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ON GREENOUGH'S GROUP OF THE ANGEL AND CHILD.

I STOOD alone; nor word, nor other sound,
Broke the mute solitude that closed me round;
As when the air doth take her midnight sleep,
Leaving the wintry stars her watch to keep,
So slept she now at noon. But not alone
My spirit then: a light within me shone

That was not mine; and feelings undefined, And thoughts flow'd in upon me not my own. "I was that deep mystery-for aye unknown— The living presence of another's mind. Another mind was there-the gift of fewThat by its own strong will can all that's true In its own nature unto others give,

And mingling life with life, seem there to live.

I felt it now in mine; and oh! how fair,

How beautiful the thoughts that met me thereVisions of Love, and Purity, and Truth! Though form distinct had each, they seem'd,as'twere, Imbodied all of one celestial air

To beam for ever in coequal youth.

And thus I learn'd—as in the mind they moved-
These stranger Thoughts the one the other loved;
That Purity loved Truth, because 't was true,
And Truth, because 't was pure, the first did woo;
While Love, as pure and true, did love the twain;
Then Love was loved of them, for that sweet chain
That bound them all. Thus sure, as passionless,
Their love did grow, till one harmonious strain
Of melting sounds they seem'd; then, changed again,
One angel form they took-Self-Happiness.
This angel form the gifted Artist saw,
That held me in his spell. "T was his to draw
The veil of sense, and see the immortal race,
The Forms spiritual, that know not place.
He saw it in the quarry, deep in earth,
And stay'd it by his will, and gave it birth

E'en to the world of sense; bidding its cell,
The cold, hard marble, thus in plastic girth
The shape ethereal fix, and body forth

A being of the skies-with man to dwell.
And then another form beside it stood;

'T was one of this our earth-though the warm blood
Had from it pass'd-exhaled as in a breath
Drawn from its lips by the cold kiss of Death.
Its little dream of human life" had fled;
And yet it seem'd not number'd with the dead,
But one emerging to a life so bright
That, as the wondrous nature o'er it spread,
Its very consciousness did seem to shed

Rays from within, and clothe it all in light.
Now touch'd the Angel Form its little hand,
Turning upon it with a look so bland,
And yet so full of majesty, as less
Than holy natures never may impress-
And more than proudest guilt unmoved may brook.
The Creature of the Earth now felt that look,
And stood in blissful awe-as one above
Who saw his name in the Eternal Book,
And Him that open'd it; e'en Him that took
The Little Child, and bless'd it in his love.

SONNETS.

ON A FALLING GROUP IN THE LAST JUDG MENT OF MICHAEL ANGELO.

How vast, how dread, o'erwhelming is the thought
Of space interminable! to the soul

A circling weight that crushes into naught
Her mighty faculties! a wond'rous whole,
Without or parts, beginning, or an end!
How fearful then on desp'rate wings to send
The fancy e'en amid the waste profound!
Yet, born as if all daring to astound,
Thy giant hand, O ANGELO, hath hurl'd
E'en human forms, with all their mortal weight,
Down the dread void-fall endless as their fate!
Already now they seem from world to world
For ages thrown; yet doom'd, another past,
Another still to reach, nor e'er to reach the last!

ON REMBRANT: OCCASIONED BY HIS PICTURE
OF JACOB'S DREAM.

As in that twilight, superstitious age,
When all beyond the narrow grasp of mind
Seem'd fraught with meanings of supernal kind,
When e'en the learned philosophic sage,
Wont with the stars thro' boundless space to
range,
Listen'd with reverence to the changeling's tale;
E'en so, thou strangest of all beings strange!
E'en so thy visionary scenes I hail;
That like the rambling of an idiot's speech,
No image giving of a thing on earth,
Nor thought significant in reason's reach,
Yet in their random shadowings give birth
To thoughts and things from other worlds that come,
And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb.

ON THE PICTURES BY RUBENS, IN THE LUX-
EMBOURG GALLERY.

