And always 'tis the saddest sight to see
An old man faithless in Humanity.

IV.

A poet cannot strive for despotism;

His harp falls shattered; for it still must be
The instinct of great spirits to be free,
And the sworn foes of cunning barbarism.
He who has deepest searched the wide abysm
Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate,
Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate
Than truth and love, is the worst atheism:
Upward the soul for ever turns her eyes;

The next hour always shames the hour before;
One beauty at its highest prophesies

That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor;
No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less,
But widens to the boundless Perfectness.

V.

Therefore think not the Past is wise alone,
For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best,
And thou shalt love it only as the nest
Whence glory-winged things to Heaven have flown.
To the great Soul alone are all things known,
Present and future are to her as past,

While she in glorious madness doth forecast
That perfect bud which seems a flower full-blown
To each new Prophet, and yet always opes

Fuller and fuller with each day and hour,
Heartening the soul with odor of fresh hopes,

And longings high and gushings of wide power,

Yet never is or shall be fully blown

Save in the forethought of the Eternal One.

VI.

Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time,

With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should look
Into the Endless Promise, nor should brook
One prying doubt to shake his faith sublime;
To him the earth is ever in her prime

And dewiness of morning; he can see
Good lying hid, from all eternity,

Within the teeming womb of sin and crime;
His soul should not be cramped by any bar,—
His nobleness should be so Godlike high

That his least deed is perfect as a star,

His common look majestic as the sky, And all o'erflooded with a light from far, Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality. BOSTON, April 2, 1842.

}

THE MINSTREL'S CURSE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND.

A CASTLE stood in olden time, so lofty and so grand,

Far o'er the plain its splendor shone unto the blue sea's strand,
And round it fragrant gardens a blooming garland made,
Where freshest fountains springing forth, in rainbow glory played.

There sat a haughty monarch, rich in land and victories,
He sat upon his throne, so pale, with darkness in his eyes;
For all his thoughts are horror, and all his looks are rage,
His words are scourges, and he writes in blood upon the page.

Once drew there toward this castle a noble minstrel pair,
The one in golden tresses, and the other gray of hair;
The old man with his harp was seated on a charger pied,
And blithely stepped his blooming mate in beauty at his side.

The old man to the youth thus spake: "Prepare thee now, my son!
Bethink thee of our deepest songs-tune to the fullest tone,-
Gather thy strength together, the gladness and the pain!
For the king's stony heart to-day must melt beneath our strain."

Already stood the minstrels in the pillared hall of state,
And on the throne the monarch and his gentle consort sate ;
The king in fearful splendor, like the bloody northern light,
Tender and mild the queen, as if the full moon made her bright.

The old man struck the harp-strings, and he struck so wondrously,
That richer, ever richer, swelled their rising melody;
Then streamed with heavenly clearness forth the young man's tones of fire,
And the old man's song was heard between, like a misty spirit choir.

Of love and spring they're singing, of the happy golden time,
Of freedom, manly worth, of faith and holiness sublime,

And all things sweet that thrill the breast of man are in their lays,
And all that have a lofty spell the heart of man to raise.

The jest has died upon the lips of the gay courtier crowd,
And the king's stalwart warriors before their God are bowed,
The queen, her soul all melted with mournfullest delight,
Throws to the minstrel pair a rose from off her bosom white.

"Ye have seduced my people, entice you now my wife?"
Raves the fierce king, all trembling with passion's fearful strife;
Sudden his sword, like lightning, at the youth's fair breast he flings,
And forth, 'stead of the golden song, a bloody torrent springs..
VOL. X. No. XLVII.-61

Then, as by tempest, scattered is all that listening swarm,

The gentle youth has breathed his last upon his master's arm,
He binds him with his minstrel cloak firm upright on the horse,
And from the castle turns his steps, with the beloved corse.

But yet before the lofty gate, pauses the minstrel gray,
There seizes he his cherished harp, the glory of its day;
Upon a marble pillar dashed, by his stern hand, it lies,
Then calls he until tower and grove ring with his fearful cries.

"Wo unto you, proud halls! no more your empty vaults along
The minstrel's string shall tremble, shall gush the poet's song!
No! sighs and groans shall echo there, and the slave's step of dread,.
Till the avenging spirit o'er your mould'ring dust shall tread.

"Wo unto you, sweet gardens! in the lovely light of May,
I show to you the features marred of him who's passed away,
That ye thereat may wither, and your every stream be dry,
That ye, all turned to stone, one day may waste and desert lie.

"Wo unto thee, foul murderer! thou curse of Minstrelsie!
In vain thy striving for the crown of bloody fame shall be,
Forgotten be thy name for aye, in endless night enwreathed,
Let it, as an expiring gasp, in empty air be breathed !”

The old man's voice has called it down, the ear of heaven has heard ;
The sinking walls, the ruined halls, fulfil his parting word;

One pillar yet remains to mark the glory that has gone,
And that, already crumbling, may fall ere morrow morn.

