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THE MYRTLE AND STEEL.

ONE bumper yet, gallants, at parting,
One toast ere we arm for the fight;
Fill round, each to her he loves dearest-

"T is the last he may pledge her, to-night.
Think of those who of old at the banquet
Did their weapons in garlands conceal,
The patriot heroes who hallowed

The entwining of myrtle and steel!
Then hey for the myrtle and steel,
Then ho for the myrtle and steel,

Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid,
Fill round to the myrtle and steel!

"Tis in moments like this, when each bosom

With its highest-toned feeling is warm, Like the music that's said from the ocean To rise ere the gathering storm, That her image around us should hover, Whose name, though our lips ne'er reveal, We may breathe mid the foam of a bumper, As we drink to the myrtle and steel. Then hey for the myrtle and steel, Then ho for the myrtle and steel,

Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid,
Fill round to the myrtle and steel!

Now mount, for our bugle is ringing
To marshal the host for the fray,
Where proudly our banner is flinging
Its folds o'er the battle-array;
Yet gallants-one moment-remember,

When your sabres the death-blow would deal,
That MERCY wears her shape who's cherish'd
By lads of the myrtle and steel.
Then hey for the myrtle and steel,
Then ho for the myrtle and steel,

Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid, Fill round to the myrtle and steel!

EPITAPH UPON A DOG.

Ax ear that caught my slightest tone,
In kindness or in anger spoken;
An eye that ever watch'd my own,
In vigils death alone has broken;
Its changeless, ceaseless, and unbought
Affection to the last revealing;
Beaming almost with human thought,
And more-far more than human feeling!

Can such in endless sleep be chill'd,

And mortal pride disdain to sorrow, Because the pulse that here was still'd May wake to no immortal morrow? Can faith, devotedness, and love,

That seem to humbler creatures given To tell us what we owe above,

The types of what is due to Heaven,

Can these be with the things that were,
Things cherish'd-but no more returning,
And leave behind no trace of care,

No shade that speaks a moment's mourning?

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BLAME not the bowl-the fruitful bowl,
Whence wit, and mirth, and music spring,
And amber drops elysian roll,

To bathe young Love's delighted wing.
What like the grape OSIRIS gave
Makes rigid age so lithe of limb?
Illumines memory's tearful wave,

And teaches drowning hope to swim?
Did ocean from his radiant arms

To earth another VENUS give,
He ne'er could match the mellow charms
That in the breathing beaker live.

Like burning thoughts which lovers hoard,
In characters that mock the sight,
Till some kind liquid, o'er them pour'd,

Brings all their hidden warmth to lightAre feelings bright, which, in the cup,

Though graven deep, appear but dim, Till, fill'd with glowing BACCHUS up, They sparkle on the foaming brim. Each drop upon the first you pour

Brings some new tender thought to life, And, as you fill it more and more,

The last with fervid soul is rife.

The island fount, that kept of old

Its fabled path beneath the sea, And fresh, as first from earth it roll'd, From earth again rose joyously: Bore not beneath the bitter brine

Each flower upon its limpid tide, More faithfully than in the wine

Our hearts toward each other glide. Then drain the cup, and let thy soul Learn, as the draught delicious flies, Like pearls in the Egyptian's bowl, Truth beaming at the bottom lies.

A HUNTER'S MATIN.
Ur, comrades, up! the morn's awake
Upon the mountain side,

The curlew's wing hath swept the lake,
And the deer has left the tangled brake,

To drink from the limpid tide.
Up, comrades, up! the mead-lark's note
And the plover's cry o'er the prairie float;
The squirrel, he springs from his covert now,
To prank it away on the chestnut bough,
Where the oriole's pendant nest, high up,

Is rock'd on the swaying trees, While the humbird sips from the harebell's cup, As it bends to the morning breeze. Up, comrades, up! our shallops grate Upon the pebbly strand,

And our stalwart hounds impatient wait

To spring from the huntsman's hand.

SPARKLING AND BRIGHT.

SPARKLING and bright in liquid light

Does the wine our goblets gleam in,
With hue as red as the rosy bed

Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

O! if Mirth might arrest the flight

Of Time through Life's dominions,
We here a while would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,

To drink to-night with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

Bit since delight can't tempt the wight,
Nor fond regret delay him,

Nor Love himself can hold the elf,
Nor sober Friendship stay him,

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

SEEK NOT TO UNDERSTAND HER.

WHY seek her heart to understand,
If but enough thou knowest
To prove that all thy love, like sand,
Upon the wind thou throwest ?
The ill thou makest out at last
Doth but reflect the bitter past,
While all the good thou learnest yet,
But makes her harder to forget.
What matters all the nobleness

Which in her breast resideth,
And what the warmth and tenderness
Her mien of coldness hideth,
If but ungenerous thoughts prevail
When thou her bosom wouldst assail,
While tenderness and warmth doth ne'er,
By any chance, toward thee appear.
Sum up each token thou hast won
Of kindred feeling there-
How few for Hope, to build upon,

How many for Despair!
And if e'er word or look declareth
Love or aversion, which she beareth,
While of the first, no proof thou hast,
How many are there of the last!
Then strive no more to understand

Her heart, of whom thou knowest
Enough to prove thy love like sand

Upon the wind thou throwest:
The ill thou makest out at last
Doth but reflect the bitter past,
While all the good thou learnest yet
But makes her harder to forget.

ASK NOT WHY I SHOULD LOVE HER.

Ask me not why I should love her:
Look upon those soul-full eyes!
Look while mirth or feeling move her,

And see there how sweetly rise
Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast,
Which is of innocence the nest-
Which, though each joy were from it shred,
By truth would still be tenanted!

