THE OLD TREE.

AND is it gone, that venerable tree,
The old spectator of my infancy?—
It used to stand upon this very spot,
And now almost its absence is forgot.

I knew its mighty strength had known decay,
Its heart, like every old one, shrunk away,

But dreamt not that its frame would fall, ere mine
At all partook my weary soul's decline.

The great reformist, that each day removes
The old, yet never on the old improves,
The dotard, Time, that like a child destroys,
As sport or spleen may prompt, his ancient toys,
And shapes their ruins into something new-
Has planted other playthings where it grew.
The wind pursues an unobstructed course,
Which once among its leaves delay'd perforce;
The harmless Hamadryad, that of yore
Inhabited its bole, subsists no more;

Its roots have long since felt the ruthless plough-
There is no vestige of its glories now!
But in my mind, which doth not soon forget,
That venerable tree is growing yet;
Nourish'd, like those wild plants that feed on air,
By thoughts of years unconversant with care,
And visions such as pass ere man grows wholly
A fiendish thing, or mischief adds to folly.
I still behold it with my fancy's eye,
A vernant record of the days gone by:
I see not the sweet form and face more plain,
Whose memory was a weight upon my brain.
-Dear to my song, and dearer to my soul,
Who knew but half my heart, yet had the whole
Sun of my life, whose presence and whose flight
Its brief day caused, and never-ending night!
Must this delightless verse, which is indeed
The mere wild product of a worthless weed,
(But which, like sunflowers, turns a loving face
Towards the lost light, and scorns its birth and place,)
End with such cold allusion unto you,

To whom, in youth, my very dreams were true?
It must; I have no more of that soft kind,
My age is not the same, nor is my mind.

ΤΟ

'Twas eve; the broadly shining sun
Its long, celestial course had run;
The twilight heaven, so soft and blue,
Met earth in tender interview,
E'en as the angel met of yore
His gifted mortal paramour,
Woman, a child of morning then,-
A spirit still,-compared with men.
Like happy islands of the sky,
The gleaming clouds reposed on high,
Each fix'd sublime, deprived of motion,
A Delos to the airy ocean.
Upon the stirless shore no breeze
Shook the green drapery of the trees,
Or, rebel to tranquillity,
Awoke a ripple on the sea.

Nor, in a more tumultuous sound,

Were the world's audible breathings drown'd;

The low, strange hum of herbage growing,
The voice of hidden waters flowing,
Made songs of nature, which the ear
Could scarcely be pronounced to hear;
But noise had furl'd its subtle wings,
And moved not through material things,
All which lay calm as they had been
Parts of the painter's mimic scene.
"Twas eve; my thoughts belong to thee,
Thou shape of separate memory!
When, like a stream to lands of flame,
Unto my mind a vision came.
Methought, from human haunts and strife
Remote, we lived a loving life;
Our wedded spirits seem'd to blend
In harmony too sweet to end,
Such concord as the echoes cherish
Fondly, but leave at length to perish.
Wet rain-stars are thy lucid eyes,
The Hyades of earthly skies,

But then upon my heart they shone,
As shines on snow the fervid sun.
And fast went by those moments bright,
Like meteors shooting through the night;
But faster fleeted the wild dream

That clothed them with their transient beam.
Yet love can years to days condense,
And long appear'd that life intense;
It was, to give a better measure
Than time, a century of pleasure.

ELYSIUM.

SHE dwelleth in Elysium; there,
Like Echo, floating in the air;
Feeding on light as feed the flowers,
She fleets away uncounted hours,
Where halcyon Peace, among the bless'd,
Sits brooding o'er her tranquil nest.
She needs no impulse; one she is,
Whom thought supplies with ample bliss:
The fancies fashion'd in her mind
By Heaven, are after its own kind;
Like sky-reflections in a lake,
Whose calm no winds occur to break.

Her memory is purified,

And she seems never to have sigh'd:
She hath forgot the way to weep;
Her being is a joyous sleep;
The mere imagining of pain,
Hath pass'd, and cannot come again.

Except of pleasure most intense
And constant, she hath lost all sense;
Her life is day without a night,
An endless, innocent delight;
No chance her happiness now mars,
Howe'er Fate twine her wreaths of stars.

