STANZAS.

    I feel that I am growing old,
       Nor wish to hide that truth;
    Conscious my heart is not more cold
       Than in my by-gone youth.

    I cannot roam the country round,
       As I was wont to do;
    My feet a scantier circle bound,
       My eyes a narrower view.

    But on my mental vision rise
       Bright scenes of beauty still: 
    Morn’s splendor, evening’s glowing skies,
       Valley, and grove, and hill.

    Nor can infirmities o’erwhelm
       The purer pleasures brought
    From the immortal spirit’s realm
       Of feeling and of Thought!

    My heart! let not dismay or doubt
       In thee an entrance win! 
    Thou hast enjoyed thyself without—­
       Now seek thy joy within!

During breakfast he related to us a pleasant anecdote of Scott.  He once wrote to the poet in behalf of a young lady, who wished to have the description of Melrose, in the “Lay of the last Minstrel,” in the poet’s own writing.  Scott sent it, but added these lines to the conclusion: 

    “Then go, and muse with deepest awe
    On what the writer never saw;
    Who would not wander ’neath the moon
    To see what he could see at noon!”

We went afterwards into Lockhart’s library, which was full of interesting objects.  I saw the private diary of Scott, kept until within a short time of his death.  It was melancholy to trace the gradual failing of all his energies in the very wavering of the autograph.  In a large volume of his correspondence, containing letters from Campbell, Wordsworth, Byron, and all the distinguished characters of the age, I saw Campbell’s “Battle of the Baltic” in his own hand.  I was highly interested and gratified with the whole visit; the more so, as Mr. Lockhart had invited me voluntarily, without previous acquaintance.  I have since heard him spoken of in the highest terms of esteem.

I went one Sunday to the Church of St. Stephen, to hear Croly, the poet.  The service, read by a drowsy clerk, was long and monotonous; I sat in a side-aisle, looking up at the dome, and listening to the rain which dashed in torrents against the windowpanes.  At last, a tall, gray-haired man came down the passage.  He bowed with a sad smile, so full of benevolence and resignation, that it went into my heart at once, and I gave him an involuntary tribute of sympathy.  He has a heavy affliction to bear—­the death of his gallant son, one of the officers who were slain in the late battle of Ferozeshaw.  His whole manner betrays the tokens of subdued but constant grief.

His sermon was peculiarly finished and appropriate; the language was clear and forcible, without that splendor of thought and dazzling vividness of imagery which mark “Salathiel.”  Yet I could not help noticing that he delighted to dwell on the spiritualities of religion, rather than its outward observances, which he seemed inclined to hurry over as lightly as possible.  His mild, gray eye and lofty forehead are more like the benevolent divine than the poet.  I thought of Salathiel, and looked at the dignified, sorrowful man before me.  The picture of the accursed Judean vanished, and his own solemn lines rang on my ear: