Up signal there, and let us hail yon looming phantom as we pass! Note all her fashion, hull and sail, within the compass of your glass. See at her mast the steadfast glow of that one star of Odin's throne; Up with our flag, and let us show the Constellation on our own. No answer, but the sullen flow of ocean heaving long and vast; Very sweet and refreshing are his liquid lines to the Wayside Spring: Fair dweller by the dusty way-bright saint within a mossy shrine, The earliest blossoms of the year, the sweet-brier and the violet, And oft the beggar, masked with tan, in rusty garments, gray with dust, Here sits and dips his little can, and breaks his scanty crust; And, lulled beside thy whispering stream, oft drops to slumber unawares, And sees the angel of his dream upon celestial stairs. Dear dweller by the dusty way, thou saint within a mossy shrine, The tribute of a heart to-day, weary and worn, is thine! The following exquisite lines are from the same source:— She came, as comes the summer wind, a gust of beauty to my heart; Then swept away, but left behind emotions which shall not depart. Unheralded she came and went, like music in the silent nightWhich, when the burthened air is spent, bequeathes to memory its delight. Or like the sudden April bow that spans the violet-waking rain, again, For sweeter than all things most sweet, and fairer than all things most fair, She came, and passed with footsteps fleet, a shining wonder in the air! GALLAGHER'S fine poem on the Miami Woods contains this glowing picture of Indian Summer. This poet of the West seems to have caught inspiration from the bold, primeval aspects of Nature: What a change hath passed upon the face Of Nature, where the waving forest spreads, And in the day, the golden sun hath wrought True wonders; and the winds of morn and even Have touched with magic breath the changing leaves. Across the varied landscape, circling far, What gorgeousness, what blazonry, what pomp The two following extracts are from the same source: When last the maple-bud was swelling, When last the crocus bloomed below, Thy heart to mine its love was telling, In heaven thy heart its love is telling, But still our hearts keep ebb and flow. When last the April bloom was flinging Sweet odours on the air of Spring,- Broad plains-blue waters-hills and valleys, Here many a one of old renown And mid its transient flash-went down. Historic names forever greet us, Where'er our wandering way we thread; As, living, walk with us the dead. Man's fame, so often evanescent, Links here with thoughts and things that last; And all the bright and teeming Present Thrills with the great and glorious Past! PERKINS, another of the woodland minstrels of the West, thus gilds his verse with sunshine : Oh! merry, merry be the day, and bright the star of even,— Then let us not, though woes betide, complain of fortune's spite, As rock-encircled trees combine, and nearer grow and closer twine, So let our hearts unite, my love, so let our hearts unite. And though the circle here be small of heartily approved ones, There is a home beyond the skies, where vice shall sink and virtue rise, Till all become the loved ones, love, till all become the loved ones. Then let your eye be laughing still, and cloudless be your brow; For in that better world above, O! many myriads shall we love, As one another now, my love, as one another now. verses. BYRON, notwithstanding all his errors of creed and conduct, seems to have been possessed of fine sensibilities, as the following incident will prove :-On a certain occasion, when in London, he was solicited to subscribe for a volume of poems, by a young lady of good education, whose connections were impoverished by reHe listened to her sad story, and, while conversing with her, wrote something on a piece of paper; he then, handing it to her, said, "This is my subscription, and I heartily wish you success." On reaching the street, she found it to be a check for fifty pounds. That Byron was endowed with brilliant powers, none will deny; but all do not as readily admit that those gifts were sadly perverted. It is not true, as his false morality teaches, that great crimes imply great qualities, and that virtue is a slavery: it is in the converse of the proposition that truth rests. No wonder that Byron should have recorded, in this sad refrain, his own bitter experience : "My days are in the yellow leaf; The fruits and flowers of love are gone,- Are mine alone." |