And round it, 'stead of gardens fair, a barren desert land,

No tree may cast its shadow there, no spring may pierce the sand;
The monarch's name no song, and no heroic page rehearse,
Deep sunken and forgotten-that is the Minstrel's Curse.

MR. HENRY A. WISE AND THE CILLEY DUEL.

In the Number of the Democratic Review for March, 1838, under the title of "The Martyrdom of Cilley," we published an article not yet probably forgotten by some of our readers, some portions of which, now sincerely regretting to have printed or written, we are as sincerely anxious to retract, and to atone for to the fullest extent that either justice can claim, or generosity could suggest.

The article referred to was written almost as it were by the very side of the dead body of the friend whose unhappy fate

created the occasion for it, and awoke the spirit which it breathed. The profound sensation which electrified the heart of the whole country on the announcement of that terrible tragedy, there are few doubtless who do not remember. What must have been the emotions of those who stood at the very centre of this deep and wide popular agitation—who in its victim mourned a friend and recent companion-and whose sight was still haunted by the image of the good, the gallant, and the gentle, stretched before them in the ghastly awfulness of such a death-language could with difficulty utter, and memory shrinks from attempting to recall. If there was any thing in the article in question of a character too vindictive and merciless, it is a duty to conscience and to Christianity to express for it that regret which, at a calmer season of more just and charitable retrospection, ought to arise in every human heart which has ever been hurried by natural passion to indulge such a sentiment towards any fellow human being. We will only say, that if there was in it any spirit of vengeance, it was that unconscious vengeance which so often believes itself to be but the righteous resentment of justice. That it was both sincere, and prompted only by motives of a high public duty, may be assumed as sufficiently proved by the slightest reference to the great personal peril at which such an article was necessarily written and published, under the existing circumstances of time and place.

Mr. Wise was treated, in that article, as the true author of the death-the death which was regarded as the murder-of poor Cilley. It was indeed very unfortunate for that gentleman that the general complexion of the evidence of the case, so far as it was then spread before the public eye, was such as to fasten this imputation upon him, as the principal figure of the whole horrid transaction, with a terrible degree of concentration and force. We will not recapitulate it-we have no desire to preserve its recollection. So general and so strong was the effect thus produced, that the echo has never yet entirely died away from the land, of the execrations which were then heaped upon his name from every quarter of its wide extent. A general impression has prevailed that he fomented this wretchedly groundless quarrel, urged forward its consummation, and, in a spirit of deadly ferocity that knew no ruth nor relenting, forced it on to its fatal issue, not only without any of the conventional justification to be derived from the laws of the "code of honor," but in opposition to its clearest principles. Many personal and political friends, doubtless, took a different view of the matter, but in the minds of a great majority of the people, such was the pervading

impression left behind; and when the death of Cilley was remembered, the image of Wise, more than that of Graves, was associated with the event as its truly guilty and responsible author. Though the latter was condemned, with a less unforgiving reprobation, as having evinced a wicked weakness of conduct throughout the affair, the former was regarded as the masterspirit of the mischief, and as having shown himself in it a man of dark and malignant soul, of bad and bitter heart.

The recent publications which have been made on this unhappy subject, have satisfied us that in all this a great and serious injustice has been done to Mr. Wise; and if we in any degree contributed before to aggravate that feeling, we hasten-equally now as then, unsolicited and unprompted—to volunteer the expression of our regret, and of our desire to apply such remedy as may be in our power.

No man, but ONE, has ever yet trod the earth, who, in the judgments of his fellow-men upon him and his life, did not need more than justice, charity, even as mercy could be his only hope in the judgments of his God. It is especially our duty to judge men, when we venture to judge them at all, with reference to the standard of right to be sought in those codes of practice and principle to which they have been educated, and by the influences of which they have continued in life surrounded. Without carrying this rule to the false length which would substitute the accidental laws of circumstance for the immutable ones of universal justice and right, and find an excuse for all wrong by transferring its responsibility to others-ancestors, parents, associations, the world-the sternest moralist will not refuse to take these at least charitably into account; if not to change his decision, yet to soften the severity of the penalties with which he would visit the authors of human offences, which in themselves would sometimes seem to be beyond the reach of forgiveness. The event to which we have referred above was in itself a most foul deed, a most heinous crime-and constitutes one of the most startling illustrations ever presented to the public mind, of the foolishness and the wickedness of that code of barbarian "honor" to which poor Cilley fell a victim. Its good effects have, doubtless, not been lost in awakening in many minds those reflections upon the absurdity and atrocity of the whole institution of the Duel, which will eventually draw out of the present and partial evil a lasting and extended good. It is to be hoped that its moral influence in this way has not been lost upon those themselves engaged in it.

Mr. Wise in this matter acted as a duellist, and he carried out