name and his productions in print. The lively principle stirred within him, and he obeyed its promptingsthe burning thoughts "came crowding thickly up, for utterance," and he spoke. In this much, then, our introductory remarks are applicable here. We present "Indecision," as an illustration of "the spirit of true poetry."

The poem opens with a description of embarkation from Scotland

The sail is loos'd, the swinging anchor free,
The boat is hoisted, and the ship for sea.

After a short eulogy upon Scotia, we have a description of the multitude who throng the deck of the departing vessel, and the different feelings which agitate the various bosoms of those who are leaving kindred and home and sacred graves, to seek a shelter in the clime of "the teeming West." The following passage contains a fine description and simile.

The old, with thoughtful brow and sadden'd eye,
Still watch the land-hues fading into sky,

As if reluctant to avert the view

A moment from the shore's receding blue, As, trembling on the ring'd horizon, peep The topmast peaks above the rising deep. The tender sapling, torn from natal sod, Transplanted blooms, and spreads its arms abroad, But aged trees, when sever'd from the earth They once have shaded, know no second birth. We are next introduced to "Norman," the hero of the tale. Possessing many advantages and virtues, he lacks one, and an all-important one, "MORAL COURAGE" and this defect in his character, besides causing him much trouble and sorrow of spirit, appears to give name to the poem-"INDECISION." Fortune failing him, he shares his remaining pittance with his aged mother, and with

---

His wife, and child, and hope, and health,
Embarked to seek in western wilds that wealth,
To which the blinded world around him bent:
And he, tho' wiser, dared not to dissent.

In the course of the first night of the voyage, we have a description of the manner in which the groups on deck passed their time--a “Song of the Prairie,” an "Adieu, my ain Sweet Land," and a description of a storm. The ship weathers the gale, the morning-sun breaks brightly forth, and in describing the gaiety and carelessness of the crowd just escaped from the perils of wreck and death, we have the following piece of philosophy:

'Tis ever 80,

With human weakness; eloquent in wo,
Of virtuous promise; but the danger o'er,
The sorrow gone, the lesson's read no more--
The heart is like the hard sepulchral stone,
On which repeated blows inscribe alone,
Its truth or falsehood; trials, to be blest,
Must be by sorrow's frequent hand imprest.

A solemn and melancholy change comes over the spirit of Norman. Here is poetry, sweet and beautiful.

His wife alone, of those who knew him well,
Appear'd unconscious of the fearful spell.
Enshrouded in affection's blinding haze,

She mark'd not what would draw a stranger's gaze;
Or, if she saw an altered look, her heart
Indulg'd itself in that love-nurtured art,
Which kindly teaches sorrow to conceal
The utter wo it cannot live and feel.

With gentle care, she loosed the lengthened plaid,
That bound her baby firmly to her side,
And casting off a 'kerchief from her wrist,
She smiled, tho' sadly, as his brow she kissed.
'You cannot guess, my husband, why I drew
This knot so tightly! Oh, it was that you
Might fix the noose upon your arm, and so,
With me and my sweet babe, united go
To weal or wo; a common fate to share,
With thee and it, was ever Emma's prayer.

I hop'd, too, that the surge might kindly sweep
Our corses upward from the cold, dark deep,
And gentle hands afford a grassy grave
To those who were not sever'd by the wave.
In Scottish earth, with all I lov'd to lie,
Seemed not to me a gloomy destiny,
Since oft I fear'd for my dear babe and thee,
A darker doom beyond the western sea.

But God, whose goodness curb'd the raging main,
May, will, protect confiding hearts again.'

Day follows day, and the vessel proceeds on her course, and Norman's madness increases in its wildness and intensity, and he becomes furious in his nature to all, even to her, whose

very eye,

Whose smile before, to him, was ecstasy;

to all, save his child, of whom he becomes possessed with a slavish fear, and whose every whim he obeys. His wife can no longer hide from her heart his altered disposition; but it was some solace

to find

His loss of love to her, was loss of mind.
It soothed her hopeless sorrow to reflect
That those who most are lov'd, where reason's wreck'd
Are hated most, as wintry spoils deface

The most that spot the richest flowrets grace. His wife dies. The scene of her departing hour is prophetic of the lot of her loved ones, and is powerfully wrought. With this closes the first part of the poem.

