Soft as the autumn wind through sere leaves s ighing When flaky clouds athwart the moon are driven Far through the viewless gloom the spirit flying,

Wing'd his high passage to his native heaven, But o'er me still he seem'd in kindness bending, Fresh hope and firmer purpose to me lending.

Spirit of life! rather aloft, where on the crest of the mountain,

Clear blow the winds, fresh from the north, sparkles and dashes the fountain,

Lead me along, hot in the chase, still 'mid the storm high glowing

Only we live-only, when life, like the wild torrent, is flowing.

THE POET.

DEEP sunk in thought, he sat beside the river— Its wave in liquid lapses glided by,

Nor watch'd, in crystal depth, his vacant eye The willow's high o'er-arching foliage quiver. From dream to shadowy dream returning ever, He sat, like statue, on the grassy verge; His thoughts, a phantom train, in airy surge Stream'd visionary onward, pausing never. As autumn wind, in mountain forest weaving Its wondrous tapestry of leaf and bower, O'ermastering the night's resplendent flower With tints, like hues of heaven, the eye deceivingSo, lost in labyrinthine maze, he wove A wreath of flowers; the golden thread was love.

NIGHT.

Am I not all alone?-The world is still
In passionless slumber-not a tree but feels
The far-pervading hush, and softer steals
The misty river by.-Yon broad bare hill
Looks coldly up to heaven, and all the stars

Seem eyes deep fix'd in silence, as if bound By some unearthly spell-no other sound But the owl's unfrequent moan.-Their airy cars The winds have station'd on the mountain peaks. Am I not all alone?-A spirit speaks

From the abyss of night, "Not all aloneNature is round thee with her banded powers, And ancient genius haunts thee in these hoursMind and its kingdom now are all thy own."

CHORIAMBIC MELODY.

BEAR me afar o'er the wave, far to the sacred islands,

Where ever bright blossoms the plain, where no cloud hangs on the highlands

There be my heart ever at rest, stirr'd by no wild emotion:

'There on the earth only repose, halcyon calm on the

ocean.

Lay me along, pillow'd on flowers, where steals in silence for ever

Over its sands, still as at noon, far the oblivious river.

Scarce through the grass whispers it by; deep in

its wave you may number

Pebble and shell, and image of flower, folded and bent in slumber.

SAPPHO.

SHE stands in act to fall-her garland torr., Its wither'd rose-leaves round the rock are blowing; Loose to the winds her locks dishevell'd flowing Tell of the many sorrows she has borne.

Her eye, up-turn'd to heaven, has lost its fireOne hand is press'd to feel her bosom's beating, And mark her lingering pulses back retreatingThe other wanders o'er her silent lyre.

Clear rolls the midway sun-she knows it not; Vainly the winds waft by the flower's perfume; To her the sky is hung in deepest gloom

She only feels the noon-beam burning hot. What to the broken heart the dancing waves, The air all kindling-what a sounding name? O! what a mockery, to dream of fame

It only lures us on to make us slaves.
And Love-O! what art thou with all thy light!
Ineffable joy is round thee, till we know,

Thou art but as a vision of the night-
And then the bursting heart, how deep its wo.

CHEERFUL glows the festive chamber;
In the circle pleasure smiles:
Mounts the flame, like wreaths of amber,

Bright as love, its warmth beguiles.
Glad the heart with joy is lighted:
Hand with hand, in faith, is plighted,
As around the goblet flows.
Fill-fill-fill, and quaff the liquid rose!
Bright it glows-

O! how bright the bosom glows.

Pure as light, our social meeting:

Here no passion dares invade.
Joys we know, not light and flecting:

Flowers we twine, that never fade.
Ours are links, not time can sever:
Brighter still they glow for ever-
Glow in yon eternal day.
No-no-no, ye will not pass away-
Ye will stay-
Social joys, for ever stav

THE SUN.

CENTRE of light and energy! thy way

Is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne,

Morning, and evening, and at noon of day,

Far in the blue, untended and alone:

Ere the first-waken'd airs of earth had blown, On thou didst march, triumphant in thy light;

Then thou didst send thy glance, which still

hath flown

Wide through the never-ending worlds of night, And yet thy full orb burns with flash as keen and bright.

We call thee Lord of Day, and thou dost give
To earth the fire that animates her crust,
And wakens all the forms that move and live,
From the fine, viewless mould which lurks in
dust,

To him who looks to heaven, and on his bust
Bears stamp'd the seal of Gon, who gathers there
Lines of deep thought, high feeling, daring trust
In his own center'd powers, who aims to share
In all his soul can frame of wide, and great, and fair.

