A SELECTION 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 WRITINGS 
 
 OF Tlia LATK 
 
 JONATHAN LAWRENCE, JUNIOR 
 
 Stolen from hours I should have tied 
 To musty volumes at my side ; 
 Given to hours that sweetly wooed 
 My heart from its study's solitude. 
 
 Thoughts of a Student 
 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 M DCrC XXXIII. 
 

 Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by 
 
 SLEIGHT & VAN NORDEN, 
 
 in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 ■^LKIOHT & VAN NORDEN, PRINT. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The publication of the following selection, from the 
 writings of the late Jonathan Lawrence, Jun., has 
 been undertaken by the desire of many of his friends, 
 and at the particular request of a literary association, 
 of which he was for several years a zealous and 
 active supporter. In preparing these remains for 
 the press, limited as the circulation of the work will 
 be, the Editor is conscious that he is acting contrary 
 to what would probably have been the wish of the 
 author, with regard to productions written during 
 the intervals of assiduous application to the studies 
 and duties of his profession, and with a few excep- 
 tions, not intended for the public eye. Anxious as 
 he feels not to send forth into the world anything 
 calculated to detract from a reputation dear to him 
 
iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 as his own, he cannot but be aware of the disadvan- 
 tages under which this work appears without the 
 supervision and correction of its author. It is 
 deemed unnecessary in a pubUcation hke the present, 
 to enter into any detailed account of a hfe, which, 
 marked by few events of interest, had been passed in 
 preparing for what promised to be a bright career 
 of usefulness and honor. To enable the reader, 
 however, to ascertain the age of the author at the 
 several periods when the following pieces were 
 written, it may be proper to state that Mr. Lawrence 
 was born in the city of New York, November 19th, 
 1807, and died April 26th, 1833, before he had com- 
 pleted his 26th year. The language of panegyric is 
 alike needless, for to those who knew him eulogy 
 would be superfluous, and by those who were un- 
 acquainted with his character, it might be attributed 
 to the influence of partial aflection. The object of 
 this publication, intended solely for the eye of friend- 
 ship, will have been fully answered, if it shall some- 
 times recall the remembrance of one certainly not un- 
 worthy of the sympathy and regret which his early 
 
INTRODUCTION. v 
 
 "death has called forth. The Editor would be doing 
 injustice to his own feelings, were he to conclude 
 these brief remarks without expressing his deep 
 sense of the kindness of those friends who have 
 aided him with their advice and assistance in pre- 
 paring the following pages for the press. 
 
 M DCCC XXXIIl. 
 
^if' 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Algernon Sidney, ... 1 
 
 Dialogues of the Dead, No. 1, 17 
 
 " " " No. 2, 25 
 
 A Dream, 33 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 On the Poetry of Burns, . 41 
 On the Mission to Pa- 
 nama, 55 
 
 On Enghsh Comedy, . . 63 
 
 POETICAL PIECES. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Lost Ship, 77 
 
 The Indian, 80 
 
 To a Chained Eagle, . . 83 
 
 The Feast of Belshazzar, . 87 
 
 To Pompeii, 90 
 
 The Martyr, 93 
 
 The Clouds, 98 
 
 To May, 102 
 
 Forget Me Not, .... 105 
 
 Forest Leaves, 107 
 
 Missolonghi, 109 
 
 To , 112 
 
 Changes, 114 
 
 Thoughts of a Student, . .117 
 
 Signs of Love, 120 
 
 On a Seal, 124 
 
 Translations from De Be- 
 
 rano'er, 126 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 To , 131 
 
 Lines on the Death of a 
 
 Young Lady, . . . .134 
 Stanzas on Lord Bvron, . . 137 
 
 To , ...".. .140 
 
 Sea Song, 143 
 
 To , 145 
 
 My Choice, 148 
 
 Cowper, 150 
 
 To , 155 
 
 Look Aloft, . 158 
 
 Morning Musing among tKe 
 
 Hills, 160 
 
 Eleory on Afric, .... 163 
 
 To^^ , 165 
 
 Hymn, 168 
 
 Lines vv^ritten in an Al- 
 bum, 170 
 
ON THE 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
ALGERNON SIDNEY 
 
 The Revolution, which dethroned Charles the First 
 of England, and ultimately conducted him to the 
 scaffold, though for a time it established in his room 
 a sovereign equally arbitrary, may yet be justly 
 regarded as the seed which has produced the plen- 
 tiful harvest of British freedom. It opened the eyes 
 of the nation to the slavery under which it had so 
 long and so grievously labored ; it laid the axe to 
 that tree, which, under the name of prerogative, had 
 been spreading its roots and branches to poison with 
 its embraces every part of the constitution ; but 
 above all, it led to that free spirit of inquiry and 
 discussion which combines and perpetuates all those 
 advantages which it is the first interest and object 
 of tyrants to crush, and of patriots to uphold ; well 
 knowing, that wherever and whenever it exists, it is 
 the source as well as the security of freedom. " Give 
 
4 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
 me," says Milton, "the liberty to know, to utter, and 
 to argue freely, according to my conscience, above 
 all liberties." Whether there be any complete justi- 
 fication of the spectacle it exhibited — a monarch 
 condemned by the voice of his own subjects to die 
 the death of the malefactor — we are not competent 
 to determine ; but we have to blush for the absurdity 
 of the doctrine that in our age would make his death 
 a solemn cause of national hypocrisy. The prin- 
 ciples of Charles were by no means such as would 
 entitle him to the appellation of a martyr, and the 
 errors of his education, though they may in some 
 degree palliate his misdeeds, are not surely to confer 
 upon him the crown of the saint, who, having 
 endured and suffered all things in a holy cause, has 
 finished a life of faith by a death of glory. Who 
 that can think for a moment of Stephen or of Paul, 
 would be willing to tarnish the dignity of martyrdom, 
 and the brightness of the martyr, by a comparison 
 that is at once unjust and insulting. He had talents, 
 in truth, that might have adorned even his high sta- 
 tion ; virtues, which in private life would have made 
 him an invaluable citizen : but as a king, as the ruler 
 of a people jealous of their freedom, he was danger- 
 ous both from disposition and ability ; and whatever 
 may be said of his character, we are content for our 
 part, as we are willing, to acknowledge in every trait 
 of it the wisdom of that providence which gave our 
 
ALGERNON SIDNEY. 5 
 
 forefathers a monarch who, "neither to be instructed 
 by experience, nor persuaded by argument," compel- 
 led them to appeal, as victoriously and triumphantly 
 they did, to the rights of man, and to the God of 
 battles. Irritated by the conduct of the sovereign, 
 and anxious to assert the rights he had withholden, 
 the people of England were again arrayed in civil 
 combat, and in the only cause that can vindicate 
 such a scene — the cause that involved their own and 
 their children's happiness. "The man," says Home 
 Tooke, " must be hard-hearted indeed, who does not 
 let fall a tear for every drop of blood shed in such a 
 struggle, however just the quarrel;" but we do think 
 that our tears in such a cause as theirs, would be 
 lighted up by the consciousness of duty if unfortunate ; 
 or if successful, by the proud and pure exultation that 
 should arise from, such a victory, however dearly 
 bought. In the struggle that convulsed England at 
 this time, there was hardly a middle course for him 
 who felt for the interests of his country, and accord- 
 ino^ly we soon find among the leaders of the people, 
 the proudly eminent name of Algernon Sidney. 
 
 His family is one of the most illustrious in the re- 
 cords of English history. Wit, valor, and generous 
 feeling seem to have descended with the name from 
 generation to generation ; and beauty, can we forget 
 beauty, was theirs. The true knight bore proudly 
 
 his lady's favors in the bannered lists, and felt his 
 
 1* 
 
6 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
 every effort doubly paid by a smile or a look from 
 "those bright eyes that rained their influence, and 
 adjudged the prize;" while the deeds of their sons 
 were the theme of many a song, the envy of many a 
 gallant knight, the secret pride and admiration of 
 many a beautiful bosom. The name of Sir Philip 
 needs only mention to awaken the finest recollections. 
 His were the "hisfh thousrhts seated in a heart of 
 courtesy" that encircled his age and memory with 
 the last and loveliest laurels of his beloved chivalry, 
 and the spirit of that chivalry, the spirit that knew 
 not fear or reproach as it animated his living actions, 
 drooped and died upon his tomb. The lustre that 
 seemed for a while to live after him, was only the sad 
 and faint reflection of his glory, like the glowing rays 
 that linger upon some clear sunset, and are soon to 
 follow it in its departure. Yes ; he was the last of 
 those fair spirits who were bravest and brightest in 
 battle and bower, whose deeds gave to knighthood 
 all its renown, and whose passionate fidelity bestowed 
 upon woman her noblest prerogatives ; who united 
 the warrior and the bard in a rare and beautiful 
 union, whose whole life in fine^ in the language of 
 Campbell, " was poetry put into action." Their days 
 are gone; but we love to linger with them and amid 
 their remembrances. They are the luxuriant spots 
 in the dull waste of the chronicles, the fairy land of 
 memory in which "the dreaming boy" roves and 
 
ALGERNOX SIDNEY. 7 
 
 revels until visions of fair forms and bright eyes, of 
 knight and lady, of Sidney and of Geraldine, are 
 with him, around him, and before him. 
 
 Such were Algernon Sidney's forefathers, and the 
 son of such sires, the scion of such a stock, was an 
 honor to his origin. What though it was not his to 
 dally with, or battle for a "ladye love;" what though 
 it was not his to have his name " married to immor- 
 tal verse;" his calling was nobler and more exalted; 
 and with a patriotism as strong and a soul as gallant 
 as the best of his ancestors, he prepared to obey it, to 
 follow it " through evil and good," to glorify it in life 
 and in death. The cause he had espoused had now 
 become the darling of his affections. His talents, the 
 rank he had put to hazard, but above all, that firm, 
 unshaken integrity that awes the boldest, and ani- 
 mates in the worst of times to deeds of almost incre- 
 dible success ; these united qualities gave him an in- 
 fluence and an independence which few possessed, 
 and few dared to exercise during the ascendency of 
 Cromwell. But Sidney was neither to be the slave 
 of a party, or the tool of an intrigue. So long as the 
 future Protector acted for the common weal, Sidney 
 was by his side ; so long as he defended the rights his 
 countrymen had risen to defend, he found in Sid- 
 ney a brave heart, and a willing arm ; but, beyond 
 this, he would not go ; this was the point in which 
 centred all his hopes, all his exertions ; this was with 
 
8 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
 him the hue " quam uUra citraque nequit consistere 
 rectum." From this time forth his course was plain, 
 and bold, and open. He was above disguise, and he 
 scorned all fear. His opposition to the schemes of the 
 usurper, so long as it could be effectual, was warm 
 and ardent ; but he who '< wielded at his will the 
 fierce democracy of England," was not to be thus im- 
 peded, and obtained in the eventual defeat of Sidney, 
 a signal triumph over public and private virtue. 
 Wiser than the Roman, warned by his folly and his 
 example, Cromwell had seized with the authority 
 upon something of the " pride and circumstance" of 
 royalty, while his substantial greatness was rapidly 
 increasing with the spread of British commerce, and 
 the success of his naval and military enterprises. 
 Further opposition, therefore, would have been a 
 species of heroic insanity, which we may admire but 
 cannot pardon in him who should have reserved him- 
 self for better days. In this situation, Sidney retired 
 to mourn in secret over the prostration of his 
 hopes and the prospects of the people, and we may 
 conjecture that he devoted this retirement to that 
 record of his opinions, which he has left as a valuable 
 legacy to posterity. 
 
 His maxims of political truth were regarded by his 
 contemporaries as the daring and singular tenets of 
 a visionary, though they are now neglected as the 
 common place elements, the very axioms of the 
 
ALGERNON SIDNEY. 9 
 
 science of free governments. Such are the effects of 
 proceeding time. That which is to us an ahuost 
 tangible reaUty, was enveloped to his view in clouds 
 and shadows; that which he saw as "through a glass 
 darkly," is displayed to us in the full power and light 
 of day. We have seen the almost poetry of Milton 
 confirmed into prophecy. We have seen a " nation 
 rising like a strong man after his sleep, and shaking 
 his invincible locks" — we have seen her throwing 
 away her shackles and prejudices, the dimness 
 and the indolence of slumber, to secure to her 
 children, in a long continued line, we trust, of 
 worthy descendants, the blessings of a freedom 
 bounded only by the natural imperfections of man. 
 If they could have seen this: — If they could have ' 
 seen their offspring, proud are we of the name! 
 founding in another and distant world an empire, 
 whose extent none have ascertained, and whose 
 future greatness it is beyond the power of the human 
 mind to calculate, and that empire " free, sovereign, 
 and independent," well might they have exclaimed in 
 the spirit of the saint, in the language so beautifully 
 quoted by Sidney, on a similar occasion, "Lord, 
 now lettest thou thy servants depart in peace, for our 
 eyes have seen thy salvation." But to them such 
 revelations were dark; they resembled the types and 
 shadows of the Jewish hierarchy, whose interpreta- 
 tion, indistinctly seen by the patriarchs and prophets 
 
10 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
 of old, became gradually visible, until they met on the 
 cross like the lines of a circle in its centre, so that 
 now the Christian is enabled to walk in the light of 
 their fulfilment, and in the freedom of the sons of 
 God. Such, too, has been, and we trust will forever 
 be, the march of liberal political principles, until in 
 the fulness of time, the ends of the earth, enlightened, 
 redeemed, and regenerated by their influence, shall 
 glory in equal privileges ; until the Greek shall again 
 crown the bowl of Liberty upon the soil, and beneath 
 the sky of his forefathers ; until our southern conti- 
 nents shall present with us an innumerable people, 
 free, united, and happy ; until the Spaniard shall be 
 permitted to hallow the memory of Riego, and the 
 Russian shall blush for the ignominy of his servile 
 fathers; until, in fine, all nations, of every climate, 
 color, and description, shall worship with one accord 
 at the altar of the same freedom. 
 
 To return — the death of the Lord Protector opens 
 to our view another and different era. Whatever 
 may be said of his moral character, Oliver Cromwell 
 was without doubt the greatest statesman that ever 
 wielded the destinies and the sceptre of England. 
 Without eloquence, I had almost said, without the 
 powers of speech, he won the affections of the people, 
 corrupted the integrity of parliament, and finally, 
 subverted a form of government that had lasted un- 
 shaken for centuries. His success, in a time when 
 
ALGERNON SIDNEY. n 
 
 one mistake would have mined his fortunes, is the 
 true test of his unequalled abilities. He wanted but 
 little of that vaulting ambition which led Bonaparte to 
 his rock, and would have led him by the same pro- 
 cess to the scaffold. It is worthy also of our obser- 
 vation and regret, that one step only would have 
 been required to have made him the founder of a 
 great republic, and the idol of succeeding genera- 
 tions. The crown he had worn descended to his 
 son ; but the son inherited not the mantle of his 
 father : the fires that had slumbered under the strong 
 hand now burst forth with redoubled violence, and 
 without energy to subdue, or address to conciliate, 
 he resigned his royal dignity, to seek the happiness 
 it could not afford. 
 
 The people, wearied out with dissensions, were 
 determined to procure repose, even at the hazard of 
 restoring the kingly authority ; and with a prospect 
 as bright as ever opened on the eyes of any prince, 
 hailed with joy and gladness as the hope of the na- 
 tion, the second Charles ascended the throne of his 
 fathers. Educated in the French court, a libertine 
 by profession as well as disposition, he caused the 
 chaste cheek to blush for his open outrages of all 
 that had been esteemed honorable or virtuous, and 
 made the heart of every true Englishman burn 
 within him, at this base pollution of the throne once 
 occupied by Alfred and by the Edwards. It would 
 
12 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
 have been well for him if he had inherited the piety 
 of his parent ; but he had every vice and wickedness 
 of youth, without one of his father's redeeming vir- 
 tues ; and we are compelled to declare, that we find 
 in his character nothing to check our disgust, or to 
 soften our abhorrence. It was a waste, a barren 
 waste, "in which no verdure quickened, and no 
 kindly plant took root." Upon his accession, Eng- 
 land was no longer safe for those whose activity or 
 abilities had given them distinction in the previous 
 troubles, and accordingly, Algernon Sidney departed 
 to await in exile an honorable return, and to hope 
 for brighter prospects in his native land. But even 
 here, surrounded by courtiers and enemies, he 
 displayed the same loftiness of feeling, the same 
 fearlessness of danger. Well might the tyrant trem- 
 ble before him who had recorded in the face of the 
 world as his chosen motto, " Haec manus inimica 
 tyrannis ense petit placidem sub libertate quietem." 
 But the time was fast approaching when his enemies 
 were to satisfy their vengeance with his blood. En- 
 couraged by some faint hopes of security at home^ 
 he returned to England and to his death. The 
 spectacle that met his view was not to be supported. 
 The nation rapidly giving way to the strides of 
 prerogative, and the parliament seconding every blow 
 against their constituents, and glorying in their trea- 
 son, were sights that stung him to the quick. He 
 
ALGERNON SIDNEY. 13 
 
 could not see the righteous perish, and not lift up his 
 voice against the foul crime : he could not behold his 
 countrymen oppressed and trampled on without a 
 struggle, and he was ready to bare his arm for their 
 redemption, and against the tyrant. From this mo- 
 ment, from the moment in which he offered any 
 obstacle to the strides of the court, his doom was deter- 
 mined on. He was hunted and dogged in daylight 
 and darkness, his servants were traitors to his inter- 
 ests, and his house was no longer a refuge. There 
 are means to accomplish any end however detestable, 
 and he was soon committed. His trial was a mock- 
 ery of justice : perjury against him was a virtue, and 
 the false witness retired from his seat to receive the 
 reward of his labors. There were some, indeed, 
 bold enough to protest against such conduct, and to 
 present to the mercy-seat, alas, how miscalled ! their 
 petitions for redress. But it would in truth have 
 savored of madness to have expected either justice or 
 mercy where the judge was Jeffries and the sovereign 
 was Charles. Amiable association ! The libertine 
 king, and the infamous servant, were fit and happy 
 companions. " In their lives they were lovely, and 
 even after death they shall not be divided ;" the records 
 of history shall do them most substantial justice, and 
 the names of the real judge and executioner, of 
 Charles and of Jeffries, shall descend to posterity 
 together. Sidney died upon the scaffold; but the 
 
14 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 
 
 scaffold's ignominy (terrors for him it could not have,) 
 was a word unknown. Consecrated by the blood of 
 nobles and patriots, its boards had become holy 
 ground, and he but added his name to the long list 
 of those who were too firm to be slaves, and too 
 fearless to be silent. He has added his name to theirs 
 too, in their triumphant justification. Though the 
 writers of a day, the minions and mercenaries of a 
 party, endeavored to fasten upon him their obloquy, 
 and to sully that reputation, which, dearer to him 
 than his existence, has " embalmed and treasured up" 
 his memory " to a life beyond hfe," with Russel and 
 Hampden, he has come purer than gold refined from 
 the seven times heated furnace of his persecution ; 
 and as long as virtue, valor, and wisdom, shall be 
 respected among men, he will illustrate with them 
 the beautiful moral of the poet, 
 
 Truth, tho' it troubles some minds, 
 Some wicked minds, that are both dark and dangerous, 
 Yet it preserves itself, comes off pure, innocent, 
 And like the sun, tho' never so eclipsed, 
 Must break in glory. 
 
