Thou poor old Earth! no more, no more Shall I draw speech from thee,

Nor dare thy crypts of legendary lore:

[shore.

Let silence learn no tongue; let night fold every

Yet I have something left-the will,

That Mont Blanc of the soul, is towering still.
And I can bear the pain,

The storm, the old heroic chain;
And with a smile

Pluck wisdom from my torture, and give back
A love to Fate from this my mountain-rack.
I do believe the sad alone are wise;

I do believe the wrong'd alone can know
Why lives the world, why spread the burden'd skies,
And so from torture into godship grow.
Plainer and plainer beams this truth, the more
I hear the slow, dull dripping of my gore;
And now, arising from yon deep,

'Tis plain as a white statue on a tall, dark steep.

Oh, suffering bards! oh, spirits black
With storm on many a mountain-rack!
Our early splendour's gone,

Like stars into a cloud withdrawn-
Like music laid asleep

In dried-up fountains-like a stricken dawn
Where sudden tempests sweep.

I hear the bolts around us falling,
And cloud to cloud forever calling:
Yet we must nor despair nor weep.
Did we this evil bring?

Or from our fellows did the torture spring?
Titans! forgive, forgive!

Oh, know ye not 'tis victory but to live?
Therefore I say, rejoice with harp and voice!
We are the prophets of the beautiful.
And thou, O Earth! rejoice

With many waters rising like a voice.
Thou, too, art full of beauty: thou!
Though thorns are piercing thy pale brow,
And thy deep, awful eyes look dull.
Wherever beauty is, is hope;

And thou for His great sake hadst being:
From central deep to starry cope
Beauty is the all-seeing.

Oh, yet thou shalt be a majestic creature,
Redeem'd in form and every feature;

New moons on high, thy plains continuous bowers,
And in thy snow-white hand another Eden's flowers.

Upon the rocks beside the frozen fountains, The avalanches of Gon's judgments roll'd With stately motion and far thunder down Eternity's old mountains:

We hear, and calmly smile

Amid the mist on this our rocky pile."

Oh, suffering but heroic souls!

Your voices come to me like muffled rolls

Of brave but mournful thunders at their goals: And, gaining strength, once more I cry aloud

From mine own stormy peak and clinging shroud,

Still, still rejoice, with harp and voice!

I know not what our fate may be:

I only know that he who hath a time
Must also have eternity:

One billow proves and gives a whole wide sea.
On this I build my trust,

And not on mountain-dust,

Or murmuring woods, or starlit clime,

Or ocean with melodious chime,

Or sunset glories in the western sky:
Enough, I am, and shall not choose to die.
No matter what our future fate may be:
To live is in itself a majesty!
Oh! there we may again create
Fair worlds as in our youthful state;
Or Wo may build for us a fiery tomb
Like FARINATA's in the nether gloom:
Even then we will not lose the name of man
By idle moan or coward groan,

No tempest heralded the orient light;
No fiery portent walk'd the solemn night;
No conqueror's blood-red banner was unfurl'd;
No volcan shook its warning torch on high;
No earthquake tore the pulses of the world;
No pale suns wander'd through the swarthy sky;
Only the silent Spheres

Amid the darkness shed some joyous tears;
And then, as rainbows come, IT came
With morning's lambent flame.

The Stars look'd from their palaces, whose spires
And windows caught afar the prophet-glow,
And bade their choirs sing to the sweetest lyres,
"Peace and good will unto the orb below!"
The monarchs shudder'd and turn'd sick at heart;
And from their bright hands fell

Gemm'd sceptres with a thunderous sound
Before the miracle:

Ah! sick at soul-but they, the bards,
Song's calm immortals in the eclipse,
Throng'd up and held the nectar-cup
To their pale lips;

And each, with an eager, fond look, stirr'd
Certain melodious strings,

While the startled tempest-bearing bird,
Poised tremblingly his wings:
Then loftier still their harps resounded,
And louder yet their voices roll'd
Between the arches, and rebounded
Dreamily from the roof of gold:

"Ye cannot leave your throned spheres,

Though faith is o'er,

And a mightier ONE than JOVE appears
On Earth's expectant shore!"

Slowly the daring words went trampling through

the balls

"Not in the earth, nor hell, nor sky,
The IDEAL, O ye gods! can ever die,
But to the soul of man immortal calls.