THERE is a charm no vulgar mind can reach,
No critic thwart, no mighty master teach;
A charm how mingled of the good and ill!
Yet still so mingled that the mystic whole
Shall captive hold the struggling gazer's will,
Till vanquish'd reason own its full control.
And such, O RUBENS, thy mysterious art,
The charm that vexes, yet enslaves the heart!
Thy lawless style, from timid systems free,
Impetuous rolling like a troubled sea,
High o'er the rocks of reason's lofty verge
Impending hangs; yet, ere the foaming surge
Breaks o'er the bound, the refluent ebb of taste
Back from the shore impels the wat'ry waste.

TO MY VENERABLE FRIEND THE PRESIDENT
OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

FROM one unused in pomp of words to raise
A courtly monument of empty praise,
Where self, transpiring through the flimsy pile,
Betrays the builder's ostentatious guile,
Accept, O WEST, these unaffected lays,
Which genius claims and grateful justice pays.
Still green in age, thy vig'rous powers impart
The youthful freshness of a blameless heart:
For thine, unaided by another's pain,
The wiles of envy, or the sordid train

Of selfishness, has been the manly race
Of one who felt the purifying grace
Of honest fame; nor found the effort vain
E'en for itself to love thy soul-ennobling art.

ON SEEING THE PICTURE OF ÆOLUS, BY
PELIGRINO TIBALDI.

FULL Well, TIBALDI, did thy kindred mind
The mighty spell of BONAROTI own.
Like one who, reading magic words, receives
The gift of intercourse with worlds unknown,
"T was thine, deciph'ring Nature's mystic leaves,
To hold strange converse with the viewless wind;
To see the spirits, in imbodied forms,

Of gales and whirlwinds, hurricanes and storms.
For, lo! obedient to thy bidding, teems
Fierce into shape their stern, relentless lord:
His form of motion ever-restless seems;
Or, if to rest inclined his turbid soul,

On Hecla's top to stretch, and give the word
To subject winds that sweep the desert pole.

ON THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE.

AND thou art gone,most loved, most honour'dFriend!
No-never more thy gentle voice shall blend
With air of earth its pure ideal tones-
Binding in one, as with harmonious zones,
The heart and intellect. And I no more
Shall with thee gaze on that unfathom'd deep,
The human soul; as when, push'd off the shore,
Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep,
Itself the while so bright! For oft we seem'd
As on some starless sea-all dark above,
All dark below-yet, onward as we drove,
To plough up light that ever round us stream'd.
But he who mourns is not as one bereft
Of all he loved: thy living truths are left.

THE TUSCAN MAID.

How pleasant and how sad the turning tide
Of human life, when side by side
The child and youth begin to glide
Along the vale of years;

The pure twin-being for a little space,
With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face,
Too young for wo, though not for tears.

This turning tide is URSULINA'S now;
The time is mark'd upon her brow;
Now every thought and feeling throw
Their shadows on her face;

And so are every thought and feeling join'd,
"T were hard to answer whether heart or mind
Of either were the native place.

The things that once she loved are still the same;
Yet now there needs another name
To give the feeling which they claim,
While she the feeling gives;

She cannot call it gladness or delight;
And yet there seems a richer, lovelier light
On e'en the humblest thing that lives.

She sees the mottled moth come twinkling by,
And sees it sip the flowret nigh;

Yet not, as once, with eager cry

She grasps the pretty thing;

Her thoughts now mingle with its tranquil moodSo poised in air, as if on air it stood

To show its gold and purple wing.

She hears the bird without a wish to snare,
But rather on the azure air

To mount, and with it wander there
To some untrodden land;

As if it told her in its happy song

Of pleasures strange, that never can belong
To aught of sight or touch of hand.

Now the young soul her mighty power shall prove,
And outward things around her move,
Pure ministers of purer love,

And make the heart her home;

Or to the meaner senses sink a slave,
To do their bidding, though they madly crave
Through hateful scenes of vice to roam.

