THE POET.

For this present, hard

Is the fortune of the bard

Born out of time; All his accomplishment

From nature's utmost treasure spent
Booteth not him.

When the pine tosses its cones
To the song of its waterfall tones,
He speeds to the woodland walks,
To birds and trees he talks:
Cæsar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the river side,—

Not hook nor line hath he:

He stands in the meadows wide,-
Nor gun nor scythe to see;
With none has he to do,

And none to seek him,

Nor men below,

Nor spirits dim.

What he knows nobody wants;

What he knows, he hides, not vaunts.
Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest;
Pondering shadows, colours, clouds,
Grass buds, and caterpillars' shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violets' petal,
Why nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats ;—
Lover of all things alive,

Wonderer at all he meets,
Wonderer chiefly at himself,-

Who can tell him what he is;
Or how meet in human elf

Coming and past eternities?.
And such I knew, a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Foreteller of the vernal ides,
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
A lover true, who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seem'd that nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It open'd in its virgin bower,
As if a sunbeam show'd the place,
And tell its long descended race.

It seem'd as if the breezes brought him,
It seem'd as if the sparrows taught him,
As if by secret sight he knew
Where in far fields the orchis grew.
There are many events in the field,
Which are not shown to common eyes,
But all her shows did nature yield

To please and win this pilgrim wise.
He saw the partridge drum in the woods,
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn,
He found the tawny thrush's broods,
And the shy hawk did wait for him

What others did at distance hear,

And guess'd within the thicket's gloom, Was show'd to this philosopher, And at his bidding seem'd to come.

DIRGE.

KNOWs he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morr.?

In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts,
I wander'd up, I wander'd down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleam'd below,
Pouring as wide a flood

As when my brothers, long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone-the holy ones

Who trod with me this lonely vale, The strong, star-bright companions Are silent, low, and pale.

My good, my noble, in their prime,

Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learn'd with me the lore of Time,
Who loved this dwelling-place;
They took this valley for their toy,

They play'd with it in every mood,
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,

They treated Nature as they would.
They colour'd the whole horizon round,
Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
All echoes hearken'd for their sound,
They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf
Which once our childhood knew,
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine warbler,
Singing aloft in the tree;
Hearest thou, O traveller!
What he singeth to me?

Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
Its heavy tale divine.

"Go, lonely man," it saith,

"They loved thee from their birth, Their hands were pure, and pure their faith, There are no such hearts on earth. "Ye drew one mother's milk, One chamber held ye all,

A very tender history

Did in your childhood fall. "Ye cannot unlock your heart, The key is gone with them; The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem."

TO RHEA.

THEE, dear friend, a brother soothes,
Not with flatteries, but truths,
Which tarnish not, but purify

To light which dims the morning's eye.
I have come from the spring-woods,
From the fragrant solitudes:
Listen what the poplar tree

And murmuring waters counsell'd me.
If with love thy heart has burn'd,
If thy love is unreturn'd,

Hide thy grief within thy breast,
Though it tear thee unexpress'd;
For when love has once departed
From the eyes of the false-hearted,
And one by one has torn off quite
The bandages of purple light,
Though thou wert the loveliest
Form the soul had ever dress'd,
Thou shalt seem, in each reply,
A vixen to his altered eye;
Thy softest pleadings seem too bold,
Thy praying lute will seem to sco'd;
Though thou kept the straightest road,
Yet thou errest far and broad.

But thou shalt do as do the gods
In their cloudless periods;
For of this lore be thou sure—
Though thou forget, the gods, secure,
Forget never their command,
But make the statute of this land.

As they lead, so follow all,
Ever have done, ever shall.
Warning to the blind and deaf,
"Tis written on the iron leaf-
Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup,
Loveth downward, and not up;
Therefore, who loves, of gods or men,
Shall not by the same be loved again;
His sweetheart's idolatry

Falls, in turn, a new degree.
When a god is once beguiled
By beauty of a mortal child,
And by her radiant youth delighted,
He is not fool'd, but warily knoweth
His love shall never be requited.
And thus the wise Immortal doeth.-
"Tis his study and delight

To bless that creature day and night-
From all evils to defend her,
In her lap to pour all splendour,
lo ransack earth for riches rare,
And fetch her stars to deck her hair;
He mixes music with her thoughts,
And saddens her with heavenly doubts:
All grace, all good, his great heart knows,
Profuse in love, the king bestows:
Saying, "Hearken! earth, sea, air!
This monument of my despair
Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair.
Not for a private good,

But I, from my beatitude,

Albeit scorn'd as none was scorn'd,

THE author of "The Last Night of Pompeii" was born in Warwick, near the western border of Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1803. His father, a respectable physician, died in 1806, and his mother, on becoming a widow, returned with two children to her paternal home in Worcester.

