Wood-notes; or, Carolina carols: a collection of North Carolina poetry

















WOOD-NOTES;OR, Carolina Carols: A COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINA POETRY.COMPILED BY TENELLA. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.RALEIGH:WARREN L. POMEROY.M.DCCC.LIV.



ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of .

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 Ann street, New York.

TO THE HON. DAVID L. SWAIN, LL.D., AND TO THE REV. FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D.D., LL.D., WHOSE EFFORTS IN FOSTERING AND ADORNING THE LITERATURE OF , HAVE REFLECTED HONOR ON THEIR NATIVE STATE, This First Collection OF POETRY IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.





PREFACE.

THE volumes of poetry now presented to the public had their origin in a collection for the compiler's own use. As it increased, a few friends expressed a wish that it should be rendered as complete as possible and published, that every North Carolinian might have an opportunity of possessing, in a permanent and convenient form, a copy of many pieces that they had probably read and admired, and perhaps for a time preserved from regard for the authors. Encouraged by their kind co-operation, the work has been steadily, though slowly, growing until it has reached its present size; though it has been found impossible to obtain many pieces which it was thought could be procured, yet it is hoped that this first attempt





of the kind in North Carolina will meet with the favor of the citizens, for whose use the work is principally intended. Though we may not have produced any great poets, still these “foot-prints of the Muse” will show that we possess some of

“the poets that are sownBy Nature; men endowed with highest gifts,The vision and the faculty divine.”

As the note of the mocking-bird in our native woods is sweeter to the ear of patriotism than the song of the nightingale in foreign climes, so it is hoped that these Wood-Notes will be dear to North Carolinians. In this utilitarian age we are too prone to consider poetry as an ingenious trifling, unmanly and unwise; but it should be remembered that in every age and nation it has been the record of the highest and noblest thoughts of the best and purest of men. Irving has well remarked that “it is the gift of poetry to hallow every place in which it moves.” The learned jurist who can unbend his mind to write a May-day song for children, shows a goodness of heart as worthy of praise as his noble talents and profound learning, which awaken the admiration of the whole country; and the grave divine, who, in

his hours of relaxation, can sing of birds and flowers for the instruction of the lambs of his flock, imitates Him who pointed to the lilies of the field, and the hen gathering her brood under her wings to illustrate the most sublime moral teachings, and give point to the most pathetic apostrophe ever uttered.

It is from our knowledge of the writers that many pieces in this collection will derive their interest, and though viewed by the severe eye of criticism, they would have been rejected, still it was thought that public expectation would have been disappointed had they been omitted.

To the kind friends who have contributed, or who have assisted in collecting pieces for the work, the compiler returns her sincere thanks. To those whose pieces have not been inserted, she would also express her obligations, and say that they were for the most part declined because they did not comport with the design of the work, or because others of a similar nature had been previously received.

TENELLA.





CONTENTS.

PAGE
TENELLA.
To the Poets of North Carolina.13
PHILIP W. ALSTON.
The Greek's Vision.16
Ocean.26
WALKER ANDERSON.
An Imitation of Scott's Coronach.32
Lines on Leaving Florida.34
“Oh! that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest.”36
A Paraphrase of a Passage in a Sermon, from Luke xii. 32.38
Lines.39
Sonnet—To a Friend on her Marriage and Removal.40
Sonnet.41
To My Mother on the Birth-day of my Brother.42
“Thy will be done.”44
The Sabbath Morning.46
G. Z. ADAMS.
Stanzas.49
JOHN TODD BRAME.
The Death of Saladin.51
Decay.54
LAWRENCE BADGER.
Carolina.56





PAGE
Rise up, sad soul.57
Lilly Lane.60
W. HILL BROWN.
The Lion and the Terrapin.64
MRS. S. M. CHUNN.
The Silent Multitude of the Dead.69
The Grave of Rosalie.72
The Dying Year.73
To a Bride.76
EDWARD CANTWELL.
Upon the Death of Two Infants.78
The Minstrel.79
Written under a Picture.81
WILLIAM J. CLARKE.
Lines to a young lady who said she had never loved.82
“Hope on hope ever.”85
Tριλλιστε ασπασιη.—“Thrice prayed for, best beloved.”86
Paraphrase.87
DOUGAN CLARK.
The Rainbow.89
MRS. E. A. DARE.
To Annie.91
H. S. ELLENWOOD.
Marriage of the Sun and Moon.93
THE HON. WILLIAM GASTON.
To Eliza from her Husband.96
A Dream.98
The Old North State.100
A May-Day Song.101
Our Mother's Birth-day.103

PAGE
Epitaph—On a pet Mocking Bird found dead in its cage, and buried by his grandchildren, Oct. 2d, 1841.104
ALEXANDER GASTON.
The Gathering of the Volunteers.106
MRS. JOSEPH GALES.
Sunrise on the Potomac, 1821.111
Musings in the Month of May.112
Lines on an Infant who died at the break of day.115
THE REV. FRANCIS L. HAWKS.
The Blind Boy.117
The Dead Wife.120
To an aged and very cheerful Christian Lady.122
A Picture of Life.123
A Child's Faith.125
PHILO HENDERSON.
Memory's Retrospect.129
The Anthem of Heaven.130
Sweet Mary, Dost thou Remember?132
Come, Sing me a Song.134
To the Author of Lucy Alton.135
Bright Rain-drops.136
Ada's Sad Fate.137
On receiving a present from a Lady.139
Lines.140
The Flower of Catawba.143
Catawba.144
Lines.146
THE REV. HENRY HARDIE.
Rest—A Legend.149
THE REV. RUFUS HEFLIN.
Spring.153
Impromptu to a Lady.155
The Victim of Consumption.156





PAGE
“What is Life?”157
To Almira.159
MISS M. A. HOYE.
To Corinna.161
WILLIAM W. HOLDEN.
John C. Calhoun.166
Napoleon.168
THE HON. JAMES IREDELL.
Monody on the Death of a Lady.171
J. M. LOVEJOY.
A Day on the Hills.174
On the Death of Mary Lee Steptoe.199
Napoleon.200
AUGUSTUS FOSTER LYDE.
The Death of Moses.202
Belshazzar's Feast.208
Origin of the Night-blooming Cereus.218
The Smile of her we Love.220
A Fragment from a Satirical Ode.221
Prayers of the Good.223
Home of my Childhood.223
LAURA LINTON.
The Frozen Fairy.226
The Frozen Crystal Drop.228
The Wasted Flowers.230
ELLEN LLOYD.
The Warning.233
The Spirit of the Laugh.235

WOOD-NOTES.

TO THE POETS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
COME rouse you! ye poets of North Carolina,My State is my theme and I seek not a finer,I sing in its praise, and I bid ye all follow,’Till we wake up the echoes of “Old Sleepy Hollow.”Come show to his scorners “Old Rip” is awaking,His sleep like the cloud of the morning is breaking;That the years of his slumber, at last have gone by,And the rainbow of promise illumines the sky.His place in the Union is glorious I ween,For he's one of its Fathers, the good old thirteen.Ah, some of his sons take a pride in his glory,And are telling to others his unwritten story.



Then will ye be silent, nor add to his fame,Let others the deeds of his greatness proclaim?Oh—can ye not warble one note in his praise?One song in his glory, say, can ye not raise?Come! rouse ye, and aid them the silence to break;Come, show to the world that his muse is awake,That her vot'ries, tho’ humble, rich incense can fling,Pure offerings to lay on her altar can bring.The spell of the Manitou draws to a close,For the shriek of the Steam-king disturbs his repose,As he dashes in pride o'er his iron war path,Like an arrow that's sent by a Brave, in his wrath.The breath from his nostrils is filling the land,And swift is the stroke of his iron-bound hand;But let not the echoes of labor, though sweet,Be all in the Hollow the stranger to greet.Come, show him that Wood-Notes are sung in its bowers,That in its deep shadows there blossom sweet flowers,That bright gems lie hid in its forest of pines,As well as rich ore in the depth of its mines.I would build for its muse who has slumbered so long—A temple where all may repair with a song,Of the gems and the flowers a garland I'd twine,To lay as an offering on Poesy's shrine.’Tis a labor of love, and I ask for your aid,To gather the flowers that bloom in the shade—To seek for the jewels that half hidden lie,To catch up the Wood-Notes that unheeded die.Bring gems of the present, bring gems of the past,And let their bright rays o'er the future be cast,Let a rainbow of Fancy and Poesy gleam,Far over the white clouds of labor and steam.

TENELLA.





Philip W. Alston.
THE GREEK'S VISION.
FROM cloudless firmament, the moonO'er the lone site of Delphi shone,As on her cliffs with toil opprestThe young Greek laid him down to rest;—But rested not. For who could sleepUpon that consecrated steep?Who see unmoved Parnassus’ height,Still with the latest sunbeams bright,Or stand upon the sacred sodWhere from his temple spoke the god,And, by his oracle, of oldThe coming fate of empires told;And sink untroubled into rest,With mournful visions unopprest?What rudest stranger could have viewedUnawed this holy solitude—This spot, by memory hallowedOf by-gone days, for ever fled?What tyrant could have rested here,Nor dropped for hapless Greece a tear?Then deeper far must he have felt—The solitary Greek—who kneltWith reverence on that sacred ground,To meditate the scene around.The silvery moonbeams’ mellow hueSoftened the rude spot to the view;Behind, Parnassus’ double height,Defying still the shades of night,High lifted up its sun-lit browMajestic o'er the cliffs below.The pines which on its sides reclined,Sighed mournful to the rushing wind—The sickly, melancholy glow,Which o'er the gloom the moonbeams throw,—The distant cataract's deadened noise,The moaning breeze's stilly voice—The sad scene which before him lay,Clad in the twilight's mantle gray;



Silent, and desolate, and lone,With here and there a shivered stone,—The only relics that remain,To mark the site of that proud faneWithin which erst Apollo dwelt,And trembling kings by proxy knelt:—All these in mournful accents speakOf desolation, to the Greek,As on the earth his frame he throwsTo muse upon his country's woes.At intervals his eye he raisedTo view the scene; and as he gazed,Before his mind the figures flit,To which it erst was consecrate.Fancied, but not viewed the less,The figure of the Pythoness,Seemed faint to stand before his sight,Half-hidden, half-disclosed in night.Her face the lines of passion graving,Her long white hair around her waving,The lifted hand, the bloodshot eye—The smothered shout of ecstasy—As her mind penetrated throughTime's vista opening to her view,And, in the trance of prophecy,The future passed before her eye.But suddenly he starts with fear,As sounds unearthly greet his ear;Now as the lute heard from afar,Now swelling to the trump of war,Now sinking into funeral wail,Now rushing like the stormy gale;Unable or to stand or flee,Trembling, he sank upon his knee,As voices from the holy groundArose, and mingled with the sound.“Awake, Hellenian! sleep'st thou now?In Morpheus’ mantle wrapped art thou,When Greece aroused is Greece again,And rushes to the battle-plain?Once more aspiring to be free,She rouses from her lethargy—Casts off the ignominious yoke,Ne'er to be riveted, once broke!Her youths are crowding to her ranks,Shout high, and form the firm phalanx;



The flame that erst illumed the land,That led to death the Spartan band,With Philopœmen that expired,Their renovated souls hath fired:—And Freedom's banner waves on high,O'er spirits that prevail or die,Greece starts, and buckling on the swordDefies her proud barbarian lord:Wake! roused from sleep not only be,Wake! oh, awake—to liberty!“Rise, Grecian, at thy country's voice,And at the glorious call rejoice!Alas for her! Her silent shoreTo Freedom's chant resounds no more!A stranger tyrant rules the landWhere rests the noble Spartan band,And where in death they still are free,Their sepulchre, Thermopylæ.Those seas whose briny waters laveThe bones of her departed brave;Seas with her heroes’ blood oft red:—Where oft the Persian turned and fledBefore her fleets—those glorious seas,The Libyan pirate ravages!And Greece is now a slave to slavesOf those she conquered on their waves!But to the upstart TurcomanThe work of ruin has begun;Burst into action Freedom's cause;For Greece the keen-edged sabre draws,Which long has rusted in repose,And the curst yoke from round her throws:Tho’ past are her meridian days,Expired her pristine glory's blaze,Clotted with rust her battle brand,And foreign tyrants rule the land;Though Freedom's banner now is furled,The goddess from her temple hurled,Her former race of heroes dead,And all her gathered glories fled,Some ne'er to be recovered—yetHer sun has not for ever set;—Restored that glory soon shall be,Like to its pristine brilliancy;That banner soon be spread, and waveOver a band of warriors brave,Sons, worthy their extinguished sires,Whom Liberty returns and fires;



Who at her trumpet-call shall springAnd back to life her laurels bring;The mists which once her sky o'ercast,Her rising sun dispel at last;That rusted brand leap from its sheath,And brighten in the work of death:And horrible shall be its work;Dreadful its flashings to the Turk!I say, who never said in vain,Your country shall be Greece again!Again a voice from Delphi speaksTo promise Liberty to Greeks.Grecian! awake! —rouse from sleep,The sleep of slavery far more deep,Than stagnant Stygian pool—e'en worseThan all the pangs of Tantalus!Degenerate though thy lips to laveIn servitude's Lethean wave;Tho’ sunk so low to bow the kneeTo stranger lords themselves not free—Slave tho’ thou art—I say arise!Gird, gird thy limbs—thy country criesShe wakes to liberty again—Go hie thee to the battle plain!Say, pin'st thou not for freedom's dawn,Condemned a slave to roam forlorn,O'er wilds whose every spot displaysThe mouldering wrecks of happier days—Darest thou, a slave, to tread the sodWhere fearless once your fathers trod?Darest thou, a slave, the spot to eyeWhere the famed three hundred lie?Nor fear the presence of a slave,Would rouse them from their hallowed grave?No! to the consecrated spot,Where rest their ashes, go thou not!Each phantom from the tomb would riseAnd curse thee for thy cowardice!Call thee dishonor to their race,And drive thee from their resting-place.“Warrior, if ever flushed thy cheekAt the harsh term, ‘degenerate Greek’—If e'er thou'st known a patriot's flame—If e'er, at mention of thy shame,Thou'st felt but one indignant glowSuffuse thy face—I tell thee go!To battle, and redeem thy fame—Rescue from infamy thy name!—



And that fair name on Glory's scrollWith thy illustrious sires enroll.And if it be thy glorious lotTo fall—thou shalt not be forgot!Alive, thou shalt acquire renown;Success all thy endeavors crown;—I say, who never said in vain;—Go seek it on the battle plain!I tell thee go! by all the woesThy country's annals can disclose;By every wound that mangled GreeceE'er felt from Othman's cruel race;By that band of glorious dead,That once to rescue Hellas bled,And suffered at Thermopylæ—By yon consecrated sea—By all your torpid soul can move—By all you hate, and all you love;Go!—nerve your arm in Freedom's cause—Give Greece her liberty and laws;—Leave not the struggle, but with breath—Yield to no conqueror but Death!“But if thy coward soul refuse—In such a cause e'en life to lose;If thou art callous to the flameThat gave thy ancestors their fame—If not the spark thy bosom warmsThat calls thy countrymen to arms—If rests thy scimitar in peaceWhilst for her freedom battles Greece—Go!—in some corner hide your head,Whilst in the cause your brethren bleed—Thro’ lingering years revolving slow,Live on in infamy and woe—Then in some nameless grave be flung,Justly despised—unknown, unsung.”The voice had ceased; the youth still knelt,And in his heart deep reverence felt,As thoughts that burn successive rollAcross his renovated soul.E'er from the sacred soil he rose,He swore by all his country's woes,To listen to the phantom's call,And with her fortunes stand or fall:—Never to cease the glorious strife,Or yield, if requisite, his life.And after, ere the glorious SunIts daily journey thrice had run,



He mingled in the battle's roarAnd stained his sword with Turkish gore;Unfaltering still his course pursuedThrough each adverse vicissitude,Till, his high part accomplished well,Fighting in Freedom's ranks he fell,Loud uttering with his latest breathHis war-cry, “Liberty or Death!”And many a sympathetic tearHas trickled on his honored bier:—The grateful Grecian bards rehearseHis glorious deeds in simple verse;—And the delivered Grecian fairWith sorrowing bosoms oft repair,’Mid the descending evening gloom,To scatter flowers upon his tomb.OCEAN.
CALM was the sky, and not a fleecy cloudObscured the face of heaven. The starry hostGleamed in the azure vault, and the pale moonHer course majestic trailed along the skyUnshadowed and sublime; and as she rodeProfusely showering her borrowed beamsUpon the placid deep, her image fairDanced on its gently undulating bosom.The proud ship glided smoothly with the breezeFrom the far west that intermittent rushed,Swelled the full sail, and sighing, pass'd away.No distant headland limited the gaze—Far as the straining vision could extend,The mighty ocean stretched his broad expanse—The Heaven and waters met. Sublime the view—Yet, fairer than sublime . . . Thus smiled the scene—But ah! how brief the smile!I looked again—’twas changed. The rising blastLow murmuring swept along the troubled deep,And massy clouds, scarce visible at first,But fast increasing, from th’ horizon rose,And veiled the lowering sky. Such portents markedThe tempest's swift approach. The wearied watch,As thoughtfully and slow he paced the deck,Wrapped in the memory of departed joys,Shook off his dreams, and on the sombre veilFixed his arrested gaze, as if to pierceIts gloomy depths. Nature before was fair—



Now, changing to terrific: hithertoThe scene was marked by awful, silent beauty:But now the thunder muttered from afar—The distant lightning glared—the angry windRushed fierce across the billow—and the OceanHeaved his broad bosom to the passing blast.I looked—again ’twas changed. Deluging rain,The lightning flashes through the impervious gloom—Ruled the tremendous scene—and from his lairWithin the dark rolling cloud, with dissonance harsh,The thunder howled exulting. Fearful below,The foaming waters dashed with lawless rage;Above, the heaps of cloud obscured the sky,And veiled the lustre of the stars.The ship appeared,Her rent sails gleaming white amid the gloom,A small bright speck, amid the fierce encounterOf warring elements. Nature's every powerSeemed in the storm exerted, to destroyThe only beings that could feel its rage;The yawning sea disclosed his inmost depths,And ope'd his horrid entrails to ingulfThe reeling bark. The blast in vengeance swept,And soon the rigging rent—the masts uptorn—Its violence attest. Angry lightningPlayed dreadfully around her; and the thunder,Straining his awful lungs, with deafening roar,Stunned the shocked brain. A sudden flash disclosedThe frail bark slowly rising on a wave,High in the troubled air; another sawHer tremble on its crest; then swiftly sinkInto the gulf profound, until again,On an enormous billow's back upraised,Another bright glare dissipates the gloom,And, by its lurid light, she's seen to reachThe topmost ridge; then dashed the waveHer body from beneath, and down in the abyssAgain she headlong plunged. . . .But now, afar,Its bright crest sparkling in the beamless gloom,Appears a ridge of foam. Swiftly it comesUpon the wings of fate; destruction lurksWithin its liquid bosom. Nearer and nearer,High-rearing its dark volume towards the heaven,The fatal wave approaches. Now the barkIs lifted on its back; slowly she mountsTowards the fatal crest—she reaches it,A moment hesitates, then reeling round,



Down in the fathomless abyss, precipitate,She plunged, and plunged, alas! no more to rise. . . .And now naught animate witnesses the strife.The storm resounds, and wild winds moan, and flashThe lightning's liquid flames; and roll the thundersIn solitary grandeur—nothing hears,Or sees, or feels the howling tempest's rage.I looked: ’twas changed again. No murky cloudVolleyed tremendous the electric chargeFrom its dark heaving breast; far, far aboveUnsullied stretched the cloudless firmament.Bright was the scene, and, for ascending Sol,The hastening morn, with rosy fingers ope'dThe portals of the east. Mute was the scene:—No northern blast resounded; but the ZephyrSkimmed soft the surface of the sleeping sea,Which smiled in tranquil beauty. Faithless Ocean!Such is thy fickle nature: petulant;Inconstant, too, as Woman; for a momentThou art as lovely; but, oh! what a changeCan an hour's space effect! Horrid thou artWhen thy dark billows open to the blast—When clouds obscure the ardent atmosphere,And o'er thy agitated bosom howlsThe demon of the Winds—as beauteous, whenNo wave disturbs the smoothness of thy face,Nor tempests veil the sky.



Walker Anderson.
AN IMITATION OF SCOTT'S CORONACH.
THOU art fallen as the flowerThat's freshest and sweetest,Thou hast fled as the hourThat's brightest and fleetest;To our hearts thou wert dearest,Thou hast left them in mourning,And our fond hopes were fairest,But they know no returning.The roar of the Ocean,Where thy gallant ship boundeth,In its wildest commotion,But thy requiem soundeth;For that Ocean-storm sweepingDisturbs not thy ashes,And unheard in thy sleeping,Its mountain-wave dashes.Thine eye beamed the brightest,For it told thy soul's gladness,But no more thou delightest,Thou hast left us in sadness.That eye is now beamless,And our full hearts are breaking,For thy slumber is dreamless,And shall know no awaking.O'er the breast of the billowNo longer thou sweepest,For cold is that pillowWhere in darkness thou sleepest,And life's fitful beamingShall return to thee never;It hath flashed its last gleaming,It hath vanished for ever.



