Like other mortals of my kind, I've struggled for Dame Fortune's favour ; And sometimes have been half inclined to rate her for her ill be haviour; But life was short,—I thought it folly to lose its moments in despair; So slipped aside from melancholy, With merry heart that laughed at care. * So now from idle wishes clear, I make the good I may not find; Adown the stream I gently steer, and shift my sail with every wind; And, half by nature, half by reason, can still with pliant heart prepare The mind, attuned to every season, The merry heart, that laughs at care. Yet, wrap me in your sweetest dream, ye social feelings of the mind Give, sometimes give your sunny gleam, and let the rest good humour find ; Yes, let me hail, and welcome give to every joy my And pleased and pleasing let me live, With merry heart that laughs at care. SWAIN's lyrics are well known to lovers of music. His method with coquettes is effectively given :— Whatsoe'er she vowed to-day, ere a week had fled away, She'd refuse me! And shall I her steps pursue-follow still, and fondly too? If she love me,—it were kind just to teach her her own mind ; For no more I'll seek her side- -court her favour-feed her pride; No-excuse me ! Let her frown-frowns never kill; let her shun me, if she will Hate-abuse me: Shall I bend 'neath her annoy,-bend-and make my heart her toy? No-excuse me! Listen to his rhythmical lines to Home Happiness: Oh, there's a power to make each hour as sweet as Heaven designed it ; Nor need we roam to bring it home, though few there be that find it ; We seek too high for things close by, and lose what nature found us! For life hath here no charm so dear as Home and friends around us! We oft destroy the present joy for future hopes-and praise them; Whilst flowers as sweet bloom at our feet, if we'd but stoop to raise them. For things afar still sweetest are, when youth's bright spell hath bound us; But soon we're taught that earth hath naught like Home and friends around us! Listen to our poet's delicate analysis of the Tender Passion ; Love? I will tell thee what it is to love! It is to build with human thoughts a shrine, Where Hope sits brooding like a beauteous dove; All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine To consecrate this sanctuary of bliss. Above, the stars in cloudless beauty shine; Around, the streams their flowery margins kiss; And if there's heaven on earth, that heaven is surely this. The immortal glory which hath never set; O! who but can recall the eve they met To breathe, in some green walk, their first young vow? And winds sighed soft around the mountain's brow, The Quarterly Review, referring to CAROLINE NORTON, styles her the Byron of our modern poetesses, as she evinces much of that intense personal passion by which his poetry is distinguished. This is seen in her beautiful stanzas To the Duchess of Sutherland § although they discover none of that poet's misanthropy. Here is a passage: Thou gav'st me that the poor Who changed not with the gloom of varying years, But clung the closer when I stood forlorn, And blunted Slander's dart with their indignant scorn. Their own hearts weak to unresisted sin; Memory, not judgment, prompts the thoughts which steal And tales of broken truth are still believed Most readily by those who have themselves deceived. Great delicacy of fancy and feeling characterizes the verses of T. K. HARVEY. In his lines on a Convict Ship, we have the following: 'Tis thus with our life, while it passes along, All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes, Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs: As the smiles we put on just to cover our tears; And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know, Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er! As specimens of the muse of our poet and essayist, TUCKERMAN, we submit his beautiful lines To the Eve, of Powers: Ah, thine is not the woe of love forlorn, To unborn millions, with their life to blend; So radiant with hope, and love's dear spell, ; The following fine sonnet was suggested by a proposition, on the part of the New York Historical Society, that a new poetical name should be given to North America : Worthy the patriot's thought and poet's lyre, This second baptism of our native earth, 291 To consecrate anew her manhood's fire, By a true watchword all of mountain-birth; For to the hills has Freedom ever clung, And their proud name should designate the free; That when its echoes through the land are rung, My country! in the van of nations thou Art called to raise Truth's lonely banner high; 'Tis fit a noble title grace thy brow, Born of thy race, beneath thy matchless sky, And Alps and Apennines resign their fame, When thrills the world's deep heart with Alleghania's name! 292 |