Mr. FAIRFIELD entered Harvard College when thirteen years of age; but, after spending two years in that seminary, was compelled to leave it, to aid his mother in teaching a school in a neighbouring village. He subsequently passed two or three years in Georgia and South Carolina, and in 1824 went to Europe. He returned in 1826, was soon afterwards married, and from that period resided in Philadelphia, where for several years he conducted the "North American Magazine," a monthly miscellany in which appeared most of his prose writings and poems.

He commenced the business of authorship at a very early period, and perhaps produced more in the form of poetry than any of his American contemporaries. "The Cities of the Plain," one of his earliest poems, was originally published in England. It was founded on the history of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of Genesis. The "Heir of the World," which followed in 1828, is a poetical version of the life of ABRAHAM. It is in the Spenserian measure, and contains some fine passages, descriptive of scenery and feeling. His next considerable work, "The Spirit of Destruction," appeared in 1830. Its subject is the deluge. Like the "Cities of the Plain," it is in the heroic verse, in which he wrote with great facility.. His "Last Night of Pompeii" was published in 1832. It is the result of two years' industrious labour, and was written amid the cares and vexations of poverty. The destruction of the cities of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Retina and Stabiæ, by an eruption of Vesuvius, in the summer of the year seventy-nine, is perhaps one of the finest subjects for poetry in modern his

tory.

Mr. FAIRFIELD in this poem exhibits a familiar acquaintance with the manners and events of the period, and his style is stately and sustained. His shorter pieces, though in some cases turgid and unpolished, are generally distinguished for vigour of thought and depth of feeling. An edition of his principal writings was published in a closely-printed octavo volume, in Philadelphia, in 1841.

The first and last time I ever saw FAIRFIELD was in the summer of 1842, when he called at my hotel to thank me for some kind notice of him in one of the journals, of which he supposed me

Mr. FAIRFIELD accused Sir EDWARD BULWER LYT TON of founding on this poem his romance of the "Last Days of Pompeii."

to be the author. In a note sent to my apartinent he described himself as "an outcast from all human affections" except those of his mother and his children, with whom he should remain but a little while, for he "felt the weight of the arm of Death." He complained that every man's hand had been against him, that exaggerated accounts had been published of his infirmities, and uncharitable views given of his misfortunes. He said his mother, who had been abused as an annoying old crone," in the newspapers, for endeavouring to obtain subscribers for his works, was attending him from his birth to his burial, and would never grow weary till the end. This prediction was verified. About a year afterwards I read in a published letter from New Orleans that FAIRFIELD had wandered to that city, lived there a few months in solitude and destitution, and after a painful illness died. While he lingered on his pallet, between the angel of death and his mother, she counted the hours of day and night, never slumbering by his side, nor leaving him, until as his only mourner she had fol lowed him to a grave.

Not wishing to enter into any particular exami nation of his claims to personal respect, I must still express an opinion that FAIRFIELD was harshly treated, and that even if the specific charges against him were true, it was wrong to permit the private character of the author to have any influence upon critical judgments of his works. He wrote much, and generally with commendable aims. His knowledge of books was extensive and accurate. He had considerable fancy, which at one period was under the dominion of cultivated taste and chastened feeling; but troubles, mostly resulting from a want of skill in pecuniary affairs, induced recklessness, misanthropy, intemperance, and a general derangement and decay of his intellectual and moral nature. I see not much to admire in his poems, but they aro by no means contemptible; and the poet FAIR FIELD" had during a long period too much notoricty not to deserve some notice in a work of this sort, even though his verses had been still less poetical.

Persons of an ardent temperament and refined sensibilities have too frequently an aversion to the practical and necessary duties of common life, to the indulgence of which they owe their chief misfortunes and unhappiness. The mind of the true poet, however, is well ordered and comprehensive, and shrinks not from the humblest of duties. FAIRFIELD had the weakness or madness, absurdly thought to belong to the poetical character, which unfitted him for an honourable and distinguished life. He needed, besides his "some learning and more feeling," a strong will and good sense, to be either great or useful.

DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.*

A ROAR, as if a myriad thunders burst,

Death is [here!

