THE EDGE OF THE SWAMP.

"Tis a wild spot, and hath a gloomy look;
The bird sings never merrily in the trees,
And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank growth
Spreads poisonously round, with power to taint
With blistering dews the thoughtless hand that dares
To penetrate the covert. Cypresses [length,
Crowd on the dank, wet earth; and, stretch'd at
The cayman-a fit dweller in such home-
Slumbers, half-buried in the sedgy grass.
Beside the green ooze where he shelters him,
A whooping crane erects his skeleton form,
And shrieks in flight. Two summer ducks, aroused
To apprehension, as they hear his cry,
Dash up from the lagoon, with marvellous haste,
Following his guidance. Meetly taught by these,
And startled at our rapid, near approach,
The steel-jaw'd monster, from his grassy bed,
Crawls slowly to his slimy, green abode,
Which straight receives him. You behold him now,
His ridgy back uprising as he speeds,
In silence, to the centre of the stream,
Whence his head peers alone.
That, travelling all the day, has counted climes
Only by flowers, to rest himself a while,
Lights on the monster's brow. The surly mute
Straightway goes down, so suddenly, that he,
The dandy of the summer flowers and woods,
Dips his light wings, and spoils his golden coat,
With the rank water of that turbid pond.
Wondering and vex'd, the plumed citizen
Flies, with a hurried effort, to the shore,
Seeking his kindred flowers:--but seeks in vain—
Nothing of genial growth may there be seen,
Nothing of beautiful! Wild, ragged trees,

A butterfly,

That look like felon spectres-fetid shrubs,
That taint the gloomy atmosphere-dusk shades,
That gather, half a cloud, and half a fiend
In aspect, lurking on the swamp's wild edge,-
Gloom with their sternness and forbidding frowns
The general prospect. The sad butterfly,
Waving his lacker'd wings, darts quickly on,
And, by his free flight, counsels us to speed
For better lodgings, and a scene more sweet,
Than these drear borders offer us to-night.

CHANGES OF HOME.
WELL may we sing her beauties,
This pleasant land of ours,
Her sunny smiles, her golden fruits,
And all her world of flowers;
The young birds of her forest-groves.
The blue folds of her sky,

And all those airs of gentleness,
That never seem to fly;

They wind about our forms at noon,
They woo us in the shade,

When panting, from the summer's heats,
The woodman seeks the glade;
They win us with a song of love,
They cheer us with a dream,

That gilds our passing thoughts of life,
As sunlight does the stream;

And well would they persuade us now,

In moments all too dear,

That, sinful though our hearts may be, We have our Eden here.

Ah, well has lavish nature,

From out her boundless store,
Spread wealth and loveliness around,
On river, rock, and shore:

No sweeter stream than Ashley glides-
And, what of southern France ?—
She boasts no brighter fields than ours,
Within her matron glance;
Cur skies look down in tenderness
From out their realms of blue,
The fairest of Italian climes

May claim no softer hue;

And let them sing of fruits of Spain,
And let them boast the flowers,
The Moors' own culture they may claim,
No dearer sweet than ours—
Perchance the dark-hair'd maiden
Is a glory in your eye,

But the blue-eyed Caroliniart rules,
When all the rest are nigh.

And none may say, it is not true,

The burden of my lay, "Tis written, in the sight of all,

In flower and fruit and ray; Look on the scene around us now,

And say if sung amiss,

The song that pictures to your eye
A spot so fair as this:
Gay springs the merry mocking-bird
Around the cottage pale,-
And, scarcely taught by hunter's aim,
The rabbit down the vale;
Each boon of kindly nature,

Her buds, her blooms, her flowers,
And, more than all, the maidens fair
That fill this land of ours,

Are still in rich perfection,

As our fathers found them first,
But our sons are gentle now no more,
And all the land is cursed.

Wild thoughts are in our bosoms

And a savage discontent;
We love no more the life we led,
The music, nor the scent;

The merry dance delights us not,
As in that better time,
When, glad, in happy bands we met,
With spirits like our clime.
And all the social loveliness,

And all the smile is gone,

That link'd the spirits of our youth,
And made our people one.
They smile no more together,
As in that earlier day,
Our maidens sigh in loneliness,
Who once were always gay;
And though our skies are bright,
And our sun looks down as then-
Ah, me! the thought is sad I feel,
We shall never smile again.

FEW persons in private life, who have died so young, have been mourned by so many warm friends as was JONATHAN LAWRENCE. Devoted to a profession which engaged nearly all his time, and regardless of literary distinction, his productions would have been known only to his associates, had not a wiser appreciation of their merits withdrawn them from the obscurity to which his own low estimate had consigned them.

