He mark'd the fire-storm's blazing flood
Roaring and crackling on its path,
And scorching earth, and melting wood,
Beneath its greedy wrath;
He mark'd the rapid whirlwind shoot,
Trampling the pine tree with its foot,
And darkening thick the day
With streaming bough and sever'd root,
Hurl'd whizzing on its way.
His gaunt hound yell'd, his rifle flash'd,
The grim bear hush'd his savage growl;
In blood and foam the panther gnash'd
His fangs, with dying howl;
The fleet deer ceased its flying bound,
Its snarling wolf-foe bit the ground,
And, with its moaning cry,
The beaver sank beneath the wound
Its pond-built Venice by.
Humble the lot, yet his the race,
When Liberty sent forth her cry,
Who throng'd in conflict's deadliest place,
To fight-to bleed-to die!
Who cumber'd Bunker's height of red,
By hope through weary years were led,
And witness'd York Town's sun
Blaze on a nation's banner spread,
A nation's freedom won.
AN AMERICAN FOREST IN SPRING.
Now fluttering breeze, now stormy blast,
Mild rain, then blustering snow:
Winter's stern, fettering cold is past,
But, sweet Spring! where art thou?
The white cloud floats mid smiling blue,
The broad, bright sunshine's golden hue
Bathes the still frozen earth:
"Tis changed! above, black vapours roll:
We turn from our expected stroll,
And seek the blazing hearth.
Hark! that sweet carol! with delight
We leave the stifling room!
The little blue-bird greets our sight,
Spring, glorious Spring, has come!
The south wind's balm is in the air,
The melting snow-wreaths everywhere
Are leaping off in showers;
And Nature, in her brightening looks,
Tells that her flowers, and leaves, and brooks,
And birds, will soon be ours.
A few soft, sunny days have shone,
The air has lost its chill,
A bright-green tinge succeeds the brown,
Upon the southern hill.
Off to the woods! a pleasant scene!
Here sprouts the fresh young wintergreen,
There swells a mossy mound;
Though in the hollows drifts are piled,
The wandering wind is sweet and mild,
And buds are bursting round.
Where its long rings uncurls the fern,
The violet, nestling low,
Casts back the white lid of its urn,
Its purple streaks to show:
Beautiful blossom! first to rise
And smile beneath Spring's wakening skies;
The courier of the band
Of coming flowers, what feelings sweet
Gush, as the silvery gem we meet
Upon its slender wand.
A sudden roar-a shade is cast-
We look up with a start,
And, sounding like a transient blast,
O'erhead the pigeons dart;
Scarce their blue glancing shapes the eye
Can trace, ere dotted on the sky,
They wheel in distant flight.
A chirp and swift the squirrel scours
Along the prostrate trunk, and cowers
Within its clefts from sight.
Amid the creeping pine, which spreads
Its thick and verdant wreath,
The scaurberry's downy spangle sheds
Its rich, delicious breath.
The bee-swarm murmurs by, and now
It clusters black on yonder bough:
The robin's mottled breast
Glances that sunny spot across,
As round it seeks the twig and moss
To frame its summer nest.
Warmer is each successive sky,
More soft the breezes pass,
The maple's gems of crimson lie
Upon the thick, green grass,
The dogwood sheds its clusters white,
The birch has dropp'd its tassels slight,
Cowslips are by the rill;
The thresher whistles in the glen,
Flutters around the warbling wren,
And swamps have voices shrill.
A simultaneous burst of leaves
Has clothed the forest now,
A single day's bright sunshine weaves
This vivid, gorgeous show.
Masses of shade are cast beneath,
The flowers are spread in varied wreath,
Night brings her soft, sweet moon;
Morn wakes in mist, and twilight gray
Weeps its bright dew, and smiling May
Melts blooming into June!
