Handwriting on the Wall." The last work, upon which he had been engaged at intervals for nearly twenty years, he left unfinished.

Besides the volume of poems already mentioned, and many short pieces which have since been given to the public, Mr. ALLSTON was the author of MONALDI," a story of extraordinary power and interest, in which he displays a deep sensibility to beauty, and philosophic knowledge of human passion. He wrote also a series of discourses on art, and various essays and poems, which are unpublished. Although ALLSTON Owed his chief celebrity to his paintings, which will preserve for his name a place in the list of the greatest artists of all the nations and ages, his literary works alone would have given him a high rank among men of genius. A great painter, indeed, is of necessity a poet, though he may lack the power to express fittingly his conceptions in language. ALLSTON had in remarkable perfection all the faculties required for either art. The Sylphs of the Seasons," his longest poem, in which he describes the scenery

66

of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and the effects of each season on the mind, show that he regarded nature with a curious eye, and had power to exhibit her beauties with wonderful distinctness and fidelity. "The Two Painters" is an admirable satire, intended to ridicule attempts to reach perfection in one excellency in the art of painting, to the neglect of every other; the "Paint King" is a singularly wild, imaginative story; and nearly all his minor poems are strikingly original and beautiful. It was in his paintings, however, that the power and religious grandeur of his imagination were most strongly developed.

When this work was originally published. I dedicated it to Mr. ALLSTON, with whom I had the happiness to be personally acquainted, addressing him as "the eldest of the living poets, and the most illustrious of the painters" of our country. I retain the dedication in this edition, as an expression of the admiration and reverence in which I, with all who knew him, continue to hold his genius and character.

wwww

THE PAINT KING.

[tongue,

FAIR Ellen was long the delight of the young,
No damsel could with her compare;
Her charms were the theme of the heart and the
And bards without number in ecstasies sung
The beauties of Ellen the fair.

Yet cold was the maid; and though legions advanced,
All drill'd by Ovidean art,

And languish'd, and ogled, protested and danced,
Like shadows they came, and like shadows they
From the hard polish'd ice of her heart. [glanced
Yet still did the heart of fair Ellen implore
A something that could not be found;
Like a sailor she seem'd on a desolate shore,
With nor house, nor a tree, nor a sound but the roar
Of breakers high dashing around.

From object to object still, still would she veer,

Though nothing, alas, could she find; [clear, Like the moon, without atmosphere, brilliant and Yet doom'd, like the moon, with no being to cheer The bright barren waste of her mind.

But rather than sit like a statue so still

When the rain made her mansion a pound, Up and down would she go, like the sails of a mill, And pat every stair, like a woodpecker's bill,

From the tiles of the roof to the ground. One morn, as the maid from her casement inclined, Passed a youth, with a frame in his hand. The casement she closed-not the eye of her mind; For, do all she could, no, she could not be blind; Still before her she saw the youth stand. "Ah, what can he do," said the languishing maid, "Ah, what with that frame can he do?" And she knelt to the goddess of secrets and pray'd, When the youth pass'd again, and again he display'd The frame and a picture to view.

Oh, beautiful picture!" the fair Ellen cried, "I must see thee again or I die." Then under her white chin her bonnet she tied, And after the youth and the picture she hied, When the youth, looking back, met her eye. "Fair damsel," said he, (and he chuckled the while,) This picture I see you admire:

Then take it, I pray you, perhaps 'twill beguile
Some moments of sorrow; (nay, pardon my smile)
Or, at least, keep you home by the fire."
Then Ellen the gift with delight and surprise

From the cunning young stripling received,
But she knew not the poison that enter'd her eyes,
When sparkling with rapture they gazed on her
Thus, alas, are fair maidens deceived! [prize-

"T was a youth o'er the form of a statue inclined,
And the sculptor he seem'd of the stone;
Yet he languish'd as though for its beauty he pined,
And gazed as the eyes of the statue so blind
Reflected the beams of his own.

"T was the tale of the sculptor Pygmalion of old;
Fair Ellen remember'd and sigh'd;
"Ah, couldst thou but lift from that marble so cold,
Thine eyes too imploring, thy arms should enfold,
And press me this day as thy bride."

