A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.

"T WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap-
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-d ver,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by
name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen !

On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blitzen-
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So, up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys-and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnisht with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack.
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook,when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump; a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

*

TO MY CHILDREN,

AFTER HAVING MY PORTRAIT TAKEN FOR THEM.

THIS semblance of your parent's time-worn face
Is but a sad bequest, my children dear:
Its youth and freshness gone, and in their place
The lines of care, the track of many a tear!
Amid life's wreck, we struggle to secure

Some floating fragment from oblivion's wave:
We pant for something that may still endure,
And snatch at least a shadow from the grave.
Poor, weak, and transient mortals! why so vain
Of manly vigour, or of beauty's bloom?
An empty shade for ages may remain

When we have mouldered in the silent tomb. But no! it is not we who moulder there,

We, of essential light that ever burns; We take our way through untried fields of air, When to the earth this earth-born frame re. turns.

And 't is the glory of the master's art

Some radiance of this inward light to find, Some touch that to his canvas may impart

A breath, a sparkle of the immortal mind.

Alas! the pencil's noblest power can show

But some faint shadow of a transient thought, Some wakened feeling's momentary glow,

Some swift impression in its passage caught. Oh that the artist's pencil could portray

A father's inward bosom to your eyes, What hopes, and fears, and doubts perplex his way, What aspirations for your welfare rise.

Then might this unsubstantial image prove

When I am gone, a guardian of your youth, A friend forever urging you to move In paths of honour, holiness, and truth.

Let fond imagination's power supply

The void that baffles all the painter's art; And when those mimic features meet your eye, Then fancy that they speak a parent's heart. Think that you still can trace within those eyes, The searching glance that every fault espies, The kindling of affection's fervid beam, The fond anticipation's pleasing dream.

Fancy those lips still utter sounds of praise,

Or kind reproof that checks each wayward will The warning voice, or precepts that may raise Your thoughts above this treacherous world of ill.

And thus shall art attain her loftiest power;
To noblest purpose shall her efforts tend:
Not the companion of an idle hour,

But Virtue's handmaid, and Religion's friend

Mr. PAULDING is known by his num rous novels and other prose writings, much better han by his poetry; yet his early contributions to our poetical literature, if they do not bear witness that he possesses, in an eminent degree, "the vision and the faculty divine," are creditable for their patriotic spirit and moral purity.

He was born in the town of Pawling,-the original mode of spelling his name,-in Duchess county, New York, on the 22d of August, 1779, and is descended from an old and honourable family, of Dutch extraction.

His earliest literary productions were the papers entitled "Salmagundi," the first series of which, in two volumes, were written in conjunction with WASHINGTON IRVING, in 1807. These were succeeded, in the next thirty years, by the following works, in the order in which they are named: John Bull and Brother Jonathan, in one volume; The Lay of a Scotch Fiddle, a satirical poem, in one volume; The United States and England, in one volume; Second Series of Salmagundi, in two

ODE TO JAMESTOWN.

OLD cradle of an infant world,

In which a nestling empire lay, Struggling a while, ere she unfurl'd

Her gallant wing and soar'd away;

All hail! thou birth-place of the glowing west, Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest! What solemn recollections throng,

What touching visions rise,

As, wandering these old stones among,
I backward turn mine eyes,

And see the shadows of the dead flit round,
Like spirits, when the last dread trump shall sound!

The wonders of an age combined,

In one short moment memory supplies
They throng upon my waken'd mind,
As time's dark curtains rise.
The volume of a hundred buried years,
Condensed in one bright sheet, appears

I hear the angry ocean rave,

I see the lonely little barque
Scudding along the crested wave,
Freighted like old Noah's ark.

As o'er the drowned earth 't was hurl'd,
With the forefathers of another world.

I see a train of exiles stand,

Amid the desert, desolate,

The fathers of my native land,

The daring pioneers of fate,

Who braved the perils of the sea and earth,
And gave a boundless empire birth.

volumes; Letters from the South, in two volumes The Backwoodsman, a poem, in one volume; Koningsmarke, or Old Times in the New World, a novel, in two volumes; John Bull in America, in one volume; Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham, in one volume; The Traveller's Guide, or New Pilgrim's Progress, in one volume; The Dutchman's Fireside, in two volumes; Westward Ho! in two volumes; Slavery in the United States, in one volume; Life of Washington, in two volumes; The Book of St. Nicholas, in one volume; and Tales, Fables, and Allegories, originally published in various periodicals, in three volumes. Beside these, and some less pretensive works, he has written much in the gazettes on political and other questions agitated in his time.

Mr. PAULDING has held various honourable offices in his native state; and in the summer of 1838, he was appointed, by President VAN BUREN, Secretary of the Navy. He continued to be a member of the cabinet until the close of Mr. VAN BUREN's administration, in 1841.

I see the sovereign Indian range

His woodland empire, free as air;

I see the gloomy forest change,
The shadowy earth laid bare;

And, where the red man chased the bounding deer,
The smiling labours of the white appear.

I see the haughty warrior gaze
In wonder or in scorn,

As the pale faces sweat to raise
Their scanty fields of corn,

While he, the monarch of the boundless wood,
By sport, or hair-brain'd rapine, wins his food.

