In dreams, awake, in joy, or woe,
I fondly trace those scenes again;
For they are memory's hoarded store,
And, miser-like, she counts them o'er.

Yes, though, perchance, my words may seem
The ravings of a maniac's dream;

Yet sooner, than that death should blot
From my life's page that one bright spot,
I'd live again; though doomed to bear
Its griefs, its sorrows, its despair;
Its pangs, its disappointments, tears,
And all the wide, wide waste of years,
That spread in retrospection there.
MOON-LIGHT.

The moon shone bright, and her silvery light,
Through the forest aisles were glancing,

And with mimick beam, on the rippling stream
A thousand stars were dancing.

No noise was heard, save the night's lone bird,
From his dark and dreary dwelling;

Or the distant crash, of some aged ash,
Which the axe of time was felling.

SOROTAPHION.

Who has not only thrilled

In boyhood o'er the tale of other days,

Where the great king still marched his myriads on,
Chasing the wandering hordes of Scythians
From grove to grove, o'er Tanais, and the Don;
Till, looking back upon the traversed wastes,
He asked, as in scorn, where they would stand;
Reckless of towns and landmarks, nought cared they
For lock, or latch. Their dwelling was the depth

Of woods. Their sanctuary in the place,

Where slept their rustic ancestors, and there

They told him, they would stand; there he should know How Scythians used their steel.

REVIEW.

WATTS' Psalms and Hymns. The common and unaltered editions.

From some our title will elicit a smile; others, of a different cast of thinking, will look at it with distrust. Some will derive benefit from it, and some will condemn it, in toto. It is a painful lesson, but it is one of the first, that a journalist learns, that he cannot hope to please all. We will strive to keep a good conscience, please ourselves, and avoid offence, where we may; but to be perfectly straight forward and independent. A double motive incites us to give a work, which for a century past has been more worn, and read, than any book in the English language, the bible only excepted, a critical notice. The first is one of the highest and most sacred, that can actuate the human heart. It is, if we do not deceive ourselves, an earnest desire to contribute our mite towards the increase of the attractions of public worship. Every enlightened friend of order and morals will unite with us. Where can we expect to throw off the burden of cares, of toils, of sorrows, and disappointments, if it be not in this sacred place. Where shall we find our ambition, pride and envy, and heart burnings all vanishing into thin air,' if it be not in the hallowed circle of the sanctuary? Who, that has ever entered the place, where he was baptized, where his fathers worshipped, and near which their ashes repose, and that has, the while, inhaled the fragrance of May flowers, brought there by the hand of youth and beauty, that has seen congregating there, all that is respectable in age and piety, all that is dear by the ties of friendship, kindred, and acquaintance, that has beheld in one view every thing, which can cheer the eye, or expand the heart; every thing, which tends to connect the sublimest hopes of the future, with the dearest remembrances of the past, by the sacred chain of religious association, that has heard the song of praise swelling, and dying away; who, that has been in such a place, has not, at least sometimes, felt the inspirations of the place rush upon him. The bible admonishes him, that the place, on which he stands, is holy ground. If he have a heart, the worshipper must have sometimes felt, too, that it is the ground of high thinking, and pleasant feeling, and joyous anticipations, in short the very place, where he may hope, for a while, to throw off the selfish and animal burden, and stand forth in the simplicity of his higher, his intellectual nature. Who, that has but for a moment given himself up to the proper impressions of this scene, but has wished, that every thing, which tends to increase the attractions of the sanctuary, and which is in keeping with the design of worship,

might be there, or has not desired, that every thing, which has a natural tendency to mar these impressions, to break off the chain of these associations; to banish these hopes, and trouble these thoughts, were removed. When the minister of the altar, whose whole appearance and manner have the inexpressible, and yet perfectly felt attraction of being in keeping with his character and functions, mounts the sacred desk, and with the proper tone and enunciation reads a fine hymn, he occupies the best place for a good reader, and for producing the highest effect of poetry, that we can imagine. Here, if any where, will be found that union of music and verse, of which the ancient lyrists talk so much. We pay our money to hear a man recite fine verses before a public audience, as at a theatrical exhibition. Imagination can not devise circumstances, more favourable to the best recitations of poetry, than the commencing hymn of Sabbath morning service, in the season of flowers, and in a decent and well filled church. Yet, how many repair to this place where the pleasures are without money and without price, as to a painful task. In this view, how important it is, that the version of hymns should be pure, evangelical, correct, and in the best style of poetry. There are, probably, from thirty to fifty different collections of hymns in use in the different churches, in the United States, and the dominions of Great Britain. Every person who has expunged one bad line in former use, or added one good and original one, has performed no unacceptable, or useless service to his kind. Our first object then, in these remarks, is to do something, if we might, in this cause, and minister something to the attractions of the sanctuary.

