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Vaults set with gems the purchase of a crown,
Blazing with lustre past the noontide beam,
Or, with a milder beauty, mimicking
The mystic signs of changeful Mazzaroth.
Tam. Unheard-of splendour!

Had. There they dwell, and muse,
And wander; beings beautiful, immortal,
Minds vast as heaven, capacious as the sky,

Whose thoughts connect past, present, and to come,
And glow with light intense, imperishable.
Thus, in the sparry chambers of the sea

And air-pavilions, rainbow tabernacles,

They study nature's secrets, and enjoy

No

poor dominion.

Tum. Are they beautiful,

And powerful far beyond the human race?

Had. Man's feeble heart cannot conceive it.
When

The sage described them, fiery eloquence
Flow'd from his lips; his bosom heaved, his eyes
Grew bright and mystical; moved by the theme,
Like one who feels a deity within.

Tam. Wondrous! What intercourse have they

with men?

Had. Sometimes they deign to intermix with man,

But oft with woman.

Tum. Ha! with woman?

Hud. She

Attracts them with her gentler virtues, soft,
And beautiful, and heavenly, like themselves.
They have been known to love her with a passion
Stronger than human.

Tam. That surpasses all

You yet have told me.

Had. This the sage affirms;

And Moses, darkly.

Tum. How do they appear?

How manifest their love?

Had. Sometimes 't is spiritual, signified

By beatific dreams, or more distinct

And glorious apparition. They have stoop'd
To animate a human form, and love
Like mortals.

Tam. Frightful to be so beloved!

Who could endure the horrid thought! What makes
Thy cold hand tremble? or is't mine
That feels so deathy?

Hud. Dark imaginations haunt me
When I recall the dreadful interview.

Tam. I know that they were made to rule the night.

Had. Like palace lamps! Thou echoest well thy grandsire.

Woman! the stars are living, glorious,
Amazing, infinite!

Tam. Speak not so wildly.

I know them numberless, resplendent, set
As symbols of the countless, countless years
That make eternity.

Tam. O, tell them not: I would not hear them. Hed. But why contemn a spirit's love? so high, So glorious, if he haply deign'd?

Tam. Forswear

My Maker! love a demon!

Had. No-O, no

My thoughts but wander'd. Oft, alas! they wander.
Tam. Why dost thou speak so sadly now!
Thine eyes are fix'd again upon Arcturus.

Thus

Had. Eternity!

O! mighty, glorious, miserable thought!
Had ye endured like those great sufferers,
Like them, seen ages, myriad ages roll;
Could ye but look into the void abyss
With eyes experienced, unobscured by torments,
Then mightst thou name it, name it feelingly.
Tam. What ails thee, HADAD? Draw me not
so close.

And

[lo!

ever, when thy drooping spirits ebb, Thou gazest on that star. Hath it the power To cause or cure thy melancholy mood? Tell me, ascribest thou influence to the stars? [He appears lost in thought. Had. (starting.) The stars! What know'st

thou of the stars?

Had. TAMAR! I need thy love-more than thy love

Tam. Thy cheek is wet with tears-Nay, let us "Tis late-I cannot, must not linger. [part[Breaks from him, and exit. Hud. Loved and abhorr'd! Still, still accursed! [He paces twice or thrice up and down, with passionate gestures; then turns his face to the sky, and stands a moment in silence.] O! where,

In the illimitable space, in what
Profound of untried misery, when all

His worlds, his rolling orbs of light, that fill
With life and beauty yonder infinite,
Their radiant journey run, forever set,

Where, where, in what abyss shall I be groaning?

ARTHUR'S SOLILOQUY.*

[Exit.

