XXIX.

Up to the cope careering swift,
In breathless motion fast,
Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,
Or the sea-roc rides the blast,
The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
The sphered moon is past,
The earth but seems a tiny blot

On a sheet of azure cast.

O! it was sweet, in the clear moonlight,
To tread the starry plain of even,

To meet the thousand eyes of night,

And feel the cooling breath of heaven!
But the Elfin made no stop or stay
Till he came to the bank of the milky-way,
Then he check'd his courser's foot,

And watch'd for the glimpse of the planet-shoot.

XXX.

Sudden along the snowy tide

That swell'd to meet their footsteps' fall,
The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide,
Attired in sunset's crimson pall;
Around the Fay they weave the dance,
They skip before him on the plain,
And one has taken his wasp-sting lance,
And one upholds his bridle-rein;
With warblings wild they lead him on
To where, through clouds of amber seen,
Studded with stars, resplendent shone

The palace of the sylphid queen.
Its spiral columns, gleaming bright,
Were streamers of the northern light;
Its curtain's light and lovely flush
Was of the morning's rosy blush,
And the ceiling fair that rose aboon
The white and feathery fleece of noon.

But, O! how fair the shape that lay
Beneath a rainbow bending bright;

She seem'd to the entranced Fay

The loveliest of the forms of light;
Her mantle was the purple roll'd
At twilight in the west afar;

"T was tied with threads of dawning gold,

And button'd with a sparkling star.

Her face was like the lily roon

That veils the vestal planet's hue;

Her eyes, two beamlets from the moon,

Set floating in the welkin blue.

Her hair is like the sunny beam,

And the diamond gems which round it gleam
Are the pure drops of dewy even
That ne'er have left their native heaven.

XXXII.

She raised her eyes to the wondering sprite, And they leap'd with smiles, for well I ween Never before in the bowers of light

Had the form of an earthly Fay been seen. Long she look'd in his tiny face;

Long with his butterfly cloak she play'd; She smooth'd his wings of azure lace,

And handled the tassel of his blade;

And as he told in accents low
The story of his love and wo,

She felt new pains in her bosom rise,
And the tear-drop started in her eyes.
And "O, sweet spirit of earth," she cried,
"Return no more to your woodland height,
But ever here with me abide

In the land of everlasting light!
Within the fleecy drift we'll lie,

We'll hang upon the rainbow's rim; And all the jewels of the sky

Around thy brow shall brightly beam! And thou shalt bathe thee in the stream That rolls its whitening foam aboon, And ride upon the lightning's gleam, And dance upon the orbed moon! We'll sit within the Pleiad ring,

We'll rest on Orion's starry belt,
And I will bid my sylphs to sing

The song that makes the dew-mist melt;
Their harps are of the umber shade,
That hides the blush of waking day,
And every gleamy string is made

Of silvery moonshine's lengthen'd ray;
And thou shalt pillow on my breast,

While heavenly breathings float around,
And, with the sylphs of ether blest,
Forget the joys of fairy ground."

XXXIII.

She was lovely and fair to see
And the elfin's heart beat fitfully;
But lovelier far, and still more fair,
The earthly form imprinted there;
Naught he saw in the heavens above
Was half so dear as his mortal love,
For he thought upon her looks so meek,
And he thought of the light flush on her cheek;
Never again might he bask and lie

On that sweet cheek and moonlight eye,
But in his dreams her form to see,
To clasp her in his revery,

To think upon his virgin bride,

Was worth all heaven, and earth beside.

XXXIV.

"Lady," he cried, "I have sworn to-night, On the word of a fairy-knight,

To do my sentence-task aright;
My honour scarce is free from stain,

I may not soil its snows again;
Betide me weal, betide me wo,

Its mandate must be answer'd now."
Her bosom heaved with many a sigh,
The tear was in her drooping eye;
But she led him to the palace gate,

And call'd the sylphs who hover'd there,
And bade them fly and bring him straight
Of clouds condensed a sable car.
With charm and spell she bless'd it there,
From all the fiends of upper air;
Then round him cast the shadowy shroud,
And tied his steed behind the cloud;
And press'd his hand as she bade him fly
Far to the verge of the northern sky,

For by its wane and wavering light There was a star would fall to-night.

XXXV.

