of regions "consecrate to eldest time ?" Is there nothing in man, considered abstractedly from the distinctions of this world-nothing in a being who is in the infancy of an immortal life—who is lackeyed by "a thousand liveried angels" -who is even "splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave" →to awaken ideas of permanence, solemnity and grandeur? Are there no themes sufficiently exalted for poetry in the midst of death and life--in the desires and hopes which have their resting-place near the throne of the Eternal-in affections, strange and wondrous in their working, and unconquerable by time, or anguish, or destiny? Such objects, though not arrayed in any adventitious pomp, have a real and innate grandeur. Ex. XCVI.-TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. GRENVILLE MELLEN. WAKE your harp's music !-louder,-higher, And smite again each quivering wire, Shout like those godlike men of old, Who, daring storm and foe, On this blest soil their anthem rolled, From native shores by tempests driven, And found, beneath a milder heaven, An altar rose,-and prayers,- -a ray The harbinger of freedom's day, They clung around that symbol, too, Their refuge and their all; And swore, while skies and waves were blue, They stood upon the red man's sod, 'Neath heaven's unpillared bow, With home, a country, and a God, Oh! 't was a hard, unyielding fate But safe above each coral grave, They knelt them on the desert sand, By waters cold and rude, Alone upon the dreary strand Of oceaned solitude! They looked upon the high blue air, The warrior's red right arm was bared, To seek his home and child? The dark chiefs yelled alarm,—and swore The white man's blood should flow, And his hewn bones should bleach their shore,Two hundred years ago! But lo! the warrior's eye grew dim, His arm was left alone, The still black wilds that sheltered him, Time fled, and on the hallowed ground The cities swell where forests frowned, Oh! stay not to recount the tale,- The firmest cheek might well grow pale, The God of heaven, who prospers us, And shield us from the red man's curse, Come then,-great shades of glorious men, We call you from each moldering tomb, To bless the world ye snatched from doom, Then to your harps,-yet louder,-higher, Shout for those godlike men of old, On this blest soil their anthem rolled Two hundred years ago! Ex. XCVII.-NEW ENGLAND'S DEAD. ISAAC M'LELLAN, JR. "I shall enter into no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is; behold her, and judge for yourselves.-There is her history. The world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia; and there they will remain for ever."-Webster's Speech. NEW ENGLAND's dead! New England's dead! On On every hill they lie; every field of strife made red By bloody victory. Each valley, where the battle poured Its red and awful tide, Beheld the brave New England sword With slaughter deeply dyed. Their bones are on the northern hill, By brook and river, lake and rill, The land is holy where they fought, 9 For by their blood that land was bought, But to their God they gave their prayer, The God of battles heard their cry, They left the plowshare in the mold, To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe, And where are ye, O fearless men? I call:-the hills reply again That ye have passed away; That on old Bunker's lonely height, In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground, The bugle's wild and warlike blast An army now might thunder past, And they not heed its roar. The starry flag, 'neath which they fought, In many a bloody day, From their old graves shall rouse them not, Ex. XCVIII.-THE CONVICT SHIP. MORN on the waters!-and purple and bright HERVEY. O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun, Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail, And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale; Night on the waves!—and the moon is on high, Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain! A phantom of beauty, could deem, with a sigh, And that souls that are smitten lie bursting within ?— 'Tis thus with our life, while it With streamers afloat, and with canvas unfurled; Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs. |