See, from those sweet windows peeping,
Emotions tender, bright, and pure,
And wonder not the faith I'm keeping
Every trial can endure!

Wonder not that looks so winning
Still for me new ties are spinning;
Wonder not that heart so true
Keeps mine from ever changing too.

SHE LOVES, BUT 'TIS NOT ME.

SHE loves, but 't is not me she loves:

Not me on whom she ponders, When, in some dream of tenderness,

Her truant fancy wanders. The forms that flit her visions through Are like the shapes of old, Where tales of prince and paladin

On tapestry are told.

Man may not hope her heart to win, Be his of common mould.

But I-though spurs are won no more
Where herald's trump is pealing,
Nor thrones carved out for lady fair

Where steel-clad ranks are wheelingI loose the falcon of my hopes

Upon as proud a flight

As those who hawk'd at high renown,
In song-ennobled fight.

If daring, then, true love may crown,
My love she must requite.

THY SMILES.

"Tis hard to share her smiles with many! And while she is so dear to me,

To fear that I, far less than any,

Call out her spirit's witchery!

To find my inmost heart when near her
Trembling at every glance and tone,
And feel the while each charm grow dearer
That will not beam for me alone.

How can she thus, sweet spendthrift, squander
The treasures one alone can prize!
How can her eyes to all thus wander,

When I but live in those sweet eyes!
Those syren tones so lightly spoken
Cause many a heart I know to thrill;
But mine, and only mine, till broken,
In every pulse must answer still.

LOVE AND POLITICS.

A BIRTH-DAY MEDITATION.

ANOTHER year! alas, how swift,

ALINDA, do these years flit by,

Like shadows thrown by clouds that drift
In flakes along a wintry sky.
Another year! another leaf

Is turn'd within life's volume brief,
And yet not one bright page appears
Of mine within that book of years.

There are some moments when I feel
As if it should not yet be so;
As if the years that from me steal

Had not a right alike to go,
And lose themselves in Time's dark sea,
Unbuoy'd up by aught from me;
Aught that the future yet might claim
To rescue from their wreck a name.

But it was love that taught me rhyme,
And it was thou that taught me love;
And if I in this idle chime

Of words a useless sluggard prove,
It was thine eyes the habit nurs'd,
And in their light I learn'd it first.
It is thine eyes which, day by day,
Consume my time and heart away.

And often bitter thoughts arise

Of what I've lost in loving thee, And in my breast my spirit dies,

The gloomy cloud around to see, Of baffled hopes and ruined powers Of mind, and miserable hoursOf self-upbraiding, and despairOf heart, too strong and fierce to bear.

"Why, what a peasant slave am I,"

To bow my mind and bend my knee To woman in idolatry,

Who takes no thought of mine or me.
O, Gop! that I could breathe my life
On battle-plain in charging strife—
In one mad impulse pour my soul
Far beyond passion's base control.

Thus do my jarring thoughts revolve
Their gather'd causes of offence,
Until I in my heart resolve

To dash thine angel image thence;
When some bright look, some accent kind,
Comes freshly in my heated mind,
And scares, like newly-flushing day,
These brooding thoughts like owls away.

And then for hours and hours I muse

On things that might, yet will not be, Till, one by one, my feelings lose

Their passionate intensity, And steal away in visions soft, Which on wild wing those feelings waft Far, far beyond the drear domain Of Reason and her freezing reign.

And now again from their gay track I call, as I despondent sit,

Once more these truant fancies back,

Which round my brain so idly flit; And some I treasure, some I blush To own-and these I try to crushAnd some, too wild for reason's reign, I loose in idle rhyme again.

And even thus my moments fly,

And even thus my hours decay, And even thus my years slip by,

My life itself is wiled away; But distant still the mounting hope, The burning wish with men to cope In aught that minds of iron mould May do or dare for fame or gold. Another year! another year,

ALINDA, it shall not be so; Both love and lays forswear I here, As I've forsworn thee long ago. That name, which thou wouldst never share, Proudly shall Fame emblazon where On pumps and corners posters stick it, The highest on the JACKSON ticket.

WHAT IS SOLITUDE?

Nor in the shadowy wood,

Not in the crag-hung glen, Not where the echoes brood

In caves untrod by men;
Not by the bleak sea-shore,

Where loitering surges break,
Not on the mountain hoar,
Not by the breezeless lake,
Not on the desert plain,

Where man hath never stood,
Whether on isle or main-

Not there is solitude!

Birds are in woodland bowers,
Voices in lonely dells,
Streams to the listening hours
Talk in earth's secret cells;
Over the gray-ribb'd sand

Breathe ocean's frothing lips,
Over the still lake's strand

The flower toward it dips; Pluming the mountain's crest, Life tosses in its pines; Coursing the desert's breast,

Life in the steed's mane shines. Leave-if thou wouldst be lonely

Leave Nature for the crowd; Seek there for one-one onlyWith kindred mind endow'd! There-as with Nature erst

Closely thou wouldst communeThe deep soul-music, nursed In either heart, attune! Heart-wearied, thou wilt own,

Vainly that phantom woo'd, That thou at last hast known What is true solitude!

J. O. ROCKWELL.

[Born, 1807. Died, 1831.]

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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 passions; 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. But we may trust
That it hath found a dwelling, where the sun
Of a more holy clime will visit it,
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 there
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 lives
Within my memory as he seem'd before
The curse of blighted feeling, and the toil
And fever of an uncongenial strife, had left
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 ver sification is sometimes defective; but his thoughts are often original, and the general effect of his pieces is striking. His later poems are his best, 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.

THоr 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 ocean,

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!

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