Borne afar on the wings of the blast,
Northward away, he speeds him fast,
And his courser follows the cloudy wain
Till the hoof-strokes fall like pattering rain.
The clouds roll backward as he flies,
Each flickering star behind him lies,
And he has reach'd the northern plain,
And back'd his fire-fly steed again,
Ready to follow in its flight
The streaming of the rocket-light.

XXXVI.

The star is yet in the vault of heaven,
But it rocks in the summer gale;
And now 'tis fitful and uneven,

And now 'tis deadly pale;

And now 'tis wrapp'd in sulphur-smoke,
And quench'd is its rayless beam,
And now with a rattling thunder-stroke
It bursts in flash and flame.

As swift as the glance of the arrowy lance
That the storm-spirit flings from high,
The star-shot flew o'er the welkin blue,

As it fell from the sheeted say.

As swift as the wind in its trail behind
The Elfin gallops along,

The fiends of the clouds are bellowing loud,
But the sylphid charm is strong;
He gallops unhurt in the shower of fire,

While the cloud-fiends fly from the blaze;
He watches each flake till its sparks expire,
And rides in the light of its rays.

But he drove his steed to the lightning's speed,
And caught a glimmering spark;
Then wheel'd around to the fairy ground,
And sped through the midnight dark.

Ouphe and Goblin! Imp and Sprite!
Elf of eve! and starry Fay!
Ye that love the moon's soft light,
Hither-hither wend your way;
Twine ye in a jocund ring,
Sing and trip it merrily,
Hand to hand, and wing to wing,
Round the wild witch-hazel tree.

Hail the wanderer again

With dance and song, and lute and lyre, Pure his wing and strong his chain,

And doubly bright his fairy fire. Twine ye in an airy round,

Brush the dew and print the lea; Skip and gambol, hop and bound, Round the wild witch-hazel tree.

The beetle guards our holy ground,
He flies about the haunted place,

And if mortal there be found,

He hums in his ears and flaps his face;

The leaf-harp sounds our roundelay,

The owlet's eyes our lanterns be;
Thus we sing, and dance, and play,
Round the wild witch-hazel tree.

But, hark! from tower on tree-top high,
The sentry-elf his call has made:
A streak is in the eastern sky,

Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade!
The hill-tops gleam in morning's spring,
The sky-lark shakes his dappled wing,
The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn,
The cock has crow'd, and the Fays are gone.

BRONX.

I sat me down upon a green bank-side, Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river, Whose waters seem'd unwillingly to glide,

Like parting friends, who linger while they sever; Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready, Backward they wind their way in many a wistful

eddy.

Gray o'er my head the yellow-vested willow

Ruffled its hoary top in the fresh breezes, Glancing in light, like spray on a green billow,

Or the fine frostwork which young winter freezes; When first his power in infant pastime trying, Congeals sad autumn's tears on the dead branches lying.

From rocks around hung the loose ivy dangling,
And in the clefts sumach of liveliest green,
Bright ising-stars the little beech was spangling,
The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen
Shone like a fairy crown, enchased and beaded,
Left on some morn, when light flash'd in their eyes
unheeded.

The humbird shook his sun-touch'd wings around,
The bluefinch caroll'd in the still retreat;
The antic squirrel caper'd on the ground

Where lichens made a carpet for his feet; Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle Shot up in glimmering sparks his red fin's tiny twinkle.

There were dark cedars, with loose, mossy tresses, White-powder'd dog trees, and stiff hollies flaunting

Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses,

Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden Shining beneath dropp'd lids the evening of her wedding.

The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn, Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em, The winding of the merry locust's horn,

The glad spring gushing from the rock's barc

bosom:

Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds

excelling,

O! 'twas a ravishing spot, form'd for a poet's

dwelling.

And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand

Again in the dull world of earthly blindness? Pain'd with the pressure of unfriendly hands,

Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness? Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude, To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude!

Yet I will look upon thy face again,

My own romantic Bronx, and it will be A face more pleasant than the face of men.

Thy waves are old companions, I shall see A well-remember'd form in each old tree, And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

I.

WHEN Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurl'd her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She call'd her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

II.

Majestic monarch of the cloud,

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

III.

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

Has dimm'd the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn; And as his springing steps advance, Catch war and vengeance from the glance. And when the cannon-mouthings loud

Heave in wild wreathes the battle-shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

IV.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,

Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendours fly In triumph o'er his closing eye.