He was born in New York, in November, 1807, and, after the usual preparatory studies, entered Columbia College, at which he was graduated before he was fifteen years of age. He soon after became a student in the office of Mr. W. SLOSSON, an eminent lawyer, where he gained much regard by the assiduity with which he prosecuted his studies, the premature ripeness of his judgment, and the undeviating purity and honourableness of his life. On being admitted to the bar, he entered into a partnership with Mr. SLOSSON, and daily added confirmation to the promise of his probational career, until he was suddenly called to a better life, in April, 1833.

The industry with which he attended to his professional duties did not prevent him from giving considerable attention to general literature; and in moments to use his own language

"Stolen from hours I should have tied
To musty volumes at my side,
Given to hours that sweetly woo'd
My heart from study's solitude,”-

he produced many poems and prose sketches of considerable merit. These, with one or two exceptions, were intended not for publication, but as tributes of private friendship, or as contributions to the exercises of a literary society-still in existence of which he was for several years an activo member. After his death, in compliance with a request by this society, his brother made a collection of his writings, of which a very small edition was printed, for private circulation. Their character is essentially meditative. Many of them are devotional, and all are distinguished for the purity of thought which guided the life of the

man.

THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT.

MANY a sad, sweet thought have I,
Many a passing, sunny gleam,
Many a bright tear in mine eye,

Many a wild and wandering dream,
Stolen from hours I should have tied
To musty volumes by my side,
Given to hours that sweetly woo'd
My heart from study's solitude.

Oft, when the south wind's dancing free
Over the earth and in the sky,

And the flowers peep softly out to see

The frolic Spring as she wantons by;

When the breeze and beam like thieves come in, To steal me away, I deem it sin

To slight their voice, and away I'm straying
Over the hills and vales a-Maying.

Then can I hear the earth rejoice,
Happier than man may ever be;
Every fountain hath then a voice,

That sings of its glad festivity;.
For it hath burst the chains that bound
Its currents dead in the frozen ground,
And, flashing away in the sun, has gone
Singing, and singing, and singing on.
Autumn hath sunset hours, and then
Many a musing mood I cherish;

Many a hue of fancy, when

The hues of earth are about to perish;
Clouds are there, and brighter, I ween,
Hath real sunset never seen,
Sad as the faces of friends that die,
And beautiful as their memory.

Love hath its thoughts, we cannot keep,
Visions the mind may not control,
Waking, as fancy does in sleep,

The secret transports of the soul;
Faces and forms are strangely mingled,
Till one by one they 're slowly singled,
To the voice, and lip, and eye of her
I worship like an idolater.

Many a big, proud tear have I,

When from my sweet and roaming track, From the green earth and misty sky,

And spring, and love, I hurry back;
Then what a dismal, dreary gloom
Settles upon my loathed room,
Darker to every thought and sense
Than if they had never travell'd thence.
Yet, I have other thoughts, that cheer
The toilsome day and lonely night,
And many a scene and hope appear,

And almost make me gay and bright.
Honour and fame that I would win,
Though every toil that yet hath been
Were doubly borne, and not an hour
Were rightly hued by Fancy's power

And, though I sometimes sigh to think

Of earth and heaven, and wind and sea, And know that the cup which others drink Shall never be brimm'd by me; That many a joy must be urtasted, And many a glorious breeze be wasted, Yet would not, if I dared, repine,

That toil, and study, and care are mine.

SEA-SONG.

OVER the far blue ocean-wave,

On the wild winds I flee,

Yet every thought of my constant heart
Is winging, love, to thee;

For each foaming leap of our gallant ship
Had barb'd a pang for me,

Had not thy form, through sun and storm,
Been my only memory.

O, the sea-mew's wings are fleet and fast,
As he dips in the dancing spray;
But fleeter and faster the thoughts, I ween,
Of dear ones far away!

And lovelier, too, than yon rainbow's hue,
As it lights the tinted sea,

Are the daylight dreams and sunny gleams
Of the heart that throbs for thee.

And when moon and stars are asleep on the wa*es,
Their dancing tops among,

And the sailor is guiling the long watch-hour
By the music of his song;

When our sail is white in the dark midnight,
And its shadow is on the sea,

O, never knew hall such festival
As my fond heart holds with thee!

LOOK ALOFT.

In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale Are around and above, if thy footing should fail, If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, "Look aloft," and be firm, and be fearless of heart.

