Presided o'er the chaos of her thoughts The revelation that upon her soul Dwelt with its power, she gain'd the cavern's throat, But now, obscurely o'er her vision swam That loveliest seem in heaven, with ceaseless change, She heeded them. Yet pleasant was the shade A dull and dismal sound came booming on; How pride would end; and uncouth soldiers tread The foreshown tidings. To his house of wo Silent and mournful, MOTEUCZOMA went. Few years had pass'd, when by the rabble hands Of his own subjects, in ignoble bonds He fell; and on a hasty gibbet rear'd By the road-side, with scorn and obloquy The brave and gracious GCATEMOTZIN hung; While to Honduras, thirsting for revenge, And gloomier after all his victories, Stern CORTES stalked. Such was the will of God. And then, with holier rites and sacred pomp, Again committed to the peaceful grave, PAPANTZIN slept in consecrated earth. MONODY ON SAMUEL PATCH.* By water shall he die, and take his end.-SHAKSPEARE. TOLL for SAM PATCH! SAM PATCH, who jumps no more, This or the world to come. SAM PATCH is dead! The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore Of dark futurity, he would not tread. No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed; Nor with decorous wo, sedately stepp'd Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed;— The mighty river, as it onward swept, In one great, wholesale sob, his body drown'd and kept. Toll for SAM PATCH! he scorn'd the common way That leads to fame. up heights of rough ascent, And having heard POPE and LONGINUS Say, That some great men had risen to falls, he went And jump'd, where wild Passaic's waves had rent The antique rocks;-the air free passage gave,— And graciously the liquid element Upbore him, like some sea-god on its wave; Fame, the clear spirit that doth to heaven upraise, He woo'd the bathos down great waterfalls; Pleasant, as are to women lighted halls, Cramm'd full of fools and fiddles; to the sound Of the eternal roar, he timed his desperate bound. SAM was a fool. But the large world of such Has thousands-better taught, alike absurd, And less sublime. Of fame he soon got much, Where distant cataracts spout, of him men heard. *SAMUEL PATCH was a boatman on the Erie Canal, in New York. He made himself notorious by leaping from the masts of ships, from the Falls of Niagara, and from the Falls in the Genesee River, at Rochester. His last feat was in the summer of 1831, when, in the presence of many thousands, he jumped from above the highest rock over which the water falls in the Genesee, and was lost. He had become intoxicated, before going upon the scaffold, and lost his balance in descending. The above verses were written a few days after this event. Alas for SAM! Had he aright preferr'd The kindly element, to which he gave Himself so fearlessly, we had not heard He soon got drunk, with rum and with renown, With demigods, who went to the Black Sea For wool, (and, if the best accounts be straight, Came back, in negro phraseology, With the same wool each upon his pate,) In which she chronicled the deathless fate Of him who jump'd into the perilous ditch Left by Rome's street commissioners, in a state Which made it dangerous, and by jumping which He made himself renown'd, and the contractors rich I say, the muse shall quite forget to sound The chord whose music is undying, if She do not strike it when SAM PATCH is drown'd. Because the wax did not continue stiff; As everybody knows. Why sing of these? For glory in the abstract, SAM made his, To prove to all men, commons, lords, and kings, That "some things may be done, as well as other things." I will not be fatigued, by citing more Who jump'd of old, by hazard or design, Nor plague the weary ghosts of boyish lore, VULCAN, APOLLO, PHAETON-in fine, All TOOKE's Pantheon. Yet they grew divine By their long tumbles; and if we can match Their hierarchy, shall we not entwine To long conclusions many men have jump'd [brook; Hiding their woful fall, by hook and crook, In slang and gibberish, sputtering and confusion; But that was not the way SAM came to his conclusion. He jump'd in person. Death or Victory A blunder which the wisest men will make. Shall SAM go down the cataract of long years; And if there be sublimity in tears, Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed When his frail star gave way, and waked his fears Lest by the ungenerous crowd it might be