THE LOST HUNTER. NUMB'D by the piercing, freezing air, And burden'd by his game, The hunter, struggling with despair, Dragg'd on his shivering frame; The rifle he had shoulder'd late Was trail'd along, a weary weight;
His pouch was void of food; The hours were speeding in their flight, And soon the long, keen, winter night Would wrap the solitude. Oft did he stoop a listening ear,
Sweep round an anxious eye,No bark or axe-blow could he hear. No human trace descry.
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His sinuous path, by blazes, wound
Among trunks group'd in myriads round;
Through naked boughs, between
Whose tangled architecture, fraught
With many a shape grotesquely wrought,
The hemlock's spire was seen.
An antler'd dweller of the wild
Had met his eager gaze,
And far his wandering steps beguiled
Within an unknown maze;
Stream, rock, and run-way he had cross'd,
Unheeding, till the marks were lost
By which he used to roam;
And now, deep swamp and wild ravine
And rugged mountain were between
The hunter and his home.
A dusky haze, which slow had crept
On high, now darken'd there,
And a few snow-flakes fluttering swept
Athwart the thick, gray air,
Faster and faster, till between
The trunks and boughs, a mottled screen
Of glimmering motes was spread,
That tick'd against each object round
With gentle and continuous sound,
Like brook o'er pebbled bed.
The laurel tufts, that drooping hung
Close roll'd around their stems,
And the sear beech-leaves still that clung,
Were white with powdering gems.
But, hark! afar a sullen moan
Swell'd out to louder, deeper tone,
As surging near it pass'd,
And, bursting with a roar, and shock
That made the groaning forest rock,
On rush'd the winter blast.
As o'er it whistled, shriek'd, and hiss'd,
Caught by its swooping wings,
The snow was whirl'd to eddying mist,
Barb'd, as it seem'd, with stings;
And now 'twas swept with lightning flight
Above the loftiest hemlock's height,
Like drifting smoke, and now
It hid the air with shooting clouds,
And robed the trees with circling shrouds,
Then dash'd in heaps below.
Here, plunging in a billowy wreath,
There, clinging to a limb,
The suffering hunter gasp'd for breath,
Brain reel'd, and eye grew dim;
As though to whelm him in despair,
Rapidly changed the blackening air
To murkiest gloom of night,
Till naught was seen around, below,
But falling flakes and mantled snow,
That gleam'd in ghastly white.
At every blast an icy dart
Seem'd through his nerves to fly,
The blood was freezing to his heart-
Thought whisper'd he must die.
The thundering tempest echo'd death,
He felt it in his tighten'd breath;
Spoil, rifle dropp'd, and stow
As the dread torpor crawling came
Along his staggering, stiffening frame,
He sunk upon the snow.
Reason forsook her shatter'd throne,-
He deem'd that summer-hours
Again around him brightly shone
In sunshine, leaves, and flowers;
Again the fresh, green, forest-sod,
Rifle in hand, he lightly trod,—
He heard the deer's low bleat;
Or, couch'd within the shadowy nook,
He drank the crystal of the brook
That murmur'd at his feet.
It changed; his cabin roof o'erspread,
Rafter, and wall, and chair,
Gleam'd in the crackling fire, that shed
Its warmth, and he was there;
His wife had clasp'd his hand, and now
Her gentle kiss was on his brow,
His child was prattling by,
The hound crouch'd, dozing, near the blaze,
And through the pane's frost-pictured haze
He saw the white drifts fly.
That pass'd;-before his swimming sight
Does not a figure bound,
And a soft voice, with wild delight,
Proclaim the lost is found?
No, hunter, no! 'tis but the streak
Of whirling snow-the tempest's shriek-
No human aid is near!
Never again that form will meet,
Thy clasp'd embrace-those accents sweet
Speak music to thine ear.
Morn broke-away the clouds were chased,
The sky was pure and bright,
And on its blue the branches traced
Their webs of glittering white.
Its ivory roof the hemlock stoop'd,
The pine its silvery tassel droop'd,
Down bent the burden'd wood,
And, scatter'd round, low points of green,
Peering above the snowy scene,
Told where the thickets stood.
