The while it conjured o'er thy brain
Of wandering ghosts a mournful train,
That low in fitful sobs complain
Of Death's untimely call:

"Or feeling, as the storm increased,
The love of terror nerve thy breast,

Didst venture to the coast;
To see the mighty war-ship leap
From wave to wave upon the deep,
Like chamois goat from steep to steep,
Till low in valley lost;

"Then, glancing to the angry sky,
Behold the clouds with fury fly

The lurid moon athwart;
Like armies huge in battle, throng,
And pour in volleying ranks along,
While piping winds in martial song
To rushing war exhort:

"O, then to me thy heart be given,
To me, ordain'd by Him in heaven

Thy nobler powers to wake.
And O! if thou, with poet's soul,
High brooding o'er the frozen pole,
Hast felt beneath my stern control
The desert region quake;

"Or from old Hecla's cloudy height,
When o'er the dismal, half-year's night
He pours his sulphurous breath,
Hast known my petrifying wind
Wild ocean's curling billows bind,
Like bending sheaves by harvest hind,
Erect in icy death;

"Or heard adown the mountain's steep
The northern blast with furious sweep
Some cliff dissever'd dash;
And seen it spring with dreadful bound
From rock to rock, to gulf profound,
While echoes fierce from caves resound

The never-ending crash:

"If thus, with terror's mighty spell Thy soul inspired, was wont to swell, Thy heaving frame expand;

O, then to me thy heart incline;

For know, the wondrous charm was mine,
That fear and joy did thus combine
In magic union bland.

"Nor think confined my native sphere
To horrors gaunt, or ghastly fear,
Or desolation wild:
For I of pleasures fair could sing,
That steal from life its sharpest sting,
And man have made around it cling,

Like mother to her child.

"When thou, beneath the clear blue sky, So calm, no cloud was seen to fly,

Hast gazed on snowy plain, Where Nature slept so pure and sweet, She seem'd a corse in winding-sheet, Whose happy soul had gone to meet The blest, angelic train;

"Or mark'd the sun's declining ray
In thousand varying colours play
O'er ice-incrusted heath,

In gleams of orange now, and green,
And now in red and azure sheen,
Like hues on dying dolphin seen,

Most lovely when in death;

"Or seen, at dawn of eastern light
The frosty toil of fays by night

On pane of casement clear,
Where bright the mimic glaciers shine,
And Alps, with many a mountain pine,
And armed knights from Palestine

In winding march appear:

""T was I on each enchanting scene
The charm bestow'd that banished spleen
Thy bosom pure and light.
But still a nobler power I claim;
That power allied to poets' fame,
Which language vain has dared to name-
The soul's creative might.

"Though Autumn grave, and Summer fair,
And joyous Spring demand a share
Of Fancy's hallow'd power,
Yet these I hold of humbler kind,
To grosser means of earth confined,
Through mortal sense to reach the mind,
By mountain, stream, or flower.

"But mine, of purer nature still,
Is that which to thy secret will
Did minister unseen,
Unfelt, unheard; when every sense
Did sleep in drowsy indolence,
And silence deep and night intense
Enshrouded every scene;

"That o'er thy teeming brain did raise The spirits of departed days

Through all the varying year; And images of things remote,

And sounds that long had ceased to float, With every hue, and every note,

As living now they were:

"And taught thee from the motley mass Each harmonizing part to class,

(Like Nature's self employ'd;) And then, as work'd thy wayward will, From these, with rare combining skill, With new-created worlds to fill

Of space the mighty void.

"O then to me thy heart incline;
To me, whose plastic powers combine
The harvest of the mind;
To me, whose magic coffers bear
The spoils of all the toiling year,
That still in mental vision wear
A lustre more refined."

She ceased-And now, in doubtful mood,
All motionless and mute I stood,

Like one by charm oppress'd:

By turns from each to each I roved,
And each by turns again I loved;
For ages ne'er could one have proved
More lovely than the rest.

"O blessed band, of birth divine,
What mortal task is like to mine!".

And further had I spoke,

When, lo! there pour'd a flood of light
So fiercely on my aching sight,
I fell beneath the vision bright,

And with the pain awoke.

AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN.*

ALL hail! thou noble land,

Our fathers' native soil!
O stretch thy mighty hand,

Gigantic grown by toil,

O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore;
For thou, with magic might,
Canst reach to where the light
Of Phoebus travels bright
The world o'er!

The genius of our clime,

From his pine-embattled steep,

Shall hail the great sublime;

While the Tritons of the deep

With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim

Then let the world combine

O'er the main our naval line,
Like the milky-way, shall shine
Bright in fame!