Our author has a fine graphic talent. Witness this description of morning

A beaming point just tips the doubtful verge,
Where sea and sky their dubious colors merge,
And up at one bright leap, in glory springs
The sun, and o'er the ocean spreads his wings.
Along the rippling waters, golden light,

A trembling causeway paves, so pure, so bright,
A path to Heaven, it seems to fancy's eye,
Continued upward thro' the yellow sky,
In clouds like cluster'd gems of every hue,
To pale the ruby's blush and shame the sapphire's blus.
The sportive dolphin, like a floating flower,
Of thousand tints, adorns his waving bower.
The curving porpoise, on the crested pride
Of curling billows, takes his liquid ride;
And silver flying fishes dash away
Before the breeze, and in the sunbeams play.
There is a freshness in the breezy air;
There is a joyous spirit every where.

Norman's child is swept overboard by the "boom" and drowned. Reaching harbor, the bodies are borne to the grave, while the unhappy father, "idiot-like,"

-Mov'd not as the earth received its trust,
Nor seemed to hear the awful dust to dust.'

Awakened to the consciousness that they are his wife and child, he refuses to leave the grave, and decks it and watches it day after day, until his comrades miss him, and discover no trace of him, save marks of violence near and upon the freshly-covered mound. Norman returns to the grave once more, however, but reVOL. V.-45

turns only to bid adieu to "the sleepers," and then journeys to the "far West." Here he recovers his reason, re-marries, acquires wealth and honors, and attains to the dignity of a magistrate. Among the prisoners brought before him, is one found guilty of the charge preferred against him, but who, by an extraordinary influence over the mind of the judge, not only obtains release from confinement, but, by his rapacious claims for money, the wealth of Norman also. The felon brings a number of his companions into the neighborhood with him to share in his good-fortune, and Norman's neighbors become suspicious of him, as being linked with the ruffians, by their knowledge of some dread truth against him. Fortune gone, honor lost, our hero now sinks into a deep despair, but is sustained and soothed in his darkness by his gentle partner, who by her eloquent entreaties, succeeds in wresting from him his secret of grief-a secret which he dared not to entrust her with before their union. It appears, that in seeking for flowers to decorate the burial place of his wife and child, he despoiled a private garden-was pursued to the grave, where blood was shed and he finally taken and conveyed to a prison. Hence the brand of felony was on him, and, after visiting the grave as has already been seen, he journeyed to the West with this bitter memory of a stained reputation gnawing at his heart. This was his secret, and the explanation of the mysterious influence exercised over him by the criminal at the trial. The following gives us another specimen of Dr. Mitchell's descriptive power:

The last faint trace of day had ceas'd to smile
On lengthen'd Alleghany's waving pile,
And clouds, so lately bath'd in golden light,
Were softly silver'd by the queen of night;
And one by one, in autumn's deep blue sky,
The stars put forth their brighest blazonry.
O'er darkened vales the mountain shadows slept,
Through dying leaves the mournful zephyrs swept;
The night hawk's scream, the moan of whip-poor-will,
The cricket's cry, the tree-frog's cadenc'd trill;
The panther's hungry howl, the wolf's wild bay,
The screech-owl's requiem o'er departed day,
Conspire to cast o'er western night a tone,
To other lands, however wild, unknown.
The very clearness of the air is drear,
It seems to bring the awful blue so near;
And that wild light is just enough to show
The wildest shapes of wildest things below-
We feel as if too near the panther's swoop,
We pause to hear the Indian's mortal whoop;
The dead-grass, rustling in the fitful gale,
Suggests the rattlesnake's envenom'd trail;
And giant bats, with flick 'ring pinions near,
Seem restless spirits from another sphere.

The following well describes the feelings of a wife:

She did not doubt-but would the world confide?

