OF JACOB'S DREAM. ON GREENOUGH'S GROUP OF THE SONNETS. ON A FALLING GROUP IN THE LAST JUDG MENT OF MICHAEL ANGELO. I stood alone; nor word, nor other sound, Broke the mute solitude that closed me round; How vast, how dread, o’erwhelming is the thought As when the air doth take her midnight sleep, Of space interminable! to the soul Leaving the wintry stars her watch to keep, A circling weight that crushes into naught So slept she now at noon. But not alone Her mighty faculties! a wond'rous whole, My spirit then: a light within me shone Without or parts, beginning, or an end ! That was not mine; and feelings undefined, How fearful then on desp’rate wings to send And thoughts flow'd in upon me not my own. The fancy e'en amid the waste profound ! "T was that deep mystery—for aye unknown Yet, born as if all daring to astound, The living presence of another's mind. Thy giant hand, O Angelo, hath hurld E'en human forms, with all their mortal weight, Another mind was there—the gift of few Down the dread void-fall endless as their fate! That by its own strong will can all that's true Already now they seem from world to world In its own nature unto others give, For ages thrown; yet doom'd, another past, And mingling life with life, seem there to live. Another still to reach, nor e'er to reach the last ! I felt it now in mine; and oh! how fair, How beautiful the thoughts that met me there ON REMBRANT: OCCASIONED BY HIS PICTURE Visions of Love, and Purity, and Truth! Though form distinct had each, they seem'd,as'twere, Imbodied all of one celestial air As in that twilight, superstitious age, To beam for ever in coequal youth. When all beyond the narrow grasp of mind Seem'd fraught with meanings of supernal kind, And thus I learn'd—as in the mind they moved— When e'en the learned philosophic sage, These stranger Thoughts the one the other loved ; Wont with the stars thro' boundless space to range, That Purity loved Truth, because 't was true, Listen’d with reverence to the changeling's tale ; And Truth, because 't was pure, the first did woo; E’en so, thou strangest of all beings strange! While Love, as pure and true, did love the twain; | E'en so thy visionary scenes I hail; Then Love was loved of them, for that sweet chain | That like the rambling of an idiot's speech, That bound them all. Thus sure, as passionless, No image giving of a thing on earth, Their love did grow, till one harmonious strain Nor thought significant in reason's reach, Of melting sounds they seem’d; then, changed again, | Yet in their random shadowings give birth One angel form they took-Self-Happiness. To thoughts and things from other worlds that come, This angel form the gifted Artist saw, And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb. That held me in his spell. "T was his to draw The veil of sense, and see the immortal race, ON THE PICTURES BY RUBENS, IN THE LUX EMLOURG GALLERY. 'The Forms spiritual, that know not place. He saw it in the quarry, deep in earth, THERE is a charm no vulgar mind can reach, And stay'd it by his will, and gave it birth No critic thwart, no mighty master teach; E'en to the world of sense; bidding its cell, A charm how mingled of the good and ill! The cold, hard marble, thus in plastic girth Yet still so mingled that the mystic whole The shape ethereal fix, and body forth Shall captive hold the struggling gazer's will, A being of the skies-with man to dwell. Till vanquish'd reason own its full control. And such, 0 Robers, thy mysterious art, And then another form beside it stood; The charm that vexes, yet enslaves the heart ! 'T was one of this our earth—though the warm blood Thy lawless style, from timid systems free, Had from it pass’d-exhaled as in a breath Impetuous rolling like a troubled sea, Drawn from its lips by the cold kiss of Death. High o'er the rocks of reason's lofty verge Its little « dream of human life” had fled; Impending hangs; yet, ere the foaming surge And yet it seem'd not number'd with the dead, Breaks o'er the bound, the refluent ebb of taste But one emerging to a life so bright Back from the shore impels the wat'ry waste. That, as the wondrous nature o'er it spread, Its very consciousness did seem to shed TO MY VENERABLE FRIEND THE PRESIDENT Rays from within, and clothe it all in light. OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. Now touch'd the Angel Form its little hand, From one unused in pomp of words to raise Turning upon it with a look so bland, A courtly monument of empty praise, And yet so full of majesty, as less Where self, transpiring through the flimsy pile, Than boly natures never may impress Betrays the builder's ostentatious guile, And more than proudest guilt unmoved may brook. Accept, О West, these unaffected lays, The Creature of the Earth now felt that look, Which genius claims and grateful justice pays. And stood in blissful awe—as one above Still green in age, thy vig'rous powers impart Who saw his name in the Eternal Book, The youthful freshness of a blameless heart : And Him that open'd it; e'en Him that took For thine, unaided by another's pain, The Little Child, and bless'd it in his love. The wiles of envy, or the sordid train And sees Of selfishness, has been the manly race 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. She sees the mottled moth come twinkling by, sip the flowret nigh; Yet not, as once, with eager cry She grasps the pretty thing; To show its gold and purple wing. But rather on the azure air To some untrodden land; To aught of sight or touch of hand. And outward things around her move, And make the heart her home; Through hateful scenes of vice to roam. Thine eyes so speak, as with a voice : And all its beauty love; That waits thy conscious soul above. shall prove, ON THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE. And thou art gone,most loved, most honour'dFriend! ROSALIE. THE TUSCAN MAID. 