Praise to the bard! his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame have flown.

Praise to the man! a nation stood
Beside his coffin with wet eyes,
Her brave, her beautiful, her good,
As when a loved one dies.

And still, as on his funeral day,

Men stand his cold earth-couch around,
With the mute homage that we pay
To consecrated ground.

And consecrated ground it is,

The last, the hallow'd home of one
Who lives upon all memories,
Though with the buried gone.

Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined-
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.

Sages, with Wisdom's garland wreathed, Crown'd kings, and mitred priests of power, And warriors with their bright swords sheathed, The mightiest of the hour;

And lowlier names, whose humble home
Is lit by Fortune's dimmer star,

Are there-o'er wave and mountain come,
From countries near and far;

Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have press'd
The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand,
Or trod the piled leaves of the West,
My own green forest-land.

All ask the cottage of his birth,

Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung,
And gather feelings not of earth
His fields and streams among.

They linger by the Doon's low trees,
And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr,
And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries!
The Poet's tomb is there.

But what to them the sculptor's art,
His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns?
Wear they not graven on the heart
The name of Robert Burns?

RED JACKET.

A chief of the Indian Tribes, the Tuscaroras.

COOPER, whose name is with his country's woven,
First in her files, her PIONEER of mind,
A wanderer now in other climes, has proven
His love for the young land he left behind;

And throned her in the Senate Hall of Nations,
Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought,
Magnificent as his own mind's creations,

And beautiful as its green world of thought.

And faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted
As law-authority-it passed nem. con.-
He writes that we are, as ourselves have voted,
The most enlighten'd people ever known.

That all our week is happy as a Sunday
In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh;
And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy,
There's not a bailiff nor an epitaph.

M

And, furthermore, in fifty years or sooner,
We shall export our poetry and wine;
And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner,
Will sweep the seas from Zembla to the Line.

If he were with me, King of Tuscarora,
Gazing as I, upon thy portrait now,

In all its medall'd, fringed, and beaded glory,
Its eyes dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow➡

Its brow, half martial and half diplomatic,
Its eye, upsoaring like an eagle's wings;
Well might he boast that we, the Democratic,
Outrival Europe-even in our kings.

For thou wert monarch born. Tradition's pages
Tell not the planting of thy parent tree,
But that the forest tribes have bent for ages,
To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee.

Thy name is princely. Though no poet's magic
Čould make RED JACKET grace an English rhyme,
Unless he had a genius for the tragic,
And introduced it in a pantomime;

Yet it is music in the language spoken
Of thine own land; and on her herald-roll,
As nobly fought for, and ás proud a token
AS CŒUR DE LION's, of a warrior's soul.

Thy garb-though Austria's bosom-star would frighten

That medal pale, as diamonds the dark mine, And George the Fourth wore, in the dance at Brighton,

A more becoming evening dress than thine;

Yet 'tis a brave one, scorning wind and weather,
And fitted for thy couch on field and flood,
As Rob Roy's tartans for the Highland heather,
Or forest green for England's Robin Hood.

Is strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's)
Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong
As earth's first kings-the Argo's gallant sailors,
Heroes in history, and gods in song.

Is eloquence? Her spell is thine that reaches
The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport;
And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches,
The secret of their mastery-they are short.

Is beauty? Thine has with thy youth departed, But the love-legends of thy manhood's years, And she who perish'd, young and broken-hearted, Are-but I rhyme for smiles, and not for tears.

The monarch mind-the mystery of commanding, The godlike power, the art Napoleon,

Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, banding The hearts of millions till they move as one;

Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded The road to death as to a festival;

And minstrel minds, without a blush, have shrouded
With banner-folds of glory their dark pall.

Who will believe-not I-for in deceiving
Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream;

I cannot spare the luxury of believing

That all things beautiful are what they seem.

Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing Would, like the patriarch's, sooth a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing

As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower;

With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil;
With motions graceful as a bird's in air;
Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil
That e'er clinched fingers in a captive's hair?

That in thy veins there springs a poison fountain, Deadlier than that which bathes the Upas-tree; And in thy wrath, a nursing Cat o' Mountain

Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee? And underneath that face like summer's ocean's, Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear, Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions, Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow-all, save fear, Love-for thy land, as if she were thy daughter, Her pipes in peace, her tomahawk in wars; Hatred of missionaries and cold water;

Pride-in thy rifle trophies and thy scars;

Hope that thy wrongs will be by the Great Spirit
Remember'd and revenged when thou art gone;
Sorrow-that none are left thee to inherit
Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE LIGHT OF STARS.

THE night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,

All silently, the little moon

Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?

The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above,
A hero's armour gleams.