And yet it is: I feel,

Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid!
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade;
And something seems to steal
Over my bosom like a frozen hand,
Binding its pulses with an icy band.

And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil? It can not be
The immortal spirit shuddereth to be free!
Would it not leap to fly

Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear, I fear, that this poor life is all!

Yet thus to pass away;

To live but for a hope that mocks at last;
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,
To waste the light of day,

Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are, for this, for naught!

Vain, vain! My brain is turning

With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing, - burning,

Dying! O God! if I might only live! -
My phial ha! it thrills me! I revive!

Ay, were not man to die,

He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here,
Could he but train his eye,

Might he but wait the mystic word and hour,
Only his Maker would transcend his power!

Earth has no mineral strange,
The illimitable air no hidden wings,
Water no quality in covert springs,
And fire no power to change.

Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.

Oh but for time to track

The upper stars into the pathless sky;
To see the invisible spirits eye to eye;
To hurl the lightning back;

To tread unhurt the Sea's dim-lighted halls;
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon-walls!

And more, much more! - for now

The life-sealed fountains of my nature move,
To nurse and purify this human love;
To clear the godlike brow

Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down,
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one!

This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slacken at the living stream;
To live-O God! that life is but a dream!
And death- Aha! I reel,

Dim,- dim,

I faint!- darkness comes o'er my eye! Cover me! save me! God of heaven! I die!"

'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids; and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, the expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild;
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want; and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.

The storm was raging still; the shutters swung
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind;
And all without went on, as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.

The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them; and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on the alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.

And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire, - a sun-bent eagle stricken
From his high soaring down, an instrument

Broken with its own compass. Oh, how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked!
A thing the thrush might pity as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest!

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

BORN IN 1819, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Mr. Lowell resides in Cambridge. He has been Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard University since the resignation of Prof. Longfellow. Of him the editor of the English edition of his " Biglow Papers" says, "I can not help thinking, that (leaving out of sight altogether his satirical works), fifty years hence, he will be recognized as the greatest American poet of our day. Greece had her Aristophanes; Rome, her Juvenal; Spain, her Cervantes; France, her Rabelais, her Molière, her Voltaire; Germany, her Jean Paul, her Heine; England, her Swift, her Thackeray; and America has her Lowell." We have decided to select from "The Biglow Papers," not simply because they were written by a political satirist of the first rank, but because they have reference to an important period of the nation's history; and, besides their wholesome humor, the study of the Yankee dialect will not be unprofitable to the pupil, as he will there find faults of articulation into which he may unconsciously have fallen.

PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS.

"The Biglow Papers; ""Sir Launfal;" "Under the Willows," and other Poems; "The Cathedral;" and "Among my Books," prose-work.

NOTE.

"Sam Slick," by Thomas C. Haliburton, "Major Jack Downing's Letters," by Seba Smith, "Letters of Petroleum V. Nasby," by John Locke," Phoenixiana," by John Phoenix, "Letters of Doesticks," by Mortimer Thompson, and Orpheus C. Kerr," by R. H. Newell, are other productions, humorous and satirical, of American society and politics.

NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS.

From the Oldfogrumville Mentor.

"We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely-printed volume; but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of its contents. . . . The paper is white, the type clear, and the volume of a convenient and attractive size. . . . In reading this elegantly-executed work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have been retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish. . . . On the whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect, and turns of expression, a dash of humor or satire might be thrown in with advantage. . . The work is admirably got up.... This work will form an appropriate ornament to the center-table. is beautifully printed on paper of an excellent quality."

...

It

From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a Tryweakly Family Journal).

...

...

66 Altogether an admirable work. . . . Full of humor boisterous, but delicate; of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew; of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the cimeter of Saladin. A work full of mountain-mirth,' mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as Ariel. . . . We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective. . . . We might indulge in some criticisms; but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful pose, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the highest heaven of invention.' . . . We love a book so purely objective. . . . Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity. . . . In fine, we consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. We know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to which the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid 'the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds,' may point with bewildering scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved Europe.. We hope soon to encounter our author among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently capable of achieving enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the bright galaxy of our American bards."

...

From the Onion Grove Phænix.

"A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a Continental tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers by his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns, called at our office yesterday. We learn from him, that having enjoyed the distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to present that eminent man with a copy of The Biglow Papers.' The next morning he received the following note, which he has kindly furnished us for publication. We prefer to print verbatim, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into which the illustrious writer has fallen through ignorance of our language.

--

"HIGH-WORTHY MISTER, I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more or less a work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so deaf an interest ever taken full worthy on the self shelf with our Gottsched to be upset.

"Pardon my in the English-speech unpractice!

"VON HUMBUG.'

"He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on ' Cosmetics,' to be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our friend by the English cnstom-house officers, probably through a petty national spite. No doubt it has by this time found its way into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed in all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the notice of the State department. Our numerous readers will share in the pleasure we experience at seeing our young and vigorous national literature thus encouragingly patted on the head by this venerable and world-renowned German. We love to see these reciprocations of good feeling between the different branches of the great AngloSaxon race."

From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss.

"But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus mingling in the heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him the presence of talents, which, if properly directed, might give an innocent pleasure to many. As a proof that he is competent to the production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our readers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned us by a friend. The title of it is The Courtin'."

ZEKLE crep' up, quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru the winder;
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung;
An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.

The wannut-logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle fires danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

The very room, coz she wuz in,

Looked warm frum floor to ceilin';

An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'.

She heerd a foot, an' knowed it tu,
Araspin' on the scraper:
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the seekle:
His heart kep' goin' pitypat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And first it may be premised, in a general way, that any one much read in the writings of the early colonists need not be told that the far greater share of the words and phrases now esteemed peculiar to New England, and local there, were brought from the mother-country. person familiar with the dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail to recognize in ordinary discourse many words now noted in English vocabularies a archaic, the greater part of which were in common use about the time of the King James translation of the Bible. Shakspeare stands less in need of a glossary to most New-Englanders than to many a native of the Old Country. The peculiarities of our speech, however, are rapidly wearing out. As there is no country where reading is so universal, and newspapers are so multitudinous, so no phrase remains long local, but is transplanted in the mail-bags to every remotest corner of the land.