Though ages long have pass'd

Since our fathers left their home,

Their pilot in the blast,

O'er untravell'd seas to roam,

Yet lives the blood of England in our veins !
And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame,
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?

While the language free and bold
Which the bard of Avon sung,

In which our MILTON told

How the vault of heaven rung,

When Satan, blasted, fell with his host;
While this, with reverence meet,
Ten thousand echoes greet,
From rock to rock repeat

Round our coast;

While the manners, while the arts,
That mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts,

Between let ocean roll,

Our joint communion breaking with the sun: Yet, still, from either beach,

The voice of blood shall reach,

More audible than speech,

"We are one!"

This poem was first published in COLERIDGE's "Sybilline Leaves," in 1810.

THE SPANISH MAID.

FIVE weary months sweet Inez number'd
From that unfading bitter day
When last she heard the trumpet bray
That call'd her Isidor away-

That never to her heart has slumber'd;

She hears it now, and sees, far bending
Along the mountain's misty side,
His plumed troop, that, waving wide,
Seems like a rippling, feathery tide,
Now bright, now with the dim shore blending;
She hears the cannon's deadly rattle-
And fancy hurries on to strife,
And hears the drum and screaming fife
Mix with the last sad cry of life.

O, should he should he fall in battle!
Yet still his name would live in story,
And every gallant bard in Spain
Would fight his battles o'er again.
And would not she for such a strain
Resign him to his country's glory?

Thus Inez thought, and pluck'd the flower
That grew upon the very bank
Where first her ear bewilder'd drank
The plighted vow-where last she sank
In that too bitter parting hour.

But now the sun is westward sinking;
And soon amid the purple haze,
That showers from his slanting rays,
A thousand loves there meet her gaze,
To change her high heroic thinking.

Then hope, with all its crowd of fancies,
Before her flits and fills the air;

And, deck'd in victory's glorious gear,
In vision Isidor is there.

Then how her heart mid sadness dances!

Yet little thought she, thus forestalling
The coming joy, that in that hour
The future, like the colour'd shower
That seems to arch the ocean o'er,
Was in the living present falling.

The foe is slain. His sable charger

All fleck'd with foam comes bounding on, The wild Morena rings anon, And on its brow the gallant Don, And gallant steed grow larger, larger;

And now he nears the mountain-hollow;
The flowery bank and little lake
Now on his startled vision break-
And Inez there.-He's not awake-
Ah, what a day this dream will follow!

But no he surely is not dreaming.
Another minute makes it clear.
A scream, a rush, a burning tear
From Inez' cheek, dispel the fear
That bliss like his is only seeming.

ON GREENOUGH'S GROUP OF THE ANGEL AND CHILD.

I STOOD alone; nor word, nor other sound,
Broke the mute solitude that closed me round;
As when the air doth take her midnight sleep,
Leaving the wintry stars her watch to keep,
So slept she now at noon. But not alone
My spirit then: a light within me shone

That was not mine; and feelings undefined,
And thoughts flow'd in upon me not my own.
T was that deep mystery-for aye unknown-
The living presence of another's mind.
Another mind was there-the gift of few—
That by its own strong will can all that's true
In its own nature unto others give,

And mingling life with life, seem there to live.
I felt it now in mine; and oh! how fair,
How beautiful the thoughts that met me there-
Visions of Love, and Purity, and Truth!
Though form distinct had each, they seem'd,as'twere,
Imbodied all of one celestial air-

To beam for ever in coequal youth.

And thus I learn'd-as in the mind they moved-
These stranger Thoughts the one the other loved;
That Purity loved Truth, because 't was true,
And Truth, because 't was pure, the first did woo;
While Love, as pure and true, did love the twain;
Then Love was loved of them, for that sweet chain
That bound them all. Thus sure, as passionless,
Their love did grow, till one harmonious strain
Of melting sounds they seem'd; then, changed again,
One angel form they took-Self-Happiness.
This angel form the gifted Artist saw,
That held me in his spell. "T was his to draw
The veil of sense, and see the immortal race,
The Forms spiritual, that know not place.
He saw it in the quarry, deep in earth,
And stay'd it by his will, and gave it birth
E'en to the world of sense; bidding its cell,
The cold, hard marble, thus in plastic girth
The shape ethereal fix, and body forth

A being of the skies-with man to dwell.
And then another form beside it stood;

'Twas one of this our earth-though the warm blood
Had from it pass'd-exhaled as in a breath
Drawn from its lips by the cold kiss of Death.
Its little "dream of human life" had fled;
And yet it seem'd not number'd with the dead,
But one emerging to a life so bright
That, as the wondrous nature o'er it spread,
Its very consciousness did seem to shed
Rays from within, and clothe it all in light.
Now touch'd the Angel Form its little hand,
Turning upon it with a look so bland,
And yet so full of majesty, as less
Than holy natures never may impress―
And more than proudest guilt unmoved may brook.
The Creature of the Earth now felt that look,
And stood in blissful awe-as one above
Who saw his name in the Eternal Book,
And Him that open'd it; e'en Him that took
The Little Child, and bless'd it in his love.