HERE let me pause, and breathe a while, and wipe These servile drops from off my burning brow. Amidst these venerable trees, the air

Seems hallow'd by the breath of other times.-
Companions of my fathers! ye have mark'd
Their generations pass. Your giant arms
Shadow'd their youth, and proudly canopied
Their silver hairs, when, ripe in years and glory,
These walks they trod to meditate on heaven.
What warlike pageants have ye seen! what trains
Of captives, and what heaps of spoil! what pomp,
When the victorious chief, war's tempest o'er,
In Warkworth's bowers unbound his panoply!
What floods of splendour, bursts of jocund din,
Startled the slumbering tenants of these shades,
When night awoke the tumult of the feast,
The song of damsels, and the sweet-toned lyre!
Then, princely PERCY reigned amidst his halls,
Champion, and judge, and father of the north.
O, days of ancient grandeur! are ye gone?
Forever gone? Do these same scenes behold
O, that I knew my fate! that I could read
His offspring here, the hireling of a foe?
The destiny which Heaven has mark'd for me!

*From "Percy's Masque."

JOHN M. HARNEY.

[Born, 1789. Died, 1825.]

JOHN M. HARNEY, the second of three sons of THOMAS HARNEY, an officer in the continental forces during the revolution, was born in Sussex county, Delaware, on the ninth of March, 1789. In 1791 the family removed to the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, and in a few years to Louisiana. The elder brother and our author studied medicine, and the former became a surgeon in the army. The younger brother also entered the army, was commissioned as lieutenant in 1818, and in 1847 was brevetted a brigadier general for gallant conduct in the battle of Cerro Gordo.

Dr. JOHN M. HARNEY settled in Bardstown, Kentucky, where in 1814 he was married to a daughter of Judge JOHN ROWAN. In 1816 he visited the eastern states; and the death of his wife, soon after, caused him to abandon his pursuits at Bardstown and return to Tennessee; and, as soon as he could make suitable preparations, to go abroad. He travelled in Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Spain; spent several years in the naval service of Buenos Ayres; and coming back to the United States, took up his residence at Savannah, Georgia, where he conducted a political newspaper. Excessive exertion and exposure at a fire, in that city, brought on a fever which undermined his constitution, and having removed again to Bardstown, he died there, on the fifteenth of January, 1825.

His "Crystalina, a Fairy Tale," in six cantos, was completed when he was about twenty-three years of age, but in consequence of "the proverbial indifference, and even contempt, with which Americans receive the works of their countrymen," he informs us in a brief preface, was not published until 1816, when it appeared anonymously in New York. It received much attention in the leading literary journals of that day. Its obvious faults were freely censured, but upon the whole it was reviewed with unusual manifestations of kindly interest. The sensitive poet, however, was so deeply wounded by some unfavor able criticisms, that he suppressed nearly all the copies he had caused to be printed, so that it has since been among our rarest books.

tions could be discovered, and that he for years had searched for her in vain through every quar ter of the world. He implores the aid of the seer, who ascertains from famíliar spirits, summoned by his spells, that CRYSTALINA has been stolen by OBERON, and, arming RINALDO with a cross and consecrated weapons, conducts him to a mystic circle, within which, upon the performance of a described ceremony, the earth opens and discloses the way to Fairy Land. In the second, third, and fourth cantos, are related the knight's adventures in that golden subterranean realm; the various stratagems and enchantments by which its sovereign endeavored to seduce or terrify him; his annihilation of all obstacles by exhibiting the cross; the discovery of CRYSTA LINA, transformed into a bird, in OBERON's pa lace; the means by which she was restored to her natural form of beauty; and the triumphant re turn of the lovers to the upper air. In the fifth and sixth cantos it is revealed that ALTAGRAND is the father of RINALDO, and the early friend of the father of CRYSTALINA, with whom he had fought in the holy wars against the infidel. The king,

-"inspired with joy and wine,

From his loose locks shook off the snows of time," and celebrated the restoration of his child and his friend, and the resignation of his crown to RINALDO, in a blissful song:

...

"Ye rolling streams, make liquid melody,
And dance into the sea.

