MOONLIGHT ON THE HUDSON.

WRITTEN AT WEST POINT.

I'm not romantic, but, upon my word,

There are some moments when one can't help feeling

As if his heart's chords were so strongly stirr'd
By things around him, that 'tis vain concealing
A little music in his soul still lingers,
Whene'er its keys are touch'd by Nature's fingers:

And even here, upon this settee lying,

With many a sleepy traveller near me snoozing, Thoughts warm and wild are through my bosom flying,

Like founts when first into the sunshine oozing: For who can look on mountain, sky, and river, Like these, and then be cold and calm as ever?

Bright Dian, who, Camilla-like, dost skim yon
Azure fields-thou who, once earthward bending,
Didst loose thy virgin zone to young ENDYMION
On dewy Latmos to his arms descending-
Thou whom the world of old on every shore,
Type of thy sex, Triformis, did adore:

Tell me where'er thy silver bark be steering,
By bright Italian or soft Persian lands,
Or o'er those island-studded seas careering,
Whose pearl-charged waves dissolve on coral

strands;

Tell if thou visitest, thou heavenly rover,
A lovelier stream than this the wide world over?

Doth Achelöus or Araxes, flowing

Twin-born from Pindus, but ne'er-meeting

brothers

Doth Tagus, o'er his golden pavement glowing, Or cradle-freighted Ganges, the reproach of mothers,

The storied Rhine, or far-famed Guadalquiver-Match they in beauty my own glorious river?

What though no cloister gray nor ivied column

Along these cliffs their sombre ruins rear? What though no frowning tower nor temple solemn Of despots tell and superstition hereWhat though that mouldering fort's fast-crumbling walls

Did ne'er enclose a baron's banner'd halls

Its sinking arches once gave back as proud
An echo to the war-blown clarion's peal--
As gallant hearts its battlements did crowd
As ever beat beneath a vest of steel,
When herald's trump on knighthood's haughtiest
day

Call'd forth chivalric host to battle-fray:

For here amid these woods did he keep court, Before whose mighty soul the common crowd Of heroes, who alone for fame have fought,

Are like the patriarch's sheaves to Heaven's
chosen bow'd-

He who his country's eagle taught to soar,
And fired those stars which shine o'er every shore.

And silver torrent o'er the bald rock streaming: But such soft fancies here may breathe around, As make Vaucluse and Clarens hallow'd ground. Where, tell me where, pale watcher of the nightThou that to love so oft has lent its soul, Since the lorn Lesbian languish'd 'neath thy light, Or fiery ROMEO to his JULIET stoleWhere dost thou find a fitter place on earth To nurse young love in hearts like theirs to birth?

O, loiter not upon that fairy shore,

To watch the lazy barks in distance glide, When sunset brightens on their sails no more,

And stern-lights twinkle in the dusky tideLoiter not there, young heart, at that soft hour, What time the bird of night proclaims love's power.

Even as I gaze upon my memory's track,

Bright as that coil of light along the deep, A scene of early youth comes dream-like back, Where two stand gazing from yon tide-wash'd

steep

A sanguine stripling, just toward manhood flushing,
A girl scarce yet in ripen'd beauty blushing.
The hour is his-and, while his hopes are soaring,
Doubts he that maiden will become his bride?
Can she resist that gush of wild adoring,

Fresh from a heart full-volumed as the tide?
Tremulous, but radiant is that peerless daughter
Of loveliness-as is the star-paved water!
The moist leaves glimmer as they glimmer'd then—
Alas! how oft have they been since renew'd!
How oft the whip-poor-will from yonder glen

Each year has whistled to her callow brood! How oft have lovers by yon star's same beam Dream'd here of bliss-and waken'd from their dream!

But now, bright Peri of the skies, descending,

Thy pearly car hangs o'er yon mountain's crest, And Night, more nearly now each step attending, As if to hide thy envied place of rest, Closes at last thy very couch beside, A matron curtaining a virgin bride.

Farewell! Though tears on every leaf are starting: While through the shadowy boughs thy glances quiver,

As of the good when heavenward hence departing,
Shines thy last smile upon the placid river.
So-could I fling o'er glory's tide one ray-
Would I too steal from this dark world away.

THE FOREST CEMETERY.