 Above all, it becomes our country to cherish and to 
 reverence his name. The principles that have given 
 us a rank among the nations, that have bestowed 
 upon us our various details of security and happiness, 
 founded on the broad basis of equal law and justice, 
 and comprehending the free enjoyment of life, liberty. 
 
ALGERNON SIDNEY. 15 
 
 and property; the principles that have made us 
 what we now are, and will make us whatever we 
 shall be, he loved, he lived, and died for. It were idle 
 to tell you of their influence. You behold and feel 
 it in every step you take, in every object that meets 
 your view. Ours is not that phantom liberty, that 
 licentiousness, which incited the French Revolu- 
 tionists to deeds of rapine and murder only to mock 
 them by its departure ; but that bounded and char- 
 tered liberty, which, resting for its preservation on 
 the happiness it secures, can never be lost, while men 
 are worthy of its enjoyment. 
 
 Let it be our care, then, to protect it ; and if ever 
 the time should come, when oppression, foreign or 
 domestic, in any shape or disguise whatever, shall 
 seek to weaken it, or to wrest it from us, let us unite 
 with one heart and one voice " to crush the tyrant 
 while we rend the chain ;" and in the glorious lan- 
 guage inscribed upon the tomb of one of Sidney's 
 noblest compatriots, let us " never, never forget, that 
 opposition to tyrants is obedience to God." 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD 
 
 No. I. 
 
 MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 " Who is this, 
 That with warm veins, and Hmbs and features fresh 
 With the sun's Hfe, comes to inhabit with 
 The hidden dead?" 
 
 Milton. Yes ! but it was the deed of the people 
 of England. The factious tumult of a violent and 
 turbulent mob, without perceivable aim or purpose, 
 such as we have known in the old times, was not the 
 scene displayed in that awful and bloody theatre; 
 nor by the hands of a few banded swordsmen, 
 without character or provoking cause, did the man, 
 Charles Stuart, meet his righteous and just death. 
 It was the calm and settled doom decreed him by 
 those, upon whom he and his butterfly minions had 
 trampled, and whose unsleeping resentment his long 
 and unstinted oppressions had kindled. 
 
 Shaksj)eare. But I tell thee, John Milton, the 
 people of England were not rightfully nor laAvfuUy 
 
20 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 acting, to rise up in armed rebellion against their 
 throned sovereign ; him on whom the priests of God's 
 holy altar had poured the oil of their consecration. 
 
 Milton. And I tell thee, thou art talking in the 
 foolish and bold style of the haughty Tudors : of that 
 lustful king, whose marriage bed was defiled with 
 divorces and stained with murders ; of that Mary, 
 whose blazing faggots, fired to consume the saints, 
 seemed almost to rival the light of the sun in heaven ; 
 of that strong-handed Elizabeth, the virgin queen as 
 ye called her, to whom your own verses, William 
 Shakspeare, gave an unworthy fame, an immor- 
 tality, which she deserved not. 
 
 Shakspeare. Now, by heavens ! I will not and 
 cannot bear it : she was my most royal and loving mis- 
 tress, and thou shalt not slander her memory. Did 
 she not, woman as she was, but with manly soul, 
 raise such a spirit as would have crushed the proud 
 Spaniard, if he had set foot on our sea-girt island ? 
 Did she not, by her wise counsels, put to flight that 
 fleet, that armada, which the pride of the Dons called 
 invincible ? For shame ! John Milton — she was the 
 friend and patron of poets — for shame ! 
 
 Milton. She was the friend and patron of poets, 
 sayest thou ? In what manner she befriended them, 
 I know not, unless your starving poets be false, and 
 honest poverty tells no lies. The splendid Spenser, 
 whose Belphoebe thou knowest she was, tells not much 
 
MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 21 
 
 of her bounty ; and if fame be not an arrant liar, even 
 thou thyself, William Shakspeare, hadst no sufficient 
 reward of thy praises, unless empty smiles, and worth- 
 less favors, could purchase house and raiment ; but 
 thou art wandering from the point. Nero was the 
 friend of poets. I reproach thy loving mistress, as 
 thou callest her, for upholding those proud and blas- 
 phemous doctrines of divine princely right, which 
 her unhappy descendant, by supporting, hath lost both 
 sovereignty and hfe; and I upbraid thee for approving 
 such doctrines. If the eagle can soar to the sun, he 
 must needs see the spots on its surface. 
 
 Shaksjjeare. Aye, but what if there be no spots 
 to see ? and if there be, I am no eagle to soar to him. 
 Bandy me no compliments ; they are the counters 
 with which keen men win fools money ; but if thou 
 wilt reason, I will talk to thee. Answer me then, 
 John Milton ; was not the government of England 
 a noble and free government, limited and checked, 
 and yet strengthened by the strength of a wise and 
 virtuous monarch, honored and graced by the spirit- 
 stirring memories of her ancient and brave barons, 
 and healthy and vigorous in the independence of 
 her proud peasant yeomanry ? 
 
 Milton. I tell thee again, William, thou art jeer- 
 ing and trifling with me ; truly, the government of 
 England was checked by the strength of the mon- 
 arch, which I would the rather, and more reasonably 
 
22 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 call an overweening despotism ; and for the enduring 
 influence of your time-honored nobility, (honored in 
 no other way that I wot of,) were they not court 
 flatterers, and brawlers, and revellers, like Leicester 
 and Essex, living in the false smiles of a weak headed 
 woman, when they should have been foremost in 
 opposing the avaricious greediness of her preroga- 
 tives ? or like those swash-bucklers, their followers, 
 drabbing and dicing at gambling houses and brothels, 
 shorn of their strength by enticing Dalilahs, when 
 they should have been in the field, breaking in sunder 
 the chains of the people? And as to your proud pea- 
 santry ! What were their representatives — so called, 
 I fear me, in jest — what these commons of England, 
 but slaves and parasites ; to whom your queen gave a 
 bone when they fawned, and a buflfet when they bit ; 
 cowardly dogs, who shrunk from her hand, and 
 slunk from her presence ! I would that thou hadst 
 lived in our times ! 
 
 Shakspeare. And I would not, that I had lived 
 to see the royalty of our Alfreds, and Henrys, and 
 Edwards, prostrated, and the temple of God levelled 
 before a rabble of low-born men. If these be the 
 happy times ye prate of, when kingly blood was spilt 
 like stagnant pool water, and priests' mitres cleft by 
 the hand of damned faction, I care not to have seen 
 them ; nay, I am more than content to have lived 
 
MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 33 
 
 under the peaceful and pure reign of good queen 
 Bess, the Hon heart of England. 
 
 Milton. Then live upon that, thy fair memory. 
 I envy thee not. For my poor self, I rejoice that my 
 lot was cast in better and freer days, when kings, 
 who misgoverned, found not a protection in their 
 tinsel trappings, and men who presumed to wield the 
 fiery indignation and cleaving curse of God against 
 the unshackling of consciences, priests of Bel and 
 the Dragon, that unholy union of church and state^ 
 which the inspired power of our Daniel hath rent in 
 sunder, and laid bare to shame and scorn : when 
 these men, I say, have been torn from their fat livings 
 and riotous merriment, their stalls of lust and bigotry; 
 and as for that rabble of which thou talkest, I tell 
 thee once again it was no rabble : it was a whole 
 people, a whole nation, rising up with one accord to 
 smite the persecuting Pharaoh, amid his purple and 
 guards, not only with prayers and oiferings, but 
 with the arms with which God himself had armed 
 them. Had he not enforced, (answer me this,) had 
 he not enforced many of our best and bravest to flee 
 from his tyranny into the strange lands beyond the 
 waters? Is not many a hearth-stone cold, that 
 should be warm with the fires and hospitality of 
 merry England, while they, who in by-gone days sat 
 around it, are wandering in the cold, and roofless, and 
 shelterless wilderness ? Hath he not outraged our 
 
24 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 rights and laws, and the hard-won charters of our 
 hberties contemptuously set at nought? and should 
 his pride of place, as thou thyself hast called it, protect 
 him from the vengeance of a trampled people ? I tell 
 thee, William Shakspeare, the blood of Charles Stuart, 
 the tyrant, shall fatten the fields of England. Its crops 
 shall not be armed men, as in the old fable we read 
 of, but a harvest of glorious principles ; and our pos- 
 terity shall look back to us, and bless us, for that we 
 have not submitted to wear the chains with which 
 he would have fettered our frames, and them through 
 us. But thou wilt not listen to me ; go to, then, enjoy 
 thy dreams of fiction and the remembrance of thy 
 revels with the ungodly ; for me, I offer my morning 
 and evening and unceasing thanks to Him, for his 
 gift of power and strength to refute their sophistries, 
 and tear in pieces, and scatter to the free winds 
 under the firmament, the cobwebs of the hired crew 
 who would pull down the strong defences of our 
 righteous cause, and restore the young wolf to batten 
 himself, and to redden his jaws in the blood of the 
 innocent and the righteous. 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 No. 11. 
 
 CHARLES IL AND COWPER. 
 
 Cowper. But posterity, your majesty, gives your 
 reign little credit for virtue or wit. They say that 
 you were abandoned ; caring little for God's law, or 
 the law which yourselves had made. 
 
 Charles. Little credit for virtue, saidst thou? 
 Why we were anchorites by the side of France, with 
 her eternal revellings and bare licentiousness, her 
 maskinofs and mistresses ! We did but imitate her 
 gayeties, and even those at an humble distance. 
 
 Coy^per. Yes ! and for this imitation they cen- 
 sure you. They say that you and your courtiers 
 corrupted the bold spirit of our English Barons, to 
 make them supple Frenchmen and effeminate flatter- 
 ers. That the quick and manly honor, which would 
 have found favor in the eyes of our old princes, our 
 Harrys and Edwards, yielded with thee to fawning 
 and profaning baseness ; and that thou thyself, thou, 
 Charles of England, became a pensioner of France, of 
 
 3 
 
36 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 that France whose fields were red with the victorious 
 blood of their ancestors and thine ! Was this foul 
 charge true ? 
 
 Charles. Have they gone so deep into kingly- 
 secrets ? But it was true, too true. Yet they should 
 remember, that the resources of our kins^dom were 
 weakened, and that we needed money to support our 
 state and government. It was to prevent the burdens 
 of taxation. 
 
 Cowper. What ! take bribes from France because 
 England was poor— and to support thy government ! 
 History says it was to supply thy pleasures, and to 
 provide for court mummeries. And because Eng- 
 land was poor? — for shame! I had rather it had 
 been told that Englishmen were beggars, t?ian that 
 their sovereign should wear the collar of a descendent 
 of St. Louis : their prince be the pander of foreign 
 France ! I blush for thee and my country; for was 
 there ever a time, tell me, when England was too 
 poor to pour out her heart's blood for her wise laws, 
 her pure religion, her natural throne? But what say 
 you for your licentiousness and courtly adulteries? 
 What of the marriage bed profaned with impunity, 
 aye, and with praise, and all by thine own example ? 
 
 Charles. Pshaw, man ! Why I tell thee our 
 days were glorious and peaceful days — rebellion 
 was punished and loyalty rewarded. 
 
 Cowper. Aye; the rebellion of Sidney and the 
 
CHARLES II. AND COWPER. 27 
 
 loyalty of Jeffries ! Charles Stuart, the blood of that 
 man cries from the scaffold against thee! It was 
 awfully avenged on thine infamous minister. 
 
 Charles. Avenged, saidst thou ? My vengeance 
 was but slight on him who leagued with Cromwell 
 and Bradshaw to murder my father, and then shrunk 
 from his blood ; who retired to the groves of Pens- 
 hurst, given to his ancestors by my ancestors, that he 
 might not look upon the innocent victim. Why did 
 he not gather some of the spirit of his sires from the 
 old oaks which, until then, had never shaded trea- 
 son or traitor? Why did he not come out, and cry 
 against the deed on hill and house-top, in palace or 
 prison ? Was he to be visited in mercy ? 
 
 Coioper. Nay ; but it would have been madness. 
 Thou thyself mightest as well have rushed upon 
 Cromwell in his "pride of place," among his puritans 
 and guardsmen, instead of crouching in disguise with 
 thy father's friends, and waiting for occasion. And 
 I warrant you, the old fox would have received you 
 with open jaws ! But thou saidst thy days were 
 glorious and peaceful days. 
 
 Charles. Aye ! and say it still. Was not Eng- 
 land called merry England in my days, and was I 
 not its merry monarch ? It is true, I did not pray 
 and fast in public to blaspheme and banquet in pri- 
 vate, as did the regicide hypocrites. And besides, the 
 people had been kept so long in sackcloth and ashes 
 
28 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 by those canting roundheads, that they called for 
 some relaxation, for diversions and amusements. 
 
 Cowper. Diversions and amusements, sayest thou ; 
 and peaceful and merry ? There was a time when 
 the war-cry of St. George for merry England would 
 have been hushed on the battle-field, if such merri- 
 ment as thou talkest of had stained the escutcheons 
 of our nobles, soiled the ermine of Justice, and dis- 
 graced the princely sceptre : days, when amusement 
 and diversion did not stand in our clear language for 
 blasphemy and shamelessness. Well may we blush 
 for thy reign, for prince and people; and on thee 
 must the accusation rest. When they who sit in 
 high places are open wassailers and unjust slaves, 
 what think you must the subjects be? How can 
 the low lands but be overflowed when the torrent 
 rushes from the mountain? Your father was at 
 least pious and moral. 
 
 Charles. Aye, and was beheaded for his piety 
 and morality, and his son was ever determined to 
 shun his fate. But I will bear no longer thy re- 
 proaches and rebukes. 
 
 Cowper. Well, then, let us change the subject. 
 Posterity says ye were low in wit as ye were high 
 in vice ; and that ye did not even redeem your degra- 
 dation in morals by your splendor in genius, which 
 sometimes, like the exhalation from a marsh, throws 
 a lustre around corruption. Do they say true ? 
 
CHARLES II. AND COWPER. 29 
 
 Charles. Why, I do not think we were over- 
 stocked with philosophers ; but we had some singing- 
 birds. I bethink me now, there was the sweet and 
 melancholy Cowley, and my own frolicksome friend, 
 Rochester : a little wild perhaps, but a jovial fellow ; 
 and Tom D'Urfey ; a merrier bard never trolled 
 ballad, nor poured off bumper. His songs were 
 exquisite ; the very darlings of true cavaliers. There 
 was Buckingham, too, mine own counsellor ; and 
 there was Lovelace and his Althea. Love was his 
 element : he was a gallant and a loyal knight ! 
 
 CoiDiier. And was there none other ? Cowley, I 
 grant you, was musical in his melancholy: some- 
 what conceited; but he had the true English vein in 
 him at times. And Dryden : hast thou forgotten 
 him with his majestic march of verse ? Rochester 
 was a pest and a disgrace, Buckingham and Tom 
 D'Urfey are forgotten, " requiescant in pace ;" but 
 think ! was there not one more ? 
 
 Charles. Not one more ! What or whom mean 
 you? 
 
 Coivper. Was there not one Milton, one John 
 Milton ? 
 
 Charles. Aye, some did say he was a goodly poet, 
 that same writing roundhead : who was worse than 
 Cromwell, the arch-fiend himself; for the Protector, 
 as they called him, fought openly and boldly, but 
 this rhymer was better pleased with his safe closet for 
 
 3* 
 
30 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 
 
 a field, his beggarly books for soldiers, and his false 
 pen for a sword. Cromwell could only touch my 
 father's body; but he, this lurking assassin, wounded 
 his fair fame. But in our time he was done with 
 his tractates ; and his manifestoes and answers were 
 thrown to the dogs ; and his verses, by the side of my 
 gay Rochester's, were like the pipings of Marsyas 
 to the divine reed of Apollo. Aye ; my noble 
 Rochester ! he was your man for a pretty girl or a 
 drinking bout ! and yet he handled the pen well too. 
 Why, I tell you, Milton was but a chirping grass- 
 hopper to him. 
 
 Coivper. Milton a chirping grasshopper to Ro- 
 chester ! Why, he is the prince of poetry ; and the 
 verse of your age is identified with his name. He 
 divides the palm with Shakspeare; and Rochester 
 is forgotten when Milton is mentioned. 
 
 Charles. Ods fish, man ! why thou art running 
 on finely ! What, John Milton ; the psalm-singing 
 independent, the lying secretary, the blind proser ! 
 
 Cowper. Aye, wonder as you will, and jeer as 
 you will. That blind John Milton was a very sun- 
 daring eagle in the firmament of English genius. 
 He is the glory of England, and the pride, aye, and 
 the disgrace of your own reign. I tell you again, he 
 is a twin prince with the immortal of Avon. Ye 
 thought, indeed, that he was mad, when he told you 
 of his destined immortality; and ye said that he was 
 
CHARLES II. AND COWPEE. 31 
 
 overpaid with the paltry ten pounds, which yonr 
 booksellers gave him ; but he knew better, and the 
 fame he prophesied is ignominy to the fame he pos- 
 sesses ; and the ten pounds multiplied by tens of 
 thousands, would never repay, if dross could, the 
 price of his labors! He was blind, say ye? but he 
 saw farther than the clearest sighted of you, for he 
 saw, through the mists of obloquy and disgrace, the 
 light of his glory. He was poor, say ye? but he is 
 richer than the proudest of ye, in the fair memories 
 of men. He was a psalm-singing independent, say 
 ye ? but the music of his pure and holy devotion 
 shall die not but with our language. But I grow 
 wanton in his praise. I tell ye, then, for all, that 
 the Wind beggar, the rhyming secretary, and the 
 psalm-singing independent, is remembered as the 
 second father of EngUsh poetry, and not the least 
 honorable or honored of English patriots. 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
DREAM 
 
A DREAM 
 
 I AM a dreamer. The visions of the night have 
 power over me — terrible and magical power. Sleep .^ 
 that gives to the worn and weary of this world 
 an elysium of fairy sights and unreal enjoyments, 
 or better still, the "sober certainty" of repose, 
 plunges me into scenes of the wildest and busiest 
 commotion : into the most inaccessible haunts, where 
 the light of the glorious sun would seem to have 
 striven with the spirits of darkness, and to have 
 yielded in the strife: through the dungeons of the 
 inquisition, poisoned and foul with the venomed 
 breathing of its brute inhabitants, or sad and sor- 
 rowful with the recorded griefs of those who have 
 made friends of fetters : amid the moving mountains 
 of the great deep, with its silent tales of " tall and 
 richly freighted argosies," of forms of manly beauty, 
 and hearts of manly pride and power ! Such are 
 the scenes to which I am transported, to realize in 
 
35 A DREAM. 
 
 fancy the agonies which reality has inspired. Never, 
 never^ after all that I have seen and acted, can I 
 deny the influence of the imagination upon its 
 covering of clay, even unto the pangs of death. I 
 can believe on this point almost beyond the bounds 
 of credibility and credulity, from the observation of 
 this influence upon myself While others are laugh- 
 ing at the stories founded upon it as the excited 
 efforts of the imagination, I too can laugh at those 
 who would limit or define the faculties which God 
 hath wisely appointed to be mysteries unto us, but 
 which, in his hands, are controlled to advance his 
 inscrutable purposes. I have seen those, who 
 scouted the idea that such "things should overcome 
 us like a summer cloud," staggered and confounded 
 by facts, which could not be questioned without a 
 declaration of scepticism with regard to any and all 
 human evidence. Reason becomes ridiculous when 
 it is applied to test this wonderful influence. But to 
 my dream. It is the last and most distinct. Every 
 thought, every hope, every " fear that kindled hope," 
 every longing and disappointment, are living and 
 burning within me ! The hot tear, the hurried grasp, 
 the long struggle, the last bubbling cry, that told the 
 end of the combat, all " run molten still in memory's 
 mould," in clear, and strong, and imperishable im- 
 pressions. It is on this account I relate it. Many 
 may have had such dreams, but in few, perhaps, 
 
A DREAM. '^"7 
 
 have they been so luminously, so indelibly stamped. 
 As I write, I shudder at the recollection. You may 
 have imagined from my expressions that it was at 
 sea. It was so. Our vessel was large and strong : 
 her sails were bellying to the breeze ; all was fair 
 above, around, beneath ; the long blue waves sunk 
 gently under her hull as she leaped and pranced 
 upon their backs. It was the hour of evening. None 
 but those who have been on the ocean can conceive 
 the glories of that hour. The broad red disk of the 
 sun, dipping and burying, and covered, in the farthest 
 wave that mingles with the horizon ; the mellow and 
 trembling radiance that streams upon the top of each 
 billow ; the splendid tints reflected in the light clouds 
 which are gathered around, as if to witness the death 
 scene of departing majesty — I could almost have 
 sworn that Byron's lines were written there in that 
 spot, as I uttered with the fervency of a long forgotten 
 devotion : 
 
 " Ave Maria ! over earth and sea, 
 This heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee." 
 