Let not rude Boreas, on this halcyon day,
Forth in his stormy chariot be whirled;
Let not a cloud its raven wings display,

Nor shoot the oak-rending lightnings at the world.
Let Jove, auspicious, from his red right hand,
Lay down his thunder brand-

A child I lost, but two this day have found,
Let the earth shout, and let the skies resound....
'Let Atropos forego her dismal trade,

And cast her fatal, horrid shears, away,
While Lachesis spins out a firmer thread;
Let hostile armies hold a truce to-day,
And grim-faced war wash white his gory hand,
And smile around the land-

A child I lost, but two this day have found,
Let the earth shout, and let the skies resound....
"Let all the stars of influence benign,

This sacred night in heavenly synod meet;
Let Mars and Venus be in happy trine,
And on the wide world look with aspect sweet;
And let the mystic music of the spheres
Be audible to mortal ears-

The poem is founded chiefly upon superstitions which prevail among the highlands of Scotland. A venerable seer, named ALTAGRAND, is visited by the knight RINALDO, who informs him that the monarch of a distant island had an only daughter, CRYSTALINA, with whom he had fallen in love; that the princess refused to marry him unless he first distinguished himself in battle; that he "plucked laurel wreaths in danger's bloody path," and returned to claim his promised Portico," a monthly magazine, at Baltimore, and reward, but was informed of the mysterious disap- he reviewed this poem in a long and characterpearance of the maid, of whose fate no indica-istic article. After remarking that it was "the

140

A child I lost, but two this day have found,
Then shout, oh earth, and thou, oh sea, resound."
In 1816, Mr. JOHN NEAL was editing "The

most splendid production" that ever came before him, he says

"We can produce passages from 'Crystalina' which have not been surpassed in our language. SPENSER himself, who seemed to have condensed all the radiance of fairy-land upon his starry page, never dreamed of more exquisitely fanciful scenery than that which our bard has sometimes painted... .... Had this poet written before SKAKSPEARE and SPENSER, he would have been acknowledged 'the child of fancy..... Had he dared to think for himself-to blot out some passages, which his judgment, we are sure, could not have approved-the remainder would have done credit to any poet, living or dead.... It is not our intention to run a parallel between the author of 'Crystalina' and the SHAESPEARE, SPENSER, or MILTON, of another country.... He moves in a different creation, but he moves in as radiant a circle, and at as elevated a point, in his limited sphere, as any whom we have mentioned."

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I cannot quite agree with Mr. NEAL. “ Crystalina" does not seem to me very much superior to his own "Battle of Niagara." It however evinces decided poetical power, and if carefully revised, by a man of even very inferior talents, if of a more cultivated taste and greater skill in the uses of language, it might be rendered one of the most attractive productions in its class. The precept of HORACE, that a poet should construct his fable from events generally believed to be true, is justified by the fact that so few works in which the characters are impossible, and the incidents altogether incredible, have been successful in modern times. DRAKE's Culprit Fay" is undoubtedly a finer poem than MORRIS'S "Woodman, spare that Tree," but it will never be half as popular.

46

That Dr. HARNEY had an original and poetical fancy will be sufficiently evident from a few examples:

"Thrice had yon moon her pearly chariot driven Across the starry wilderness of heaven,

In lonely grandeur; thrice the morning star
Danced on the eastern hills before Hyperion's car."

." Deep silence reigned, so still, so deep, and dread,
That they might hear the fairy's lightest tread,
Might hear the spider as he wove his snare,
From rock to rock."

...."The mountain tops, oak-crowned
Tossed in the storm, and echoed to the sound
Of trees uptorn, and thunders rolling round."
...."The prowlers of the wood
Fled to their caves, or crouching with alarm,
Howled at the passing spirits of the storm;
Eye-blasting spectres and bleached skeletons,
With snow-white raiment, and disjointed bones,
Before them strode, and meteors flickering dire,
Around them trailed their scintillating fire."
"The fearless songsters sing,

And round me flutter with familiar wing,
Or mid the flowers, like sunbeams glance about,
Sipping, with slender tongues, the dainty nectar out."
. "Morn, ascending from the sparkling main,
Unlocked her golden magazines of light,
And on the sea, and heaven's cerulean plain,
Showered liquid rubies, while retreating Night
In other climes her starred pavilion spread."

