Stretched on his back, in homely bean-vine bower, While the voluptuous bee

Robs each surrounding flower,

And prattling childhood clambers o'er his breast, The husbandınan enjoys his noon-day rest.

Against the hazy sky,

The thin and fleecy clouds, unmoving, rest.
Beneath them far, yet high

In the dim, distant west,

The vulture, scenting thence its carrion-fare,
Sails, slowly circling in the sunny air.

Soberly, in the shade,

Repose the patient cow, and toil-worn ox;
Or in the shoal stream wade,
Sheltered by jutting rocks:

The fleecy flock, fly-scourged and restless, rush
Madly from fence to fence, from bush to bush.
Tediously pass the hours,

And vegetation wilts, with blistered root-
And droop the thirsting flowers,
Where the slant sunbeams shoot;
But of each tall old tree, the lengthening line,
Slow-creeping eastward, marks the day's decline.

Faster, along the plain,

Moves now the shade, and on the meadow's edge:
The kine are forth again,
The bird flits in the hedge.
Now in the molten west sinks the hot sun.
Welcome, mild evel-the sultry day is done.
Dew of the evening, to the crisped-up grass;
Pleasantly comest thou,
And the curled corn-blades bow,
As the light breezes pass,

That their parched lips may feel thee, and expand,
Thou sweet reviver of the fevered land.

So, to the thirsting soul,
Cometh the dew of the Almighty's love;
And the scathed heart, made whole,
To where the spirit freely may expand,
Turneth in joy above,
And rove, untrammelled, in that "better land."

THE LABORER

Stand up erect! Thou hast the form And likeness of thy God!--who more!

A soul as dauntless 'mid the storm
Of daily life, a heart as warm
And pure as breast e'er wore.
What then-Thou art as true a MAN
As moves the human mass among;
As much a part of the Great Plan
That with Creation's dawn began,

As any of the throng.

Who is thine enemy?-the high

In station, or in wealth the chieft The great, who coldly pass thee by, With proud step, and averted eyel Nay! nurse not such belief

If true unto thyself thou wast,

What were the proud one's scorn to theel
A feather, which thou mightest cast
Aside, as idly as the blast

The light leaf from the tree.
No:-uncurbed passions-low desires ——
Absence of noble self-respect-
Death, in the breast's consuming fires,
To that high nature which aspires
For ever, till thus checked:
These are thine enemies-thy worst:
They chain thee to thy lowly lot—
Thy labor and thy life necurst.

Oh, stand erect! and from them burst!
And longer suffer not!

Thou art thyself thine enemy!

The great-what better they than thou↑ As theirs, is not thy will as free! Has God with equal favors thee

Neglected to endow

True, wealth thou hast not: it is but dust!
Nor place: uncertain as the wind!
But that thou hast, which, with thy crust
And water, may despise the lust

Of both-a noble mind.

With this, and passions under ban,

True faith, and holy trust in God,
Thou art the peer of any man.
Look up, then-that thy little span
Of life may be well trod!

he became editor, in 1829, at Boston, of the American Manufacture, a newspaper in the tariff interest. In 1830 he became editor of the paper which had been conducted by Brainard at Hartford, and when the "Remains" of that poet were published in 1832, he wrote the prefatory memoir. In 1831 appeared, in a small octavo volume, at Hartford, his Legends of New England, which represents a taste early formed by him of the quaint Indian and colonial superstitions of the country, and which his friend Brainard had delicately touched in several of his best poems. The Supernaturalism of New England, which he published in 1847, may be considered a sequel to this volume. There was an early poem published by Whittier, Moll Pitcher, a tale of a witch of Nahant, which may be classed with these productions, rather poetical essays in prose and verse on a favorite subject than, strictly speaking, po.tical

creations.

Kindred in growth to these, was his Indian story, Mogg Megone, which appeared in 1836, and has its name from a leader among the Saco Indians in the war of 1677. It is a spirited version, mostly in the octosyllabic measure, of Indian affairs and character from the old narratives, with a lady's story of wrong and penitence, which introduces the rites of the Roman Church in connexion with the Indians. The Bridal of Pennacook is another Indian poem, with the skeleton of a story out of Morton's New England's Canaan, which is made the vehicle for some of the author's finest ballad writings and descriptions of nature. Another reproduction of this old period is the Leaves from Margar t Smith's Journal, written in the antique style brought into vogue by the clever Lady Willoughby's Diary. The fair journalist, with a taste for nature, poetry, and character, and fully sensitive to the religious influences of the spot, visits New England in 1678, and writes her account of the manners and influences of the time to her cousin in England, a gentleman to

ties; though the unnecessary tediousness of its form will remain a permanent objection to it.