In a deep hollow, drifted high,
A wave-like heap was thrown,
Dazzlingly in the sunny sky
A diamond blaze it shone;
The little snow-bird, chirping sweet,
Dotted it o'er with tripping feet;
Unsullied, smooth, and fair,
It seem'd, like other mounds, where trunk
And rock amid the wreaths were sunk,
But, O! the dead was there.
Spring came with wakening breezes bland,
Soft suns and melting rains,
And, touch'd by her Ithuriel wand,
Earth bursts its winter-chains.
In a deep nook, where moss and grass
And fern-leaves wove a verdant mass,
Some scatter'd bones beside,
A mother, kneeling with her child,
Told by her tears and wailings wild
That there the lost had died.
WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH was born in the town of Woodstock, in Connecticut, on the second day of February, 1812. His paternal ancestors came to this country from Wales; and on both sides he is descended from the stern old Puritan stock, being on the mother's a lineal descendant of Governor BRADFORD, whose name appears conspicuously and honourably in the early annals of Massachusetts. An intermediate descendant, the grandfather of Mr. BURLEIGH, served with credit under WASHINGTON, in the war of the Revolution. Such ancestral recollections are treasured, with just pride, in many an humble but happy home in New England.
In his infancy, Mr. BURLEIGH's parents removed to Plainfield, in his native state, where his father was for many years the principal of a popular academy, until the loss of sight induced him to abandon his charge, before his son had attained an age to derive much benefit from his instructions. He retired to a farm, and the boy's time was mainly devoted to its culture, varied by the customary attendance in a district-school through the wintermonths, until he was sixteen, when he proposed to become an apprentice to a neighbouring clothier, but abandoned the idea after two weeks' trial, from an inveterate loathing of the coarseness and brutality of those among whom he was set to labour. Here, however, while engaged in the repulsive cares of his employment, he composed his first sonnet, which was published in a gazette printed in the vicinity. Returning to his father's house, he in the following summer became an apprentice to a
village printer, whom he left after eight months' tedious endurance, leaving in his "stick" a fare well couplet to his master, which is probably membered unforgivingly to this day. He did n however, desert the business, of which he ha thus obtained some slight knowledge, but co tinued to labour as half-apprentice, journeyman, sub-editor, etc., through the next seven years during which he assisted in the conduct of pe haps as many periodicals, deriving thereby li fame and less profit. In December, 1834, while editor of "The Literary Journal," in the city of Schenectady, he married an estimable womar, who has since "divided his sorrows and doubled his joys." In July, 1836, abandoning the printing business for a season, he commenced a new career as a public lecturer, under the auspices of a phi lanthropic society, and in his new employment he continued for two years. At the close of that period he assumed the editorship of "The Christian Wit ness," at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, which he held two years and a half, when he resigned it, to take charge of "The Washington Banner," a gazette published at Allegheny, on the opposite side of the Ohio. Between this duty, and the study of the law, his time is now divided.
His contributions to the periodical literature of the country commenced at an early age, and have been continued at intervals to the present day. "The New Yorker" was for years his favourite medium of communication with the public. A collection of his poems appeared in Philadelphia, early in 1840.
ELEGIAC STANZAS.
SHE hath gone in the spring-time of life,
Ere her sky had been dimm'd by a cloud,' While her heart with the rapture of love was yet rife, And the hopes of her youth were unbow'dFrom the lovely, who loved her too well;
From the heart that had grown to her own; From the sorrow which late o'er her young spirit fell, Like a dream of the night she hath flown; And the earth hath received to its bosom its trustAshes to ashes, and dust unto dust.
The spring, in its loveliness dress'd,
Will return with its music-wing'd hours,
And, kiss'd by the breath of the sweet south-west,
The puds shall burst out in flowers;
And the flowers her grave-sod above,
Though the sleeper beneath recks it not,
Shall thickly be strown by the hand of Love,
To cover with beauty the spot-
Meet emblems are they of the pure one and bright,
Who faded and fell with so early a blight.
