Marking the wreck of temples vast,
The ruin'd shrine and altar stone.

Fair land! where oft, in days of yore,
The hymns of liberty were sung;
Thy boasted empire 's now no more,
Thy lyre of freedom all unstrung.
But, still the spirit loves to tread
Where sleep the great of ages ended,
For, musing on thy mighty dead,
They seem with all thy scenery blended.
They seem to whisper in thy trees,
They seem to flit along thy mountains,
They seem to float in evening's breeze,
They seem to haunt thy limpid fountains.

1. M'LELLAN,

Or Boston; he was graduated at Bowdoin College, in 1826, and is now a student at law. His poetry has appeared in various periodicals.

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE.

THIS grassy hillock, with its rustic urn,
And its light hedge of snowy roses, train'd
By some sweet hand, is the abiding place
Of one most beautiful. A sweeter child

Than this frail tenant of the churchyard cell,

You would not meet through all the village round.
She perish'd in the heyday of her life,

Ere yet the frosts of trouble or of care

Had chill'd the gentle freshness of her youth.

She was of all the rural feasts the queen

The merriest when the dance wheel'd round the tree

At summer eventide, or when it swept

The hearth-stone of the jocund husbandman,
In winter's chilly and tempestuous night.
Oh! there is not a happy bird that fills
The open valley with her sylvan song,
When night is darkening all the golden woods,

That might surpass the compass of her voice
In its deep, delicate richness! In the grave
She sleepeth now, where everything is mute!
Long shall the poor man, and the aged dame,
And orphan child, remember her sweet smile
And her benignant acts; for well she loved
To minister unto the broken heart,

And help the poor blind beggar on his way,
And succor him with travel sore athirst,
And shelter, from the rain and wintry hail,
The man that had not where to lay his head;
And ever there the grateful traveller bless'd
That sweet, young face, that smiled his gloom away,
And woke the song of gladness in his heart.
And here her lover rests!

Beneath yon ridge,
Whereon the weeds grow rank, is hid the dust,
The plume, the bloody sword, the spur, and scarf
Of one who fought for fame, and found it not.
He was a wild and reckless, wayward boy,
The leader of the noisy village troop

In all their careless sports-one stout of heart
And strong of hand, and foremost in the rush
Of boyish battle. Yet his fiery soul

Would melt when Sorrow told her wretched tale,
Or Pain the gloomy history of her grief,

Or Age her melancholy words.

The youth

Had pledged his honest love to that meek girl,
And in the innocent fondness of her heart,
She bless'd him with her love.

But time wore on,

And he had heard the savage trump of war
Sound in the peaceful vale, and heard the tramp
And neighing of the charger, and the clang
Of martial arms, and shouts of armed men,
And saw the gairish flag of battle float
Beside the cottage of his infancy.

He clothed him in the garb of strife, and placed
Its sword upon his thigh, and search'd for fame
"E'en at the cannon's mouth."

And he came back

A bruised, and sick, and broken-hearted man,
To linger out his few sad days on earth
And die, and be at rest;-and by his side
They placed that bruised reed that leant on him.
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well."

J. B. VAN SCHAICK,

A NATIVE of Albany, where he now resides. He was educated at Union College, Schenectady. He is known as a writer chiefly by some contributions to The Token for 1829, which are executed with much grace and refinement of taste.

JOSHUA COMMANDING THE SUN AND MOON TO STAND

STILL.

THE day rose clear on Gibeon. Her high towers
Flash'd the red sunbeams gloriously back,
And the wind-driven banners, and the steel
Of her ten thousand spears caught dazzlingly
The sun, and on the fortresses of rock
Play'd a soft glow, that as a mockery seem'd
To the stern men who girded by its light.
Beth-Horon in the distance slept, and breath
Was pleasant in the vale of Ajalon,
Where armed heels trod carelessly the sweet
Wild spices, and the trees of gum were shook
By the rude armor on their branches hung,
Suddenly in the camp without the walls
Rose a deep murmur, and the men of war
Gather'd around their kings, and "Joshua!
From Gilgal, Joshua! was whisper'd low,
As with a secret fear, and then, at once,
With the abruptness of a dream, he stood
Upon the rock before them. Calmly then
Raised he his helm, and with his temples bare
And hands uplifted to the sky, he pray'd;-
"God of this people, hear! and let the sun
Stand upon Gibeon, still; and let the moon
Rest in the vale of Ajalon!" He ceased-
And lo! the moon sits motionless, and earth
Stands on her axis indolent. The sun
Pours the unmoving column of his rays
In undiminish'd heat; the hours stand still;
The shade hath stopp'd upon the dial's face;
The clouds and vapors that at night are wont
To gather and enshroud the lower earth,

Are struggling with strange rays, breaking them up,

Scattering the misty phalanx like a wand,
Glancing o'er mountain tops, and shining down
In broken masses on the astonish'd plains.
The fever'd cattle group in wondering herds ;
The weary birds go to their leafy nests,
But find no darkness there, and wander forth
On feeble, fluttering wing, to find a rest;

The parch'd, baked earth, undamp'd by usual dews,
Has gaped and crack'd, and heat, dry, mid-day heat,
Comes like a drunkard's breath upon the heart.
On with thy armies, Joshua! The Lord

God of Sabaoth is the avenger now!

His voice is in the thunder, and his wrath
Poureth the beams of the retarded sun,

With the keen strength of arrows, on their sight.
The unwearied sun rides in the zenith sky;
Nature, obedient to her Maker's voice,
Stops in full course all her mysterious wheels.
On! till avenging swords have drunk the blood
Of all Jehovah's enemies, and til·l

Thy banners in returning triumph wave;
Then yonder orb shall set 'mid golden clouds,
And, while a dewy rain falls soft on earth,
Show in the heavens the glorious bow of God,
Shining, the rainbow banner of the skies.

JOHN W. WHITMAN,

Or Boston. He was the editor of The Bachelor's Journal. He is now a lawyer.

THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP.

THEY died-the young-the loved, the brave,
The death barge came for them.

And where the seas yon crag rocks lave

Their nightly requiem,

They buried them all, and threw the sand
Unhallow'dly o'er that patriot band.

The black ship, like a demon sate,
Upon the prowling deep;

From her, came fearful sounds of hate,
Till pain still'd all in sleep-
It was the sleep that victims take,
Tied, tortured, dying, at the stake.

Yet some, the deep has now updug,
Their bones are in the sun;
And whether by sword, or deadly drug,
They died-yes-one by one.
Was it not strange to mortal eye,
To see them all so strangely die?

No death upon the field was theirs,
No war-peal o'er their graves,
They who were born as Freedom's heirs,
Were stabb'd like traitor slaves.

Their patriot hearts were doom'd to feel
Dishonor-with the victor's steel.

There come upon the stilly eve,
Wild songs from yon wild shore;
And then the surges more wildly heave
Their hoarse and growling roar,
When dead men sing unearthly glees,
And shout in laughing revelries.

The corpse-light shines, like some pale star,
From out the dead men's cliff;

And the sea nymphs sail in their coral car,
With those that are cold and stiff.

And they sail near the spot of treachery, where
The tide has left the dark ship bare.

Are they those ancient ones, who died
For freedom, and for me?

They are-they point in martyr'd pride,
To that spot upon the sea,

From whence came once the dying yell,
From out that wreck-that prison'd hell.

Hark! hear their chant-it starts the hair
It makes the blood turn cold;