And palpable and pure, the part
Which pleasure playeth with her heart;
For every joy that seeks the maid,
Foregoes its common painful shade
Like shapes that issue from the grove
Arcadian, dedicate to JovE.

TO H

THE firstlings of my simple song
Were offer'd to thy name;
Again the altar, idle long,

In worship rears its flame.
My sacrifice of sullen years,
My many hecatombs of tears,

No happier hours recall

Yet may thy wandering thoughts restore To one who ever loved thee more

Than fickle Fortune's all.

And now, farewell!-and although here
Men hate the source of pain,
I hold thee and thy follies dear,

Nor of thy faults complain.
For my misused and blighted powers,
My waste of miserable hours,

I will accuse thee not:

The fool who could from self depart,
And take for fate one human heart,
Deserved no better lot.

I reck of mine the less, because
In wiser moods I feel

A doubtful question of its cause
And nature, on me steal-

An ancient notion, that time flings

Our pains and pleasures from his wings
With much equality-

And that, in reason, happiness
Both of accession and decrease
Incapable must be.

UNWISE, or most unfortunate,
My way was; let the sign,
The proof of it, be simply this-

Thou art not, wert not mine!
For 'tis the wont of chance to bless
Pursuit, if patient, with success;

And envy may repine,
That, commonly, some triumph must
Be won by every lasting lust.

How I have lived imports not now;
I am about to die,

Else I might chide thee that my life
Has been a stifled sigh;

Yes, life; for times beyond the line
Our parting traced, appear not mine,
Or of a world gone by;
And often almost would evince,
My soul had transmigrated since.
Pass wasted flowers; alike the grave,
To which I fast go down,
Will give the joy of nothingness
To me, and to renown:
Unto its careless tenants, fame
Is idle as that gilded name,

Of vanity the crown,
Helvetian hands inscribe upon
The forehead of a skeleton.
List the last cadence of a lay,
That, closing as begun,
Is govern'd by a note of pain,
O, lost and worshipp'd one!

None shall attend a sadder strain,
Till MEMNON's statue stand again
To mourn the setting sun,-
Nor sweeter, if my numbers seem
To share the nature of their theme.

SERENADE.

Look out upon the stars, my love,

And shame them with thine eyes, On which, than on the lights above, There hang more destinies. Night's beauty is the harmony

Of blending shades and light;
Then, lady, up,-look out, and be
A sister to the night!-

Sleep not!-thine image wakes for aye
Within my watching breast:
Sleep not!-from her soft sleep should fly,
Who robs all hearts of rest.

Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break,
And make this darkness gay

With looks, whose brightness well might make
Of darker nights a day.

THE WIDOW'S SONG.

I BURN no incense, hang no wreath
O'er this, thine early tomb:

Such cannot cheer the place of death,

But only mock its gloom.

Here odorous smoke and breathing flower

No grateful influence shed;

They lose their perfume and their power,
When offer'd to the dead.

And if, as is the Afghaun's creed,
The spirit may return,

A disembodied sense, to feed

On fragrance, near its urn-
It is enough, that she, whom thou
Didst love in living years,
Sits desolate beside it now,
And falls these heavy tears.

SONG.

I NEED not name thy thrilling name,
Though now I drink to thee, my dear,
Since all sounds shape that magic word,
That fall upon my ear,-MARY;
And silence, with a wakeful voice,
Speaks it in accents loudly free,
As darkness hath a light that shows
Thy gentle face to me,-MARY.

I pledge thee in the grape's pure soul,
With scarce one hope, and many fears,
Mix'd, were I of a melting mood,

With many bitter tears,--MARY-
I pledge thee, and the empty cup
Emblems this hollow life of mine,
To which, a gone enchantment, thou
No more wilt be the wine,-MARY.

MR. EMERSON was born in Boston, and in 1820 received his bachelor's degree at Cambridge. He afterward studied theology, and was settled over the Second Unitarian Church in his native city; but left his charge on account of having adopted the Quaker opinion in regard to the sacrament of the Lord's supper. Since that time he has published a work entitled "Nature," and delivered various addresses, and written many essays, on subjects of literature, philosophy, and morals, a part of which were collected and printed in a volume,

in Boston, and reprinted in London in 1841. The English edition was edited by Mr. CARLYLE, the author of "The French Revolution," etc.

