The star is yet in the vault of heaven, And now 'tis deadly pale; And now 'tis wrapp'd in sulphur-smoke, As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance As it fell from the sheeted sky. As swift as the wind in its trail behind The Elfin gallops along, The fiends of the clouds are bellowing loud, But the sylphid charm is strong; While the cloud-fiends fly from the blaze; But he drove his steed to the lightning's speed, Ouphe and Goblin! Imp and Sprite! Hail the wanderer again With dance and song, and lute and lyre, Pure his wing and strong his chain, And doubly bright his fairy fire. Twine ye in an airy round, Brush the dew and print the lea; Skip and gambol, hop and bound, Round the wild witch-hazel tree. The beetle guards our holy ground, And if mortal there be found, He hums in his ears and flaps his face; The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay, The owlet's eyes our lanterns be; But, hark! from tower on tree-top high, Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade! BRONX. I sat me down upon a green bank-side, Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river, Whose waters seem'd unwillingly to glide, Like parting friends, who linger while they sever; Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready, Backward they wind their way in many a wistful eddy. Gray o'er my head the yellow-vested willow Ruffled its hoary top in the fresh breezes, Glancing in light, like spray on a green billow, Or the fine frost work which young winter freezes; When first his power in infant pastime trying, Congeals sad autumn's tears on the dead branches lying. From rocks around hung the loose ivy dangling, The humbird shook his sun-touch'd wings around, Where lichens made a carpet for his feet; Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle Shot up in glimmering sparks his red fin's tiny twinkle. There were dark cedars, with loose, mossy tresses, White-powder'd dog trees, and stiff hollies flaunting Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses, Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden Shining beneath dropp'd lids the evening of her wedding. The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn, Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em, The winding of the merry locust's horn, The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bosom: Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, O! 'twas a ravishing spot, form'd for a poet's dwelling. And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand Again in the dull world of earthly blindness? Pain'd with the pressure of unfriendly hands, Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness? Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude, To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude? Yet I will look upon thy face again, My own romantic Bronx, and it will be A face more pleasant than the face of men. Thy waves are old companions, I shall see A well-remember'd form in each old tree, And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy. THE AMERICAN FLAG. I. WHEN Freedom from her mountain height And set the stars of glory there. II. Majestic monarch of the cloud, Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free, III. Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, To where thy sky-born glories burn; Heave in wild wreathes the battle-shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall; IV. Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendours fly In triumph o'er his closing eye. V. Flag of the free heart's hope and home! And all thy hues were born in heaven. Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us? TO SARAH. I. ONE happy year has fled, SALL, The leaves have felt the autumn blight, The wintry storm has blown. We heeded not the cold blast, Nor the winter's icy air; For we found our climate in the heart, And it was summer there. II. The summer sun is bright, SALL, But clouds will sometimes sadden them, But sure they will not stay; III. In sickness and in sorrow Thine eyes were on me still, And there was comfort in each glance And were they absent now, SALL, And bless each pang that gave me back IV. O, pleasant is the welcome kiss, When day's dull round is o'er, And sweet the music of the step That meets me at the door. Though worldly cares may visit us, I reck not when they fall, While I have thy kind lips, my SALL, To smile away them all. FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. (Born, 1795.] THE author of "Fanny," "Burns," "Marco Bozzaris," etc., was born at Guilford in Connecticut, in August, 1795. In his eighteenth year he removed to the city of New York, where he has since resided. It is said that he evinced a taste for poetry, and wrote verses, at a very early period; but the oldest of his effusions that I have seen are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and "Croaker & Co.," published in the New York Evening Post, in 1819. In the production of these pleasant satires* he was associated with Doctor DRAKE, the author of the "Culprit Fay," a man of brilliant wit and delicate fancy, with whom he was long intimate. DRAKE died in 1820, and his friend soon after wrote for the New York Review, then edited by BRYANT, the lines to his memory, beginning— "Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days; Nor named thee but to praise." Near the close of the year 1819, HALLECK published "Fanny," his longest poem, which has since passed through numerous editions, though its authorship has never been publicly avowed. It is a humorous satire, containing from twelve to fifteen hundred lines, and was written and printed in three weeks from its commencement. In 1827 he published a small volume, containing "Alnwick Castle," "Marco Bozzaris," and a few other pieces, which had previously appeared in various miscellanies; and in 1836, an edition of all his serious poems then written, including "Burns," "Red Jacket," "The Field of the Grounded Arms," and those before alluded to. The last and most complete collection of his works appeared early in the present year. Mr. HALLECK is the only one of our poets who possesses a decided local popularity. With the subjects of "Fanny," the "Croakers," and some of his other pieces, every person in New York is in some degree acquainted, and his name is cherished in that city with fondness and enthusiasm. His humorous poems are marked with an uncommon ease of versification, a natural, unstudied flow of language, and a careless playfulness and felicity of jest. "Sometimes," remarks Mr. BRYANT, in the midst of a strain of harmonious diction, and soft and tender imagery, he surprises by an irresistible stroke of ridicule, as if he took pleasure in showing the reader that the poetical vision he had raised was but a cheat. Sometimes, * The curiosity of the town was greatly excited to know by whom these pieces had been written, and they were ascribed, at different times, to various literary gentlemen, while the real authors proved, for a long while, entirely unsuspected.-WILLIAM LEGGETT.-The Critic. 