LINES ON LEAVING FLORIDA.
THE sounds of spring are issuing forthFrom earth around and air above,The gay lark chants his song of mirth,The dove her plaintive lay of love.The amorous breeze, in whispering tone,Sighs on the rose's balmy breast,The cascade falls with gentle moan,Then, softly murmuring, sinks to rest.The scents of spring are breathing outFrom wood and field and lady's bower,And wild-flowers fling their sweets about,Like fragrant dew in morning hour.Soft Zephyr ’midst their sweetness plays,Then passes by with fragrance rife,As memory brings from by-gone daysThe sweetest, purest joys of life.The sights of spring are spreading farTheir varied beauties o'er the scene,See how the dogwood blossoms glare,Amidst the deepening forest's green.Across the oak the woodbine throws,In bright festoons, her yellow wreath,And brighter still the sweet wild roseHangs o'er the crystal stream beneath.And must I leave these lovely haunts,These budding woods, these smiling meads,Where all around my path enchants,And every sense so richly feeds?Yes! beauteous land! I must be gone,Yet no regret demands my stay,For I am wandering here alone,And she I love is far away.In vain for me the morning dewIn liquid sweetness clothes the ground;In vain for me each form and hueOf varied beauty springs around.That smile which, with its loveliness,Could add new lustre e'en to thee,It is not here my soul to bless,And all without is naught to me.Then fare thee well! the time may comeOf neither need nor wish to fly,



When this sweet spot may be my homeWith my beloved beneath thy sky.Then shall a lovelier tint illumeThy woods and fields and valleys fair,Then richer breathe thy soft perfume,And sweeter music fill thy air.“OH! THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE, FOR THEN
WOULD I FLEE AWAY AND BE AT REST.”
WHO would not flee from sin?From lust's control and passion's reign;And, e'en the silent grave within,Be freed from Satan's chain.How blissful then to soarBeyond the bright and starry sky,Where lust and sin are known no more,And all is purity.Who would not flee from woe,From cares the tortured bosom feels?And, e'en the mouldering turf below,Repose from human ills?How blissful then to wingOur happy flight to worlds above,Where joys unfading ever spring,And all is light and love.Who would not flee from death?Whose withering touch can blast each flower,And in the dark cold grave beneathDefy his further power?How blissful then to flyFar, far beyond his fatal dart,Where those who love can never die,Where friends may never part.Oh! give me then light wings,That like the bird which seeks her nest,Leaving behind all earthly things,My soul may flee away to rest!Oh! set me free from sin,From sorrow's sting, and death's embrace!Oh! let my ransomed soul beginIts ceaseless song of praise!



A PARAPHRASE OF A PASSAGE IN A SERMON,
FROM LUKE XII. 32.

“Church of the living God! Flock of the good Shepherd. Family of the Father of Heaven! In thy fellowship let me live, in thy pasture let me feed, in thy bosom let me die!”

CHURCH of the living God! how blest the hour,Thy hallowed symbol sealed my infant brow;I, who was lost in sin and guilt before,A child of God, an heir of glory now.In thy blest fellowship, oh! let me live!Worthy that high and holy destiny,Renounce the world and all the world can give,To live for Him who gave his life for me.Flock of the good, kind Shepherd! in thy foldHow peaceful rests the heart oppressed with care,For Israel's God shall all thy wants behold,And safely guard thee from the spoiler's snare.Within that fold, oh! let my life be led,By thy still waters let my lot be cast,In thy green pastures let my soul be fed,Till all the cares and storms of life are past.Blest family of Him, who reigns in Heaven!How sweet with thee to look for joys to come,To feel the hopes our Father's word hath given,And humbly wait His voice to call us home:And when that call shall summon me on highTo those bright mansions where his face is seen,Within thy bosom let me calmly die,Whilst thy loved prayers are whispered o'er the scene.Church militant of God! Thy banners rear,Fight the good fight! thy onward march pursue,Finish thy course, keep well the Faith—nor fearWhat all the powers of earth or hell can do:Oh! may thy glorious Captain lead thee onTill all the world its grateful incense bring—Till every knee shall bow before the throne,And every tongue loud hallelujahs sing.LINES.
WE read in holy writ of Angels sent,Around the good man's path to set their watch,Gently to heal the heart with anguish rent,And souls from sin and endless woe to snatch,—Who has not felt when worn with earthly ill,Amid the wants of this world's wilderness,



Some soothing balm, from unseen sources stealAround the heart to solace and to bless?And who has not, when lured by sin to strayAside from virtue's safe and narrow track,Perceived some form invisible to stayAnd gently lead his erring footsteps back?How blest are such! but oh! how more than blestAm I! whose guardian angel stands confessedIn all a woman's tenderness and truth,With all an angel's tender power to soothe;Whose love disarms each pang this world hath given,Whose bright example points the way to Heaven.SONNET
TO A FRIEND ON HER MARRIAGE AND REMOVAL.
A FLOWER is known bright eastern skies beneath,Which all that lovely land with fragrance fills,And oft the frequent pilgrim kneels to breatheThe perfumed air its beauteous leaf distils—Its mellowed breath is flung so richly round,No lapse of time its fragrance can impair,For tho’ removed, that flow'ret's sweets are found,After long years, in freshness lingering there.And thus, dear lady! are our hearts imbuedSo rich with memory's fondest thoughts of thee,That thro’ long years thine image unsubdued,The cherished object of our love shall be.Our sweetest flower is gone, but tho’ removed,Its lingering fragrance fills the land it loved.SONNET.
THE moon is up, and from the gladdened skyPours forth a flood of light on all below,Whilst the blue waves that roll unceasing by,With mellowed rays of burning glory glow—But dazzling in the midst one brighter pathSeems leading to a world more blest than this.Tell us, thou peerless Queen, if thine orb hathWithin its realms our paradise of bliss?Or does the ransomed soul, forsaking earthAwhile on thy pure peaceful shore alight,Whence casting back all dross of carnal birth,It wings beyond its unencumbered flight?Beautiful planet! let me soar away,And leave behind this prison-house of clay!



TO MY MOTHER ON THE BIRTH-DAY OF MY
BROTHER.
Now from the Woodbine's fragrant bower,The warbling birds their carols sing,While every field and every flower,Shows Nature in the garb of spring.To thee these smiles of Nature proveDearer than all that art has done,Yet dearer to maternal love,Is this the birth-day of thy son.Oh! may this happy day returnFull many a time to bless thee here,On pleasure's lightest zephyrs borne;With sweetest joys your heart to cheer.And may it too for ever proveA day of peace without alloy;While all around thee smiles with love,May all within be light and joy.To thee a grateful song we raise,Proof of a love that ne'er shall end;With thee adore, and humbly praise,The orphan's God, the widow's friend.To thee we owe life's fleeting hour,And all that life can ever be;To Him we owe, oh! how much more,He gave us, dearest mother—thee.No time, no change, no joy, no care,Shall mem'ry of thy love remove,No foul ingratitude impairThe heavenly flame of filial love!Oh no! while life's brief hour shall last,That Heavenly flame shall cheer its gloom,Thro’ life ’t will burn, with life ’t will waste,Extinguished only in the tomb.Thy every joy we'll make more dear,Adding the peace that love imparts,We'll soothe each grief, dry every tear,And blunt misfortune's keenest darts.And oh! when thou to earth and us,Shall be for ever more denied,Awhile below we'll weep thy loss—Then calmly slumber by thy side.For Time's dark tide rolls on with speed,Swiftly life's fragile bark drives on;Soon shall youth's verdant shores recede,Soon age's sterile rocks be gone.



Care's darksome storm we yet may brave,Some little while—but ah! ’tis vain,For soon we sink in that wild wave,Where death and dark oblivion reign.But shall we fear that wave? oh, no,A light from Heaven dispels its gloom,A light that cheers us here below,And leads to life beyond the tomb.Guided by love above the skies,We'll sail along life's turbid stream,Sink without fear in death, and riseTo bliss perennial and supreme.“THY WILL BE DONE.”
WHEN o'er its cares my young heart breaks,Teach me to say in humblest frame,My Father gives, my Father takes,And blessed be my Father's name.Oh! bid me dry the tears that stealWhile mourning o'er the hope that's flown,And when I feel, most keenly feelThe rod, still say “Thy will be done.”Thou wilt not break the bruised reed,Thou wilt not crush the withered leaf;Oh! no, my Father, hearts that bleed,Shall find with thee a sure relief.Oh! then let Gilead's balm be mine,To still each anguished throb I've known,And send thy Comforter divineTo bid me say “Thy will be done.”And if before me all I loveShall sleep beneath the valley's clod,Do thou in pitying kindness proveMy friend, my father, and my God.And when my falt'ring steps would sink,Leave me, oh! leave me not alone,Forgive, if this poor heart should shrink,And bleed to say “Thy will be done.”Oh! thou who bind'st the broken heart,Who drank a bitterer cup than mine,Some of thy love to me impart,And send submission such as thine.Thy God an angel sent to thee,To soothe when other hope was gone,Then oh! my Saviour, come to me,Help me to say “Thy will be done.”



THE SABBATH MORNING.
THE world on thy first dawn, blest day!In peaceful being stood,Well pleased the Maker did survey,And then pronounced it good.And while my Saviour's tears and bloodFor my dark sins atone,Thou, Father, oh! pronounce as goodThe little else I've done.Bright day of peace! thy hallowed lightRose on a world redeemed—Dawned on a Saviour's glories bright,From the cold grave that beamed.Thus when I slumber, God Supreme,In my last narrow bed,Around the spot let Hope's bright beamIts balmy radiance shed.Thy holy peaceful dawn, sweet day,When the week's toil we close,Beams on our fainting frames a rayOf calm and sweet repose.And when, my duty finished here,I sail on Death's dark ocean,Thou, Lord of light and love, be there,To soothe life's last emotion.Bright day! our wearied souls to cheerThy soothing beams were given,Of joy and peace inspirer here,Promise of bliss in Heaven.And when with my last foe I cope,And feel his conquering power,Oh! may that promised, blissful hope,Illume the peaceful hour.If on fate's topmost wave I reel,Or on the humblest ride,Lord of the Sabbath, oh! be stillMy guardian and my guide.And when the last dread storm I brave,When all is well nigh o'er,Oh! teach me to defy the wave,Nor fear its wildest roar.When o'er my foundering bark at lastThe fatal billows roll,Father! receive when all is past,My still surviving soul.



Oh! take it, when wild passion's swayAnd sin's stern rule are o'er,When one eternal Sabbath day,Shall dawn to close no more.G. Z. Adams.
STANZAS.
OH! think not lightly of the heart,Whose holiest hopes in thee repose;Nor shrink thou once to share a partWith it, of life's allotted woes,—For it may be an hour will come,Of feverish need to sting thy breast,When it shall prove a sunny home,Inviting thee to peaceful rest!Oh! chase not friendship's tear away,Too heedless from thy pleading eye,—For where its unseen waters playAffection's priceless pearl may lie!



Life's tug and toil may come to thee—The cold neglect, the sneers of pride;And then perchance that tear will beA fountain by the lone way-side!Oh! think not lightly of the word,Love's falt'ring lip hath fondly spoken,It may awake some slumbering chord,When Pleasure's heart is well-nigh broken!—Then think not lightly of the heart—The trickling tear—the soft-breathed word;They sweeter joys may yet impartThan e'er thy youthful bosom stirr'd.John Todd Brame.
THE DEATH OF SALADIN.
’TWAS silent o'er Damascus.Dying raysOf golden radiance, from the sinking sun,Half-merged beneath his glowing nightly couch,Illumed the gorgeous city. Mosques and tow'rsCaught the last fading splendor, as it passed,And seemed as sheeted in a robe of gold.Silence, unusual for that bustling hour,Had thrown o'er all its reins; the hum of toilWas hushed; the noisy waves of business stilled.’Twas as if the destroying angel, whoO'er Pharaoh's realm, on vengeful errand flew,



Or on Sennacherib's host reigned terror once,Had been abroad, and with his blighting handHad laid in death's oblivion all who breathed.Not so; no pestilence that scathing “walksIn darkness,” and no famine had been thereWith wings of woe to darken all the land.See, where you battlemented palace rearsIts head, upraised above surrounding things!Enter its gates, and pass within its walls,Until a chamber, decked with Eastern pomp,With regal ornament, salutes thine eye.Death holds his revel there! triumphant singsHis oft-sung song of vict'ry, over oneWho ne'er asked mercy—never bent the knee,Nor cowering yielded to the servile yoke.Jerusalem's conqueror, Cœur de Lion's foe,In this dread hour, alas! can find no strength,To battle with his last, worst enemy.The potent medicines have failed. The artOf gray-haired sages is essayed in vain;And he must die—in vain his boasted power!In vain his annal'd triumphs! he must die.Th’ impartial monarch of death's wide domain,“Who knocks alike at the proudest palacesAnd cottage gates,” prepares his venomed darts,Hovers in triumph o'er the dying man,And waves his banners with malignant joy.From ’neath the covering glared the warlike eye,Which oft on Palestine's embattled plains,Had darted courage to the sinking troops,And sternly glancing, bade them “do or die.”Its beam is still meridian; still undimmed;It fades—but fades in glory; like the sunAt dewy eve, sinks to a shining grave,Its latest rays superior to the first!Death's agony is on him; clammy sweatsDistil and gather on his sunburnt brow,While a convulsive shudder shakes his frame—Nature's last struggle with her final foe!’Twas then that with concent'red energy,“Rising superior to the stroke of fate,”He sate upon his couch and spake—“Go, take my winding-sheet, within whose foldsI and the worm must shortly lie together,And bear it through the streets, where oft I haveIn triumph marched; and there proclaim that it,Of what I once possessed, is all now left to me!”** In his last moments, he commanded a herald to carry his winding-sheet through the streets of Damascus, and to proclaim that it was all he could now call his own.



He ceased! the feeble embers had expired—The dying life-lamp had blazed up its last!’Twas all he said: enough to prove that heHad found earth's promise false—its glory chaff!DECAY.
DECAY'S sure mark is branded on whate'erIs bred on earth.The branching oaks which spreadTheir shady boughs, decked by the genial spring,Ere frost-bound winter comes, alas! must seeTheir leafy honors prostrate in the dust!And the strong trunk itself, which oft has bravedThe lurid lightning's flash, and firm opposedThe mighty sweep of blasting hurricanes,When Time, the great destroyer, marks it outFor a new victim, and commands the blow,Must fall and moulder to its native earth.The lovely flower, with many a varied tint,With rich perfume, and nicely chiselled shape,Comes fresh from nature's band, complete and pure,Buds forth in beauty, blossoms and decays!And ere the fading autumn has arrived,The stalk is gone, and not a trace remains.This is thy fate, O man!Thou too art crushedBy time's unheeding tread, and thou canst not,The image of thy Maker, aught oppose,To check the mighty tide, which bears thee down,And wrecks thy storm-tost bark on death's drear coast.To-day with strength and vigor thou dost come,Like the young rose in spring, all fresh and fair,Thy beauties blushing, and thine honors bright;Inconstant fortune, like the adder, stings;Adversity's cold storms sweep o'er thy head;Time, with unpitying arm, adds yet a pang,And last comes fatal death, and “shuts the scene!”Thou too must die, and in the tomb's repose,Unwept, must slumber till that awful mornWhen the last trump shall wake thy dormant powers,And call thee from the grave, to meet thy God!



Lawrence Badger.
CAROLINA.
THERE'S a land of the South—“ ’tis the clime of the sun,”And great is the name which her children have won.’Tis the land where oppression and power ne'er came,To sadden those children and darken her fame;Carolina, Carolina, Carolina, we bless,Our hope when cares throng, our pride in success:And ever we'll love thee, come weal or come woe,And cherish thine honor wherever we go.No coward or traitor e'er stains thee with shame,Nor heart to disown thee thy borders can claim;But every heart true, and every arm strong,Shall hand down thy glory to history, and song;Thy statesmen and heroes now brighten thy page,Gladd'ning the student, inspiring the sage;And ever we'll turn us to thee with that love,Which wrong shall but quicken, and trials but prove.Carolina! Carolina! thy spirit be knownWhere pride would disdain thee or insult be shown,Quick to raise high thy halbert for right,To wield it while justice and truth keep it bright.Then, here's to the State which no tyrant dare rule!Whose sons have been tutored in liberty's school!And long as Time lingers, that land be it blest—The cradle of Statesmen, the gem of the West!RISE UP, SAD SOUL.
ANTITHETIC TO TENNYSON'S “SIT DOWN, SAD SOUL.”
RISE up, sad soul, and sit no longerOn thy thorn-set seat—despair;Doubt is strong, but faith is stronger,Rise, and brave each carking care:Ere thou risest, contrite kneeling,Faith's first gentle tones revealing,Prayer's sweet spirit o'er thee stealing,



As thou askest aid to riseFrom dark earth to cleave the skies,EverlastingGlances casting,To thy home beyond the skies.Rise up, sad soul, shake off the sadnessSinking, settling round thee so;Reach forth for Faith's bright beam of gladness,Rise and feel its genial glow:Rise while yet the heart is beating,While the new-born hope ’tis greeting;Death is certain; Life is fleeting,Rise before ’tis sped away,Up! the warm impulse obey:Hope is flying,Time is dying,And they urge thee to obey.Rise up, sad soul, and cut the cableAnchoring thee to sin and doubt;Thou art weak, but God is ableTriumphing to bring thee out:Rise, no longer wait the comingOf some fate or fortune roaming;The past is lost, the future's loomingUp, and o'er the present smilesFree from Fate and fortune's wiles—Smiling, beck'ning,To thy reck'ning,Where there's no more woes nor wiles.Rise up, sad soul, and look to Heaven,Gaze no more upon the ground;At early morn and dewy even,Look where light alone is found:And for ever up keep gazing,Ever up thy heart-hopes raising,Praying ever—ever praisingMajesty and power above,Whence come light and life and love;Ever praising,Ever raising,High thy hopes of heavenly love.Rise up, sad soul, and cease adoringDreamy days that are no more;Plume thy wing, and let's be soaringTo the Future's brighter shore:The present all the past is clouding;Its brightest things in death are shrouding,And objects dark around us crowding,



Warn us this is not our home—That fair rest is yet to come.No more grieving,Rising leaving;Seek we that sweet rest to come.LILLY LANE.
“THEY WERE TWINS.”
ON a mountain,Near a fountain,Where cool crystal waters play,And bright rainbows, hued of Heaven—Iris rayed at morn and even—Arch above within the spray;Lived a maiden,Lightly ladenWith a score of happy years:Lived she smiling, full of gladness,Knew no sorrow, knew no sadness,Knew no sin-engendered madness,Knew no sighing—knew no tears,Knew no bitter, burning tears,Drowning hope fomenting fears,In her brightest, happiest, sunniest of years,Such rare and modest beauty I ne'er may see again,When I knew her,None was truerThan that winsome lively lassie, than the lovely Lilly Lane.Lived this maiden,Beauty laden,By the fountain and the stream;Her life that rainbow's glory,Like Astarte's in the story,Or a fairy haunted dream.Lived she laughing;Queenly quaffingThe sweet waters bright and clear.Pure as dew-drops upon roses,’Neath love's star when evening closes,Pure as love where truth reposes,Knew no doubt, no flattering fear,Knew no heart corroding fear,Thro’ the changes of the year,As she quaffed life's limpid waters sweet and clear,



No maiden ever happier on mountain or on plain,Nought distresses,Fortune blessesThe radiant, laughing, light heart, of lovely Lilly Lane.Knew no dangerTill a strangerIn whose voice was music's soul,Came and threw a spell around her,In the cottage where he found her,And that spell was Love's control.Deeply drinking,Little thinkingLove's deep current hid a charm,That might wake to bliss to-morrow,Or might sink the soul in sorrowCrushing, craze the mind with horror;Or her peace it might alarm,Her innocence alarm,Her purity might harm,As she yielded heart and happiness to Love's uncertain charm;Drank she deeply, as Love's lulling in her bosom swelled itsWhile her lover [strain,Round and ’bove herLured the heart, and hope and happiness of lovely Lilly Lane.But awaking,On the breakingOf Love's spell within her breast,Alas! the lost, lost maiden!Broken-hearted, weary laden,Felt earth held for her no rest.In her anguishLeft to languish,Must she drop away and die.He found her in gladness,He left her in sadness,With a melancholy madness,Her life a lingering sigh,—An agonizing sigh—But Death—a friend—was nigh,And a serpent-bitten lily did she droop and fade and die,Thus passed away like form of mist along the morning main,Sinking slowly,Lonely, lowly,Passed away the shadowy form and life and love of Lilly Lane.And another,—Her fond brother—Lies death clasped by her side;When he knew her wrong and errorWith a deep heart-with'ring terror,



Did he sicken too—and died!And the fountainOn the mountainIts murm'ring waters lave,Near a classic Beach-tree's weepingWhere the Ivy dark is creepingO'er the two who now are sleepingIn the twin-tombed grave.There the rainbows still are bending,Bright with promise never ending,Faith, and Love, and truth all blending,Arching heavenward, beaming hope around that grave,But such rare and modest beauty, I may never see again,Since that beautyIs Death's booty,Since the grave gloats o'er the early lost, the lovely Lilly Lane.THE LION AND THE TERRAPIN.