Returning to the order of our narrative, from these exhibitions of Whittier's early tastes, we find him, after a few years spent at home in farming, and representing his town in the state legisla ture, engaged in the proceedings of the American Anti-Slavery Society, of which he was elected a secretary in 1836, and in defence of its principles editing the Pennsylvania Freeman in Philadelphia. The Voices of Freedom, which form a section of his poems in the octavo edition of his writings, afford the best specimens of these numerous effusions. The importance attached to them by the abolition party has probably thrown into the shade some of the finer qualities of his mind.

In 1840 Mr. Whittier took up his residence in Amesbury, Ma-sachusetts, where his late productions have been written, and whence he forwards his contributions to the National Era at Washington; collecting from time to time his articles in books.

In 1850 appeared his volume, Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, a series of prose essays on Bunyan, Baxter, Ellwood, Nayler, Andrew Marvell, the Quaker John Robert, for the ancients; and the Americans, Leggett, the abolition writer Rogers, and the poet Dinsmore for the moderns. In the same year he published Songs of Labor and other Poems, in which he seeks to dignify and render interesting the mechanic arts by the associations of history and fancy. The Chapel of the Hermits, and other Poems, was published in 1853. The chief poem commemorates an incident in the lives of Rousseau and St. Pierre, when they were visiting a heritage, and while waiting for the monks, Rousseau-as the anecdote is recorded in the "Studies of Nature,"

proposed some devotional exercises. Whittier illustrates by this his Quaker argument for the spiritual independence of the soul, which will find its own nutriment for itself.

Mr. Whittier has written too frequently on occasional topics of local or passing interest, to claim for all his verses the higher qualities of poetry. Many of them are purely didactic, and serve the purposes of forcible newspaper leaders. In others he has risen readily to genuine eloquence, or tempered his poetic fire by the simplicity of true pathos. Like most masters of energetic expres sion, he relies upon the strong Saxon elements of the language, the use of which is noticeable in his poems.

THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD.

Dark the halls, and cold the feastGone the bridemaids, gone the priest! All is over-all is done,

Twain of yesterday are one!

Blooming girl and manhood grey,

Autumn in the arms of May !

Hushed within and hushed without,

Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout;

Boston: Mussey and Co., 1850, with illustrations by Bil lings.

This Ballad is founded upon one of the marvellous legends connected with the famous Gen. M., of Hampton, N.II., who was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee Faust, in league with the adversary, I give the story as I heard it when a child from a venerable family visitant

Dies the bonfire on the hill;
All is dark and all is still,

Save the starlight, save the breeze
Moaning through the grave-yard trees;
And the great sea-waves below,
Like the night's pulse, beating slow.
From the brief dream of a bride
She hath wakened, at his side.
With half uttered shriek and start-
Feels she not his beating heart?
And the pressure of his arm,
And his breathing near and warm?
Lightly from the bridal bed
Springs that fair dishevelled head,
And a feeli., new, inter e,
Half of shanie, half innocence,
Maiden fear and wonder speaks
Through her lips and changing cheeks.
From the oaken mantel glowing
Faintest light the lamp is throwing
On the mirror's antique mould,
High-backed chair, and wainscot old,
And, through faded curtains stealing,
His dark sleeping face revealing.
Listless lies the strong man there,
Silver-streaked his careless hair;
Lips of love have left no trace
On that hard and haughty face;
And that forehead's knitted thought
Love's soft hand hath not unwrought.
"Yet," she sighs, "he loves me well,
More than these calm lips will tell.
Stooping to my lowly state,
He hath made me rich and great,
And I bless him, though he be
Hard and stern to all save me!"
While she speaketh, falls the light
O'er her fingers small and white;
Gold and gem, and costly ring
Back the timid lustre fling-
Love's selectest gifts, and rare,
His proud hand had fastened there.
Gratefully she marks the glow
From those tapering lines of snow;
Fondly o'er the sleeper bending
His black hair with golden blending,
In her soft and light caress,
Cheek and lip together press.
Ha!-that start of horror!-Wh
That wild stare and wilder cry,
Full of terror, full of pain!
Is there madness in her brain!
Hark! that gasping, hoarse and low:
"Spare me spare me-let me go!"

God have mercy!-Icy cold
Spectral hands her own enfold,
Drawing silently from them
Love's fair gifts of gold and gem,
"Waken! save me!" still as death
At her side he slumbereth.