But, URSULINA, thine the better choice;
Thine eyes so speak, as with a voice:
Thy heart may still in earth rejoice

And all its beauty love;

But no, not all this fair, enchanting earth,
With all its spells, can give the rapture birth
That waits thy conscious soul above.

ROSALIE.

O, POUR upon my soul again

That sad, unearthly strain,
That seems from other worlds to plain;
Thus falling, falling from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs,
And dropped them from the skies.
No-never came from aught below
This melody of wo,

That makes my heart to overflow
As from a thousand gushing springs
Unknown before; that with it brings
This nameless light-if light it be-
That veils the world I see.

For all I see around me wears
The hue of other spheres;

And something blent of smiles and tears
Comes from the very air I breathe.
O, nothing, sure, the stars beneath,
Can mould a sadness like to this-
So like angelic bliss.

So, at that dreamy hour of day,
When the last lingering ray
Stops on the highest cloud to play-
So thought the gentle ROSALIE
As on her maiden revery

First fell the strain of him who stole
In music to her soul.

LEVI FRISBIE.

[Born 1784. Died 1822]

PROFESSOR FRISBIE was the son of a respectable clergyman at Ipswich, Massachusetts. He entered Harvard University in 1798, and was graduated in 1802. His father, like most of the clergymen of New England, was a poor man, and unable fully to defray the costs of his son's education; and Mr. FRISBIE, while an under-graduate, provided in part for his support by teaching a school during vacations, and by writing as a clerk. His friend and biographer, Professor ANDREWS NORTON, alludes to this fact as a proof of the falsity of the opinion that wealth constitutes the only aristocracy in our country. Talents, united with correct morals, and good manners, pass unquestioned all the artificial barriers of society, and

their claim to distinction is recognised more willingly than any other.

Soon after leaving the university, Mr. FRISBIE commenced the study of the law; but an affection of the eyes depriving him of their use for the purposes of study, he abandoned his professional pursuits, and accepted the place of Latin tutor in Harvard University. In 1811, he was made Professor of the Latin Language, and in 1817, Professor of Moral Philosophy. The last office he held until he died, on the 19th of July, 1822. He was an excellent scholar, an original thinker, and a pure-minded man. An octavo volume, containing a memoir, some of his philosophical lectures, and a few poems, was published in 1823.

A CASTLE IN THE AIR.
I'LL tell you, friend, what sort of wife,
Whene'er I scan this scene of life,
Inspires my waking schemes,
And when I sleep, with form so light,
Dances before my ravish'd sight,
In sweet aerial dreams.

The rose its blushes need not lend,
Nor yet the lily with them blend,

To captivate my eyes.
Give me a cheek the heart obeys,
And, sweetly mutable, displays
Its feelings as they rise;

Features, where, pensive, more than gay,
Save when a rising smile doth play,
The sober thought you see;
Eyes that all soft and tender seem,
And kind affections round them beam,
But most of all on me;

A form, though not of finest mould,
Where yet a something you behold
Unconsciously doth please;
Manners all graceful without art,
That to each look and word impart
A modesty and ease.

But still her air, her face, each charm
Must speak a heart with feeling warm,
And mind inform the whole;

With mind her mantling cheek must glow,
Her voice, her beaming eye must show
An all-inspiring soul.

Ah! could I such a being find,
And were her fate to mine but join'd
By Hymen's silken tie,

To her myself, my all I'd give,
For her alone delighted live,
For her consent to die.

Whene'er by anxious care oppress'd,
On the soft pillow of her breast
My aching head I'd lay;

At her sweet smile each care should cease,
Her kiss infuse a balmy peace,

And drive my griefs away.

In turn, I'd soften all her care,

Each thought, each wish, each feeling

share;

Should sickness e'er invade,

My voice should soothe each rising sigh,
My hand the cordial should supply;
I'd watch beside her bed.

Should gathering clouds our sky deform,
My arms should shield her from the storm;
And, were its fury hurl'd,
My bosom to its bolts I'd bare;
In her defence undaunted dare
Defy the opposing world.

