Round the red moon of October,
White and cold the eve-stars climb,
Birds are gone, and flowers are dying—
'Tis a lonesome, lonesome time,
Yellow leaves along the woodland
Surge to drifts—the elm bough sways,
Creaking at the homestead window
All the weary nights and days.
Dismally the rain is falling—
Very dismally and cold;
Close, within the village graveyard,
By a heap of freshest mould,
With a simple, nameless headstone,
Lies a low and narrow mound,
And the brow of Annie Clayville
Is no longer shadow-crowned.
Rest thee, lost one, rest thee calmly,
Glad to go where pain is o'er—
Where they say not, through the night-time,
"I am weary," any more.
Mr. Boker has a fine poem entitled "I have a Cottage," in the July Graham's Magazine.
FOOTNOTES:
[D] Weil's History of the Khalifs. 3 vols. octavo. Besserman, Mannhein, 1851.
The Fine Arts.
There have been new discoveries of sculptures in Athens. The foundations of the old Council House were disclosed, and farther investigation led to the discovery of very beautiful remains. They are mostly fragmentary, but of the finest style. Especially an arm, with drapery, is very fine, and as the investigations are not yet completed, it is hoped that other parts of the statue may be obtained. More than sixty inscriptions have been also revealed. They are mostly decrees in praise of and memorials of honor to certain men. Some are of the Macedonian, others of the Roman period. Mr. Pittakis, the long resident and famous Athenian antiquariae, has been properly put at the head of the party of investigation. His topographical knowledge of Athens is probably superior to that of any other living man.
The German painter Cornelius has recently composed a picture for the hospital of the Sisters of Charity in Berlin. The cartoon is at present in Dresden, where it will be cut in wood by the artist's old friend, Director von Schnorr, for the Art-Guild there. It will afterward be engraved upon steel, and sold for the benefit of the hospital. The subject is taken from the life of Elizabeth. The mother of the Landgrave of Thuringen has seen that Elizabeth has laid a beggar on the nuptial bed, for the purpose of nursing her, and he brings her son to see how his wife forgets his dignity as well as her own. But her worldly selfishness is shamed in the most surprising manner. An angel has drawn aside the curtain, and the landgrave, instead of a beggar, beholds the Saviour himself, who, with gentle aspect, stretches his hand toward the mother and son. Under the picture is the motto, "What ye have done to the least of these brethren, that ye have done to me." In its essential character this picture resembles the cartoon for a painting upon glass in the cathedral of Aix. In both pictures the artist has reverted to the sensibility of his youth, and created forms which recall the paintings of the old German and elder Italian masters. In the present drawing the figures of Elizabeth and of the two angels (one of whom is in a reverential posture behind the bed) are radiant with celestial tenderness and loveliness. From the countenance of Christ beams the divinely mild rebuke of the deepest feeling of mistaken virtue. The landgrave, a fine manly figure, is full of the earnest expression of the knowledge fast dawning upon his mind, and his mother shows characteristic worldliness subdued by a higher power. The whole picture is penetrated by the devotional sentiment of the middle ages. These are not modern figures in middle age costume, but men who belong to their time by expression and bearing. In the freedom and simplicity of treatment we recognize the master, who may properly reproduce the life and art of a past time, from his entire sympathy with it. Another cartoon in the great series for the Berlin Campo Santo, upon which Cornelius is now engaged, represents the happiness of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.