calm as a seraph, sportive as a child
She trod the rocky beach, or heathy wild;
On Ilion's mound her earliest laurel grew,
Rich with the freshness of immortal dew:
She nursed mid Attic rills her tragic vein,
By smooth Colonus, and Egina's main;
To softer raptures thrilled the lyre awhile
With love-taught Sappho in her Lesbian isle;
Urged o'er th' Olympian course the foaming steed,
In pastoral valleys tuned the pastoral reed,
Peeled the high Harp by Mincio's sedgy tide,
Breathed the soft lute on Arno's vine-clad side;
Nor yet withheld some notes from Britain's clime,
Not all unworthy of her elder time ;
And still where'er the vocal strain arose,
Mid torrid fervours, or eternal snows,
Through every large variety of Man,
Savage or Sage, the soft infection ran;
Before the magic of her chorded shell
The captive's chain, the Tyrant's madness, fell,
And Nature's jarring discord paused to hear
The borrowed language of a higher sphere.
I turned again-the Minstrel's fire was spent ;
I gazed around-the Lover's heart was rent;
Neglect, and penury, and change, and death,
Spared not the glowing form, or gifted breath,
But quenched in one stern blight of cold decay
Love's purple gleam, and Fancy's meteor ray;
Where are ye, solaces of human kind?
I looked-and Piety remained behind;
Upon her radiant cheek, and brow serene,

No fevered throb, no fitful flush, were seen;
Through every changing tide of various life,
The gaudy sunshine, or the stormy strife,
She calmly shook from her resplendent veil
The puny drivings of each passing gale,
Gave to the earth her transient smile or sigh,
Her undetached communion to the Sky:
Yet while she longed for that celestial year,
Without a limit, and without a tear,
Still her bright presence with reflected glow
Diffused her own serenity below—
The conscious presage of an endless rest,
The nether Heaven of a pardoned breast.

A Leat out of a Sketch-Book.

By W. M. THACKERAY.

F you will take a leaf out of my sketch-book, you are welcome. It is only a scrap, but I have nothing better to give. When the fishing-boats come in at a watering-place, haven't you remarked that though these may be choking with great fish, you can only get a few herrings or a whiting or two? The big fish are all bespoken in London. As it is with fish, so it is with authors let us hope. Some Mr. Charles, of Paternoster Row, some Mr. Groves, of Cornhill, (or elsewhere,) has agreed for your turbots and your salmon, your soles and your lobsters. Take one of my little fishany leaf you like out of the little book-a battered little. book: through what a number of countries, to be sure, it has travelled in this pocket!

The sketches are but poor performances, say you. I don't say no; and value them no higher than you do, except as recollections of the past. The little scrawl helps to fetch back the scene which was present and alive once, and is gone away now, and dead. The past resurges out of its grave: comes up-a sad-eyed ghost sometimes-and gives a wan ghost-like look of recognition, ere it pops down under