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. Na-never came from aught below This melody of wo, That makes my heart to overflow As froin a thousand gushing springs Unknown before ; that with it brings This nameless light—if light it be That veils the world I see. How pleasant and how sad the turning tido of human life, when side by side Along the vale of years ; Too young for wo, though not for tears. The time is mark'd upon her brow; 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. Yet now there needs another name While she the feeling gives; On e'en the humblest thing that lives. For all I see around me wears The hue of other spheres; So like angelic bliss. When the last lingering ray In music to her soul. LEVI FRISBIE. (Bora 1784. Died 1822) PROFESSOR FRISBIE was the son of a respect- | their claim to distinction is recognised more wil. able clergyman at Ipswich, Massachusetts. He lingly than any other. entered Harvard University in 1798, and was gradu Soon after leaving the university, Mr. FRISBIE ated in 1802. His father, like most of the cler- | commenced the study of the law; but an affection gymen of New England, was a poor man, and of the eyes depriving him of their use for the unable fully to defray the costs of his son's edu purposes of study, he abandoned his professional cation; and Mr. FRISBIE, while an under-graduate, pursuits, and accepted the place of Latin tutor in provided in part for his support by teaching a Harvard University. In 1811, he was made Proschool during vacations, and by writing as a clerk. fessor of the Latin Language, and in 1817, ProfesHis friend and biographer, Professor ANDREWS sor of Moral Philosophy. The last office he held Nortox, alludes to this fact as a proof of the until he died, on the 19th of July, 1822. He was falsity of the opinion that wealth constitutes the an excellent scholar, an original thinker, and a only aristocracy in our country. Talents, united pure-minded man. An octavo volume, containing with correct morals, and good manners, pass un a memoir, some of his philosophical lectures, and questioned all the artificial barriers of society, and a few poems, was published in 1823. A CASTLE IN THE AIR. To her myself, my all I'd give, For her consent to die. Whene'er by anxious care oppress’d, My aching head I'd lay; And drive my griefs away. share; I'd watch beside her bed. I'll tell you, friend, what sort of wife, Inspires my waking schemes, In sweet aerial dreams. To captivate my eyes. Its feelings as they rise; The sober thought you see; But most of all on me; Unconsciously doth please ; A modesty and ease. And mind inform the whole; An all-inspiring soul. By Hymen's silken tie, Should gathering clouds our sky deform, And, were its fury hurl'd, Defy the opposing world. To praise the Almighty name; My soul should catch the flame. Thus nothing should our hearts divide, And all to love be given; But live and love in heaven. SAMUEL WOODWORTH. (Born, 1785. Died, 1842.1 Mr. Woonworth was a native of Scituate, in modesty and integrity as well as for his literary Massachusetts. After learning in a country town abilities. the art of printing, he went to New York, where Mr. Woodworth wrote many pieces for the he was editor of a newspaper during our second stage, which had a temporary popularity, and two war with England. He subsequently published or three volumes of songs, odes, and other poems, a weekly miscellany entitled “The Ladies' Lite relating chiefly to subjects of rural and domestic rary Gazette,” and in 1823, associated with Mr. life. He dwelt always with delight upon the GEORGE P. Morris, he established « The New scenes of his childhood, and lamented that he was York Mirror," long the most popular journal of compelled to make his home amid the strife and literature and art in this country. For several tumult of a city. He was the poet of the “ comyears before his death he was an invalid, and in mon people," and was happy in the belief that this period a large number of the leading gentle The Bucket" was read by multitudes who never men of New York acted as a committee for a heard of " Thanatopsis.” Some of his pieces have complimentary benefit given for him at the Park certainly much merit, in their way, and a selection Theatre, the proceeds of which made more plea- might be made from his voluminous writings that sant his closing days. He died in the month of would be very honourable to his talents and his December, 1842, in the fifty-seventh year of his feelings. There has been no recent edition of any age, much respected by all who knew him, for his of his works. THE BUCKET. THE NEEDLE, How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, The gay belles of fashion may boast of excelling When fond recollection presents them to view! In waltz or cotillion, at whist or quadrille; The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, And seek admiration by vauntingly telling And every loved spot which my infancy knew! Of drawing, and painting, and musical skill; The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it, But give me the fair one, in country or city, The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell, Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart, The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, Why cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty, And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well While plying the needle with exquisite art. The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The bright little needle—the swift-flying needle, The moss-cover'd bucket which hung in the well. The needle directed by beauty and art. That moss-cover'd vessel I hail'd as a treasure, If Love have a potent, a magical token, For often at noon, when return'd from the field, A talisman, ever resistless and trueI found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, A charm that is never evaded or broken, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. A witchery certain the heart to subdue How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, 'Tis this—and his armoury never has furnish'd And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; So keen and unerring, or polish'd a dart; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, Let Beauty direct it, so pointed and burnishid, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well And Oh! it is certain of touching the heart. The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The bright little needle—the swift-flying needle, The moss-cover'd bucket, arose from the well. The needle directed by beauty and art. How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, Be