SONNETS ON FLOWERS.

(From the Same.)

THE ANEMONE.

WHO would have thought a thing so slight,
So frail a birth of warmth and light,

A thing as weak as fear or shame,
Bearing thy weakness in thy name,

Who would have thought of finding thee,
Thou delicate Anemone,

Whose faintly-tinted petals may

By any wind be torn away,

Whose many anthers with their dust,
And the dark purple dome their centre,
When winter strikes, soon as it likes,
Will quit their present rest, and must
Hurry away on wild adventure?
What power is given thee to outlast
The pelting rain, the driving blast;
To sit upon thy slender stem,

A solitary diadem,

Adorning latest autumn with

A relic sweet of vernal pith?

Oh Heaven! if-as faithful I believe,

Thou wilt the prayer of faithful love receive,
Let it be so with me! I was a child

Of large belief, though froward, wild:
Gladly I listen'd to the holy word,

And deemed my little prayers by God were heard.
All things I loved, however strange or odd,
As deeming all things were beloved by God.
In youth and manhood's careful sultry hours,
The garden of my youth bore many flowers
That now are faded; but my early faith,
Though thinner far than vapour, spectre, wraith,
Lighter than aught the rude wind blows away,
Has yet outlived the rude tempestuous day,
And may remain a witness of the spring,
A sweet, a holy, and a lovely thing;
The promise of another spring to me,
My lovely, lone, and lost Anemone !

THE COWSLIP.

LADY, beyond the wide Atlantic main

Huge trees hast thou beheld and gorgeous flowers,

And poor may be to thee, and dim, and plain,

The simple posies of this isle of ours;

Yet, lady, humbly I present to thee
A flower refined in her simplicity,
The lady Cowslip, that, amid the grass,
Is tall and comely as a virgin queen.
The Primrose is a bonny peasant lass,
The bold and full-blown beauty of the green;
She seems on mossy bank, in forest glade,
Most meet to be the Cowslip's waiting-maid.
But the coy Cowslip-coy, though doom'd to stand
In state erect upon the open field—
Declines her head; the lady of the land,

That must be public, fain would be conceal'd,
Knowing how much she ought to all impart,
Yet much retaining with an artless art;
For there is beauty in the cowslip bell
That must be sought for ere it can be spied,
And her pure perfume must be known full well
Before its goodness can be testified;

And therefore do I give the flower to thee,
Thinking thee better than I know or see.

EUPHRASIA OFFICINALIS; OR, EYE-BRIGHT.

THERE is a flower, a tiny flower,
Its hue is white, but close within 't
There is a spot of golden tint;
Therein abides a wondrous juice,
That hath, for such as know its use,
A sweet and holy power.

It is a little Euphrasy,

Which you no doubt have often seen
'Mid the tall grass of meadow green;
But never deem'd so wee a wight
Endow'd with medicinal might
To clear the darken'd eye.

And may be now it hath no more
The virtue which the kindly fays
Bestow'd in fancy's holy days;
Yet still the gold-eyed weedie springs,
To show how pretty little things
Were hallow'd long of yore.

SONNETS ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.

(From the Same.)

BELIEVE AND PRAY,

BELIEVE and pray. Who can believe and pray
Shall never fail nor falter, though the fate
Of his abode, or geniture, or date,

With charms beguile or threats obstruct his way.
For free is faith and potent to obey;

And love, content in patient prayer to wait,
Like the poor cripple at the Beautiful Gate,
Shall be relieved on some miraculous day.
Lord, I believe !-Lord, help mine unbelief!
If I could pray, I know that Thou wouldst hear;
Well were it though my faith were only grief,
And I could pray but with a contrite tear.
But none can pray whose wish is not Thy will,
And none believe who are not with Thee still.

46 MULTUM DILEXIT."

SHE sat and wept beside His feet; the weight
Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame,
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct, and out of date,
Only the sin remain'd, the leprous state;
She would be melted by the heat of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver ore adulterate.

She sat and wept, and with her untress'd hair
Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;
And He wiped off the soiling of despair

From her sweet soul, because she loved so much.
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears,
Make me a humble thing of love and tears.
1848.

INDEX.