Together should our prayers ascend;
Together would we humbly bend,

To praise the Almighty name;
And when I saw her kindling eye
Beam upwards in her native sky,

My soul should catch the flame.

Thus nothing should our hearts divide, But on our years serenely glide,

And all to love be given; And, when life's little scene was o'er, We'd part to meet and part no more, But live and love in heaven.

SAMUEL WOODWORTH.

[Born, 1785. Died, 1842.]

MR. WOODWORTH was a native of Scituate, in Massachusetts. After learning in a country town the art of printing, he went to New York, where he was editor of a newspaper during our second war with England. He subsequently published a weekly miscellany entitled "The Ladies' Literary Gazette," and in 1823, associated with Mr. GEORGE P. MORRIS, he established "The New York Mirror," long the most popular journal of literature and art in this country. For several years before his death he was an invalid, and in this period a large number of the leading gentlemen of New York acted as a committee for a complimentary benefit given for him at the Park Theatre, the proceeds of which made more pleasant his closing days. He died in the month of December, 1842, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, much respected by all who knew him, for his

| modesty and integrity as well as for his literary abilities.

Mr. WOODWORTH wrote many pieces for the stage, which had a temporary popularity, and two or three volumes of songs, odes, and other poems, relating chiefly to subjects of rural and domestic life. He dwelt always with delight upon the scenes of his childhood, and lamented that he was compelled to make his home amid the strife and tumult of a city. He was the poet of the "common people," and was happy in the belief that The Bucket" was read by multitudes who never heard of "Thanatopsis." Some of his pieces have certainly much merit, in their way, and a selection might be made from his voluminous writings that would be very honourable to his talents and his feelings. There has been no recent edition of any of his works.

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THE BUCKET.

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view! The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew! The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,

And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the wellThe old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-cover'd bucket which hung in the well.

That moss-cover'd vessel I hail'd as a treasure,

For often at noon, when return'd, from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the wellThe old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-cover'd bucket, arose from the well.

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
The brightest that beauty or revelry sips.
And now, far removed from the loved habitation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,

And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well-
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-cover'd bucket that hangs in the well!

THE NEEDLE.

THE gay belles of fashion may boast of excelling
In waltz or cotillion, at whist or quadrille;
And seek admiration by vauntingly telling

Of drawing, and painting, and musical skill; But give me the fair one, in country or city, Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart, Who cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty,

While plying the needle with exquisite art. The bright little needle-the swift-flying needle, The needle directed by beauty and art.

If Love have a potent, a magical token,

A talisman, ever resistless and trueA charm that is never evaded or broken,

A witchery certain the heart to subdue"Tis this-and his armoury never has furnish'd So keen and unerring, or polish'd a dart; Let Beauty direct it, so pointed and burnish'd,

And Oh! it is certain of touching the heart. The bright little needle-the swift-flying needle, The needle directed by beauty and art.

Be wise, then, ye maidens, nor seek admiration

By dressing for conquest, and flirting with all; You never, whate'er be your fortune or station, Appear half so lovely at rout or at ball, As gaily convened at a work-cover'd table, Each cheerfully active and playing her part, Beguiling the task with a song or a fable,

And plying the needle with exquisite art. The bright little needle-the swift-flying needle, The needle directed by beauty and art.

JOHN PIERPONT.

[Born 1785.]

THE author of the "Airs of Palestine," is a native of Litchfield, Connecticut, and was born on the sixth of April, 1785. His great-grandfather, the Reverend JAMES PIERPONT, was the second minister of New Haven, and one of the founders of Yale College; his grandfather and his father were men of intelligence and integrity; and his mother, whose maiden name was ELIZABETH COLLINS, had a mind thoroughly imbued with the religious sentiment, and was distinguished for her devotion to maternal duties. In the following lines, from one of his recent poems, he acknowledges the influence of her example and teachings on his own character:

"She led me first to God;

Her words and prayers were my young spirit's dew. For, when she used to leave

The fireside, every eve,

I knew it was for prayer that she withdrew.