V.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given;
The stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

TO SARAH.

I.

ONE happy year has fled, SALL,
Since you were all my own;

The leaves have felt the autumn blight,

The wintry storm has blown.

We heeded not the cold blast,

Nor the winter's icy air;

For we found our climate in the heart, And it was summer there.

II.

The summer sun is bright, SALL,
The skies are pure in hue;

But clouds will sometimes sadden them,

And dim their lovely blue;

And clouds may come to us, SALL,

But sure they will not stay; For there's a spell in fond hearts To chase their gloom away.

III.

In sickness and in sorrow

Thine eyes were on me still,
And there was comfort in each glance
To charm the sense of ill;

And were they absent now, SALL,
I'd seek my bed of pain,

And bless each pang that gave me back
Those looks of love again.

IV.

O, pleasant is the welcome kiss,

When day's dull round is o'er, And sweet the music of the step

That meets me at the door. Though worldly cares may visit us, I reck not when they fall, While I have thy kind lips, my SALL, To smile away them all.

THE author of "Fanny," "Burns," "Marco Bozzaris," etc., was born at Guilford in Connecticut, in August, 1795. In his eighteenth year he removed to the city of New York, where he has since resided. It is said that he evinced a taste for poetry, and wrote verses, at a very early period; but the oldest of his effusions that I have seen are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and "Croaker & Co.," published in the New York Evening Post, in 1819. In the production of these pleasant satires* he was associated with Doctor DRAKE, the author of the "Culprit Fay," a man of brilliant wit and delicate fancy, with whom he was long intimate. DRAKE died in 1820, and his friend soon after wrote for the New York Review, then edited by BRYANT, the lines to his memory, beginning—

"Green be the turf above thee,

Friend of my better days;
None knew thee but to love thee,

Nor named thec but to praise."

Near the close of the year 1819, HALLECK published "Fanny," his longest poem, which has since passed through numerous editions, though its authorship has never been publicly avowed. It is a humorous satire, containing from twelve to fifteen hundred lines, and was written and printed

in three weeks from its commencement.

In 1827 he published a small volume, containing "Alnwick Castle," Marco Bozzaris," and a few other pieces, which had previously appeared in various miscellanies; and in 1836, an edition of all his serious poems then written, including "Burns," "Red Jacket," "The Field of the Grounded Arms," and those before alluded to. The last and most complete collection of his works appeared early in the present year.

Mr. HALLECK is the only one of our poets who possesses a decided local popularity. With the subjects of "Fanny," the "Croakers," and some of his other pieces, every person in New York is in some degree acquainted, and his name is cherished in that city with fondness and enthusiasm. His humorous poems are marked with an uncommon ease of versification, a natural, unstudied flow of language, and a careless playfulness and felicity of jest. "Sometimes," remarks Mr. BRY

ANT, "in the midst of a strain of harmonious

diction, and soft and tender imagery, he surprises

by an irresistible stroke of ridicule, as if he took pleasure in showing the reader that the poetical vision he had raised was but a cheat. Sometimes,

The curiosity of the town was greatly excited to know by whom these pieces had been written, and they were ascribed, at different times, to various literary gentlemen, while the real authors proved, for a long while, entirely unsuspected.-WILLIAM LEGGETT.-The Critic.

25

with that aerial facility which is his peculiar endowment, he accumulates graceful and agreeable images in a strain of irony so fine, that did not the subject compel the reader to receive it as irony, he would take it for a beautiful passage of serious poetry-so beautiful, that he is tempted to regret that he is not in earnest, and that phrases so exquisitely chosen, and poetic colouring so brilliant, should be employed to embellish subjects to which they do not properly belong. At other times, he produces the effect of wit by dexterous allusion to contemporaneous events, introduced as illustrations of the main subject, with all the unconscious gracefulness of the most animated and familiar conversation. He delights in ludicrous contrasts, produced by bringing the nobleness of the ideal world into comparison with the homeliness of the actual; the beauty and grace of nature with the awkwardness of art. He venerates the past and laughs at the present. He looks at them through a medium which lends to the former the charm of romance, and exaggerates the deformity of the latter. His poetry, whether serious or sprightly, is remarkable for the melody of the numbers. It is not the melody of monotonous and strictly regular measurement. His verse is constructed to please an ear naturally fine, and accustomed to a range of metrical modulation. It is as different from that painfully-balanced versification, that uniform succession of iambics, closing the scene with the couplet, which some writers practise, and some critics praise, as the note of the thrush is unlike that of the cuckoo. He is familiar with those general rules and principles which are the basis of metrical harmony; and his own unerring taste has taught him the exceptions which a proper attention to variety demands. He understands that the rivulet is made musical by obstructions in its channel. In no poet can be found passages which flow with more sweet and liquid smoothness; but he knows very well that to make this smoothness perceived, and to prevent it from degenerating into monotony, occasional roughness must be interposed."