 It was evening — yet a few moments, and the 
 shadows on the waves grew darker and darker : the 
 sails looked in the growing obscurity like the white 
 wings of some vast sea bird hurrying to her nest, 
 until at length all was lost in undistinguishable 
 blackness : and it was night. " A change came o'er 
 
38 A DREAM. 
 
 the spirit of my dream." There were hurrying and 
 trampling of feet, and oaths mingled with the voice 
 of command. The canvass was in ribands, and 
 now and then by the lightning we could discover its 
 fragments, torn and white, among the irregular 
 waves. The timbers creaked. The water through 
 which onr ship was flying, rose along her sides in 
 mingled flame and foam, and looked when the 
 sudden gleam lightened over it like the hot flanks 
 of the gallant steed. Among the men there was no 
 muttering, no sound, no sign of cowardice. The 
 flash which showed the face of a seaman showed the 
 face of a hero. They looked like men who knew 
 their doom was come : that to repine was folly, to 
 resist was impossible. They clung indeed to the 
 rigging, but it was with the convulsive grasp that 
 marks the predominancy of natural instinct over the 
 firmest resolutions, and the most fearless spirit. One 
 by one they were swept away — not a groan, not a 
 sound was heard ; but after the rush of each wave, 
 the question that hastily uttered remained unan- 
 swered, told eloquently and sadly, that "another unit 
 was withdrawn from the sum of human existence." 
 As for myself, I had hopes — I clung to my hold 
 benumbed and wearied. The gray and sullen 
 morning dawned. Yesterday it dawned on many a 
 stout form, and warm heart — the strength of the 
 one had been useless, the warmth of the other was 
 
A DREAM. 39 
 
 cold for ever. I looked in every direction to discern 
 a sail. Nothing was to be seen, but the billows 
 heaving and swelling, as the wrestler pants after a 
 desperate conflict. The vessel was sinking slowly 
 but surely. I dragged myself by strong efforts to 
 the top. Here was the last plank that separated me 
 from the devouring element. The water rose 
 gradually. I gazed eagerly till all sight seemed to 
 be lost. I felt the water as it touched my foot. 
 It rose. It was up to my neck. I loosed my hold 
 with a shriek. I rose and sunk, and rose and 
 sunk again. I felt the water bubbling from my 
 mouth. I sunk down, down, down among hideous 
 forms. There were the whale, and the kraken, and 
 the dolphin. I knew by the blackness I had reached 
 the bottom. I felt around. There was a voice 
 calling to me. It called me once, twice, and again ; 
 and I awoke to hear the awful sound that summoned 
 me to breakfast ! 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 
 
 The people of Scotland have always been famed 
 for the sweetness and variety of their music and 
 song. The causes of this reputation, may, we think, 
 be easily traced in the circumstances which attend 
 their lives, and form their habits. We believe it is 
 now pretty well settled, since the time of Montes- 
 quieu, that the influence of climate and country on 
 the character, is extremely great. The gayety and 
 light-heartedness of the French peasant, may easily 
 be attributed to the productiveness of his soil, and 
 the kindly beauty of his sky; the luxurious 
 indolence of the east, to its enervating breezes and 
 " lazy pacing clouds" ; the proud and haughty 
 freedom of the Enghsh, to their insulated situation, 
 and their melancholy but generous feeling to their 
 clouded heavens , and the wilder independence of 
 the Scotch and Swiss, together with their more 
 
44 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 
 
 moderate excitement and saving prudence to their 
 mountainous and barren hills and heaths. It is this 
 last cause of Scotch peculiarity which leads us back 
 to the subject of our essay, the poetry of Scotland, 
 and chiefly of Burns. It is this very face of its 
 country, which makes Scotland the land of song. 
 It is this, which led to the sub-division into feuds 
 and clans, which in their turn produced martial 
 feeling and limited communion among themselves, 
 the sources of those strains which express and echo 
 in every note the strength of their attachments and 
 their enmities. Every mountain peak, every valley 
 and cave and loch, were known from childhood to 
 the dwellers in their recesses, and were familiar to 
 their imaginations, as the abodes of unearthly spirits, 
 or mingled in their memory with some wild and 
 wondrous deed. To this fact, we may refer for the 
 love of locality which ctiaracterizes their songs. 
 They abound in allusions to peculiar battle-fields and 
 trysting knowes. The hero of their verse combats 
 amid scenes which yet echo to the gathering cry, or 
 to the victorious lay, or to the lament for the gallant 
 dead ; or breathes his tale on the rock or in the 
 valley which is consecrated to some gentle recollec- 
 tion, and has been the haunt of plighted faiths and 
 simple loves for centuries. The sub-divisions of 
 which we have spoken, led them to such an intimate 
 connection with each other, that when there was no 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 45 
 
 monstrous example of oppression, a clan resembled 
 a large family closely knit together by mutual 
 interest and affection, and all looking up to their 
 chief with reverence and duty. Him they were 
 bound to follow to battle, for him they were to risk 
 and sacrifice life, and fame, and wealth ; and his 
 wrongs they resented, and his joys they shared with 
 the quick love of children. And in return, he was 
 to protect their families and provide for their support, 
 to decide their quarrels, and sanction their unions; 
 and to be in word and in deed the nursing parent of 
 his vassals. Here then are a thousand subjects for 
 minstrelsy, and these furnished many a ballad and 
 many an air of singular beauty and power, which 
 yet live warmly in the memory of Scotland, and 
 proudly in the music of the world. But previous to 
 the time of Burns, many of the airs were adapted to 
 Gaslic words, whose fame was limited to a clan or a 
 district. Besides, many, even of those songs which 
 had not been sung to the mountain language, 
 possessed the peculiar allusions we have mentioned, 
 which although giving to them a deep interest to the 
 peasantry of the land, rendered them flat and barren 
 to strangers. Thus we shall find, even now, that 
 an air which still preserves its original thoughts 
 and words in parts of Scotland, is clothed in other 
 parts, or in other countries, in an entirely different 
 dress. Moreover, although there were many names 
 
45 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 
 
 connected with the authorship of these songs, they 
 were imperfectly preserved by rude tradition, or 
 hmited in their obscure reputation ; there was yet no 
 poet who could be called emphatically the bard of 
 Scotland. At length, in Robert Burns arose one who 
 might justly claim that appellation, who born from 
 the people, was the poet of the people ; who gave to 
 their music songs which being nature itself, were 
 fitted to find an answering chord in every heart, and 
 whose fame not seen darkly through the mist of 
 years, will be immortal as the hills of Albyn, and not 
 confined to them, the property and pride of the 
 universe. Burns was descended from humble 
 parents of scanty means, and little education or 
 knowledge. His first essays in verse were made at 
 the handle of the plough, and though rough of 
 course, and unclassical, displayed deep power of 
 language and strength of feeling. His life and its 
 incidents, it is not necessary to mention. He lived 
 and died poor in pecuniary matters. His haughty 
 spirit of independence made him often reckless of 
 his true interests, and disgusted sincere and long 
 suffering friends ; while his careless extravagance 
 would have kept him in poverty, if he had inherited 
 immense wealth. But we are not to try or judge a 
 mind and heart like his, by the rules of worldly 
 prudence. His thoughts and impulses were the 
 same; his heart and mind, right or wrong, were never 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 47 
 
 separate. He could not reason coldly on a subject, 
 for he acted without reasoning. Wherever his 
 feelings prompted, his arguments followed; and are 
 we to sit in judgment on the creature of impulse and 
 circumstance, and expect to find his every action 
 regulated by the common caution of every day 
 minds? If we are to do this, we must, in justice, 
 consent to forfeit the delights of song, the raptures of 
 genius, the extended reachings of superior intellects; 
 we must lose the fancy of Collins, the promise of 
 Chatterton, the English sweetness of Goldsmith, the 
 splendid blazing touches of Byron, the image of 
 nature and beauty in Burns. I look upon these 
 men, as God has made them, foolish, even beyond 
 human folly, but wise almost with the wisdom of 
 the Deity. I recognize in them, the remains of that 
 earlier man who stood upon the subject earth, and 
 yet held converse with Seraphim and Cherubim ; 
 but only the remains, for even while 1 worship the 
 splendid ruins, I lament the wreck and symbols of 
 the fall. 
 
 But our business at present is with the poetry of 
 Burns, and to that we shall return. He was, we 
 have said, the poet of the people. The Scotch have, 
 perhaps, a stronger national character than any 
 other people, and this character pervades the whole 
 country. The poet of one part of the land, and 
 especially such an one as Burns, imbued Avith all 
 
48 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 
 
 their prejudices, and clothing their prevailing pas- 
 sions with the magic of his verse, soon became the 
 idol of Scotland. Next to Shakspeare, I do not 
 know a man whose reputation is so enviable as' that 
 of Burns. His songs are known and sung where 
 printing could not reach, or would not be of use. 
 Every farm and cot, every field and hill, every vale 
 and rock, echo to his strains of love ; but, beyond 
 this, they reach every heart in every country ; they 
 are freshly remembered when the more showy 
 efforts of great composers have been admired, mur- 
 dered, and forgotten ; they are the delight of palace 
 and parlor, and preserve a living place in the affec- 
 tions of every man whose soul is open to melody or 
 taste. We have spoken of his first efforts as being 
 rough but powerful ; but a circumstance, the com- 
 mon incident of every life, produced in him conse- 
 quences such as few men could feel. He fell deeply 
 and passionately in love with a young girl in his 
 neighborhood, of low extraction and endowments ; 
 but if we may judge from her power over him, of 
 extraordinary natural qualities. Whenever he 
 speaks of her, his tenderness and purity are wonder- 
 ful, and we might fancy them the productions of a 
 scholar, did they not possess a grace beyond the 
 proudest rules of art ; and after her death, his 
 lamentations for her, his cherishing of her memory, 
 his recollections of her gentle love, and the tokens 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 49 
 
 they exchanged, are expressed in language to which 
 verse could add no poetry. The stanzas beginning. 
 
 Thou lingerino; star, with lessening ray, 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 
 embody the essence of all the tenderness that broken* 
 hearted love could feel, and the substance of all the 
 impassioned elegies that ever were written. It is 
 a singular fact, which we may remark here, that 
 whenever he rises into great beauty of song, his 
 thoughts are expressed in pure and simple English, 
 while his more homely, but not less touching 
 passages are dashed with the language and idioms 
 of his country. Thus, for instance, when he soars 
 in the Cotter's Saturday Night, into something of 
 sublimity, he breaks out — 
 
 Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal King, 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays ; 
 " Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing," 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days, 
 There ever bask in uncreated rays. 
 No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear. 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise. 
 In such society, yet still more dear. 
 While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 We have spoken of his love songs. It is sufficient 
 to say that they are the finest in the language. 
 They form a collection from which true love for 
 ages may draw its images, and to whose notes it 
 
 5 
 
50 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 
 
 will assuredly echo. His humor was uncommonly 
 rich and peculiarly Scottish : it consists part of it in 
 attacks on the clergy, one or two political satires, 
 and some local productions. But his greatest work 
 in this line is his Tarn O'Shanter ; a poem, which for 
 natural wit, graceful narrative, and eloquent touches 
 of reflection, is unrivalled. His description of the 
 inn, the landlady, the rising joys of the bacchanals, 
 Tam's wit, and the laughing chorus of wretches as 
 hen-pecked as himself, the chase of the hags and the 
 hair breadth 'scape ; all are before us in living colors. 
 One of his happiest works is a medley, which 
 displays the versatility of his genius in striking relief, 
 together with the looseness of his morality. It 
 represents a joyous collection of beggars assembled 
 at a frolic, who sing their songs in a wild and lawless 
 spirit of enjoyment. The first is the song of a 
 soldier, who, like a worn out steed, is yet ready to 
 prick up his ears at " the sound of the drum ;" and 
 among the remainder, strange to say, is that delight- 
 ful music, 
 
 A hig^liland lad my love was born, 
 The lowland laws he held in scorn. 
 
 To show his graphic powers of describing, take 
 this one verse from the poem. Imagine the jolly 
 beggars at the pitch of revel and rapture, and the 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 51 
 
 chief called on to swell the merriment, and then 
 read the following four lines — 
 
 Then rising rejoicing 
 Between his two Deborah's, 
 Look'd round him and found 'em 
 Impatient for the chorus. 
 
 It is a picture worthy of Burns to conceive, and 
 Teniers or Wilkie to express on canvass. 
 
 The only remaining characteristic we shall speak 
 of, is his devoted patriotism and proud indepen- 
 dence. He was distinguished always for the latter 
 quality, in every period of his life ; and even when 
 worn down by disease, his eye dimmed, his spirit 
 broken, his energy gone, he asked his publisher 
 for money, it was with an air of one who claimed 
 a right and conferred an honor. He loved Scot- 
 land as a Scotchman always loves her, with pure, 
 unaltered, undivided affection. He was her own 
 poet in every respect ; he sang of her victories : and 
 " Scotts wha hae wi' Wallace bled," would animate 
 her sons even in defeat; of love, and the gentle 
 swain tells the self-same tale to his mistress in the 
 very words of Burns; of her scenes of mirth, and his 
 strains enliven many a rainy night, and make many 
 an honest Tam, "fou and unco' happy." Those 
 who wish to see this spirit of independence, must 
 read his letters, and they breathe it in every word, 
 
52 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 
 
 while his poems afford a noble marriage of high 
 thoughts with homely and yet beautiful rhyme : 
 
 Is there for honest poverty, 
 Who hangs his head and a' that ; 
 The coward slave, we pass him by, 
 And dare be poor for a' that. 
 
 These then were his three great characteristics : his 
 descriptions of love in all its shapes, his fund of 
 original humor, and his high-hearted and manly 
 feelings. These are the qualities which endear him 
 beyond expression to his countrymen, and make 
 him the property of the world. We are not to look 
 in Burns for long and great conceptions, for not- 
 withstanding Doctor Johnson's estimate of genius. 
 Burns could no more have written an epic, than 
 Johnson could write poetry ; and for the same reason, 
 it was not in him. But in his peculiar and difficult 
 walk he stands alone. Moore resembles him m 
 many points : in his love for music, in his humor, 
 in his patriotism and independence ; but in all the 
 higher qualities of song writing, he sinks far below 
 him. He is very graceful, and abounds in beautiful 
 conceits ; such as a man of fine imagination would 
 utter when he was not in love. Burns on the 
 contrary sings a song whose every note is nature, 
 and every feeling deep, intense, and absorbing love. 
 Moore is a voluptuary — he revels with Eastern 
 beauty, is lulled by the waters of Eden, and dreams 
 
ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 53 
 
 of dark-eyed houris ; Burns is a simple Scottish 
 youth, full of passion, breathing his sighs of every 
 day occurrence, and telling 
 
 His shepherd tale 
 Under the hawthorn in the dale. 
 
 Moore delights in splendid imagery and corres- 
 ponding language ; Burns touches with a single 
 simple phrase, a single simple chord, and it stirs the 
 whole soul with the thrill of affection. Moore's 
 verse is the dulcet eloquence of a practised flute, 
 rolling delicious volumes of sound ; Burns is the 
 warbling of the bird in his native wilderness of 
 boughs ] 
 
 The linnet in simphcity, 
 
 In tenderness the dove, 
 
 But more than all beside, was he 
 
 The nightingale in love. 
 
 We have spoken of his enviable popularity ; and if 
 to be enshrined in the heart of a whole people, to 
 be claimed and recognized as their poet, to hold in 
 subjection and sway at will their prejudices and 
 passions, to have one's memory reverenced to 
 idolatry, and one's name inscribed first on the roll 
 which they have destined to immortality, is enviable 
 popularity, Robert Burns may challenge the world 
 to display a prouder or a purer one. 
 
 iM nccc XXVIII. 
 