Thy path is high in heaven; we cannot gaze
On the intense of light that girds thy car;
There is a crown of glory in thy rays,

Which bears thy pure divinity afar,
To mingle with the equal light of star,—
For thou, so vast to us, art in the whole

One of the sparks of night that fire the air,
And, as around thy centre planets roll,
So thou, too, hast thy path around the central soul.

I am no fond idolater to thee,

One of the countless multitude, who burn, As lamps, around the one Eternity,

In whose contending forces systems turn Their circles round that seat of life, the urn Where all must sleep, if matter ever dies:

Sight fails me here, but fancy can discern With the wide glance of her all-seeing eyes, Where, in the heart of worlds, the ruling Spirit lies.

And thou, too, hast thy world, and unto thee

We are as nothing; thou goest forth alone, And movest through the wide, aerial sea,

Glad as a conqueror resting on his throne From a new victory, where he late had shown Wider his power to nations; so thy light Comes with new pomp, as if thy strength had

grown

With each revolving day, or thou, at night,
Had lit again thy fires, and thus renew'd thy might.
Age o'er thee has no power: thou bring'st the same
Light to renew the morning, as when first,
If not eternal, thou, with front of flame,

On the dark face of earth in glory burst,
And warm'd the seas, and in their bosom nursed
The earliest things of life. the worm and shell;
Till, through the sinking ocean, mountains
pierced.

And then came forth the land whereon we dwell, Rear'd, like a magic fane, above the watery swell.

And there thy searching heat awoke the seeds Of all that gives a charm to earth, and lends An energy to nature; all that feeds

On the rich mould, and then, in bearing, bend Its fruits again to earth, wherein it blends The last and first of life; of all who bear

Their forms in motion, where the spirit tends, Instinctive, in their common good to share, Which lies in things that breathe, or late were living there.

They live in thee: without thee, all were dead And dark; no beam had lighted on the waste, But one eternal night around had spread

Funereal gloom, and coldly thus defaced This Eden, which thy fairy hand hath graced With such uncounted beauty; all that blows

In the fresh air of spring, and, growing, braced Its form to manhood, when it stands and glows In the full-temper'd beam, that gladdens as it goes. Thou lookest on the earth, and then it smiles;

Thy light is hid, and all things droop and mourn Laughs the wide sea around her budding isles, When through their heaven thy changing car is borne ;

Thou wheel'st away thy flight, the woods are shorn

Of all their waving locks, and storms awake;
All, that was once so beautiful, is torn
By the wild winds which plough the lonely lake,
And, in their maddening rush, the crested moun-
tains shake.

The earth lies buried in a shroud of snow;

Life lingers, and would die, but thy return Gives to their gladden'd hearts an overflow Of all the power that brooded in the urn Of their chill'd frames, and then they proudly

spurn

All bands that would confine, and give to air

Hues, fragrance, shapes of beauty, till they burn,
When, on a dewy morn, thou dartest there
Rich waves of gold to wreathe with fairer light the
fair.

The vales are thine; and when the touch of spring
Thrills them, and gives them gladness, in thy light
They glitter, as the glancing swallow's wing
Dashes the water in his winding flight,
And leaves behind a wave that crinkles bright,
And widens outward to the pebbled shore,-

The vales are thine; and when they wake from

night,

The dews that bend the grass-tips, twinkling o'er Their soft and oozy beds, look upward, and adore.

The hills are thine: they catch thy newest beam,

And gladden in thy parting, where the wood Flames out in every leaf, and drinks the stream, That flows from out thy fulness, as a flood Bursts from an unknown land, and rolls the food Of nations in its waters: so thy rays

Flow and give brighter tints than ever bud, When a clear sheet of ice reflects a blaze Of many twinkling gems, as every gloss'd bough plays.