Mr. EMERSON has a poetical mind, and has written much true poetry besides his verses. His metrical productions are not very numerous. In 1839 he published a few pieces in "The Western Messenger," a periodical devoted to religion and letters, at Cincinnati, and in the last two years several others in "The Dial:" a quarterly magazine, of which he is editor, at Boston.

EACH IN ALL.

LITTLE thinks in the field yon red-cloak'd clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer that lows in the upland farm
Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

The sexton tolling his bell at noon

Dreams not that great NAPOLEON

Stops his horse, and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbour's creed hath lent,
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even,--
He sings the song, but it pleases not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky,
He sang to my ear, these sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore--
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetch'd my sea-born treasures home,

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore,

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
Nor rose, nor stream, nor bird is fair,
Their concord is beyond compare.

The lover watch'd his graceful maid

As mid the virgin train she stray'd,

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by that snow-white quire.

At last, she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,

The gay enchantment was undone,——

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then, I said, "I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;
I leave it behind with the games of youth;"
-As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curl'd its pretty wreath,
Running over the hair-cap burs:

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs:
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground.
Over me soar'd the eternal sky
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw--again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird:
Beauty through my senses stole,-
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

"GOOD-BYE, PROUD WORLD!" GOOD-BYE, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend; I am not thine: Too long through weary crowds I roam :-A river ark on the ocean brine,

Too long I am toss'd like the driven foam:
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace:
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,-
Good-bye, proud world, I'm going home.

I go to seek my own hearth-stone
Bossom'd in yon green hills alone;
A secret lodge in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies plann'd,
Where arches green, the livelong day
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And evil men have never trod

A spot that is sacred to thought and GOD.

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretch'd beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?

TO THE HUMBLE-BEE.

FINE humble-bee! fine humble-bee!
Where thou art is clime for me,
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek,-
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid zone!
Zig-zag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines,
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.

Flower-bells,

Honey'd cells,-
These the tents

Which he frequents.

Insect lover of the sun,

Joy of thy dominion!

Sailor of the atmosphere,

Swimmer through the waves of air,

Voyager of light and noon,

Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breech'd philosopher,
Seeing only what is fair,

Sipping only what is sweet
Thou dost mock at fate and care,

Leave the chaff and take the wheat. When the fierce north-western blast Cools sea and land so far and fast,-Thou already slumberest deep, Wo and want thou canst outsleep; Want and wo which torture us, Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

THE RHODORA.

LINES ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?

IN May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook;
The purple petals fallen in the pool

Made the black waters with their beauty gay; Young RAPHAEL might covet such a school;

The lively show beguiled me from my way.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the marsh and sky,
Dear, tell them, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being.

Why, thou wert there, O, rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask, I never knew,

Epicurean of June,

Wait, I prithee, till I come

The selfsame Power that brought me there, brought

Within earshot of thy hum,-
All without is martyrdom.

When the south wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze,
Silvers the horizon wall,
And with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a colour of romance,
And infusing subtle heats
Turns the sod to violets,--
Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow breezy bass.
Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tune,
Telling of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers,
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found,
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure.
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavoury or unclean
Hath my insect never seen,
But violets, and bilberry bells,
Maple sap, and daffodels,
Clover, catchfly, adders-tongue,
And brier-roses dwelt among.
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he pass'd.

THE SNOW-STORM.

ANNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky
Arrives the snow, and driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopp'd, the courier's feet
Delay'd, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fire-place, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north-wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnish'd with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs, and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are number'd, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonish'd Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

THE author of "The Last Night of Pompeii" was born in Warwick, near the western border of Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1803. His father, a respectable physician, died in 1806, and his mother, on becoming a widow, returned, with her two children, to her paternal home in Worcester. In one of his "Songs to Clara," Mr. FAIRFIED narrates some of the sorrows which befell him in his early career:

"My father died ere I could tell

The love my young heart felt for him!
My sister like a blossom fell,

Her cheek grew cold, her blue eye dim,
Just as the hallow'd hours came by,

When she was dearest unto me;
And vale, and stream, and hill, and sky
Were beautiful as Araby.

