The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 106

Yes, while thou hopest, music fills the air; While thou rememberest, life reclothes the clod; While thou canst feel the electric chain of prayer, Breathe but a thought, and be a soul with G.o.d!

Let not these forms of matter bound thine eye, He who the vanishing point of Human things Lifts from the landscape--lost amidst the sky, Has found the Ideal which the poet sings-- Has pierced the pall around the senses thrown, And is himself a poet--though unknown.

[N] Midsummer's Night Dream.

[O] According to a belief in the East, which is a.s.sociated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superst.i.tions the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth--and its nest is never to be found.

[P] It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, the poet allegorizes Religious Faith.

[Q] The gloomy Typhon of Egypt a.s.sumes many of the mystic attributes of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and everlasting youth.

[R] "What Plato thought, and G.o.dlike Cato was."--POPE.

EPIGRAPH.

"COGITO--ERGO SUM."

Self of myself, unto the future age Pa.s.s, murmuring low whate'er thine own has taught, "I think, and therefore am,"--exclaim'd the Sage: As now the Man, so henceforth be the page; A life, because a thought.

Through various seas, exploring sh.o.r.es unknown, A soul went forth, and here bequeaths its chart-- Here Doubt retains the question, Grief the groan, And here may Faith still shine, as when she shone And saved a sinking heart.

From the lost nectar-streams of golden youth, From rivers loud with Babel's madding throng, From wells whence Lore invokes reluctant Truth, And that blest pool the wings of angels smooth, Life fills mine urns of song.

Calmly to time I leave these images Of things experienced, suffer'd, felt, and seen; Fruits shed or tempest-torn from changeful trees, Sh.e.l.ls murmuring back the tides in distant seas-- Signs where a Soul has been.

As for the form Thought takes--the rudest hill Echoes denied to gardens back may give; Life speaks in all the forms which Thought can fill; If thought once born can perish not--here still I think, and therefore live!

FICTION.

STANDARD EDITION OF THE NOVELS AND ROMANCES OF SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART., M.P.

Uniformly printed in crown 8vo, corrected and revised throughout, with new Prefaces.

20 vols. in 10, price 3 3s. cloth extra; or any volumes separately, in cloth binding, as under:--

_s._ _d._ RIENZI: THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES 3 6 PAUL CLIFFORD 3 6 PELHAM: OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN 3 6 EUGENE ARAM. A TALE 3 6 LAST OF THE BARONS 5 0 LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 3 6 G.o.dOLPHIN 3 0 PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE 2 6 NIGHT AND MORNING 4 0 ERNEST MALTRAVERS 3 6 ALICE; OR, THE MYSTERIES 3 6 THE DISOWNED 3 6 DEVEREUX 3 6 ZANONI 3 6 LEILA; OR, THE SIEGE OF GRANADA 2 0 HAROLD 4 0 LUCRETIA 4 0 THE CAXTONS 4 0 MY NOVEL (2 vols.) 8 0

Or the Set complete in 20 vols. 3 11 6 " " half-calf extra 5 5 0 " " half-morocco 5 11 6

"No collection of prose fictions, by any single author, contains the same variety of experience--the same amplitude of knowledge and thought--the same combination of opposite extremes, harmonized by an equal mastership of art; here, lively and sparkling fancies; there, vigorous pa.s.sion or practical wisdom.

These works abound in ill.u.s.trations that teach benevolence to the rich, and courage to the poor; they glow with the love of freedom; they speak a sympathy with all high aspirations, and all manly struggle; and where, in their more tragic portraitures, they depict the dread images of guilt and woe, they so clear our judgment by profound a.n.a.lysis, while they move our hearts by terror or compa.s.sion, that we learn to detect and stifle in ourselves the evil thought which we see gradually unfolding itself into the guilty deed."--_Extract from Bulwer Lytton and his Works._

The above are printed on superior paper, bound in cloth. Each volume is embellished with an Ill.u.s.tration; and this Standard Edition is admirably suited for private, select, and public Libraries.

The odd Numbers and Parts to complete volumes may be obtained; and the complete series is now in course of issue in Three-halfpenny Weekly Numbers, or in Monthly Parts, Sevenpence each.

THE LIBRARY EDITION OF THE RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI'S NOVELS.

Uniformly printed in crown 8vo. Price 3s. 6d. each, cloth extra.

THE YOUNG DUKE.

TANCRED.

VENETIA.

CONTARINI FLEMING.

HENRIETTA TEMPLE.

CONIGSBY.

SYBIL.

ALROY.

IXION.

VIVIAN GREY.

_Standard and Popular Works._

A CHEAP RE-ISSUE OF THE STANDARD EDITION OF BULWER LYTTON'S (SIR E.) NOVELS AND TALES.

Uniformly printed in crown 8vo, and bound, with printed cloth covers and Ill.u.s.trations.

LIST OF THE SERIES:--

Price 2s. 6d. each.

RIENZI.

PAUL CLIFFORD.

PELHAM.

EUGENE ARAM.

ZANONI.

ERNEST MALTRAVERS.

ALICE.

DISOWNED.

DEVEREUX.

LUCRETIA.

LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.

Price 3s. each.

NIGHT AND MORNING.

CAXTONS.

HAROLD MY NOVEL (2 vols.)