Ay, the spring will return--but the blossom
That bloom'd in our presence the sweetest,
By the spoiler is borne from the cherishing bosom,
The loveliest of all and the fleetest!
The music of stream and of bird
Shall come back when the winter is o'er;
But the voice that was dearest to us shall be heard
In our desolate chambers no more!
The sunlight of May on the waters shall quiver-
The light of her eye hath departed forever!
As the bird to its sheltering nest,
When the storm on the hills is abroad,
So her spirit hath flown from this world of unrest
To repose on the bosom of Gop!
Where the sorrows of earth never more
May fling o'er its brightness a stain;
Where, in rapture and love, it shall ever adore,
With a gladness unmingled with pain;
And its thirst shall be slaked by the waters which
Like a river of light, from the throne of the KING!
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NIGHT, stern, eternal, and alone,
Girded with solemn silence round,
Majestic on his starless throne,
Sat brooding o'er the vast profound-
And there unbroken darkness lay,
Deeper than that which veils the tomb,
While circling ages wheel'd away
Unnoted mid the voiceless gloom.
Then moved upon the waveless deep
The quickening Spirit of the LORD,
And broken was its pulseless sleep
Before the Everlasting Word!
"Let there be light!" and listening earth,
With tree, and plant, and flowery sod,
"In the beginning" sprang to birth,
Obedient to the voice of GOD.
Then, in his burning track, the sun
Trod onward to his joyous noon,
And in the heavens, one by one,
Cluster'd the stars around the moon-
In glory bathed, the radiant day
Wore like a king his crown of light-
And, girdled by the "Milky Way,"
How queenly look'd the star-gemm'd night!
Bursting from choirs celestial, rang
Triumphantly the notes of song;
The morning-stars together sang
In concert with the heavenly throng;
And earth, enraptured, caught the strain
That thrill'd along her fields of air,
Till every mountain-top and plain
Flung back an answering echo there!
Creator! let thy Spirit shine
The darkness of our souls within,
And lead us by thy grace divine
From the forbidden paths of sin;
And may that voice which bade the earth
From Chaos and the realms of Night,
From doubt and darkness call us forth
To God's own liberty and light!
Thus, made partakers of THY love,
The baptism of the Spirit ours,
Our grateful hearts shall rise above,
Renew'd in purposes and powers;
And songs of joy again shall ring
Triumphant through the arch of heaven-
The glorious songs which angels sing,
Exulting over souls forgiven!
JUNE, with its roses-June!
The gladdest month of our capricious year,
With its thick foliage and its sunlight clear;
And with the drowsy tune
Of the bright leaping waters, as they pass
Laughingly on amid the springing grass!
Earth, at her joyous coming,
Smiles as she puts her gayest mantle on;
And Nature greets her with a benison;
While myriad voices, humming
Their welcome song, breathe dreamy music round,
Till seems the air an element of sound.
Weareth a softer tint, a lovelier blue,
As if the light of heaven were melting through
Its sapphire home on high;
Hiding the sunshine in their vapoury breast,
The clouds float on like spirits to their rest.
Pour'd by the birds, as o'er their callow young Watchful they hover, to the breeze is flungGladsome, yet not of glee
Music heart-born, like that which mothers sing Above their cradled infants slumbering.
On the warm hill-side, where
The sunlight lingers latest, through the grass
Peepeth the luscious strawberry! As they pass,
Young children gambol there,
Crushing the gather'd fruit in playful mood,
And staining their bright faces with its blood.
A deeper blush is given
To the half-ripen'd cherry, as the sun
Day after day pours warmth the trees upon,
Till the rich pulp is riven;
The truant schoolboy looks with longing eyes,
And perils limb and neck to win the prize.
The farmer, in his field,
Draws the rich mould around the tender maize;
While Hope, bright-pinion'd, points to coming days,
When all his toil shall yield
An ample harvest, and around his hearth
There shall be laughing eyes and tones of mirth.