A moment, and the pageant's gone;
The red men are no more;

The pale-faced strangers stand alone
Upon the river's shore;

And the proud wood-king, who their arts disdain'd,
Finds but a bloody grave where once he reign'd.

The forest reels beneath the stroke

Of sturdy woodman's axe;

The earth receives the white man's yoke,
And pays her willing tax

Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields,
And all that nature to blithe labour yields.

Then growing hamlets rear their heads,

And gathering crowds expand, Far as my fancy's vision spreads,

O'er many a boundless land,

Till what was once a world of savage strife. Teems with the richest gifts of social life.

Empire to empire swift succeeds,

Each happy, great, and free; One empires still another breeds,

A giant progeny,

Destined their daring race to run,
Each to the regions of yon setting sun.

Then, as I turn my thoughts to trace
The fount whence these rich waters spring,
I glance towards this lonely place,

And find it, these rude stones among.
Here rest the sires of millions, sleeping round,
The Argonauts, the golden fleece that found.

Their names have been forgotten long;

The stone, but not a word, remains;
They cannot live in deathless song,
Nor breathe in pious strains.

Yet this sublime obscurity, to me
More touching is, than poet's rhapsody.
They live in millions that now breathe;
They live in millions yet unborn,
And pious gratitude shall wreathe

As bright a crown as e'er was worn,
And hang it on the green-leaved bough,
That whispers to the nameless dead below.

No one that inspiration drinks;

No one that loves his native land; No one that reasons, feels, or thinks, Can mid these lonely ruins stand, Without a moisten'd eye, a grateful tear

Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here.

The mighty shade now hovers round

Of HIM whose strange, yet bright career,
Is written on this sacred ground

In letters that no time shall sere;
Who in the old world smote the turban'd crew,
And founded Christian empires in the new.

And she! the glorious Indian maid,
The tutelary of this land,

The angel of the woodland shade,

The miracle of God's own hand,

Who join'd man's heart to woman's softest grace, And thrice redeem'd the scourges of her race

Sister of charity and love,

Whose life-blood was soft Pity's tide,
Dear goddess of the sylvan grove,

Flower of the forest, nature's pride,
He is no man who does not bend the knee,
And she no woman who is not like thee!
Jamestown, and Plymouth's hallow'd rock
To me shall ever sacred be-

I care not who my themes may mock,
Or sneer at them and me.

I envy not the brute who here can stand,
Without a thrill for his own native land.

And if the recreant crawl her earth,
Or breathe Virginia's air,

Or, in New England claim his birth,
From the old pilgrims there,

He is a bastard, if he dare to mock

Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock

PASSAGE DOWN THE OHIO.*

As down Ohio's ever ebbing tide,
Oarless and sailless, silently they glide,
How still the scene, how lifeless, yet how fair
Was the lone land that met the stranger there!
No smiling villages or curling smoke
The busy haunts of busy men bespoke;
No solitary hut, the banks along,

Sent forth blithe labour's homely, rustic song;
No urchin gamboll'd on the smooth, white sand,
Or hurl'd the skipping-stone with playful hand,
While playmate dog plunged in the clear blue wave,
And swam, in vain, the sinking prize to save.
Where now are seen, along the river side,
Young, busy towns, in buxom, painted pride,
And fleets of gliding boats with riches crown'd,
To distant Orleans or St. Louis bound.
Nothing appear'd but nature unsubdued,
One endless, noiseless woodland solitude,
Or boundless prairie, that aye seem'd to be
As level and as lifeless as the sea;
They seem'd to breathe in this wide world alone,
Heirs of the earth-the land was all their own!

"T was evening now: the hour of toil was o'er,
Yet still they durst not seek the fearful shore,
Lest watchful Indian crew should silent creep,
And spring upon and murder them in sleep;
So through the livelong night they held their way,
And 'twas a night might shame the fairest day;
So still, so bright, so tranquil was its reign,
They cared not though the day ne'er came again.
The moon high wheel'd the distant hills above,
Silver'd the fleecy foliage of the grove,
That as the wooing zephyrs on it fell,
Whisper'd it loved the gentle visit well
That fair-faced orb alone to move appear'd,
That zephyr was the only sound they heard.
Nodeep-mouth'd hound the hunter's haunt betray d,
No lights upon the shore or waters play'd,
No loud laugh broke upon the silent air,
To tell the wanderers, man was nestling there
All, all was still, on gliding bark and shore,
As if the earth now slept to wake no more.

EVENING.

"T WAS sunset's hallow'd time-and such an eve Might almost tempt an angel heaven to leave. Never did brighter glories greet the eye, Low in the warm and ruddy western sky: Nor the light clouds at summer eve unfold More varied tints of purple, red, and gold. Some in the pure, translucent, liquid breast Of crystal lake, fast anchor'd seem'd to rest, Like golden islets scatter'd far and wide, By elfin skill in fancy's fabled tide, Where, as wild eastern legends idly feign, Fairy, or genii, hold despotic reign.

This, and the two following extracts, are from the Backwoodsman."