English

BY ALBERT PIKE .


Thou glorious mocker of the world! I hear
Thy many voices ringing through the glooms
Of these green solitudes — and all the clear,
Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear
And floods the heart. Over the sphered tombs
Of vanished nations rolls thy music tide.
No light from history's starlike page illumes
The memory of those nations — they have died.
None cares for them but thou — and thou mayst sing,
Perhaps, o'er me — as now thy song doth ring

Weary pilgrim, rest thy powers
Nature hath her reaping hours;
Thou, so rich in memories stored,
Blend thine own with Nature's hoard.
Other milestones distant far, —
See thy last in yonder star!

Where the roseate doors of rest
Open in the deepening west,
O'er thy quarters for this night
Hesperus upholds his light;
And the folding dusk shall bring
Sleep to be thy covering.

Pain and toil, as partners here,
Mingle for remembrance dear;
Couldst thou sever this from these,

Fair camp of God, how goodly are thy tents,
Within whose midst the milk and honey flow!
For thee the promised land gives forth her scents,
For thee the hanging gardens crowned with snow,

And softer dews than Hermon's, and more shade
Than rocks beneath the boughs of Lebanon;
For thee, O fair delight, all things were made,
And they which marred them, the false gods, are gone.

For this is never Canaan's land, but Greece,
Where shines the face and not the frown of God;
And never Gideon's but Jason's fleece;

Yes! song should greet the son of song;
To him whose truth-taught pen imparts
The simple thoughts of simple hearts,
The offerings of such hearts belong;
And thou hast waked so sweet a strain,
That Albion echoes it again.

Thy bard, (Slavonia! hold him dear,
As worthy of thy brighter day!)
Whose spirit shall extend the ray
That flits across the silent tear,
Which sadness in its gloom lets fall
On Slava's melancholy pall: —

Has he not sung — and bards, my friend!
Are prophets still — that sunlight breaks

To frame a sadd discourse of languysshinge desyre
or els with fyled spech to paynte the harme of hiden fyre
To fayne a deyr complainte off loves to cruell lawes
and blame our selves withall that sees; and will not shunn the cause
A trade so ryfe is growne (though scornede of the wise)
that every foole cann stryve to force, a flame in frozen Ise
Who hath not nowe the skill, to cower weeds with flowers
or will not speake off dyinge dayes more then of lyving houres
For olde true meanynge ys, so far falne in decaye

Itt was the sylente tyme
When Phaebus fell to reste
And creatures all that lyve on earth
Were shrowded in theyr neste.
When as the slumber sweete
Each wakinge Eye dyd cease,
Save onely myne that seldome fyndes
The waye to quiett ease.
Whose restles mynde to passe
The werye tyme awaye,
Desyred then to reade the Booke
How Pryam dyd decaye.
And after what befell
The poore remayne of Troye
When as the Greekyshe guyle their towne
And kingedome did destroye.
Wherein me thought I founde

BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE .

'Tis midnight's holy hour — and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle Spirit o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling — 'tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past — yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud — the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh — and on yon cloud,

BY JOHN M. HARNEY .

Devout, yet cheerful; pious, not austere;
To others lenient, to himself severe;
Tho' honored, modest; diffident, tho' prais'd;
The proud he humbled, and the humble rais'd;
Studious, yet social; though polite, yet plain;
No man more learned, yet no man less vain.
His fame would universal envy move,
But envy's lost in universal love.
That he has faults, it may be bold to doubt,
Yet certain 't is we ne'er have found them out.
If faults he has, (as man, 't is said, must have,)

BY WILLIAM D. GALLACHER .

The Autumn Time is with us! — Its approach
Was heralded, not many days ago,
By hazy skies, that veil'd the brazen sun,
And sea-like murmurs from the rustling corn,
And low-voiced brooks, that wandered drowsily
By purpling clusters of the juicy grape,
Swinging upon the vine. And now, 'tis here!
And what a change hath pass'd upon the face
Of Nature, where the waving forest spreads,
Then robed in deepest green! All through the night

Begone my Muse, Tears quench thy sacred Fire,
True Grief, like Love, without thee can inspire.
Mod'rate Sorrows may be told with Art,
But the Distractions of my troubled Heart
With sad Confusion I must needs express,
My Verse will, like my Sighs, be numberless.
Ah, cruel Death! why was't thou so severe,
To take the Young, the Witty, and the Fair,
The gay Satyra in her blooming days:
Could no less Feast serve thy luxurious Jaws?
Would not the old or discontented do?
Those whom Misfortune forc'd to wish for you.