[N.B. The figures within Crotchets refer to the History.]

ACCIDENTS-At the Great Northern
Railway Terminus, 2; collision on the
London and North-Western Railway
at Boxmoor, 3; fall of a mill at Bel-
fast, six lives lost, 4; extraordinary
homicide in the Regent's Canal Dock,
5; fatal sewer accident at Islington,
6; loss of the John Adams and the
Oregon, in United States, with fear-
ful loss of life, 7; explosion of the
Plover at Glasgow, 10; explosion of
chemical works at Manchester, 11;
singular death of Captain Hutchin-
son at Holyhead, 14; coal-pit explo-
sion at Paisley, 61 lives lost, 26;
boiler explosion at Stockport, 20,
persons killed, 28; at Johnstone,
seven lives lost, 32; at Manchester,
eight lives lost, 35; explosion of a
powder-magazine at Temezvar, 44;
fatal mistake-a farmer shot by a
clergyman in Cumberland, 50; acci-
dental death of a barrister, 52; on
the Cheshire Junction Railway in the
Frodsham Tunnel, dreadful loss of
life, 53; fall of immense buildings in
Gracechurch-street, five lives lost, 67;
fatal collision at the Clay Cross Sta-
tion, North Midland Railway, 69; on
the Lewes and Brighton Railway, 76;
boiler explosion near Bristol, eight
lives lost, 77; balloon accident to
Mr. and Mrs. Graham, 80; coal-pit
accident at Bedminster, 81; fatal
explosion of a locomotive boiler at
Liverpool, 88; mine accident at Beer
Ferris, 90; coal-pit explosion at
Chorley, melancholy death of Mr.
Fazakerley, 98; at Malago Vale Pit,
six lives lost, 115; at Marshal Sebas-
tiani's funeral, 116; explosion at the
Washington Pit, 35 lives lost, 127;
at Kingswood Colliery, 141; at Aber-
dare Colliery, fourteen lives lost, 142;
collision on the Buckinghamshire
Railway at Bicester, with dreadful
loss of life, 144; on the Great North-
ern Railway at Hornsey, great loss of
life, 147; by fall of a mill at Bally-
clare, 148; explosion at West Moor
Colliery, nine lives lost, 173; dread-

Accidents-continued.

ful steamboat explosion at Bristol,
175; to the Demerara mail steamer,
176; fatal collision of steamboats in
the Mediterranean, 180; dreadful
accident at New York, 50 lives lost,
182; fatal railway collision at Weedon,
183; fatal accident on the South
Coast Railway at Littlehampton, 186;
fall of houses at Kensington, 187;
explosion of a rocket factory at Dart-
ford, seven lives lost, 192; colliery
explosion at Rawmarsh, 52 lives lost,
202. See RAILWAY ACCIDENTS
ACTS, LIST OF, 14 & 15 VICT.-Public
General Acts, 437; Local and Per-
sonal Acts, declared public, 441;
Private Acts printed, 448; Private
Acts not printed, 449

ARCTIC EXPEDITION-The search for Sir
John Franklin (continued), 475
AUSTRIA.-The Emperor reverts to the
old absolutist principles of the em-
pire; his letter to Prince Schwartzen-
berg and Baron Kübeck declaring
Ministers responsible solely to the
Crown, [277]

BANKRUPTS, Table of, 470
BIRTHS, 212

Burglaries and Robberies-Numerous
burglaries with violence in many
parts, 1; at Miss Farncombe's, near
Uckfield, 1; at Liverpool, 4; with
violence at Windsor, 12; at Mid-
dleton, trial of the burglars, 19; dar-
ing robbery in Lancashire, 23;
robbery of a mail-bag, 24; high-
way robbery in Derbyshire, 25; at
the Government Works, Waltham
Abbey, 49; of 7000l. of Californian
gold-dust, 61; great robbery of dia-
monds, 62; at Twinstead, robber shot,
78; attempted robbery at the London
and Westminster Bank, capture of
Cauty and Tyler, 86; burglary at
Kirdford, trial of John Isaacs and
Samuel Harwood, 112; systematic
railway robberies, 150; burglary and
attempted murder at Oldbury, 168;
burglary with violence in Hunting-