Thine are the mountains, where they purely lift
Snows that have never wasted, in a sky
Which hath no stain; below, the storm may drift
Its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by;
Aloft in thy eternal smile they lie,
Dazzling, but cold; thy farewell glance looks there;
And when below thy hues of beauty die,
Girt round them, as a rosy belt, they bear,
Into the high, dark vault, a brow that still is fair.
The clouds are thine, and all their magic hues
Are pencill'd by thee; when thou bendest low,
Or comest in thy strength, thy hand imbues
Their waving fold with such a perfect glow
Of all pure tints, the fairy pictures throw
Shame on the proudest art; the tender stain

Hung round the verge of heaven, that as a boy Girds the wide world, and in their blended chain All tints to the deep gold that flashes in thy train:

These are thy trophies, and thou bend'st thy arch,
The sign of triumph, in a seven-fold twine,
Where the spent storm is hasting on its march,
And there the glories of thy light combine,
And form with perfect curve a lifted line,
Striding the earth and air; man looks, and tells
How peace and mercy in its beauty shine,
And how the heavenly messenger impels
Her glad wings on the path, that thus in ether
swells.

The ocean is thy vassal; thou dost sway

His waves to thy dominion, and they go Where thou, in heaven, dost guide them on their way,

Rising and falling in eternal flow;

Thou lookest on the waters, and they glow; They take them wings, and spring aloft in air, And change to clouds, and then, dissolving, throw

Their treasures back to earth, and, rushing, tear The mountain and the vale, as proudly on they bear.

I, too, have been upon thy rolling breast,

Widest of waters; I have seen thee lic Calm, as an infant pillow'd in its rest

On a fond mother's bosom, when the sky,
Not smoother, gave the deep its azure dyc,
Till a new heaven was arch'd and glass'd below;
And then the clouds, that, gay in sunset, fly,
Cast on it such a stain, it kindled so,

As in the cheek of youth the living roses grow.
I, too, have seen thee on thy surging path,
When the night-tempest met thee: thou didst
dash

Thy white arms high in heaven, as if in wrath,

Threatening the angry sky; thy waves did lash
The labouring vessel, and with deadening crash
Rush madly forth to scourge its groaning sides;
Onward thy billows came, to meet and clash
In a wild warfare, till the lifted tides
Mingled their yesty tops, where the dark storm-
cloud rides.

In thee, first light, the bounding ocean smiles,
When the quick winds uprear it in a swell,

That rolls, in glittering green, around the isles, Where ever-springing fruits and blossoms dwell; O! with a joy no gifted tongue can tell,

I hurry o'er the waters, when the sail

Swells tensely, and the light keel glances well Over the curling billow, and the gale Comes off the spicy groves to tell its winning tale The soul is thine: of old thou wert the power Who gave the poet life; and I in thee Feel my heart gladden at the holy hour

When thou art sinking in the silent sea; Or when I climb the height, and wander free In thy meridian glory, for the air

Sparkles and burns in thy intensity,

I feel thy light within me, and I share
In the full glow of soul thy spirit kindles there.

CONSUMPTION.

THERE is a sweetness in woman's decay,
When the light of beauty is fading away,
When the bright enchantment of youth is gone.
And the tint that glow'd, and the eye that shone
And darted around its glance of power,
And the lip that vied with the sweetest flower
That ever in Pæstum's garden blew,
Or ever was steep'd in fragrant dew,
When all that was bright and fair is fled,
But the loveliness lingering round the dead

O! there is a sweetness in beauty's close,
Like the perfume scenting the wither'd rose;
For a nameless charm around her plays,
And her eyes are kindled with hallow'd rays;
And a veil of spotless purity

Has mantled her check with its heavenly dye,
Like a cloud whereon the queen of night
Has pour'd her softest tint of light;
And there is a blending of white and blue,
Where the purple blood is melting through
The snow of her pale and tender cheek;
And there are tones that sweetly speak
Of a spirit who longs for a purer day,
And is ready to wing her flight away.

In the flush of youth, and the spring of feeling
When life, like a sunny stream, is stealing
Its silent steps through a flowery path,
And all the endearments that pleasure hath
Are pour'd from her full, o'erflowing horn,
When the rose of enjoyment conceals no thor
In her lightness of heart, to the cheery song
The maiden may trip in the dance along,
And think of the passing moment, that lies,
Like a fairy dream, in her dazzled eyes,
And yield to the present, that charms around
With all that is lovely in sight and sound;
Where a thousand pleasing phantoms flit,
With the voice of mirth, and the burst of wit
And the music that steals to the bosom's core
And the heart in its fulness flowing o'er
With a few big drops, that are soon repress'd.
For short is the stay of grief in her breast