Ring and bracelet all are gone,
And that ice-cold hand withdrawn;
But she hears a murmur low,
Full of sweetness, full of woe,
Half a sigh and half a moan:
"Fear not! give the dead her own!"
Ah!-the dead wife's voice she knows!
That cold hand whose pressure froze,
Once in warmest life had borne
Gem and band her own hath worn

"Wake thee! wake thee!" Lo, his eyes Open with a dull surprise.

In his arms the strong man folds her,.
Closer to his breast he holds her;
Trembling limbs his own are meeting,
And he feels her heart's quick beating:
Nay, my dearest, why this fear i"
"Hush!" she saith, "the dead is here !"
"Nay, a dream--an isle dream."
But before the lamp's pale gleam
Tremblingly her hand she raises,—
There no more the diamond blazes,
Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold,-
"Ah!" she sighs, "her hand was cold!"
Broken words of cheer he saith,
But his dark lip quivereth,

And as o'er the past he thinketh,
From his young wife's arins he shrinketh;
Can those soft arms round him lie,
Underneath his dead wife's eye!

She her fair young head can rest
Soothed and child-like on his breast,
And in trustful innocence

Draw new strength and courage thence;
He, the proud man, feels within
But the cowardice of sin!

She can murmur in her thought
Simple prayers her mother taught,
And His blessed angels call,
Whose great love is over all;
He, alone, in prayerless pride,
Meets the dark Pust at her side.

One, who living shrank with dread
From his look, or word, or tread,
Unto whom her early grave
Was as freedom to the slave,
Moves him at this midnight hour,
With the dead's unconscious power!

Ah, the dead, the unforgot!
From their solemn homes of thought,
Where the cypress shadows blend
Darkly over foe and friend,
Or in love or sad rebuke,
Back upon the living look.

And the tenderest ones and weakest,
Who their wrongs have borne the meekest,

Lifting from those dark, still places,

Sweet and sad-remembered faces,
C'er the pilt hearts behind
An unwitting triumph find.

A DREAM OF SUMMER.

Bland as the morning breath of June
The southwest breezes play;
And, through its haze, the winter noon
Seems warm as summer's day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North
Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hill-side cell forsakes,
The muskrat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
"Bear up, oh mother Nature!" cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
"Our winter voices prophesy
Of summer days to theel"
So, in those winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear

O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole,

Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter's snow
Lie germs of summer flowers!

The Night is mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay

The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the star-light lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all His works,
Has left His Hope with all!

PALESTINE

Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song.
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng;
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.
With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore,
Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;
With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.
Blue sea of the hills!-in my spirit I hear
Thy waters, Genesaret, chime on my ear;
Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,`
And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.
Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;
And I pause on the goat-erags of Tabor to see
The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!

Hark, a sound in the valley! where swollen and strong,

Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along;

Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain.

There down from his mountains stern Zebulon came,
And Napthali's stag, with his eye-balls of flame,
And the chariots of Jubin rolled harmlessly on,
For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son!

There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang

To the song which the beautiful prophetess sang,
When the princes of Issachar stood by her side,
And the shout of a host in its triumph replied.
Io. Bethlehem's hi l-site before me is seen,
With the mountains around, and the valleys between;
There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there
The songs of the angels rose sweet on the air.
And Bethany's palm trees in beauty still threw
Their shadows at noon on the ruins below;
But where are the sisters who hastened to greet
The lowly Redeemer, ad sit at His feet!

I tread where the TWELVE in their way-faring trod;
I stand where they stood with the chosen of God-
Where His blessing was heard and His lessons were
taught,

Where the blind were restored and the healing was wrought.

Oh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer cameThese hills He toiled over in grief, are the sameThe founts where He drank by the wayside still flow, And the same airs are blowing which breathed on His brow!

And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,

But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her

feet;

For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone,
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.
But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode
Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of God?
Where my spirit but turned from the outward and
dim,

It could gaze, even now, on the presence of Him!
Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when,
In love and in meekness, He moved among men;
And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of
the sea,

In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me!

And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flool, No my eyes see the cross which He bowed him to bear, Gethsemane's garden of prayer. knees press my

Nor

Yet loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near
To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here;
And the voice of Thy love is the same even now,
As at Bethany's tomb, or on Olivet's brow.

Oh, the outward hath gone!-but in glory ani power,

The SPIRIT Surviveth the things of an hour;
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame
On the heart's sacred altar is burning the same!

GONK

Auother hand is beckoning us,
Another call is given;

And glows once more with Angel-steps
The path which reaches Heaven.