Must she its alter'd look of scorn abide,
And, ah! far worse, behold the blush of shame
Suffuse her children's cheek, at Norman's name?
That name, so link'd with love's entrancing dream,
That name, embalm'd in reason's high esteem,
That name, round which, in clustering beauty glow,
The flowers of joy, the balm for every wo.
There was no bud of promise-fruit of bliss--
No earthward good--no heavenward happiness--
Which seem'd a boon to her, if 'twere not also his.
The cup of pleasure sparkled to the brim,
When pledg'd in sweet companionship with him ;
And joy seem'd only joy, when Norman's face,"
Illum'd with smiles, inspir'd the unbought grace,
Which sense and sentiment alone bestow,

To lift the heart from earth, or sky-tint all below.
Still darker thoughts career'd through Norman's brain,
Till thought itself became exhausting pain;
And he, like holy men on Olive's steep,
Who vainly strove their master's watch to keep,
In sadness slept-for grief prolong'd will bring,
When too intense, a feverish slumbering.
But she, a very woman, could not sleep,
While none were left o'er him a watch to keep.
Though sore fatigue from aidless labor press'd
With treble force, upon her care-worn breast;
And sleep's oblivious antidote might bring
Both strength to toil, and balm to suffering,
The tireless heart of love repuls'd repose,
And, as the mortal sank, the angel rose.

We fear that we are becoming too minute for the occasion, and that we have already made our article too long. We shall, therefore, hasten to a close, and forbear making those extracts which we otherwise should. While Norman sleeps, his wife is assaulted by a ruffian (one of the felon-band) who is prevented from taking her life and that of her husband, and is killed by a panther. Norman awakes to find "Harden” dead, and his wife with a shattered mind. Her reason, however, soon returns, and, leaving the dangerous neighborhood, they arrive at the house of her father. Here the stain upon his reputation is eventually removed, and although sorrow darkens around him and his heart is grief-worn, his spirit learns to draw its happiness from a better fountain than any of earth,

and

He lived to value love, to conquer pride,

To kiss the rod that smote him-and he died;

But left, in dying, this impressive truth,

To guard from Norman's woes the thoughtful youth,

'That indecision marks its path with tears;

That want of candor darkens future years;

That perfect truth is virtue's safest friend;

And that to shun the wrong is better than to mend.'

We read this poem hastily, but we believe that we have preserved, above, the thread of the story. We cannot say, that we particularly admire the plot, but we do admire the many beautiful flowers of poetry that cluster and breathe their fragrant influence through it. We have omitted, as we before remarked, passages which well deserve a place here. But we must give the following tribute to maternal affection :

'My mother! what a chain of blissful thought Is in that home endearing sentence wrought! Is there on earth a melody so dear,

As that sweet sound to gentle childhood's ear?
My mother soothes my grief, refines my bliss,
And asks but what I love to give--a kiss.
Aye, though the truant heart of manhood stray,
To other charms and other friends away;
The memory of a mother's love, at last,
Returns, like bread on Nile's rich waters cast,
To prove the solace of the stricken heart,
When sorrows come, and hope's gay dreams depart
There's not a wither'd leaf that does not yield
Undying odors, when thro' childhood's field
Of sunny days and ever blooming sweets,
To hail a mother's smile the cloudless memory fleets.
And this metaphor:

There, sat enthroned the love that could not die-
The faith that saw, behind the clouds, the sky,
Still beautifully blue, still richly dight
With stars, that borrowed from the soul the light
They seemed to shed; as gems reflect the ray
With added lustre, back upon the day.

There are several minor poems in this volume. We have read but a few of them, but there appears to be in them the same pure aspiration of poetry. Indeed, we think them, as compositions, better than the main poem. We give below two or three speci

mens.

THE NEW AND THE OLD SONG.

A new song should be sweetly sung,
It goes but to the ear;

A new song should be sweetly sung,
For it touches no one near:

But an old song may be roughly sung ;
The ear forgets its art,

As comes upon the rudest tongue,
The tribute to the heart.

A new song should be sweetly sung,
For memory gilds it not;

It brings not back the strains that rung
Through childhood's sunny cot.

But an old song may be roughly sung,
It tells of days of glee,

When the boy to his mother clung,
Or danc'd on his father's knee.

On tented fields 'tis welcome still; 'Tis sweet on the stormy sea,

In forest wild, on rocky hill,

And away on the prairie-lea :-

But dearer far the old song,

When friends we love are nigh,

And well known voices, clear and strong, Unite in the chorus-cry,

Of the old song, the old song,

The song of the days of glee, When the boy to his mother clung, Or danc'd on his father's knee! Oh, the old song-the old song! The song of the days of glee, The new song may be better sung, But the good old song for me!