Poised on his rainbow-wing.
The butterfly, whose life is but an hour,
Hovers coquettishly from flower to flower,
A gay and happy thing;
Born for the sunshine and the summer-day,
Soon passing, like the beautiful, away!
Dance to the merry tune
Of birds, and waters, and the pleasant shout
Of childhood on the sunny hills peal'd out.
I feel it were not wrong
To deem thou art a type of heaven's clime,
Only that there the clouds and storms of time
Sweep not the sky along;
The flowers-air-beauty-music-all are thine,
But brighter-purer-lovelier-more divine!
THE sweet south wind, so long
Sleeping in other climes, on sunny seas,
Or dallying gayly with the orange-trees
In the bright land of song,
Wakes unto us, and laughingly sweeps by,
Like a glad spirit of the sunlit sky.
The labourer at his toil
Feels on his cheek its dewy kiss, and lifts
His open brow to catch its fragrant gifts—
The aromatic spoil
Borne from the blossoming gardens of the south-
While its faint sweetness lingers round his mouth.
The bursting buds look up
To greet the sunlight, while it lingers yet
On the warm hill-side,-and the violet
Meekly, and countless wild flowers wake to fling
Their earliest incense on the gales of spring.
The reptile that hath lain
Torpid so long within his wintry tomb,
Pierces the mould, ascending from its gloom
Up to the light again-
And the lithe snake crawls forth from caverns chill,
To bask as erst upon the sunny hill.
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THE strife is o'er-Death's seal is set
On ashy lip and marble brow;
"Tis o'er, though faintly lingers yet
Upon the cheek a life-like glow:
The feeble pulse hath throbb'd its last,
The aching head is laid at rest-
Another from our ranks hath pass'd,
The dearest and the loveliest!
Press down the eyelids-for the light,
Erewhile so radiant underneath,
Is gone forever from our sight,
And darken'd by the spoiler, Death:
Press down the eyelids-who can bear
To look beneath their fringed fold?
And softly part the silken hair
Upon the brow so deathly cold. The strife is o'er! The loved of years, To whom our yearning hearts had grown, Hath left us, with life's gathering fears To struggle darkly and alone;
Gone, with the wealth of love which dwe
Heart-kept, with holy thoughts and high-
Gone, as the clouds of evening melt
Beyond the dark and solemn sky.
Yet mourn her not-the voice of wo
Befits not this, her triumph-hour;
Let Sorrow's tears no longer flow,
For life eternal is her dower!
Freed from the earth's corrupt control,
The trials of a world like this,
Joy! for her disembodied soul
Drinks at the fount of perfect bliss!
WRITTEN ON VISITING MY BIRTH-PLACE
WE are scatter'd-we are scatter'd
Though a jolly band were we! Some sleep beneath the grave-sod,
And some are o'er the sea;
And Time hath wrought his changes
On the few who yet remain;
The joyous band that once we were
We cannot be again!
We are scatter'd-we are scatter'd!-
Upon the village-green,
Where we play'd in boyish recklessness,
How few of us are seen!
And the hearts that beat so lightly
In the joyousness of youth-
Some are crumbled in the sepulchre,
And some have lost their truth.
The beautiful-the beautiful
Are faded from our track!
We miss them and we mourn them,
But we cannot lure them back;
For an iron sleep hath bound them
In its passionless embrace-
We may weep-but cannot win them
From their dreary resting-place.
How mournfully-how mournfully
The memory doth come
Of the thousand scenes of happiness
Around our childhood's home!
A salutary sadness
Is brooding o'er the heart,
As it dwells upon remembrances
From which it will not part.
In memory-in memory-
How fondly do we gaze
Upon the magic loveliness
Of childhood's fleeting days!
The sparkling eye-the thrilling tone-
The smile upon its lips:
They all have gone!—but left a light
Which time cannot eclipse.
The happiness--the happiness
Of boyhood must depart; Then comes the sense of loneliness Upon the stricken heart!
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