WILD TAWASENTHA! in thy brook-laced glen
The doe no longer lists her lost fawn's bleating,
As panting there, escaped from hunter's ken,
She hears the chase o'er distant hills retreating;
No more, uprising from the fern around her,

The Indian archer, from his "still-hunt" lair, Wings the death-shaft which hath that moment found her

When Fate scem'd foil'd upon her footsteps there:

Wild Tawasentha! on thy cone-strew'd sod,

O'er which yon Pine his giant arm is bending, No more the Mohawk marks its dark crown nod Against the sun's broad disk toward night descending,

Then crouching down beside the brands that redden
The column'd trunks which rear thy leafy dome,
Forgets his toils in hunter's slumbers leaden,
Or visions of the red man's spirit home:

But where his calumet by that lone fire,

At night beneath these cloister'd boughs was lighted,

The Christian orphan will in prayer aspire,
The Christian parent mourn his proud hope
blighted;

And in thy shade the mother's heart will listen
The spirit-cry of babe she clasps no more,
And where thy rills through hemlock-branches
glisten,

There many a maid her lover will deplore.
Here children link'd in love and sport together,
Who check their mirth as creaks the slow hearse
by,

Will totter lonely in life's autumn weather,

To ponder where life's spring-time blossoms lie; And where the virgin soil was never dinted By the rude ploughshare since creation's birth, Year after year fresh furrows will be printed Upon the sad cheek of the grieving Earth. Yon sun returning in unwearied stages, Will gild the cenotaph's ascending spire, O'er names on history's yet unwritten pages That unborn crowds will, worshipping, admire ; Names that shall-brighten through my country's story

Like meteor hues that fire her autumn woods, Encircling high her onward course of glory Like the bright bow which spans her mountainfloods.

Here where the flowers have bloom'd and died for ages

Bloom'd all unseen and perish'd all unsungOn youth's green grave, traced out beside the

sage's,

Will garlands now by votive hearts be flung; And sculptur'd marble and funereal urn,

O'er which gray birches to the night air wave,

Tawasentha-meaning, in Mohawk, "The place of the many dead"-is the finely-appropriate name of the new Forest Cemetery on the banks of the Hudson, between Albany and Troy.

Will whiten through thy glades at every turn,
And woo the moonbeam to some poet's grave!
Thus back to Nature, faithful, do we come,
When Art hath taught us all her best beguiling;
Thus blend their ministry around the tomb
Where, pointing upward, still sits Nature smiling!
And never, Nature's hallow'd spots adorning,
Hath Art, with her a sombre garden dress'd,
Wild Tawasentha! in this vale of mourning
With more to consecrate their children's rest.
And still that stream will hold its winsome way,
Sparkling as now upon the frosty air,
When all in turn shall troop in pale array
To that dim land for which so few prepare.
Still will yon oak, which now a sapling waves,
Each year renew'd, with hardy vigour grow,
Expanding still to shade the nameless graves
Of nameless men that haply sleep below.
Nameless as they-in one dear memory blest,
How tranquil in these phantom-peopled bowers
Could I here wait the partner of my rest

In some green nook that should be only ours; Under old boughs, where moist the livelong sum

mer

The moss is green and springy to the tread, When thou, my friend, shouldst be an often comer To pierce the thicket, seeking for my bed: For thickets heavy all around should screen it From careless gazer that might wander near; Nor e'en to him who by some chance had seen it, Would I have aught to catch his eye, appear: One lonely stem-a trunk those old boughs lifting, I Should mark the spot; and, haply, new thrift owe To that which upward through its sap was drifting From what lay mouldering round its roots below. The wood-duck there her glossy-throated brood Should unmolested gather to her wings; The schoolboy, awed, as near that mound he stood, Should spare the redstart's nest that o'er it swings, And thrill when there, to hear the cadenced winding

Of boatman's horn upon the distant river,
Dell unto dell in long-link'd echoes binding-
Like far-off requiem, floating on for ever.

There my freed spirit with the dawn's first beaming
Would come to revel round the dancing spray;
There would it linger with the day's last gleaming,
To watch thy footsteps thither track their way.
The quivering leaf should whisper in that hour
Things that for thee alone would have a sound,
And parting boughs my spirit-glances shower
In gleams of light upon the mossy ground.
There, when long years and all thy journeyings

over

Loosed from this world thyself to join the free, Thou too wouldst come to rest beside thy lover In that sweet cell beneath our trysting-tree; Where earliest birds above our narrow dwelling Should pipe their matins as the morning rose, And woodland symphonies majestic swelling, In midnight anthem, hallow our repose.

THE BOB-O-LINKUM.