She said: when, behold, from the canvas arose
The youth, and he stepp'd from the frame:
With a furious transport his arms did enclose
The love-plighted Ellen: and, clasping, he froze
The blood of the maid with his flame!
She turn'd and beheld on each shoulder a wing.
"Oh, Heaven!" cried she, "who art thou?"
From the roof to the ground did his fierce answer
ring,

As, frowning, he thunder'd "I am the PAINT KING!
And mine, lovely maid, thou art now!"

Then high from the ground did the grim monster lift
The loud-screaming maid like a blast;
And he sped through the air like a meteor swift,
While the clouds, wand'ring by him, did fearfully drift
To the right and the left as he pass'd,
Now suddenly sloping his hurricane flight,
With an eddying whirl he descends;
The air all below him becomes black as night,
And the ground where he treads, as if moved with
Like the surge of the Caspian, bends. [affright,
“I am here!” said the fiend, and he thundering
At the gates of a mountainous cave; [knocked
The gates open flew, as by magic unlock'd,
While the peaks of the mount, reeling to and fro,
Like an island of ice on the wave.

[rocked

“Oh, mercy!” cried Ellen, and swoon'd in his arms, But the PAINT-KING, he scoff'd at her pain. Prithee, love," said the monster, "what mean these alarms?"

She hears not, she sees not the terrible charms,
That work her to horror again.

She opens her lids, but no longer her eyes

Behold the fair youth she would woo; Now appears the PAINT-KING in his natural guise; His face, like a palette of villanous dyes,

Black and white, red and yellow, and blue. On the skull of a Titan, that Heaven defied, Sat the fiend, like the grim giant Gog, While aloft to his mouth a hugh pipe he applied, Twice as big as the Eddystone Lighthouse, descried As it looms through an easterly fog.

And anon, as he puff'd the vast volumes, were seen, In horrid festoons on the wall, Legs and arms, heads and bodies emerging between, Like the drawing-room grim of the Scotch Sawney By the Devil dressed out for a ball. [Beane, "Ah me!" cried the damsel, and fell at his feet, "Must I hang on these walls to be dried?" "Oh, no!" said the fiend, while he sprung from his "A far nobler fortune thy person shall meet; [seat, Into paint will I grind thee, my bride!" Then, seizing the maid by her dark auburn hair, An oil jug he plunged her within; Seven days, seven nights, with the shrieks of despair, Did Ellen in torment convulse the dun air, All covered with oil to the chin.

On the morn of the eighth, on a huge sable stone
Then Ellen, all reeking, he laid;

With a rock for his muller he crushed every bone,
But, though ground to jelly, still, still did she groan;
For life had forsook not the maid.
Now reaching his palette, with masterly care
Each tint on its surface he spread;
The blue of her eyes, and the brown of her hair,
And the pearl and the white of her forehead so fair,
And her lips' and her cheeks' rosy red.

Then, stamping his foot, did the monster exclaim,
Now I brave, cruel fairy, thy scorn!"

When lo! from a chasm wide-yawning there came
A light tiny chariot of rose-colour'd flame,
By a team of ten glow-worms upborne.

Enthroned in the midst on an emerald bright, Fair Geraldine sat without peer;

Her robe was a gleam of the first blush of light,
And her mantle the fleece of a noon-cloud white,
And a beam of the moon was her spear.

In an accent that stole on the still charmed air
Like the first gentle language of Eve,
Thus spake from her chariot the fairy so fair:
"I come at the call, but, oh Paint-King, beware,
Beware if again you deceive."

""T is true," said the monster, "thou queen of my
Thy portrait I oft have essay'd;
[heart,
Yet ne'er to the canvas could I with my art
The least of thy wonderful beauties impart;
And my failure with scorn you repaid.
"Now I swear by the light of the comet-king's tail!"
And he tower'd with pride as he spoke,
"If again with these magical colours I fail,
The crater of Etna shall hence be my jail,
And my food shall be sulphur and smoke.
"But if I succeed, then, oh, fair Geraldine!

Thy promise with justice I claim,
And thou, queen of fairies, shalt ever be mine,
The bride of my bed; and thy portrait divine
Shall fill all the earth with my fame."

He spake; when, behold, the fair Geraldine's form
On the canvas enchantingly glow'd;

His touches they flew like the leaves in a storm;
And the pure pearly white and the carnation warm
Contending in harmony flow'd.