said, That he was all a hoax, or that his pluck had fled. Who would compare the maudlin ALEXANDER, Blubbering, because he had no job in hand, Acting the hypocrite, or else the gander, With SAM, whose grief we all can understand? His crying was not womanish, nor plann'd For exhibition; but his heart o'erswell'd With its own agony, when he the grand Natural arrangements for a jump beheld, And, measuring the cascade, found not his courage quell'd. His last great failure set the final seal Unto the record Time shall never tear, While bravery has its honour,-while men feel He came his only intimate a bear,- Hell-draughts for man, too much tormented him. With nerves unstrung, but steadfast in his soul, He stood upon the salient current's brim; His head was giddy, and his sight was dim; And then he knew this leap would be his last,— Saw air, and earth, and water wildly swim, With eyes of many multitudes, dense and vast, That stared in mockery; none a look of kindness cast. Beat down, in the huge amphitheatre "I see before me the gladiator lie,” And tier on tier, the myriads waiting there The bow of grace, without one pitying eyeHe was a slave-a captive hired to die ;SAM was born free as C.ESAR; and he might The hopeless issue have refused to try; No! with true leap, but soon with faltering flight,"Deep in the roaring gulf, he plunged to endless night." But, ere he leap'd, he begg'd of those who made 1 To his mother. This, his last request, shall be,Though she who bore him ne'er his fate should An iris, glittering o'er his memory, [knowWhen all the streams have worn their barriers low, And, by the sea drunk up, forever cease to flow. On him who chooses to jump down cataracts, Why should the sternest moralist be severe ? Therefore it is consider'd, that SAM PATCH Of the heroic dough, which baking Time Shall tell of him; he dived for the sublime, And found it. Thou, who with the eagle's wing, Being a goose, wouldst fly,-dream not of such a thing! EVENING.* HAIL! sober evening! thee the harass'd brain 'Tis then the bard may hold communion sweet With lovely shapes, unkenn'd by grosser eyes, And quick perception comes of finer mysteries. The silent hour of bliss! when in the west In tones of heavenly music comfort breathe, Hour of devotion! like a distant sea, Felt a new birth within, and sin no longer knew. Let others hail the oriflamme of morn, *FromYamoyden." Where wealth and power with glare and splendour rise, Let fools and slaves disgustful incense burn! Still Memory's moonlight lustre let me prize; The great, the good, whose course is o'er, discern, And, from their glories past, time's mighty lessons learn! WEEHAWKEN. EVE o'er our path is stealing fast; The mountain's mirror'd outline fades River and mountain! though to song Yet, should the stranger ask, what lore O'er yon rough heights and moss-clad sod When the great strife for Freedom rose, Her son, the second of the band, There last he stood. Before his sight THE GREEN ISLE OF LOVERS. THEY say that, afar in the land of the west, Where the bright golden sun sinks in glory to rest, Mid fens where the hunter ne'er ventured to tread, A fair lake unruffled and sparkling is spread; Where, lost in his course, the rapt Indian discovers, In distance seen dimly, the green Isle of Lovers. There verdure fades never; immortal in bloom, Soft waves the magnolia its groves of perfume; And low bends the branch with rich fruitage depress'd, All glowing like gems in the crowns of the east; There the bright eye of nature, in mild glory hovers: "Tis the land of the sunbeam,-the green Isle of Lovers! Sweet strains wildly float on the breezes that kiss The calm-flowing lake round that region of bliss Where, wreathing their garlands of amaranth, fair choirs Glad measures still weave to the sound that inspires The dance and the revel, mid forests that cover On high with their shade the green Isle of the Lover. But fierce as the snake, with his eyeballs of fire, When his scales are all brilliant and glowing with ire, Are the warriors to all, save the maids of their isle, Whose law is their will, and whose life is their smile; From beauty there valour and strength are not rovers, And peace reigns supreme in the green Isle of Lovers. And he who has sought to set foot on its shore, THE DEAD OF 1832. O, TIME and Death! with certain pace, Not always in the storm of war, Nor by the pestilence that sweeps