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He covered up his face, and bowed himself
A moment on his child: then, giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer;
And, as a strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall
Firmly and decently, and left him there,
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.

HENRY J. FINN.

We have seen nothing of Finn's but the following stanzas: they display great poetic power.

THE FUNERAL AT SEA.

DEEP mists hung o'er the mariner's grave,
When the holy funeral rite was read;
And every breath on the dark-blue wave,
Seemed hushed, to hallow the friendless dead.

And heavily heaved on the gloomy sea,

The ship that sheltered that homeless one,

As though her funeral-hour should be,

When the waves were still, and the winds were gone.

And there he lay in his coarse cold shroud,―
And strangers were round the coffinless;

Not a kinsman was seen among the crowd,
Not an eye to weep, nor a lip to bless.

No sound from the church's passing bell
Was echoed along the pathless deep,
The hearts that were far away to tell,

Where the mariner lies in his lasting sleep.

Not a whisper then lingered upon the air,—

O'er his body, one moment, his messmates bent;
But the plunging sound of the dead was there,
And the ocean is now his monument!

But many a sigh, and many a tear,

Shall be breathed, and shed, in the hours to oome,

When the widow and fatherless shall hear

How he died, far, far from his happy home!

GRENVILLE MELLEN

Is a writer of fertile imagination, and is peculiarly happy in the expression of tender and delicate sentiment. He is now greatly esteemed as a lawyer, and is regarded among the most eminent of the American barristers.

THE AIR VOYAGE.-A VISION.

YE have heard of spirits that sail the air,
Like birds that float o'er the mountains bare,
Upborne with pinions of beauty on,
When the farewell light of day is gone,
And they gladly soar to the blue away,
As to catch the star's young travelling ray:
Till the arch of night,

Is tremblingly bright,

As if meteors shot on their upward flight.
Ye have heard of spirits that sail away,
To realms that glisten with endless day,-
Where the clouds scarce lift their giant-forms,
In their far dim march to the land of storms;
Where the ocean of ether heaves around,
And silence and dew alone are found!!
Where life is still,

By a boundless will,

As a sabbath around some echoless hill!

Me thought I was borne through the measureless fields,
Where the silver moon and the comet wheels.

With a glorious thrilling of joy I went,

And a tide of life through my heart was sent,
As though a new fountain had burst control,
And bade its streams o'er my pulses roll;
And a shallop frail,
With a shadowy sail,

Hurried me on with a singing gale.

It went through my brain, this deep delight,
With a kindling sense of sound and sight;
And it seemed, as I rose, that the far blue air
Caught a hue of glory more richly rare,
Than was ever revealed to earthly eyes,-
The cold, cold lustre of uppermost skies!
And still my bark went
Through the firmament,

As a thing to the walls of the universe sent.

When the sun rolled up from the burning sea,
Like a car of flame from immensity,

I felt his beams quiver along my frame,
When first o'er the clouds and stars they came;
And the light-dropping orbs I had slumbered among,
Their dim dewy eyes o'er creation hung,

As each beautiful ray

Sunk sadly away,

To the inner home of the high-blue day!

Then I sailed far off to the thundering clouds,
That loomed on the air like spirits in shrouds,
My vessel, sunk on their fleecy pillow,
Seemed a shadowy bark on a dreamy billow;
And I floated through seas of visioned things,
Where the waking breezes point their wings,
While far below,

'Mid the lightning's glow,

I heard the dull sounds of the tempest go.

Then storm-clouds crossed my glowing track,
And launched me on through the hurrying rack,
Till a new creation seemed to rise,

In beauty all over the opening skies;

And the spirits that passed on the wings of night,
As they took their farewell feathery flight,
Poured melody out,

Like the far-off shout

Of music that dies on its airy route!

MOUNT WASHINGTON; THE LOFTIEST PEAK OF THE
WHITE MOUNTAINS.

MOUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height
The tall rocks brighten in the ether-air,

And spirits from the skies come down at night,
To chant immortal songs to Freedom there!
Thine is the rock of other regions; where
The world of life which blooms so far below
Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes appear,
Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow
Beneath the far off mountain, distant, calm, and slow.
Thine is the summit where the clouds repose,
Or, eddying widely, round thy cliffs are borne ;
When tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws
His billowy mist amid the thunder's home!

Far down the deep ravines the whirlwinds come,
And bow the forests as they sweep along;

While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb,
The storms come forth-and, hurrying darkly on,
Amid the echoing peaks, the revelry prolong!

And when the tumult of the air is fled,
And quenched in silence all the tempest-flame,
There come the dim forms of the mighty dead,
Around the steep which bears the hero's name.
The stars look down upon them--and the same
Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave,
Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame,
And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave,
The richest, purest tear, that memory ever gave!

Mount of the clouds, when winter round thee throws
The hoary mantle of the dying year,
Sublime, amid thy canopy of snows,

Thy towers in bright magnificence appear!
'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear
Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue;
When, lo! in softened grandeur, far, yet clear,
Thy battlements stand bright in heaven's own hue,
To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view!

ON SEEING AN EAGLE PASS NEAR ME IN AUTUMN TWILIGHT.

SAIL on, thou lone imperial bird,

Of quenchless eye and tireless wing;
How is thy distant coming heard,

As the night's breeze round thee ring!
Thy course was 'gainst the burning sun
In his extremest glory! How!
Is thy unequalled daring done,

Thou stoopest to earth so lowly now?
Or hast thou left thy rocking dome,
Thy roaring crag, thy lightning pine,
To find some secret, meaner home,
Less stormy and unsafe than thine!
Else why thy dusky pinions bend

So closely to this shadowy world,
And round thy scorching glances send,
As wishing thy broad pens were furled?

Yet lonely is thy shattered nest,
Thy eyry desolate, though high;
And lonely thou, alike, at rest,
Or soaring in thy upper sky.
The golden light that bathes thy plumes
On thine interminable flight,

Falls cheerless on earth's desert tombs,
And makes the North's ice-mountains bright.

So come the eagle-hearted down,

So come the proud and high to earth,
When life's night-tempests darkly frown
Over their glory and their mirth;
So quails the mind's undying eye,

That bore unveiled fame's noontide sun;
So man seeks solitude, to die,

His high place left, his triumphs done.

So, round the residence of power,
A cold and joyless lustre shines,
And on life's pinnacles will lower

Clouds dark as bathe the eagle's pines.
But, oh! the mellow light that pours

From God's pure throne-the light that saves!
It warms the spirit as it soars,

And sheds deep radiance round our graves.

JAMES G. WHITTIER

Is a barrister of high reputation, who makes poetry the amusement of his leisure hours.

From THE MINSTREL GIRL.

SHE leaned against her favourite tree,
The golden sunlight melting through
The twined branches, as the free
And easy-pinioned breezes flew
Around the bloom and greenness there,
Awaking all to life and motion,
Like unseen spirits sent to bear
Earth's perfume to the barren ocean.

That ocean lay before her, then,
Like a broad lustre, to send back

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