THE HARP OF JUDAH.

Oh, harp, that once in Judah's hall, In sweet inspiring strain, Entranc'd the fiery soul of Saul, And sooth'd a monarch's pain!

How oft, when all my earthly joys
Appear but as a dream,

I welcome thy consoling voice,
Thy heaven-directing theme!

Though gone the hand that wak'd thee first,
Though clos'd thy minstrel's eye,

And they who caught thine early burst
Of glory are not nigh;

Of thee no string is broken yet;

Thy deep and holy tone

Can make me earthly cares forget,

And dream of Heaven alone.

Oh harp, if Judah's shepherd flung
Such charms around his theme,
When o'er time's distant scenes he hung,
In dim prophetic dream;

What now thy spell, could David's hand
Awake, once more, thy strains,
And tell to every thrilling land,
The Lord Immanuel reigns!

BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD.

'Tis a blessing to live, but a greater to die,
And the best of the world, is its path to the sky.
Be it gloomy or bright, for the life that he gave,
Let us thank Him-but blessed be God for the grave!
'Tis the end of our toil, 'tis the crown of our bliss,
'Tis the portal of happiness-aye, but for this,
How hopeless were sorrow, how narrow were love,
If they look'd not from earth to the rapture above!
But the portals of death open out on the skies,
And the mortal who enters in ecstasy flies,
An angel of light, to the throne of the King;
While the echoes of Heaven in harmony ring
With the song of the seraphs, Oh! "blessed are they
Who die in the Lord," and from earth come away--
They rest from their labors--the works of their love
Have followed, and crown them with glory above.

It will thus be seen that our author employs poetry in its divinest office-that of a handmaid to Religion. True genius pours forth its loftiest strains upon sacred subjects-it gathers its sweetest flowers by the banks of " the river of life."

We trust that our author may long live, to awaken the echoes of the West with the music of his lyre, to breathe a contribution of true poetry into our national literature, and to twine bright wreaths of laurel around his brow.

ADIEU OF MARY STUART.

(FROM BERENGER.)

France, lovely land! Adieu! adieu! My fondest love is thine for ever! From thee my childhood's joys I drew,Alas! 'tis death from thee to sever.

1

Land of my choice! home of my heart!
Banish'd by cruel fate from thee,

I hear the deep sigh as I part

France, lovely France! remember me!
The breeze springs up-we leave the shore-
The Gods, unpitying all my pain,

Deny the storm, that might restore
Me back, in joy, to thee again.

France, lovely land! Adieu! adieu ! &c.
When, with the glittering lilies crowned,
'Mid crowds I loved, admir'd, I shone ;-
Less praise the lilied circled found

Than that my simple spring-time won:
No charm for me has Scotland's crown-
Its dreary grandeur lures in vain;

I would that France my sway might own,
Or that I'd ne'er been born to reign.

France, lovely France! Adieu! adieu ! &c.

Love, wit, and glory, shed their beams
How brightly! o'er my vernal clime,
Alas! the change, to those dull gleams,
That dimly light rude Scotia's clime.
What horrid vision do I see!

Thrilling my inmost soul with fear;-
How dire the fate, it tells to me-

That phantom-scaffold-phantom-bier!

France, lovely France! Adieu! adieu! &c.

Deep love.-There is a gloom in deep love as in deep

and the folded arms and the dejected head are the images it reflects. No voice shakes its surface; the Muses themselves approach it with a tardy and a timid step, and with a low and tremulous and melancholy

Politeness is in itself a power, and takes away the weight and galling from every other we may exercise.

XVIII.

The man who is determined to keep others fast and firm, must have one end of the bond about his own breast, sleeping or waking.

XIX.

Aspasia says "Dracontides was very fond of Agapenthe; she, however, was by no means so fond of him, which is always the case when young men would warm us at their fire before ours is kindled."

XX.

Three affections of the soul predominate; Love, Religion and Power. The first two are often united; the

mitted nor secks admittance into their society.

XXI.