SONNETS.

ON A FALLING GROUP IN THE LAST JUDG MENT OF MICHAEL ANGELO.

How vast, how dread, o'erwhelming is the thought
Of space interminable! to the soul

A circling weight that crushes into naught
Her mighty faculties! a wond'rous whole,
Without or parts, beginning, or an end!
How fearful then on desp'rate wings to send
The fancy e'en amid the waste profound!
Yet, born as if all daring to astound,
Thy giant hand, O ANGELO, hath hurl'd
E'en human forms, with all their mortal weight,
Down the dread void-fall endless as their fate!
Already now they seem from world to world
For ages thrown; yet doom'd, another past,
Another still to reach, nor e'er to reach the last!

ON REMBRANT: OCCASIONED BY HIS PICTURE
OF JACOB'S DREAM.

As in that twilight, superstitious age,
When all beyond the narrow grasp of mind
Seem'd fraught with meanings of supernal kind,
When e'en the learned philosophic sage,

Wont with the stars thro' boundless space to range,
Listen'd with reverence to the changeling's tale;
E'en so, thou strangest of all beings strange!
E'en so thy visionary scenes I hail;
That like the rambling of an idiot's speech,
No image giving of a thing on earth,
Nor thought significant in reason's reach,
Yet in their random shadowings give birth
To thoughts and things from other worlds that come,
And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb.

ON THE PICTURES BY RUBENS, IN THE LUX-
EMBOURG GALLERY.

THERE is a charm no vulgar mind can reach,
No critic thwart, no mighty master teach;
A charm how mingled of the good and ill!
Yet still so mingled that the mystic whole
Shall captive hold the struggling gazer's will,
Till vanquish'd reason own its full control.
And such, O RUBENS, thy mysterious art,
The charm that vexes, yet enslaves the heart!
Thy lawless style, from timid systems free,
Impetuous rolling like a troubled sea,

High o'er the rocks of reason's lofty verge
Impending hangs; yet, ere the foaming surge
Breaks o'er the bound, the refluent ebb of taste
Back from the shore impels the wat'ry waste.

TO MY VENERABLE FRIEND THE PRESIDENT
OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

FROM one unused in pomp of words to raise
A courtly monument of empty praise,
Where self, transpiring through the flimsy pile,
Betrays the builder's ostentatious guile,
Accept, O WEST, these unaffected lays,
Which genius claims and grateful justice pays.
Still green in age, thy vig'rous powers impart
The youthful freshness of a blameless heart:
For thine, unaided by another's pain,
The wiles of envy, or the sordid train

Of selfishness, has been the manly race
Of one who felt the purifying grace
Of honest fame; nor found the effort vain
E'en for itself to love thy soul-ennobling art.

ON SEEING THE PICTURE OF OLUS, BY
PELIGRINO TIBALDI.

FULL Well, TIBALDI, did thy kindred mind
The mighty spell of BONAROTI own.
Like one who, reading magic words, receives
The gift of intercourse with worlds unknown,
"T was thine, deciph'ring Nature's mystic leaves,
To hold strange converse with the viewless wind;
To see the spirits, in imbodied forms,

Of gales and whirlwinds, hurricanes and storms.
For, lo! obedient to thy bidding, teems
Fierce into shape their stern, relentless lord:
His form of motion ever-restless seems;
Or, if to rest inclined his turbid soul,

On Hecla's top to stretch, and give the word
To subject winds that sweep the desert pole.

ON THE DEATH OF COLERIDGE.

AND thou art gone,most loved,most honour'd Friend!
No-never more thy gentle voice shall blend
With air of earth its pure ideal tones-
Binding in one, as with harmonious zones,
The heart and intellect. And I no more
Shall with thee gaze on that unfathom'd deep,
The human soul; as when, push'd off the shore,
Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep,
Itself the while so bright! For oft we seem'd
As on some starless sea-all dark above,
All dark below-yet, onward as we drove,
To plough up light that ever round us stream'd.
But he who mourns is not as one bereft
Of all he loved: thy living truths are left.

THE TUSCAN MAID.