 5* 
 
ON THE 
 
 MISSION TO PANAMA 
 
ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 
 
 As this is a question which occupies the present 
 attention of the hteraiy world, and has been ably 
 and eloquently canvassed on the floor of our 
 national legislature, we shall consider it not unbe- 
 coming to offer a few desultory remarks on its 
 general merits. The principal objection urged in 
 the negative, is drawn from the wise and emphatic 
 admonition of the first president of our union, and 
 the first man of his time. In the last legacy of his 
 love and care for our future interests, he exhorts us 
 to keep aloof from " entangling alliances." Faithful 
 to this admonition, if the object of the proposed 
 invitation were to pledge the people of these United 
 States to any particular set of measures, or to the 
 support of any political crusade, it would well 
 become our statesmen to keep aloof. We will go 
 further. If its object or effect would be to fetter us 
 in any wise, to prevent that perfect freedom which 
 we now enjoy and exercise in our choice of 
 
58 ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 
 
 expedients at home, or in our conduct with foreign 
 nations, it would well become them to beware ; but 
 unless these objects and this effect shall be proved 
 to us, we shall continue to wish for its acceptance. 
 As far as the discussion has proceeded, what are 
 the proofs ? No alhances are exhibited, no entan- 
 glements demanded. The invitation, if we under- 
 stand it aright, is general. We are requested to 
 send representatives to a congress to be holden 
 at Panama. How this can be construed into an 
 entangling alliance, we cannot conceive. But the 
 genius of politics can and does. Its opponents 
 baffled and at fault by the simplicity of this request, 
 leaving the dry detail of fact, resort to the more 
 fertile soil of conjecture. They tell us we shall be 
 entrapped, inveigled, seduced into a surrender of 
 our interests. They tell us, we may perchance 
 give up our contentment and our quiet, without an 
 equivalent, (for if it be true, what equivalent can be 
 given,) and that their opinions may not want the 
 authority and assistance of a respectable quotation ; 
 they bid us, in the language of Washington, to 
 beware of "entangling alliances." If this be the 
 contracted policy we are to pursue: if, while we 
 feel safe for the present, we are not to forward that 
 cause which must be our future safety ; we, and the 
 advocates of such reasoning, are not capable of 
 appreciating the blessings we enjoy. The people of 
 
ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 59 
 
 the United States, are, in a manner, bound to extend 
 by all honorable means consistent with their well 
 being, if not to Europe, at least to our brethren of 
 America, the rich privileges of independence. But 
 let us suppose for a moment, that the purpose of 
 this congress be to interpret treaties, and to fix the 
 relation of America with European powers : is there 
 not sound policy in such a project wisely executed ? 
 The time will come, we hope, when all America 
 shall be firmly knit and cemented together by a 
 general communion of interests and similarity of 
 feeling, with regard to the rest of the world. Is not 
 this desirable? — and if it be, what can more 
 effectually tend to such a result, than such a con- 
 gress ? We do not imagine that there will be any 
 artifice to delude or ensnare us. It cannot be the 
 interest of the South American deputies to involve 
 us in difficulties, the evil of which will be attributed 
 to, and may return upon them. But to come back 
 to ourselves. Are there no injuries to be feared, if 
 we reject this invitation? Is our growing com- 
 merce, viewed as it is with the jealous eye of rivalry 
 by Great Britain, nothing ? Is this prolific branch 
 of our wealth in peace, and our safety in war; 
 this which supplies, invigorates, and consumes our 
 agricultural and manufacturing products, nothing ? 
 Can there be no mistakes (laying aside evil motives) 
 as to our wants and wishes ? 
 
60 ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 
 
 Again, on the general ground. Do we not, by 
 our rejection, virtually say, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, we will have nothing to do with you — we are 
 afraid of you — we wish no communion in your 
 fortunes — we care not for your friendship or your 
 enmity? And is this the language which should 
 come from the republics of North, to the republics 
 of South America? We think not, we hope not. 
 We hope that a more liberal spirit will prevail; 
 that the offer freely and frankly made, will be freely 
 and frankly accepted; that our delegates will be 
 able and upright men ; that they will be instructed, 
 not, when they are called on to join in any judi- 
 cious act, to raise the watchword of "entangling 
 alliances;" but that such a spirit of friendship 
 and union will be cultivated, as will make both 
 nations^ if they should have to contend with any 
 foreign power, not only possibly formidable, but 
 certainly triumphant. But turning from these con- 
 siderations of its expediency to itself — what noble 
 events would attend the formation, and mark the 
 proceedings of such a congress, if it should be 
 rightly and temperately conducted? Then would 
 be presented a spectacle, the moral sublimity of 
 which would find no parallel in all the records of 
 all the assemblies in the world. Our continent, 
 which has been the blessed means of spreading the 
 desire for rational freedom, against which neither 
 
ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 61 
 
 principalities nor powers shall prevail — would then 
 consummate its work. In that assembly, which 
 would be a meeting, not of kings and satraps to 
 assert the claims of a family, but of men to vindicate 
 the rights of man; which would be, not a holy 
 alliance to settle the inheritance of a legitimate 
 prince, to the crimes and follies of a legitimate 
 throne ; but the people of a whole hemisphere, 
 declaring that hemisphere, by the mouths of their 
 delegates and ministers, free, sovereign, and indepen- 
 dent — in that assembly would their labors be 
 finished. There would be no sectional disputes — no 
 local prejudices. It would be the legislature, not of 
 South, or of North America — not calculating for the 
 petty details of counties, or of townships, and cities, 
 and states, and nations ; but the legislature of the 
 continent of America, declaring for the inhabitants 
 of that continent, of every variety of climate and 
 of physical and mental complexions, their relative 
 rights and duties. The critics of Europe might 
 then inquire, who reads an American book, or 
 looks on an American edifice? We could then 
 show them the records of such a congress as a reply 
 to their first sneer, and turn them, not to pyra- 
 mids, that mark and mock the vanity of princes, 
 and the servitude of the people ; not to columns 
 reared by the spoils of wasted provinces, to comme- 
 morate terrible victories — but to the smiling face of a 
 
62 ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 
 
 vast extent of territory, purified by American labor, 
 happy through American freedom: an iUustrious, 
 and we would hope, an eternal monument of both. 
 
ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
 The present state of literary exertion is certainly- 
 presented to us in a singular aspect. There is an 
 astonishing diffusion of knowledge among the 
 middling and lower classes of society. The school- 
 master (to use the often quoted sentence of Brough- 
 am) is abroad in the land, and the rays of science 
 are penetrating into the hovels of the poor and the 
 ignorant, with an influence as warm, and almost as 
 rapid, as the light of the natural sun exerts on the 
 shadows of the morning twilight. This influence 
 may be ridiculed and denounced by the aristocratic 
 slaves of legitimate opinions ; they may laugh at the 
 excesses of those who feel, for the first time, the 
 worth and the strength of their own minds ; but the 
 day is coming, and that quickly, when these would- 
 be autocrats in the realms of learning shall find the 
 strength of their efforts whom knowledge will make 
 free, when the puny powers which think to stop the 
 triumphal car shall be crushed beneath its wheels. 
 
 6* 
 
66 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
 and like the original elder enemies of man, shall 
 curse while they worship, and tremble while they 
 beheve. While, however, we rejoice at the glorious 
 prospect, and prophesy that the present generation 
 is sowing the seed of a rich, moral, and mental 
 harvest, we must be allowed to offer a few 
 preliminary observations on the question : whether 
 this increase will tend to the production of great 
 literary works. The argument in favor of the 
 affirmative, is extremely forcible. It is true, that 
 the advance of knowledge will increase the call for 
 books, and their value when obtained. But un- 
 fortunately, we do not think, that in literature, the 
 supply will always be ready for the demand. 
 Take, for instance, our own time. Let us cast our 
 eye over the wide extent of Great Britain, and our 
 own country, with their vast reading population, 
 and then ask for the great literary productions to 
 satisfy their cravings. We do not speak now of the 
 useful arts ; in these the age is fruitful ; but we ask, 
 where are our epics and our dramas. Our plain 
 answer must be this. Our epics are not, except we 
 take Wordsworth, and Southey, and Barlow, as 
 successors to the bard of seven cities, and the swan 
 of Mantua, and our own Milton ; and as for the 
 drama, we ask pardon of Shakspeare and Fletcher, 
 and Ben Jonson, while we compare them with the 
 rant of Maturin, and the bashful failures of Lord 
 
ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 67 
 
 Byron. The fact is, although we have not ma- 
 turely considered the subject, we are half inclined 
 to think, that the different aspects which literature 
 formerly presented from that which it now exhibits, 
 resemble the difference between a country, whose 
 general appearance is barren, but its mountainous 
 parts sparkhng with gold, "flaming as rival to its 
 sire, the sun," and the broad level savanna, waving 
 with rich grain, but presenting fewer eminences to 
 the eye. And yet we should not complain of this 
 result. We should, be willing, that the luxuries of 
 literature should be sacrificed to the diffusion of its 
 cheaper comforts. We have, however, sadly wan- 
 dered from our original subject, which was the very 
 fertile one of English Comedy, and the result of our 
 meditations may be shortly comprised in the remark, 
 that it has exceedingly degenerated. The cause of 
 this degeneracy is said to be chargeable to the age. 
 But we do not feel so much faith in this assertion as 
 do those who are interested to believe it. Men are 
 the same in all times ; and human nature is never 
 finely displayed without applause. Are we to be 
 told, or can we believe, that if Shakspeare or Ben 
 Jonson were now to arise, and lay open the hidden 
 secrets of the heart, their works would be delivered 
 to empty benches? Are we to think that our 
 intellects are too gross to enjoy the wit of Benedict, 
 and the moralizing of Jaques, and the poetry of The 
 
68 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream? And that our vulgar 
 intellects can receive no enjoyment, but from 
 painted shows and tinsel mockeries of state and 
 splendor ? We do not believe it. The fault is not 
 in the buyers, but the sellers. We ask for the 
 delights of mind, and they tickle us with the 
 fooleries of sense ; we ask for that which shall 
 improve the heart, and make a lasting impression 
 on our conduct, and they give us only what is 
 calculated to gratify "the gaping eye of idiot 
 wonder ;" we ask for the nutriment to support, 
 and the business to occupy a man, and they thrust 
 upon us the sugar-plums and the rattle of a child. 
 We are not to be told that all the flowers are 
 gathered, and that there can be no room for 
 originality. Can any man, who knows the infinite 
 variety which mankind affords for wholesome satire? 
 believe this? We answer, no. Why did not 
 Sheridan make the same objection, and throw by his 
 pen. But he ventured into the field, and success- 
 fully pointed the finger of public scorn at the vices 
 and follies of his day. Since his time, we have 
 gradually grown worse, and now, forsooth, satire 
 sleeps and folly stalks unblushingly through the 
 land. While we thus mourn over the decline of 
 English Comedy ; it is delightful to draw upon its old 
 stores for present use, and turn to those writers who 
 have made it illustrious and immortal. The first 
 
ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 69 
 
 we shall notice is Shakspeare. His comedies are 
 remarkable for being comedies in the true sense of 
 the word. They are not mere broad farces, as most 
 of our modern comedies are ; but unite pathos 
 and poetry with exquisite wit and humor to a 
 degree never before equalled. They are wonderful 
 also in the generality of their characters. There 
 are but two or three of these throughout his 
 works, which are individualized, strictly speak- 
 ing: all bear the general stamp of a particular 
 class of men, and each class exists now as it did 
 then, so that the stronger points of his satire are 
 as striking in their present as in their former appli- 
 cation. Take, for instance, the character of Bene- 
 dict, and no man has seen too little of human 
 nature to know that he has met with many having 
 the same general characteristics. He has not indeed 
 encountered one possessing the quantity or quality 
 of his wit ; but he has seen the good-looking man 
 who professes himself a "tyrant of the sex," and 
 rails at their tongue, and is delicate in his choice of 
 "household dispositions," and swears and talks 
 himself into a belief that he will sooner be hung 
 than married, and then, " most lame and impotent 
 conclusion," falls in love with the first who dotes 
 upon his precious person. These are marks which 
 nature has written on man as if almost to confirm 
 the accurate picturing of Shakspeare. The wit of 
 
70 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
 Shakspeare is wit in the old and true sense of the 
 word, one of the brightest exertions of intellect, and 
 distinct from that humor which we find in Fat 
 Jack, in Dogberry, in the Clown in As You Like 
 It, in Toby and Ague-cheek. Do we look for pure, 
 classical, deep-thoughted wit, let us moralize with 
 Jaques, let us steal behind him as he lies along 
 
 "Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 
 Upon a brook that brawls along the wood," 
 
 and laugh and weep by turns, at the follies and 
 crimes of mankind. Let us bewail with Benedict 
 the hapless fate of Claudio, who once loved "the 
 music of drum and fife," but has changed to the soft 
 wooing " of the pipe and tabor ;" or with Claudio in 
 turn, conclude from Benedict's "brushing his hat 
 of a morning," " that the sweet youth is in love ;" or 
 jest with Mercutio, whose wit, too exquisite for a long 
 life, makes its short day a blaze of fancy, and 
 expires in mirth and merriment. The poetry of 
 his comedies is scarcely exceeded in his tragedies, 
 and of course is not equalled by any thing else in 
 the language. The names of Rosalind and Yiola 
 will awaken in every breast recollections of sweet 
 words and noble thoughts, of friendship and love, 
 and all the pure afiections, joyous and grievous ; 
 and the smile that dimples and the woe that weeps, 
 are so delightfully mingled, that we are as sorry to 
 
ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 71 
 
 part with his sadness as we are glad to meet with 
 his mirth. Next to Shakspeare stands Jonson, a 
 man imbued with classical learning, and full of its 
 best spirit. His Volpone is second only to Shaks- 
 peare, combining musical numbers and fine poetry 
 with searching wit. It shows the influence of 
 avarice, sacrificing all the emotions of the heart at 
 the altar of mammon. The father destroys his son, 
 the husband tempts the chastity of his wife, the 
 wife is ready to disgrace her husband, and all these 
 things are the fruits of the " sacred lust of gold." It 
 reads to us a deep lesson on the baseness of the 
 heart, and the abandonment of the principles, 
 induced by that passion which makes a man live 
 like a slave, die like a fool, be buried without an 
 affection to hallow his grave, and remembered for 
 the hatred of those he injured, and the contempt of 
 those he cherished. With more poetry and less 
 powerful satire than Jonson, came Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. Let all who admire Milton's Comus read 
 in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, the original 
 sources of many of his finest thoughts and sweetest 
 expressions. The comedies of these two writers are 
 rich fountains of delight to one who loves to drink 
 of the " wells of English undefiled." 
 
 There is much bombast scattered throughout 
 their works ; but there is also so much sweetness, so 
 much of the true music of words, so many delightful 
 
72 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
 touches, and so much pure wit, that we can par- 
 don all their faults while we enjoy their beauties, 
 and love the beauties even while we lament the 
 faults. Of their numerous works, there is only one 
 which really keeps the stage ; but there are others 
 not inferior to it. The Chances, and the Two 
 Noble Kinsmen, are two splendid productions, and 
 equal to their Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, as 
 great a favorite as is the last. Their satire is more 
 local, and does not reach so far, as that of their 
 gifted predecessors ; still each character, though it 
 may not apply so well to its modern antitype, is 
 drawn with a fidelity to itself, a keeping in all its 
 parts, a perfect consistency throughout, which 
 scarcely yields, even to the unquestioned master- 
 spirits of the old drama. Next in rank to these, is 
 Massinger. The play by which he is best known, 
 The Fatal Dowry, is in our humble judgment, far 
 inferior in merit to some others of his writings. 
 The City Madam, for instance, has one character in 
 it portrayed alone with power enough to stamp him 
 with immortality, and that is the character of Luke. 
 He is a man broken down by extravagance, and 
 living on the bounty of a rich brother, who is 
 introduced (in the scene where Luke is first promi- 
 nently painted) as a hard-hearted and unfeeling 
 creditor. Luke stands forth as the advocate of the 
 oppressed debtors, to plead for mercy and compassion, 
 
ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 73 
 
 and his reasons are so wise, so true, so eloquent, and 
 so persuasive, as to wring a reluctant reprieve. It 
 is indeed morality, adorned with all the enforce- 
 ments of poetry, and with an enthusiasm that defies 
 argument, and chains us in conviction. In the 
 next pointed situation, we see the humble brother a 
 slave to the caprices of the wife of his rich relative, 
 fawning on both, and almost worshiping their 
 wealth. In the next, there is a change; Luke 
 presumes his brother to be dead, and we find him 
 the self-supposed heir of an immense estate, hugging 
 himself on his wealth, and this scene opens with his 
 splendid soliloquy on the blessings of the miser. 
 The natural result of this change, is, that he 
 becomes a tyrant to his brother's supposed widow 
 and orphan children; and the "strange eventful 
 history" is concluded by his brother's return, and 
 his merited punishment. The soliloquy we have 
 mentioned, is similar, but superior to Ben Jonson's 
 in the opening of Volpone ; but the character of a 
 parasite in that play is superior even to Massin- 
 ger's. We recommend this play to all who have 
 appreciated the Fatal Dowry, and love their 
 native language. Ford, who was before Massinger 
 in order of time, is the last we shall notice of 
 the older dramatists. His Lover's Melancholy 
 is worthy of the age, and higher praise can we 
 not bestow; his Broken Heart is also exquisitely 
 
74 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 
 
 affecting, and in some passages, Ford stands not 
 dishonored beside those, whose names we have so 
 unworthily mentioned. Thus much for the older 
 dramatists, a body of men before whose genius 
 all modern writers sink into comparative littleness ; 
 compared with whose sublimity and wit, Milton 
 alone can stand the test. To them may we award 
 the name of founders of our tongue, and fathers of 
 our drama. To them we should refer a foreigner 
 acquainted with our language, as the sovereigns of 
 our comic verse, and feel a noble pride in telling 
 him that they represent the majesty of our dramatic 
 literature. To them, the comic muse hath vouch- 
 safed her choicest inspiration, and when they pour 
 it forth we admire, and love, and worship at their 
 bidding. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
POETICAL PIECES 
 
THE LOST SHIP 
 
 The gallant ship rode far and fast 
 
 Upon her own blue wave : 
 That ship through sun and gale had past 
 
 Above full many a grave ; 
 Where forms as fair, and hearts as warm, 
 Had sunk beneath the conquering storm, 
 
 And might was vain to save. 
 
 Through hurricane and tempest loud, 
 Through mountain seas on high, 
 
 That gallant ship had safely ploughed, 
 And dared the darkening sky. 
 
 Trembling had changed to firmness ; tears, 
 
 Called forth by mean or manly fears. 
 Had dried in many an eye ; 
 
 When she had dashed o'er hill and vale, 
 And bade the breakers roar 
 
 7* 
 
78 THE LOST SHIP. 
 
 And vainly rage, while her proud sail 
 
 Was bellying for the shore ; 
 But now the light she loved to hail, 
 The wild storm spirits' wrathful wail, 
 
 She feels, defies no more. 
 
 She hath gone down and carried there, 
 
 To ocean's coral cells. 
 The young, the high endowed, the fair, 
 
 All that with genius dwells ; 
 Hearts that were formed to do and dare, 
 Yet doomed to die and perish, where 
 
 No stone their story tells. 
 
 She hath gone down ; the troubled sea 
 Rolls its blue waves above them yet ; 
 
 For whom the tear flowed fast and free, 
 
 For whom bright cheeks were pale and wet 
 
 And all is vain — proud death ! with thee. 
 
 All earthly strength is mockery 
 When thou and man have met. 
 
 She hath gone down ; and buried deep. 
 
 Those glorious forms are lying. 
 Hushed by the billows' voice to sleep. 
 
 Nor waked by mortal sighing. 
 Nor prayers could shield, nor tears could keep 
 Such forms from death ; these ye may weep, 
 
THE LOST SHIP. 79 
 
 Tliese^ not their souls, for they have fled, 
 Risen from mansions of the dead, 
 To reahns of Kfe undying, 
 
 To wait, till, buried hosts shall wake. 
 
 Roused by His coming whose bowed head 
 Bade death from his dark cell outbreak, 
 
 When gaped the speechless earth for fear, 
 And burst the temple's holy vail ; 
 
 And priests and people quaked to hear, 
 And lips and cheeks grew deadly pale, 
 
 With terror smitten dread : 
 Until, the angel tones that spake, 
 When sang the morning stars on high, 
 Shall say to earth, " awake, awake," 
 And thunder forth in majesty, 
 
 '• Dark sea, give up thy dead." 
 
 M DCCC XXV. 
 
THE INDIAN. 
 
 Away, away to forest shades ! 
 