If the friend, who embraced in prosperity's glow, With a smile for each joy and a tear for each wo, Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are array'd,

"Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall fade.

Should the visions which hope spreads in light to thine eye,

Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, Then turn, and, through tears of repentant regret, "Look aloft" to the sun that is never to set.

Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart,
The wife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart,
"Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb,
To that soil where "affection is ever in bloom."

Yet, lovely May! Teach her whose eyes shall rest upon this rhyme To spurn the gilded mockeries of time,

The heartless pomp that beckons to betray, And keep, as thou wilt find, that heart each year, Pure as thy dawn, and as thy sunset clear.

And let me too, sweet May!

Let thy fond votary see,

As fade thy beauties, all the vanity

Of this world's pomp; then teach, that though decay

In his short winter bury beauty's frame,

In fairer worlds the soul shall break his sway, Another spring shall bloom, eternal and the same.

JAMES OTIS ROCKWELL was born in Lebanon, an agricultural town in Connecticut, in 1807. At an early age he was apprenticed to a printer, in Utica, and in his sixteenth year he began to write verses for the newspapers. Two years afterward he went to New York, and subsequently to Boston, in each of which cities he laboured as a journeyman compositor. He had now acquired considerable reputation by his poetical writings, and was engaged as associate editor of the "Statesman," an old and influential journal published in Boston, with which, I believe, he continued until 1829, when he became the conductor of the Providence Patriot," with which he was connected at the time of his death.

He was poor, and in his youth he had been left nearly to his own direction. He chose to learn the business of printing, because he thought it would afford him opportunities to improve his mind; and his education was acquired by diligent study during the leisure hours of his apprenticeship. When he removed to Providence, it became necessary for him to take an active part in the discussion of political questions. He felt but little interest in public affairs, and shrank instinctively from the strife of partisanship; but it seemed the only avenue to competence and reputation, and he embarked in it with apparent ardour. Journalism, in the hands of able and honourable men, is the noblest of callings; in the hands of the ignorant and mercenary, it is among the meanest. There

are at all times connected with the press, persons of the baser sort, who derive their support and chief enjoyment from ministering to the worst pas sions; and by some of this class ROCKWELL'S private character was assailed, and he was taunted with his obscure parentage, defective education, and former vocation, as if to have elevated his position in society, by perseverance and the force of mind, were a ground of accusation. He had too little energy in his nature to regard such assaults with the indifference they merited; and complained in some of his letters that they "robbed him of rest and of all pleasure." With constantly increasing reputation, however, he continued his editorial labours until the summer of 1831, when, at the early age of twenty-four years, he was suddenly called to a better world. He felt unwell, one morning, and, in a brief paragraph, apologized for the apparent neglect of his gazette. The next number of it wore the signs of mourning for his death. A friend of ROCKWELL'S, in a notice of him published in the "Southern Literary Messenger," mentions as the immediate cause of his death, that

he "was troubled at the thought of some obliga

*Reverend CHARLES W. EVEREST, of Meriden, Connecticut.

tion which, from not receiving money then due to him, he was unable to meet, and shrank from the prospect of a debtor's prison." That it was in some way a result of his extreme sensitiveness, was generally believed among his friends at the time. WHITTIER, who was then editor of the "New England Weekly Review," soon after wrote the following lines to his memory:

"The turf is smooth above him! and this rain
Will moisten the rent roots, and summon back
The perishing life of its green-bladed grass,
And the crush'd flower will lift its head again
Smilingly unto heaven, as if it kept

No vigil with the dead. Well-it is meet
That the green grass should tremble, and the flowers
Blow wild about his resting place. His mind
Was in itself a flower but half-disclosed--
A bud of blessed promise which the storm
Visited rudely, and the passer by
Smote down in wantonness.
That it hath found a dwelling, where the sun
Of a more holy clime will visit it,

But we may trust

And the pure dews of mercy will descend,
Through Heaven's own atmosphere, upon its head.
"His form is now before me, with no trace
Of death in its fine lineaments, and there
Is a faint crimson on his youthful cheek,
And his free lip is softening with the smile
Which in his eye is kindling. I can feel
The parting pressure of his hand, and hear
His last 'God bless you!' Strange-that he is thero
Distinct before me like a breathing thing,
Even when I know that he is with the dead,
And that the damp earth hides him. I would not
Think of him otherwise-his image tives
Within my memory as he seem'd before
The curse of blighted feeling, and the toil
And fever of an uncongenial strife, had lett
Their traces on his aspect. Peace to him!
He wrestled nobly with the weariness
And trials of our being-smiling on,
While poison mingled with his springs of life,
And wearing a calm brow, while on his heart
Anguish was resting like a hand of fire-
Until at last the agony of thought
Grew insupportable, and madness came
Darkly upon him,-and the sufferer died!