(Written by WILLIAM HILL BROWN, who died in 1795 while reading Law with Gen'l Davie.)

Bella! Horrida Belia!—VIRG.The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.—SOL.A FAMED Hibernian, in this curious age,Confined the King of Beasts within a cage:Keeping his Majesty in durance vile,From place to place, he journeyed many a mile;Travell'd thro’ Chowan, Halifax and Nash,By which he pocketed a deal of cash;Commenc'd a gentleman, and taught to play,He grew in grace with fortune every day:As Tully eloquent, as Stentor loud,Thus he harangued the ever wond'ring crowd—“Come, gentlemen—behold the sweetest cratureThat e'er was modell'd by the hand of Nature,A spectacle to feast a curious eye on—Come, gentlemen, walk up and see the Lion!All beasts confess his tyranny complete,And, trembling, crouch for mercy at his feet:No animal his peerless power withstood,He reign'd the monarch of the Libyan wood.Sole sov'reign of the plain—no odds he begsOf any beast that walks upon four legs.“Ah!” said a Planter, “in our modern age,To see the mightiest Monarch in a cage,Is no new thing:—but, by the immortal gods!If you declare this Lion asks no odds,An animal I'll bring, shall make him roar,And bathe that visage with his royal gore:Make you the way—and behold what follows.”“Done,” said the master, “for a hundred dollars!”



Off went the Planter for his beast, so keen—All wond'ring what the devil he could mean.At length he brought—the lion to oppose,What seemed “a fiddle that had feet and toes.”*“Here, boastful wretch, behold the Loggerhead,Who never from his adversary fled:Sole monarch of the Swamp—he fights his foe,With certain skill, and conquers at a blow.Show him the royal Lion, and you'll seeHe'll reverence kings like Prince Egalité!”Now for the fight the combatants prepare,Now in the cage, behold the advent'rous pair!The scales of vict'ry hanging in the skies,Were then discovered by poetic eyes,Wavering in doubt, unknowing to subsideFor Carolina's boast or Afric's pride.Wise Terrapin, beneath his coat of mail,Took in, secure, his head and legs and tail;So when the wind blows hard, and thunders roll,And tempests shake the world from pole to pole,The cautious sailor sees the verging woe,Furls up his sails and drops the yard below,* See “A Tour in the United States,” by one Smith. He thus describes the Terrapin: “I saw an animal crawl behind a rock, which I could compare to nothing but a fiddle with feet to it.”Rides on the billow's top, sublime and vast,And scorns, serene, the elemental blast.Advancing firm, the Monarch of the plainLash'd his long tail and rear'd his mighty mane,Thrust out his princely paw—and, at one thwack,Extended Terrapin upon his back,But, free of pain, and without loss of gore,The Carolinian found his legs once more,Laugh'd at the Lion's strength, and mock'd his frown,And rose the stronger for the knocking down.’Twas thus of old—poetic history shows,Alcides fought, and thus Antaeus rose.Hark! from the skies a rattling peal of thunder!*The Gods and Goddesses look down with wonder,’Tis a Land-Turtle with the Lion strives!They never saw such fighting in their lives.“Now, let the Carolinian win”—Jove said,And shook the reverend honors of his head,Whom Jupiter befriends must then prevail,So smiling Victory turns the dubious scale.LEO, unknowing whom he had in fight,Stoop'd down his head to take a nearer sight,While Terrapin, firm, watchful, never scar'd,Directly seized his highness by the beard;* See Homer's Batrachomuomachia.



That is, so bit the Lion by the jowl,He could not disengage him for his soul.Close as a lover to his mistress dear,Close as the pillory to a rascal's ear,Close as a miser to a bag of joes,So close hung Terrapin to Leo's nose.Soon as the master saw what came to pass,Not Sancho griev'd so loudly for his ass;Not with more sorrow did the Trojan damesBewail their Hector dead, and Troy in flames;Not trembling Frenchmen with more rage and fear,At the last feat of General Dumourier.At length, to generous pity all inclinedWith godlike sympathy within his mind,The great Hibernian ey'd the fray as cruel,In tears exclaiming, “O, my baste! my jewel!”Then to the Planter turn'd—“Ah! dearest honey,Release my Lion, and receive your money.”The subtle hero, liking well the truce,Received his bet and let the lion loose:Then to the mighty conqueror said, “Yes! go—Enjoy your freedom in the vale below:O! may your bed of laurel-leaves be made,And sweet magnolias blossom round your head,Amphibious Victor! Terrapin divine!Yours be the glory, but the wager mine.”Mrs. S. M. Chunn.
THE SILENT MULTITUDE OF THE DEAD.
OH mighty city of the dead! what numerous host are here;And yet all motionless they lie, unmoved by sorrow's tear,Or by the mourner's wailing grief who weeping stands aboveThis temple filled with pulseless hearts, of lost and buried love.Tho’ gladsome rays of morning come, to gild the hallowed spot,Unnoticed all their glories shine; the sleepers heed them not.Tho’ radiant beams of noontide fall with clear effulgent light,Yet to that silent multitude ’tis one long dreamless night.



The evening sunshine kindly stays to throw its influence there,And twilight's gentle dews descend to weep the pitying tear;That hour so full of holy thought, to sweet communion given,When spirits of the loved below, commune with those in Heaven.The beauty of the earth and air, the sky and boundless sea,—The glorious face that Nature wears, all glad and bright and free,Charms not the sleepers resting here, nor wakes one throb of joy;Oh Death, insatiate conqueror! thou'rt mighty to destroy.The husband here in calmness lies, and resting by his sideIs she his heart's young chosen one, his fond and trusting bride:He cares not that she there reclines in quiet by him now,For Death's unfeeling touch has chilled that fair and polished brow;The tender buds of hope and love, that came with morning's bloom,The frosts of Death have blighted now, and laid within the tomb.The lovely form of youth is here, the beautiful and pure—Alas! O mighty conqueror! thine aim is ever sure.Here all unmoved, the Mother's heart lies pulseless, cold, and still,That heart so constant, warm and pure, so firm thro’ good and ill;The dirging grief of stricken ones cannot avail them now,Nor cause one ray of tenderness to light that pallid brow.But oh! a new unclouded dawn, a glorious morn shall rise,A morning of celestial birth, a herald from the skies,—When pealing thro’ the trembling air, the trumpet's sound shall comeTo wake the silent multitude that slumbers in the tomb.The wicked, ah, their fearful doom, no mighty one to save;Far better to have slumbered on within the gloomy grave;Not so the faithful and the good, with joy they'll quit the tomb,And rise to life and light again in youth's redoubled bloom.Then heart shall meet with kindred heart, and anthems loud shall rise,While rapturous notes of harmony shall echo through the skies;“All hail, thou great Deliverer!” the ransomed ones shall sing,“Oh grave, where is thy victory? Oh Death, where is thy sting?”



THE GRAVE OF ROSALIE.

The following lines were suggested by a visit to the grave of a young lady who died and was buried away from her home.

I CAME to thy grave, thou gentle one,’Twas here in a stranger land,But I saw that affection's task was done,By friendship's kindly hand.The softened rays of the setting sunShone light on thy place of rest,And I thought of the glorious life begunBy thee in the home of the blest.And I thought of thy mother who sadly wept,And grieved that she could not seeThe sacred spot where her darling slept,Her cherished Rosalie.But though thy grave is distant hereFrom thy childhood's happy home,Yet oft shall affection's silent tearBedew thy silent tomb.And the birds will come at evening hour,And warble a plaintive lay,And sing of thee—a cherished flower,So early passed away.The murmuring winds with gentle strainShall still thy requiem sigh;And the flowers will bloom and fade againWhere thy mouldering ashes lie.But thy spirit, all free and unconfined,Shall still in rapture rise;And Heaven shall claim thy immortal mind,A gem within the skies.THE DYING YEAR.
THE dying year! the dying year! how swift the moments fly,We hear it in the murmuring wind that passes sadly by,We see it in the sombre face that weeping Nature wears,’Twill soon be numbered with the past, the long forgotten years.



The joyous Spring that gladly came in Nature's fair array,With robes all bright and beautiful, to grace the gladsome day,Shone on us with its look of love a few brief passing hours,And then the glorious light of Spring departed like its flowers.The Summer came with golden fruits, with gorgeous flowers and gay,But yet its never wearying hours passed swiftly on their way,Till Autumn with its noiseless step, its sure but silent tread,Had o'er the hills and valleys round, a deeper lustre shed.Then Winter came with hollow sound, with low and rustling toneIt told that Summer's glorious hours, and Autumn's light had flown:The year that lately on us shone, so fair, so bright and gay,Is passing, passing, swiftly on, departing still away.And shall we come with festive song, and music's gladsome swellTo chase the dying year away, and bid it thus farewell?Are there no buried hopes to lie within the lonely bierThat soon will close in sadness round the fast departing year?How many young and buoyant hearts, that gladly hailed its dawn,From earthly scenes, and earthly hopes, and earthly cares are gone!The gentle look, the thrilling tone, the beating heart is stilled,The voice of sweetest melody by Death's cold touch is chilled.But whispers from the spirit-land in accents softly come,And tell us of a fairer clime, a never-dying home;A clime where seasons never change, a land beyond the tomb,Where heavenly streams in glory flow, and flowers eternal bloom.Then with the year's departing lay; O let us raise above,The voice of deep and earnest prayer to Him whose name is Love;That when our year of Life shall close, a bright and glorious evenShall herald forth a noble rest prepared for us in Heaven?



TO A BRIDE.
THOU hast come in all thy truthfulness to breathe the marriage vow,The light of hope and happiness is resting on thy brow;The zephyry veil whose silken folds are softly thrown apart,Waves gently by the peaceful throbs of thy young and loving heart.And fondly turn thy speaking eyes, thou young and trusting bride,To him who stands in manhood's truth and firmness by thy side.The vow is made, the pledge is sealed, the solemn promise given,’Tis finished, sanctioned, here below, and upward borne to Heaven.Oh! shield her well, thou trusted one, with fond and tender care,And kindly still in after years her joys and sorrows share,Guard with a pure and holy love affection's sacred flower,’Twill bloom with all redoubled light to grace thy Eden bower.Light forms of grace, and happy hearts are in the festive throng,And bird-like voices carol forth the melody of song;The air is filled with sweet perfume, the fragrant breath of flowers,While music's gladsome strains are heard to cheer the passing hours.Yes, thou art happy, dearest one—no darkened shadows lie,To mar thy spirit's truthfulness, or dim thy kindling eye;Not ever thus the light of hope will span thy youthful brow,Nor will the sun of happiness, shine smilingly as now.But oh! when clouds and shadows fall, may Heaven with pitying eye,Send Mercy's welcome angel down to calm the heaving sigh;May bright-winged Seraphs guard unseen thy home of youthful love,And may thy union here so blest, be sweeter far above.Then calmly go, beloved one, rejoicing on thy way,Sweet memories of thy loveliness, will ever with us stay.Our spirits oft will hold with thee communion fond and true,And gild with light the parting hour that heard each fond adieu.



Edward Cantwell.
UPON THE DEATH OF TWO INFANTS.
IF lifeless now, the narrow tombEnwrap their forms in Earth,Weep not, Mother; ’tis the wombWhence fairer life takes birth.Weep not, that in early hourThe night shades o'er us fall,From every leaf and dewy flow'rThe angels whisp'ring call.Two rovers from the spirit land,But for a moment given,Heard then, the summons of the band,And wing'd their way to Heaven.THE MINSTREL.

“Einst ist die Liebe.”

WHO goes so late, through wind and night,With joyous face and beaming eye,His step so firm, his heart so light?Means he with light guitar love's fate to try?Ah, youthful bard, trust not the fair,Their hearts are ever false and vain:Trust not thine eyes; turn not thine ear:Heed not their song: wake not thy strain,For woman's heart will triumph in thy pain.Away false Doubt, the youth replies,Damp not thus, my soul with sorrow,True Love from thee for ever flies;—Thy gloomy Past, shall know no morrow,Nor hearts like mine, thy griefs shall borrow.* * * * * *The bard thus spoke, before he woke the lay,And sang to one, whom Love had given,To call new blessings on the day



When first he reached this earth from heaven,While joined in her, all Grace, seem'd brighter even.Now on the winds his sighings rise,Beneath the lattice sings the Boy,And upward turns his tender eyes,Rise sweetest hopes, and welcome joy,While thus Love's songs the gentle hours employ.* * * * * *But pleads the fond minstrel in vainTo her heart cold and unfeeling,As that blue lake on It'ly's plain,Its own waters self congealing,Sinks in the grave, its own waves die sealing.Now colder blows the midnight blast,Hoarse peal the bells in sullen toll,The driven snow falls round him fast,And fly the hopes that filled his soul,Like the dark clouds that swiftly o'er him roll.Through the tall and quaint old trees,Down sheds the light a mellowed gleam,Like silv'ry moonlit seas;—Like a diamond's glitt'ring beam,The snow-hung branches, round him shining seem.Two starry tears, in silence fall,Congealed they fasten on the string,That woke so oft Love's sweetest call.No more for thee, shall lovers sing:The tones are hushed that told their suff'ring.WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE.
A SOLEMN scene, where trees are bendingO'er the waters deep below:—A lonely bird to Heaven ascendingThrough the golden Evening-glow!And dark one half the mirror-water,And bright beside the other seems,Thus Joy, and Grief sin's elder daughterShare, each one half; life's dreams.Go show thy soul that bird uprisingFull through the upper airSymbolic; to thy sense apprising,Thy true home is ever near.



William J. Clarke.
LINES TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SAID SHE HAD
NEVER LOVED.
AND thou hast never loved? ne'er feltThat soft suffusion o'er thee steal,Which causes sternest hearts to melt,And proudest knees to kneel!And thou hast never felt that powerWhich makes the human heart confess,That often in one little hourWe live an age of happiness?Thy form is fair, a fitting shrineWhere sympathies so soft may dwell,And yet the passion so divineDoth ne'er within thy bosom swell!I gaze on thee, and o'er me streamsOne of my own bright youthful dreams,A tale of Greece, I've often thoughtWith deep romantic int'rest fraught.’Neath verdant arches of a groveWhere Art with Nature's beauties strove,By crystal fount whose limpid waveA sweet refreshing coolness gave,There stood a form of perfect mould,The brightest thought of Poet's mind,Where living stone the story told,And manly beauty was defined.Here often came a maid so fairAs all description to surpass;If you would know her beauty rare,Go lady—view your looking-glass.She gazed upon that classic face,That faultless form, where manly graceAnd beauty in each member spoke,And in her breast new feelings woke.Her heart weighed down with tenderness,She quite forgot the lifeless stone



With sweet return could never blessA heart so loving as her own.Oh! pure and holy love was thisThe Grecian maiden felt,Her gentle sigh, her burning kiss,E'en heart of stone should melt.But still in changeless beauty stoodHer soul's divinity, as tho’The gentle maiden bright and good,Sweet homage paid him by her woe.* * * * * ** * * * * *They sought the maiden, and they foundHer lifeless at the statue's feet,Her twining arms his knees around,Her eyes upraised his gaze to meet.Her saddened smile did seem to say,My life for thee I give away!I pardon crave, O lady fairAnd rich in woman's loveliness,That with a statue I compareOne formed some noble heart to bless.But many a heart beats proud and high,When thy bright eye is on it thrown,And many a voice doth sadly cry,“Fair one! thy heart is made of stone!”Bright may be the sky above thee,Thy life a rainbow span of bliss,But for him, who'll truly love thee,Thy own sweet smile is happiness.“HOPE ON HOPE EVER.”
“OH star of Hope! for ever shed,Thy bright influence round my head,Still let me hail thee from afarAnd claim thee for my guiding star.”Be thou an anchor to my soul,When waves of sorrow wildly rollLet not time or place disseverFrom mem'ry “Hope on Hope ever.”An angel spoke, and Heaven heardWith loud applause the cheering word:Be strong in faith, in truth, in allThat's great and good, let naught appal



Thy spirit's zeal or quail the eyeThat's fixed on lofty destiny.Walk firm and proud, and still “hope on,”Until thy high reward is won.“Hope on,” till monument besideTime's all engulfing stream, in prideThou art, or brightly beaming gemIn History's proud diadem.Hope on!—the ministrel's eye is dim,There is no hope, no joy for him,No friendly ear shall hear his moan,A pilgrim on his way—alone.Tριλλιστε ασπασιη.
“THRICE PRAYED FOR, BEST BELOVED.”
OH! the heart is a free and a governless thing!Hence strangely and madly it often will clingTo a glance of the eye, and a smile of the cheek,Till fettered in chains it vainly may seekTo break, and in gladness once more to possessIts wide roving freedom, its bright joyousness.And Love is a pure and a hallowed flame,No dangers can daunt, and no tortures can tame,Else would it not soar with pinion unfurled,O'er all the distinctions of men of the world,Not caring for wealth, and titles, and name,But seeking for heart, and pureness of flame.Then blame me not, lady, that flushed is my brow,That warm are the words I speak to thee now,Suspicion may sneer at and madly defameAn innocent love and a guileless flame,But earth hath no passion, nor is there above,A knowledge of aught more holy than love.PARAPHRASE.

“And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go: and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

“Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”—Ruth, 1st chap. 16th and 17th verses.

“ENTREAT me not,” nor say to me, go seek a better fate,I could not turn and go away and leave thee desolate,Our sorrowing hearts and kindred woe strong fellowship doth join,And where thou goest I will go, and with thee will sojourn.Thy people will I call mine own, thy God my God shall be,And where thou diest I will die, and find a grave with thee;



Then listen, Mother, to my words, the Lord my witness be,That naught but death shall ever break my spirit's constancy.In company we'll heave the sigh, and drop the bitter tear,And in community of woe will find a comforter.Then tempt me not, nor say to me, go seek a better fate,Earth hath no joy, my life no sweet, thou'lt not participate.Dougan Clark.
THE RAINBOW
OH! saw ye the rainbow encircling the sky,As the voice of the thunder went bellowing by?Did ye mark the mild hues of its beautiful lightWhen the clouds hovered round like the angel of night?Oh! welcome to me is its gay arching form,As it sits ’mid the blackness, the crown of the storm,’Tis the sign of the promise dispelling the gloom,Like a bright ray of hope at the gate of the tomb.As I look on its brightness, I think of the dayWhen the Ark on the mountain of Ararat lay,And the Patriarch's sons from that pinnacle seatLooked down on the desolate world at their feet.Ah, me! what destruction was spread o'er the pathWhere Jehovah had emptied his vials of wrath,



Where the deluge of waters had rolled its full tide,And swept from the mountains, the children of pride.The mighty were fallen, the judgment had come,The temples had vanished, the idols were dumb,And the silence of death gave a gloom of despair,To the raven's lone cry, as she banqueted there.And then came a sound like the voice of a psalm,The words of the Father, I AM, and I AM,“Behold it is finished, the trial is o'er,The cup of my vengeance, I'll empty no more.The seed-time, and harvest and rain shall not ceaseTill on earth is established, my kingdom of Peace,And now for a sign that ye truly may know;Behold I have set in the cloud, my bright BOW.”That pledge painted now on the Heavens I hail,As a covenant's token that never will fail,And it seems as its radiance enraptures the sight,A symbol of love, from the Palace of Light.And Oh! to the Christian how sweet is the thought,That a covenant new by the Saviour is wrought,And that Mercy to purge from the sin and the dross,Bids us fly to the rainbow that hangs o'er the Cross.Mrs. C. A. Dare.
TO ANNIE.
I DO not wish thee here, Annie,Yet sometimes when I seeA group of lovely children, Annie,I can but think of thee.A year has passed away, Annie,Since I kissed thy pale, cold face,And they laid thee in the grave, dear,Thy last sad sleeping place.I'm standing in the door, Annie,And the scene is green and fair,But the dearest feature in itIs the green hill where you are.



Why think I of your body, dear,Fast passing into clay,When I know your angel spiritIs bright in heaven's array?I'm often now quite sick, Annie;Perhaps it mayn't be longBefore I too, my daughter,Shall join your blessed throng.And if I knew ’twere right, Annie,I'd ask thee, breathe a prayer,To thy King and Lord and Saviour,To let me enter there:To give to me his Spirit, Annie,Of constant, fervent prayer,To seek that kingdom daily, Annie,Where I feel my treasures are.Now my heart is something lighterSince my thoughts I've tried to tell;I go to earth's stern duties—My angel child, farewell!MARRIAGE OF THE SUN AND MOON.

The following beautiful allegory, describing an annular eclipse, was written by the late H. S. Ellenwood, of this State, many years ago, for our paper, and was subsequently copied into almost every journal of the Union. The gifted author is no more, but this chaste and beautful effort of his pen deserves to be perpetuated.—Raleigh Register.