HALLECK's serious poems are as admirable as his satirical. There are few finer martial lyrics. than "Marco Bozzaris;" "6 Burns" and "Red Jacket" are distinguished for manly vigour of thought and language; and several of his shorter pieces have rarely been excelled in melodiousness of versification or quiet beauty of imagery.

HALLECK has generally been engaged in commercial pursuits. He was once in "the cotton trade, and sugar line;" but I believe he has for several years been the principal superintendent of the affairs of the great capitalist, Mr. ASTOR. He is a bachelor, and is as popular among his friends for his social qualities, as he is with the world as a poet.

R

193

BURNS.

TO A ROSE, BROUGHT FROM NEAR ALLOWAY KIRK, IN AYR SHIRE, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1822.

WILD rose of Alloway! my thanks,

Thou mindst me of that autumn noon, When first we met upon "the banks And braes o' bonny Doon."

Like thine, beneath the thorn tree's bough, My sunny hour was glad and brief, We've cross'd the winter sea, and thou Art wither'd-flower and leaf.

And will not thy death-doom be mine-
The doom of all things wrought of clay-
And wither'd my life's leaf, like thine,
Wild rose of Alloway!

Not so his memory, for whose sake

My bosom bore thee far and long,
His, who an humbler flower could make
Immortal as his song.

The memory of BURNS-a name

That calls, when brimm'd her festal cup, A nation's glory, and her shame, In silent sadness up.

A nation's glory-be the rest
Forgot-she's canonized his mind;
And it is joy to speak the best
We may of human kind.

I've stood beside the cottage-bed

Where the bard-peasant first drew breath: A straw-thatch'd roof above his head, A straw-wrought couch beneath. And I have stood beside the pile,

His monument-that tells to heaven
The homage of earth's proudest isle,
To that bard-peasant given.

Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot,
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour;
And know, however low his lot,

A poet's pride and power.

The pride that lifted BURNS from earth,
The power that gave a child of song
Ascendency o'er rank and birth,

The rich, the brave, the strong;
And if despondency weigh down

Thy spirit's fluttering pinions then, Despair-thy name is written on

The roll of common men.

There have been loftier themes than his,
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres,
And lays lit up with Poesy's

Purer and holier fires:

Yet read the names that know not death;
Few nobler ones than BURNS are there;
And few have won a greener wreath
Than that which binds his hair.

His is that language of the heart,

In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek;

And his that music, to whose tone

The common pulse of man keeps time, In cot or castle's mirth or moan,

In cold or sunny clime.

And who hath heard his song, nor knelt
Before its spell with willing knee,
And listen'd, and believed, and felt
The poet's mastery.

O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm,

O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, O'er Passion's moments, bright and warm, O'er Reason's dark, cold hours;

On fields where brave men "die or do,"

In halls where rings the banquet's mirth, Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, From throne to cottage hearth;

What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed, What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hac wi' WALLACE bled," Or "Auld Lang Syne" is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,

Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise, And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay

Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,
All passions in our frames of clay
Come thronging at his call.
Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee,
Wit, pathos, poetry, are there,
And death's sublimity.

And BURNS-though brief the race he ran,
Though rough and dark the path he trod-
Lived-died-in form and soul a man,
The image of his God.

Though care, and pain, and want, and wo,
With wounds that only death could heal,
Tortures-the poor alone can know,
The proud alone can feel;

He kept his honesty and truth,

His independent tongue and pen, And moved, in manhood and in youth, Pride of his fellow-men.

Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,
A hate of tyrant and of knave,

A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward, and of slave;

A kind, true heart, a spirit high,

That could not fear and would not bow, Were written in his manly eye,

And on his manly brow.