"Still, Jove, sublime, shall wrap
His awful forehead in Olympian shrouds,
Or take along the heavens' dark wilderness
His thunder-chase behind the hunted clouds:
And morta! eyes upturned shall behold
APOLLO'S rustling robe of gold

Sweep through the corridors of the ancient sky
That kindling speaks its Deity:
And HE the ruler of the sunless land
Of restless ghosts shall fitfully illume

With smouldering fires that stir in cavern'd eyes
Hell's house of shuddering gloom:
Still the ethereal huntress, as of old,
Shall roam amid the sacred Latmos mountains,
And lave her virgin limbs in waters cold

That earth holds up for her in marble fountains:
And in his august dreams along the Italian* streams,
The poor old throneless god, with angry frown,
Will feebly grasp the air for his lost crown-
Then murmur sadly low of his great overthrow.
And wrapp'd in sounding mail shall he appear,
War's giant charioteer!--

And where the conflict reels,

Urge through the swaying lines his crashing wheels;
Or pause to list amid the horrent shades,
The deep, hoarse cry of battle's thirsty blades,
Led by the hungry spear-
Till at the weary combat's close,
They gave their passionate thanks,
Amid the panting ranks of conquer'd foes;
Then, drunken with their king's red wine,
Go swooning to repose around his purple shrine.

"And HE the trident-wielder still shall see
The adoring billows kneel around his feet,
While, at his call, the winds in ministry
Before their altar of the tempest meet:
Or-leaning gently o'er the Paphian isles,
Cheer'd by the music of some Triton's horn-
Lift up the shadowy curtains of the night

Saturn was banished to Italy.

To their hid window-tops above,
And bathe thy drowsy eyelids with the light,
Voluptuous queen of love!

And thon, ah, thou,

Born of the white sea-foam

That dreams a-troubled still around thy home-
Awaking from thy slumbers, thou shalt press
Thy passionate lips on his resplendent brow
In some sweet, lone recess,

Where waters murmur and the dim leaves bow:
And young ENDYMION

At midnight's pallid noon

Shall still be charm'd from his dewy sleep

By the foolish, lovesick Moon,

Who thrills to find him in some lovely vale

Before her silver lamp may fail:

And PAN shall play his pleasant reed
Down in the hush'd arcades,

And fauns shall prank the sward amid
Thessalia's sunny shades.

66

Nor absent sHE whose eyes of azure throw* Truth's sunburst on the world below: Still shall she calmly watch the choral years Circling fast the beamy spheres

That tremble as she marches through their plains, While momently rolls out a sullen sound

From Error's hoary mountains tumbling round—
Heard by the Titan, who from his high rock,
Fill'd with immortal pains

That his immortal spirit still can mock,
Exultant sees-despite the oppressor's ire,
The frost, the heat, the vulture, and the storm-
Earth's ancient vales rejoicing in his fire,
The homes, the loves of men-those beings wrought
To many a beauteous form†

In the grand quiet of his own great thought:
And over all, bright, beautiful, serene,
And changeless in thy prime,

Thou, PSYCHE, glory-cinctured shalt be seen,
Whispering forever that one word sublime,
Down through the peopled gallery of Time—
ETERNITY!'-in whose dread cycles stand
Men and their deities, alike on common land."

Like far-off stars that glimmer in a cloud,
Deathless, O gods! shall ye illume the past;
To ye the poet-voice will cry aloud,
Faithful among the faithless to the last-
"Ye must not die!"

Long as the dim robes of the ages trail
O'er Delphi's steep or Tempe's flowery vale-
Ye shall not die!

Though time and storm your calm old temples rend,
And, rightly, men to our " ONE ONLY" bend-
Ye were the things in which the ancient mind
Its darkling sense of Deity enshrined.
To Sinai still Olympus reverent calls,
And Ida leans to hear Mount Zion's voice:
Gods of the past! your shapes are in our halls;
Upon our clime your mighty presence falls,
And Christian hearts with Grecian souls rejoice.

"Thou, Pallas, Wisdom's blue-eyed queen !” According to the Greek mythology, Promethens stole fire from heaven and created man, for which Jove pun ished him.

MR. LOWELL is a native of Boston, where his father is an eminent Congregational clergyman. He completed his education at Harvard College when about twenty years of age, and subsequently studied the law, but I believe with no intention of entering the courts. His first appearance as an author was in 1839, when he printed a class poem recited at Cambridge. It was a composition in heroic verse, which, though it betrayed marks of haste, contained many strokes of vigorous satire, much sharp wit, and occasional bursts of feeling. Two years afterward he published a volume of miscellaneous poems, under the title of " A Year's Life." This bore no relationship to his first production. It illustrated entirely different thoughts, feelings, and habits. It not only evinced a change of heart, but so entire a revolution in his mode of thinking as to seem the production of a different mind. The staple of one forms the satire of the other. Not more unlike are CARLYLE'S "Life of SCHILLER" and his "Sartor Resartus." Though "A Year's Life" was by no means deficient in merit, it had so many weak points as to be easily accessible to satirical criticism. The author's language was not pure. When he would "wreak his thoughts upon expression," in the absence of allowable words, he corrupted such as came nearest his meaning into terms which had an intelligible sound, but would not bear a close scrutiny. With all its faults, however, the book had gleams and flashes of genius, which justified warm praises and sanguine expectations. The new poet, it was evident, had an observing eye, and a suggestive imagination; he had caught the tone and spirit of the new and mystical philosophy; he had a large heart; and he aimed, not altogether unsuccessfully, to make Nature the representative and minister of his feelings and desires. If he failed in attempts to put thin abstractions and ever-fleeting shades of thought and emotion into palpable forms, the signs, in A Year's Life," of the struggling of a larger nature than appeared in defined outlines, made for the author a watchful and hopeful audience.