 Fly, fly with me the haunts of men ! 
 I would not give my sunlit glades, 
 
 My talking stream, and silent glen. 
 For all the pageantry of slaves, 
 Their fettered lives and trampled graves. 
 
 Away from wealth ! our wampum strings 
 Ask not the toil, the woes of them. 
 
 From whom the lash, the iron wrings 
 The golden dross, the tear soiled gem ; 
 
 Yet bind our hearts in the pure tie. 
 
 That gold or gems could never buy. 
 
 And power ! what is it ye who rule 
 The hands without the souls ? oh, ye 
 
 Can tell, how mean the tinselled fool. 
 With all his hollow mockery ! 
 
 The slave of slaves who hate, yet bow. 
 
 With serving lip, but scorning brow. 
 
THE INDIAN. 81 
 
 And love, dear love ! how can they feel 
 The wild desire, the burning flame, 
 
 That thrills each pulse and bids us kneel — 
 The power of the adored name ; 
 
 The glance that sins in the met eye, 
 
 Yet loved for its idolatry ! 
 
 They never knew the perfect bliss, 
 
 To clasp in the entwined bower 
 Her trembling form, to steal the kiss 
 
 She would deny, but hath not power ; 
 To list that voice that charms the grove, 
 And trembles when it tells of love. 
 
 Nor have they felt the pride, the thrill. 
 When bounding for the fated deer ; 
 
 O'er rock and sod, o'er vale and hill. 
 The hunter flies, nor dreams of fear. 
 
 And brings his maid the evening prey. 
 
 To speak more love than words can say. 
 
 Have they in death the sod, the stones. 
 
 The silence of the shading tree ; 
 Where glory decks the storied bones 
 
 Of him whose life, whose death was free ; 
 And minstrel mourns his arm whose blow 
 The foeman cowered and quailed below? 
 
82 THE INDIAN. 
 
 No ; they confined and fettered, they 
 The sons of sires to fame unknown. 
 
 With nerveless hands and souls of clay. 
 Half life, half death, loathe, but live on ; 
 
 And sink unsung, ignobly lie 
 
 In dark oblivion's apathy. 
 
 Poor fools ! the wild and mountain chase. 
 Would rend their frail and sickly forms ; 
 
 But for their God, how would they face 
 Our bands of fire, our sons of storms : 
 
 Breasts that have never recked of fears. 
 
 And eyes that leave to women, tears. 
 
 They tell us of their kings, who gave 
 To them our wild, unfettered shore ; 
 
 To them ! why let them claim the wave. 
 And hush its everlasting roar ! 
 
 Then may we own their sway, but hark. 
 
 Our warriors never miss their mark. 
 
 Away, away from such as these ! 
 
 Free as the wild bird on the wing, 
 I see my own, my loved green trees, 
 
 I hear our black-haired maidens sing ; 
 I fly from such a world as this. 
 To rove, to love, to live in bliss ! 
 
 M DCCC XXV. 
 
TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 
 
 Thou king of birds I earth's meanest fool can laugh 
 
 at thee, whose reign 
 Was far, far up, where man's dull orb may gaze 
 
 and gaze in vain ; 
 The thunder's mark, the splintered rock, were 
 
 palaces of thine. 
 Yet thou art here, thine eye is sad, and tears shall 
 
 sully mine. 
 Thine were the clouds, their thick dark forms 
 
 pavilioned thee about. 
 From whence like coUied midnight's flash, that eye 
 
 looked fiercely out ; 
 Thy footstool, earth's far summit ! there thou sat'st 
 
 to scorn the world. 
 Thy wing was bathed in God's own light; alas, that 
 
 wing is furled. 
 
84 TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 
 
 The thunder communes not with thee, the hght- 
 
 ning passes by ; 
 The youngj the free, the unfettered brave, it scathes ; 
 
 thou canst not die ! 
 Nobly and proudly thus to die, to them alone is 
 
 given. 
 The flashing meteors of this world, the chosen ones 
 
 of heaven ! 
 Oh, had'st thou fallen in thy flight to dare the rising 
 
 sun. 
 Upon thine own proud battle-field dying with 
 
 victory won ; 
 Or had thine eye grown dim with age, not with 
 
 excess of light, 
 Yielding to time the triumpher, yet braving him in 
 
 might ; 
 Or soaring up with pinions proud above these walls 
 
 of space. 
 Closed on the sceptred hand of Jove, thine own 
 
 appointed place ; 
 Or winging downwards far away, where storms in 
 
 thunder break, 
 Scorning the river's puny wave, spurning the un- 
 
 rippled lake ; 
 There, seated on some mountain swell, communing 
 
 with the gale. 
 Flashed a last lightning glance around, and died 
 
 without a wail : 
 
TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 85 
 
 But here, why should such thoughts awake, a 
 
 captive and a slave. 
 Thou canst not spring from chains of earth into 
 
 thine own concave; 
 The pinion that hath borne thee once, is clipped, 
 
 and thou art here, 
 And thou couldst weep, but that thine eye, hath 
 
 never known a tear. 
 Thou sittest in sullen silence here, 'midst taunts and 
 
 mockery ; 
 Oh, for one glorious hour, thou criest, one moment 
 
 of the free. 
 This wing should spread, this eye once more, be 
 
 bright as heaven's own beam ; 
 One glance, one spring, and far away — aye, 'tis a 
 
 splendid dream. 
 Why cannot such bright dreams be true ? the hopes 
 
 and joys of man. 
 Soar up to heaven as thou hast soared, yet die where 
 
 they began. 
 The mind whose flight is far, must droop, its eye be 
 
 dim in night ; 
 Thou art that mind in weal and woe, in darkness 
 
 and in light. 
 There was a heart and eye like thine, the world 
 
 shall tell the tale. 
 For at the kindling of that eye, his proudest foes 
 
 grew pale ; 
 
»6 TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 
 
 Yet died he as the veriest slave, fettered in all but 
 
 heart. 
 Captive, enchained, yet all unquelled — emblem of 
 
 him thou art. 
 
 M DCCf: XXV. 
 
THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR. 
 
 The king sat on his throne, 
 
 In gold, and gems, and purple pride, 
 And gathered as rays around the sun, 
 Were warriors at his side ; 
 The famed in council, the foremost in field. 
 The tongue that could charm, and the nerve that 
 could wield. 
 Were called to the royal feast ; 
 And there had the pride of the victor displayed. 
 The spoils of the vanquished and slave, and arrayed 
 The wealth that had bitterly, bloodily paid, 
 The crimes of the glorious East. 
 
 There was beauty in that hall ! 
 
 The loveliest forms and the brightest eyes, 
 Lips whose kisses could never pall. 
 
 Bosoms that throbbed to the youngest sighs, 
 Of the first pure passion ; Oh ! sweeter that kiss, 
 That sigh in the fulness of early bliss, 
 
88 THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR. 
 
 Than a life of dallying, lingering love 1 
 The stings of this world are forgotten, one dream, 
 Like the blue summer sky in the joyous stream, 
 Hangs over and hallows, and makes it seem 
 
 A pure reflection of heaven above. 
 
 There was music in that hall ! 
 Strains of glorious sound that fell. 
 
 On the spell-bound ear like the waterfall. 
 With its rushing sheet and dancing swell ; 
 The heaving heart, and the sparkling eye, 
 Confessed and crowned the melody 
 
 As it sweetly floated round ; 
 And the sigh, the sob, and the crimson flush, 
 And fear's pale hue, and love's warm blush. 
 Like the proud sea's following surges rush ; 
 
 And the soul is a slave to sound. 
 
 There was wine upon that board ! 
 
 The goblet sparkled bright. 
 As the rich red juice was freely poured. 
 With its glancing, bubbling light ; 
 As it kissed the brim it far outshone 
 The gem that was proudest where gems were 
 strown. 
 Thick as stars in the blue midnight ; 
 They quafled, the heart was glad, the eye 
 
THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR. 
 
 Danced in its borrowed brilliancy. 
 And the pulse of love grew warm and high 
 With joy and passionate might. 
 
 There's terror in that hall ! 
 
 Gone is the color from flushing cheek - 
 
 There is a spell on the festival ; 
 
 Eye cannot lighten, lip cannot speak ; 
 Fallen the red goblet, wine like rain, 
 Floods the cold marble, hush'd the strain. 
 
 Is echoed no more by the stilly heart ; 
 Silence, pale silence, hath reared her throne. 
 Where sounded the revellers' merry tone ; 
 The feast is broken, the revel is done, 
 
 And yet they may not part. 
 
 Mark their prince's hurried breath, 
 duivering lip, and fixed eye ; 
 
 He hath seen the sign, it speaks of death, 
 Of sceptre lost, of power gone by ; 
 It was not human, that severed hand. 
 It moved not, wrote not, at man's command — 
 
 It was God's own prophecy ! — 
 And now the winds unheeded moan, 
 In the halls of haughty Babylon, 
 And the pilgrim's footstep long and lone. 
 
 Echoes His victory ! 
 
 8* 
 
TO POMPEII. 
 
 I ROVE through thy deserted streets, inhale 
 The atmosphere of centuries gone by. 
 
 In sad reahty ; while ghast and pale. 
 Around the haunts of their mortality, 
 
 Distinct to fancy's sight, are gathering fast, 
 
 " Their cerements burst/' the spirits of the past. 
 
 Had they but voices ; could the buried speak ; 
 
 Would they not speak in thunder ? Italy ! 
 On thy degenerate head their wrath would wreak 
 
 A curse, as loud and deep as the vexed sea ; 
 The curse of those, whose blood gushed forth in 
 
 waves. 
 To free thy soil, thou heritage of slaves ! 
 
 " Curse on thy palsied arm that will not strike, 
 As struck our Brutus to the tyrant's heart ! 
 
 Is there not one among thy children, like 
 
 That dread avenger ? one whose blood will start. 
 
TO POMPEII. 91 
 
 To think of our old might ! not one to weep. 
 That Roman souls should in such bondage sleep ?" 
 
 I am a pilgrim and a stranger, yet 
 
 Even I can blush, can weep for thy foul chains ; 
 I cannot look upon thee, and forget 
 
 The rich proud blood that fills thy recreant veins ; 
 But tears of shame and sorrow course my cheek, 
 And tell what words in vain essay to speak. 
 
 The eagle that embraced each hall and fane 
 Within the shadow of his warrior wing. 
 
 Is quelled and dark : oh, ne'er shall he again. 
 From bonds of earth in his old glory spring, 
 
 Upon the cloud of conquest poise his form. 
 
 To raise and rule the battle's thunder-storm. 
 
 Where are thy gods ? they who were ever nigh 
 To combat in thy cause, why come they not 
 
 Clothed in the thunder of their majesty, 
 To glorify again each hallowed spot 
 
 With their proud presence, and to scourge in wrath, 
 
 The haughty Christian from their people's path ? 
 
 Where is high Jove, the cloud-compeller ? where, 
 The young Apollo, beautiful in might ; 
 
 And she, the sea-foam's seed, the very air 
 Grew odorous of love where she did light ; 
 
92 TO POMPEII. 
 
 And the fierce god of armies ? Ye can say, 
 Shrines of forgotten worship, where are they. 
 
 Ye answer not, yet in your echoing hahs 
 There is a voice ; your silence is not dumb ; 
 
 There is a voice ; louder than words, that calls 
 On those who plume them in their pride, to come, 
 
 And, 'mid your trophies of divine decay. 
 
 To muse on pride, mightier, yet passed away. 
 
 And from your ruins to the mind's quick ear, 
 It wisely says, what, though the earth inhume 
 
 All that is earth's ? the soul can laugh at fear, 
 In new existence 'mid destruction's bloom ; 
 
 And gain the meed, to virtue only given. 
 
 Glory on earth and diadems in heaven. 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
THE MARTYR. 
 
 It was a day of awe and fear. 
 
 And populous Rome had gathered then 
 In her vast amphitheatre 
 
 The world's proud lords and victors ; men, 
 Or beasts, who came to glut their eyes 
 With tortures and with agonies. 
 
 But he, the victim of that day, 
 Stood firm and fearless, not a sign 
 
 Of dread, did that calm face betray ; 
 Once, and once only round the hue. 
 
 Of that unbroken multitude. 
 
 His dark eye flashed, his lip subdued, 
 
 With strong but momentary power. 
 Some inward working ; it might be 
 
 Some thought, some memory of an hour 
 Happier than this, when he was free 
 
 From bonds unused to Roman limb : 
 
 But for His cause how dear to him ! 
 
THE MARTYR. 
 
 There came a voice unto his ear, 
 
 He heeded not, it came again ; 
 He roused him from his dream to hear ; 
 
 It was his sovereign's ; on the plain, 
 Beneath Rome's eagle lost and won. 
 Won by his own right hand, that tone 
 
 Had bid his comrades wreath him there 
 With laurels, such as victors wear ; 
 
 But now that voice unwelcome came, 
 The voice of one who counselled shame ; 
 
 Calmly the martyr stood, nor tear 
 
 Was in that eye, nor mark of fear. 
 
 Prince, I am ready; this cold blood 
 
 Was warm, when it gushed forth for thee 
 
 Upon the plain where terrors stood ; 
 But it can flow, and thou shalt see 
 
 A Roman's life blood freely given. 
 
 Aye, willingly as rain from heaven. 
 
 And when thou seest this eye unquailed. 
 This heart untroubled, unassailed. 
 
 Think not of stoic constancy. 
 Child of a weak philosophy ; 
 
 But know how well a Christii^n's faith 
 
 Can bear him up to conquer death. 
 
THE MARTYR. '-^^ 
 
 Yes, for that faith. His faith who died 
 
 On the accursed tree, I dare 
 The scaffold's terrors, all that pride, 
 
 And priestly malice can prepare ; 
 All that the heart and frame hath riven, 
 All cannot shake my hope of heaven ! 
 
 Hear, soldier ! thou hast bravely stood. 
 Fearless of death on fields of blood, 
 
 And saved from shame these folds that fly 
 In pride above our canopy ; 
 
 And canst thou, wilt thou yield the life, 
 
 So nobly perilled in the strife 
 
 Upon that scafibld ? think what pains 
 Will rack thy form while life remains ; 
 
 And worse, far worse, what lasting shame, 
 Shall taint thy blood and blot thy fame ! 
 
 Will thou not bow ? one look, one sign, 
 
 Will make the proffered mercy thine. 
 
 No answer ! by the gods on high. 
 
 Thou scornest our boon — then, traitor, die ! 
 Traitor ! the old man calmly said. 
 
 And sadly smiling, raised his head : 
 Traitor ! then fixed his glance and broke 
 The death-like silence as he spoke. 
 
THE MARTYR. 
 
 I speak not now, my prince, to crave 
 The least, the meanest boon, thy power 
 
 Could offer me ; the dark, dark grave. 
 Is bright and welcome in this hour, 
 
 To one whose faith hath fixed his gaze 
 
 On realms that know not hours nor days. 
 
 I may not, will not reck of life, 
 
 For it to me is in the leaf, 
 The autumn leaf, which the last strife, 
 
 The latest struggle (long or brief, 
 It matters not,) shall wrench away. 
 To perish with its kindred clay. 
 
 Thou sayest that I have perilled it ! 
 
 'Tis well ; and shall I basely now 
 To your idolatry submit. 
 
 Abjure the faith which I avow. 
 For what, even for thy tinselled show ! 
 No, by the faith I cherish, no. 
 
 Look on these locks, they're thin and gray^ 
 
 The frosts of near a century 
 Have whitened them ; look, then, and say 
 
 How worthless, valueless to me, 
 Were the poor minutes I could live. 
 And all the honors thou couldst give. 
 
THE MARTYR. 97 
 
 But were they all eternal ; were 
 
 Each hour a life revived, renewed. 
 As the undying eagles are ; 
 
 Not for that vassal multitude, 
 Not for your diadem and throne, 
 The proudest, earth hath ever known ; 
 Would I exchange this hour of death. 
 The martyr's victory and his wreath. 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
THE CLOUDS 
 
 The clouds have their own language ; unto me 
 They have told many a tale in by-gone days, 
 
 At twilight's hour, when gentle reverie 
 
 Steals o'er the heart, as tread the elvish fays, 
 
 With their fleet footsteps on the moonlit grass, 
 
 And leave their storied circles where they pass. 
 
 So, even so, to me the embracing clouds, 
 
 With their pure thoughts leave holy traces here, 
 
 And from the tempest-gathered fold that shrouds 
 The darkening earth, unto the blue, and clear, 
 
 And sunny brightness of yon arching sky, 
 
 They have their language and their melody. 
 
 Have you not felt it when the dropping rain 
 
 From the soft showers of spring hath clothed 
 the earth 
 
 With its unnumbered offspring ? felt not, when 
 The conquering sun hath proudly struggled forth 
 
THE CLOUDS. 99 
 
 In misty radiance, until cloud and spot 
 Were blended in one briglitness ? can you not 
 
 Look out and love when the departing sun 
 Enrobes their peaks in shapes fantastical 
 
 In his last splendor, and reflects upon 
 
 Their skirts his farewell smile ere shadows fall 
 
 Above his burial like our boyhood's gleams 
 
 Of fading light, or like the " stuff of dreams" ? 
 
 Or giving back those tints indefinite, 
 
 Yet brightly blending, there to form that arch, 
 
 Whereon the angel-spirits of the light 
 
 Marshalled their joyous and triumphant march, 
 
 When sank the whelming waters, and again 
 
 Left the green islands to the sons of men ? 
 
 Oh, then as rose each lofty pile, and threw 
 Its growing shadow on the sinking tide, 
 
 How glowed each peak with the resplendent hue, 
 As its new lustre told that wrath had died, 
 
 Till the blue waves within their limits curled, 
 
 And that broad bow in beauty spanned the world. 
 
 Gaze yet again, and you may see on high 
 The opposing hosts that mutter as they form 
 
 Their stern battalions, ere the artillery 
 Bids the destroying angel guide its storm ; 
 
100 THE CLOUDS. 
 
 If you have heard on battle's eve the low 
 Defiance quickly uttered >to the foe, 
 
 When the firm ranks gaze fiercely brow on brow, 
 And eye on eye, while every heart beats fast 
 
 With hopes and fears, all feel, but none avow. 
 Pulsations which perchance may be their last, 
 
 Whom the unhonored sepulchre shall shroud ; 
 
 If you have seen this, gaze upon that cloud : 
 
 How from the bosom of its blackness springs 
 The cleaving lightning kindling on its way, 
 
 Flinging such blinding glory from its wings, 
 That he who looks grows drunk with its array 
 
 Of power and beauty, till his eye is dim, 
 
 And dazzling darkness overshadows him. 
 
 Oh, God ! can he conceive who hath not known 
 The wondrous workings of thy firmament, 
 
 Thine untold majesty, around whose throne 
 They stand, thy winged messengers, or sent 
 
 In light or darkness on their destined path. 
 
 Bestow thy blessings, or direct thy wrath. 
 
 Then here, in this thy lower temple, here 
 We kneel to thee in worship; what, to these 
 
 Symbols of thine, wherein thou dost appear, 
 Are painted domes or priestly palaces ; 
 
THE CLOUDS. lOi 
 
 On this green turf, and gazing on yon sphere, 
 
 We call on thee to commune and to bless. 
 And see in holy fancy each pure sigh, 
 Ascend like incense to thy throne on high. 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
TO MAY. 
 