After the publication of " Crystalina," Dr. HARNEY commenced an epic poem, of which fragments were found, with numerous shorter compositions, among his papers, after he died. Mr. GALLAGHER, who examined some of his manuscripts, says "they were worthier than Crystalina' of his genius and acquirements;" but nearly all of them disappeared, through the negligence or the jealous care of his friends. Among his latest productions was The Fever Dream," which was written at Sa

66

vannah, after he had himself been a sufferer from the disease he so vividly describes. In a lighter vein is the ingenious bagatelle entitled "Echo and the Lover," which, as well as "The Fever Dream," was first published after the poet's death.

EXTRACTS FROM CRYSTALINA."

SYLPHS, BATHING.

THE shores with acclamations rung,
As in the flood the playful damsels sprung:
Upon their beauteous bodies, with delight,
The billows leapt. Oh, 't was a pleasant sight,
To see the waters dimple round, for joy,
Climb their white necks, and on their bosoms toy:
Like snowy swans they vex'd the sparkling tide,
Till little rainbows danced on every side.
Some swam, some floated, some on pearly feet
Stood sidelong, smiling, exquisitely sweet.

TITANIA'S CONCERT.

In robes of green, fresh youths the concert led, Measuring the while, with nice, emphatic tread Of tinkling sandals, the melodious sound

With cunning fingers fret the tuneful wires;
With rosy lips, some press the syren shell,
And, through its crimson labyrinths, impel
Mellifluous breath, with artful sink and swell.
Some blow the mellow, melancholy horn,
Which, save the knight, no man of woman born,
E'er heard and fell not senseless to the ground,
With viewless fetters of enchantment bound.

ON A FRIEND.

DEVOUT, yet cheerful; pious, not austere;
To others lenient, to himself severe;
Though honored, modest; diffident, though praised;
The proud he humbled, and the humble raised;
Studious, yet social; though polite, yet plain;
No man more learned, yet no man less vain.
His fame would universal envy move,
But envy's lost in universal love.

Of smitten timbrels; some, with myrtles crown'd, That he has faults, it may be bold to doubt,

Pour the smooth current of sweet melody,
Through ivory tubes; some blow the bugle free,
And some, at happy intervals, around,
With trumps sonorous swell the tide of sound;
Some, bending raptured o'er their golden lyres,

Yet certain 't is we ne'er have found them out.
If faults he has, (as man, 't is said, must have,)
They are the only faults he ne'er forgave.
I flatter not: absurd to flatter where
Just praise is fulsome, and offends the ear.

142

THE FEVER DREAM.

A FEVER Scorched my body, fired my brain; Like lava in Vesuvius, boiled my blood Within the glowing caverns of my heart;

I heard a laugh, and saw a wretched man
Rip madly his own veins, and bleeding drink
With eager joy. The example seized on all;
Each fell upon himself, tearing his veins
Fiercely in search of blood. And some there were,
Who having emptied their own veins, did seize

I raged with thirst, and begged a cold, clear draught Their neighbors' arms,and slay them for their blood.

Of fountain water. "'T was, with tears, denied.
I drank a nauseous febrifuge, and slept,
But rested not-harassed with horrid dreams
Of burning deserts, and of dusty plains,
Mountains disgorging flames, forests on fire,
Steam, sunshine, smoke, and ever-boiling lakes-
Hills of hot sand, and glowing stones, that seemed
Embers and ashes of a burnt-up world.

Oh! happy then were mothers who gave suck.
They dashed their little infants from their breasts,
And their shrunk bosoms tortured, to extract
The balmy juice, oh! exquisitely sweet [gone!
To their parched tongues! "Tis done! now all is
Blood, water, and the bosom's nectar!-all!