Do you know that a wedding has happen'd on high,And who were the parties united?’Twas the Sun and the Moon! in the halls of the skyThey were joined, and our continent witness'd the tie,No continent else was invited.Their courtship was tedious, for seldom they metTête-à-tête while long centuries glided,But the warmth of his love she could hardly forget,For, tho’ distant afar, he could smile on her yet,Save when Earth the fond couple divided.



But why so prolix the courtship? and whySo long was postponed their connection?That the bridegroom was anxious ’twere vain to deny,Since the heat of his passion pervaded the sky;But the bride was renown'd for reflection.Besides, ’tis reported their friends were all vexed;The match was deemed somehow unequal;And when bid to the wedding, each made some pretextTo decline, till the lovers, worn out and perplex'd,Were compell'd to elope in the sequel.Mars and Jupiter never such business could bear,So they haughtily kept themselves from it;Herschel dwelt at such distance he could not be there;Saturn sent, with reluctance, his Ring to the fair,By the hands of a trustworthy Comet.Only one dim, pale Planet, of planets the least,Condescended the nuptials to honor;And that seemed like skulking away to the East:Some assert it was Mercury acting as priest,Some Venus a-peeping—shame on her!Earth in silence rejoiced as the bridegroom and brideIn their mutual embraces would lingerWhilst careering through regions of light at his sideShe displayed the bright Ring not “a world too wide”For a conjugal pledge on her finger.Henceforth shall these orbs, to all husbands and wives,Shine as patterns of duty respected;All her splendor and glory from him she derives,And She shows to the world the kindness He givesIs faithfully prized and reflected.



The Hon. William Gaston.

The following poems from the pen of Judge Gaston, were none of them intended for publication, and with the exception of “The Old North State,” appear now for the first time in print; they were principally written when he was a very young man, or for the amusement of children, whom he had a singular facility in attaching to him. the May-day Song was composed for the scholars of an Infant School, and sung by them at one of their fêtes. Many who then “encircled their heads with fresh chaplets of flowers,” have passed away like the writer; but the rest, now no longer children, will doubtless gladly recall the innocent enjoyment of that day, which was so kindly promoted and shared by him. It is for their benefit that the May-day song is inserted.

TO ELIZA FROM HER HUSBAND.
THE ardent lay which passion pours,Or, Elegy's subduing flow,As now elate the lover soars,Now sinks desponding full of woe,Is not the strain that courts thine ear;Such ill befits a Husband's muse,But placid Love, and Faith sincereTheir spirit thro’ his verse diffuse.The tricks of phrase—Poetic art!May veil the frauds of guileful youth,But here a plighted, faithful heartPours forth its tale of simplest truth.There is no tie the soul to bind,No charm its best affections move,But makes this heart for ever thine,Thine—in devoted holy love.It has no joy, it knows no fear,—It forms no scheme of future bliss,But thy loved image mingles thereTo cheer, inspire, or check excess—It never dares to breathe a sigh,In humble orisons to Heaven,But thy remembrance still is nigh—For thee the pious vow is given.If toils disgust, or cares molest,The hope of thine approving smiles,Hushes each anxious thought to rest,And Labor of fatigue beguiles.



Thy praise is fame—thy beaming eye“Glistening with affection's dew,”Sorrow repels—forbids the sigh,Or bids it heave to rapture true.Let Misers hoard their ill-got pelf,Let proud men dream of church and state;The struggles of this world of self,The contests of the rich and great—Concern not us—to Heaven resignedWe'll ask defence from temporal harms,Strive Virtue, Peace, and Grace to find,And have a world within our arms!A DREAM.

Miss N. G., on the eve of August 15th, 1802, gave me her glove, which she desired me to bind around my brow when I went to sleep, and enjoined me to communicate to her what dreams it might occasion. The next morning I sent her the following verses:—W. G.

TO HIM whom reason cannot bless,Indulgent Fancy oft is kind;Who ne'er awake knows happinessSome transient joy in sleep may find.To court sleep's gentle, balmy power,Forget the cares by Love inspired,To snatch from misery one short hourI to my couch last night retired.Soon to my fancy horrid scenesOf torments, crimes, and dreadful woes,Appeared, in wild distracted dreams,That in disorder endless rose.At length, sweet Venus to me came,A wreath of myrtle in her hand,I knew her by her lovely mien;Her smile expressive, arch, yet bland.“Yield not, my son, she gently said,Thy mind to bleak inert despair,Think not thou court'st in vain the maidWhom I have formed divinely fair.“I've seen thy woes, I know thy love,Those woes have moved my pitying mind,Thy love which naught could tempt to rove,Has taught e'en Cupid to be kind.“To end thy pain, to crown thy joyThe god of Love does now consent,



Doubt not—for see the powerful boyTo thee this gracious gift has sent.”The wreath upon my brow she bound,The emblem of successful love;Starting with joy—alas! I foundThe wreath was naught but Nancy's glove!THE OLD NORTH STATE.
CAROLINA! Carolina! Heaven's blessings attend her,While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her,Tho’ the scorner may sneer at, and witlings defame her,Yet our hearts swell with gladness whenever we name her.Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State for ever,Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State.Tho’ she envies not others their merited glory,Say, whose name stands higher in Liberty's story?Tho’ too true to herself to crouch to oppression,Who can yield to just rule a more loyal submission?Hurrah, &c.Plain and artless her sons, but whose door opens faster,To the knock of the stranger, or tale of disaster?How like to the rudeness of their dear native mountains,With rich ore in their bosoms, and life in their fountains.Hurrah, &c.And her daughters, the queen of the forest resembling,So graceful, so constant, to gentlest breath trembling;True light-wood at heart, let the match be applied them!How they kindle in flame! oh, none know but who've triedthem. Hurrah, &c.Then let all who love us, love the land that we live in,As happy a region as on this side of Heaven!Where plenty and freedom, love and peace smile before us:Raise aloud! raise together, the heart-thrilling chorus—Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State for ever,Hurrah! Hurrah! The good Old North State.A MAY-DAY SONG.

AIR—“Come, Haste to the Wedding.”

WE'VE encircled our heads with fresh chaplets of flowers,Our spirits are bounding, our hearts light and gay—With mirth and with song, then we'll gladden the hoursWhich flit but too swiftly on this happy day—



Enthroned our young queenIn high state is seen,All radiant in smiles like Love's blooming boy,Come here and seeSimple felicityWhich Truth and Innocence only enjoy.Our tasks laid aside, we've no care till to-morrow,For this day we are freed from the restraints of school,But our festival o'er, we'll return without sorrowTo our books and our maps, our teacher's mild rule.Our fair Queen of MayOn this jocund dayBids all share of a pleasure that never can cloy,Come, then, and seeArtless felicity,Which Truth and Innocence freely enjoy.If old folks should look grave at our frolics and pranks,We beg them remember that once they were young;So smooth down your brows, join our jests and our cranks,And chorus our lays tho’ artlessly sung—With our Queen we invite youAnd will try to delight you,If you'll join in a sport that knows no alloy,Come now and seePerfect felicityWhich Truth and Innocence fully enjoy.OUR MOTHER'S BIRTH-DAY.

Written for his nieces to sing to their mother on the morning of her birth-day.

IS THIS your birth-day, dearest Mother,Is this your birth-day, dearest Mother?Oh, happy may it prove to you,And happy may be every other!For us you've watched, for us you've toiled,And you have loved us best of any;May our returns for all your caresBe grateful hearts and blessings many.Is this your birth-day, dearest Mother,Is this your birth-day, dearest Mother?Oh, happy may it prove to you,And happy may be every other!



Time as it flies on rapid wingSome pain inflicts, some joy is stealing,For every ill it brings on you,Our eager love shall find a healing.Is this your birth-day, dearest Mother,Is this your birth-day, dearest Mother?Oh, happy may it prove to you,And happy may be every other!Of human bliss, of human woe,A mingled lot to you is given,Each duty done, each trial o'er,You'll find a rich reward in Heaven!EPITAPH

On a pet Mocking Bird found dead in its cage, and buried by his grandchildren, Oct. 2d, 1841.

BENEATH this turf by pious love interred,Rest, the remains of a poor Mocking Bird.The tenderest cares could not avail to saveThe cherished playmate from an early grave;Mute now the tongue that late was wont to cheerWith varied warbling every listening ear,And stiff that form which with its agile grace,Called up bright smiles on each admiring face.Such is the fate of all that live below,All must submit to Life's terrific foe.Like this loved bird we who lament his death,Must feebly heave ere long our latest breath;But not like him shall we then wholly die,Mortal, yet heirs of Immortality,When the last trump shall call, we'll spring aboveTo realms of Peace and Joy, and endless love.



Alexander Gaston.
THE GATHERING OF THE VOLUNTEERS.
THEY are gathering, they are gatheringFrom the cabin and the hall,The rifle leaves its bracket,And the steed must quit his stall;The country sends its thousandsAnd the city pours its throng,To resent their Country's insult,To avenge their Country's wrong.They are gathering, they are gatheringFrom mountain and from plain,Resolved in heart, of purpose high,A bold and fearless train.No forceful mandate calls them out,No despot bids them go;They obey the freeman's impulseBut to strike the freeman's blow.They are gathering, they are gatheringLike Autumn's lowering cloud,To scatter in their fearful pathThe foeman's hireling crowd.Right to devoted Mexico,The vengeful tempest rolls,To paralyze their energies,Strike terror to their souls.Our glorious Eagle heralds them,The raven screams on high,He scents the feast of carnageFrom his pathway in the sky.The gaunt wolves gather after them,And follow in their track,They howl their nightly serenadeAround the bivouac.The soldier, though but yesterdayHe left the courtly hall,Where luxury did enervateAnd beauty's eye enthrall;



Forgetful of his downy couchNow flings himself to rest,Weary and overpowered,On Earth's hard but fragrant breast.Careless he moves amid these scenes,Undaunted hastens on,To face the battle's fiery frontWhere glory may be won.And hearts will breathe a prayer for him,Bright eyes will overflow,But wrapt in glory's fevered dreamHe recks not of their woe.See by his side the mountaineer—Nay, stranger, never start!A tear may glisten in his eye,A sigh relieve his heart;The Cabin by the greenwoodWhere his children are at play,Their dame in sorrow too, perchance,And he their Sire away.These thoughts will overcome himLike a summer-cloud, and throwA tinge of sorrow o'er his face,And shade his manly brow;But see, with firmer step he treads,And in his nervous hand,The ponderous rifle quiversLike some lithe and fragile wand.His feelings quelled, himself once moreFirm as the granite rock,Woe to the swarthy Spaniard nowThat midst the battle's shock,Shall meet that arm's resistless sweep;Woe to the Indian scoutAttracts that eye's unerring aim,Amidst the rabble rout.They are gathering, they are gathering,They near the guarded camp,We can see their column's close advance,We can hear their squadron's tramp.The sentry's challenge answers;They are a mingled host,And fill with gladsome jubileeTheir brothers at the post.Now fling abroad the banner,Give it proudly to the gale,Let it flaunt from every hill-top,Let it float from every dale—



Nor furl it until planted,On their cities’ battered walls,And our weary steeds are stabledIn Montezuma's halls.Mrs. Joseph Gales.
SUNRISE ON THE POTOMAC, 1821.
SHRINKING from Ether's kindling rayNight's lesser glories fade away;The bright horizon's golden glowBeams on the waking world below,And Earth and Ocean feel the powerOf this sweet renovating hour.Bathed in the dews of sable night,Earth's gayest florets spring to light;While bush and brier, hill and vale,Fling varied fragrance on the gale,As gliding o'er the liquid way,The distant landscape I survey,Glittering beneath the solar ray.But pent within this narrow space,The outlines merely can I trace,



Yet Fancy paints the distant view,As sweet, as beauteous, and as new.—Advancing still, we leave behindThese bright creations of the mind.’Tis thus in life,—Hope's gentle beamAllures us thro’ its feverish dream,And still her sweetest flowers are shedUpon the path we wish to tread,While youthful fancy leads the hoursTo sunny banks and leafy bowers—But Eve comes on in “mantle gray,”And Fancy's visions fade away,Reality's dark fog appears,And shrouds in mist declining years.But as life's sun shall fade from view,May flowers of sweeter scent and hue,Their holy influence round me shed,And Truth's pure light be o'er me spread.MUSINGS IN THE MONTH OF MAY.
COME, blue ey'd May, the fairest of thy race,Unveil the blushing beauties of thy face,Fly, fly from winter's cheerless, boisterous reign,And melt with sunny smiles his icy chain!Cloudless in azure fields the orb of dayRolls his bright car thro’ the ethereal way;While verdant lawn and dew-bespangled rose,And every soft and fragrant flower that blows,Hails thee, sweet May! The tuneful throngAt thy approach trill the melodious song;Nature shines forth in renovated grace,And “Nature's God” in all his works we trace!Oh! lives there one so heartless and so cold,As all unmoved thy beauties to behold?Who dares to look with an unthankful eyeOn the vast wonders of the earth and sky?The smallest atoms of creative skillAre fashioned to obey his will;All, all derive from God's protecting loveThe power to be, to swim, to fly, to move!The mammoth Elephant of eastern climes—The Whale—Leviathan of other times—The soaring Eagle, drinking beams of light—The tiny Humming-bird in airy flight—The smallest insect in the solar beam—The darting minnows of the sparkling stream—The ephemeral insect of an hour—Proclaim aloud creative power!Forbear my Muse—the strain no higher raise,“For silence is thy least injurious praise!”



On lower notes I touch the trembling strings,Dear are the recollections Maia brings.With thee, fair daughter of the vernal skies,Long vanished days of pain and joy arise;Thy velvet carpet, Nature's favorite hue,To trans-atlantic shores transports my view;The antique castle, hard by Trent's fair stream,The woods, the meads, appear in Fancy's dream;All that I loved in life's bewitching prime,All that adorned that favored, happy clime,The haze of distance marks with tints sublime!Oh, can I e'er forget the light-winged hours,When life's young path was strewed with choicest flowers,And summer's blessings nursed by warmer rays,Hung pleasure's chaplets on the smiling days?—Days of delight! still cherished in my mind,From passing clouds and sadden'd hours refined.Autumn came next, “a web of mingled yarn,”Blessings to cheer, and chastenings to warn:Three seasons bright! their varied flowers I'll twine,And bind the wreath with winter's sombre vine.From life's past scenes extracting moral sweet,Till wearied Nature seeks her last retreat;Oh! when the fevered heat of life shall cease,May its last scenes be joy, and hope, and peace.LINES ON AN INFANT WHO DIED AT THE BREAK
OF DAY.

“Let me go, for the day breaketh.”—Genesis, 31st chap. 26th verse.

“LET me go! the day now breaketh,”Let me wing my happy flight,Soon the sleep that ne'er awaketh,Will with me be endless light.“Let me go,” from scenes of sorrow,Scenes of human guilt and woe,Ere the sun shall rise to-morrow,Brighter beams for me shall glow.“Let me go,” to worlds of glory,Where a bright and cloudless sky,Veils from earth the blissful story,When a spirit soars on high.“Let me go!” the day in breaking,Angels beckon me above,Parents, kindred, all fórsaking,For the joys of heavenly love.“Let me go!” the blaze of morning,Soon will gild this lower scene,



Brilliant gems my path adorning,All on earth looks dark and mean.“Let me go!” for worldly pleasures,Would but bind my soul in chains;Let me go where richer treasures,Peace, and Love, for ever reigns.“Let me go,” where seraphs kneeling,Veil their faces and adore—Tasting joys beyond revealing,Hymning praises evermore!“Let me go!” the sun has risen,Heavenly glories shine around,Now I leave my earthly prison,Now I touch Emanuel's ground.God, my Father, calls me home,“Jesus, Master,” lo, I come!The Rev. Francis L. Hawks.
THE BLIND BOY.
IT was a blessed summer day:—The flowers bloomed, the air was mild,The little birds poured forth their lay,And every thing in nature smil'd.In pleasant thought I wander'd on,Beneath the deep wood's ample shade,Till suddenly I came uponTwo children who had thither stray'd.Just at an aged beach tree's foot,A little boy and girl reclined:—His hand in hers she kindly put,And then I saw the boy was blind.



The children knew not I was near,A tree concealed me from their view,But all they said, I well could hear,And I could see all they might do.“Dear Mary,” said the poor blind boy,“That little bird sings very long:Say—do you see him in his joy,And is he pretty as his song?”“Yes, Edward, yes,” replied the maid;“I see the bird on yonder tree.”The poor boy sighed, and gently said,“Sister, I wish that I could see.“The flowers you say are very fair,And bright green leaves are on the trees,And pretty birds are singing there;How beautiful for one who sees!“Yet I the fragrant flowers can smell,And I can feel the green leaf's shade,And I can hear the notes that swellFrom those dear birds that God has made.“So, sister, God to me is kind,Tho’ sight, alas! he has not given:—But tell me:—are there any blind,Among the children up in Heaven?”“No, dearest Edward, there all see;But why ask me a thing so odd?”“Oh, Mary, he's so good to me,I thought I'd like to look at God.”Ere long, disease his hand had laidOn that dear boy, so meek, so mild:His widow'd mother wept and pray'd,That God would spare her sightless child.He felt her warm tears on his face,And said, “Oh, never weep for me,I'm going to a bright, bright place,Where Mary says, I God shall see.“And you'll come there, dear Mary, too;But, mother, when you get up thereDear mother, tell your child ’tis you;You know I never saw you here.”He spake no more, but sweetly smil'd—And when the final blow was given,God took above that poor blind child,And open'd first his eyes in Heaven.



THE DEAD WIFE.
’Tis all too true!—I saw thee die,Upon this bosom bore thy head,In love's last kiss caught thy last sigh;And now I feel that thou art dead.I linger yet around thy clay,I utter here my bursting groan;They have not borne thee yet away,And left me with my grief alone.Death sits on thee like gentle sleep,The calm repose of breathing life;But o'er that mockery I weepFor thee, my loved, my lost, my wife!I weep o'er blighted hopes of youth,Each fond endearment of the past,Thy tenderness, thy trust, thy truth,Thy love that lingered to the last.For mem'ry will that scene retain,When bending o'er thy dying face,Thy feeble arm essay'd in vainTo fold me in a last embrace.Yon sun is shining bright and high,The summer winds are floating free,All nature smiles—but I, but I:—Ah! nature wears no smile for me.There's not a flower around me blows,There's not a bird above me sings,But sadness o'er my head it throws,And bitter recollection brings.The sunlit flower, the summer breeze,And all this breathing world I see;—Oh, where is she who smil'd on these,Then turned in love to smile on me?Let my tired spirit answer where!Let my crushed spirit trembling bow:—In Heaven, in Heaven! I'll find her there;I know why I am smitten now.And now I would not dare to breakThe quiet of her tranquil rest;Sleep on, till God shall bid thee wake,Sleep on, my beautiful, my blest!



TO AN AGED AND VERY CHEERFUL CHRISTIAN
LADY.
LADY! I may not think that thouHast travell'd o'er life's weary road,And never felt thy spirit bowBeneath affliction's heavy load.I may not think those aged eyesHave ne'er been wet with sorrow's tears;Doubtless thy heart has told in sighs,The tale of human hopes and fears.And yet thy cheerful spirit breathesThe freshness of its golden prime,Age decks thy brow with silver wreaths,But thy young heart still laughs at Time.Life's sympathies with thee are bright,The current of thy love still flows,And silvery clouds of living light,Hang round thy sunset's golden close.So have I seen in other lands,Some ancient fane catch sweeter grace,Of mellow'd richness from the handsOf Time, which yet could not deface.Ah, thou hast sought mid sorrow's tears,Thy solace from the lips of truth;And thus it is that four-score yearsCrush not the cheerful heart of Youth.So be it still!—for bright and fair,His love I read on thy life's page;And Time! thy hand lay gently there,Spoil not this beautiful old age.A PICTURE OF LIFE.

“There is a bright and dark side to every thing in life. It is wise to look for the former: it may always be found.”

THOU gentle brook, by thy sweet side,With lingering steps I love to stray,And hear the ripple of thy tideMake music on its joyous way.Chafed by the pebbly bed below,I see thee now in bubbles foam;And now I mark thy wavelets flow,In glassy smoothness gliding home.



Now thou art lost in yonder dell,Whose matted foliage hides from sight,In darkness there awhile to dwell,Then laughing leap once more to light.Now thy bright surface takes the beam,To throw it back to yonder sun;And now again thou hid'st thy stream,And all unseen thy waters run.Thus light and shade alternate playUpon thy current flowing free;And musing on thy changeful way,A moral hast thou taught to me.The brook is life.—The pebbly bed,The trials that keep pure the stream;The bubbles—airy hopes that fled,Like visions of a vanish'd dream.The leafy darkness of the dell,Is sorrow's cloud of faithless fears;The sunny light,—the joys that swell,When Heaven hath kissed away our tears.But, gentle brook, the pebbly bed,I see is not thy changeless lot,Nor bubbling foam, nor darkness dread:But many a sweet and sunny spot.So trials sore, and hopes delayed,And sorrow's cloud, are not the wholeThat God on earth, for man, has made,For there is sunlight for the soul.Nor light, nor shade, we changeless see,The stream runs dark, and now ’tis bright—In light—then let me grateful be;In darkness—patient, wait for light.A CHILD'S FAITH.
I KNEW a widow, very poor,Who four small children had;The oldest was but six years old—A gentle, modest lad.And very hard this widow toiledTo feed her children four;An honest pride the woman felt,Though she was very poor.