 Come, gentle May ! 
 Come with thy robe of flowers, 
 Come with thy sun and sky, thy clouds and 
 showers, 
 
 Come, and bring forth unto the eye of day, 
 From their imprisoning and mysterious night, 
 The buds of many hues, the children of thy light. 
 
 Come, wondrous May ! 
 For at the bidding of thy magic wand, 
 Gluick from the caverns of the breathing land, 
 
 In all their green and glorious array 
 They spring, as spring the Persian maids to hail 
 Thy flushing footsteps in Cashmerian vale. 
 
 Come, vocal May ! 
 Come with thy train, that high 
 On some fresh branch pour out their melody, 
 
 Or carolling thy praise, the live-long day, 
 
 J 
 
TO MAY. 103 
 
 Sit perched in some lone glen, on echo calling, 
 Mid murmuring woods, and musical waters falling- 
 
 Come, sunny May ! 
 Come with thy laughing beam, 
 What time the lazy mist melts on the stream, 
 
 Or seeks the mountain top to meet thy ray, 
 Ere yet the dew-drop on thine own soft flower, 
 Hath lost its light or died beneath his power. 
 
 Come, holy May ! 
 When sunk behind the cold and western hill, 
 His light hath ceased to play on leaf and rill. 
 
 And twilight's footsteps hasten his decay; 
 Come with thy musings, and my heart shall be 
 Like a pure temple consecrate to thee. 
 
 Come, beautiful May ! 
 Like youth and loveliness — 
 Like her I love ; oh, come in thy full dress, 
 
 The drapery of dark winter cast away ; 
 To the bright eye, and the glad heart appear, 
 Glueen of the spring and mistress of the year ! 
 
 Yet, lovely May ! 
 Teach her whose eye shall rest upon this rhyme 
 To spurn the gilded mockeries of time, 
 
 The heartless pomp that beckons to betray. 
 
I TO MAY. 
 
 And keep as thou wilt find that heart each year, 
 Pure as thy dawn, and as thy sunset clear. 
 
 And let me too, sweet May ! 
 Let thy fond votary see 
 As fade thy beauties, all the vanity 
 
 Of this world's pomp, then teach, that though 
 decay 
 In his short winter, bury beauty's frame, 
 
 In fairer worlds the soul shall break his sway. 
 Another spring shall bloom eternal and the same. 
 
 M DCCC XXVI. 
 
FORGET ME NOT. 
 
 Forget me not, forget me not ! 
 
 It is the language of the heart. 
 That hallows each accustomed spot. 
 
 Whence we prepare to part ; 
 The haunt of holy infancy, 
 
 And sunny childhood's dreamy spot. 
 Call the big tear into the eye. 
 
 And say, forget me not. 
 
 The mutual vow, the chaste embrace, 
 
 The blushing look of love ; oh, what 
 Can dim their brightness or efface. 
 
 Their fond forget me not ? 
 The passionate flame of boyhood's hour. 
 
 The flame half cherished, half forgot, 
 Swells on the soul with stifling power. 
 
 And throbs, forget me not. 
 
 The friendships of the dead appear. 
 The memories death can never rot, 
 
106 FORGET ME NOT. 
 
 And ring upon the mind's still ear, 
 
 Their sad forget me not. 
 Voices like morning music wake 
 
 A thrilling crowd from memory's grot, 
 Till the heart's chords in sorrow shake, 
 - To their forget me not. 
 
 Souls with our kindred souls that blent. 
 
 Faces that brightened our dark lot, 
 And eyes come back, all eloquent. 
 
 With their forget me not : 
 The thought from which the heart shrinks back. 
 
 Is that we must unmemoried rot ; 
 The hope that lightens hfe's dull track. 
 
 Is this forget me not. 
 
 M DCrC XXVI 
 
FOREST LEAVES 
 
 Come hither among the forest leaves. 
 
 Yellow, and red, and blue, 
 And see how the sighing autumn weaves 
 
 Her robe of every hue ; 
 To mantle the year that gorgeously dies. 
 
 Like the sunset's pomp away. 
 And to make the grave where the summer lies, 
 
 A mockery of decay. 
 
 Come hither among the forest trees, 
 
 You have seen their summer dress, 
 When birds were trilling their melodies, 
 
 From bowers of loveliness ; 
 Come where the leaf so green and gay. 
 
 In sun and wind so free. 
 Is doomed to wither its bloom away, 
 
 Upon the sorrowing tree. 
 
 Come hither among the forest trees. 
 When the autumn moon shines clear. 
 
108 THE FOREST LEAVES. 
 
 And the cold and moaning autumn breeze, 
 
 Holds mournful revel here ; 
 While his fitful gusts are piping shrill, 
 
 The dying leaves among, 
 Which wake from their bed by the dropping rill. 
 
 To dance to his midnight song. 
 
 Come hither among the forest leaves. 
 
 And weep, oh, well you may. 
 For cold is the heart that never grieves, 
 
 O'er the pride of death's array ; 
 But colder still is the heart that weeps 
 
 Its precious tears in vain. 
 Nor knows that the leaf which sweetly sleeps, 
 
 Shall in beauty bloom again. 
 
 M DCCC XXVll. 
 
MISSOLONGHI: 
 
 Greece had a fortress yesterday • 
 The flag of freedom waved upon 
 Its battlements ; but morning's ray 
 Beholds it not : the glorious sun 
 Threw his last beam upon its fold, 
 A beautiful beam of light and gold ; 
 That glorious sun hath risen again, 
 Hurrying the clouds from vale and wave. 
 And seeks in splendor, but in vain, 
 The banner of the brave. 
 
 Within that fortress yesterday, 
 
 There beat seven thousand hearts of mould 
 
 As tameless as the stern array 
 
 Of heroes at Thermopylae ; 
 
 Their own three hundred sires of old, 
 
 Who panted for the fight, the pall, 
 
 As young hearts for the festival. 
 
 And fought till it was time to die ; 
 
 Who found the death they longed to meet, 
 
 10 
 
no MISSOLONGHI. 
 
 And perishing in victory, 
 Were conquerors in defeat. 
 
 Around that banner yesterday, 
 With eye of fire and arm of nerve, 
 They swore their falchion in the fray. 
 Their arm on its avenging way, 
 From honor should not swerve ; 
 That sooner far that arm should fall, 
 Shrunk, powerless, palsied, by each side ; 
 That blade in danger's loudest call, 
 Each craven's fear deride ; 
 Each eye should life and light resign. 
 Each stone beneath their feet should be 
 Sprinkled with blood a fitting shrine. 
 Oh, liberty ! for thee. 
 
 And in the gloomy clouds of night, 
 The crescent moons of Moslem sway, 
 As if they feared to see the light. 
 Came on their darkened way ; 
 And they, the noble and the brave, 
 Were slaughtered by the infidel ; 
 And th^re was not an arm to save, 
 Or succor those who freely fell 
 For freedom's name, yet falling, left 
 To Greece their noble legacy, 
 A hope which tyrants have not reft, 
 Laurels which gathered from the tree. 
 
MISSOLONGHI. 1" 
 
 That glory shields from time and theft, 
 Bloom in fresh immortality ; 
 And than all these that holier gift, 
 A martyr's memory. 
 
 They swore each stone should be a shrine 
 
 Of sacrifice to liberty ; 
 
 And it shall be a shrine, for there, 
 
 The pilgrim's step, the patriot's prayer, 
 
 Shall linger, shall ascend on high : 
 
 And freedom ! thou shalt make it thine. 
 
 Thine as thou madest their land of yore ; 
 
 The spot on which Bozzaris died. 
 
 The grave of him whose bright harp wore 
 
 The cypress wreath, too soon for thee. 
 
 Who left his own free foreign shore. 
 
 To battle by thy side ; 
 
 Yes, holy these shall ever be. 
 
 And thou shalt make that fortress ground, 
 
 A temple sacred unto thee. 
 
 And lovely to the brave and free. 
 
 From sea and land who gather round. 
 
 And there thy Grecian sons shall falter. 
 
 Their sad proud prayers upon thine altar. 
 
 And make each breeze that round it stirs, 
 
 Thick with the vows of worshippers. 
 
 M DCCC XXVII. 
 
T O 
 
 Dear girl, full many a time have I 
 
 Seen cheeks of as transparent hue, 
 And lips as purely rich, and eye 
 
 As beautifully blue ; 
 Yet never have I known a face. 
 
 So darkly brilliantly divine, 
 As when a kindling smile gives place 
 
 To that dear frown of thine. 
 
 Oh, some there are who love to look, 
 
 When heaven is almost dim with light. 
 And would not let the blue arch brook 
 
 A cloud upon its sight ; 
 But when around the conquering sun 
 
 They thickly crowd, oh, then be mine, 
 To gaze with rapture as upon 
 
 That lowering eye of thine. 
 
 For though my love has been to thee 
 As true as hope, or faith on high, 
 
TO 113 
 
 Yet oft of late have fallen on me 
 
 The flashings of that eye ; 
 And I am slave enough to bless 
 
 The look that would each hope reprove, 
 And worship even the loveliness 
 
 That bids me cease to love. 
 
 M DCCC XXVII. 
 
 10* 
 
 %^ 
 
CHANGES. 
 
 I OFTEN muse at even tide, 
 
 When present things are dimly seen, 
 And scenes that day hath power to hide, 
 
 Come back all fresh and green. 
 And throng my sense, though all alone. 
 Upon the changes I have known. 
 
 For from our cradled infancy, 
 
 The world is changing every hour ; 
 
 Faces are gone we used to see. 
 The bud becomes a flower. 
 
 That blossoms in the dew and sun. 
 
 And fades as other flowers have done. 
 
 The morning sky that looked so blue, 
 So very blue and full of mirth, 
 
 When night's thick curtain it updrew, 
 And looked upon the earth ; 
 
 Was clouded at mid-day, but now 
 
 It bears a rainbow on its brow. 
 
CHANGES. 115 
 
 The cold in heart, and gray in head, 
 
 May laugh my fantasies to scorn. 
 And tell me that when I have read 
 
 The changes they have borne ; 
 Then I at length, and not till then, 
 May descant on the change in men. 
 
 Well let us then look round in thought, 
 On those whom we have seen for years. 
 
 And mark the wonders time hath wrought, 
 And smile perhaps through tears, 
 
 To feel with every face we view. 
 
 That we ourselves are changing too. 
 
 Yes, I alas, am changed in heart, 
 I cannot smile, and may not weep ; 
 
 The tear beneath my lid may start. 
 Its course it must not keep ; 
 
 I think on what I was, and then 
 
 Would gladly be the same again. 
 
 The same in childhood's merriment, 
 That frolic lightness of the blood. 
 
 The same in tears which seemed but sent, 
 As dew upon the bud ; 
 
 The same in hopes which turned to fear, 
 
 And fears which came to disappear. 
 
116 CHANGES. 
 
 The same in innocence of mind, 
 The same in danger and delight, 
 
 The same when mates were cross or kind, 
 The same at morn and night ; 
 
 The same, so I were changed I trow. 
 
 From that dull being I am now. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT. 
 
 Many a sad, sweet thought have I, 
 
 Many a passing sunny gleam, 
 Many a bright tear in mine eye. 
 
 Many a wild and wandering dream ; 
 Stolen from hours, I should have tied 
 To musty volumes at my side ; 
 Given to hours that sweetly wooed 
 My heart from its study's solitude. 
 
 Oft when the south winds, dancing free, 
 
 Over the earth and in the sky, 
 And the flowers peep softly out to see 
 
 The frolic spring as she wantons by. 
 When the breeze and beam, like thieves, come in 
 To steal me away, I deem it sin 
 To slight their voice ; and away I'm straying, 
 Over the hills and vales a-maying. 
 
 Then can I hear the earth rejoice. 
 Happier than man may ever be ; 
 
118 THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT. 
 
 Every fountain hath then a voice, 
 That sings of its glad festivity ; 
 For it hath burst the chains, that bound 
 Its currents dead in the frozen ground, 
 And flashing away in the sun has gone, 
 Singing, and singing, and singing on. 
 
 Autumn hath sunset hours and then, 
 Many a musing mood I cherish, 
 
 Many a hue of fancy, when 
 
 The hues of earth are about to perish ; 
 
 Clouds are there, and brighter I ween. 
 
 Hath real sunset never seen : 
 
 Sad as the faces of friends that die. 
 
 And beautiful as their memory. 
 
 Love hath its thoughts, we cannot keep, 
 
 Visions the mind may not control. 
 Waking, as fancy does in sleep. 
 
 The secret transports of the soul. 
 Faces and forms are strangely mingled, 
 Till one by one they are slowly singled. 
 To the voice and lip, and eye of her, 
 I worship like an idolater. 
 
 Many a big proud tear have I, 
 
 When from my sweet and roaming track. 
 
THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT. 119 
 
 From the green earth and misty sky, 
 And spring and love, I hurry back. 
 Then what a dismal dreary gloom, 
 Settles upon my loathed room ; 
 Darker to every thought and sense, 
 Than if they had never travelled thence. 
 
 Yet I have other thoughts, that cheer 
 The toilsome day, and lonely night, 
 And many a scene and hope appear, 
 
 And almost make me gay and bright. 
 Honor and fame that I would win. 
 Though every toil that yet hath been 
 Were doubly borne, and not an hour 
 Were brightly hued by fancy's power. 
 
 And though I may sometimes sigh to think. 
 Of earth, and heaven, and wind, and sea, 
 And know that the cup that others drink, 
 
 Shall never be brimmed by me ; 
 That many a joy must be untasted, 
 And many a glorious breeze be wasted, 
 Yet would not if I dared repine, 
 That toil and study and care are mine. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
SIGNS OF LOVE 
 
 I HAVE read full many a witching tale of love in 
 
 by-gone years, 
 Its deep sweet sighs, its timorous hopes, its raptures 
 
 and its tears, 
 And yet with all my lore of love, I never could 
 
 divine, 
 If it hath ever deigned to dwell within this heart of 
 
 mine. 
 
 Fair lady, then I come to thee, and by that full 
 
 black eye, 
 Whose drooping lash just half conceals its soft 
 
 quick witchery, 
 I know that thou canst spell me right, the story I 
 
 would read, 
 If the words I dare to whisper thee, be proofs of love 
 
 indeed ! 
 
 I cannot well remember now, that I have lately 
 
 known 
 One single form or face I thought unrivalled and 
 
 alone : 
 
SIGNS OF LOVE. 121 
 
 Yet many a form of winning grace, and look of 
 
 mirth and light, 
 In all the pride of loveliness have flashed upon my 
 
 sight. 
 
 And I have stopped and gazed, and yet have turned 
 
 to gaze once more 
 At charms 'twere not idolatry, I fancied, to adore ; 
 And still, with scarce a pang I saw the beautiful 
 
 depart. 
 And felt though they had dimmed mine eye, they 
 
 could not touch my heart. 
 
 But I can just recall to me, some few short years ago, 
 How there was one who shared with me my boyish 
 
 weal and woe. 
 And rambled with me many a time, when spring 
 
 was on the earth, 
 And the birds were coming back with songs, and 
 
 buds were just in birth ; 
 
 Or when the autumn sunset spread its many a 
 
 golden hue 
 Upon the clouds, and leafy earth, and sky and 
 
 stream of blue, 
 And how we talked till voice and lip trembled 
 
 unconsciously. 
 And how I blushed, and looked at her, who blushed, 
 
 and looked at me ; 
 11 
 
122 SIGNS OF LOVE. 
 
 And how I feared lest she should find the passionate 
 
 hope I felt, 
 The strange sweet thought, the waking dream, that 
 
 in my bosom dwelt ; 
 Yet could have almost frowned on her, who would 
 
 not always see 
 The glance I hoped her own would meet in pride of 
 
 modesty : 
 
 And how when mirth was loud of laugh, and the 
 
 eye was bright with bliss, 
 And the cup was sparkling with the juice, I met 
 
 with greeting kiss. 
 Her name, one word, one thought of her, and 
 
 memory came to fill 
 My heart with pensive music, like the voice of 
 
 autumn rill. 
 
 But ah ! those days of young delight, I should have 
 
 all forgot. 
 But memory sometimes wakes within, and sighs that 
 
 they are not, 
 And 'minds me of the flower she pulled when the 
 
 parting hour was nigh, 
 And gave me with a blushing cheek and a big tear 
 
 in her eye. 
 
 I kept it, and I often loved in secresy to sit, 
 And think it smiled and grew more green whene'er 
 I looked on it : 
 
SIGNS OF LOVE. 
 
 But T grew cold and careless, and it pined as if 
 
 with grief. 
 And now, whene'er I look, I find a moisture on the 
 
 leaf; 
 
 A single tear upon that leaf, and she who gave it, 
 
 she, 
 Has she too pined ? but I ! I am the fool of memory ! 
 What, lady ? Do those dark eyes smile ? It cannot 
 
 be that this, 
 This melancholy musing thought, can be love's 
 
 dream of bliss ! 
 
 And now you sigh, as if to say, that in this world of 
 
 ours. 
 Grief steals round finest feelings as the dew hangs 
 
 on the flowers. 
 And passionate love, as if to show even joy grows 
 
 sorrow here. 
 Breathes its sweet odor in a sigh, and smiles but 
 
 through a tear. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
ON A SEAL, 
 
 THE DEVICE OF WHICH WAS, THE SUN SETTING 
 WITH THE MOTTO " JE REVIENDRAI." 
 
 As fades the sun's departing light, 
 On hill and wave and leafy tree, 
 And the thick shades of coming night, 
 Gather above his burial bright. 
 In funeral majesty : 
 
 So when we part ; when the last token 
 Of love, that lights that eye, is gone, 
 When the last speaking word is spoken, 
 When the last breaking grasp is broken^ 
 Dark fears come crowding on. 
 
 But as the morning's eye hath found 
 
 That sun rejoicing in his path. 
 Breaking the cloudy chains that bound, 
 Making the mists that linger round. 
 All radiant with his wrath. 
 
ON A SEAL. 125 
 
 So when that eye comes beaming back, 
 With tales such eyes alone recite, 
 
 Then the heart's sunshine gilds each rack 
 
 Of cloudy fear that dims its track, 
 Till all is lost in light. 
 
 M DCCC XXVII. 
 
 11^ 
 
TRANSLATIONS 
 
 DE BERANGER 
 
 LA VIEILLESSE. OLD AGE. 
 
 We know that time, who wings us by. 
 
 Though youth yet finds us warm and gay, 
 Leaves footsteps in our cheek and eye, 
 
 That warn us of decay ; 
 But still at every step we see 
 
 Fresh flowers spring up, sweet buds unfold. 
 And feel 'tis happiness to be ; 
 
 This is not to grow old ! 
 
 In vain amid the festive scene. 
 
 With sound of song, and light of wine, 
 We soothe the heart, yet fresh and green, 
 
 They tell us, we decline ; 
 But even until the last dim hour^ 
 
 To love, though limbs grow frail and cold. 
 The joyous wine, the song's sweet power ; 
 
 This is not to grow old ! 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 127 
 
 Does the weak fair, who gaily took 
 
 The worship of our frohc prime, 
 Repeat to us with taunting look. 
 
