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Nor will I e'er forget you; nor shall e'er

The graver tasks of manhood, or the advice
Of vulgar wisdom, move me to disclaim
Those studies which possessed me in the dawn

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Of life, and fixed the colour of my mind
For every future year; whence even now
From sleep I rescue the clear hours of morn,
And, while the world around lies overwhelmed
In idle darkness, am alive to thoughts
Of honourable fame, of truth divine
Or moral, and of minds to virtue won

By the sweet magic of harmonious verse.

There are some noble thoughts in the celebrated Ode by SIR WILLIAM JONES, the Orientalist. Here are some of the lines:

What constitutes a State?

Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound,

Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;

Not bays and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starr'd and spangled courts,

Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

*

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain;
Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain :
These constitute a State.

Bishop BERKELEY'S memorable lines, prophetic of planting the arts in the New World, are of enduring interest to us; these are the closing stanzas :—

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.
Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;

Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama of the day;

Time's noblest offspring is the last.

This poem was written when the author was residing at Newport, Rhode Island. To prove that the prophecy has been in great measure verified, we need but refer to the record of noble names in science, history, philosophy, and song, which adorn our American annals. Among the earlier American poets were BARLOW, TRUM

BULL, FRENEAU, and ALLSTON, who was also a renowned painter. While residing in Europe, Allston enjoyed the friendship of Southey, Coleridge, and Lamb; as well as of Washington Irving, who expresses a reverence and affection for his pure and noble character, no less than for his genius. While referring to IRVING, we cannot refrain from adding to the world's applause our humble but grateful tribute of regard, as well for the memory of his beautiful character as for his imperishable productions. His name ought undoubtedly to be classed in the category of poets, since much of his charming prose is essentially poetry. He rarely wrote in verse; but there is a little waif of his extant, which he improvised at the instance of his friend Stuart Newton, to accompany his picture of an old philosopher reading from a folio to a young beauty asleep on a chair opposite. Here it is, quaint and characteristic:

Frostie age, frostie age! vain all thy learning;
Drowsie page, drowsie page evermore turning.
Young head no lore will heed,

Young heart's a reckless rover;

Young beautie, while you read—

Sleeping, dreams of absent lover.

ALLSTON'S principal poem is his Sylphs of the Seasons; but his lines on Boyhood are short and sweet :—

Ah, then how sweetly closed those crowded days!
The minutes parting one by one, like rays

That fade upon a summer's eve.
But, oh! what charm, or magic numbers,
Can give me back the gentle slumbers
Those weary, happy days did leave?

When by my bed I saw my mother kneel,
And with her blessing took her nightly kiss;
Whatever Time destroys, he cannot this—
E'en now that nameless kiss I feel.

His noble Address to England, which was first printed in Coleridge's Sibylline Leaves, 1810, commences with this stanza :—

All hail, thou noble land! our fathers' native soil!
Oh, stretch thy mighty hand, gigantic grown by toil,
O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore!

For thou with magic might

Canst reach to where the light

Of Phoebus travels bright

The world o'er.

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While the manners, while the arts, that mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts,-between let ocean roll,
Our joint communion breaking with the sun :

Yet still from either beach

The voice of blood shall reach,

More audible than speech

We are one!

DANA'S principal poem, The Buccaneer, is considered a fine pro

duction

it is a tale of crime and remorse.

are finely descriptive:

The opening stanzas

The island lies nine leagues away; along its solitary shore,
Of craggy rock and sandy bay, no sound but ocean's roar,

Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home,

Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam.

But when the light winds lie at rest, and on the glassy, heaving sea,
The black duck, with her glossy breast, sits swinging silently,
How beautiful! no ripples break the reach,

And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach.

And inland rests the green, warm dell; the brook comes tinkling

down its side;

From out the trees the Sabbath bell rings cheerful, far and wide,
Mingling its sound with bleatings of the flocks,

That feed about the vale among the rocks:

Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat, in former days within the vale;
Flapped in the bay the pirate's sheet; curses were on the gale;
Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men ;
Pirate and wrecker kept their revels then.

Dana's Little Beach-Bird may be indicated as one of his happiest efforts :

Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,

Why takest thou its melancholy voice?

And with that boding cry o'er the waves dost thou fly?
O! rather, bird, with me through the fair land rejoice!

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;

Thy cry is weak and scared, as if thy mates had shared
The doom of us : thy wail-what does it bring to me?

*

PERCIVAL thus interprets to us The Language of Flowers :

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,

And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears.

The Rose is a sign of joy and love

Young blushing love in its earliest dawn;
And the mildness that suits the gentle dove,
From the Myrtle's snowy flower is drawn.

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