"Rend, oh, ye lightnings! the sealed firmament, And flood a burning world. Rain! rain! pour! pour!

Thirst raged within me. I sought the deepest vale, Open, ye windows of high heaven! and pour

And called on all the rocks and caves for water;

I climbed a mountain, and from cliff to cliff,
Pursued a flying cloud, howling for water;—
I crushed the withered herbs, and gnawed dry roots,
Still crying, "Water!" while the cliffs and caves,
In horrid mockery, re-echoed "Water!"
Below the mountain gleamed a city, red
With solar flame, upon the sandy bank
Of a broad river. 66
"Soon, oh soon," I cried,
"I'll cool my burning body in that flood,
And quaff my fill!" Iran; I reached the shore;
The river was dried up; its oozy bed
Was dust; and on its arid rocks I saw
The scaly myriads fry beneath the sun;
Where sank the channel deepest, I beheld
A stirring multitude of human forms,
And heard a faint, wild, lamentable wail.
Thither I sped, and joined the general cry
Of "Water!" They had delved a spacious pit
In search of hidden fountains: sad, sad sight!
I saw them rend the rocks up in their rage,
With mad impatience calling on the earth
To open and yield up her cooling springs. [gaze,
Meanwhile the skies, on which they dared not
Stood o'er them like a canopy of brass-
Undimmed by moisture; the red dog-star raged,
And Phoebus from the house of Virgo shot
His scorching shafts. The thirsty multitude
Grew still more frantic. Those who dug the earth
Fell lifeless on the rocks they strained to upheave,
And filled again, with their own carcasses,
The pits they made-undoing their own work.
Despair at length drove out the laborers,
At sight of whom a general groan announced
The death of hope. Ah! now no more was heard
The cry of "Water!" To the city next,
Howling we ran-all hurrying without aim:-
Thence to the woods. The baked plain gaped

for moisture,

And from its arid breast heaved smoke, that seemed
Breath of a furnace-fierce, volcanic fire,
Or hot monsoon, that raises Syrian sands
To clouds. Amid the forests we espied
A faint and bleating herd. Suddenly, shrill
And horrid shouts arose of "Blood! blood! blood!"
We fell upon them with a tiger's thirst,
And drank up all the blood that was not human;
We were all dyed in blood. Despair returned;
The cry was hushed; and dumb confusion reigned.
Even then, when hope was dead, and all past hope,

The mighty deluge! Let us drown and drink
Luxurious death! Ye earthquakes split the globe,
The solid, rock-ribbed globe—and lay all bare
Its subterranean rivers and fresh seas!"

Thus raged the multitude. And many fell
In fierce convulsions; many slew themselves.
And now I saw the city all in flames-
The forest burning-earth itself on fire!
I saw the mountains open with a roar,
Loud as the seven apocalyptic thunders,
And seas of lava rolling headlong down,
Through crackling forests, fierce, and hot as hell-
Down to the plain. I turned to fly-and waked!

ECHO AND THE LOVER.

Lover. ECHO! mysterious nymph, declare
Of what you 're made and what you are—
Echo.
"Air!"
Lover. 'Mid airy cliffs, and places high,
Sweet Echo! listening, love, you lie—
Echo.
"You lie!"
Lover. You but resuscitate dead sounds-
Hark! how my voice revives, resounds'
Echo.
"Zounds!"
Lover. I'll question you before I go—
Come, answer me more apropos!
Echo.
"Poh! poh!"
Lover. Tell me fair nymph, if e'er you saw
So sweet a girl as Phoebe Shaw?
Echo.
"Pshaw!"
Lover. Say, what will win that frisking coney
Into the toils of matrimony?

Echo.

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Money!"
Lover. Has Phoebe not a heavenly brow?
Is it not white as pearl-as snow?
Echo.
"Ass, no!"
Lover. Her eyes! Was ever such a pair!
Are the stars brighter than they are
Echo.
"They are!"
Lover. Echo, you lie, but can't deceive me;
Her eyes eclipse the stars, believe me-

Echo.

