Lost in their dream of " Immortality!"
Upon thy shore?-No! By thy ceaseless flood
Is every mortal deeply penetrated.
E'en in the fierce pulsation of my heart
Roars thy loud cataract-mortality!
Aud when I think I may escape the stream,
Gazing upon the brightness of the stars,
And longing, with the tremblings of desire,
That they may once save and receive my soul:
I am deceived, I see the stars themselves

Grow pale, and backward turn their trembling course;
They hear the billows howl beneath, and know
That in their paths they are not more secure;
They see the fearful ocean, how it swells,
Foreseeing their pale twinkling tells me so-
That from their rapid flight their beaming host

Will fall, e'en as a weary swallow-race (Schwalben-volk).
Then on the ocean will the deep night brood,
Then is the mighty work of death complete,
Then stiffens into ice the fearful flood,
A resting-place for the dark god's desire.
He wanders on the surface, and observes
That all is now so silent and obscure.
And then he smiles with self-contented joy
Upon his universe, upon his night,
And the still field of ice grows bright alone
From the reflexion of his fearful smile.
The other said: I do not care

If life or death be in the shades.
Should a mild ray be beaming there,
There also must the thunder be,
Which in its anger will smite down
What light may foster in deep love.
I do not think, that all the host
Of agonies, by nature borne,
Have merely on this earth encamped,
And that they will not roam with us
From this into the other worlds,
Since they have in our wounded heart
A willing harbour ever found.
Long as this heart on earth has beat,
I've lived to know enough-enough-
To deem it were a happy lot
To pass away and sink to nought.
If in my grave I sleep as sound,
Deeper, than as a child I slept,
Oh then may death for evermore
Stand near me as a centinel,
An angel before paradise.
Yet if another fate be mine,
If yonder springs my life again;
Then patiently-without a fear-
I will endure eternity.

We need not call the attention of our readers to the many wonderful impersonations in this poem; they claim attention for themselves with sufficient plainness; but we may direct it to that mysterious sympathy between man and nature, which pervades

the whole, so that it seems as if the poet were ever invoking the latter for solutions to his doubts, and receiving fearful responses. The brook that roars at the feet of the first "doubter," conveys the awful secret that all is "mortal," and he hears its voice echoed in the recesses of his heart; he looks up to the stars, hoping to receive a contradiction to this first answer, but their pale twinkling informs him that they themselves must fall; and his imagination raises a fearful picture of a last nature, illumined alone by the smile of death.

Another characteristic of Lenau, which we wished to exhibit by this poem, is the sceptical position-not an infidel position, but one of pure doubt, melancholy foreboding doubt—which pervades all the poems, in which it can possibly show itself, and is worked up to its climax, we might almost say its solution, in the "Faust." There is in many of his pieces a deep tone of regret for the confiding pious state of childhood, when " every breeze told him of God;" and his transition from that state to one of fruitless speculation, which preys upon him the more, as his country affords him no room for action, furnishes the subject of one of his most solemn, mournful effusions, "Glauben, Wissen, Handeln.” Hence proceeds his deep feeling; he portrays a perpetual state of despairing regret, interrupted occasionally by a wild terrific burst of joy. His poems even hint at some real sorrows in early life; and he either boldly calls on nature to sympathize with him, or sinks back into a melancholy state of self-reflexion. In the first case, he is wild, and almost fiercely energetic; in the latter, tender, and deeply feeling to a most afflicting degree: we may instance a charming poem, "Die Felsenplatt," where a man is gazing on a flat rock, which his fancy decorates with pictures of his early youth, and among them with that of his own image as a boy. Round this last image, all the rest are fading as he awakes from his reverie.

the flowers now grow pale,

Mournful waves the withered hedge,
And the youth stands there abandoned,
Till he fades away himself.

Through the air deep thunders roll,
In the lightning's vivid flash,
At the feet of him she pondered,
Cold and pallid shakes the stone.

The "Faust" is a most remarkable work; and, in spite of its free and bold style of writing, we can trace in it a progress from the mere negative sceptical state to a positive religious feeling. It should be read after the first volume of poems, as it contains the thoughts that are scattered through them, arranged and, as it were, digested. In many places similar, indeed nearly the same, images are discernible; but this is not to be attributed to a decline

Zuckt, i. e. is convulsed from the shock of the storm.

of poetic invention, but is explained by the consideration that the Faust is an arrangement and condensation of that which has preceded it. Though written in a similar metre, and though not unlike in construction to the " Faust of Göthe," in character and feeling it is widely different. A tone of despair, remorse, and disappointment, pervades the whole; and the character of Mephistopheles is not a graceless pet of the reader, as is sometimes the familiar of Göthe, but a most terrific impersonation of the negative in its most revolting form, his very jokes causing a chill. Faust is a kind of remorseful Don Juan; he is dragged through a course of seduction and murder, and at last commits suicide, endeavouring to console himself by a sort of pantheism, in which he tries to persuade himself that Mephistopheles and his own individual existence are mere dreams, but which consolation is laughed to scorn by Mephistopheles over the dead body. A character, called Görg, introduced towards the end of the piece, is finely conceived as standing in strong contrast to Faust. He is a common sailor, a low, brutal, reckless, infidel, on the same principle (to use Dr. Johnson's words) that a cat or a dog is an infidel; while Faust is one who has left an early faith, who is ever engaged in a painful contest to subdue the stings of conscience, and would fall back into his primitive state, were not Mephistopheles perpetually urging him on. The low infidel astonishes the speculative one; and his " don't care" state has the effect of driving the latter to more serious reflexion. "Faust" must not be dismissed without a remark on the scene, headed "Der Tanz," which is so wonderfully spirited, which is carried on with such a rush of energy, that we would defy any one to produce a mænadic effusion which should excel it. Translation would not give it its miraculous force; and, even if we could translate it, we would not: our readers may consult the original.