Our next is in furtherance of our more general object, to endeavor to correct, and enlighten public taste, by placing before it good models for selection, and bad ones for avoidance. We think, that we hazard nothing, in asserting the confident opinion, that the greater part of all, that has merited or received by courtesy and prescription the name of poetry in the United States, for the last fifty years, has been, directly, or indirectly, moulded from the stanzas, and has originated from imitation of Dr. Watts' psalms and hymns. Every one, who is only moderately skilled in the business and the productions of verse makers, knows, that there are copies of copies, shadows of a shade.' The more powerful imitations become, in their turn, models to others. But, however diluted, and reduced, it is easy for experience in tracing this sort of derivation, to discover the original fountain, from which the primitive thought and expression were drawn. Take up an album, selected twenty years ago, and composed of verses taken from the newspapers of the whole country, and we may trace through the greater part of the verses the phraseology, the images, the thought and style of the psalms and hymns in question. Of thousands of the couplets, it will be found, on close inspection, that the first

line was formed to match with a line from Dr. Watts, previously existing in the memory. It would be an amusing, and not an useless employment, in such a volume, to trace the lineage of the phraseology and images. Even in the larger works, and more sustained efforts we can trace this imitation, sometimes palpable, and sometimes obscure, but always sufficiently obvious.

The reason of all this will appear, if we consider, that the web of our thought, complicated and combined, as it is, was all made up of a few simple and original impressions. The young and susceptible organs of hearing first perceived the power and influence of sound and rhythm from the pulpit, and probably from the reading of Watts' psalms and hymns. It is with us an undoubting conviction, that poetry and religion are allied. The sanctuary is the place, if any where, in which the highest and best inspiration of the muse will come over the mind. Such verses, so heard, and first producing the inexplicable union between sensation and abstract and combined thought, incorporated with the mental web, and became, unconsciously, the material, out of which future combinations were made. Many a verse maker has, no doubt, unknown to himself, produced verses, which were only those of Watts, diluted and changed, but not so materially, as not to show at once the source, from which they were derived. It is important then, in a literary point of view, that we should examine models, that have already had, and as long, as they are used, from the nature of things will continue to have such a vast amount of influence upon general taste and thought.

It is not within our scope to give a biographical sketch of the life and character of Watts. It would be superfluous to go over ground, which has already been marked with the footsteps of the Herculean Dr. Johnson. It is only necessary to say, that he was, perhaps, as amiable, and as pious a mind, as unpolluted, and receiving as little stain from earth, as ever made its transit across this dark planet of ours. He was a poet, without the extravagancies and aberrations of poets. He suffered little from the poverty, and less from the proverbial irritation and envy of that race. Providence guided his pure and gentle mind into a happy haven, where in plenty, privacy, and repose, he poured his sacred strains, and ripened for heaven. Every scholar knows the general character of his poetry,-knows, that his verses flowed from the fullness of his amiable mind with great facility, that he sometimes gives us delightful stanzas, modelled on the rich and sweet pastoral, or rapturous devotion of the shepherd king, and directly beside them verses of a character so inferior,that a momentary doubt is created, whether they could be from the same author. Never was poet more impar sibi, more unequal, than Watts. He scarcely ever goes through a whole hymn with tolerable correctness. The in-` spiration evidently came upon him, like the fitful swellings and

sinkings of the breeze. Dr. Johnson, indeed, affirms, that religious poetry is unsusceptible of the ornament, the figures and associations, that constitute the chief material of other poetry. Its severe character, its stern and naked truth, according to him, reject the ornaments of figurative and polished diction. For once we prefer to think with the eloquent Chauteaubriand, that religion, the Christian religion, is the very region of poetry. Milton has proved what use can be made of the scripture narrative and doctrine. Cowper has evinced, that the sacred fountains yield to those, who drink there, a higher inspiration, than the Castalian. Without going beyond our object, we affirm, that some of the sweetest and most delightful strains of poetry, with which we have ever met, were hymns designed for the service of the sanctuary. There are a great many beautiful hymns in the Methodist and Baptist collections, placed, like the happiest efforts of Watts, directly beside poor and wild extravaganzas, unworthy of their character, either, as claiming to aid devotion, or be poetry. We could easily select a hundred stanzas of verses of exquisite beauty from the Methodist collections. Had the following verses from a Methodist funernal hymn been written by Mrs. Hemans, they would have been hackneyed in every newspaper from Maine to the Sabine.

'No anger henceforward, nor shame

Shall redden this innocent clay;
Extinct is the animal flame,
And passion is vanish'd away.
This languishing head is at rest;
Its thinking and aching are o'er;
This quiet, immoveable breast
Is heav'd by affliction no more.
The lids, he so seldom could close,
By sorrow forbidden to sleep,
Seal'd up in eternal repose,
Have strangely forgotten to weep.
The fountains can yield no supplies,
These hollows from water are free,

The tears are all wip'd from these eyes,

And evil they never shall see.'

And yet, the very hymn, from which these verses are selected, commences with a stanza of expression so extravagant, that no person of taste would willingly read it on the occasion, for which it is prepared. Even from the quaint and severe version, 'the psalms of David,' held in so much reverence by the seceders, some verses, as beautiful as they are simple might be selected. Take the following as a sample:

"The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want;

He makes me down to lie

In pastures green. He leadeth me

The quiet waters by."