We may be introduced to Power by Humanity, and at first may love her less for her own sake than for Humanity's, but by degrees we become so accustomed to her as to be quite uneasy without her. Religion and Power, like the Cariatides in sculpture, never face one another; they sometimes look the same way, but oftener stand back to back.

XXII.

Religion and Love.-Religion is never too little for us; it satisfies all the desires of the soul. Love is but an atom of it, consuming and consumed by the stubble on which it falls. But when it rests upon the gods, it partakes of their nature, in its essence pure and eternal. Love indeed works great miracles. As in the Ocean that embraces the Earth, whatever is sordid is borne away and disappears in it, so the flame of Love purifies the temple it burns in.

XXIII.

The power of Virtue.-If any young man would win to himself the hearts of the wise and brave, and is ambitious of being the guide and leader of them, let him be assured that his virtue will give him power, and power will consolidate and maintain his virtue. Let him never then squander away the inestimable powers of youth in tangled and trifling disquisitions, with such as perhaps have an interest in perverting or unsettling his opinions, and who speculate into his sleeping thoughts and dandle his nascent passions; but let him start from them with alacrity and walk forth with firmness; let him early take an interest in the business and concerns of men, and let him, as he goes along, look steadfastly at the statues of those who have benefitted his country, and make with himself a solemn compact to stand hereafter among them.

XXIV.

There are things beyond the art of Phidias. He may represent Love leaning upon his brow and listening to Philosophy; but not for hours together: he may represent Love, while he is giving her a kiss for her lesson, tying her arms behind her : loosing them again must be upon another marble.

XXV.

if there are paces between Sculpture and Painting, there are parasangs between Painting and Poetry. The difference is that of a lake confined by mountains, and a river running on through all the varieties of scenery, perpetual and unimpeded. Sculpture and Painting are moments of life; Poetry is life itself, and every thing around it and above it.

XXVIII.

Happy the man, who, when every thought else is dismissed, comes last and alone into the warm and secret foldings of a letter.

ΧΧΙΧ.

XXX.

We think too much upon what the gods have given us, and too little why.

We both are young; and yet we have seen several, who loved us, pass away; and we cannot live over again as we lived before. A portion of our lives is consumed by the torch we follow at their funerals. We enter into another state of existence, resembling indeed and partaking of the former, but another! it contains the substance of the same sorrows, the shadow of the same joys. Alas! how true are the words of the old poet:

We lose a life in every friend we lose,

And every death is painful, but the last.

XXXI.

Those people who cannot keep their hands from violating the purest works of ancient days, ought, if there are not too many of them, to be confined in separate cages, among the untameable specimens of zoology.

XXXII.

There are proud men of so much delicacy, that it almost conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it.

XXXIII.

Philosophy does not always play fair with us. She

XXVI.

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

XXVII.

Sculpture, Painting and Poetry.-Sculpture (said Pericles,) has made great advances in my time; Painting still greater: for until the last forty years it was inelegant and rude. Sculpture can go no farther; Painting can she may add scenery and climate to her forms. She may give to Philoctetes not only the wing of the sea-bird, wherewith he cools the throbbing of his wound; not only the bow and the quiver at his feet, but likewise the gloomy rocks, the Vulcanian vaults, and the distant fires of Lemnos, the fierce inhabitants subdued by pity, the remorseless betrayer, and the various emotions of his retiring friends. Her reign is boundless, but the fairer and the richer portions of her dominions lies within the Odyssea. Painting by degrees will perceive her advantages over Sculpture; but

when she has led us the farthest way from home. Perhaps it is because we have jumped up from our seats at the first lesson she would give us, and the easiest, and the best. There are few words in the precept, Give pleasure: receive it:

Avoid giving pain: avoid receiving it. For the duller scholar, who may find it difficult to learn the whole, she cuts each line in the middle, and tells him kindly that it will serve the purpose, if he will but keep it in his memory.

XXXIV.

Many things pass across the mind, which are neither to be detained in it, with the intention of insisting on them as truths, nor are to be dismissed from it, as idle and intrusive. Whatever gives exercise to our thoughts, gives them not only activity and strength, but likewise range. We are not obliged to continue on the training ground; nor on the other hand is it expedient to obstruct it or plough it up. The hunter, in quest of one species of game, often finds another, and always finds what is better-freshness and earnestness and animation.