Tnou vocal sprite-thou feather'd troubadour!
In pilgrim weeds through many a clime a ranger,
Com'st thou to doff thy russet suit once more,

And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger?
Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and nature,
But wise, as all of us, perforce, must think 'em,
The school-boy best hath fix'd thy nomenclature,
And poets, too, must call thee Bob-O-Linkum.
Say! art thou, long mid forest glooms benighted,
So glad to skim our laughing meadows over-
With our gay orchards here so much delighted,
It makes thee musical, thou airy rover?
Or are those buoyant notes the pilfer'd treasure
Of fairy isles, which thou hast learn'd to ravish
Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure,
And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish?
They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks
Wherever o'er the land thy pathway ranges;
And even in a brace of wandering weeks,

They say, alike thy song and plumage changes; Here both are gay; and when the buds put forth, And leafy June is shading rock and river, Thou art unmatch'd, blithe warbler of the North, While through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver.

Joyous, yet tender-was that gush of song

Caught from the brooks, where mid its wild flowers The silent prairie listens all day long, [smiling

The only captive to such sweet beguiling; Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls And column'd isles of western groves symphoniLearn from the tuneful woods, rare madrigals, [ous, To make our flowering pastures here harmonious? Caught'st thou thy carol from Otawa maid, [ing, Where, through the liquid fields of wild rice plashBrushing the ears from off the burden'd blade, Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing? Or did the reeds of some savannah South,

Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth, The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing?

Unthrifty prodigal!—is no thought of ill

Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever?
Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still
Throb on in music till at rest for ever?
Yet now in wilder'd maze of concord floating,

"T would seem that glorious hymning to prolong, Old Time in hearing thee might fall a-doating And pause to listen to thy rapturous song!

THE REMONSTRANCE.

You give up the world! why, as well might the sun, When tired of drinking the dew from the flowers, While his rays, like young hopes, stealing off one by one,

Die away with the muezzin's last note from the towers,

Declare that he never would gladden again,
With one rosy smile, the young morn in its birth;
But leave weeping Day, with her sorrowful train
Of hours, to grope o'er a pall-cover'd earth.

The light of that soul once so brilliant and steady,
So far can the incense of flattery smother,
That, at thought of the world of hearts conquer'd
already,

Like Macedon's madman, you weep for another? O! if sated with this, you would seek worlds untried, And fresh as was ours, when first we began it, Let me know but the sphere where you next will abide,

And that instant, for one, I am off for that planet.

PRIMEVAL WOODS.

YES! even here, not less than in the crowd,
Here, where yon vault in formal sweep seems piled
Upon the pines, monotonously proud,
Fit dome for fane, within whose hoary veil
No ribald voice an echo hath defiled-
Where Silence seems articulate; up-stealing
Like a low anthem's heavenward wail:-
Oppressive on my bosom weighs the feeling
Of thoughts that language cannot shape aloud;
For song too solemn, and for prayer too wild,—
Thoughts, which beneath no human power could
quail,

For lack of utterance, in abasement bow'd,-
The cavern'd waves that struggle for revealing,
Upon whose idle foam alone God's light hath smiled.

Ere long thine every stream shall find a tongue,
Land of the Many Waters! But the sound
Of human music, these wild hills among,
Hath no one save the Indian mother flung
Its spell of tenderness? Oh, o'er this ground
So redolent of l'eauty, hath there play'd no breath
Of human pocsy-none beside the word
Of Love, as, murmur'd these old boughs beneath,
Some fierce and savage suitor it hath stirr'd
To gentle issues-none but these been heard?
No mind, no soul here kindled but my own?
Doth not one hollow trunk about resound
With the faint echoes of a song long flown,
By shadows like itself now haply heard alone?
And Ye, with all this primal growth must go!
And loiterers beneath some lowly spreading shade,
Where pasture-kissing breezes shall, ere then, have
play'd,

A century hence, will doubt that there could grow
From that meek land such Titans of the glade!
Yet wherefore primal? when beneath my tread
Are roots whose thrifty growth, perchance, hath
arm'd

The Anak spearman when his trump alarm'd!
Roots that the Deluge wave hath plunged below;
Seeds that the Deluge wind hath scattered;
Berries that Eden's warblers may have fed;
Safe in the slime of earlier worlds embalm'd:
Again to quicken, germinate and blow, [charm'd.
Again to charm the land as erst the land they

RIO BRAVO.