?

Lover.
Echo.

"Leave me." But come, you saucy, pert romancer, Who is as fair as Phoebe ? answer. "Ann. sir."

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ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT, one of the most learned and respectable of our public characters, is best known as a writer by his various, numerous and able productions in prose; but is entitled to notice in a reviewal of American poetry by the volume of original and translated "Poems," which he published in Boston in 1845. He was a son of the Reverend OLIVER EVERETT, of Dorchester, and an elder brother of EDWARD EVERETT, and was born on the nineteenth of March, 1790. He was graduated, with the highest honours, at Harvard College, at the early age of sixteen; the following year was a teacher in the Exeter Academy; and afterwards a student in the law office of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, whom in 1809 he accompanied to Russia, as his private secretary. In St. Petersburgh he passed two years in the assiduous study of languages and politics, and returning to this country was appointed secretary of legation to the Netherlands, in 1813, and in 1818 became chargé d'affaires at that post, and in 1825

THE PORTRESS.

L'ENVOI, TO M. L.

FAIR Saint! who, in thy brightest day
Of life's meridian joys,

Hast turn'd thy serious thoughts away
From fashion's fleeting toys,
And fasten'd them with lofty view
Upon the Only Good and True,
Come, listen to me while I tell
A tale of holy miracle.

Come fly with me on fancy's wing
To that far, sea-girt strand,

The clime of sunshine, love, and spring,
Thy favorite Spanish land!
And lo! before our curious eyes
An ancient city's turrets rise,
And circled by its moss-grown wall,
There stands a vast, baronial hall.

And opposite, a convent pile
Its massy structure rears,
And in the chapel's vaulted aisle

A holy shrine appears:

And at the shrine devoutly bent,
There kneels a lovely penitent,
In sable vesture, sadly fair,
Come-listen with me to her prayer

BALLAD.

"Blest shrines! from which in evil hour

My erring footsteps stray'd, Oh! grant your kind protecting power! To a repentant maid!

minister to Spain. He came home in 1829, and in the same year undertook the editorship of "The North American Review." He was subsequently an active but not a very successful politician, several years, and in 1845, after having for a short time been president of the University of Louisiana, was appointed minister plenipotentiary to China, and sailed for Canton in a national ship, but was compelled by ill health to return, after having proceeded as far as Rio Janeiro. The next year, however, he was able to attempt the voyage a second time, and he succeeded in reaching Canton, but to die there just after his arrival, the twenty-ninth of June, 1847.

The principal works of Mr. EVERETT are described in "The Prose Writers of America." His poems consist of translations from the Greek, Latin, Norse, German, French and Spanish, with a few original pieces, more wise, perhaps, than poetical. Some of the translations are executed with remarkable grace and spirit.

Sweet Virgin! if in other days

I sang thee hymns of love and praise,
And plaited garlands for thy brow,
Oh! listen to thy votary now!
"The robe, in which thy form is drest,
These patient fingers wrought;
The flowers that bloom upon thy breast
With loving zeal I brought;
That holy cross, of diamond clear,
I often wash'd with many a tear,
And dried again in pious bliss,
Sweet Virgin! with a burning kiss.
"And when by cruel arts betray'd,
My wayward course began,
And I forsook thy holy shade,

With that false-hearted man,

I breathed to thee my parting prayer,
And gave me to thy gentle care;
Sweet Virgin! hear thy votary's vow,
And grant her thy protection now!"
Unhappy Margaret! she had been
The fairest and the best,
In pious zeal and modest mien
Outshining all the rest;

And was so diligent withal,
That she had won the trust of all,

And by superior order sate

As Portress at the convent gate.

And well she watch'd that entrance o'er ;Ah! had she known the art

To guard as faithfully the door

Of her own virgin heart.

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