wise, then, ye maidens, nor seek admiration As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips! By dressing for conquest, and flirting with all; Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, You never, whate'er be your fortune or station, The brightest that beauty or revelry sips. Appear half so lovely at rout or at ball, And now, far removed from the loved habitation, As gaily convened at a work-cover'd table, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, Each cheerfully active and playing her part, As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, Beguiling the task with a song or a fable, And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well And plying the needle with exquisite art. The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The bright little needle—the swift-flying needle, The moss-cover'd bucket that hangs in the well! The needle directed by beauty and art. JOHN PIERPONT. [Born 1785.] Tas author of the “ Airs of Palestine,” is a his health, which at this time demanded a more native of Litchfield, Connecticut, and was born on active life, he abandoned the profession of law, the sixth of April, 1785. His great-grandfather, the and became interested in mercantile transactions, Reverend JAMES PIERPONT, was the second minis first in Boston, and afterward in Baltimore; but ter of New Haven, and one of the founders of Yale these resulting disastrously, in 1816, he sought a College ; his grandfather and his father were men solace in literary pursuits, and in the same year of intelligence and integrity; and his mother, published “The Airs of Palestine.” The first whose maiden name was ELIZARETH Collins, edition appeared in an octavo volume, at Baltihad a mind thoroughly imbued with the religious more; and two other editions were published in sentiment, and was distinguished for her devotion Boston, in the following year. to maternal duties. In the following lines, from The “Airs of Palestine” is a poem of about one of his recent poems, he acknowledges the in- eight hundred lines, in the heroic measure, in which fluence of her example and teachings on his own the influence of music is shown by examples, princharacter: cipally from sacred history. The religious sub“She led me first to God; limity of the sentiments, the beauty of the language, Her words and prayers were my young spirit's dew. and the finish of the versification, placed it at once, For, when she used to leave in the judgment of all competent to form an opinion The fireside, every eve, on the subject, before any poem at that time proI knew it was for prayer that she withdrew. duced in America. As a work of art, it would be nearly faultless, but for the occasional introduction "That dew, that bless'd my youth,Her holy love, her truth, of double rhymes, a violation of the simple dignity Her spirit of devotion, and the tears of the ten-syllable verse, induced by the intention That she could not suppress, of the author to recite it in a public assembly. Hath never ceased to bless He says in the preface to the third edition, that he My soul, nor will it, through eternal years. was “aware how difficult even a good speaker finds it to rehearse heroic poetry, for any length - How often has the thought Of my mourn'd mother brought of time, without perceiving in his hearers the Peace to my troubled spirit, and new power somniferous effects of a regular cadence,” and The tempter to repel! the double rhyme was, therefore, occasionally Mother, thou knowest well thrown in, like a ledge of rocks in a smoothly That thou hast blessed me since thy mortal hour!" gliding river, to break the current, which, without it, might appear sluggish, and to vary the melody, Mr. PIERPONT entered Yale College when fifteen which might otherwise become monotonous.” The years old, and was graduated in the summer of following passage, descriptive of a moonlight scene 1804. During a part of 1805, he assisted the in Italy, will give the reader an idea of its manner: Reverend Doctor Backus, in an academy of which he was principal previous to his election to the “On Arno's bosom, as he calmly flows, presidency of Hamilton College; and in the au And his cool arms round Vallombrosa throws, tumn of the same year, following the example of Rolling his crystal tide through classic vales, Alone,--at night,-the Italian boatman sails. many young men of New England, he went to High o'er Mont' Alto walks, in maiden pride, the southern states, and was for nearly four years Night's queen ;-he sees her image on that tide, a private tutor in the family of Colonel WILLIAM Now, ride the wave that curls its infant crest Allston, of South Carolina, spending a portion Around his prow, then rippling sinks to rest ; of his time in Charleston, and the remainder on Now, glittering dance around his eddying oar, the estate of Colonel Allstox, on the Waccamaw, Whose every sweep is echo'd from the shore ; Now, far before him, on a liquid bed near Georgetown. Here he commenced his legal Of waveless water, rest her radiant head. studies, which he continued after his return to his How mild the empire of that virgin queen! native state in 1809, in the school of Justices How dark the monntain's shade! how still the scene! REEVE and Gould; and in 1812, he was ad Ilush'd by her silver sceptre, zephyrs sleep mitted to the bar, in Essex county, Massachusetts. On dewy leaves, that overhang the deep, Nor dare in whisper through the boughs, ror stir Soon after the commencement of the second war The valley's willow, nor the mountain's fir, with Great Britain, being appointed to address Nor make the pale and breathless aspen quiver, the Washington Benevolent Society of Newbu Nor brush, with ruffling wind, that glossy river. ry port, his place of residence, he delivered and “ Hark!-'t is a convent's bell : its midnight chime; afterward published “The Portrait,” the earliest For music measures even the march of linie : O’er bending trees, that fringe the distant shore, of the poems in the recent edition of his works. Gray turrets rise :--the eye can catch no inore. In consequence of the general prostration of The boatman, listening to the tolling bell, business in New England during the war, and of Suspends his oar :-a low and solenın swell, |