And now did the portrait a twin-sister seem
To the figure of Geraldine fair:
With the same sweet expression did faithfully teem
Each muscle, each feature; in short not a gleam
Was lost of her beautiful hair.

"T was the fairy herself! but, alas, her blue eyes Still a pupil did ruefully lack;

And who shall describe the terrific surprise
That seized the PAINT-KING when, behold, he des-
Not a speck on his palette of black! [cries

"I am lost!" said the fiend, and he shook like a leaf; When, casting his eyes to the ground,

He saw the lost pupils of Ellen with grief
In the jaws of a mouse, and the sly little thief
Whisk away from his sight with a bound.

"I am lost!" said the fiend, and he fell like a stone; Then rising the fairy in ire

With a touch of her finger she loosen'd her zone, (While the limbs on the wall gave a terrible groan,) And she swell'd to a column of fire.

Her spear, now a thunder-bolt, flash'd in the air,
And sulphur the vault fill'd around:
She smote the grim monster; and now by the hair
High-lifting, she hurl'd him in speechless despair

Down the depths of the chasm profound.

Then over the picture thrice waving her spear,
"Come forth!" said the good Geraldine;
When, behold, from the canvas descending, appear
Fair Ellen, in person more lovely than e'er,
With grace more than ever divine!

THE SYLPHS OF THE SEASONS, A POET'S DREAM.

LONG has it been my fate to hear
The slave of Mammon, with a sneer,

My indolence reprove.
Ah, little knows he of the care,
The toil, the hardship that I bear
While lolling in my elbow-chair,

And seeming scarce to move:

For, mounted on the poet's steed,
I there my ceaseless journey speed

O'er mountain, wood, and stream:

And oft, within a little day,

Mid comets fierce, 't is mine to stray,
And wander o'er the milky-way
To catch a poet's dream.

But would the man of lucre know
What riches from my labours flow-
A DREAM is my reply.
And who for wealth has ever pined,
That had a world within his mind,
Where every treasure he may find,
And joys that never die!

One night, my task diurnal done,
(For I had travell'd with the sun

O'er burning sands, o'er snows,) Fatigued, I sought the couch of rest; My wonted prayer to Heaven address'd; But scarce had I my pillow press'd, When thus a vision rose :

Methought, within a desert cave,
Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave,
I suddenly awoke.

It seem'd of sable night the cell,
Where, save when from the ceiling fell
An oozing drop, her silent spell
No sound had ever broke.

There motionless I stood alone,
Like some strange monument of stone
Upon a barren wild;

Or like (so solid and profound

The darkness seem'd that wall'd me round)
A man that's buried under ground,
Where pyramids are piled.

Thus fix'd, a dreadful hour I pass'd,
And now I heard, as from a blast,

A voice pronounce my name:
Nor long upon my ear it dwelt,
When round me 'gan the air to melt,
And motion once again I felt

Quick circling o'er my frame.
Again it call'd; and then a ray,
That seem'd a gushing fount of day,
Across the cavern stream'd.
Half-struck with terror and delight,
I hail'd the little blessed light,
And follow'd till my aching sight
An orb of darkness seem'd.

Nor long I felt the blinding pain;
For soon upon a mountain plain

I gazed with wonder new.
There high a castle rear'd its head;
And far below a region spread,
Where every season seem'd to shed
Its own peculiar hue.

Now, at the castle's massy gate,
Like one that's blindly urged by fate,
A bugle-horn I blew.

The mountain-plain it shook around,
The vales return'd a hollow sound,
And, moving with a sigh profound,
The portals open flew.

Then entering, from a glittering hall
I heard a voice seraphic call,

That bade me " Ever reign!

All hail!" it said in accent wild, "For thou art Nature's chosen child, Whom wealth nor blood has e'er defiled,

Hail, lord of this domain !"

And now I paced a bright saloon,
That seem'd illumined by the moon,

So mellow was the light.
The walls with jetty darkness teem'd,
While down them crystal columns stream'd,
And each a mountain torrent seem'd,
High-flashing through the night.

Rear'd in the midst, a double throne
Like burnish'd cloud of evening shone;
While, group'd the base around,
Four damsels stood of fairy race;
Who, turning each with heavenly grace
Upon me her immortal face,

Transfix'd me to the ground.

