“ Thy smile, of sweetness untold, I see When the visions of evening are borne to me; Thy kiss on my dreaming lip is warm— My arm embraceth thy graceful form; I wake in a world that is sad and drear, To feel in my bosom—thou art not here.
Oh! once the summer with thee was bright; The day, like thine eyes, wore a holy light. There was bliss in existence when thou wert nigh, There was balm in the evening's rosy sigh; Then earth was an Eden, and thou its guest— A Sabbath of blessings was in my breast; My heart was full of a sense of love, Likest of all things to heaven above. ”

“ Thy little form, though beauty dwells not there. So lean and gaunt, that economic fate Meant thee to feed on music or on air. Our vein's pure juices were not made for thee, Thou living, singing, stinging atomy.
The hues of dying sunset are most fair, And twilight's tints just fading into night, Most dusky soft, and so thy soft notes are By far the sweetest when thou tak'st thy flight. The swan's last note is sweetest, so is thine; Sweet are the wind harp's tones at distance heard; 'Tis sweet in distance at the day's decline, To hear the opening song of evening's bird. ”

“ In narrow bed they sleep away the hours Beneath the winter's frost, the summer's flowers; No shade protects thee from the sun's fierce glow, Thy only winding-sheet the pitying snow.
How naked art thou! Pale is now that face Which once, no doubt, was blooming—deeply dinted, A gaping wound doth thy broad brow deface; Was't by the sword or careless plough imprinted? Where are the eyes whose glances once were lightning! No soul is in their hollow sockets brightening; Yet do they gaze on me, now fierce, now sad, As though I power o'er thy destiny had. ”

“ Oh, then the heart is nerved to cope With danger and distress, The very impulse left by hope Will make despair seem less; Then all is life—acute, intense, The thoughts in tumult tost, So reels the mind with wildered sense, It knows not what is lost. But when that shuddering scene is past, When earth receives her own, And, wrench'd from what it loved, at last The heart is left alone; When all is gone—our hopes and fears All buried in one tomb, And we have dried the source of tears, There comes a settled gloom. ”

“ They First make them cowards, and then, white men's slaves, And sloth, and penury, and passion's prey, And lives of misery, and early graves. For by their power, believe me, not a day goes, But kills some Foxes, Sacs, and Winnebagoes.
Say, does thy wandering heart stray far away? To the deep bosom of thy forest home, The hill side, where thy young pappooses play, And ask, amid their sports, when thou wilt come? Come not the wailings of thy gentle squaws, For their lost warrior, loud upon thine ear, Piercing athwart the thunder of huzzas, That, yelled at every corner, meet thee here? ”

“ A soul that sickens at each rising art With the mean malice of a coward's heart. So milky soft, so pretty, and so neat, With air so gentle, and with voice so sweet; What dog-star's rage, what maggot of the brain, Could make a fop so impudently vain, To throw all modesty aside, and sit The mighty censor of the works of wit? Say, wretch! what pride could prompt thee to bestow Abuse on power, the greatest power below; The Muse's power? That power thyself shall know: Her pen shall add thee to the long, long roll That holds the name of every brother fool. ”

“ 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're slowly singled, To the voice and lip, and eye of her I worship like an idolater. ”

“ He fills with rich light all the balm-breathing flowers— He mounts to the zenith and laughs on the wave; He wakes into music the green forest-bowers, And gilds the gay plains which the broad rivers lave.
The young bird is out on his delicate pinion— He timidly sails in the infinite sky; A greeting to May, and her fairy dominion, He pours, on the west-wind's fragrant sigh: Around, above, there are peace and pleasure— The woodlands are singing—the heaven is bright; The fields are unfolding their emerald treasure, And man's genial spirit is soaring in light. ”

“ The clouds and vapours that at night are wont To gather and enshroud the lower earth, Are struggling with strange rays, breaking them up, Scattering the misty phalanx like a wand, Glancing o'er mountain tops, and shining down In broken masses on the astonish'd plains. The fever'd cattle group in wondering herds; The weary birds go to their leafy nests, But find no darkness there, and wander forth On feeble, fluttering wing, to find a rest; The parch'd, baked earth, undamp'd by usual dews, Has gaped and crack'd, and heat, dry, mid-day heat, Comes like a drunkard's breath upon the heart. ”