To labor she would leave her home—For children must be fed;And glad was she when she could buyA shilling's worth of bread.And this was all the children hadOn any day to eat;They drank their water, ate their bread,But never tasted meat.One day when snow was falling fast,And piercing was the air,I thought that I would go and seeHow these poor children were.Ere long I reached their cheerless home;’Twas searched by every breeze;When going in, the eldest childI saw upon its knees.I paused to listen to the boy—He never raised his head:But still went on and said—“Give usThis day our daily bread.”I waited till the child was done,Still listening as he prayed—And when he rose, I asked him whyThe Lord's Prayer he had said?“Why, sir,” said he, “this morning, whenMother went away,She wept because she said she hadNo bread for us to-day.“She said, we children now must starve,Our father being dead;And then I told her not to cry,For I could get some bread.“ ‘Our Father,’ sir, the prayer begins,Which made me think that he,As we have got no father here,Would our kind Father be.“And then you know the prayer, sir, too,Asks God for bread each day;So in the corner, sir, I went,And that's what made me pray.”I quickly left that wretched room,And went with fleeting feet;And very soon was back again,With food enough to eat.



“I thought God heard me,” said the boy;I answered with a nod—I could not speak, but much I thoughtOf that child's faith in God.Philo Henderson.
MEMORY'S RETROSPECT.
I STOOD upon the borders of the day,And watched the shadows falling from on high,And saw day's beams before their pinions gray,Fly swiftly down along the western sky;And bear upon their pale and quivering wings,Joys such as I can never know again:Whate'er the dark mysterious future brings,It cannot be so pure, so free from pain.In mem'ry then I sadly wandered back,Along the checkered stream of life,And strewed along its barren, storm-beat track,I saw the marks of sorrow and of strife.



Many a goodly wreck of hope was there,Splendid ruins of youth's fitful dreams;Reposing tranquilly with quiet air,Beneath the light of mem'ry's hallowing beams.I thought of her, the beautiful, the bright,The fairest flower that e'er was wet with tears,The brightest star that ever shed its light,Across the gloom of life's long weary years.She calmly sleeps now in the silent grave,And the sweet flowers alone above her weep,And tearfully at dewy evening waveBeneath the stars that there their vigils keep.I've watched the evening come on dusky wing,When standing on the borders of the day,And felt that life had nothing more to bring,Of joy like that which time then bore away.THE ANTHEM OF HEAVEN.
THRO’ the dark realm of chaos ere the morning of Time,The strains of an anthem pealed onward sublime,Swelling up from the harps of angels on high,Unechoed they swept down the dim starless sky.The sun, moon, and earth, and stars were not there,To catch the grand strains of that heavenly air;But on, ever on, thro’ dim chaos and night,They bent their grand, solemn, and measureless flight.When God by his word, spoke in being the earth,Those strains echoed back, sung in Heaven its birth,And sun, moon, and stars beneath Jehovah's glance,In beautiful order wheeled into the dance.And now, where the farthest bright tremulous star,On the horizon's verge drives its silvery car,The strains of that anthem are re-echoed back,As that star to their music pursues its bright track.The sky-piercing mountain, the shadowy vale,The cloud that unfurls its white vapory sail,The flower that blooms by the cataract's roar,And ocean along its lone desolate shore,Adoringly feel and respond to those tones;And the proud heart of man their sweet influence owns,When they swell on the wings of the dark tempest's might,Or breathe thro’ the calm of the weeping twilight.To their music in time the wide universe sweeps,In its grand stately march thro’ unlimited deeps;



From the loveliest star to which Chaldean's prayedTo the insect that winds his small horn in the shade.When the Archangel's trump, with its loud pealing strain,Shall wake their long sleepers from mountain and plain,The strains of that hymn, will swell higher and higher,And blend with the roar of Time's funeral pyre.Then onward, sublimely ‘unanswered once more,’Thro’ the dim starless sky they will sweep as of yore,And for ever bend down their long measureless flight,Thro’ the dim rayless regions of chaos and night.SWEET MARY, DOST THOU REMEMBER?
DOST thou remember, sweet Mary, the days,The long summer-days, when by the brook-side,Thy sweet voice poured forth love's innocent lays,While musing we watched the glad waters glide.Sweet Mary, dost thou remember?Dost thou remember, sweet Mary, the tree,The white-blossomed tree that stood by the stream,From whose scented branches the bird and the bee,Commingled their songs with the hues of our dream.Sweet Mary, dost thou remember?Dost thou remember, sweet Mary, the tale,Which trembling I breathed in thy listening ear;As the blossoms, like snow, swept down the sweet gale,You sighed a reply, ’twixt a smile and a tear.Sweet Mary, dost thou remember?We little thought then, as we sat by the brook,While the shadows of evening warned us away,That we never more together should lookOn the wild blossoms blent with the waters at play.Thy hand clasped in mine, sweet trembler.Many, many years after, I passed by the tree,And stood on the bank of the beautiful stream,The tree was decayed, and complaininglyThe streamlet crept on, unillum'd by a beam.’Twas choked by snows of December.Our hearts though once wedded, have felt sorrow's chill,Like dead leafless trees they stand, naked alone,Their blossoms are gone—and affection's glad rillFlows not with the sweet and melodious toneIt breathed in days we remember.



COME, SING ME A SONG.
COME, sing me a song of love and youth,When the heart was pure and free;And the soul looked thro’ the eye in truth,And the lips talked earnestly.Let it be a tale of other days,In the years for ever gone;O'er which the light of mem'ry's raysIs so softly, sweetly thrown.When first thy sweet and heavenly faceLike a star rose o'er my soul,And thy witching smile and winning grace,First began their soft control.Those good old times, how bright they seem,Thro’ the gathering mists of years;How fondly oft of them we dream,In this cold, dark vale of tears.Dearer to me are the memoriesOf the halcyon days of youth,Than the world with all its wealth and ease,With its want of love and truth.Then sing a song of the golden times,When our hearts beat happily,And we spent the hours in love and rhymesAlone ’neath the greenwood tree.TO THE AUTHOR OF LUCY ALTON.
THY holy thoughts, like eve's descending dewUpon some sweet and solitary flower,Fell on my heart, awaking feelings new,By their deep magic, and enchanting power.And like the breeze, when laden with perfume,It flits along upon its airy wings,Playing ’mid flowery gardens all in bloom,They swept across my bosom's trembling strings.In what enchanted region dost thou dwell?And is thy glowing heart or young or old?From which such bright and heavenly dreamings swell,Into a tale so beautifully told.Hast thou e'er felt the aching of the heart,When its most cherished hopes and prospects die?



And felt the tear of hopeless sorrow start,As the dull hours on leaden wings went by?The question's vain, for thou art fair and young,No cloud has ever rested on thy brow;From age and woe, such dreamings never sprung,From youth and love such musings only flow.BRIGHT RAIN-DROPS.
BRIGHT rain-drops fell on a lonely spot,Where storms had left their blackened trace,By smiling sunbeams long forgot,A sad, most melancholy place.Then fair flowers sprung on fragile stems,And soft Elysian perfumes rose;While bright birds caroll'd choral hymns,As sweet as ever song-land knows.Thus on a heart forgotten, lone,Sweet maiden, let thy loving wordsFall soothingly, and with a toneLike song of happy summer birds.Then thoughts of soft and golden hue,Will o'er it fly on airy wings,And hopes fall on it soft as dewWhich twilight from her mantle flings.And the far future will displayA long array of prospects bright,Like roses at the dawn of day,Wet with the dews of vanished night.From blushing morn till dewy eve,The golden-footed hours will run,And all night long my fancy weaveDreams of a happy life begun.ADA'S SAD FATE.
ON the green banks of Catawba,Once there lived a beauteous maiden,Stainless as the flower at sunsetWith the dews of evening laden.Gentle as the west-wind blowing,Was her soul's unearthly feeling,Softer than the streamlet flowingCame her words that soul revealing.



High the breathings of her spirit,In the radiance brightly beaming,Of that land it would inheritWhen it ceased its earthly dreaming.On the green banks of Catawba,Died that rare and radiant maiden,When the evil days came on her,And her heart with grief o'erladen.Died the victim of delusion;Words, that ne'er were true believing,Words that filled her soul with anguish,While her breaking heart deceiving.Though her heart was blighted, broken,Calmly passed away that maiden,Dying, leaving ne'er a token,Telling how her heart was laden.On the green banks of Catawba,Never more will sit the maiden,Gazing on the laughing water,With the leaves of autumn laden.Never more will sunlit billowGlance in gladness down before her,For she sleeps beneath the willow,And the flowers are springing o'er her.Sadly sorrowing, wand'ring lonely,Mourns for her my soul despairing,And my heart that loved her only,Ever to her grave's repairing.Never more will sounds of gladnessPour their music sweetly o'er me,But for ever strains of sadnessTell me of her mournful story.ON RECEIVING A PRESENT FROM A LADY.
A WAY-WORN pilgrim dying layFar from the haunts of men,Where he had fallen on his way,O'ercome with woe and sin.Fast gathering was the gloomy nightO'er the dim wilderness,When down an angel bent its flight,The pilgrim lone to bless.The gentle murmur of its wings,Breathed on his pallid brow,Soft as the soothing whisperingsOf some pure streamlet's flow.



He turned his dim and glazing eyeOn its angelic face,And there he met the sweet reply—He yet should win the race.The pilgrim's heart then warmer grew,His eye regained its light,His fears and weakness from him threwAnd boldly braved the night.And on him beamed along his wayThe angel's smile divine,Until at last before him layThe holy, long-sought shrine.LINES.
How sadly falls the mournful memoryOf some dear one, loved long dim years ago,Whose warm heart then beat high and joyously,But now, alas! lies mouldering cold and low.I would recall the melancholy taleOf one I knew in life's gay, smiling spring,When earth seem'd beautiful as Eden's vale,And joy flew near on glad and golden wing.Her heart was broken, and the sombre shadeOf silent sorrow dimmed her soft blue eye,And in their graves her young sweet hopes were laid,But ah! they left a pang that would not die.Ofttimes a sweet and solitary strainOf murmuring music, or a whispered sound,Would thrill along the quick electric chain,With which her sad and broken heart was bound.Then tearfully she'd steal away alone,In solemn shadows of the dying day,Remembering each deep magic tone,That stole her warm and guileless heart away.Long years of sorrow and of suffering rolledHeavy and slowly o'er her aching breast,And sullenly each weary hour tolledThe funeral knell of some fond hope that blest.To her the past was like a troubled dream,With forms of Hope and phantoms of despair,While from the future came no wandering beam,No flower of love or hope was blooming there.Still, o'er her face a holy light would play,In some immortal land it had its birth;



Smiles like the last gleam of an autumn day,Told that her soul's pure thoughts were far from earth.Slowly she faded like a lovely star,When the bright moon comes stealing up thy sky,Or some sweet flower that frosts of winter mar,Which weeping bends in loneliness to die.’Twas on a summer eve, a gentle eve,Such as with rapture fills the dreamy soul,That doth with deep immortal longings grieve,That it can never reach its hope's far goal.Her spirit trembled o'er its suffering clay,And brightly beaming thro’ the shades of death,Did o'er her face in heavenly beauty play,And grow more lovely till her latest breath.Long, dreary years have passed since sheLay where the evening's golden sunbeams fell,And with a smile that fluttered mournfully,Breathed with her soft and dying voice—farewell.She calmly sleeps now by a murmuring stream,And near her grave, from others stands apart,A flower that weeps beneath the moon's pale beam,The mournful emblem of her broken heart.THE FLOWER OF CATAWBA.
DOWN in a fair romantic vale,Where willows weep, and to the galeTheir sighing branches fling,A peerless flower unfolds its leaves,When eve her mystic mantle weaves,And twilight waves its wing.And long bright sunny years have flown,O'er its sweet head, and each one strewn,On its pure leaves fresh bloom;And many a soft and balmy breezeFrom off Catawba's flowery leasHas breathed on it perfume.And never since that golden morn,When earliest flowers of Time were born,’Neath Eden's cloudless sky,Has evening shed its weeping dew,Or stars looked from their homes of blue,On one with it could vie.For that sweet flower, the silver waveThat weeps beneath the Indian's grave,And echoes still his song,



As it sweeps onward to the sea,Pours strains of plaintive melody,Its winding shores along.To it was, at its natal hour,By her who reigns in Flora's bower,Immortal beauty given;And when from off its native shore,It greets the evening star no more,—Where Eden's sunny waters pour,’Twill fadeless bloom in Heaven.CATAWBA.
FLOW gently on, thou noble river,Murmur sweetly on thy shore,Thy fairest daughter has for everLeft thee, to return no more.And when thou flowest by the bowerWhere she used to sit and dream,Sing softly, for thy faded flower,With thy gently flowing stream.From thy cool springs amid the mountains,Till thou fallest in the sea,Thou seest not by thy sunny fountainsA flower that blooms so beauteously.Sing sadly, for thy weeping watersNo more will bear on their bright wave,The fairest of thy peerless daughters,For she slumbers in the grave.Ah! cold and silent, calmly sleeping—Sleeping in the voiceless grave,And gloomy cypress branches weeping,Weeping, o'er her, sighing, wave;While the pale, melancholy moonlight,Trembling on thy tearful stream,At the still hour of solemn midnightIn her breast wakes not a dream.By Eden's river, fair, undying,Blooms thy sweet, lost flower now,And sinless angels o'er it flying,To its gentle beauty bow;And on thy bosom, noble river,From its fadeless bower on high,That flower will sweetly look for everWith its blue and tender eye.



LINES.
BEHIND the slowly swelling hills of Time,The stars of Hope and Love have set in gloom,Will they again my life's horizon climb,Or must I wander darkly to the tomb?Am I the child of a resistless fate,Driven by its hand afar from heaven?Can I retrace my steps, or is't too late?Can I repent, be pure, and be forgiven?The wise men of the grave, the olden time,A glorious, an immortal truth revealed,Breathed from the lips of one, the all sublime,“The seared, the broken-hearted may be healed.”That truth shines down thro’ the far shadowy years,And falls like dew upon my blighted heart,Lighting its gloom and banishing its fears,And bidding all its phantom doubts depart.Gleaming beneath its sweet, transcendent light,Far down the vale of coming years appearFroms, which can never know a change or blight,Hopes fixed on truth, hopes to my heart most dear.Such mournful, melancholy thoughts as these,Rolled o'er my soul at midnight's solemn hour,When moaning winds were sighing thro’ the trees,And moon and stars were shedding round their power.Sad, mournful, solemn, melancholy, slow,The gloomy hours on dusky wings, go by:While round me sorrow's turbid waters flow,And o'er me adverse winds blow shrill and high.Sweet friend, think not that I am what I seem,Lost to all sense of honor and of shame,Do not of me too harshly, strictly deem,But let forgiveness take the place of blame.The mariner upon a stormy sea,When winds and waves wage elemental war,Hails with delight, with speechless ecstasy,The trembling beam of some pale distant star.The lowly captive, in his grated cell,By all despised, neglected and forgot,’Neath the glad sunbeam feels his sad heart swell,That lovely sunbeam half relieves his lot.The weary pilgrim, who has won the shrine,Towards which he's travelled long and patiently,



Feels in his heart a heavenly glow divine,A ray, a beam of Immortality.But—I would hail a smile of thine,With rapture wild, such as they never knew,Tho’ the whole world against my heart combine,It will not quail if only thou be true.The Rev. Henry Hardie.
REST—A LEGEND.
THE Feast was o'er,The tribes had come and gone. Anon were heardThe camel's tender tread, the asses’ tramp;And heavily the brazen city-gatesUpon their pivots turned, as loath to passThe homeward caravan of Israelites.The glancing rays of a declining sunStole o'er Jerusalem, and tinged her walls,Her palaces, and domes with golden light.How queenly fair, and beautiful she sat!The emblem of the City of the Lord:The Salem of Melchisedek of old:Her nation's idol, glory, joy and hope.



But faintly does the heart reflectThe image of a smiling, shining world.On Israel's brow a boding shadow hung.The feast was o'er. Within the temple courtSat Rabbi Judah, bent with hoary age.In reverend honored state around him stoodThe six great pillars of the Jewish law.Each in his turn, the learned Fathers spokeOf Rest—Rest for the weary soul.One said abundant wealthWas rest; with massy coffers clogged with gold,And cattle sporting on a thousand hills;And then to live and die without a sin.Another saidThat sweetest Rest was found in world-wide fame.A third, that Rest was powerWith wise and wholesome laws to rule a State.Another said that RestWas in a cheerful hearth and happy home.Another said that RestWas in old age of power, and wealth and fame,Surrounded by one's seed and children's seed.Another said that all were vainWithout obedience to the Ritual law,To strictly keep each jot of its commands.Then Rabbi Judah rose:His temple furrowed like an ancient wall:With here and there a scanty withered lock:His cheek was gaunt; his piercing eye was sunk;But flashed like eyes of earlier, younger days;The tallest of the seven: his trembling frameHe leaned upon his bending mace. Each earWas now unstopped, and anxiously they leaned,To hear the Patriarch speak; to catch the wordsThat from the aged Father's lips should fall.“Well have ye spoken, brothers wise. Yet still,That we find rest, another thing is meet.He only will secure it who, to allShall add a strict, unswerved obedienceTo the tradition by the elders given.”Within the court,Upon its checkered flag-stones, sat a boyOf twelve brief years, unknown and unobserved.With lilies in his lap he boyish played,His round clear eye was calm: his air was meek,His fair and unshorn locks his shoulders hid,And on his cheek played smiling innocence.As the prolonged debate rose high, amazed,He dropped his lilies on his lap and lookedUpon the seers, with countenance that beamedIntelligence, and holiness, and truth.With voice angelic, words that flowed, he said:



“Nay, fathers, he and only he, finds rest,Who loves his brother as himself—loves GodWith all his heart, and mind, and strength, and soul:Far greater this than fame, or power, or wealth.Happier than a happy home: happy e'enWithout a home, or where to lay the head.Better than honored age, he's to himselfA law: above tradition of the Fathers.”The Rabbi were amazed. Aghast and wildThey gazed each in his brother's face.With trembling joints and livid lips, they said,“When the Messiah comes, will he discloseA greater truth than this fair boy has taught?”And with one voice and joyful heart they kneeled,Like captive prisoners thrust from darkest nightInto the glorious mid-day light of truth,And thanked their great Jehovah that old menAre not always the wise. But glory beTo God on high, on earth good will and peaceTo men: out of the mouths of suckling babesMost marvellously God's praise is perfected.The Rev. Rufus Heflin.

The following poems from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Heflin, were written when he was quite a youth, before he had entertained any thoughts of becoming a minister. It is to be regretted that circumstances prevented him from cultivating the evident poetic talent they exhibit. In a letter to a friend he says, “Conscious that my imagination preponderates in an undue degree, I have of set purpose abstained from poetry. I believed that a practical style was best adapted to usefulness in the ministry, and was so passionately fond of poetry that I felt my only safety to be in total abstinence.”

SPRING.

“Sic transit gloria mundi.”

OLD Winter is dead, is dead,And left young Spring his heir,Who mourns for his sire ’tis said,And sprinkles with flowers his bier.He has stationed a choir of birdsTo sing o'er the old man's tomb,



Whose music, if formed into words,Would fill every heart with gloom.Behold! these sweet flowers, they sing,They are bright as the starry isles,And as lovely as is the wingThat wafts us Elysian smiles!But frail as he that is gone,Like him they must soon decay,And when by the tempest strewn,Will wither as soon away.Honors surround him dead,Which living he could not win,And now his spirit has fled,Green laurels bloom for him.And thou, Ambition's slave,Whose hope is earthly fame,Thine heir may strew thy graveWith wreaths thou could'st not gain.All earthly hopes decay,The brightest bloom to die;Like flowers they strew the wayTo dread eternity.IMPROMPTU TO A LADY.
OH! lovely as the sparkling lightOn flashing waters playing,And gentle as the dreams of night,Through childhood's fancy straying,And sweet as is the summer dew,On violet beds descending,Are thoughts of those that once we knew,With mem'ry's visions blending.Then when the holy silent night,Its charm o'er thee is flinging,When loved ones beam upon thy sight,And silent tones are singing;Let but one thought of me intrude,When mem'ry thus is stealingHer charms from time and solitude,And absent forms revealing.



THE VICTIM OF CONSUMPTION.
SHE is fading,—she is fading,Like a rainbow from on high,When he who gave its hues their shading,Recalls those hues beyond the sky.And eyes that never wept with sorrow,Tears of anguish now are weeping;For ere the sun comes forth to-morrow,She will be for ever sleeping!She is dying!—she is dying!Like some wild tone across the sea,Which softly to the night-winds sighing,Dissolves in its own melody.Oh list! her harp-strings feebly sounding,Wake music's wildest, sweetest spell:—Like notes from echo far rebounding,Melts on the ear her last “Farewell.”Those joys which early childhood knew,Seem gently stealing o'er her,And mem'ry brings the enchanted view,Of other days before her.“Oh! once I bloomed in loveliness,And pleasure smiled around me,Oh! once I met the fond caressOf him whose magic bound me.“They tell me now that I shall neverLook on those I love sincerest,They say that death divides forever,From all that life holds dearest.But oh! some spirit whispers, saying,I shall with kindred spirits dwell,—Then welcome Death, no more delaying,My harp attunes my last ‘Farewell.’ ”“WHAT IS LIFE?”
OH! strive not for glory,It lasts but a day,The honored in storyMust vanish away.As mist on the mountain,So the spirit of manReturns to the fountainFrom which it began.