And thus the foremost of the train: "Be thine the throne, and thine to reign

O'er all the varying year!

But ere thou rulest, the Fates command, That of our chosen rival band

A Sylph shall win thy heart and hand,
Thy sovereignty to share.

"For we, the sisters of a birth,
Do rule by turns the subject earth
To serve ungrateful man;
But since our varied toils impart
No joy to his capricious heart,
"Tis now ordain'd that human art
Shall rectify the plan."

Then spake the Sylph of Spring serene,
""T is I thy joyous heart, I ween,
With sympathy shall move:
For I with living melody
Of birds in choral symphony,
First waked thy soul to poesy,

To piety and love.

"When thou, at call of vernal breeze, And beckoning bough of budding trees, Hast left thy sullen fire;

And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell,
And heard the browsing wether's bell,
Blithe echoes rousing from their cell

To swell the tinkling choir:

"Or heard from branch of flowering thorn The song of friendly cuckoo warn

The tardy-moving swain;
Hast bid the purple swallow hail;
And seen him now through ether sail,
Now sweeping downward o'er the vale,

And skimming now the plain;

"Then, catching with a sudden glance
The bright and silver-clear expanse
Of some broad river's stream,
Beheld the boats adown it glide,
And motion wind again the tide,
Where, chain'd in ice by winter's pride,
Late roll'd the heavy team:

66

Or, lured by some fresh-scented gale
That woo'd the moored fisher's sail

To tempt the mighty main,
Hast watch'd the dim, receding shore,
Now faintly seen the ocean o'er,
Like hanging cloud, and now no more

To bound the sapphire plain;

"Then, wrapt in night, the scudding bark, (That seem'd, self-poised amid the dark, Through upper air to leap,) Beheld, from thy most fearful height, The rapid dolphin's azure light Cleave, like a living meteor bright,

The darkness of the deep:

"'T was mine the warm, awakening hand
That made thy grateful heart expand,
And feel the high control

Of Him, the mighty Power that moves
Amid the waters and the groves,
And through his vast creation proves
His omnipresent soul.

"Or, brooding o'er some forest rill,
Fringed with the early daffodil,

And quivering maiden-hair,
When thou hast mark'd the dusky bed,
With leaves and water-rust o'erspread,
That seem'd an amber light to shed

On all was shadow'd there;
"And thence, as by its murmur call'd,
The current traced to where it brawl'd
Beneath the noontide ray;

And there beheld the checker'd shade
Of waves, in many a sinuous braid,
That o'er the sunny channel play'd,
With motion ever gay:

""T was I to these the magic gave,
That made thy heart, a willing slave,

To gentle Nature bend;

And taught thee how with tree and flower, And whispering gale, and dropping shower, In converse sweet to pass the hour,

As with an early friend:

"That mid the noontide, sunny haze Did in thy languid bosom raise

The raptures of the boy; When, waked as if to second birth, Thy soul through every pore look'd forth, And gazed upon the beauteous earth With myriad eyes of joy :

"That made thy heart, like HIS above, To flow with universal love

For every living thing.
And, O! if I, with ray divine,
Thus tempering, did thy soul refine,
Then let thy gentle heart be mine,

And bless the Sylph of Spring."

And next the Sylph of Summer fair;
The while her crisped, golden hair
Half-veil'd her sunny eyes:
"Nor less may I thy homage claim,
At touch of whose exhaling flame
The fog of Spring, that chill'd thy frame,
In genial vapour flies.

"Oft, by the heat of noon oppress'd
With flowing hair and open vest,

Thy footsteps have I won
To mossy couch of welling grot,
Where thou hast bless'd thy happy lot,
That thou in that delicious spot

Mayst see, not feel, the sun:

"Thence tracing from the body's change, In curious philosophic range,

The motion of the mind;

And how from thought to thought it flew,

Still hoping in each vision new
The fairy land of bliss to view,

But ne'er that land to find.

