Most musical from marble fountains wreathed With clustering ivy, like a poet's brow- Why comes he not to add his higher strains, And be the interpreter of lower things, In intellectual worship, at the throne Of the Beneficent Power, that gave to them Their pride and beauty?" In these palaces, These awful temples, these religious caves, These hoary ruins, and these twilight groves Teeming with life and love, -a secret plague Dwells, and the unwary foot, that ventures here, Returns not. Fly! To linger here is death."
Was a native of Hartford, Connecticut. He was graduated at Yale College in 1815, and commenced the study of medicine in New York, but abandoned it for some mercantile views. These were however, terminated by his death at the age of 26, in 1821. He was a young man of uncommon promise. Poetry he wrote, but not much. We know of nothing that has been published, except the annexed piece which was included in Roscoe's Specimens of the American Poets.
LINES TO THE WESTERN MUMMY.
O STRANGER, whose repose profound These latter ages dare to break, And call thee from beneath the ground Ere nature did thy slumber shake!
What wonders of the secret earth Thy lip, too silent, might reveal! Of tribes round whose mysterious birth A thousand envious ages wheel!
Thy race by savage war o'errun, Sunk down, their very name forgot; But ere those fearful times begun, Perhaps, in this sequester'd spot,
By friendship's hand thine eyelids closed, By friendship's hand the turf was laid- And friendship here perhaps reposed, With moonlight vigils in the shade.
The stars have run their nightly round, The sun look'd out and pass'd his And many a season o'er the ground Has trod where thou so softly lay.
And wilt thou not one moment raise Thy weary head, awhile to see The later sports of earthly days, How like what once enchanted thee?
Thy name, thy date, thy life declare- Perhaps a queen whose feathery band A thousand maids have sigh'd to wear, The brightest in thy beauteous band.
Perhaps a Helen, from whose eye Love kindled up the flame of war- Ah me! do thus thy graces lie A faded phantom and no more!
O! not like thee would I remain, But o'er the earth my ashes strew, And in some rising bud regain The freshness that my childhood knew.
But has thy soul, O maid! so long Around this mournful relict dwelt? Or burst away with pinion strong, And at the foot of mercy knelt ?
Or has it in some distant clime
With curious eye unsated stray'd, And down the winding stream of time On every changeful current play'd?
Or lock'd in everlasting sleep Must we thy heart extinct deplore? Thy fancy lost in darkness, weep, And sigh for her who feels no more?
Or exiled to some humbler sphere,
In yonder wood-dove dost thou dwell, And murmuring in the stranger's ear, Thy tender melancholy tell?
Whoe'er thca be, thy sad remains Shall from the muse a tear demand, Who, wandering on these distant plains, Looks fondly to a distant land.
MR EVERETT was born in Dorchester, Mass. His father was pastor to the New South Church in Boston. He studied at Harvard University, and was ordained as a minister over the Brattle Street Church in Boston, at the early age of eighteen. Upon the foundation of the professorship of Greek literature at Cambridge, he was called upon to fill the office, in consequence of which, he relinquished his pastoral duties in Boston. After making a visit to Europe, he entered upon his business as professor, and continued in that station till 1825. Since that time he has been a representative in Congress.
Mr Everett's reputation, both as a statesman and a scholar, is too widely extended to need any comments from us. Among the great variety of his labors, he has found moments to devote to the muse. The following piece, and a Phi Beta Kappa poem, written in his youth, are, we believe, all that have appeared in public.
DIRGE OF ALARIC, THE VISIGOTH,
Who stormed and spoiled the city of Rome, and was afterwards buried in the channel of the river Busentius, the water of which had been diverted from its course that the body might be interred.
WHEN I am dead, no pageant train Shall waste their sorrows at my bier, Nor worthless pomp of homage vain, Stain it with hypocritic tear; For I will die as I did live, Nor take the boon I cannot give.
Ye shall not raise a marble bust Upon the spot where I repose; Ye shall not fawn before my dust,
In hollow circumstance of woes: Nor sculptured clay, with lying breath, Insult the clay that moulds beneath.
Ye shall not pile, with servile toil, Your monuments upon my breast, Nor yet within the common soil Lay down the wreck of Power to rest;
Where man can boast that he has trod On him, that was "the scourge of God."
But ye the mountain stream shall turn, And lay its secret channel bare, And hollow, for your sovereign's urn, A resting-place for ever there : Then bid its everlasting springs Flow back upon the King of Kings; And never be the secret said, Until the deep give up his dead.
My gold and silver ye shall fling
Back to the clods, that gave them birth ;- The captured crowns of many a king, The ransom of a conquered earth: For e'en though dead will I control The trophies of the capitol.
But when beneath the mountain tide,
Ye 've laid your monarch down to rot,
Ye shall not rear upon its side
Pillar or mound to mark the spot;
For long enough the world has shook Beneath the terrors of my look; And now that I have run my race, The astonish'd realms shall rest a space.
My course was like a river deep,
And from the northern hills I burst, Across the world in wrath to sweep, And where I went, the spot was cursed, Nor blade of grass again was seen Where Alaric and his hosts had been.
See how their haughty barriers fail Beneath the terror of the Goth, Their iron-breasted legions quail Before my ruthless sabaoth, And low the queen of empires kneels, And grovels at my chariot-wheels.
Not for myself did I ascend
In judgment my triumphal car; '"T was God alone on high did send The avenging Scythian to the war, To shake abroad, with iron hand, The appointed scourge of his command.
With iron hand that scourge I rear'd O'er guilty king and guilty realm; Destruction was the ship I steer'd,
And vengeance sat upon the helm, When, launch'd in fury on the flood, I plough'd my ways through seas of blood, And in the stream their hearts had spilt Wash'd out the long arrears of guilt.
Across the everlasting Alp
I pour'd the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shriek'd for help In vain within their seven-hill'd towers;
I quench'd in blood the brightest gem That glitter'd in their diadem, And struck a darker, deeper die In the purple of their majesty, And bade my northern banners shine Upon the conquer'd Palatine.
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