There spoke a wishful tenderness,--a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which Innocence
Alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of their curtaining lids
For ever. There had been a murmuring sound,
With which the babe would claim its mother's ear,
Charming her e'en to tears. The spoiler set
His seal of silence. But there beamed a smile,
So fixed and holy, from that marble brow,-
Death gazed and left it there; he dared not steal
The signet ring of Heaven.
ROBERT C. SANDS Is the Editor of a New York paper. In conjunction with Mr. Eastburne, he wrote Yamoyden, a poem descriptive of Indian life. He displayed, in his parts of the poem, great originality of thought, lively conception of character, and felicity of expression.
YAMOYDEN.
Know ye the Indian warrior-race?
How their light form springs in strength and grace,
Like pine on their native mountain-side,
That will not bow in its deathless pride;
Whose rugged limbs of stubborn tone
No flexuous power of art will own,
But bend to Heaven's red bolt alone!
How their hue is deep as the western dye,
That fades in autumn's evening sky;
That lives for ever upon their brow,
In the summer's heat and the winter's snow;
How their raven locks of tameless strain,
Stream like the desert-courser's mane;
How their glance is far as the eagle's flight
And fierce and true as the panther's sight:
How their souls are like the crystal wave,
Where the spirit dwells in the northern cave;
Unruffled in its caverned bed,
Calm lies its glimmering surface spread;
Its springs, its outlet unconfessed,
The pebble's weight upon its breast,
Shall wake its echoing thunders deep,
And when their muttering accents sleep,
Its dark recesses hear them yet,
And tell of deathless love or hate!
A NATIVE of Connecticut, is favourably known in England by his Airs of Palestine, a poem of singular merit. His odes and lyrical pieces are, however, superior to the Palestine, and some of them could scarcely be surpassed by any in our language.
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
The Pilgrim Fathers—where are they?
The waves that brought them o'er
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray
As they break along the shore:
Still roll in the bay, as they rolled that day,
When the May-Flower moored below,
When the sea around was black with storms,
And white the shore with snow.
The mists that wrapped the pilgrim's sleep,
Still brood upon the tide;
And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep,
To stay its waves of pride.
But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale,
When the heavens looked dark, is gone;
As an angel's wing, through an opening cloud,
Is seen and then withdrawn.
The pilgrim exile-sainted name!-
The hill whose icy brow
Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning's flame,
In the morning's flame burns now.
And moon's cold light, as it lay that night
On the hill-side and the sea,
Still lies where he laid his houseless head;
But the pilgrim-where is he?
The pilgrim fathers are at rest:
When the summer's throned on high,
And the world's warm breast is in verdure dressed,
Go stand on the hill where they lie,
The earliest ray of the golden day
On that hallowed spot is cast;
And the evening sun, as he leaves the world,
Looks kindly on that spot last. 1 May-Flower, the name of the ship that brought the first colonists to New England.
The pilgrim spirit has not fled;
It walks in noon's broad light:
And it watches the bed of the glorious dead,
With the holy stars, by night.
It watches the bed of the brave who have bled,
And shall guard his ice-bound shore,
Till the waves of the bay, where the May-Flower lay,
Shall foam and freeze no more.
NAPOLEON AT REST.
His falchion waved along the Nile,
His host he led through Alpine snows;
O’er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while,
His eagle-flag unrolled—and froze!
Here sleeps he now, alone!-not one,
Of all the kings whose crowns he gave, Bends o'er his dust; nor wife nor son
Has ever seen or sought his grave. Behind the sea-girt rock, the star
That led him on from crown to crown, Has sunk, and nations from afar
Gazed as it faded and went down.
High is his tomb: the ocean flood,
Far, far below, by storms is curled
As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and unstable world.
Alone he sleeps: the mountain cloud,
That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud
That wraps the conqueror's clay in death. Pause here! The far-off world at last
Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its mitres cast,
Lies powerless now beneath these stones. Hark! comes there from the Pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow, And Europe's hills, a voice that bids
The world be awed to mourn him? No. The only, the perpetual dirge,
That's heard here, is the sea-bird's cryThe mournful murmur of the surge,
The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.
Was an amiable American Divine. He resembled Cowper in many respects; in the gentleness and tenderness of his sensibilities,-in the modest and retiring disposition of his mind,- in its fine culture and original poetical cast. His longest poem, The Religion of Taste, has been recently republished in this country, but is not as generally known as it deserves to be. He died A.D. 1827.
ACTIVE CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE THE SOURCE OF SUBLIME
AND LASTING HAPPINESS.
WOULDst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief?
Or is thy heart oppressed with woes untold ?
Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief,
Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold?
'Tis when the rose is wrapped in many a fold
Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there
Its life and beauty; not when, all unrolled,
Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair,
Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air.
Wake, thou that sleepest in enchanted bowers,
Lest these lost years should haunt thee on the night
When death is waiting for thy numbered hours
To take their swift and everlasting flight;
Wake, ere the earth-born charm unnerve thee quite,
And be thy thoughts to work divine addressed;
Do something—do it soon-with all thy might;
An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God himself, inactive, were no longer blessed.
Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.
Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind
To this thy purpose-to begin, pursue,
With thoughts all fixed, and feelings purely kind;
Strength to complete, and with delight review,
And grace to give the praise where all is ever due.
No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit
To light on man as from the passing air;
The lamp of genius, though by nature lit,
If not protected, pruned, and fed with care,
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare;
And learning is a plant that spreads and towers
Slow as Colombia's aloe, proudly rare,
That, ’mid gay thousands, with the suns and showers Of half a century, grows alone before it flowers.
Has immortality of name been given
To them that idly worship hills and groves,
And burn sweet incense to the queen of Heaven?
Did Newton learn from fancy, as it roves,
To measure worlds, and follow where each moves ?
Did Howard gain renown that shall not cease,
By wanderings wild that Nature's pilgrim loves?
Or did Paul gain heaven's glory and its peace,
By musing o'er the bright and tranquil isles of Greece ?
Beware lest thou, from sloth, that would appear
But lowliness of mind, with joy proclaim
Thy want of worth; a charge thou couldst not hear
From other lips without a blush of shame,
Or pride indignant; then be thine to blame,
And make thyself of worth; and thus enlist
The smiles of all the good, the dear to fame;
'Tis infamy to die and not be missed,
Or let all soon forget that thou didst e'er ex.st.
Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know,
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;
The good begun by thee shall onward flow
In many a branching stream and wider grow;
The seed, that, in these few and fleeting hours,
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow,
Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers,
And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers.
VERNAL MELODY IN THE FOREST.
. . . . . . . With sonorous notes
Of every tone, mixed in confusion sweet,
All chanted in the fulness of delight,
The forest rings. Where, far around inclosed
With bushy sides, and covered high above
With foliage thick, supported by bare trunks,
Like pillars rising to support a roof,
It seems a temple vast, the space within
Rings loud and clear with thrilling melody.
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