And, one by one, the friends of youth
Departed to the land of dreams;
And soon I felt that friends, in sooth,

Were few as flowers by mountain streams." He entered Harvard College when he was thirteen years old; but, after spending two years in that seminary, was compelled to leave it, to aid his mother in teaching a school in a neighbouring village. He subsequently spent two or three years in Georgia and South Carolina, and in 1824 went to Europe. He returned in 1826, was soon afterward married, and from that period, I believe, has resided in Philadelphia, where he conducted for several years "The North American Magazine," a monthly miscellany, in which appeared most of his poems and prose writings.

Mr. FAIRFIELD commenced the business of au

thorship at a very early age, and has probably produced more in "the form of poetry" than any other American. «The Cities of the Plain," one of his earliest works, was first published while he was in England. It is founded on the history of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of Genesis. The following apostrophe to Hope illustrates its style :

"O, Hope! creator of a fairy heaven,
Manna of angels, rainbow of the heart;
That, throned in heaven, doth ever rest on earth!
From our first sigh unto our latest groan,
From the first throb until the heart is cold,
Thou art a gladness and a mockery,
A glory and a vision,-thou, sweet child
Of the immortal spirit! In our days
Of sorrow, with thy bland hypocrisies
Thou dost delude us, and we love and trust
Thy beautiful delusions, though the soil
Of disappointment yet is on our souls.
Thou El Dorado of the poor man's dream!
Sire of repentance! child of vain desires!

The bleeding heart clings to thee, when all hope
Is madness; o'er our thoughts thou ever hold'st
Eternal empire; and thou dost console
The felon in his cell, the galley-slave,
The exile, and the wanderer o'er the earth;
And pour'st the balm of transitory peace
E'en on the heart that sighs o'er kindred guilt."

The "Heir of the World," written in 1828, is a poetical version of the history of ABRAHAM. It is in the Spenserian measure, and contains some fine passages, descriptive of scenery and feeling. The greatness of the patriarch's obedience and faith is shown in the following stanzas, from the introductory part of the poem:

"In the communion of young wedded love,

Much evil have we seen, my GENEVIEVE!
Yet we have sought our solace from above,
And one fair flower forbids us now to grieve;
Though poor, yet proud, the world cannot bereave
Our hearts of bliss the world can never give :
And in the passage of our days we leave

The fiend-like few, who slander while we strive,
And deem it boundless joy in heaven's sweet smile to live.
"While thy sweet babe upon thy bosom lay,
Wrapp'd in the visions of a sinless sleep,
Pure, bright, and beautiful as early day,
When it swells upward from the billowy deep,
And its first beams along the mountains sweep-
Couldst thou, even then, thy first-born only take
And give him to the death ordain'd, nor weep
O'er the dread sacrifice his sire must make
Of one whose smile hath charm'd when fortune did for-
sake?"

His next elaborate work, "The Spirit of Destruction," appeared in 1830. It is founded on the history of the deluge, and in style resembles "The Cities of the Plain." His longest poem, "The Last Night of Pompeii,"* was published in 1832. It was the result of two years' labour, and was written amid the cares and vexations usually attendant on poverty. The destruction of the cities of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Retina and Stabiæ, by an eruption of Vesuvius, in the summer of the year seventy-nine, is one of the finest subjects for poetry in modern history. Mr. FAIRFIELD's work exhibits a familiar acquaintance with the mind, manners, and events of the period, and its style is stately and melodious. His shorter pieces, though in some cases turgid and unpolished, are generally distinguished for vigour of thought and language. An edition of his principal writings was published in a closely-printed octavo volume at Philadelphia, in 1841.

Mr. FAIRFIELD has been an unpopular man, and much injustice has been done to his works for this reason. Not wishing to enter into a particular examination of his claims to our personal regard, I must still express an opinion that he has been hardly dealt with; and that, even if the specific charges preferred against him are true, it is wrong to permit the reputation of the man to influence our judgment of his productions. He has written much, often well,-and has generally devoted his literary abilities to noble purposes. If a spirit of selfishness and misanthropy pervades his later writings, the fault is not exclusively his own.

*Mr. FAIRFIELD has accused Sir EDWARD L. BULWER of founding on this poem his "Last Days of Pompeii."