 The ravages of time ; 
 At less expense more bliss to gain. 
 
 And in a mistress, know we hold 
 A friend, who shares each joy and pain ; 
 
 This is not to grow old ! 
 
 Still though our wonted passions keep 
 
 Within our breasts their kindly sway, 
 Fate speeds, then let us calmly sweep 
 
 Together to decay : 
 Thus from the corner of my age, 
 
 To see, my friends, in virtue bold, 
 The storms of life innoxious rage. 
 And end with you its pilgrimage ; 
 
 This is not to grow old ! 
 
 LE CRT DE LA FRANCE. THE CRY OF FRANCE. 
 
 Away with the Bourbons ! 'Tis France who 
 
 exclaims : 
 Too long have we borne your degenerate sway ; 
 
128 TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 
 
 Oppressors ! we blush for your faces and names, 
 Fly ! Fly to your dens ! Freedom kindles her 
 flames : 
 
 Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 
 
 Away with the Bourbons ! their cruelties' dye, 
 The pencil of Clio were weak to portray ; 
 Yes ! hark to the voice of your victims ! their cry 
 The gloomy abysses return to the sky : 
 
 Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 
 
 Away with them ! then shall our proud Tricolor, 
 Our bow on the mountains, its splendor display. 
 And " our Country, our Honor," the words we adore, 
 The flag of our fathers shall hallow once more : 
 Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 
 
 Away with the Bourbons ! the Loire shall again. 
 Reassemble its heroes, and call to the fray, 
 And they who've forgotten to vanquish, shall then, 
 'Neath our banners renew their old glory like men : 
 Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 
 
 Away with them! Aye ! and the hordes they have led 
 To disgrace our free soil with their foreign array. 
 Crush, Frenchmen ! the tyrants who basely betrayed, 
 Then sought from strange banners inglorious shade : 
 Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 129 
 
 Away with the Bourbons ! my country arise, 
 Regain the proud rank, thou shouldst honor today. 
 Thou shouldst reign : then sweep off with their toys 
 
 and their ties. 
 The minions we hate, the vile race we despise : 
 Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 
 
 LES VETERANS. THE VETERANS. 
 
 Ah, they have now almost forgot. 
 Our service in the bannered wars. 
 And we are fain to hide the scars. 
 
 Trophies of hearts that wearied not; 
 Jena and. Ulm can witness how 
 
 Hands nerved to do, hearts throbbed to dare. 
 And yet they say with scornful brow. 
 
 Oh, they were there ! 
 
 Yes, we were there, for honor there, 
 Not for a chief, but France ; that nam( 
 Wakes in each heart a filial flame, 
 
 Alike in glory and despair ; 
 Our mother calls, we fly to save. 
 
 She bids, our blood flows free as air : 
 In dark defeat, or well- won field, 
 
 Still we were there ! 
 
130 TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 
 
 Yet all the valiant could not fall, 
 And sheltered now will they remain. 
 Till France shall summon them again, 
 
 And find them few, but fearless all ; 
 Proud remnant of that host who came 
 
 To shake the nations with despair ; 
 To renovate thine olden fame, 
 
 We still are there ! 
 
 To shield our king, to guard his crown, 
 In peril's path we boldly move 
 To save a people whom we love. 
 
 To crush a foe who fears our frown, 
 And oh, when honor's voice shall sound. 
 
 That voice shall not be lost in air ; 
 Our country's living ramparts round. 
 
 We shall be there ! 
 
 Now we resign those blades that blazed 
 Such lightning on the vaunting foe ; 
 We lay our eagle ensigns low, 
 
 Those meteors on which nations gazed ; 
 But if our France, if glory high. 
 
 Should summon us, the world shall hear 
 Louder than triumph's note, our cry. 
 
 Behold us here ! 
 
TO 
 
 Oh well do I remember now, the time when first we 
 
 met, 
 And memory must forget to hoard all joy, ere I 
 
 forget 
 That form so dear, that front so clear, and the 
 
 paleness of that face. 
 That won me with its speaking lines of tenderness 
 
 and grace. 
 
 And then the meeting of our eyes, oh, years and 
 
 years have flown. 
 And yet upon my heart that glance is graven as on 
 
 stone. 
 And from that heart must life depart, before decay 
 
 hath traced 
 Its impress on that moment, or its memory defaced. 
 
 For even now though thou art changed, and though 
 
 that eye hath strayed 
 To meet the glance another gives, I dare not to 
 
 upbraid : 
 
132 TO 
 
 For when I could and would upbraid, that look 
 
 comes fresh through years, 
 And dims the eye that shone with wrath, and turns 
 
 my taunts to tears. 
 
 How oft when spring came sweetly in, and woke 
 
 the early flowers, 
 I watched to meet your morning step, and cursed 
 
 the lagging hours ; 
 The rose you threw I treasured too, to feed my 
 
 memory, 
 But all its leaves and fragrance fled, and left the 
 
 thorn with me. 
 
 And even then I fondly dreamed, the faded might 
 
 resume 
 The fragrance of its dewy prime, the life of its young 
 
 bloom ; 
 But now I know, that even though the tree may bud 
 
 once more, 
 Nor sun, nor dew, nor breeze, can e'er its withered 
 
 flower restore. 
 
 Yet like the Israelite of old, who turned with linger- 
 ing look. 
 
 His eye upon the ruined fane. Lord's majesty for- 
 sook, 
 
TO 133 
 
 And offered there his evening prayer, and joyed to 
 
 see arise 
 From its neglected altar-stone, his morning sacrifice. 
 
 So from the shrine, thy form once Imew, and yet 
 thy memory knows, 
 
 No other prayers were ever breathed, no other in- 
 cense rose ; 
 
 And even now, though desolate thou hast left it, it 
 shall be 
 
 The temple of my worship still, and consecrate to 
 thee. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
 12 
 
LINES 
 
 ON HEARING OF THE UNEXPECTED DEATH OF A 
 YOUNG LADY. 
 
 So young, so fair, so early called, 
 I scarce know how to weep ; 
 The blow that felled thee hath appalled. 
 Even sorrow's self to sleep. 
 Had I but dreamed thou couldst have died. 
 The thought had caused my tears to start ; 
 The rod that should have poured their tide, 
 With sudden stroke hath petrified 
 The gushings of the heart. 
 
 Mournfully, tearfully, I know 
 
 We watch the dull decline 
 
 Of early hearts with joyous glow. 
 
 And cheeks with blush like thine ; 
 
 Yet in that sorrow's strongest sway. 
 
 It is a sadly dear delight, 
 
 To soothe the body's slow decay. 
 
 And check the lingering spirit's flight. 
 
ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY. 135 
 
 But oh, Stern death will coldly lay, 
 His finger on that form, whose light 
 An hour before was full and gay, 
 And glorious in our sight ! 
 
 So fair, so young, when last I heard 
 The voice I loved to hear, 
 It greeted me with welcome word: 
 How hushed that pall-hid bier ! 
 And when I saw that joyous eye, 
 Brightening with every glance it gave, 
 I could have idly laughed, if I 
 Had dreamed so soon its radiancy 
 Would darken in the grave. 
 
 And even now that I have seen 
 All death demands of life ; 
 The things that are not, and have been. 
 Seem in perpetual strife. 
 Greeting and grieving, smiles and tears, 
 The light laugh and the silent earth, 
 In clouds and sunshine linger here, 
 Joy smiles on sorrow, and thy bier 
 Seems vocal with thy mirth. 
 
 Yet let me wake, but not to sigh, 
 Thy form is with the dead ; 
 
136 ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY 
 
 Thy soul, thyself, thou couldst not die. 
 The undying hath but fled. 
 Death is a conqueror o'er the eye 
 And cheek, but to the soul a slave : 
 He opes its prison, bids it fly, 
 And wings its joyous course on high. 
 To him whose brightest victory, 
 Was gathered from the grave. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
STANZAS 
 
 ON HEARING THAT THE OFFICIALS OF "WEST- 
 MINSTER ABBEY HAD REFUSED PERMISSION TO 
 BURY THERE THE BODY OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 They have spurned the proud relics ! well, thus 
 should it be ; 
 
 Oh thus should the bigots who feared him in life, 
 With the spirit of vampyres exultingly see, 
 
 O'er his ashes at least, they were victors in strife. 
 
 Let them peck at the laurels he nobly hath won, 
 Let them try the full tide of his glory to stem ; 
 
 Let the eagle who blazoned his breast in the sun. 
 Be " hawked at," for scorning to grovel with them. 
 
 As with Brutus of old, when Augustus denied 
 
 A place by his rivals in patriot fame, 
 Each Roman recalled his proud memory and sighed, 
 
 And frowned on the tyrant, and murmured his 
 name. 
 
 12* 
 
138 ON LORD BYRON. 
 
 Even so shall the Briton unborn, who shall tread 
 Those stones which the genius of England has 
 made 
 
 All instinct with memory, turn from the dead, 
 To ask where the bones of his Byron are laid. 
 
 And then shall his cheek burn with blushes to know. 
 That his country permitted these things of a day, 
 
 To aim at the dead their inglorious blow, 
 
 And to wreak their poor vengeance on genius and 
 clay. 
 
 Poor fools ! did they dream that their meanness 
 could blot 
 That glory whose blaze can all dimness consume ; 
 That his claims in his coffin would all be forgot, 
 That they buried his fame with his flesh in the 
 tomb ! 
 
 What recks it where that which held genius may 
 sleep, 
 Whether earth may rise o'er it, or oceans may roll ; 
 The flight of the spirit what fetters can keep, 
 
 And what death can extinguish the life of the 
 soul. 
 
 No, the treasures he gave us, the fame he bequeathed. 
 Are ours ; yet we feel that the part which must 
 die; 
 
ON LORD BYRON. 139 
 
 His bones shall outlast the vile slanders they breathed. 
 And be hallowed with worship wherever they lie. 
 
 And if England reject them, old Greece will receive 
 The relics of him who fell armed for her figfht : 
 
 O'er the tomb of the bard shall her warriors grieve, 
 In the muse of the bard shall her children delight. 
 
 And when Freedom and Genius in triumph return, 
 To rebuild their old temples, and visit the new, 
 
 The first, shall an altar erect o'er his urn, 
 And the strains of the second shall hallow it too. 
 
 M DCCC XXVIII. 
 
TO 
 
 Lady, when fools who hnger near, 
 
 Tell thee how oft my heart will rove. 
 They but abuse thine easy ear. 
 
 And wrong my constant love. 
 Their babblings could not tell thee, dear, 
 
 How she the loving gentle dove. 
 Wings her far wandering through all air, 
 
 But nestles in the grove. 
 
 Nay, love ! I would not swear, for thou, 
 
 All simply witching as thou art, 
 Knowest that the lips frame many a vow, 
 
 From which the soul would start : 
 Before one only shrine I bow, 
 
 In changeless homage of the heart ; 
 Thou doubt'st it, dear ! come, question now 
 
 Its every hidden part. 
 
 Ask of the nightly pillow where 
 
 Her form, all grace, too sweetly came ; 
 
TO 141 
 
 Ask of the lips which meant for prayer, 
 
 Words that but spelt her name ; 
 Ask of that dream which lingering there. 
 
 With dear delusion thrilled my frame ; 
 Ask of the morning thought, if e'er 
 
 My love hath been the same. 
 
 Ask of the day's romance, whose light 
 
 Was but her worshipped memory ; 
 The nerve that trembled in her sight ; 
 
 The eye that could undazzled see 
 The glance of power's meridian height, 
 
 Abashed, if she but looked at me : 
 Ask these if love so constant, might 
 
 To her unfaithful be ! 
 
 And even when that much-loved eye. 
 
 My hope, my heart is garnered in, 
 Hath turned from me its radiancy 
 
 Another's glance to win ; 
 Ask of that sad rebellious sigh. 
 
 Which proudly swells, then breaks within 
 This agonizing breast, if I 
 
 Have ever constant been. 
 
 Ask of long years whose every flower. 
 Found in her smile, its sun and dew ; 
 
142 TO 
 
 That smile which lit the brightest hour, 
 And streamed its ray the darkest through ! 
 
 And if all tell thee that its power, 
 
 My love ne'er changed, but stronger grew ; 
 
 Then ask her if that eye should lower, 
 On worshipper so true. 
 
 M nccc XXIX. 
 
SEA SONG 
 
 Over the far blue ocean wave. 
 
 On the ocean winds I flee, 
 Yet every thought of my constant heart, 
 
 Is winging", love, to thee ; 
 For each foaming leap of my gallant ship. 
 
 Had barbed a pang for me. 
 Had not thy form, through sun and storm, 
 
 Been my only memory. 
 
 Oh, the seamew's wings are fleet and fast, 
 
 As he dips in the dancing spray ; 
 But fleeter and faster, the thoughts I ween, 
 
 Of the dear ones far away ! 
 And lovelier too, than yon rainbow's hue. 
 
 As it lights the tinted sea. 
 Are the daylight dreams and sunny gleams 
 
 Of the heart that throbs for thee. 
 
 And when moon and stars are asleep on the waves, 
 Their dancing tops among, 
 
144 SEA SONG. 
 
 And the sailor is winging the long watch hour, 
 
 By the music of his song; 
 When our sail is white in the dark midnight, 
 
 And its shadow is on the sea, 
 Oh, never knew hall such festival, 
 
 As my fond heart holds with thee ! 
 
 M acr.c XXIX 
 
TO 
 
 Oh the spring has come again, love, 
 
 With beauty in her train, 
 And her own sweet buds are springing, 
 
 To her merry feet again ; 
 They welcome her onward footsteps. 
 
 With a fragrance full of song. 
 And they bid her sip from each dewy lip, 
 
 Of the rosy tinted throng. 
 
 Oh the spring has come again, love. 
 
 And her eye is bright and blue 
 With a misty passionate light that veils 
 
 The earth in its joyous hue ; 
 And a single violet in her hair, 
 
 And a light flush in her cheek. 
 Tell of the blossoms maids should wear, 
 
 And the love tales they should speak. 
 
 The sprins^ has come again, love. 
 And her home is every where ; 
 
 13 
 
146 TO 
 
 She grows in the green and teeming earth, 
 
 And she fills the balmy air ; 
 But she dearly loves, by some talking rill, 
 
 Where the early daisy springs, 
 To nurse its leaves and to drink her fill, 
 
 Of the sweet stream's murmurings. 
 
 The spring has come again, love. 
 
 On the mountain's side she throws 
 Her earliest morning glance, to find 
 
 The root of the first wild rose ; 
 And at noon she warbles through airy throats. 
 
 Or sounds in the whirring wing 
 Of the minstrel throng, whose untaught notes 
 
 Are the joyous hymns of spring. 
 
 Oh the spring has come again, love. 
 
 With her sky lark's cloudy song ; 
 Hark ! how his echoing note rings clear, 
 
 His fleecy bowers among ! 
 Her morning laughs its joyous way, 
 
 In a flood of rosy light. 
 And her evening clouds melt gloriously, 
 
 In the starry blue of night. 
 
 Oh the spring has come again, love. 
 And again the spring shall go ; 
 
TO 147 
 
 And withered her sweetest flowers, and dead 
 
 Her soft brooks' silvery flow ; 
 And her leaves of green shall fade and die. 
 
 When their autumn bloom is past, 
 Beautiful as her cheek, whose tint 
 
 Looks loveliest at the last. 
 
 Oh, life's spring can come but once, love. 
 
 And its summer will soon depart. 
 And its autumn flowers will soon be nipped, 
 
 By the winter of the heart ; 
 But yet we can fondly dream, love. 
 
 That a fadeless spring shall bloom, 
 When the sun of a new existence dawns. 
 
 On the darkness of the tomb. 
 
 M DCCC XxIX. 
 
MY CHOICE. 
 
 There is a light within her eye that brightens 
 
 every gaze, 
 And a rosy smile upon her lip, that a joyous heart 
 
 betrays ; 
 And a fairy frolic in her form that makes each 
 
 motion seem 
 As graceful as the bounding course of a laughing 
 
 mountain stream ; 
 The long and jetty lash that hides the deep eye's 
 
 blacker hue, 
 The rival roses in her cheek, her white brow's veins 
 
 of blue, 
 Her gentle and her joyous laugh, and the music of 
 
 her voice. 
 Have won my spirit unto her, and she shall be my 
 
 choice. 
 
 Her spirit is all gentleness, and yet her bearing 
 
 high, 
 And passionate thoughts sleep sweetly in the circle 
 
 of her eye, 
 
MY CHOICE. 149 
 
 And a pure and delicate pride seems ever in her 
 
 breast to dwell, 
 And breathes around her form the charm and magic 
 
 of a spell ; 
 So gentle, not a shaft of wit in malice does she dip, 
 And satire's self comes smilingly and sweetly from 
 
 her lip, 
 And her look and tone whene'er we meet, they make 
 
 my heart rejoice. 
 And win my spirit unto her, and she shall be my 
 
 choice. 
 
 There may be eyes as deeply dark, and brows as 
 
 fair to view. 
 And cheeks as softly blended, and as beautiful of 
 
 hue. 
 And gentle hearts, with gentle thoughts, and gentle- 
 ness of words, 
 And voices like to her's that mocks the music of 
 
 spring birds : 
 I think there may be such, and yet I scarcely can 
 
 say why. 
 For as in visions of the night, they pass me idly by : 
 But she can wield me with a word, one tone of her 
 
 soft low voice — 
 She hath won my proud soul unto her, and she shall 
 
 be my choice. 
 
 M DCCC XXX. 
 
 13* 
 
C O W P E R 
 
 To a warm heart unite a manly mind, 
 Let playful humor blend with wit refined, 
 Let him the charms which nature spreads, survey 
 With rapturous eye, with answering skill portray ; 
 His proudest notes of praise let virtue claim, 
 And sin but hear his song to blush for shame ; 
 Let his religion, " pure and undefiled," 
 Be fixed though liberal, and though firm be mild ; 
 Then with all these the bard's true fire combine. 
 And taste shall laud, and virtue love the line : 
 Both shall with jealous care protect his fame. 
 And wreathe their brightest laurels for his name. 
 
 And such was Cowper ! such the laurels fair 
 He nobly won, and shall forever wear ; 
 For he was nature's bard, and shunned for her. 
 The city's crowded mart, its smoke and stir. 
 Dwelt in her haunts retired, and loved to scan 
 Her pure calm scenes yet uncorrupt by man ; 
 
COWPER. 151 
 
 Her varying seasons sang with varying strain : 
 The bris^ht young spring rejoicing on the plain. 
 And summer's mellowing sun and flashing bloom^ 
 And gorgeous autumn's fruitage and perfume, 
 And dreary winter, when in cloud and storm 
 He sternly stalks to wither and deform^ 
 Then with glad pencil, 'midst its gloomiest scene, 
 Showed the heart's heaven unclouded and serene. 
 Where love, content, and self-approving worth, 
 Encircling, bless the dear domestic hearth. 
 