Oh! seek not for treasure,For wealth is in vain,Follow not pleasure:’Twill lead thee to pain.The snow-flakes descendingUpon the deep sea,With its dark waters blending,Are symbols of thee.The thoughts we hold dearest,The pledges we gaveOf love the sincerest,Must sink in the grave.The ties must be brokenThat friendship has twined,No vestige or tokenShall they leave behind.The brightest, the purest,Must haste to decay,All things we love dearestMust “vanish away.”Our joys flee from us,Like phantoms at night,They smile once upon us,And then take their flight.But as tones of musicStill ring on the ear,When the loved one that made it,Is cold on the bier,—Or as flowers when withered,Yield sweeter perfume,Than when they are gatheredIn freshness and bloom,—So surely in Heaven,Shall mem'ry remain,And the joys here given,Be felt there again.TO ALMIRA.
LONG years have passed since we have met,And joy and sorrow have been mine,Long, long it's been, but even yet,I often think of “Auld Lang Syne.”



I've mingled in the glittering throng,The child of passion and of song,But yet in all I've felt or known,My first fond love was still thine own.Long years have passed; and Love and FameHave twined bright wreaths around my brow;But yet in bower or hall, thy nameIs often heard—I hear it now!And when my heart to music set,Hath breathed those notes we ne'er forget,Its sweetest, holiest melodySpeaks but in memory of thee.Long years have passed; and thou and IMay never meet on earth again;But we have loved, and memoryReserves the bliss without the pain.A mystery of light and gloom,Like moonbeams o'er a marble tomb,Still shrouds the past in doubt, but thouWert brightest then, art brightest now.Miss M. A. Hoye.
TO CORINNA.
FOR thee, Corinna, child of light,I bid my Fancy take her flight,On raptured wing away,—awayTo regions where she loves to play.Oh, could she mount on eagle's wing,Aside the dusky vapor fling,And with the eagle's steady gaze,Approach the sun's resplendent blaze,The Poet's sun—whose light o'erwhelmsThe Poet in his native realms;And could she lay a daring handUpon that bright orb's fiery band,Unclasp its zone of quenchless blaze,And snatch away some glowing rays,How would she hurry back again,To throw a halo round my pen,



And weave throughout my promised song,Such light as can alone belongTo that far distant sphere of fire,To which she never may aspire!But she must take a lowlier flight,Catch but the fainter beams of light,Hover about the earth, and gleanThe beauties of the softer scene;Rove idly through the groves and bowers,To gather up the scattered flowers;Go where the sparkling fountains play,And strive to catch the sunlit spray,Seek diamond, pearl or glittering toy—Must I my Fancy thus employ?And thus—for what? that I may bringA slight, a fading offering.* * * * * * * *Thou'st coursed the child's gay vista thro’,The bright goal comes in nearer view—And youthful eye ne'er strained to seeA brighter goal than thine could be,For partial Fortune did her best,And then to Fancy left the rest!And was not Fancy's pencil suchAs might produce the finest touch?Yes—never did the morning ray,Paint fairer scenes for tropic day,Than Fancy in her picture wrought,To animate thy dawning thought.Life's picture seemed a rich parterre,Embellished walks, and shady bowers,Bright sparkling fountains too were there,And Spring-time's ever-blooming flowers—And such a sky!—the tints of Heaven,Which paint the robes of Summer even,Might almost be ashamed to vie,With those rich tints of Fancy's sky.Then came the azure downward bent,The soft sea-green assistance lent,To blend the pure ethereal blue,With mellowed shades of amber hue;The purple clouds so lightly rolled,Upon a sea of burnished gold:While ever tending to the skies,The fumes of incense seemed to rise,From newly opening flowers of love,And form a cloud of sweets above;And on that cloud by incense made,The radiant bow of Hope was laid.Such was the scene that first addressedIts pleasures to thy throbbing breast,—



Such was the scene that sped thee on,In that brief course thro’ which thou'st gone,And such the scene is yet, but growsStill brighter at the vista's close—But there's another scene, and true,Which lies beyond Illusion's view;’Tis well Illusion interposes,And with a cautious hand unfoldsThe curtained mist she gently holds,And part by part the scene discloses.For ah! it is a scene of strife,The real scene of busy life!Oh welcome to the mortal's breast,The brightly soothing, cheating guest,Who with her magic veil concealsThe sober facts that life reveals!But how can mortals ever findThe path that Heaven has well defined,If they so wilfully be blind?How can they act the wiser partWhile they hug phantoms to their heart?The innocence of childhood bringsSuch beautiful imaginings!Such sweet, such tender thoughts as seemThe raptures of an angel's dream!Oh, innocence of youth! alas!That it like all things fair must passSo soon away—a dewy gem,A flower unfolding on its stemIs not more pure, is not more sweet,Than Youth's first thought—or yet more fleet.Oh! thou hast been a happy child!On none has fortune ever smiledMore kindly than she smiled on thee,No happy child could happier be!Thy home was one that well might blessLife's early years with happiness;Thy parents smiled—their smile was suchAs morning beams, that kindly touchThe bosom of the early flowers,And bid them wake to joyous hours.Oh blest with every thing wert thou!—But childhood's time is gone—and nowWhat was so very bright, must seemThe lingerings of a long past dream!Dream sweetly on, Time cannot cheatThe mem'ry of a bliss so sweet,Dream on, and let the hallowed pastIts purifying influence cast;Dream on, until thy dreamings beThe visions of Eternity.



Milliam M. Holden.
JOHN C. CALHOUN.
THE voyager on the Southern main,Views with rapt awe the hallowed signWhich nightly flames “beyond the line;”Nor deems the labor all in vain,Which brings him to that long-sought shrine.The various tribes, in field, by flood,Walk in its light when day is done;And hail it in its high abode,Best reflex of the absent sun:In all their devious wanderings,From dewy eve, thro’ midnight's reign,It guides them till the morning's wingsShed sunlight o'er the earth again.What if that cross its front should veil,And darkly sink in night's embrace?Nor other stars, nor sun could fillOr share its wondrous dwelling-place.Star of the South! ’twas thus with thee!To thee all eyes and hearts were turned;As round thy path, from plain to sea,The glory of thy greatness burned.Millions were drawn to thee, and bound,By mind's high mastery; millions hailedIn thee a guide-star, and ne'er foundA ray in thee that waned or failed.Fix'd as that sign which hangs in Heaven;Firm as the earth it shines upon;Pure as the snow by light winds driven,Wert thou, Columbia's honor'd son!No night's embrace for thee! nor pallBut such as mortal hand hath wrought:THOU LIVEST STILL in mind—in allThat breathes, or speaks, or lives in thought.



Star of the South! thy beams are here—Here in this heart that weeps thy loss;Tho’ hidden, thou art still a sphere,Serene, refined from earthly dross,Eternal, and intensely clear!NAPOLEON.
HARK! on the winds a thrilling wail!A wail from fields of fiery war,Where ensigns flash on every gale,And waft a wondrous battle-star.Whose wail was that? Since Carthage's son,No Alpine hill hath heard such tones.Whose banner that beneath the sun?Whose star o'er Europe's trembling thrones?’Tis his, the foster-child of France.And now the rending shock hath come,Italia bows beneath his glance,His banner floats o'er storied Rome.Proudly his mighty name is rungO'er Tiber's hills, while far and broadAmid the Augustan halls are flungThe trophies of the battle-god.The scene has changed. Whose warrior formOn Gallia's throne all shivered now?Whose eye that lightens ’mid the storm,As round him peer and peasant bow?’Tis his, unroyal king of France,—No lineal right has placed him there,The sport of fame—the thing of chance—The fearful and the fierce in war!Behold again!—The embattled linesIn phalanx deep rush madly by;The allied sabre waves and shines,“Napoleon, yield, or proudly die!”“I yield? Napoleon yield to slaves?No, sooner let the sun wax pale!Their blood shall dye the earth and waves,Before this strong right arm shall fail!”It came—that earthquake shock—it came,And thrones lay low beneath his sway,And men grew pale before the flameThat flashed along his sabre's way.



The scene hath changed to change no more.Whose grave that rests unmarbled here?Unhonored on this sounding shore?Unwept thro’ each revolving year?’Tis his,—the eagle-eyed—the brave!His star of blood hath left the sky;They bore him o'er the yielding wave,And placed him on this rock—to die.He sleeps! the fitful flame of lifeHath perished on Helena's isle;Nor clarion loud or battle-strife,Re-echo to his name the while:—But round him rolls the ocean-tide,Fit emblem of his restless pride;And o'er him shines each star to tellHow high he aimed—how low he fell.The Hon. James Iredell.
MONODY ON THE DEATH OF A LADY.*
AND she is gone! the soft, the fair, the beautiful,The lovely scion of a noble stock!Gone in the pride and prime of youth, whenAll the world holds good, or joyous, or alluring,Was promised to her hope; when the deep affectionOf a doting husband, the tenderness unutterableOf maternal love, the smiles and prattle ofHer infant babes, all wooed her, but in vain, to life.Alas! not wealth, nor rank, nor far surpassing these,Pure and devoted piety, virtue in her whitest robes,A mind embellished and enriched with choicest gems,A heart that felt so keenly others’ joys and woes,* Mrs. Badger, daughter of Col. Polk.



Nor the charm of sweetly captivating manners,Not one, nor all of these, could stayThe hand of stern, remorseless Death!’Tis but as yesterday, I saw her in her early dawn,Beaming and beauteous as the morning star,Shedding her radiance on this worldly scene;Her cheek flushed with the roseate hues of health,Her eyes, bright glancing, the softened counterpartsOf those which spoke the ardor of her warrior sire;Her smiles diffusing joy on many a social throng, [ed.I saw her admiring and admired, delighting and delightAgain I saw her, when in blushing modestyShe stood the woo'd and won, the cherished brideOf him, whose name is high on Carolina's rolls,Eloquent and wise, and worthy of her virgin love.Happy pair! yet oh! how short the period of your bliss!Again I marked her as the youthful matron,Watching with fond delight her infant's gambols,Tracing the father's face in every feature of her child;Absorbed, enwrapt in that which only can be toldIn one short but yet expressive phrase—“a mother's love.”And yet again I saw her, when the spoiler came!When fell disease attacked her frame; when death,As if loth to snatch so bright a flower from earth,Seemed still to linger o'er his victim.And I knew how conscious innocence and piety sincere,Humility of soul and faith unshaken in a Saviour's love,Upheld and stayed her in the hours of anguish.The closing scene is past—here stop my muse!The grief of many, many fond and mourning friends,The feelings of the husband, of the widow'd motherLet me not essay. Sacred be their sorrows!Human weakness will lament, while yet we know,“We sorrow not as those who have no hope.”Mortal vision no longer scans her course;But the eye of faith, guided by the word of promise,Views her a seraph in celestial glory.



J. M. Lovejoy.
A DAY ON THE HILLS.
DEDICATED TO JAMES T. FOSTER, ESQ., OF ALBANY, N. Y.
MY lyre! this day demands of thee a song,Whose tones should soar all heavenward, like a fleakOf flame from off the altar—roll alongThy chords for ever when my heart shall seekIts kindred ashes. But the soul is weakTo seize upon infinity, and soNature as thou hast taught me, I may speak,And from my spirit let thine image go,Tho’ it shall fade away when I am cold and low.Night steals away—the lord of day draws nearTo light the world. Aurora is in view,Opening the golden gates, she meets us here,With blushing brows beneath the arches blue:And ever as we look are flowing throughThe everlasting vaults, as they unfold,Her Eastern treasures, gems of every hue;The purple disappears, and now beholdThe Orient jeweled Morn in robes of dawning gold.Star after star hath left—the moon looks pale—Departing all the guests of night are seen;The owl sails by, but lost along the vale,Just where the wood throws back a dusky screen,Again flies out, where morning streams betweenThe opening trees, hard by the roofless mill.No bird yet sings amid the air serene,And from the thorn hath flown the whip-poor-will:The ever restless brook is heard—all else is still.The morning is the hour of thought, and heWho walks her early paths, will often findHimself alone with God—her puritySo flow along the heart and brace the mind,That as she doth into his being wind,The soul will mount with her, the blue domain,Pass o'er the shining towers, and unconfined,With angel feet roam o'er the heavenly plain,Pluck life's unfading flowers and truth immortal gain.



The mocking-birds begin the morning's song,In murmurs soft and sweet, as flows the rill;Now like a holy chant, it rolls alongThrough ancient vaulted woods, increasing tillAll up and down the scale, the anthems trill;The lord of song, in his green gallery sings,While o'er the vale, and up the dusky hill,From her resounding rock the Echo flingsThro’ all her silver pipes the joy that round her rings.The dawn expands, and now the rolling seaPours o'er the morning star its waves of light,That lingering long, and twinkling seemed to beA diamond's point, uniting day and night.The trees, half gilt, that soar the pasture's height,Come down to hide the vale with shadows deep,And shut the dreamy farm-house from the sight,Where now and then, the playful breezes creep,To shake the drowsy elms, that ever murmuring keep.Oh, lovely Morning! lovely as the soulOf beauty's eye! how sweet thy dawning rayUnveils thy face, till thy full glories rollAlong the blue; the roses all at playUpon thy shining bosom; thou dost layThy ruby twinkling fingers on the dews,Profusely fling thy gorgeous gems away,While flower and shrub give back to thee thy hues,And glow with light and life, thy presence doth infuse.But half uprisen, appears the glorious sun;The liquid streams o'er yon smooth hill-top flow,Chasing the shadow, down the dark side run,Have passed the horse, and reached the vale below,Round which the river makes a silver bow:The water-lilies shake their starry gold;Only their modest green the alders show;But there the blackbirds morning converse hold,Hark! how with winged words their fiery hearts unfold.The spirit-stirring sun ascends his throne,And bids the world arouse itself once more;Back, from his flaming front, the clouds have flown,And now man, bird, and insect pass beforeHis beaming countenance. The old woods roarTo Nature's echoing footsteps—how she flingsHer glowing eye to heaven—away doth soarTo meet exultant Morning, where she springs,With hope upon her brow and splendor on her wings.The earth comes forth, in robes of grandeur, drest,Worthy to be the day-god's bridal queen;



The dew, upon her dark green velvet vest,That looks as if a shower of gems had been.The deep blue sky, the far-off village sheen,The graceful spires that soar like shafts of light,And Summer fruit-trees blushing o'er the green,Display themselves, so beautiful and bright,The whole enchantment seems to the beholder's sight.Oh Sun! with wondrous power thou dost reflect,Him who thy palace laid on central space,Upreared its towering front, its chambers deckedWith rubies, life and beauty's dwelling-place;Made planets for thy footstool, and did graceWith streams of circling stars, thy shining zone—Drew his eternal lightning round thy face,And sent thee forth to rule in heaven alone,With Darkness for thy slave, the Universe thy throne.King of the winds! thy spirit fans my brow,And softly flows thy music—thou dost siftAt times, the sweets of flowers about, as now,Then clothe thyself with darkness,—tempests liftThy flaming locks,—behind thee forests drift,—Before thee roars the whirlwind;—but againTo plaintive tones of grief thy thunders shift,And wandering thro’ the deep thou dost complain,As if thou hadst lost Heaven, so mournful is thy strain.The noisy geese, in merry concert go,To view their snowy robes where waters gleam;Their glossy bosoms on the surface glow,And thro’ the parted reeds like lilies seem.The stooping alders break the sunny beam,As if to see below, the fragments play,And shake the landscape mirrored in the stream,For there the landscape doth itself display—Green fields, and upland slopes, and hill-tops far away.The country rolls its voice thro’ sounding skies,And pours forth rural life from every nook;Farmers pass by, and girls whose glancing eyes,From rustling curls and white sun-bonnets look;And children who from Morn her blushes took,Their faces like her own serene and fair,When she first came to gild the lawn and brook,And round her brow a rosy wreath did wear,Before the rising sun shook back the dusky air.Their life of health and virtue glides awayIn pleasant shades, and fields where beauty glows;And lightly bear the burdens of the day,That thro’ the vale of Peace so calmly flows:And when they sink into their last repose,They sleep beneath the grass and sunny flowers,



Where the eternal hill its shadow throws.What tho’ no monumental marble towersWhere ruin, glory, wealth, ambition's tale, devours?Ah! who would not prefer to meet thee, Death,Far from the city's tumult, where the billsOf birds are ever tuneful, and the breathOf cooling winds the oak with music fills.There is a solemn sadness on the hills,When gazing on the grave below their feet;And brooks for ever make, with tinkling rillsA melancholy murmur, yet how sweet,Passing the sacred spot where kindred ashes meet!Ambition, glory, grandeur, take your seats,Where massy rocks invite; behold the tranceOf dreamy lakes, the broad, bright waving sheetsOf grain, leaves twinkle, flashing cascades dance,And flocks and herds along the plain advance,The cottage high, the vale that shines between;While Peace looks up with her enticing glance,And smiling, asks, if ye would change the sheen,That gilds the dome of power, for her abode serene.Love here prevails—hath made his empire great;The gay young violets bridal garments wear;Those huge old vines full many a year did wait,Patiently climbed the rock to meet in air:The leaves are whispering secrets every where,And daisies peeping out from grassy nooks,With eyes of love at one another stare;The lily sees him in the shining brooks,Up in whose modest face the bright-eyed pebble looks.The earth lifts up her countenance to God,Beholds his love all boundless o'er the skies,Flowing away, where comets never trod;On, on thro’ chaos where new systems rise,And join the elder worlds. All vainly fliesThe dart of Death—he strews his ashes gray,On which Love only casts his glowing eyes—They spring to shapes of beauty, form the gayBright robes that Life makes up, and Summer wears to-day.The withered leaf, the whirlwind drives through space,Assumes a new existence,—it may beA flower that shall the brow of beauty grace,Or smile amid the desert. And shall weNo more the glorious face of Nature see,When Death darkens the eye?—the voice of GodProclaims to man his immortality,By means of crushed decay, that gems the sodWith hues transformed from dust that hoary Wintertrod.



