A Poet's daughter? Could I claim
The consanguinity of fame,
Veins of my intellectual frame!

Your blood would glow

Proudly to sing that gentlest name
Of aught below.

A Poet's daughter-dearer word
Lip hath not spoke nor listener heard,

Fit theme for song of bee and bird

From morn till even,

And wind-harp by the breathing stirred

Of star-lit heaven.

My spirit's wings are weak, the fire

Poetic comes but to expire,

Her name needs not my humble lyre

To bid it live;

She hath already from her sire

All bard can give.

CONNECTICUT.

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

"The woods in which we had dwelt pleasantly rustled their green leaves in the song, and our streams were there with the sound of all their waters." MONTROSE.

I.

still her gray rocks tower above the sea That crouches at their feet, a conquered wave;

'Tis a rough land of earth, and stone, and tree,

Where breathes no castled lord or cabined slave; Where thoughts, and tongues, and hands are bold and free, And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave;

And where none kneel, save when to heaven they pray, Nor even then, unless in their own way.

II.

Theirs is a pure republic, wild, yet strong,

A "fierce democracie," where all are true To what themselves have voted-right or wrong— And to their laws denominated blue;

(If red, they might to Draco's code belong ;)

A vestal state, which power could not subdue, Nor promise win-like her own eagle's nest,

Sacred-the San Marino of the West.

III.

A justice of the peace, for the time being,
They bow to, but may turn him out next year;
They reverence their priest, but disagreeing

In price or creed, dismiss him without fear;

They have a natural talent for foreseeing

And knowing all things; and should Park appear From his long tour in Africa, to show

The Niger's source, they'd meet him with—we know.

IV.

They love their land, because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty ;

A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none.

Such are they nurtured, such they live and die :

All-but a few apostates, who are meddling

With merchandise, pounds, shillings, pence, and peddling;

V.

Or wandering through the southern countries, teaching The A B C from Webster's spelling-book;

Gallant and godly, making love and preaching,

And gaining by what they call "hook and crook,” And what the moralists call over-reaching,

A decent living. The Virginians look

Upon them with as favorable eyes
As Gabriel on the devil in paradise.

VI.

But these are but their outcasts. View them near

At home, where all their worth and pride is placed; And there their hospitable fires burn clear,

And there the lowliest farmhouse hearth is graced

With manly hearts, in piety sincere,

Faithful in love, in honor stern and chaste,

In friendship warm and true, in danger brave,
Beloved in life, and sainted in the grave.

VII.

And minds have there been nurtured, whose control

Is felt even in their nation's destiny;

Men who swayed senates with a statesman's soul,
And looked on armies with a leader's eye;

Names that adorn and dignify the scroll,

Whose leaves contain their country's history,

And tales of love and war-listen to one

Of the Green-Mountaineer-the Stark of Bennington.