"And then, as grew thy languid mood, To some embowering, silent wood

I led thy careless way; Where high from tree to tree in air Thou saw'st the spider swing her snare, So bright!-as if, entangled there, The sun had left a ray:

"Or lured thee to some beetling steep,
To mark the deep and quiet sleep

That wrapt the tarn below;
And mountain blue and forest green
Inverted on its plane serene,
Dim gleaming through the filmy sheen
That glazed the painted show;
"Perchance, to mark the fisher's skiff
Swift from beneath some shadowy cliff
Dart, like a gust of wind;
And, as she skimm'd the sunny lake,
In many a playful wreath her wake
Far-trailing, like a silvery snake,

With sinuous length behind.

"Not less, when hill, and dale, and heath Still Evening wrapt in mimic death,

Thy spirit true I proved :

Around thee as the darkness stole,
Before thy wild, creative soul
I bade each fairy vision roll

Thine infancy had loved.

"Then o'er the silent, sleeping land, Thy fancy, like a magic wand,

Forth call'd the elfin race:

And now around the fountain's brim
In circling dance they gayly skim;
And now upon its surface swim,

And water-spiders chase;

"Each circumstance of sight or sound
Peopling the vacant air around
With visionary life:
For if amid a thicket stirr'd,
Or flitting bat, or wakeful bird,
Then straight thy eager fancy heard
The din of fairy strife;

"Now, in the passing beetle's hum
The elfin army's goblin drum

To pigmy battle sound;

And now, where dripping dew-drops plash On waving grass, their bucklers clash, And now their quivering lances flash, Wide-dealing death around:

"Or if the moon's effulgent form The passing clouds of sudden storm

In quick succession veil;

Vast serpents now, their shadows glide, And, coursing now the mountain's side, A band of giants huge, they stride

O'er hill, and wood, and dale.

"And still on many a service rare
Could I descant, if need there were,

My firmer claim to bind.
But rest I most my high pretence
On that, my genial influence,
Which made the body's indolence

The vigour of the mind."

And now, in accents deep and low,
Like voice of fondly-cherish'd wo,

The Sylph of Autumn sad:
"Though I may not of raptures sing,
That graced the gentle song of Spring,
Like Summer, playful pleasures bring,
Thy youthful heart to glad;
"Yet still may I in hope aspire
Thy heart to touch with chaster fire,
And purifying love:

For I with vision high and holy,
And spell of quickening melancholy,
Thy soul from sublunary folly

First raised to worlds above.

"What though be mine the treasures fair Of purple grape and yellow pear,

And fruits of various hue,
And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain
To merry song of reaping swain,

Beneath the welkin blue;

"With these I may not urge my suit,
Of Summer's patient toil the fruit,
For mortal purpose given;
Nor may it fit my sober mood
To sing of sweetly murmuring flood,
Or dyes of many-colour'd wood,

That mock the bow of heaven.

"But, know, 't was mine the secret power
That wak'd thee at the midnight hour
In bleak November's reign:

'T was I the spell around thee cast,
When thou didst hear the hollow blast
In murmurs tell of pleasures past,
That ne'er would come again:

"And led thee, when the storm was o'er, To hear the sullen ocean roar,

By dreadful calm oppress'd; Which still, though not a breeze was there, Its mountain-billows heav'd in air, As if a living thing it were,

That strove in vain for rest.

"'T was I, when thou, subdued by wo,
Didst watch the leaves descending slow,
To each a moral gave;

And as they moved in mournful train,
With rustling sound, along the plain,
Taught them to sing a seraph's strain
Of peace within the grave.

"And then, upraised thy streaming eye, I met thee in the western sky

In pomp of evening cloud;

That, while with varying form it roll'd,
Some wizard's castle seem'd of gold,
And now a crimson'd knight of old,
Or king in purple proud.

"And last, as sunk the setting sun,
And Evening with her shadows dun
The gorgeous pageant past,
"T was then of life a mimic show,
Of human grandeur here below,
Which thus beneath the fatal blow

Of Death must fall at last.

"O, then with what aspiring gaze Didst thou thy tranced vision raise To yonder orbs on high, And think how wondrous, how sublime "T were upwards to their spheres to climb, And live, beyond the reach of Time,

Child of Eternity!"

And last the Sylph of Winter spake;
The while her piercing voice did shake
The castle-vaults below.

"O, youth, if thou, with soul refin'd,
Hast felt the triumph pure of mind,
And learn'd a secret joy to find
In deepest scenes of wo;

"If e'er with fearful ear at eve
Hast heard the wailing tempests grieve
Through chink of shatter'd wall;