Immortal soul! were thine but mortal powers,Content, thou wouldst but worship dark decay,And mingling with her mould spring up in flowers,And drink the evening dew as doth thy clay.How sad thy thoughts that wander off to play,Beyond the star-built heavens, come back to thee!In search of some bright region far away;They lose themselves in that infinity,Wherein the finite sinks as pebbles in the sea.But Nature! thou hast naught to match the soul;She takes thee up and binds thee to her breast—Ranges thro’ all thy bounds with vast controlTo find some sweet nepenthe for unrest—Doth with thy secret powers her strength invest,And having formed new worlds to sate desire,Sinks like a bird back to her narrow nest—Draws round her weary thoughts those wings of fire,While Hope again awakes the music of her lyre.Before that glittering scythe the daisies fall—The hills roll back—the hawk sweeps down the skies—The peacock screams along the garden wall,O'er which the girl to him she loves replies,Who half in doubt watches her beaming eyes;There is a blushing rose-bud in her hair—He sees her snowy bosom fall and rise,And what cares he, though her white arms are bare?The flowers that climb the wall he thinks not half so fair.The clouds have left the hills to play betweenThe silvery vaulted blue, and crested corn,That stands like ranks of war of stately mien—Ten thousand waving plumes the field adorn,Flashing with gems shook down before the morn,When Night drew o'er the world her starry wing.The herds that wind their hollow sounding horn,Climb up the hills where beds of clover spring,And ever busy bees their humdrum music sing.Yon busy town sends up the hum of men;The sounds of clattering hammers reach the ear,With hollow clapping boards, and now and thenAmid the din the watch-dog's bay you hear.The bell-strokes roll away serene and clear,And rattling chariot-wheels that do the workOf satin-slippered feet, gaily appearBefore the shops, to which the officious clerkWelcomes the rustling silk with many a bow and smirk.Here in the broad green country let me lookAt pleasant hills and vales—the cottage gay



With creeping vines, that stands beside the brook;Where'er the mistress moves the fowls alwayFlock round her shining tunic, and the jayWith all his might sings in the apple-tree;While round their gourd-built domes the martins play,A happy group;—and Plenty smiles to seeHer golden harvest wave, her lambs bound o'er the lea.The stage horn sounds,—and mounts the weary heelThat steep, tall road, it climbs year after year;Above its blasted pines the vultures wheel,Crossing the waste, light-footed bounds the deer;Beyond a single mountain doth appear,Piercing the haughty clouds to reach a climeWhere dwells serenity, that calm and clear,And beautiful as thoughts that shine thro’ time,Far in the silent deep, sits on his brows sublime.The country suits devotion. Ancient rocksTower up from sacred groves—the aged oakStands like a priest of Heaven, with hoary locks—The sounding earth rolls off the silvery strokeOf bell-tongued brooks, as when they first awokeThe woods and passing angels stopped to hear;The flowers look up unstained by city smoke;No hordes of iron-hearted men appear,But Nature, full of God, bids Truth and Peace draw near.Here let me live, and give myself to God,Companioned with his Spirit, and when HeRecalls my life, place me beneath the sodThat skirts the brook, where flowers come up to seeEach other's pleasant faces, and the beeThro’ the long day works in the bright sunshine:There let me rest alone, my God, with Thee!The sun, the stars, the universe are thine;Great Father, wilt thou hear this lowly prayer of mine!This is the land of Poesy, for hereGreen slopes, dark glens, and mountains fill the soul,And brooks and rills that shine, then disappearIn glades, where sunny paths to caverns stroll—Tall sounding pines—the far-off cataract's roll,And groves that end in forests dark and deep;The cliff where stands the wolf—the grassy knollCrowning the meadow, bright with flowers that peepInto melodious streams, that by farm-houses creep.Sweet Poesy! brightest of heavenly things!How seldom dost thou deign to visit men!Homer and Milton—Shakespeare swept thy strings,Each with such power that Time astonished then,Ever despaired of matching such; but whenNature on Bailey's mind exhausted thought,



To her high-priesthood summoned him, againHis lips declared her oracles, and wroughtIn fire along his page, the lessons she had taught.He comes upon the soul like shadowy Night,With all her stars high blazing on her brow;—Then soars away to Heaven on wings of light,Opens the golden gates—her treasures flowIn rivers o'er the skies—the orbs do bowDown to him, as a god passing the shoreOf time, and all created being, nowThe threshold of Eternity—beforeHim spirits rise, and on his mind new visions pour.His passions brighter glow like rising day,Till rushing thro’ his heart with wild delight,They rise into abstraction's mood, to playWith God's all-boundless power and being bright.Oh, how they leave oblivion in their flight!Storm Death's cold heart—nay, conquer him, while heBeholds his shafts on fire by lightning lightHis muse to immortality, where sheFlames down on Time's black gulf like sunrise on the sea.The sun mounts to his noon; the locusts jarThe chambers of the oaks, where they rush out;The rosy mists have formed the Thunder's car,Who darts from cloud to cloud his bolts about.The distant hills to one another shout;The thirsty earth drinks up the bubbling rain;Broken, the clouds roll back like battle's rout,And blue-eyed Heavens are bending down againTo kiss the cool-lipped flowers and pearl-curved waving grain.Still Nature, seated on her mountain throne,Girded with storm and lightning, seems to beStruggling with her deep passions there alone:Great God! I lowly bow my soul to Thee—An awe comes o'er the spirit when I seeThy chariot rolling onward, and beholdThy shadow pass that veils Eternity,While Pisgah, Sinai, Horeb's scenes take holdSo deeply on the heart, their visions half unfold.Oh! that the soul when she is wrapped in night,And shaken by her passions, could resignSo soon the tempest—clothe herself with light,As doth the earth, whose beauties now entwineTheir garlands round her brow, as if no mineHad burst above in blackness; and meanwhileSo brightly beam to heaven, that they would shine



Into its very courts, and thus beguileThe angels out, to see how sweetly she can smile.But who can picture Nature when arrayedAs she is here, in robes so wondrous fair,Tripping along the hill and sunny glade,With bright blue eye, sweet smile and golden hair?The glory of her countenance doth bearAn everlasting beauty, as if sheDid think it most becoming her to wearHer brightest looks, because she loves to seeHer favors most bestowed where dwell the brave and free.The rocks are Freedom's towers, the hills her home,And when they stand on Time's far future shore,She still shall see her children o'er them roam,And up their rolling clouds her eagle soar;Strong as Olympian Jove's, whose thunder boreThe old Titanic gods to earth, shall restHer feet upon these mountains evermore—Black, tall, and grand, with plumes the lightnings crestTheir heads, and with their darts her swift right hand invest.In these green hills our brave forefathers sleep,The men of mighty deeds—a noble band,When driven from their homes they crossed the deep,Founded a state that grew so strong and grand,That in their day, its shadow did expand,And climb the tyrant's throne. Did History bindTheir glory round her brow, until her handWeary with search, on record failed to findMinds tempered with such power to benefit their kind?And while they sleep, she tells their deeds sublime,The everlasting base on which shall springNew empires like their own, till every climeShall bless the breeze that bears their eagle's wing.And tongues of every language learn to singFreedom's sweet song—far thro’ the varied zonesOf Asia's dark dominions, it shall ring,Gladdening benighted nations, till its tonesStartle their sleeping gods, and shake barbarian thrones.My country, oh my country! how thy starTowers above all empires and on high,In silence, like the morning, glows afarBeyond the sea, to blind oppression's eye;Shining into the gloom where vassals lie,That they may file their chains for ages worn.Its ever flashing lightning followed byThe thunder shake of nations that is borneFrom state to state, like waves on ocean tempest torn!



Immortal Patriots wrought thy wondrous fame:The grandeur of all genius, bows beforeThy Washington. His spirit-stirring nameIs Liberty's proud watchword evermore.Let not Destruction's monument rise o'erThe sacred spot, that marks the Hero's grave:The world knows where he sleeps, beside the shoreOf dark Potomac; where the nations haveEmbalmed the dust of him, the glorious, good and brave.He stood before his country Ocean's rock;Year after year the sea of tyranny,From Europe rolled. His breast received the shock,Beat back the waves. Upstart! so despots yeDeemed him, ye thought to crush. Behold how heSwept down your power like cobwebs, while your wrathBecame to him a plaything. Earth shall seeNo more his like, nor in her annals hathAn eye beamed out like his, along her shining path.Night's shadowy fect draw near—the glorious sunHastens his shining steeds, to end the day,That by the blinded stars, have nearly runThe course which bears the universe away.Those elms that time hath clad in garments grayStoop o'er the village lawn with sober mien,On which the laughing children are at play—While ever and anon, crossing the green,Fair forms of dark-haired girls unbonneted are seen.Back to the lowing herds, the woods resound—Climbing the tinkling hills, the sheep-bell rings:—From yonder farm-house gate, the children bound—Up to their Father's arms the youngest springs.How sweet the hour when thoughtful evening bringHim to his happy home, his labor's o'er,He envies not the proud estate of kings;The smiling wife is standing in the door—And now the dog leaps out and gambols on before.Kind Nature well repays his faithful toilIn grains of lusty growth and pastures rare.Abounding fruits spring gladly from the soil,To meet salubrious suns and genial air—Religion lights his path, for every where,He sees her turrets rise amid the greenDark foliage of the hills, and look so fairOut o'er the bloomy meadows spread between,That every thing reflects her countenance serene.The old school-house looks proudly o'er the lawn,As if she knew that Poverty there wrought



Those mighty minds, that from her threshold gone,Do as a sword the battle, handle thought;Have from her page, such inspiration caughtAs ploughs men's souls and sets the heart on flame—Stirs up the hair like wind; and is it naughtThat from such walls, full many a lowly nameBecomes the highest star along the steeps of fame?Who does not see when Winter walks the street,And costly wool and fur are crowding there,The pale, neglected boy with naked feet,Begging to work for bread? but every whereRepulsed, he shivers back to his despair:Proud genius shows her blushes, while she keepsTrying to hide her limbs, ragged and bare,Shakes from her eye of fire, the tear that creepsUp from the depths where her eternal thunder sleeps.The old school-house stands up for that poor boy—Tells him he is a giant whose commandMay sway the fate of empires,—fills with joyHis mighty eye and bids his mind expand:Tells him that though in darkness, he shall standOn fame's bright towering summit, that renownIs not of college patch-work, but the grand,Immortal work of genius that tears downThe deepest walls of fate, however dark they frown.Let lofty domes, where strength and grandeur meet,Bow their tall heads and do her reverence; theyMust sink to dust, centred her iron feetDeep as Eternity, shall stand for aye;Before her power, the roots of thrones give wayTill shuddering monarchs read upon the wall,The “mene mene tekel” and the gray,Cold wings of dumb oblivion o'er them fall,Save when from their dark deeds, history removes the pall.But now the day hath flown on winged hours—The last, still blushing in that twilight sea,Hath sown the scattered clouds with rosy flowers,And hung the heavens with purple drapery:Colors, to suit all pencils so agree,As if the one from out the other grew;Fringing the hills the crimson seems to be,But near that hawk appears the loveliest hue,Just where the ruby gold plays with the silvery blue.Where rose that chimney, now a mouldering heap,The thoughtful evening fires were wont to glowOn bright and happy faces. Flowers did creepUp shining cottage windows long ago;Peace lived within the walls, nor cared to knowWhether with wealth or poverty she staid;



Those walls have disappeared, and thistles growUp thro’ the hearth round which the children played,And all but God forget where anxious parents prayed.The village smoke ascends to meet the gloom,But burdened with the dew is earthward rolled,And leans its weary weight upon the broom,That dots the distant waste with sheets of gold.The sleepy flowers their heavy eyelids fold;And now is heard the cricket's drowsy horn,While fire-flies rise like diamonds from the mould,—Those floating gems the meadow-grounds adorn;Again the whip-poor-will sings in the gray hawthorn.Now stars appear, how silently they stoleThro’ curtains drawn apart by still twilight—Up steeps of blue their soundless chariots roll;Far thro’ the boundless realms of ancient Night.They now pervade as far, twinkle as brightAnd keen, as when they sprang from Nature's mine,And clustered round her brow; no ages blightTheir glory, for its elements combineThe lovely, pure, and grand, the eternal and divine.Ye shine in Nature's temple, while your tonesFill its blue vaults with music, and extendRound earth the choirs who sing on ruby thrones,And thro’ the heavenly courts their voices send;Where every twinkle doth its quaver blend,In one eternal anthem. How ye sweepThe golden lyres, and o'er your harp strings bend!Hymning His praise who doth your safety keep,And guides with love supreme your footsteps thro’ the deep.Our earth appears a diamond's point to you,And twinkles on the blue of far-off space,Like gems that morning flings upon the dew,Or that which doth a lady's finger grace.On it ye gaze, and wonder if a raceOf beings like your own may o'er it teem?Do mountains dark and tall rise o'er its face?If round its orb the deeps of ocean stream?Whether it hath old woods that in the sunshine dream?One after one, the cheerful lights go out,That glimmer on the landscape here and there,The hymn is sung, the household kneels aboutThe word of God, and breathe the evening prayer.Silence, as if afraid leans on the air—He thinks he hears the feet of stealthy foes,But Heaven protects its children every where.



And bids sweet sleep their eyes in quiet close,Till laughing morn looks in and shakes them from repose.The Bible is our guardian, day and night,Stronger than battle's front, or sceptred kings:Its bold bright truth invests the soul with lightAs with a garment, gives it eagles’ wings—To Poesy the brighest jewel bringsThat twinkles on her brow; her sweetest toneOf everlasting music from it springs—A diamond cut from God's eternal throne,It shines beyond the grave to spirit worlds unknown.Immortal Night moves onward. Far away,The owl hoots on the hills, the wild fox yells.Hard by the road the wagoners delay—The hollow woods resound their horses’ bells.Anon the merry laugh rings thro’ the dells;The stormy youth swears by his sweetheart's eye,Points out the star in which her beauty dwells,And looks down thro’ the leaves from yonder sky;The old man smokes his pipe, and thinks of days gone by.The moon now leaning o'er the hill-tops brown,With woods and lonesome brooks is there at play,Her silvery-footed beams steal softly downOn that old shadowy church in ruin gray,In which our early fathers used to pray—They bowed themselves in lowly gratitude,While loaded gun and sabre round them lay,For oft the dark-browed savage did intrude,And shake the Sabbath morn with yells of battle rude.The far-off landscape closes on the sight,Save where the distant farm-house meets the eye,How quietly streams out the lingering light!And pleasant sounds the brook that passes by:You just can see the sheep that near it lie,—Beyond no sound is heard upon the hill,But the last beam of day hath left the sky,—Darkness doth all the land with shadow fill,And bids the anxious heart a little while be still.Now, Night, black giantess! beneath thy robesThe world lies down to sleep: the moon her hornHangs on thy skirts, the splendor rolling globesOf fire, are gems on thy proud bosom worn;From out thy womb the sun and spheres were born;The shadow of Infinity art thou,God flashed upon thy face creation's morn—As Time beheld thee then, so doth he now,Nor hath he dimmed one star that blazes on thy brow.



Gazing on Night, the soul draws near to God;She thinks she sees His footprints on the sky,The stars beam where His glorious feet have trod:Oh Earth, how bright they shine into thine eye!Here like some huge, dark monster thou dost lie,Drinking in light, thou givest not one beam,Heart, thought, soul, God all round thee rushing by.Up from the dust, have done thy shadowy dream,And fling back on Night's face, her glory stream for stream.Break up ye stars, become a noisy throng!Like thunder-sounding seas, and fling o'er earth,Such music as the angels hear, alongHer old dark hills, pour down as at your birth,The morning song she heard, when ye went forthFrom out your ruby halls to meet the sun:I hear some mother singing round the hearth,Her child to sleep. Ye spheres, have ye not oneYoung orb, o'er which, like hers, your voice may sweetly run?Oh thou art mighty, Night, when Nature's facePuts on thy shining thoughts; she seems to me,So still that I can hear thy footsteps, traceThy form along the deep, where mysterySpreads out thy pale dominions. Let me beCompanion of thy solitude. How thoughtRushing along the soul, cries victory!Unto her failing strength, when she hath caughtThat spirit all divine, into thy being wrought.ON THE DEATH OF MARY LEE STEPTOE.
THE day wore on, the hours were sad,The gloomy lightning fell;I knew the time approaching near,When we must say farewell.The moon came up, the early dewFelt cold to the sleepy flowers,A smile past o'er her lips, she wentTo brighter worlds than ours.They parted on her silent browThe hair of Mary Lee,As she did when a little girl,And used to climb my knee.The thoughtful stars looked coldly in,From their eternal towers,As if they envied her that world,Brighter than theirs or ours.



The sun looks on her grave and claimsEternity his own;Year after year shall he shine there,And rule in Heaven alone;But he must fall in ashes yet,With all his glorious powers,For time is only thine, oh sun!Eternity is ours.NAPOLEON.
BORN of the Revolution, heHarnessed its furies to his car,And on his breast bid tyrannyCommence the thunder march of war.He met old Europe—and his gaze,Like the pale Gorgon's, changed to stoneHer hosts—kings fled—as comets blazeThro’ shuddering heaven, his victories shone.Destruction's steeds, War—Anarchy,That strode so blindly o'er the land,Curbed by the bits of Destiny,Were hurricanes rein'd by his hand.The ancient Monarchies, that leantOn Time, while he so proudly toldTheir glory; rushing headlong went,When on the world his battles rolled.His lofty elements of mindSeized on the heart, men's souls stood still,Suffered his energies to bindTheir powers, and shape them to his will.Soldiers to-day, to-morrow roseUp mighty generals—old renownAnd valor vainly did opposeThe storm that swept their bulwarks down.O'er blasted thrones his eagles flew,—The smoke of war went rolling back,While from the ashes empires grewAnd shed their splendor on his track.The hero-gods of ancient time,Sit in his shadow common things,He stood above the world sublime,His playmate War—his playthings—Kings.



Augustus Foster Lyde.

The following poems are from the pen of the Rev. AUGUSTUS FOSTER LYDE, a deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church, who was born in Wilmington, N. C., and died in Philadelphia in 1834, at the early age of twenty-one. They are selected from a volume called “Buds of Spring,” which was published a few years after his death.

THE DEATH OF MOSES.
HE had grown old in serving Israel's God,The favored servant of the Lord of Hosts,—Whose richest love had ever rested on him,More pure, more bright, than the last farewell gleamOf you departing sun;—a holy man!From that dread hour, when, first on Horeb's topHe gazed upon the bush that burned unhurt,Down to this hour of deep solemnity,He had been still the changeless friend of God,Had held communion with Him face to face,Had been commissioned in His mighty name,Had ruled till now, a king in Israel.Far o'er the sea, in golden majesty,The western sun is sinking to his rest;And the bright gleamings of his fading gloryAre lingering on the hills of Palestine.Far, far away where Pisgah's mountain topsAre piled in still ascending cliffs to Heaven,That sunset light is resting on them still,While Nebo lifts his kingly head above,So that the sinking sun, before he die,May crown it with his richest, brightest blessing.Faintly, upon his pale and sunken cheek,The noiseless evening wind breathed tremulously;And soft upon his smooth uncovered brow,The mellow evening light is resting now.His eye undimmed,—with all its brightness still,—Is turned to Heaven in looks of penitence;His folded hands are resting on his breast;His heaving bosom swells with strong emotion,—With prayers for pardon and eternal rest.Peace to thy soul! thy sin has been forgiven!



For, o'er that sunken cheek so wan, so pale,Hath passed the delicate flush of hope and joy;That tearful eye, so full of penitence,Is beaming with a brightness not its own;And on that lip that trembled with deep sorrow,Is resting now a smile as beautifulAs that which childhood wears in dreams of Heaven.Oh ye, who tread the dazzling courts of God,Or plume your wings amid His holy light!Say, whether from the face of worshipper,Cherub, or seraph, or archangel bright,There ever beams more of the light of Heaven,Than rests upon the visage of this man!Slowly, as from some lonely mountain top,The sunlight fades in quiet loveliness—From his calm brow that holy radiance went!Before his mind the visions of the pastCame in the splendor which at first they wore;The glorious workings of Jehovah's power,His mighty miracles, his wondrous signs,Were wrought again in his imaginings.He stood upon the shore of the deep sea,And stretched his hand above its angry waters,And the dark billows parted here and there,To make a pathway for the ransomed ones.Lo! the proud host of Egypt's prouder kingIs madly treading the same frightful path!“Stretch out thy hand once more above the sea!”A moment more;—and the returning deepLets loose the crested billows of its wrath;The mighty waters sweep as proudly on,As if no thousands lay in death beneath them.He stood upon the mount;—and round its topClouds and thick darkness gathered; now and thenThe dazzling flashes of the angry lightningPierced the thick darkness, and the deep thunderUttered its awful voice. On that dread spotHe stood, and talked with God.He stood in the still cleft of Horeb's mount;And the great glory of Jehovah's presencePassed in its awful majesty before him,While the Lord God proclaimed His holy name,Gracious and merciful,—long suffering,The God that pardoneth sin,—the God of Love.The famished host of Israel lay around;And the chill hand of Death rested alikeOn the helmed warrior and his lisping child;The frantic Mother wildly gazed on it,



And pressed it to her cold, cold breast, and wept,While the stern Sire raised his eyes to Heaven,And whispered with his latest strength a prayer.That prayer is heard:—for lo! the voice of God,“Go smite the rock, that they may drink and live!”He stood and smote the rock,—but disbelieved.Oh, name it not! it was a grievous sin;It robbed him of his fondest earthly hope;And o'er it hath been shed full many a tear,And o'er it hath been breathed full many a prayer,And He, who loves so well to pardon sin,Hath wiped it from the book of His remembrance.Softly, upon the beautiful earth beneath,Lay the calm glory of an eastern twilight,And o'er that hour, which always seems so holy,Was shed a most unusual sacredness.The sun had sunk behind the distant deep;The evening wind was sleeping on its wings;And, far away,—as far as eye could reach,—The land of promise lay outstretched before him,And its ten thousand hills and woods and streams,Were quiet as when first creation woke.A few bright clouds stood forth against the sky,Lingering to gaze upon a scene so holy.As saints that in their musings visit Heaven,Return more full of light, and love, and joy,So this soft light, reflected from the sky,Seemed far more beautiful than first it was.It lay upon the camp of Israel;And, as the gleamings of the burnished arms,And the rich hangings of the purple tents,With their embroidered standards drooping o'er them,Fell on the enraptured eye, you well might dream,It was the host which once on heavenly plainsRested,—when Satan and his impious crew,Daring to battle with the Omnipotent God,Were vanquished by the glittering hosts of heaven.“My people and the people of my God!”And the deep fountains of his soul broke forth,With all their countless streams of love and joy,—“My people and the people of my God,The blessing of the God of Israel,The blessing of your fathers’ God be with you.”The latest sound of that departing blessingHath sunk to silence;—all is hushed again.Upon the peaceful summit of that mountHe sat him down, and leaned his aged headAgainst the rock, and clasped his withered hands.One look towards the tents of Israel;—One earnest, fervent prayer for them and him;—One struggling sigh;—and Moses was not!