It is remarkable in Lenau that he is not, like most of the German poets, to be traced to any particular school, or course of reading. His own experiences furnish the matter for his song, which is not tinged either with romanticism, classicism, or orientalism: we know what he has thought and felt; but what he has read, or with what class of literati he has associated, his works give us no means of ascertaining. There he stands, bold and independent, as a self-creation! One exception, however, may be mentioned; a collection of ten little odes in classic metres.

Yet, even here he has but borrowed the form from the antique poets the same Lenau is still before us. He has subsided into tranquillity, but none could mistake the usual boldness of impersonation, notwithstanding the transient calmness of the poet. The following Abendbild (Evening-picture) is one of the best.

Peacefully evening on the fields is sinking;
Nature softly slumbers; about her features
Twilight's gentle veil is waving, and she is
Smiling-the fair one.

VOL. I.—NO. V.—SEPTEMBER, 1839.

M M

We like Lenau better in the merely lyrical or lyrico-dramatic element, than when he takes to the narrative. His tale, "Die Marionetten," though very powerful, relies rather on the physically horrible; and his "Klara Herbert," though a beautiful story, has not the marked excellence of some of his other productions. However, when we speak of these poems less favourably, it must be distinctly understood that we are only speaking relatively; a host of poets might bless themselves if they had written the weakest of Lenau's productions; but in him we look for the highest excellence, and prefer him, when the matter springs from his own breast.

An expression in our first number (in the article on the Musenalmanach), that "Lenau had done enough in the lyric department," we beg leave most distinctly to retract, now we have seen his later poems, one of which, entitled "Die Täuschung," leads us to suspect that he is advancing into a new region, one of deep reflexion. May we make a dozen similar mistakes!

This article cannot conclude better than with one of Lenau's gems, of a more cheerful character than the rest of his produc

tions.

THE SPRING.

Here comes that lovely youth, the Spring,

When all, perforce, must love;

With joyous bound, he springs to us,
And greets us with a smile.

In joyous mischief he begins
A thousand sportive tricks,
Such as on that old giant oft-
Old Winter-he has played.

And free he sets the streamlets all,

Though Winter old may chide,
Who held them fast as prisoners
Bound in his icy chains.

And all the waves rush gaily forth,

And dance and prate along,

And laugh that their stern tyrant's law

Is melted now to nought.

Young Spring is charmed to see them haste,

Exulting through the fields;

To see them catching in their sport

His freshly blooming form.

And gladly smiles his mother Earth,

After her lengthened grief,

And with a wildly joyous mien

She clasps her darling son.

The wanton boy plucks at her breast,
And coaxingly draws forth
The gentle violet and the rose
From their dark hiding-place.

And all his nimble messengers

He sends to mount and vale;

My breezes-quick, tell all my friends-
Tell them that I am here!"

With charms of joy he draws the heart
Swiftly o'er many a chasm,

And hurls his singing-rockets (Sing-racketen) high,
His larks, into the air.

ORIENTAL LITERATURE.

Histoire de la Littérature Hindoui et Hindoustani. (History of Hindoui and Hindoustani Literature.) By M. Garcin de Tassy. Vol. I. 8vo. Paris, 1839.

Anthologia Sanscritica, Glossario instructa. Edidit Christianus Lassen. Bonnæ ad Rhenum. 8vo. 1838.

Scriptorum Arabum de Rebus Indicis. Fasciculus primus, 8vo. Recensuit et illustravit Joannes Gildemeister. Bonna. 1838.

The first volume of the first-mentioned of these works, published under the auspices of the Asiatic Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, which has just reached us, contains a biographical account of all the Indian writers whose works have been composed in the Hindi and Hindustani languages. These two idioms bear to each other the same relation as the Saxon does to the modern English. The Hindi is the direct descendant of the Sanscrit, and is spoken by the Hindus, from the province of Bihar to the confines of Cashmere, along the Ganges and Jumna; and, in fact, the language of Cashmere itself, together with that of the Panjab, is a kindred dialect of the Hindi. The Hindustani is the language generally used by the Mussulmans throughout India. It is a complete " lingua franca," whose basis is the Hindi, but admitting an unlimited supply of words from the Persian and Arabic, or any other source that is convenient.

The two languages, or rather dialects, above-mentioned, therefore, are upon the whole the most important of modern India; and, in consequence, M. de Tassy's work is a valuable addition to our stock of information respecting a country in which we are so deeply interested. Of the author's abilities to do ample justice to his task, his former works on these languages are a sufcient guarantee. He has spared neither labour nor expense, in order to gain access to the most authentic sources. Twice he journeyed to England to examine our treasures of Oriental manuscripts in the India House, the British Museum, and the