Now hurtled o'er the heavens, and the deep earth
Shudder'd, and a thick storm of lava hail
Rush'd into air, to fall upon the world.
And low the lion cower'd, with fearful moans
And upturn'd eyes, and quivering limbs, and clutch'd
The gory sand instinctively in fear.
The very soul of silence died, and breath
Through the ten thousand pallid lips, unfelt,
Stole from the stricken bosoms; and there stood,
With face uplifted, and eyes fix'd on air,
(Which unto him was throng'd with angel forms,)
The Christian-waiting the high will of Heaven.
A wandering sound of wailing agony,
A cry of coming horror, o'er the street
Of tombs arose, and all the lurid air
Echo'd the shrieks of hopelessness and death.
"Hear ye not now?" said PANSA.
Ye saw the avalanche of fire descend
Vesuvian steeps, and, in its giant strength
Sweep on to Herculaneum; and ye cried,
It threats not us: why should we lose the sport?
Though thousands perish, why should we refrain?'
Your sister city-the most beautiful-
Gasps in the burning ocean-from her domes
Fly the survivors of her people, driven
Before the torrent-floods of molten earth,
With desolation red-and o'er her grave
Unearthly voices raise the heart's last cries-
Fly, fly! O, horror! O, my son! my sire!'
The hoarse shouts multiply; without the mount
Are agony and death-within, such rage
Of fossil fire as man may not behold!
Hark! the destroyer slumbers not-and now,
Be your theologies but true, your Jove,
Mid all his thunders, would shrink back aghast,
Listening the horrors of the Titan's strife.
The lion trembles; will ye have my blood,
Or flee, ere Herculaneum's fate is yours?"

Vesuvius answer'd: from its pinnacles
Clouds of far-flashing cinders, lava showers,
And seas, drank up by the abyss of fire,
To be hurl'd forth in boiling cataracts,
Like midnight mountains, wrapp'd in lightnings, fell.
O, then, the love of life! the struggling rush,
The crushing conflict of escape! few, brief,
And dire the words delirious fear spake now,—
One thought, one action sway'd the tossing crowd.
All through the vomitories madly sprung,
And mass on mass of trembling beings press'd,
Gasping and goading, with the savageness
That is the child of danger, like the waves
Charybdis from his jagged rocks throws down,
Mingled in madness-warring in their wrath.
Some swoon'd, and were trod down by legion feet;
Some cried for mercy to the unanswering gods;
Some shriek'd for parted friends, forever lost;
And some, in passion's chaos, with the yells
Of desperation, did blaspheme the heavens;

*From "The Last Night of Pompeii." This scene follows the destruction of Herculaneum. PANSA. a Christian, condemned by DIOMEDE, is brought into the gladiatorial arena, when a new eruption from Vesuvius causes a suspension of the proceedings.

And some were still in utterness of wo.
Yet all toil'd on in trembling waves of life
Along the subterranean corridors.
Moments were centuries of doubt and dread;
Each breathing obstacle a hated thing;
Each trampled wretch a footstool to o'erlook
The foremost multitudes; and terror, now,
Begat in all a maniac ruthlessness,— ·
For, in the madness of their agonies,
Strong men cast down the feeble, who delay'd
Their flight; and maidens on the stones were crush'd,
And mothers madden'd when the warrior's heel
Pass'd o'er the faces of their sons! The throng
Press'd on, and in the ampler arcades now
Beheld, as floods of human life roll'd by,
The uttermost terrors of the destined hour.
In gory vapours the great sun went down;
The broad, dark sea heaved like the dying heart,
"Tween earth and heaven hovering o'er the grave
And moan'd through all its waters; every dome
And temple, charr'd and choked with ceaseless
Of suffocating cinders, seem'd the home [showers
Of the triumphant desolator, Death.
One dreadful glance sufficed,—and to the sea,
Like Lybian winds, breathing despair, they fled.

Nature's quick instinct, in most savage beasts,
Prophesies danger ere man's thought awakes,
And shrinks in fear from common savageness,
Made gentle by its terror; thus, o'erawed,
E'en in his famine's fury, by a Power
Brute beings more than human oft adore,
The lion lay, his quivering paws outspread,

His white teeth gnashing, till the crushing throngs
Had pass'd the corridors; then, glaring up,
His eyes imbued with samiel light, he saw
The crags and forests of the Apennines
Gleaming far off, and, with the exulting sense
Of home and lone dominion, at a bound
He leap'd the lofty palisades, and sprung
Along the spiral passages, with howls
Of horror, through the flying multitudes,
Flying to seek his lonely mountain-lair.

From every cell shrieks burst; hyenas cried,
Like lost child, wandering o'er the wilderness,
That, in deep loneliness, mingles its voice
With wailing winds and stunning waterfalls;
The giant elephant, with matchless strength,
Struggled against the portal of his tomb,
And groan'd and panted; and the leopard's yell,
And tiger's growl, with all surrounding cries
Of human horror mingled; and in air,
Spotting the lurid heavens and waiting prey,
The evil birds of carnage hung and watch'd,
As ravening heirs watch o'er the miser's couch.
All awful sounds of heaven and earth met now;
Darkness behind the sun-god's chariot roll'd,
Shrouding destruction, save when volcan fires
Lifted the folds, to glare on agony;
And, when a moment's terrible repose
Fell on the deep convulsions, all could hear
The toppling cliffs explode and crash below,→
While multitudinous waters from the sea
In whirlpools through the channel'd mountain rocks
Rush'd, and, with hisses like the damned's speech,
Fell in the mighty furnace of the mount.