A MEXICAN LAMENT.-Air-Roncesvalles.

RIO BRAVO Rio Bravo!-saw men ever such a sight

Since the field of Roncesvalles seal'd the fate of many a knight!

Dark is Palo Alto's story-sad Resaca Palma's

rout

Ah me! upon those fields so gory how many a gallant life went out.

There our best and bravest lances shiver'd 'gainst

the Northern steel,

Left the valiant hearts that couch'd them 'neath the Northern charger's heel.

Rio Bravo! Rio Bravo! brave hearts ne'er mourn'd such a sight,

Since the noblest lost their life-blood in the Roncesvalles fight.

There ARISTA, best and bravest-there RAGUENA, tried and true,

On the fatal field thou lavest, nobly did all men could do;

Vainly there those heroes rally, Castile on Mox

TEZUMA'S shore,

Vainly there shone Aztec valour brightly as it shone of yore.

Rio Bravo! Rio Bravo! saw men ever such a sight,

Since the dews of Roncesvalles wept for paladin and knight?

Heard ye not the wounded coursers shrieking on yon trampled banks,

As the Northern wing'd artillery thunder'd on our shatter'd ranks?

On they came-those Northern horsemen-on like eagles toward the sun;

Follow'd then the Northern bayonet, and the field was lost and won.

Rio Bravo! Rio Bravo! minstrel ne'er sung such a fight,

Since the lay of Roncesvalles sang the fame of martyr'd knight.

Rio Bravo! fatal river! saw ye not, while red with gore,

One cavalier all headless quiver, a nameless trunk upon thy shore ?

Other champions not less noted sleep beneath thy sullen wave:

Sullen water, thou hast floated armies to an ocean grave.

Rio Bravo! Rio Bravo! lady ne'er wept such a sight,

Since the moon of Roncesvalles kiss'd in death her own loved knight.

Weepest thou, lorn Lady INEZ, for thy lover mid

the slain?

Brave LA VEGA's trenchant sabre cleft his slayer

to the brain

Brave LA VEGA, who, all lonely, by a host of foes beset,

Yielded up his falchion only when his equal there he met.

Oh, for ROLAND's horn to rally his paladins by that

sad shore!

Rio Bravo, Roncesvalles, ye are names link'd ever

more.

Sullen river! sullen river! vultures drink thy gory

wave,

But they blur not those loved features, which not Love himself could save.

Rio Bravo, thou wilt name not that lone corse upon thy shore,

But in prayer sad INEZ names him—names him praying evermore.

Rio Rravo! Rio Bravo! lady ne'er mourn'd such a knight,

Since the fondest hearts were broken by the Roncesvalles fight.

LOVE'S MEMORIES.

TO-NIGHT! to-night! what memories to-night
Came thronging o'er me as I stood near thee!
Thy form of loveliness, thy brow of light,
Thy voice's thrilling flow--

All, all were there; to me--to me as bright
As when they claim'd my soul's idolatry

Years, long years ago.

That gulf of years! Oh, God! hadst thou been mine, Would all that's precious have been swallow'd

there?

Youth's meteor hope, and manhood's high design, Lost, lost, forever lost

Lost with the love that with them all would twine, The love that left no harvest but despair

Unwon at such a cost.

Was it ideal, that wild, wild love I bore thee?
Or thou thyself-didst thou my soul enthrall?
Such as thou art to-night did I adore thee,
Av, idolize-in vain!

Such as thou art to-night-could time restore me
That wealth of loving-shouldst thou have it all,
To waste perchance again!

No! Thou didst break the coffers of my heart,
And set so lightly by the hoard within,
That I too learn'd at last the squanderer's art-
Went idly here and there,

Filing my soul, and lavishing a part
On each, less cold than thou, who cared to win
And seem'd to prize a share.
No! Thou didst wither up my flowering youth.
If blameless, still the bearer of a blight;
The unconscious agent of the deadliest ruth
That human heart hath riven;
Teaching me scorn of my own spirit's truth;
Holding, not me, but that fond worship light
Which link'd my soul to Heaven.

No, no! For me the weakest heart before
One so untouch'd by tenderness as thine;
Angels have enter'd through the frail tent door
That pass the palace now-
And He who spake the words, "Go, sin no more,"
Mid human passions saw the spark divine,

But not in such as thou!

ROSALIE CLARE.