25 with that aerial facility which is his peculiar endowment, he accumulates graceful and agreeable images in a strain of irony so fine, that did not the subject compel the reader to receive it as irony, he would take it for a beautiful passage of serious poetry-so beautiful, that he is tempted to regret that he is not in earnest, and that phrases so exquisitely chosen, and poetic colouring so brilliant, should be employed to embellish subjects to which they do not properly belong. At other times, he produces the effect of wit by dexterous allusion to contemporaneous events, introduced as illustrations of the main subject, with all the unconscious gracefulness of the most animated and familiar conversation. He delights in ludicrous contrasts, produced by bringing the nobleness of the ideal world into comparison with the homeliness of the actual; the beauty and grace of nature with the awkwardness of art. He venerates the past and laughs at the present. He looks at them through a medium which lends to the former the charm of latter. His poetry, whether serious or sprightly, romance, and exaggerates the deformity of the is remarkable for the melody of the numbers. It is not the melody of monotonous and strictly. regular measurement. His verse is constructed to please an ear naturally fine, and accustomed to a range of metrical modulation. It is as different from that painfully-balanced versification, that uniform succession of iambics, closing the scene with the couplet, which some writers practise, and some critics praise, as the note of the thrush is unlike that of the cuckoo. He is familiar with those general rules and principles which are the basis of metrical harmony; and his own unerring taste has taught him the exceptions which a proper attention to variety demands. He understands that the rivulet is made musical by obstructions in its channel. In no poet can be found passages which flow with more sweet and liquid smoothness; but he knows very well that to make this smoothness perceived, and to prevent it from degenerating into monotony, occasional roughness must be interposed." HALLECK'S serious poems are as admirable as his satirical. There are few finer martial lyrics than "Marco Bozzaris;" "Burns" and "Red Jacket" are distinguished for manly vigour of pieces have rarely been excelled in melodiousness thought and language; and several of his shorter of versification or quiet beauty of imagery. HALLECK has generally been engaged in commercial pursuits. He was once in "the cotton trade, and sugar line;" but I believe he has for several years been the principal superintendent of the affairs of the great capitalist, Mr. ASTOR. He is a bachelor, and is as popular among his friends for his social qualities, as he is with the world as a poet. BURNS. TO A ROSE, BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IN AYRSHIRE, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1822 WILD rose of Alloway! my thanks, Thou mindst me of that autumn noon, When first we met upon "the banks And braes o' bonny Doon." Like thine, beneath the thorn tree's bough, My sunny hour was glad and brief, We've cross'd the winter sea, and thou Art wither'd-flower and leaf. And will not thy death-doom be mine- Not so his memory, for whose sake My bosom bore thee far and long, The memory of BURNS-a name That calls, when brimm'd her festal cup, A nation's glory, and her shame, In silent sadness up. A nation's glory-be the rest We may of human kind. I've stood beside the cottage-bed Where the bard-peasant first drew breath: A straw-thatch'd roof above his head, A straw-wrought couch beneath. And I have stood beside the pile, His monument-that tells to heaven Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot, A poet's pride and power. The pride that lifted BURNS from earth, The rich, the brave, the strong; Thy spirit's fluttering pinions then, Despair-thy name is written on The roll of common men. There have been loftier themes than his, Purer and holier fires: Yet read the names that know not death; His is that language of the heart, In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek; And his that music, to whose tone In cold or sunny clime. And who hath heard his song, nor knelt Before its spell with willing knee, And listen'd, and believed, and felt The poet's mastery. O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm, O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, O'er Passion's moments, bright and warm, O'er Reason's dark, cold hours; On fields where brave men "die or do," In halls where rings the banquet's mirth, Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, From throne to cottage hearth; What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed, What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hae wi' WALLACE bled," Or "Auld Lang Syne" is sung! Pure hopes, that lift the soul above, Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise, And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, With "Logan's" banks and braes. And when he breathes his master-lay Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall, All passions in our frames of clay Come thronging at his call. Imagination's world of air, And our own world, its gloom and glee, And BURNS-though brief the race he ran, Though care, and pain, and want, and wo, He kept his honesty and truth, His independent tongue and pen, Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, A kind, true heart, a spirit high, That could not fear and would not bow, Were written in his manly eye, And on his manly brow. Praise to the bard! his words are driven, Praise to the man! a nation stood And still, as on his funeral day, Men stand his cold earth-couch around, And consecrated ground it is, The last, the hallow'd home of one Who lives upon all memories, Though with the buried gone. Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, Sages, with Wisdom's garland wreathed, And lowlier names, whose humble home Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have press'd All ask the cottage of his birth, Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung, They linger by the Doon's low trees, But what to them the sculptor's art, RED JACKET, A CHIEF OF THE INDIAN TRIBES, THE TUSCaroras. COOPER, whose name is with his country's woven, And beautiful as its green world of thought. And faithful to the act of Congress, quoted In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh; And that, from Orleans to the bay of Fundy, There's not a bailiff nor an epitaph. And, furthermore, in fifty years or sooner, If he were with me, King of Tuscarora, In all its medall'd, fringed, and beaded glory, Its brow, half-martial and half-diplomatic, Its eye, upsoaring, like an eagle's wings; For thou wert monarch born. Tradition's pages To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee. [rhyme Thy name is princely. Though no poet's magic Thy garb-though Austria's bosom-star would frighten That medal pale, as diamonds the dark mine, And GEORGE the FOURTH wore, in the dance at Brighton, A more becoming evening dress than thine; Is strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's) Is eloquence? Her spell is thine that reaches |