Man hath not reared a princely monument,And carved thereon the record of his greatness,But God himself,—the High and Holy One,—Hath writ within the volume of His truth,“He was a servant of the Lord.”BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.
SAD, sad was the breathing of holiest fire,That swept its low moan o'er the prophet's waked lyre;And mournful the echoes that floated along,The dirge of the dead, the wild requiem of song.Oh, Babylon! Babylon! woe be to thee!The pride of the earth and the queen of the sea!For the sin of thy people the word has been given,The lament of the prophet,—the mandate of Heaven!And ages on ages returnless have flown,Since the doom of thy pride and thy splendor was known;But he who hath gazed on thy ruins can tell,That the words of the prophet are answered too well!Green, green o'er thy towers the wild ivy is creeping,And silent beside thee the waters are sleeping,Save when touched by the wing of the bat in his flight,Gone forth on his errand of silence by night!Cold, cold o'er thy ruins the night wind's low moan!’Tis the sigh o'er the days of thy pride that have gone,The voice of the dead,—where the living are still,—Borne forth from their charnel, all voiceless and chill!Peace, peace to the dust of the brave where they sleep!Their slumbers be peaceful, their quiet be deep!Let spring bring her chaplets and flowerets most fair,And strew them, and weave them in loveliness there!In Babel ’tis a festal night:—On Babel's towers the lamps are bright;There in their brilliancy they shine,Like gems upon an ebon shrine,And meteor-like are glaring high,To light the darkness of the sky,Heaven's darkest, deepest, blackest gloom,Still as Creation's voiceless tomb.Not even a lisping breath of airWakes from its infant slumbers there!A noiseless, starless, breathless sky,Hushed into deep expectancy!But still on earth there is a cryOf wakeful mirth and revelry;



For Babel keeps her festal night,And all her lamps of holy lightAre flashing, in one ceaseless gleam,Across Euphrates’ waveless stream.Flash on! ye holy fires, flash on!Your brilliant life is nearly gone;There is a meaning in the sky,Dark prelude of your destiny!Home of the lightning and the storm!Strange semblance of JEHOVAH'S form!There is a meaning in the shapeYour shadowy forms will sometimes take;As ’twere the marks which feelings trace,In hurried outline on the faceOf the still future;—all that's given,To show frail man the will of Heaven.The moon-lit cloud, so bright, so fair,Gives hopes of joy and gladness near;The scattered mist that hurries byIn fitful passage o'er the sky,Foretells the tears that pass away,Remembered but with yesterday;But the dark sky of angry frown,That hangs in blackening stillness down,Tells of the deepest saddest woe,That mortal man may taste or know.And Babel's king was on his throne,And Babel's princes round him shone;And Babel's youth and beauty allAre gathered in that glittering hall:Young Hope and Love are beaming nowFrom every fair and noble brow,Where pomp and pageant move along,To the rich melody of song;The clanging horn, the melting flute,And sweetly pensive, plaintive lute,Wake the hushed echoes of that pile,And swell along each vaulted aisle,Then touching on some softer strain,Sink to their holy rest again.Circassia's lovely ones are there,And Arab maid of raven hair,That floats, in playful tresses, downA neck of loveliest, richest brown,With laughing eyes that brightly flash,Beneath the long and dark eye-lash,Like India's pearls in ocean-cave,That sparkle thro’ the sleeping wave;—



All, that is beautiful and fair,Is gathered in full splendor there.“Bring forth,” the monarch said, “bring forthThose golden cups of sacred worth,Which my own father's victor handBore from Judea's captive land.Yes! even from that hallowed place,The holiest shrine of holiness,Where all their boasted glories dwelt,And Judah's bigot prophet knelt,He with his arm these trophies won,To swell the pomp of Babylon.But Belus’ shrine shall share the spoil,He gathered there ’mid blood and toil,And Chaldea's king,—his monarch son,—Boast the proud name his father won.”He spoke: and bright, before his throne,Those cups of sacred usage shone;And Babel's lords and princes all,Who graced that nightly festival,Filled up those golden goblets high,And drank, in their idolatry,’Mid boasts of war, and shouts of sin,To Babel's god, and Babel's king.Say! is there poison in that cup,That all the joy is withered up,Which, in its laughing echo, burstFrom every lightsome tongue at first?Has all that sparkling gladness gone,And left you joyless and alone!The quivering lip,—the lifeless eye,Gazing in ghastly vacancy,—The livid cheek,—the gathered brow,—All, all are cold and voiceless now.Jehovah's presence hath been here!And left His awful signet there.Read—read it there poor mortal man—Read if thou dare, read if thou can!Assyria's honors crown the man,Who well those mystic words shall scan,And all the pride, that monarchs wed,Be settled on his princely head!Gaze on! gaze on! one withering look,Like that the great Archangel took,When on the angry bounds he stood,That beetled o'er the fiery flood,And paused—accursed there of Heaven,All unrepentant, unforgiven!And every eye is fixed intent,On Judah's holy prophet bent;



His cheek is pale, and o'er his browA holy calm is stealing now;His aged hands together pressed,Are folded gently on his breast;And, pure as streams that angels sip,A prayer is quivering on his lip;His robe as spotless as the prayerIn holy accents quivering there.That kingly crowd! he heeds them not,—They are alike unseen, forgot;He seems within the bounds of Heaven,To pray that they may be forgiven.The struggle's past; ’tis all in vain,He may not ask that boon again.The lamps are flickering pale and wan,Where life and joy alike have flown,And that wide hall is hushed in peace,A frightful hush of breathlessness.“Thy doom is fixed! thy course is run!Thy kingly honors all are won!To-morrow's sun shall never rise,To shed its splendor on thine eyes;But, ere the midnight hour has fled,Thou shalt be numbered with the dead!Read on that burning wall and seeThose characters of mystery,—Read,—ay, and learn when ’tis too late,Jehovah's will,—Belshazzar's fate!Thou! who in an unguarded hour,Did'st brave thy Maker's matchless power,His holy vessels didst profane,Blaspheme His temple and His name,Thou! who didst dare Jehovah's might,Go,—grapple with Him now,—to-night,—The sceptre from thy hand is passed,Of Chaldee's monarchs, thou the last!The Mede and Persian share thy throne,—The ancient honors of thy crown;And even now their legions come,To bear thee to thy long, long home!Farewell!—a sad farewell for thee!A parting for—Eternity!”But hark! whence comes that echoing shout,That daring, deadly, fiendish cry,The death-knell to our cherished hopes,The long, loud shout of victory?Ten thousand mighty legions rush,—Like ocean's fountains, as they gush



In billowy deluge o'er the earth,To drown its gladsome peals of mirth,—And many nations come from far,To swell the angry tide of war;Ten thousand Persian's throng the wall,Ten thousand tongues for mercy call,Ten thousand brave men in their wrathHave strewed their conqueror's bloody path.“Arm! on this sacred spot we'll stand,And battle with them hand to hand;Beneath these age-worn towers we'll closeWith Babylon's accursed foes:Full well I know to-morrow's sunShall see my life and glories won,So let it be; but this proud crown,The mighty dead have handed down,Was given untouched, undimmed to me,And still untouched, undimmed shall be,—‘Belshazzar's Feast,’ our battle cry,We fight—we conquer—but to die;A daring, hopeless, friendless few,To king and country ever true!”They fought before that palace gate,In the dread certainty of fate;No hope of conquest hovered o'erThose banners steeped in Persian gore;But frantic rage and wild despair,Are gathered in one conflict there.Behind them is the olden shrine,Those turbaned warriors deem divine;Before them is their monarch king,The conqueror of the conquering;Above them is the angry Heaven;Beneath, the slaves their wrath has riven;And “Onward! onward!” is the cry,Of those who fight and those who die;But countless legions onward throng,’Mid the red flush of war along,And those brave men sink, one by one,Where all their mightiest deeds were done.Within that shrine so redly wet,One noble arm is struggling yet.Beside that altar pile he stands,And battles with the hireling bands,The minion host that round him press,In all their bloody eagerness,—A noble stag at well-fought bay,—A tiger plundered of his prey,—



He piles their mangled bodies high,An offering to his Deity.He fought beside that altar well,And fighting nobly, nobly fell.Hark to the thousand shouts that swell,Belzhazzar's warlike funeral knell!As, from the shrine her foes have won,Burst the last shouts of Babylon!ORIGIN OF THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS.
LONG—long ago—ere poets sung,While Heaven was bright and earth was young,When man was pure, and angels’ eyesGazed on the sweets of Paradise,—’Twas then—within a jasmine bower,A seraph paused at evening hour,To listen as it swelled along,To Heaven and earth's commingled song.He knelt to worship,—but his tongueRefused to breathe that seraph song;One sin had passed his holy breast,And robbed it of its wonted rest.He looked to Heaven,—but Heaven was dim,—Its music had no charms for him;Rich sounds thro’ its bright courts were stealing,His harp was hushed,—his heart unfeeling.He knelt,—and in a burning prayer,Poured his whole soul in sorrowing there;He raised his tearful eyes to Heaven,—He wept,—and prayed,—and was forgiven.And where (as angels’ legends tell),Those tears of deep repentance fell,Amid the perfume of that bower,There sprang this nightly blooming flower.And still, on each returning year,The night he shed that sorrowing tear,It spreads its beauteous leaves to Heaven,The emblem of a sin forgiven.



THE SMILE OF HER WE LOVE.
TO J. G——.
THERE’s a rain drop that rests on the rose-leaf at even,And bends it in beauty to silence and rest,And a sunbeam of crimson has gilded that rain-drop,With the last ray of glory that comes from the west.There's a bird in the east, that has stolen from HeavenIts name and its plumage, so beauteous and bright,That it seems, as it floats on its silvery wing,A messenger-bird from the “islands of light.”There's a ripple that comes to the listening beach,To whisper its story with tremulous motion,When the chime of the vespers steals soft o'er the wave,And moonlight is sleeping in peace on the ocean.But sweeter and brighter than all is the smile,That plays on the lip of her whom we love,For the visions it brings, like our dreamings of Heaven,Have won all their tints from the regions above.There's many a moment of anguish and sorrow,And tears that, alas! we may never forget;But, ’mid the sighs of to-day, and the tears of to-morrow,That smile,—oh that smile! it will go with us yet.A FRAGMENT FROM A SATIRICAL ODE.

“Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum.”—JUV.

SHAME shame!—are these the men who are called to standThe first and foremost in a happy land?Can learning find no kind reception here,No friend to aid her, and no voice to cheer?Are there so few, who care to plead her cause,And give us learning while they give us laws?Stay injured goddess! yet one moment stay,Nor bear the blessings, which thou bring'st, away!Yet, if thou find no welcome on our shore,Go; go, where thou art loved and valued more.Poor soulless wretch! whom nature never meantTo grasp the greatness of a government!Go, see what other lands have dared to do,And as you wonder, learn to practise too;



Pause for a moment in a sister state,And learn, it is her Harvard makes her great;Then go to England's favored clime and gazeOn the proud pomp of learning's palaces.Her Cambridge and her Oxford! there they stand,The proudest boast and glory of the land,Arches on arches piled, that point to Heaven,The richest presents that her kings have given,The brightest, fairest gems that sparkle now,Among the brilliants of her jewelled brow;All that a people's gratitude can giveBack for the blessings under which they live,The tribute of her children far and near,All in its rich profusion gathered here!Kind genius of my country, come! oh come!And shed one blessing more on this our home!Grant us to feel, with still expanding mind,That Learning's foe can ne'er be Freedom's friend,That, when in after times the hand of FameShall wreath green chaplets round each honored name,—Theirs may the brightest and most honored be,Who were the friends of Learning and of thee!PRAYERS OF THE GOOD.
YE stars! that blaze so bright on Nature's crown,Lamps hung in chaos by a hand divine!Ye sentinels that walk your stated rounds,Your mighty rounds, on Nature's still confine!Say! are those clouds so beauteous and so bright,That float along in mystic beauty there,The prayers of good men wafted calmly on,To gain an answer from the God of Prayer?HOME OF MY CHILDHOOD.
“He gave to memory all he had,—a tear;He gained from Heaven, ’twas all he wished, a friend.”—GRAY.FAR o'er the billows,—far away,My heart, my hopes, my wishes stray;By night,—by day,—bright visions come,To tell me of an absent home.Home of my childhood! though I roveFar,—far from those whom most I love,



My tearful eye shall ever beFixed gazingly alone on thee!Friends of my youth! who loved to shareThe sorrows of a falling tear,Back to that sunny home ye've gone,And left me friendless and alone!Alone! alone! not one whose breastMay pillow all my care to rest!And, when this bosom beats so high,May calm it with one kindly sigh!Grandsire! on whose trembling kneeI've prattled oft an infant's glee,Whose glistening eye so often smiledUpon thy fondled, favored child,—Thou, who would'st bend thine aged head,And weep above my feverish bed,—Thou in whose kind and throbbing heartI held the fondest—dearest part,—Oh! if to happy souls ’tis given,To wander from the joys of Heaven,Then bring a blessing with thee now,And lay it on this beating brow!That sunny beach!—that sloping shore!Where I have seen the ocean pourIts legioned billows, to uptearThe bounds its Maker planted there!Ye winds! whose wings so soon shall reachThe quiet of that moaning beach!Tell it,—the boy remembers yet,He never—never can forget.Home of my childhood! could I standOnce more upon thy sea-washed strand,Nor wealth, nor fame, nor joy, nor pain,Should tear me from that spot again.Far o'er the billows, far away,To thee my heart's best wishes stray!—I loved thee much,—I loved too well;Farewell to thee! farewell! farewell!



Laura Linton.
THE FROZEN FAIRY.

“A band of fairies making a flying tour by moonlight, came suddenly upon the borders of a northern forest. The full moon shining brilliantly upon the woods, festooned with icicles, made the scene of dazzling splendor. The fairies gazed in mute wonder, for never had they beheld aught so glorious.”

A FAIRY Queen with her elfin trainMade a flying trip to cold winter's reign;With wild delight, as they roamed along,Their tiny voices were raised in song.’Mid the glitt'ring halls they winged their way,Illumed by the parting beams of day;They perched on an ice-clad branch of spray,Or rode on a snow-flake, away, away.The brightest one of that lovely bandKnelt low to the Queen and kissed her hand,“A boon, great Queen, wilt thou leave me here,To dance but one night in the moonbeams clear?”A shade of doubt dimmed the Queen's bright eye,She paused as in sorrow, to frame reply:“Ah, simple child, too late thou may'st findThat splendor and fame oft leave peace behind.”How happy was she in those diamond halls,With no sound around save the icicles’ fall;She spread with delight her rainbow wings,And a wild cry of joy thro’ the forest rings.But soon a chill o'er her heart there came,No warmth from Aurora's brilliant flame,—And the snow spirits came with their chilling breath.And all was as still and cold as death.“Sisters, sweet sisters, come take me home,I faint in this bright but cheerless zone;My feeble wings can no longer soar,O come to me, loved ones, ere life is o'er.”Frail, beautiful one, thou wast never madeFor this cold, this dazzling, chilly glade;In thine own sunny clime of light and loveThy wings would unfurl and soar above.



“Gifted, yet humble one,” sigh not to roamFrom the simple delight of thy own lowly home:Hope not to find in a loftier sphere,The peace and content which await thee here.Ah! many have sought, mid the world's cold glare,To rest their warm hopes and affections there;And too late have they found that tho’ fair and bright,The dream of fame ends in death and night.THE FROZEN CRYSTAL DROP.

“Thou hast seen sometimes a bright crystal drop, which smilingly mirrored the light of heaven, change into a sharp-pointed crystal of ice. And why? Because a bitter north-wind passed over it. This embittered drop is a petrified tear, the child of bitter sorrow.” —Miss Bremer.

I SAW a frozen crystal drop,Bright sparkling in the air,The cold north-wind had o'er it passed,“And held it trembling there.”Cold, bright, and chilly, the crystal hungUpon a leafless spray,It mirrored all the day's bright gleams,And looked as fair as they:But it seemed as an adamant frozen there,That bright rain-drop in the chilly air.The bright sun, with his loving rays,Came gently, gaily forth;It played upon that brilliant gem,Of the frozen, chilly north.With rainbow dyes ’twas gaily decked,A balmy breeze swept o'er,Its frozen heart was touched and warmed,And it was cold no more.It melted beneath that genial ray,And up toward Heaven it floated away.Methought it was an emblem meetOf many a grief-worn heart,Whom care, and sorrow, and neglect,Has caused to mourn apart.Poor, frozen heart! its genial springsSeem chilled for ever there;No warmth, no light, no joy, no love,But wan and cold despair!O, how deep the gloom of that lonely one,Away from the beams of love's warm sun.Be thou that sun of melting beam,And bright and kindly ray,



And smile upon that icy chill,And melt that frost away.Speak gently to that stricken one,Sweet words of hope and love,Whisper of peace, and joy, and Heaven,And raise his thoughts above;And a holy calm and peace will be given,To cheer thee in thy path to Heaven:THE WASTED FLOWERS.

“On the velvet bank of a river sat a rosy child. Her lap was filled with flowers, and she flung them to the sparkling tide till every bud and blossom had disappeared. Then seeing her loss, she sprang to her feet, and bursting into tears, called aloud to the stream, ‘Bring back my flowers!’ ”

I SAW a lovely child at playAmong the spring-time flowers;A rippling stream sped at her feetThat mirrored all the bowers.She threw her garlands on the stream,And as they neared the sea,“O bring me back my flowers,” she said,“O bring them back to me.”I met her next a lovely girl,Of bright and joyous mien;And as she tossed her stately headShe seemed a fairy queen.A noble youth was at her feet;And as with altered tone,She answered to his loving words,He felt she was his own.But soon a shade was on her brow—A gloom upon her heart;Her step was languid, and her voiceLike an Æolian harp.“Where are the flowers of my youth,My early visions fair?Where, oh beloved, where art thou?”And echo answered—“where!”A fair young mother next I saw,With all a mother's pride;She watched a lovely babe at play,With the flowers at her side.“Here is my treasure, surely hereMy weary heart may rest;This cherished flower I need not fearWith thorns will pierce my breast.”



When next I passed, the babe was pale—Its flute-like voice was hushed—Its bright eye closed—its angel formSoon to return to dust.The mother raised her tearless eye,But murmured forth no prayer;“My child, my child!” was all she said,“Where is my flower—where?”Lone one, on earth ’tis ever thus,Fond ties were made to sever;We scarce can clasp the fleeting dreamEre it is gone for ever.Child—maiden—mother—reft of all,Where are your flowers—where?Raise but to Heaven your broken heart,And seek for treasures there.Ellen Lloyd.
THE WARNING.
A YOUNG child lies on its sleepless couch,With wildly fluttering breath;His sweet young face, so thin and pale,Is lit by the touch of death.List! what a solemn, awful sound,Breaks on the midnight gloom,The dogs, the dogs! are howling there,Their yells break on the still night air,Into the silent room!Howl on, for death's angel is hovering nigh,Howl on, for the young and the beautiful die.The old nurse shakes her silvery head,When she hears the mournful sound,



And quaking with an awful dread,She tearfully glances roundThe mother clasps her darling boy,To her wildly thrilling heart:“Great God!” she cries, “wilt thou destroyMy only hope, my only joy,Must we for ever part?”But still those dogs with unearthly cry,Howl on, for the young and the lovely must die.A change comes o'er his lovely face,Relentless death is there;Pale, pale, and silent there he lies,His hands are clasped in prayer.But still that solemn boding soundComes faintly to his ear;He heeds it not,—for all around,With peace, and love, and joy abound,His young heart knows no fear.Howl on,—for death's angel is passing on,Howl on,—for that gentle soul is gone!THE SPIRIT OF THE LAUGH.

Founded on a Swedish legend in one of Miss Bremer's works.

FAR in the cold and dreary North,Lies a land of boundless snow,That none but the savage mountain wolf,And the screaming owlet know.Save here and there in the desert wild,Beneath some sheltering rock,A hunter's cheerless cot is seen,The dreary waste to mock.In those boundless fields of trackless snow,A spirit wanders free,In robes of pure and silvery white,She glides o'er the frozen lea.Lovely but pale is her spotless cheek,And cold as the Parian stone,As she slowly glides o'er the dreary waste,And utters her thrilling moan.Long she's been seeking her early love,Seeking, alas, in vain;For far in other climes he roved,And sank ’neath the roaring main.



And oftentimes in the still cold night,She crosses the traveller's path,As she slowly wanders up and down,And laughs with a horrible laugh.Or singing some wild, unearthly strain,That spirits only know,Which makes the echoes start again,From their homes in the mountain snow.The traveller raises his drooping head,And starts in terror to seeA spirit so white in the dusky night,Come gliding o'er the lea.But soon as he sees her she glides away,And vanishes from his path,And naught remains of that spirit white,But that wild unearthly laugh.And high above the roaring wind,In the pine tree's shivering branch,Or the dismal howl of the mountain wolf—Or the thundering avalanche—That wild and mournful spirit-laughRings out on the midnight air,As calling to some sister sprite,That the loved and lost is there,Till faint and weary the wanderer lone,Reaches some cottage door,When sadly and slowly it dies away,Until it is heard no more.END OF VOL. I.











Title
Wood-notes; or, Carolina carols: a collection of North Carolina poetry
Description
Wood-notes; or, Carolina carols: a collection of North Carolina poetry. Compiled by Tenella [pseud.] Raleigh : Pomeroy, 1854. 2 v. 18 cm. Joyner-Withdrawn [10/14/02]
Date
1854
Original Format
books
Extent
Local Identifier
PS558.N8 C6 1854 V. 1
Creator(s)
Subject(s)
Spatial
Location of Original
Joyner NC Rare
Rights
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https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/16942
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