* Biferique rosaria Pæsti.-Viro

In this enliven'd and gladsome hour
The spirit may burn with a brighter power;
But dearer the calm and quiet day,
When the heaven-sick soul is stealing away.
And when her sun is low declining,
And life wears out with no repining,
And the whisper, that tells of early death,
Is soft as the west wind's balmy breath,
When it comes at the hour of still repose,
To sleep in the breast of the wooing rose:
And the lip, that swell'd with a living glow,
Is pale as a curl of new-fallen snow:
And her cheek, like the Parian stone, is fair,-
But the hectic spot that flushes there
When the tide of life, from its secret dwelling,
In a sudden gush, is deeply swelling,
And giving a tinge to her icy lips,
Like the crimson rose's brightest tips,
As richly red, and as transient too

As the clouds in autumn's sky of blue,
That seem like a host of glory, met
To honour the sun at his golden set;
O! then, when the spirit is taking wing,
How fondly her thoughts to her dear one cling,
As if she would blend her soul with his
In a deep and long-imprinted kiss;
So fondly the panting camel flies,
Where the glassy vapour cheats his eyes;
And the dove from the falcon seeks her nest,
And the infant shrinks to its mother's breast.
And though her dying voice be mute,
Or faint as the tones of an unstrung lute,
And though the glow from her cheek be fled,
And her pale lips cold as the marble dead,
Her eye still beams unwonted fires,
With a woman's love, and a saint's desires,
And her last, fond, lingering look is given
To the love she leaves, and then to heaven,
As if she would bear that love away
To a purer world, and a brighter day.

TO THE EAGLE.

BIRD of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,

Where wide the storms their banners fling,
And the tempest clouds are driven.
Thy throne is on the mountain top;
Thy fields, the boundless air;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.
Thou sittest like a thing of light,
Amid the noontide blaze:

The midway sun is clear and bright;

It cannot dim thy gaze.

Thy pinions, to the rushing blast,

O'er the bursting billow, spread, Where the vessel plunges, hurry past,

Like an angel of the dead.

Thou art perch'd aloft on the beetling crag
And the waves are white below,
And on, with a haste that cannot lag,
They rush in an endless flow.

Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight
To lands beyond the sea,

And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,
Thou hurriest, wild and free.

Thou hurriest over the myriad waves,

And thou leavest them all behind;
Thou sweepest that place of unknown graves,
Fleet as the tempest wind.

When the night-storm gathers dim and dark
With a shrill and boding scream,
Thou rushest by the foundering bark,

Quick as a passing dream.

Lord of the boundless realm of air,
In thy imperial name,

The hearts of the bold and ardent dare
The dangerous path of fame.

Beneath the shade of thy golden wings,

The Roman legions bore,

From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs,
Their pride, to the polar shore.

For thee they fought, for thee they fell,
And their oath was on thee laid;
To thee the clarions raised their swell,
And the dying warrior pray'd.

Thou wert, through an age of death and fears,
The image of pride and power,
Till the gather'd rage of a thousand years
Burst forth in one awful hour.

And then a deluge of wrath it came,

And the nations shook with dread; And it swept the earth till its fields were flame, And piled with the mingled dead. Kings were roll'd in the wasteful flood,

With the low and crouching slave; And together lay, in a shroud of blood, The coward and the brave.

And where was then thy fearless flight?
"O'er the dark, mysterious sea,

To the lands that caught the setting light,
The cradle of Liberty.

There, on the silent and lonely shore,

For ages, I watch'd alone,

And the world, in its darkness, ask'd no more
Where the glorious bird had flown.

"But then came a bold and hardy few,
And they breasted the unknown wave;
I caught afar the wandering crew;
And I knew they were high and brave.
I wheel'd around the welcome bark,
As it sought the desolate shore,
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark,
My quivering pinions bore.

"And now that bold and hardy few
Are a nation wide and strong;

And danger and doubt I have led them thic ugh,
And they worship me in song;

And over their bright and glancing arms,
On field, and lake, and sea,

With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms,
I guide them to victory."

PREVALENCE OF POETRY.

THE world is full of poetry-the air
Is living with its spirit; and the waves
Dance to the music of its melodies,

And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veil'd,
And mantled with its beauty; and the walls,
That close the universe with crysta! in,
Are eloquent with voices, that proclaim
The unseen glories of immensity,

In harmonies, too perfect, and too high,
For aught but beings of celestial mould,
And speak to man in one eternal hymn,
Unfading beauty, and unyielding power.

