While, in that nation,-shameful to relate,- Who poured his plagues on Egypt till she let Tossing the isles themselves like floating wrecks, While thrice five hundred thousand wretched slaves, As meant to mock their woes, and shake their chains, Hymn for the African Colonization Society.—PIErpont, WITH thy pure dews and rains, From Afric's shore; And, while her palm-trees bud, Let not her children's blood Quench, righteous God, the thirst Shall not thy thunders speak, Hear'st thou, O God, those chains, Them, who those chains have worn. Cast down, great God, the fanes Temples, whose priesthood pore Then bolt the black man's door, Wilt thou not, Lord, at last, But that of love, which brings Dedication Hymn.-PIERPONT. O THOU, to whom, in ancient time, And prophets praised with glowing tongue, Not now, on Zion's height alone, From every place below the skies, To heaven, and find acceptance there. In this thy house, whose doors we now To thee shall age, with snowy hair, O thou, to whom, in ancient time, To thee, at last, in every clime, Shall temples rise, and praise be sung. Evening Music of the Angels.-HILLHOUSE. Low warblings, now, and solitary harps, To cherub voices. Louder as they swelled, In every pause, from spirits in mid air, Vernal Melody in the Forest.-CARLOS WILCOX.* WITH Sonorous notes Of every tone, mixed in confusion sweet, The forest rings. Where, far around enclosed It seems a temple vast, the space within In one continued song their different notes, *He was a true poet, and deeply interesting in his character, both as a man and a Christian. He resembled Cowper in many respects ;--in the gentleness and tenderness of his sensibilities-in the modest and retiring disposition of his mind-in its fine culture, and its original poetical cast-and not a little in the character of his poetry. It has been said with truth, that, if he had given himself to poetry as his chief occupation, he might have been the Cowper of New England. We pretend not to place his unfinished and broken compositions on a level with the works of the author of the Task; but they possess much of his spirit, and, at the same time, are original. Like Cowper, "he left the ambitious and luxuriant subjects of fiction and passion, for those of real life and simple nature, and for the developement of his own earnest feelings, in behalf of moral and religious truth." Amidst the throngs of imitators, whose names have crowded the pages of the annuals and magazines, his is never to be seen; and the merits of his poetry are almost unknown to those who regulate the criticisms of the public journals. But it is both a proof and a consequence of his original powers and his elevated feelings, that, instead of devoting his mind to the composition of short, artificial pieces for the public eye, he started at once upon a wide and noble subject, with the outline in his mind of a magnificent moral poem. The history, the sce nery, and the public and domestic manners in this country, afforded scope for the composition of another Task, which, if the powers of the writer were equal to his subject, would be more for America, and the religious world, than even Cowper's was for England and his fellow men. Wilcox did not live to execute his design; but the fragments he has left us are so rich, in a vein of unaffected poetry and piety, that they make us sorrowful for what we have lost, and indignant that Ms merits are so little known and appreciated beyond a small circle of affectionate Christian friends.-ED. Mr. Adding new life and sweetness to them all. Close of the Vision of Judgment.—HILLHOUSE. As when, from some proud capital that crowns Sweeps the dank mist, or hoary river fog, Bright on the eye rush Brahma's temples, capped Pagods of gold, and mosques with burnished domes, Intenser light, as toward the right hand host Mild turning, with a look ineffable, The invitation he proclaimed in accents Which on their ravished ears poured thrilling, like The silver sound of many trumpets heard Afar in sweetest jubilee; then, swift Stretching his dreadful sceptre to the left, That shot forth horrid lightnings, in a voice Clothed but in half its terrors, yet to them Seemed like the crush of Heaven, pronounced the doom The sentence uttered, as with life instinct, The throne uprose majestically slow; Each angel spread his wings; in one dread swell |