the angels name Lenore," who constitutes the heroine of his more famous "Raven" lyric. But sweet and gracefully touching as are some of the ideas, and musical as are the lines, the "Raven" of Poe's morbid genius flutters ever towards the close, and he winds up this, as well as nearly every other paan, with thoughts born of his own brooding misanthrophy which could well be spared.

LENORE.

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever!
Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear ?-weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier, low lies thy love, Lenore !
Come! let the burial rite be read-the funeral song be sung!—
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth, and hated for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her-that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read ?-the requiem how be sung
By you by yours, the evil eye-by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?

Peccavimus! but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong!

The sweet Lenore hath "gone before,” with Hope that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—
For her, the fair and debonnair, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes-
The life still there upon her hair-the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a pœan of old days!
Let no bell toll! lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned earth,
To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-

From hell unto a high estate far up within the heaven

From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."

"

The same strangely morbid bent of thought which mars the beauty of the stanzas here is perhaps even more apparent in his piece called "The Bells," suggested we can scarcely doubt by Moore's Evening Bells," ringing, unconsciously perhaps, in memory's ear. But the American Poet's theme is, in its starting point at least, a thoroughly native one: the mirthful, heart-enlivening music of the sleigh-bells, which give a music to our long winter that repays in part the coyness of the spring's forest-songsters, and cheeringly contrasts with the melancholy pathos of our summer nightingale, the Whip-poor-will. We say nothing of certain

ranal choristers, not unknown as Canadian nightingales!

The

Sleigh Bell; the Wedding Bell; the Fire Bell; and the Funeral Knell; each in succession has a stanza devoted to it. It is not uncharacteristic, nor without its significance, that the " Sabbath Bell" finds no place in the otherwise comprehensive series. The second and the last of these lyrical peals will suffice to exhibit the poet once more in his real aspect of strange antithesis:

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

They are Ghouls;

And their king it is who tolls;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the pæan of the bells-
Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells

To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,-

To the tolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Reiteration is carried here to the utmost length short of weari. some satiety; yet the curious collocation of words must be felt to embody the full ideal of the pealing bells; and this would be much more apparent could we spare room for the whole piece. The varied power of expression is shown by ringing all the changes of words which each successive bell requires. The merry tinkle of the sleigh-bells; the mellow voluminous chime of the wedding bells; the brazen clang of the alarum bells; and the muffled, throbbing knell of the funeral bells; each and all of these seem reproduced in imaginary peal, which echoes through the fancy as the eye silently passes over the curious patch-work of rhyme and rythm strung together in artistic semblance of the music they describe.

One example more we must find room for, of a quaint conceit, more than once successfully accomplished by this singular poet, and perhaps most curious as illustrating the same odd fancy for grappling with self-imposed difficulties, which furnishes the strange plots of so many of his tales of mystery. The subject and occasion of the poem is common,-if not common-place-enough; being one of the thousand-and-one verse missives of the Festival of Saint

Valentine. Some of the rhymes, here as elsewhere, read strangely to unfamiliar ears, e. g. Lada and reader. But such are not without precedent on the American Parnassus. Whittier constantly rhymes such words as law and war, as in the following couplet: "Still shall the glory and the pomp of war

Along their train the shouting millions draw."

No one, however, can have read Poe's "Raven" without recognising his complete mastery of the varied cadences of alliteration, resonance, and the ample musical compass of English rhymes; though in the following bagatelle he had other accomplishments in view :

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Loda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies

Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!-they hold a treasure
Divine-a talisman-an amulet

That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words-the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labour!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,

If one could merely comprehend the plot.
En written upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes seyntillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

Of poets, by poets-as the name is a poet's too.

Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pinto-Mendez Ferdinando

Still form a synonym for Truth.-Cease trying!

You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

This the reader perchance pronounces no great poetic feat; but he has not yet solved the poet's riddle. In the days of old George Wither, poets were wont to invent for themselves new shackles, and to write rhomboidal dirges, triangular odes, and lozenge-shaped lyrics or canzonets. The acrostic is an old fashion not yet altogether obsolete; and the ordinary restraints of the sonnet, Spenserian stanza, or the ottava rima, still furnish pleasant "poetic pains," as in elder centuries. But the hardest of such poetic labours are trifles compared with that which Poe has here achieved; as will be seen if the reader undertakes its solution according to the following directions. Read the first letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the second line, the third of the third line, and so on to the end, and the name of the

fair object of the poet's pains will be revealed; a name which though far from common is not unfamiliar to Canadian ears, nor without its memorial amongst ourselves. After all, however, it is on his "Raven" that Poe's fame as a poet will rest, and its strange odd mingling of morbid and beautiful fancies with the luscious surfeitings of rhyme, will long attract and repel the reluctantly admiring reader with its curiously fascinating charms.

D. W.

SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES.

ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE.

INTERESTING EXPERIMENT IN STEAM NAVIGATION.

A trial trip of a steam vessel of an interesting character took place on the river Thames, recently. The Hoyer, a paddle steamer, of nearly 190 tons, and drawing only two feet of water has been constructed to navigate the shallow waters on the west coast of Denmark, between the islands and the mainland. A reference to the map of Denmark will show the peculiar geographical position of this part of the coast. From the river Eider to the Horns reef, a distance of 80 miles, it is bounded by a number of islands, varying in size, and situated from three to ten miles from the shore. They are rich in cattle and grain, and inhabited by a hardy and industrious race, who, from their peculiar position, enjoy but little communication with the mainland; the space between being composed of a long, low flat (partly dry at low water,) and numerous small and intricate chanLels, difficult and tedious to navigate. The communication hitherto could be made only in small boats, and during bad weather the inhabitants have been unable, for weeks together, to communicate with the coast. The Hoyer (so named after one of the towns) has been constructed to remedy this disadvantage, and in conjunction with the Royal Danish Railway, to place the inhabitants of these hitherto isolated places in daily communication, not only with the coast, but with the whole North of Europe. From her light draught of water, she will pass easily over the flats at tide time, while her size and strength will enable her to navigate the channels, conveying passengers, cattle, and goods with speed and safety. The following are her dimensions:-Length, 120 feet; breath, 18 feet; depth, 7 feet; gross tonnage, 190; horse power, 40; with accommodation for 80 passengers and 100 tons of cargo. On her trial trip, with the wind against her, and with so little hold of the water, she averaged 12 miles an hour, with scarcely any perceptible effort or vibration, and fully realised the expectations of her constructors.