The year leads round the seasons, in a choir
Forever charming, and forever new,
Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gay,
The mournful, and the tender, in one strain,
Which steals into the heart, like sounds, that rise
Far off, in moonlight evenings, on the shore
Of the wide ocean, resting after storms;
Or tones, that wind around the vaulted roof,
And pointed arches, and retiring aisles
Of some old, lonely minster, where the hand,
Skilful, and moved, with passionate love of art,
Plays o'er the higher keys, and bears aloft
The peal of bursting thunder, and then calls,
By mellow touches, from the softer tubes,
Voices of melting tenderness, that blend
With pure and gentle musings, till the soul,
Commingling with the melody, is borne,
Rapt, and dissolved in ecstasy, to heaven.

"Tis not the chime and flow of words, that move In measured file, and metrical array; "T is not the union of returning sounds, Nor all the pleasing artifice of rhyme, And quantity, and accent, that can give This all-pervading spirit to the ear, Or blend it with the movings of the soul. 'Tis a mysterious feeling, which combines Man with the world around him, in a chain Woven of flowers, and dipp'd in sweetness, till He taste the high communion of his thoughts, With all existence, in earth and heaven, That meet him in the charm of grace and power. 'Tis not the noisy babbler, who displays, In studied phrase, and ornate epithet, And rounded period, poor and vapid thoughts, Which peep from out the cumbrous ornaments That overload their littleness. Its words Are few, but deep and solemn; and they break Fresh from the fount of feeling, and are full Of ail that passion, which, on Carmel, fired The holy prophet, when his lips were coals, His language wing'd with terror, as when bolts Leap from the brooding tempest, arm'd with wrath, Commission'd to affright us, and destroy.

Passion, when deep, is still: the glaring eye That reads its eneiny with glance of fire, The lip, that curls and writhes in bitterness, The brow contracted, till its wrinkles hide The keen, fix'd orbs, that burn and flash below, The hand firm clench'd and quivering, and the foot 15

Planted in attitude to spring, and dart
Its vengeance, are the language it employs.
So the poetic feeling needs n words

To give it utterance; but it swells, and glows,
And revels in the ecstasies of soul,
And sits at banquet with celestial forms,
The beings of its own creation, fair
And lovely, as e'er haunted wood and wave,
When earth was peopled, in its solitudes,
With nymph and naiad-mighty, as the gods,
Whose palace was Olympus, and the clouds,
That hung, in gold and flame, around its brow;
Who bore, upon their features, all that grand
And awful dignity of front, which bows
The eye that gazes on the marble Jove,
Who hurls, in wrath, his thunder, and the god,
The image of a beauty, so divine,

So masculine, so artless, that we seem
To share in his intensity of joy,
When, sure as fate, the bounding arrow sped,
And darted to the scaly monster's heart.

This spirit is the breath of Nature, blown
Over the sleeping forms of clay, who else
Doze on through life in blank stupidity,
Till by its blast, as by a touch of fire.
They rouse to lofty purpose, and send out,
In deeds of energy, the rage within.
Its seat is deeper in the savage breast,
Than in the man of cities; in the child,
Than in the maturer bosoms. Art may prune
Its rank and wild luxuriance, and may train
Its strong out-breakings, and its vehement gusts
To soft refinement, and amenity;
But all its energy has vanish'd, all
Its maddening, and commanding spirit gone,
And all its tender touches, and its tones
Of soul-dissolving pathos, lost and hid
Among the measured notes, that move as dead
And heartless, as the puppets in a show.

Well I remember, in my boyish days,
How deep the feeling, when my eye look'd forth
On Nature, in her loveliness, and storms;
How my heart gladden'd, as the light of spring
Came from the sun, with zephyrs, and wit!
showers,

Waking the earth to beauty, and the woods
To music, and the atmosphere to blow,
Sweetly and calmly, with its breath of balm.
O! how I gazed upon the dazzling blue
Of summer's heaven of glory, and the waves,
That roll'd, in bending gold, o'er hill and plain;
And on the tempest, when it issued forth,
In folds of blackness, from the northern sky,
And stood above the mountains, silent, dark,
Frowning, and terrible; then sent abroad
The lightning, as its herald, and the peal,
That roll'd in deep, deep volleys, round the Lis,
The warning of its coming, and the sound,
That usher'd in its elemental war.
And, O! I stood, in breathless longing fix'd,
Trembling, and yet not fearful, as the clouds
Heaved their dark billows on the roaring winds,
That sent, from mountain top, and bending wood
A long, hoarse murmur, like the rush of waves
That burst, in foam and fury, on the shore.