Where flower fades not, and death no treasured link
Hath power to sever more, ye need not mourn
The ear sequestrate, and the tuneless tongue,
For there the eternal dialect of love

Is the free breath of every happy soul.

SECTION VII.

(1.) HANNAH F. GOULD, of Vermont, has acquired considerable reputation_by_her numerous contributions to newspapers of the day.

The critic last quoted speaks of Miss Gould, as a writer of poetry, in the following beautiful terms:

"One of the principal attractions of her writings is their perfect freedom from pretension; she composes without the slightest effort to do more than to express her own thoughts in the most unaffected language; in this way, however, she produces more effect than she could do by laborious effort.

"Miss Gould is uniformly faithful to nature. Like Mrs. Sigourney, she gathers the wild flowers of the rock and dell; and she does more; she collects those which many pass by unnoticed, as too common and familiar to be entitled to a place in an ornamental garland; but she looks upon them as the works of God, and fitted to convey a striking moral. This, doubtless, is the secret of her popularity."

THE SILVER-BIRD'S NEST.

BY MISS H. F. GOULD.

We were shown a beautiful specimen of the ingenuity of birds, a few days since, by Dr. Cook of this borough. It was a bird's nest made entirely of silver wires, beautifully woven together. The nest was found on a sycamore-tree, by Dr. Francis Beard, of York County. It was the nest of a hanging-bird, and the material was probably obtained from a soldier's epaulet which it had found.— Westchester Village Record, 1838.

A stranded soldier's epaulet,
The waters cast ashore,
A little winged rover met,
And eyed it o'er and o'er.

The silver bright so pleased her sight,
On that lone, idle vest,

She knew not why she should deny
Herself a silver nest

The shining wire she peck'd and twirl'd;
Then bore it to her bough,

Where on a flowery twig 'twas curl'd,
The bird can show you how;
But when enough of that bright stuff
The cunning builder bore

Her house to make, she would not take,
Nor did she covet, more.

And when the little artisan,
While neither pride nor guilt
Had enter'd in her pretty plan,
Her resting-place had built;
With here and there a plume to spare
About her own light form,

Of these, inlaid with skill, she made
A lining soft and warm.

But, do you think the tender brood
She fondled there, and fed,

Were prouder when they understood
The sheen about their bed?
Do you suppose that ever rose,
Of higher powers possess'd,

Because they knew they peep'd and grew
Within a silver nest?

(2.) LUCRETIA and MARGARET DAVIDSON, New-York, are remarkable for the early development of their poetic capacities. Both died before they had reached seventeen years of age. Their writings have been collected by Washington Irving, accompanied with an interesting memoir.

(3.) JAMES G. PERCIVAL, of Connecticut, born 1795. His first published volume contains many poems written in his seventeenth year. His early publications gave just offence by their sceptical sentiments, but his later writings are said to be free from these. It is stated that none of our poets surpass Dr. Percival in learning, scholarship, or universality of information. According to Mr. Kettell, "his poetry is more imaginative than sentimental, rather diffuse, and often negligent. But his language is well selected and picturesque, bold and idiomatic; his verse is harmonious, and contains many of those sweet and hallowed forms of expression which render poetry the repository of the most striking truths, as well as the vehicle of the

finest emotions. His delineations of human feeling and conduct are sometimes beyond life and nature, and bordering on the extravagant."

You are now presented with his affecting picture of

"I had a husband once, who loved me: now
He ever wears a frown upon his brow,
And feeds his passion on a wanton's lip,
As bees, from laurel flowers, a poison sip;
But yet I can not hate. Oh! there were hours
When I could hang forever on his eye,
And Time, who stole with swiftness by,
Strew'd, as he hurried on, his path with flowers.
I loved him then-he loved me too. My heart
Still finds its fondness kindle, if he smile;
The memory of our loves will ne'er depart;
And though he often sting me with a dart,
Venom'd and barb'd, and waste upon the vile
Caresses which his babe and mine should share;
Though he should spurn me, I will calmly bear
His madness; and should sickness come; and lay
Its paralyzing hand upon him, then

I would, with kindness, all my wrongs repay,
Until the penitent should weep, and say
How injured, and how faithful I had been."