In 1844 Mr. LOWELL published a new volume, evincing very decided advancement in thought, and feeling, and execution. The longest of its contents, "A Legend of Brittany," is without any of the striking faults of his previous compositions, and in imagination and artistic finish is the best poem he has yet printed. A knight loves and betrays a maiden, and, to conceal his crime, murders her, and places her corpse for temporary concealment behind the altar of his church, whence he is prevented by a mysterious awe from removing it. Meanwhile a festival is held there, and when the

people are all assembled, and the organ sounds, the temp'ar hears the voice of the wronged spirit, complaining that she has no rest in heaven because of the state of the unbaptized infant in her womb, for which she implores the sacrament. Her prayer is granted, and the repentant lover dies of remorse. The illustration of this story gives occasion for the finest of Mr. LowELL's exhibitions of love, and the poem is in all respects beautiful and complete. In the same volume appeared the author's "Prometheus," "Rhocus," and some of his most admired shorter pieces. He put forth in it his best powers, and though it embraced occasional redundancies, and he was sometimes so illsatisfied with his poem as to give in its conclusion a versified exposition of its meaning in the form of a moral, it secured the general consent to his admission into the company of men of genius.

In 1845 appeared his "Conversations on some of the Old Poets," consisting of a series of criticisms and relevant discussions which evince careful study, delicate perception, and a generous catholicity of taste; but the book does not contain the best specimens of his criticism or of his prose diction.

He gave to the public a third collection of his poems in 1848. In this there is no improvement of versification, no finer fancy, or braver imagination, than in the preceding volume; but it illustrates a deeper interest in affairs, and a warm partisanship for the philanthropists and progressists of all classes. Among his subjects are "The Present Crisis," "Anti-Texas," "The Capture of Fugitive Slaves," "Hunger and Cold," "The Landlord," &c. He gives here the first examples of a peculiar humour, which he has since cultivated with success, and many passages of finished declamation and powerful invective. He had been married, in 1844, to Miss MARIA WHITE, whose abilities are shown in a graceful composition included in this volume, and by others which I have quoted in the "Female Poets of America."

In the same year Mr. LowELL published "A Fable for Critics, or a Glance at a Few of our Literary Progenies," a rhymed essay, critical and satirical, upon the principal living writers of the country. It abounds in ingenious turns of expression, and felicitous sketches of character; it is witty and humorous, and for the most part in a spirit of genial appreciation; but in a few instances the judgments indicate too narrow a range of sympathies, and the caustic severity of others has been attributed to desires of retaliation.

TheFable for Critics" was soon followed by The Biglow Papers," a collection of verses in the dialect of New England, with an introduction and notes, written in the character of a pedantic

but sharp-witted and patriotic country parson. | The book is a satire upon the defences of our recent war against Mexico, and it exhibits in various forms of indigenous and homely humour the indignation with which the contest was regarded by the best sort of people in the eastern states. The sectional peculiarities of idiom are perhaps exaggerated, but the entire work has an appearance of genuineness.

About the same time appeared Mr. LOWELL'S "Vision of Sir Launfal," a poem founded upon the legend of the search for the Holy Grail, (the cup out of which our Lord drank with his disci

ples at the last supper.) This is one of his longest and most beautiful poems, but an objection to it is poetically as well as metaphysically just, that the actions of Sir Launfal are induced by convictions of duty rather than by simple love.

Besides these works, Mr. LoWELL has written much for the periodicals. He edited several months a monthly miscellany called "The Pioneer," and he is now an associate editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard." He is the author of some of the best papers in the “North American Review," and under various disguises is a contributor to other magazines and journals.

TO THE DANDELION.

DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,

First pledge of b'ithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found,

Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth-thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;

'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,

Though most hearts never understand
To take it at Gon's value, but pass by
The offer'd wealth with unrewarded eye.
Thou art my trophies and mine Italy;
To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time;
Not in mid June the golden-cuirass'd bee
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment

In the white lily's breezy tint,
His conquer'd Sybaris, than I, when first
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
Then think I of deep shadows on the grass-
Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,

Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways-
Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
Or whiten in the wind-of waters blue

That from the distance sparkle through
Some woodland gap-and of a sky above, [move.
Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth

My childhood's earliest thoughts are link'd with The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, [thee; Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listen'd as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he did bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears,
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth Nature scem,
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of Gon's book.

TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD. ANOTHER star 'neath Time's horizon dropp'd,

To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas! Another heart that beat for freedom stopp'd: What mournful words are these!

Oh! Love divine, thou claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart,

Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth, To teach men what thou art.

His was a spirit that to all thy poor

Was kind as slumber after pain:
Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door
And call him home again!

Freedom needs all her poets: it is they
Who give her aspirations wings,
And to the wiser law of music sway

Her wild imaginings.

Yet thou hast call'd him, nor art thou unkind,
Oh! Love divine, for 'tis thy will
That gracious natures leave their love behind
To work for Freedom still.

Let laureli'd marbles weigh on other tombs,
Let anthems peal for other dead,
Rustling the banner'd depth of minster-glooms
With their exulting spread:

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone,
No lichen shall its lines etface;
He needs these few and simple lines alone
To mark his resting-place :—

"Here lies a poet: stranger, if to thee

His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor."

SONNETS.

I. TO.

THROUGH suffering and sorrow thou hast pass'd
To show us what a woman true may be:
They have not taken sympathy from thee,
Nor made thee any other than thou wast;
Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast,
Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown,
Upon the air, but keepeth every one

Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last;
So thou hast shed some blooms of gayety,
But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity
Robb'd thee of any faith in happiness,
But rather clear'd thine inner eyes to see
How many simple ways there are to bless.

Tus hungry flame hath never yet been hot
To him who won his name and crown of fire;
But it doth ask a stronger soul and higher
To bear, not longing for a prouder lot,
Those martyrdoms whereof the world knows not,-
Hope sneaped with frosty scorn, the faith of youth
Wasted in seeming vain defence of Truth,
Greatness o'ertopp'd with baseness, and fame got
Too late:-Yet this most bitter task was meant
For those right worthy in such cause to plead,
And therefore God sent poets, men content
To live in humbleness and body's need,

If they may tread the path where Jesus went,
And sow one grain of Love's eternal seed.

III.

I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden leap
From being's sea, like the isle-seeming Kraken,
With whose great rise the ocean all is shaken
And a heart-tremble quivers through the deep;
Give me that growth which some perchance deem
Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems uprise, [sleep,
Which, by the toil of gathering energies,
Their upward way into clear sunshine keep,
Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences,
Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of green
Into a pleasant island in the seas,

Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roof'd home is seen,
And wearicd men shall sit at sunset's hour,
Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear power.

IV. TO, ON HER BIRTH-DAY. MAIDEN, when such a soul as thine is born, The morning-stars their ancient music make, And, joyful, once again their song awake, Long silent now with melancholy scorn; And thou, not mindless of so blest a morn, By no least deed its harmony shalt break, But shalt to that high chime thy footsteps take, Through life's most darksome passes, unforlorn; Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt not fall, Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and free, And, in thine every motion, musical As summer air, majestic as the sea, A mystery to those who creep and crawl Through Time, and part it from Eternity.

V. TO THE SAME.

My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
Whose numbering-clock is still thy gentle kiss.
While Time and Peace with hands enlocked fly,-
Yet care I not where in Eternity

We live and love, well knowing that there is
No backward step for those who feel the bliss
Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings high:
Love hath so purified my heart's strong core,
Meseems I scarcely should be startled, even,
To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before;
Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given,
Which each calm day doth strengthen more and

more,

That they who love are but one step from Heaven.

IV. TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS.

GREAT Soul thou sittest with me in my room,
Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes,
On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies
The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom:
Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom
Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries,
Wrestling with the young poet's agonies,
Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom;
Yes! the few words which, like great thunder-drops,
Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully,
Thrill'd by the inward lightning of its might,
Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light,
Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny,
After the moon-led pulse of occan stops.

VII. TO.

OUR love is not a fading, earthly flower;
Its wing'd seed dropp'd down from Paradise,
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower,
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise:
To us the leafless autumn is not bare,
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green,
Our summer hearts make summer's fulness, where
No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen:
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,
Love,-whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic keys these cells of Thou and I
Into the infinite freedom openeth,

And makes the body's dark and narrow grate
The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.

VIII. IN ABSENCE.

THESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear,
Did I not know, that, in the early spring,
When wild March winds upon their errands sing,
Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air,
Like those same winds, when, startled from their
They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks [lair,
From icy cares, even as thy clear looks

Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care:
When drops with welcome rain the April day,
My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes,
Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay,
As loath to fall out of those happy skies;
Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May,
That comes with steady sun when April dies.