Our young and gentle friend whose smile
Made brighter summer hours,
Amid the frosts of autumn time

Has left us, with the flowers.

No paling of the cheek of bloom
Forewarned us of decay;

No shadow from the Silent Land

Fell around our sister's way.
The light of her young life went down,
As sinks behind the hill

The glory of a setting star

Clear, suddenly, and still.

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed-
Eternal as the sky;

And like the brook's low song, her voice-
A sound wach could not die.

And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere,
To give to Heaven a Shing One,
Who walked an Angel here.

The blessing of her quiet life
Fell on us like the dew;

And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed,
Like fairy blossoms grew.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds
Were in her very look;
We read her face, as one who reads
A true and holy book:

The measure of a blessed hymn,

To which our hearts could move;
The breathing of an inward psalm;
A canticle of love.

We miss her in the place of prayer,
And by the hearth-fire's light ;
We pause beside her door to hear
Once more her sweet "Good night!"

There seems a shadow on the day,
Her smile no longer cheers;
A dimness on the stars of night,

Like eyes that look through tears
Alone unto our Father's will

One thought hath reconciled;
That He whose love exceedeth ours
Hath taken home His child.

Fold her, oh Father! in thine arms,
And let her henceforth be
A messenger of love between

Our human hearts and Thee.

Still let her mild rebuking stand
Between us and the wrong,

And her dear memory serve to make
Our faith in Goodness strong.

And, grant that she who, trembling, here
Distrusted all her powers,

May welcome to her holier home
The well beloved of ours.

CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. CHARLES FINNO HOFFMAN is the descendant of & family which established itself in the State of New York during its possession by the Dutch. His maternal grandfather, from whom he derived the name of Fenno, was an active politician and writer of the federal party during the administration of Washington, His father, Judge Hoffman, was an eminent member of the bar of the United States. He pleaded and won his first cause at the age of seventeen, and at twenty-one filled the place previously occupied by his father in the New York Legislature. One of his sous is Ogden Hoffman, who has long maintained a high position as an eloquent pleader.

His father not wishing to coerce him unduly, instead of sending him back, placed him in the charge of a Scottish gentleman in a village of New Jersey. While on a visit home in 1817 an accident occurred, an account of which is given in a paragraph quoted from the New York Gazette in the Evening Post of October 25, from which it appears that "he was sitting on Courtlandt-street Dock, with his legs hanging over the wharf, as the steamboat was coming in, which caught one of his legs and crushed it in a dreadful manner." It was found necessary to amputate the injured limb above the knee. Its place was supplied by a cork substitute, which seemed to form no impediment to the continuance of the out-door life and athletic exercises in which its wearer was a proficient. At the age of fifteen he entered Columbia College, where he was more distinguished in the debating society than in the class. He left College during his junior year, but afterwards received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from the institution. He next studied law with the late Harmanus Bleecker, at Albany, at the age of twenty-one was admitted to the bar, and practised for three years in New York. He then abandoned a professional for a literary life, having already tried his pen in anonymous contributions while a clerk to the Albany newspapers, and while an attorney to the New York American, in the editorship of which he became associated with Mr. Charles King. A series of articles by him, designated by a star, added to the literary reputation of the journal.

In 1833 Mr. Hoffman made a tour to the Prairies for the benefit of his health. He contributed a series of letters, descriptive of its incidents, to the American, which were collected and published in 1834, in a couple of volumes bearing the title A Winter in the West, which obtained a wide popularity in this country and England. His second work, Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie, appeared in 1837. It was followed by the romance of Greyslaer, founded on the cele brated Beauchamp murder case in Kentucky.

The Knickerbocker Magazine was commenced in 1833 under the editorship of Mr. Hoffman. It was conducted by him with spirit, but after the issue of a few numbers passed into the hands of Timothy Flint. He was subsequently connected with the American Monthly Magazine, and was for a while engaged in the editorship of the New York Mirror. His continuous novel of Vanderlyn was published in the former in 1837. His poetical writings, which had long before become widely and favorably known, were first collected in a volume entitled The Vigil of Faith and Other Poems, in 1842. The main story which gave the book a title is an Indian legend of the Adirondach, which we take to be a pure invention of the author, -a poetic conception of a bride slain by the rival of her husband, who watches and guards the life of his foe lest so hated an object should intrude upon the presence of his mistress in the spirit world. It is in the octosyllabic measure, and in a pathetic, eloquent strain.

In 1844 a second poetical volume, including numerous additions, appeared with the title, Borrowed Notes for Home Circulation suggested by an article which had recently been published in the Foreign Quarterly Review on the Poets and