"That dew, that bless'd my youth,Her holy love, her truth,

Her spirit of devotion, and the tears

That she could not suppress,—
Hath never ceased to bless

My soul, nor will it, through eternal years.

How often has the thought

Of my mourn'd mother brought
Peace to my troubled spirit, and new power
The tempter to repel!

Mother, thou knowest well

That thou hast blessed me since thy mortal hour!"

Mr. PIERPONT entered Yale College when fifteen years old, and was graduated in the summer of 1804. During a part of 1805, he assisted the Reverend Doctor BACKUS, in an academy of which he was principal previous to his election to the presidency of Hamilton College; and in the autumn of the same year, following the example of many young men of New England, he went to the southern states, and was for nearly four years a private tutor in the family of Colonel WILLIAM ALLSTON, of South Carolina, spending a portion of his time in Charleston, and the remainder on the estate of Colonel ALLSTON, on the Waccamaw, near Georgetown. Here he commenced his legal studies, which he continued after his return to his native state in 1809, in the school of Justices REEVE and GOULD; and in 1812, he was admitted to the bar, in Essex county, Massachusetts. Soon after the commencement of the second war with Great Britain, being appointed to address the Washington Benevolent Society of Newburyport, his place of residence, he delivered and afterward published "The Portrait," the earliest of the poems in the recent edition of his works.

In consequence of the general prostration of business in New England during the war, and of

his health, which at this time demanded a more active life, he abandoned the profession of law, and became interested in mercantile transactions, first in Boston, and afterward in Baltimore; but these resulting disastrously, in 1816, he sought a solace in literary pursuits, and in the same year published "The Airs of Palestine." The first edition appeared in an octavo volume, at Baltimore; and two other editions were published in Boston, in the following year.

The "Airs of Palestine" is a poem of about eight hundred lines, in the heroic measure, in which the influence of music is shown by examples, principally from sacred history. The religious sublimity of the sentiments, the beauty of the language, and the finish of the versification, placed it at once, in the judgment of all competent to form an opinion on the subject, before any poem at that time produced in America. As a work of art, it would be nearly faultless, but for the occasional introduction of double rhymes, a violation of the simple dignity of the ten-syllable verse, induced by the intention of the author to recite it in a public assembly. He says in the preface to the third edition, that he was "aware how difficult even a good speaker finds it to rehearse heroic poetry, for any length of time, without perceiving in his hearers the somniferous effects of a regular cadence," and "the double rhyme was, therefore, occasionally thrown in, like a ledge of rocks in a smoothly gliding river, to break the current, which, without it, might appear sluggish, and to vary the melody, which might otherwise become monotonous." The following passage, descriptive of a moonlight scene in Italy, will give the reader an idea of its manner:

"On Arno's bosom, as he calmly flows,
And his cool arms round Vallombrosa throws,
Rolling his crystal tide through classic vales,
Alone, at night,-the Italian boatman sails.
High o'er Mont' Alto walks, in maiden pride,
Night's queen;-he sees her image on that tide,
Now, ride the wave that curls its infant crest
Around his prow, then rippling sinks to rest;
Now, glittering dance around his eddying oar,
Whose every sweep is echo'd from the shore;
Now, far before him, on a liquid bed
Of waveless water, rest her radiant head.
How mild the empire of that virgin queen!
How dark the mountain's shade! how still the scene!
Hush'd by her silver sceptre, zephyrs sleep
On dewy leaves, that overhang the deep,
Nor dare to whisper through the boughs, nor stir
The valley's willow, nor the mountain's fir,
Nor make the pale and breathless aspen quiver,
Nor brush, with ruffling wind, that glassy river.
"Hark! 't is a convent's bell: its midnight chime;
For music measures even the march of time :-
O'er bending trees, that fringe the distant shore,
Gray turrets rise :-the eye can catch no more.
The boatman, listening to the tolling bell,
Suspends his oar :-a low and solemn swe!!,

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