 Oft, when at morn, or noon, or " dewy eve," 
 He wanders forth to think, perchance to grieve. 
 How do I love in fancy's steps to go, 
 To share his musing or partake his woe. 
 While, as we pass, from every trembling spray, 
 The warbling wild-bird cheers our devious way ; 
 To learn from hut or hall, from tree or flower, 
 Some natural lesson, taught with careless power ; 
 Some graceful moral turned with easy art. 
 To raise the mind, and purify the heart. 
 
 The bard of virtue, for whate'er his lay. 
 
 In feeling serious, or in humor gay, 
 
 Yirtue was all his end, and in her cause 
 
 He gained his proudest meed, her pure applause ; 
 
 Against her foes in fight, his weapons, wit. 
 
 Strong sense, keen satire, he was sure to hit ; 
 
152 COWPER. 
 
 In venal senate or in courtly bower, 
 
 In robes of holy lawn or purple power, 
 
 Sin met his gaze the same, and found with him, 
 
 Its tones all discord and its tinsel dim. 
 
 And oh, when man's just rights awake his strain. 
 
 And freedom bids him spurn the oppressor's chain, 
 
 When her warm pulses swell along his line, 
 
 Its throb how firm, its diction how divine ! 
 
 It glows with fervent heat of patriot zeal, 
 
 And nobly speaks, what freemen nobly feel : 
 
 Yes ! he, the glory true, the virtuous fame, 
 
 Which prouder lyres have sought, may proudly 
 
 claim, 
 " That not in fancy's maze he wandered long, 
 " But stooped to truth, and moralized his song." 
 
 But hark ! a higher note ! can human lyre 
 
 Ask for its strings a more celestial fire ! 
 
 Yes ; though this earth be fair, the world above 
 
 Hath purer harmonies and holier love ; 
 
 Though dear the strain with sweet persuasion 
 
 crowned, 
 Which spreads earth's kindliest charities around, 
 And eloquent in love with noble plan, 
 Endears, cements the brotherhood of man ; 
 Yet heavenlier themes a loftier song require. 
 And he who touched the prophet's lips with fire. 
 
COWPER. 153 
 
 Will to the bard some glorious dreams supply, 
 Whose verse uplifted, lingers in the sky ; 
 Not that the poet's wing should always burn 
 For heavenly themes, and earth indignant spurn, 
 Or pass with careless glance or heedless tread, 
 God's works below in rich profusion spread ; 
 Yet let his " eye's fine frenzy," wisely roll, 
 Let those who charm the sense improve the soul : 
 Let them though winged for heaven and gods in 
 
 birth, 
 Stoop their proud plumes to bless and light the 
 
 earth. 
 
 Oh, had that bard whose bold and burning page 
 
 Has stamped his name, the poet of an age. 
 
 Given but to virtue's cause his noble fire, 
 
 Which even while sinning, half redeems his lyre, 
 
 And turned, while pure emotions burned within. 
 
 His scorn for folly, to a scorn for sin ; 
 
 Then hurled his moral thunder, till each stroke 
 
 Made wrong and outrage tremble while he spoke : 
 
 How had the sin he shamed, in silence slept. 
 
 Or touched perchance, repented, while it wept : 
 
 Oh had the bard been such, his crown how green. 
 
 His life how pure, his parting how serene ! 
 
 His dying hour, how golden its decay. 
 
 What beams upon his mounting plumes would play ! 
 
154 COWPER. 
 
 How would they seem with seraph strength to rise. 
 While his voice joins the music of the skies, 
 And heaven receives though hushed his earthly lyre, 
 A welcome minstrel to the eternal choir. 
 
 Such, such was Cowper ; such his golden crown : 
 He soared to heaven to bring its blessings down ; 
 He shared the Christian's faith, the Christian's fears, 
 His trembling bliss, his ever-trusting tears. 
 With him the saint may hope, the sinner melt, 
 And all must feel, for what he taught he felt ; 
 Felt while he taught in weakness, sin, and shame. 
 The height, the depth, the wonders of His name ; 
 " Without whom we are poor, give what He may, 
 " And with whom rich, take what He will away." 
 
 And he who now, though closely wed, and long. 
 To lore which scorns the muse, yet sins in song ; 
 If he with hand unskilled, though heart sincere, 
 May build a rhyme which beauty deigns to hear ; 
 Shall think his sin forgiven if she but deem. 
 His feeble strain hath not disgraced his theme. 
 Or bent with partial smile his toil to pay. 
 Approve the theme, though she condemn the lay. 
 
 M DCCC XXS. 
 
TO 
 
 Lady, the stalk you gave to me, 
 
 In all its fresh leaved greenness, brings 
 
 Full many a moment's sunny glee, 
 
 In radiance back on memory's wings : 
 
 Those wings which like the eastern bird, 
 
 Which shows each breeze a different dye, 
 
 Darkly or brightly waft, thought stirred. 
 
 Long bygone visions to the eye, 
 
 As sorrow's gloom, or pleasure's ray, 
 
 Upon their varying plumage play. 
 
 And such come thronging round me now, 
 
 Most glorious eyes of liquid jet. 
 
 Lips Hybla honeyed, arching brow, 
 
 And all of thee I worship yet, 
 
 Glances on which I fastened mine ; 
 
 How could I tear one glance away ? 
 
 A voice whose music most divine. 
 
 Melted to words from lips which lay. 
 
 Just oped to let the sweet breath cleave them, 
 
 Which slowly left, as loth to leave them. 
 
156 TO 
 
 And visions of the wave come back, 
 
 I dream again, the sunny swell 
 
 Breaks round our prow's careering track, 
 
 That prow it loves to lave so well ; 
 
 Mountains swell round like giants, there 
 
 They shoot their far blue crests, beneath 
 
 Amid the shaggy robes they wear 
 
 The swathing mist racks wildly wreathe, 
 
 While far, far down the dwarfed woods standi 
 
 In shade and sunshine o'er the land. 
 
 A moment muse, does not yon height 
 Seem like some elder son of fame. 
 Towering aloft, where living light 
 Sheds cloudless splendor on his name ? 
 Are not those forms in misty maze, 
 Proud souls yet in the storms of time, 
 Struggling to catch some glorious rays, 
 To light the darkling path they climb ? 
 While yon secluded vales express, 
 Thy bowers, domestic happiness ! 
 
 Again I dream, see far displayed, 
 How calm the golden ripples lie ; 
 Now giving back our sails in shade, 
 Now blue with the o'erhanging sky ; 
 Now comes the wind, each warrior wave 
 Flings his white war-cap on the breeze, 
 
TO 15' 
 
 And rears his storm steed, free and brave, 
 And onward to the battle flees, 
 Tosses his httle hfe away, 
 And leaves a foam, 'tis glory's play. 
 
 Again, again 'tis night, and I 
 
 Am wafting sadly to my home ; 
 
 Sad as the last star in the sky. 
 
 Sad as the last wave's lonely foam, 
 
 And there are all I leave behind, 
 
 The loved, the worshipped, and the lost, 
 
 The hours have winged me like the wind, 
 
 A spray upon joy's billow tost ; 
 
 Those sunny hours have sped their last, 
 
 And leave me here to mourn the past. 
 
 Yet why lament, I came, I go, 
 
 'Tis all that life's long toil can give. 
 
 It can but fleeting bliss bestow, 
 
 I loved, I left, is all we live ; 
 
 Away with such vain thoughts, this world 
 
 Is a proud race, and I would win, 
 
 Yet lady, on life's tempest hurled, 
 
 Or home's sweet shelter house within ; 
 
 Amid these scenes shall memory be. 
 
 And half her torch be lit by thee. 
 
 M DCCC XXIX. 
 
 14 
 
LOOK ALOFT. 
 
 The following lines are founded upon the little story said to have 
 been related by the late Dr. Godman, of the ship boy, who was about 
 to fall from the rigging, and was only saved by the mate's impressive 
 exclamation, " look aloft, you lubber !" 
 
 In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale 
 Are around and above, if thy footing should fail, 
 If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, 
 " Look aloft !" and be firm, and be fearless of heart. 
 
 If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow, 
 With a smile for each joy, and a tear for each woe, 
 Should betray thee, when sorrows like clouds are 
 
 arrayed, 
 "Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall 
 
 fade. 
 
 Should the visions which hope spreads in light to 
 
 thine eye, 
 Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, 
 Then turn, and through tears of repentant regret, 
 " Look aloft" to the sun that is never to set. 
 
LOOK ALOFT. 159 
 
 Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart, 
 The wife of thy bosom m sorrow depart, 
 "Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb. 
 To that soil where aifection is ever in bloom. 
 
 And oh, when death comes in his terrors to cast, 
 His fears on the future, his pall on the past, 
 In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart, 
 And a smile in thine eye, " look aloft" and depart. 
 
 M DCCC XXX. 
 
MORNING MUSINGS AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 The Morn ! the Morn ! this mountain breeze, 
 How pure it seems, from earth how free ; 
 
 What sweet and sad morahties 
 
 Breathe from this air that comes to me. 
 
 Look down my spirit, see below, 
 
 Earth darkly sleeps where shades prevail. 
 Or wakes to tears, that vainly flow. 
 
 Or dreams of hopes that surely fail. 
 
 Why shouldst thou linger there, and burn 
 With passions like these fools of time ; 
 
 Unfold thy wings, their follies spurn. 
 And soar to yon eternal clime. 
 
 Look round, my spirit ! to these hills 
 The earliest sunlight lends its ray. 
 
 Morning's pure air these far heights fills, 
 Here evening holiest steals away. 
 
MORNING MUSINGS AMONG THE HILLS. m 
 
 Thus when with firm-resolvmg breast. 
 Though bound to earth thou hvest on high, 
 
 Shalt thou with earher hght be blest, 
 More purely live, more calmly die. 
 
 This darkling dawn doth it not bring 
 
 Visions of former glory back. 
 Arouse my spirit, plume thy wing, 
 
 And soar with me on hoher track. 
 
 Canst thou not with unclouded eye 
 
 And fancy rapt, the scene survey 
 When darkness bade its shadows fly, 
 
 And earth rose glorious into day. 
 
 Canst thou not see that earth, its spring 
 
 Unfaded yet by death or crime. 
 In freshest green yet mellowing. 
 
 Into the gorgeous autumn's prime. 
 
 Dost thou not see the eternal choir. 
 Light on each peak that woos the sky. 
 
 Fold their broad wings of golden fire, 
 And string their seraph minstrelsy. 
 
 Then what sublimest music filled. 
 Rejoicing heaven and rising earth, 
 
 14* 
 
162 MORNING MUSINGS AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 When angel harps the chorus swelled, 
 And stars hymned forth creation's birth. 
 
 See how the sun comes proudly on 
 His glorious march ! before our sight 
 
 The swathing mists, their errand done. 
 Are melting into mormng light. 
 
 He tips the peak, its dark clouds fly. 
 He walks its sides, and shades retreat. 
 
 He pours his flood of radiancy 
 
 On streams and lowlands at its feet. 
 
 Lord ! let thy rays thus pierce, illume 
 Each dim recess within my heart ; 
 
 From its deep darkness chase all gloom. 
 And to its weakness strength impart. 
 
 Thus let thy light upon me rise, 
 Here let my home forever be ; 
 
 Far above earth, its toys and ties, 
 Yet humbly kneeling. Lord, to thee ! 
 
ELEGY ON AFRIC. 
 
 A FAVORITE DOG OF A FRIEND. 
 
 " In his duty prompt at every call, 
 He watched." Deserted Village. 
 
 Farewell, farewell, we think of thee, 
 At each familiar step we trace, 
 
 We miss thy mirth so full of glee, 
 Thy bounding form of life and grace. 
 
 We miss thine eye, whose look conveyed 
 A welcome in each wistful glance, 
 
 And bright with almost thought, portrayed 
 A soul within thy countenance. 
 
 We miss thy wakeful bark, when dawn 
 Roused thee to hail the rising sun ; 
 
 We miss thine evening bay long drawn. 
 As wailing that the day was done. 
 
 No more shall thine expressive fawn, 
 Mute, pleading, eloquent, be tried, 
 
164 ELEGY OF AFRIC. 
 
 Not all in vain to scour the lawn, 
 Or gambol at thy master's side. 
 
 No more, no more, shalt thou be found, 
 In form beneath thy favorite tree ; 
 
 Still, still, it sheds sweet shade around, 
 But never more to shelter thee. 
 
 Thy little playmates look for thee. 
 With asking gaze, and lisp thy name, 
 
 For thou wast glad to join their glee, 
 And at their call familiar came. 
 
 Ah, now those tiny fingers press 
 
 Thy form, and hug thy neck no more ; 
 
 Nor shout, nor call, nor kind caress. 
 Can thine accustomed face restore. 
 
 We saw that form so slowly waste. 
 We heard thy low complaining moan ; 
 
 We saw thine eye grow dim, yet haste 
 To answer to each kindly tone. 
 
 Yet, Afric ! as we think of thee. 
 So faithful in thine humble lot, 
 
 We spurn thee not from memory. 
 We loved thee, and forget thee not. 
 
 M DCCC XXXU. 
 
TO 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE BIRD. 
 
 Alas, sweet cousin, how can I 
 
 In harsh discordant rhyme rehearse, 
 
 His sweet, sweet song whose melody. 
 Had charms beyond the reach of verse ? 
 
 Ahj I should need his tuneful art, 
 His tone with more than music rife. 
 
 In fitting numbers to impart, 
 The tale of his harmonious life. 
 
 And yet that tale how shortly told, 
 
 One feast of flowers, one ceaseless strain ; 
 
 At morn to plume, at eve to fold 
 His wings, to feed and sleep again. 
 
 A simple life of joyance his, 
 A life of song, no care had he, 
 
 Except perchance thy glance to miss, 
 And in sad silence pine for thee. 
 
166 TO 
 
 Blest in thy smile of sunshine ^iven. 
 
 His pinions sought no softer sky : 
 Happy to find his loveliest heaven. 
 
 In the blue beauty of thine eye. 
 
 And basking in that smile so bright. 
 He had no wish his wings to free ; 
 
 Found in its beam his full delight. 
 And loved his sweet captivity. 
 
 But ah, that eye, that joyous voice. 
 No more his dreamy sleep shall break ; 
 
 No more his little heart rejoice. 
 
 Nor songs of warbling welcome wake. 
 
 In vain spring woos with balmy breath. 
 And bears sweet music on her wings ; 
 
 The fine quick ear is dull in death. 
 The answering throat no longer sings. 
 
 His lonely mate has lost her cheer. 
 Or if to song her bosom stir ; 
 
 Fixes her tiny head to hear, 
 
 The note that ne'er shall answer her. 
 
 That note which hailed thee to the last, 
 And called thee to his caofe to see, 
 
TO 167 
 
 That he was happy, thus to cast 
 His last, last lingering look on thee. 
 
 Then since forever hushed his strain, 
 Lay him in fitting grave to sleep, 
 
 Where spring's soft dews and summer's rain, 
 With gentle tears his death may weep. 
 
 There let the first soft sunbeam fling, 
 A fresher green o'er all the ground ; 
 
 There the first lonely wild flower spring, 
 And shed its sweetest fragrance round. 
 
 Thither let each fond bird repair. 
 At music's grave its vows to pay. 
 
 Or doomed to die, seek refuge there. 
 And swan-like sing its soul away. 
 
 M CCCC XXXII. 
 
HYMN 
 
 WRITTEN DURING THE PREVALENCE OF THE 
 CHOLERA. 
 
 Lord ! while the wastmg evil still 
 Walks on in its mysterious path. 
 
 The worker of thine awful will, 
 
 The scourge of thine awakened wrath. 
 
 Humbled in heart, low in the dust, 
 We conscious kiss the avenging rod ; 
 
 Confess thy judgment ever just, 
 And trembling, own that thou art God. 
 
 Yet, Lord ! wilt thou forever smite, 
 Once more dread father, yet once more 
 
 Lift to thy suffering people's sight. 
 Thy healing signal as of yore. 
 
 No offering meet, have we to make. 
 No works, no rights, no self-proud plea ; 
 
HYMN. 169 
 
 Mercy we beg, free for his sake 
 
 Who died for us to reign with thee. 
 
 Then shall we sing, thy pardon won, 
 That union how sublimely sAveet, 
 
 When in the Father and the Son, 
 Thy justice and thy mercy meet. 
 
 DCCC XXXIT 
 
 15 
 
LINES 
 
 WRITTEN IX THE ALBUM OF A VERY YOUNG LADY. 
 
 Sweet Lilly, you know I am wedded 
 
 To a ruthless and barbarous lore, 
 Which all poets from instinct have dreaded^ 
 
 And the muses devoutly abhor ; 
 And they, like their lovely relations, 
 
 Who our poetry make here below, 
 Are rather averse from flirtations 
 
 With men who are married, you know. 
 
 Yet no matter, my promise is plighted. 
 
 And though they wont smile on my need, 
 I shall think all their frowning requited. 
 
 Should you take but "the will for the deed ;" 
 Besides I fear jilting their trade is. 
 
 And they 're tyrants, so I shall not choose 
 To trust the caprice of these ladies, 
 
 But take you, my dear girl, for my muse. 
 
LINES. 171 
 
 And now then, my sweet inspiration ! 
 
 What fond prayer shall friendship put up ? 
 What blessings of wealth, love, and station, 
 
 Shall I pray, may o'erfiow in your cup ? 
 Shall I wish you those graces, so winning 
 
 Their way to our innermost heart. 
 That we find there love's empire beginning, 
 
 Ere friendship is warned to depart ? 
 
 I would wish that your sky in life's morning, 
 
 May be fair as a morn in SAveet June, 
 That each scene with fresh verdure adorning, 
 
 W^arm, cloudless, and bright be its noon ; 
 And as calmly and tenderly shining. 
 
 As the autumn sun dies in the west, 
 Be your evening of age, as declining, 
 
 It sinks slowly at night to its rest. 
 
 All these do I wish you, yet, Lilly, 
 
 I dare not thus cease this poor rhyme. 
 For I fear I should wish for you illy, 
 
 Did I ask but the mere gifts of time ; 
 What's beauty ? why wish you to win it ? 
 
 That eye, and that lip, and that brow. 
 Were yesterday beauty, but in it 
 
 The reptile is revelling now.. 
 
172 LINES. 
 
 And wit, with its meteor flashes ; 
 
 How dazzles it but to decay ! 
 Can you find its quick flame in those ashes ? 
 
 Can you call back its voice to that clay ? 
 Yes. all idly my prayer had ascended, 
 
 If one word in that prayer were forgot. 
 In whose compass all blessings are blended, 
 
 That friendship could wish for your lot. 
 
 That word is religion ; fools flout it, 
 
 And tell us 'tis nonsense and stuff, 
 But believe me, dear girl, that without it, 
 
 This world will be bitter enough ; 
 And with it all joy will be heightened, 
 
 And holier all friendship and love. 
 And the darkness of sorrow be brightened, 
 
 With a ray that beams but from above. 
 
 And in death, be it late ere you Ve found it, 
 
 It will make your couch prouder than kings'. 
 For the angels of heaven shall surround it. 
 
 With the radiance and rush of their wings ; 
 Yes, safe will it guide you, if granted, 
 
 Through earth's changes, and sorrows, and strife. 
 Till a tree in God's paradise planted, 
 
 You bloom by the river of life* 
 
 M DCCC XXXIIl. 
 
 31J-77-9