“ Oh! still a melancholy smile Gleams upon Nature's aspect fair, To charm the eye a little while, Ere ruin spreads his mantle there!
Thou desolate and dying year! Since time entwined thy vernal wreath, How often love hath shed the tear, And knelt beside the bed of death; How many hearts that lightly sprung When joy was blooming but to die, Their finest chords by death unstrung, Have yielded life's expiring sigh,
And pillowed low beneath the clay, Have ceased to melt, to breathe, to burn; The proud, the gentle, and the gay, Gathered unto the mouldering urn ”

“ Oh, who can paint the bitter thoughts that o'er her spirit stole, As her pale lips gave utterance to feeling's deep controul— When shadowed from life's vista back, throng'd 'mid her bursting tears, The phantasies of early hope—dreams of departed years; When Pleasure's light was sprinkled, and silver voices flung Their rich and echoing cadences her virgin hours among— When there came no shadow o'er her brow, no tear to dim her eye, When there frown'd no cloud of sorrow in her being's festal sky. ”

“ His voice is in the thunder, and his wrath Poureth the beams of the retarded sun, With the keen strength of arrows, on their sight. The unwearied sun rides in the zenith sky; Nature, obedient to her Maker's voice, Stops in full course all her mysterious wheels. On! till avenging swords have drunk the blood Of all Jehovah's enemies, and till Thy banners in returning triumph wave; Then yonder orb shall set 'mid golden clouds, And, while a dewy rain falls soft on earth, Show in the heavens the glorious bow of God, Shining, the rainbow banner of the skies. ”

“ From the wide-spreading earth—from the limitless heaven, There have vanished an eloquent glory and gleam; To my veil'd mind no more is the influence given, Which coloureth life with the hues of a dream: The bloom-purpled landscape its loveliness keepeth— I deem that a light as of old gilds the wave;— But the eye of my spirit in heaviness sleepeth, Or sees but my youth, and the visions it gave. ”

“ Fierce howls the blast through sail and shroud, And rings the tempest long and loud; But sweet the change, when tranquilly In sunshine sleep the air and sea. Pen may not paint each magic dye On the soft wave and sunny sky, When comes the charming silent eve, And gentle billows idly heave. The liquid floor bends smooth and bright, Like molten silver to the light; Till, as the western clouds enfold [Pg 196] The fiery sun, it turns to gold, And then a thousand colours, straying From heaven to earth, and sweetly playing Upon the ocean's giant breast, Compose his savage soul to rest. ”

“ When the lake lies in calmness and darkness, save where The bright ripple curls, 'neath the smile of a star; When all is in silence and solitude here, Then sleep, maiden, sleep! without sorrow or fear! But when I steal silently over the lake, Awake thee then, maiden, awake! Oh, awake! LAKE GEORGE. BY MRS. E. F. ELLET.
Not in the bannered castle Beside the gilded throne, On fields where knightly ranks have strode, In feudal halls—alone The Spirit of the stately mien, Whose presence flings a spell, Fadeless on all around her, In empire loves to dwell. ”

“ Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart— The wife of thy bosom—in sorrow depart, "Look aloft," from the darkness and dust of the tomb, To that soil where "affection is ever in bloom."
And oh! when death comes in 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! ”

“ Each friend of our early years is a wave In the sea of joy we are flourishing by; But they roll away to the gulf of the grave, And our hearts in loneliness withering sigh. And such is the doom I must bear—for now, While yet in my boyhood I find it so— But never, dear cherub, may heaven allow Such doom to await thee, Ah No! ”

“ And yet there are, who, borne on fortune's tide, Down the smooth vale of time unconscious glide; Ne'er dream of wretchedness when they repose, Nor wake to other cares, to other woes. And when the north wind rages through the sky, Withhold from bleeding poverty a sigh; Leave those to weep, who, torn from all held dear, In want and silence shed the frequent tear ”

