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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.

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 slow

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.

[Born, 1812.]

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 farewell couplet to his master, which is probably remembered unforgivingly to this day. He did not, however, desert the business, of which he had thus obtained some slight knowledge, but continued to labour as half-apprentice, journey man, | sub-editor, etc., through the next seven years, during which he assisted in the conduct of perhaps as many periodicals, deriving thereby little fame and less profit. In December, 1834, while editor of "The Literary Journal," in the city of Schenectady, he married an estimable woman, 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 philanthropic society, and in his new employment he continued for two years. At the close of that period he assumed the editorship of “The Christian Witness," 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.

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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 buds 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 quiverThe 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 God! 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 spring,

Like a river of light, from the throne of the KING!

There is weeping on earth for the lost!

There is bowing in grief to the ground!
But rejoicing and praise mid the sanctified host,
For a spirit in Paradise found!
Though brightness hath pass'd from the earth,
Yet a star is new-born in the sky,

And a soul hath gone home to the land of its birth,
Where are pleasures and fulness of joy!
And a new harp is strung, and a new song is given
To the breezes that float o'er the gardens of heaven!

"LET THERE BE LIGHT."

NIGHT, stern, eternal, and alone,

Girded with solemn silence round, Majestic on his starless throne,

Sat brooding o'er the vast profoundAnd 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 heavenThe glorious songs which angels sing, Exulting over souls forgiven!

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[ers!

These are thy pictures, June!
Brightest of summer-months-thou month of flow-
First-born of beauty, whose swift-footed hours
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!

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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 dwelt, Heart-kept, with holy thoughts and highGone, 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!

STANZAS,

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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