Young land of beauty, and divine repose! 
  Art thou a dream? a vision from on high
  Unveiling Paradise? uncurt’ning those
  Supernal glories, Eden doth supply
  To glad immortals? o’er thee, ev’ning glows,
  Brilliant, as seraph’s blush—­pure as his breath—­
  Smiling an antidote to tears and death!

  Young land of beauty! (fancy could not dwell
  In lovelier, albeit her rainbow wings
  Fold, but in fairy-spheres) a living well
  Of sylvan joy art thou, whose thousand springs
  Gush, sinless, gladness, peace ineffable,
  And that luxuriousness of being, which
  Mocks eloquence:  warm, holy, ruby, rich.

  Young land of beauty! ’neath thy sun-ting’d shades,
  Beside thy lake, crystal in roseate light,
  Enam’ring music breathes:  there, raptur’d maids
  In dances, with adoring youths unite;
  There, magic voices sigh in song; and glades
  With birds and blossoms, all but vital, seem
  Entranc’d, like hermit in divinest dream!

  Young land of beauty! art thou but a ray
  Of intellect, emerg’d from one? and shrin’d,
  That thine immortal light may dim the day,
  Faint struggling thro’ some lowlier, cloudier, mind: 
  Dream of the painter-poet! oh! we’ll say,
  Lur’d to ethereal musings by thy thrall,
  Tho’ dream in part, no dream art thou in all!

M.L.B

* * * * *

MARCH OF “IMPROVEMENT.”

(For the Mirror.)

An old Subscriber has sent us the following questions on the improvement of the metropolis, which we insert as a castle-building jeu d’esprit rather than as a serious matter.  They will, however, serve for the committee of taste to crack after dinner, and give a zest for their magna bona.

Ought not the new palace to have been built in the richest Gothic style, so as to have deviated in appearance from every other edifice in the metropolis; and to have been erected on the north bank of the Serpentine?—­And, if the dome of the present erection is not to be removed, cannot it be ornamented?—­Or could not the pediment, fronting the park, be raised another story, so as to hide it (the dome) from that side?—­Indeed, would not the palace be much improved by such an alteration?  I think if it be left as it is, when the wings are raised to the height of the body of the palace, (though they are a wonderful improvement upon those first erected) the whole will have a very flat appearance.—­Are not the statues of Neptune, &c., much too small, and the other ornaments, consisting of representations of warlike implements, &c., much too heavy to look well?