“ There's beauty on thy brow, old chief! the high And manly beauty of the Roman mould, And the keen flashing of thy full dark eye Speaks of a heart that years have not made cold; Of passions scathed not by the blight of time, Ambition, that survives the battle route. The man within thee scorns to play the mime To gaping crowds that compass thee about. Thou walkest, with thy warriors by thy side, Wrapped in fierce hate, and high unconquered pride. ”

“ Where loitering surges break, Not on the mountain hoar, Not by the breezeless lake, Not in the desert plain Where man hath never stood, Whether on isle or main— Not there is Solitude!
There are birds in the woodland bowers, Voices in lonely dells, And streams that talk to the listening hours In earth's most secret cells. There is life on the foam-flecked sand By ocean's curling lip, And life on the still lake's strand 'Mid flowers that o'er it dip; There is life in the tossing pines That plume the mountain crest, And life in the courser's mane that shines As he scours the desert's breast. ”

“ Lost land! where Genius made his reign, And reared his golden arch on high; Where Science raised her sacred fane, Its summits peering to the sky; Upon thy clime the midnight deep Of ignorance hath brooded long, And in the tomb, forgotten, sleep The sons of science and of song.
[Pg 58] Thy sun hath set—the evening storm Hath passed in giant fury by, To blast the beauty of thy form, And spread its pall upon the sky! Gone is thy glory's diadem, And freedom never more shall cease To pour her mournful requiem O'er blighted, lost, degraded Greece! ”

“ Unlike the lively foliage of the trees, Its stubborn leaves ne'er wave in summer breeze, Nor flower, like those that prank the walks around, Upon its clumsy stem is ever found; It heeds not noontide heats, nor evening's balm, And stands unmoved in one eternal calm. At last, when all the garden's pride is lost It ripens in drear autumn's killing frost, And in a savoury sourkrout finds its end, From which detested dish, me heaven defend! LAKE GEORGE.—1829. BY S. DE WITT BLOODGOOD.
I stood upon the shore, And looked upon the wave, While I thought me o'er and o'er Here sleep the brave! ”

“ On my heart, Like a dear friend's, are stamped thy features now; Though there, the Roman, or the Grecian art Hath lent, to deck thy plain and mountain brow, No broken temples, fain at length to bow, Moss-grown and crumbling with the weight of time. Not these, o'er thee, their mystic splendours throw; Themes eloquent for pencil or for rhyme, As many a soul can tell that pours its thoughts sublime.
[Pg 176] But thou art sternly artless, wildly free: We worship thee for beauties all thine own. Like damsel, young and sweet, and sure to be Admired, but only for herself alone. ”

“ The joy that fills my heart, in the love I bear to thee, Too deeply in that heart is shrined, by words expressed to be; And thousand thoughts of tenderness, that in my bosom throng, Are all too bright and blessed to be manacled in song. This is thy birth-day, dearest—the fairest of the year— To many giving gladness, but to me of all most dear ”

“ As if to lull our senses to repose, That thou may'st use, unharmed, thy little sting The very moment we begin to doze; Thou worse than Syren, thirsty, fierce blood-sipper, Thou living Vampyre, and thou Gallinipper!
Nature is full of music, sweetly sings The bard, (and thou dost sing most sweetly too,) Through the wide circuit of created things, Thou art the living proof the bard sings true. Nature is full of thee; on every shore, 'Neath the hot sky of Congo's dusky child, From warm Peru to icy Labrador, The world's free citizen thou roamest wild. ”

“ Calmly he lives—the tempest of the mind, That marks its course by many a wreck behind; The purpose high that great ambition feels, [Pg 203] Sometimes perchance upon his vision steals, But never in his sober waking thought One stirring, active impulse ever wrought. Calmly he lives—as free from good as blame, His home, his dress, his equipage the same; And when he dies, in sooth, 'tis soon forgot What once he was, or what he once was not— An honest man, perhaps,—'tis somewhat odd That such should be the noblest work of God! ”