How pleasant and how sad the turning tide
Of human life, when side by side
The child and youth begin to glide
Along the vale of years;

The pure twin-being for a little space,
With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face,
Too young for wo, though not for tears.

This turning tide is URSULINA'S now;
The time is mark'd upon her brow;
Now every thought and feeling throw
Their shadows on her face;

And so are every thought and feeling join'd,
"T were hard to answer whether heart or mind
Of either were the native place.

The things that once she loved are still the same;
Yet now there needs another name
To give the feeling which they claim,
While she the feeling gives;

She cannot call it gladness or delight;
And yet there seems a richer, lovelier light
On e'en the humblest thing that lives.

She sees the mottled moth come twinkling by,
And sees it sip the flowret nigh;

Yet not, as once, with eager cry

She grasps the pretty thing;

Her thoughts now mingle with its tranquil moodSo poised in air, as if on air it stood

To show its gold and purple wing.

She hears the bird without a wish to snare,
But rather on the azure air

To mount, and with it wander there
To some untrodden land;

As if it told her in its happy song

Of pleasures strange, that never can belong
To aught of sight or touch of hand.

Now the young soul her mighty power shall prove,
And outward things around her move,
Pure ministers of purer love,

And make the heart her home;

Or to the meaner senses sink a slave,
To do their bidding, though they madly crave
Through hateful scenes of vice to roam.

But, URSULINA, thine the better choice;
Thine eyes so speak, as with a voice:
Thy heart may still in earth rejoice

And all its beauty love;

But no, not all this fair, enchanting earth,
With all its spells, can give the rapture birth
That waits thy conscious soul above.

ROSALIE.

O, POUR upon my soul again

That sad, unearthly strain,

That seems from other worlds to plain;
Thus falling, falling from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs,

And dropped them from the skies.
No never came from aught below
This melody of wo,
That makes my heart to overflow
As from a thousand gushing springs
Unknown before; that with it brings
This nameless light-if light it be-
That veils the world I see.

For all I see around me wears
The hue of other spheres;

And something blent of smiles and tears
Comes from the very air I breathe.
O, nothing, sure, the stars beneath,
Can mould a sadness like to this-
So like angelic bliss.

So, at that dreamy hour of day,
When the last lingering ray
Stops on the highest cloud to play-
So thought the gentle ROSALIE
As on her maiden revery

First fell the strain of him who stole
In music to her soul.

PROFESSOR FRISBIE was the son of a respectable clergyman at Ipswich, Massachusetts. He entered Harvard University in 1798, and was graduated in 1802. His father, like most of the clergymen of New England, was a poor man, and unable fully to defray the costs of his son's education; and Mr. FRISBIE, while an under-graduate, provided in part for his support by teaching a school during vacations, and by writing as a clerk. His friend and biographer, Professor ANDREWS NORTON, alludes to this fact as a proof of the falsity of the opinion that wealth constitutes the only aristocracy in our country. Talents, united with correct morals, and good manners, pass unquestioned all the artificial barriers of society, and

their claim to distinction is recognised more willingly than any other.

Soon after leaving the university, Mr. FRISBIE commenced the study of the law; but an affection of the eyes depriving him of their use for the purposes of study, he abandoned his professional pursuits, and accepted the place of Latin tutor in Harvard University. In 1811, he was made Professor of the Latin Language, and in 1817, Professor of Moral Philosophy. The last office he held until he died, on the 19th of July, 1822. He was an excellent scholar, an original thinker, and a pure-minded man. An octavo volume, containing a memoir, some of his philosophical lectures, and a few poems, was published in 1823.

A CASTLE IN THE AIR.

I'LL tell you, friend, what sort of wife,
Whene'er I scan this scene of life,
Inspires my waking schemes,
And when I sleep, with form so light,
Dances before my ravish'd sight,
In sweet aerial dreams.

The rose its blushes need not lend,
Nor yet the lily with them blend,

To captivate my eyes.
Give me a cheek the heart obeys,
And, sweetly mutable, displays
Its feelings as they rise;

Features, where, pensive, more than gay,
Save when a rising smile doth play,
The sober thought you see;
Eyes that all soft and tender seem,
And kind affections round them beam,
But most of all on me;

A form, though not of finest mould,
Where yet a something you behold
Unconsciously doth please;
Manners all graceful without art,
That to each look and word impart
A modesty and ease.

But still her air, her face, each charm
Must speak a heart with feeling warm,
And mind inform the whole;

With mind her mantling cheek must glow,
Her voice, her beaming eye must show
An all-inspiring soul.

Ah! could I such a being find,
And were her fate to mine but join'd
By Hymen's silken tie,