WHO owns not she's peerless, who calls her not fair, Who questions the beauty of ROSALIE CLARE? Let him saddle his courser and spur to the field, And, though harness'd in proof, he must perish or yield;

For no gallant can splinter, no charger may dare The lance that is couch'd for young ROSALIE CLARE.

When goblets are flowing, and wit at the board Sparkles high, while the blood of the red grape is pour'd,

And fond wishes for fair ones around offer'd up
From each lip that is wet with the dew of the cup,
What name on the brimmer floats oftener there,
Or is whisper'd more warmly, than ROSALIE CLARE?
They may talk of the land of the olive and vine,
Of the maids of the Ebro, the Arno, or Rhine;
Of the houris that gladden the East with their
smiles,
[isles;
Where the sea's studded over with green summer
But what flower of far-away clime can compare
With the blossom of ours-bright ROSALIE CLARE?
Who owns not she's peerless, who calls her not fair?
Let him meet but the glances of ROSALIE CLARE!
Let him list to her voice, let him gaze on her form,
And if, seeing and hearing, his soul do not warm,
Let him go breathe it out in some less happy air
Than that which is bless'd by sweet ROSALIECLARE.

THINK OF ME, DEAREST.

THINK of me, dearest, when day is breaking
Away from the sable chains of night,
When the sun, his ocean-couch forsaking,
Like a giant first in his strength awaking,
Is flinging abroad his limbs of light;
As the breeze that first travels with morning forth,
Giving life to her steps o'er the quickening earth--
As the dream that has cheated my soul through the
night,

Let me in thy thoughts come fresh with the light.

Think of me, dearest, when day is sinking

In the soft embrace of twilight gray, When the starry eyes of heaven are winking, And the weary flowers their tears are drinking,

As they start like gems on the moon-touch'd spray. Let me come warm in thy thoughts at eve, As the glowing track which the sunbeams leave, When they, blushing, tremble along the deep, While stealing away to their place of sleep.

Think of me, dearest, when round thee smiling

Are eyes that melt while they gaze on thee; When words are winning and looks are wiling, And those words and looks, of others, beguiling Thy fluttering heart from love and me. Let me come true in thy thoughts in that hour; Let my trust and my faith-my devotion--have

power,

When all that can lure to thy young soul is nearest, To summon each truant thought back to me, dearest.

WE PARTED IN SADNESS.

WE parted in sadness, but spoke not of parting; We talk'd not of hopes that we both must resign, I saw not her eyes, and but one tear-drop starting, Fell down on her hand as it trembled in mine: Each felt that the past we could never recover, Each felt that the future no hope could restore; She shudder'd at wringing the heart of her lover, I dared not to say I must meet her no more.

Long years have gone by, and the spring-time smiles

ever

As o'er our young loves it first smiled in their birth. Long years have gone by, yet that parting, O! never Can it be forgotten by either on earth. [ven, The note of each wild bird that carols toward heaMust tell her of swift-winged hopes that weremine, And the dew that steals over each blossom at even, Tells me of the tear-drop that wept their decline

THE ORIGIN OF MINT JULEPS. And first behold this cordial Julep here, That flames and dances in its crystal bounds, With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed; Not that Nepenthes which the wife of THOME In Egypt gave to Jove-born HELENA, Is of such power to stir up Joy as this, To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst.

MILTON-Comus.

"Tis said that the gods, on Olympus of old,

(And who the bright legend profanes with a doubt?)

One night, 'mid their revels, by BACCHUS were told That his last butt of nectar had somehow run out! But, determined to send round the goblet once more, They sued to the fairer immortals for aid [o'er, In composing a draught, which, till drinking were Should cast every wine ever drank in the shade. Grave CERES herself blithely yielded her corn,

And the spirit that lives in each amber hued grain, And which first had its birth from the dews of the

morn,

Was taught to steal out in bright dew-drops again. POMONA, whose choicest of fruits on the board

Were scatter'd profusely in every one's reach, When called on a tribute to cull from the hoard, Express'd the mild juice of the delicate peach. The liquids were mingled, while VENUS looked on, With glances so fraught with sweet magical

power,

That the honey of Hybla, e'en when they were gone, Has never been missed in the draught from that

hour.

FLORA then, from her bosom of fragrancy, shook,

And with roseate fingers press'd down in the bowl, All dripping and fresh as it came from the brook,

The herb whose aroma should flavour the whole.

The draught was delicious, each god did exclaim,

Though something yet wanting they all did beBut juleps the drink of immortals became, [wail; When JOVE himself added a handful of hail.