DAY, IN MELTING PURPLE DYING.
Thou, to whom I love to hearken,
Come, ere night around me darken;
Though thy softness but deceive me,
Say thou'rt true, and I'll believe thee;
Veil, if ill, thy soul's intent-
Let me think it innocent!

Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure:
All I ask is friendship's pleasure;
Let the shining ore lie darkling,
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling:
Gifts and gold are naught to me;
I would only look on thee!

Tell to thee the high wrought feeling,
Ecstasy but in revealing;

Paint to thee the deep sensation,
Rapture in participation,

Yet but torture, if comprest,
In a lone, unfriended breast.

Absent still! Ah! come and bless me !
Let these eyes again caress thee;
Once, in caution, I could fly thee;
Now I nothing could deny thee;
In a look if death there be,

Come, and I will gaze on thee!

7

The story of Zophiël is an elaborate picture of the angels "from the blooming of roses at Ecbatana to the coming in of spices at Babylon." Charles Lamb, in one of his letters, thus refers to it: "Which (Zophiël) he (Southey) says, is by some Yankee woman, as if there ever had been a woman capable of anything so great."

In December, 1843, Mrs. Brooks visited Cuba for the last time. The small stone tenement on her coffee estate, Hermita, with a flight of steps leading to its entrance, in which she wrote portions of Zophiël, is thus described by the author of "Notes on Cuba," who visited that island in 1843: "The little building is surrounded by alleys of palms, cocoas, and oranges, interspersed with the tamarind, the pomegranate, the mangoe, and the rose-apple, with a background of coffee and plantains, covering every portion of the soil with their luxuriant verdure. I have often passed it," he continues," in the still night, when the moon was shining brightly, and the leaves of the cocoa and palm threw fringe-like shadows on the walls and the floor, and the elfin lamps of the cocullos swept through the windows and door, casting their lurid, mysterious light on every object, while the air was laden with mingled perfume from the coffee and orange, and the tube-rose and night-blooming ceres, and have though that no fitter birthplace could be found for the images she has created."

·

* "Mrs. Brooks is styled in 'The Doctor,' &c., the most impassioned and most imaginative of all poetesses.' And, without taking into account quædam ardentiora, scattered here and there throughout her singular poem, there is undoubtedly ground for the first clause, and with the more accurate substitution of 'fanciful' for 'imaginative,' for the whole of the eulogy. It is altogether an extraordinary performance."-London Quarterly Review.

ROSALIE.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

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 her 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.

WHO HAS ROBB'D THE OCEAN CAVE.

JOHN SHAW. Born 1778; died 1809.

WHO has robb'd the ocean cave,
To tinge thy lips with coral hue?
Who, from India's distant wave,
For thee those pearly treasures drew?
Who, from yonder orient sky,
Stole the morning of thine eye?

I SWEAR TO LEAVE THEE, LOVE, NO MORE.

Thousand charms thy form to deck,

From sea, and earth, and air are torn ;
Roses bloom upon thy cheek,

On thy breath their fragrance borne.
Guard thy bosom from the day,
Lest thy snows should melt away.

But one charm remains behind,
Which mute earth can ne'er impart;
Nor in ocean wilt thou find,

Nor in the circling air a heart;

Fairest, wouldst thou perfect be,
Take, O, take that heart from me.

I SWEAR TO LEAVE THEE, LOVE, NO MORE.
WILLIAM LEGGETT. Born 1802; died 1840.

I TRUST the frown thy features wear
Ere long into a smile will turn;
I would not that a face so fair

As thine, beloved, should look so stern.
The chain of ice that winter twines,
Holds not for aye the sparkling rill,
It melts away when summer shines,
And leave the waters sparkling still.
Thus let thy cheek resume the smile
That shed such sunny light before;
And though I left thee for awhile,

I'll swear to leave thee, love, no more.

As he who, doomed o'er waves to roam,
Or wander on a foreign strand,
Will sigh whene'er he thinks of home,
And better love his native land,
So I, though lured a time away,
Like bees by varied sweets to rove,
Return, like bees, by close of day,

And leave them all for thee, my love.
Then let thy cheek resume the smile
That shed such sunny light before;
And though I left thee for awhile,

I swear to leave thee, love, no more.

9

MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER
R. H. WILDE.

ROSE. [Music by an Amateur.

My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground, to die!
Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see-
But none shall weep a tear for me!
My life is like the autumn leaf
That trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail-its date is brief,

Restless-and soon to pass away!
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree-
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!
My life is like the prints, which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea-
But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

"TRUST in thee?" Ay, dearest, there's no one but must, Unless truth be a fable, in such as thee trust;

For who can see heaven's own hue in those eyes,

And doubt that truth with it came down from the skies; While each thought of thy bosom, like morning's young light, Almost ere 'tis born, flashes there on his sight?

"Trust in thee?" Why, bright one, thou couldst not betray, While thy heart and thine eyes are forever at play! And he who unloving can study the one,

Is so certain to be by the other undone,

That if he cares aught for his quiet, he must,
Like me, sweetest MARY, in both of them trust.

LOOK OUT UPON THE STARS.

SLEEP, CHILD OF MY LOVE!

R. C. SANDS. Born 1799; died 1832.

SLEEP, child of my love! be thy slumber as light
As the red bird that nestles secure on the spray;
Be the visions that visit thee fairy and bright

As the dew-drops that sparkle around with the ray!
O, soft flows the breath from thine innocent breast;
In the wild wood, sleep cradles in roses thy head;
But her who protects thee, a wanderer unbless'd,
He forsakes, or surrounds with his phantoms of dread.
I fear for thy father! why stays he so long

On the shores where the wife of the giant was thrown,
And the sailor oft lingered to hearken her song,

So sad o'er the wave, e'er she hardened to stone? He skims the blue tide in his birchen canoe,

Where the foe in the moonbeams his path may descry; The ball to its scope may speed rapid and true,

And lost in the wave be thy father's death-cry! The Power that is round us- -whose presence is near, In the gloom and the solitude felt by the soul, Protect that frail bark in its lonely career,

And shield thee, when roughly life's billows shall roll.

LOOK OUT UPON THE STARS.
E. C. PINKNEY.

LOOK out upon the stars, my love,
And shame them with thine eyes,
On which, than on the lights above,
There hang more destinies.
Night's beauty is the harmony
Of blending shades and light;
Then, lady, up-look out and be
A sister to the night!

Sleep not! thine image wakes for aye

Within my watching breast:

Sleep not!-from her soft sleep should fly,

Who robs all hearts of rest.

Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break,

And make this darkness gay

With looks, whose brightness well might make
Of darker nights a day.

11