From the plague-smitten realms afar, Beyond the old and solemn deeps: In crowds the good and mighty go, And to those vast, dim chambers hie: Where, mingled with the high and low, Dead CESARS and dead SHAKSPEARES lie! Dread ministers of Gon! sometimes When all the brightest stars that burn At once are banish'd from their spheres, Men sadly ask, when shall return Such lustre to the coming years! For where is he*-who lived so long Who raised the modern Titan's ghost, And show'd his fate in powerful song, Whose soul for learning's sake was lost! Where he who backward to the birth Of Time itself, adventurous trod, And in the mingled mass of earth Found out the handiwork of GoD Where he who in the mortal head,t Ordain'd to gaze on heaven, could trace The soul's vast features, that shall tread The stars, when earth is nothingness! Where he who struck old Albyn's lyre, Till round the world its echoes roll, And swept, with all a prophet's fire, The diapason of the soul? Where he—who read the mystic lore Buried where buried PHARAOHS sleep; And dared presumptuous to explore Secrets four thousand years could keep? Where he who, with a poct's eye¶ Of truth, on lowly nature gazed, And made even sordid Poverty Classic, when in his numbers glazed? Where--that old sage so hale and staid,** The "greatest good" who sought to find; Who in his garden mused, and made All forms of rule for all mankind? Take him, ye noble, vulgar dead! They go--and with them is a crowd, For human rights who thought and did: We rear to them no temples proud, Each hath his mental pyramid. All earth is now their sepulchre, The mind, their monument sublimeYoung in eternal fame they areSuch are your triumphs, Death and Time. PARTING. SAY, when afar from mine thy home shall be, That yet can feed with life this wither'd heart! Majestic nature! since thy course began, The crowd's vain roar still fills the passing breeze And shouldst thou e'er their bless'd allegiance slight, The mind must wander, lost in endless night. Farewell! forget me not, when others gaze Enamour'd on thee, with the looks of praise; When weary leagues before my view are cast, And each dull hour seems heavier than the last, Forget me not. May joy thy steps attend, And mayst thou find in every form a friend; With care unsullied be thy every thought; And in thy dreams of home, forget me not! CONCLUSION TO YAMOYDEN. SAD was the theme, which yet to try we chose, In pleasant moments of communion sweet; When least we thought of earth's unvarnish'd woes, And least we dream'd, in fancy's fond deceit, That either the cold grasp of death should meet, Till after many years, in ripe old age; Three little summers flew on pinions fleet, And thou art living but in memory's page, And earth seems all to me a worthless pilgrimage. Sad was our theme; but well the wise man sung, "Better than festal halls, the house of wo;" "Tis good to stand destruction's spoils among, And muse on that sad bourne to which we go. The heart grows better when tears freely flow; And, in the many-colour'd dream of earth, One stolen hour, wherein ourselves we know, Our weakness and our vanity,--is worth Years of unmeaning smiles, and lewd, obstreperous mirth. "Tis good to muse on nations pass'd away, Forever, from the land we call our own; Nations, as proud and mighty in their day, Who deem'd that everlasting was their throne. An age went by, and they no more were known Sublimer sadness will the mind control, Listening time's deep and melancholy moan; And meaner griefs will less disturb the soul; And human pride falls low, at human grandeur's goal. PHILIP! farewell! thee King, in idle jest, Thy persecutors named; and if indeed, The jewell'd diadem thy front had press'd, It had become thee better, than the breed Of palaces, to sceptres that succeed, To be of courtier or of priest the tool, Satiate dull sense, or count the frequent bead, Or pamper gormand hunger; thou wouldst rule Better than the worn rake, the glutton, or the fool! I would not wrong thy warrior shade, could I Aught in my verse or make or mar thy fame; As the light carol of a bird flown by [name: Will pass the youthful strain that breathed thy But in that land whence thy destroyers came, A sacred bard thy champion shall be found; He of the laureate wreath for thee shall claim The hero's honours, to earth's farthest bound, Where Albion's tongue is heard, or Albion's songs resound. |