"Nor died he unlamented! To his grave
The beautiful and gifted shall go up,
And muse upon the sleeper. And young lips
Shall murmur in the broken tones of grief-
His own sweet melodies-and if the ear
Of the freed spirit heedeth aught beneath
The brightness of its new inheritance,
It may be joyful to the parted one

To feel that earth remembers him in love!"

The specimens of ROCKWELL's poetry which have fallen under my notice show him to have possessed considerable fancy and deep feeling His imagery is not always well chosen, and his versification is sometimes defective; but his thoughts pieces is striking. His later poems are his best, are often original, and the general effect of his and probably he would have produced works of much merit had he lived to a maturer age.

THE SUM OF LIFE.

SEARCHER of gold, whose days and nights
All waste away in anxious care,
Estranged from all of life's delights,
Unlearn'd in all that is most fair-
Who sailest not with easy glide,
But delvest in the depths of tide,

And strugglest in the foam;

O! come and view this land of graves,
Death's northern sea of frozen waves,

And mark thee out thy home.

Lover of woman, whose sad heart

Wastes like a fountain in the sun,
Clings most, where most its pain does start,
Dies by the light it lives upon;

Come to the land of graves; for here
Are beauty's smile, and beauty's tear,
Gather'd in holy trust;

Here slumber forms as fair as those
Whose cheeks, now living, shame the rose,
Their glory turn'd to dust.

Lover of fame, whose foolish thought

Steals onward o'er the wave of time,
Tell me, what goodness hath it brought,
Atoning for that restless crime?

The spirit-mansion desolate,
And open to the storms of fate,

The absent soul in fear;

Bring home thy thoughts and come with me,
And see where all thy pride must be:
Searcher of fame, look here!

And, warrior, thou with snowy plume,
That goest to the bugle's call,
Come and look down; this lonely tomb

Shall hold thee and thy glories all:
The haughty brow, the manly frame,
The daring deeds, the sounding fame,
Are trophies but for death!
And millions who have toil'd like thee,
Are stay'd, and here they sleep; and see,
Does glory lend them breath?

TO ANN.

THOU wert as a lake that lieth
In a bright and sunny way;

I was as a bird that flieth

O'er it on a pleasant day;

When I look'd upon thy features

Presence then some feeling lent;

But thou knowest, most false of creatures,
With thy form thy image went.

With a kiss my vow was greeted,
As I knelt before thy shrine;

But I saw that kiss repeated
On another lip than mine;
And a solemn vow was spoken

That thy heart should not be changed;
But that binding vow was broken,
And thy spirit was estranged.

I could blame thee for awaking

Thoughts the world will but deride; Calling out, and then forsaking

Flowers the winter wind will chide; Guiling to the midway ocean

Barks that tremble by the shore;
But I hush the sad emotion,
And will punish thee no more.

THE LOST AT SEA.

WIFE, who in thy deep devotion
Puttest up a prayer for one
Sailing on the stormy ocean,

Hope no more-his course is done. Dream not, when upon thy pillow,

That he slumbers by thy side; For his corse beneath the billow Heaveth with the restless tide.

Children, who, as sweet flowers growing,
Laugh amid the sorrowing rains,
Know ye many clouds are throwing
Shadows on your sire's remains?
Where the hoarse, gray surge is rolling
With a mountain's motion on,
Dream ye that its voice is tolling

For your father lost and gone!

When the sun look'd on the water,
As a hero on his grave,
Tinging with the hue of slaughter
Every blue and leaping wave,
Under the majestic occan,

Where the giant current roll'd,
Slept thy sire, without emotion,
Sweetly by a beam of gold;

And the silent sunbeams slanted,

Wavering through the crystal deep, Till their wonted splendours haunted Those shut eyelids in their sleep. Sands, like crumbled silver gleaming, Sparkled through his raven hair; But the sleep that knows no dreaming Bound him in its silence there.

So we left him; and to tell thee
Of our sorrow and thine own,
Of the wo that then befell thee,
Come we weary and alone.
That thine eye is quickly shaded,

That thy heart-blood wildly flows, That thy cheek's clear hue is faded, Are the fruits of these new woes.

Children, whose meek eyes, inquiring
Linger on your mother's face-
Know ye that she is expiring,
That ye are an orphan race?
Gon be with you on the morrow,
Father, mother, both no more;
One within a grave of sorrow,
One upon the ocean's floor!