SECTION VIII.

(1.) J. G. C. BRAINERD, of Connecticut, died 1828. His collection of poems consists of articles written hastily for a weekly newspaper edited by him; yet, says Mr. Kettell, "these productions, so little elaborated, and written under various causes of enervation, are stamped with an originality, boldness, force, and pathos, illustrative of genius, not, perhaps, inferior to that of Burns, and certainly much resembling it in kind. No man ever thought his own thoughts more independently than he did."

Read his lines on

THE INDIAN SUMMER.

6

"What is there saddening in the autumn leaves?
Have they that green and yellow melancholy'
That the sweet poet spake of? Had he seen
Our variegated woods, when first the frost

Turns into beauty all October's charms

When the dread fever quits us-when the storms
Of the wild Equinox, with all its wet,
Has left the land, as the first deluge left it,
With a bright bow of many colors hung
Upon the forest tops-he had not sigh❜d.

The moon stays longest for the hunter now;
The trees cast down their fruitage, and the blithe
And busy squirrel hoards his winter store;
While man enjoys the breeze that sweeps along
The bright blue sky above him, and that bends
Magnificently all the forest's pride,

Or whispers through the evergreens, and asks,

What is there saddening in the autumn leaves?""

(2.) H. W. LONGFELLOW-Maine. The North American Review for 1844, among other remarks, furnishes the following, upon his poems. His great characteristic is that of addressing the moral nature through the imagination, of linking moral truth to intellectual beauty. The best literary artist is he who accommodates his diction to his subject. In this Longfellow is an artist. By learning "to labor and to wait," by steadily brooding over the chaos in which thought and emotion first appear to the mind, and giving shape and life to both before uttering them in words, he has obtained a singular mastery over expression. By this we do not mean that he has a large command of language. No fallacy is greater than that which confounds fluency with expression. Washerwomen, and boys at debating clubs, often display more fluency than Webster; but his words are to theirs as the rolling thunder to the patter of rain. Felicity, not fluency of language, is a merit.

Longfellow has a perfect command of that expression which results from restraining rather than cultivating fluency, and his manner is adapted to his theme. His words are often pictures of his thought. He selects with great delicacy and precision the exact phrase which best expresses or suggests his idea. He colors his style with the skill of a painter. In that higher department of his art, that of so combining his words and images that they make music to the soul as well as to the ear, and convey not only his feelings and thoughts, but also the very tone and condition of the soul in which they have being, he likewise excels. In "Maidenhood" and "Endymion," this power is admirably displayed. In one of his best poems, "The Skeleton in Armor," he manages a difficult verse with great skill.

His felicity in addressing the moral nature of man may be discovered in the following lines:

"Lives of great men all remind us,

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again."

This is very different from merely saying that, if we follow the example of the great and good, we shall live a noble life, and that the record of our deeds and struggles will strengthen the breasts of those who come after us, to do and to suffer.

Longfellow's verse occupies a position half way between the poetry of actual life and the poetry of transcendentalism. Like all neutrals, he is liable to attack from the zealots of both parties; but it seems to us that he has hit the exact point, beyond which no poet can at present go, without being neglected or ridiculed. An air of repose, of quiet power, is around his compositions. In "The Spanish Student," the affluence of his imagination in images of grace, grandeur, and beauty, is most strikingly manifested.

SECTION IX.

JOHN G. WHITTIER (says the North American Review) is one of our most characteristic poets. Few excel him in warmth of temperament. There is a rush of passion in his verse, which sweeps every thing along with it. His fancy and imagination can hardly keep pace with their fiery companion. His vehement sensibility will not allow the inventive faculties to complete what they may have commenced. The stormy qualities of his mind, acting at the suggestions of conscience, produce a kind of military morality, which uses all the deadly arms of verbal warfare. His invective is merciless and undistinguishing; he almost screams with rage and indignation. Of late, he has somewhat pruned the rank luxuriance of his style. He has the soul of a great poet, and we should not be surprised if he attained the height of excellence in his art.