VISIONS OF ROMANCE.

WHEN dark-brow'd midnight o'er the slumbering world

Mysterious shadows and bewildering throws,
And the tired wings of human thought are furl'd,
And sleep descends, like dew upon the rose,-
How full of bliss the poet's vigil hour,
When o'er him elder time hath magic power!
Before his eye past ages stand reveal'd,
When feudal chiefs held lordly banquettings,
In the spoils revelling of flood and field,
Among their vassals proud, unquestion'd kings:
While honour'd minstrels round the ample board
The lays of love or songs of battle pour'd.
The dinted helmet, with its broken crest,
The serried sabre, and the shatter'd shield
Hung round the wainscot, dark, and well express'd
That wild, fierce pride, which scorn'd, unscathed, to
The pictures there, with dusky glory rife, [yield;
From age to age bore down stern characters of strife.
Amid long lines of glorious ancestry, [walls,
Whose eyes flash'd o'er them from the gray, old
What craven quails at Danger's lightning eye?
What warrior blenches when his brother falls?
Bear witness Cressy and red Agincourt!
Bosworth, and Bannockburn, and Marston Moor!
The long, lone corridors, the antler'd hall,
The massive walls, the all-commanding towers-
Where revel reign'd, and masquerading ball,
And beauty won stern warriors to her bowers-
In ancient grandeur o'er the spirit move,
With all their forms of chivalry and love.
The voice of centuries bursts upon the soul;
Long-buried ages wake and live again;
Past feats of fame and deeds of glory roll,
Achieved for ladye-love in knighthood's reign;
And all the simple state of olden time
Assumes a garb majestic and sublime.

The steel-clad champion on his vaulting steed,
The mitred primate, and the Norman lord,
The peerless maid, awarding valour's meed,
And the meek vestal, who her GoD adored-
The pride, the pomp, the power and charm of earth
From fancy's dome of living thought come forth.
The feast is o'er, the huntsman's course is done,
The trump of war, the shrill horn sounds no more;
The heroic revellers from the hall have gone,
The lone blast moans the ruin'd castle o'er!
The spell of beauty, and the pride of power
Have pass'd forever from the feudal tower.
No more the drawbridge echoes to the tread
Of visor'd knights, o'ercanopied with gold;
O'er mouldering gates and crumbling archways
Dark ivy waves in many a mazy fold, [spread,
Where chiefs flash'd vengeance from their lightning

Sink into dust, when reason's searching glance
Unmasks the age of knighthood and romance.

Like lightning hurtled o'er the lurid skies,
Their glories flash along the gloom of years;
The beacon-lights of time, to wisdom's eyes,
O'er the deep-rolling stream of human tears.
Fade! fade! ye visions of antique romance!
Tower, casque, and mace, and helm, and banner'd
lance!

AN EVENING SONG OF PIEDMONT,

AVE MARIA! 't is the midnight hour, The starlight wedding of the earth and heaven, When music breathes its perfume from the flower, And high revealings to the heart are given; Soft o'er the meadows steals the dewy airLike dreams of bliss; the deep-blue ether glows, And the stream murmurs round its islets fair The tender night-song of a charm'd repose.

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love, The kiss of rapture, and the link'd embrace, The hallow'd converse in the dim, still grove, The elysium of a heart-revealing face, When all is beautiful-for we are bless'd, When all is lovely-for we are beloved, When all is silent-for our passions rest, When all is faithful-for our hopes are proved.

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer,

Of hush'd communion with ourselves and Heaven, When our waked hearts their inmost thoughts declare,

High, pure, far-searching, like the light of even;
When hope becomes fruition, and we feel
The holy earnest of eternal peace,

That bids our pride before the Omniscient kneel,
That bids our wild and warring passions cease.

Ave Maria! soft the vesper hymn

Floats through the cloisters of yon holy pile,
And, mid the stillness of the night-watch dim,
Attendant spirits seem to hear and smile!
Hark! hath it ceased? The vestal seeks her cell,
And reads her heart-a melancholy tale!
A song of happier years, whose echoes sweil
O'er her lost love, like pale bereavement's wail.

Ave Maria! let our prayers ascend
From them whose holy offices afford
No joy in heaven-on earth without a friend
That true, though faded image of the LORD!
For them in vain the face of nature glows,
For them in vain the sun in glory burns,
The hollow breast consumes in fiery woes,
And meets despair and death where'er it turns.
Ave Maria! in the deep pine wood,
On the clear stream, and o'er the azure sky
Bland midnight smiles, and starry solitude
Breathes hope in every breeze that wanders by.
Ave Maria! may our last hour come
As bright, as pure, as gentle, Heaven! as this!
Let faith atter d us smiling to the tomb.
And life and death are both the heirs of bliss'