And hurry them to the west," said he, "Where ocean meets the land: They shall regard thy bidding voice, And move at thy command." Then first I spake-the sullen corpse Stood on the gloomy sod, Like the dry bones the prophet raised, They stalk'd erect as if alive, Yet not to life allied, But like the pestilence that walks, The grave personified. The earth-worm drew his slimy trail And the carrion bird in hot haste came But, scared by the living banquet, fled, Another prey to seek. While ever as on their way they moved, And before and behind, and about their sides, As the beggar clasps his skinny hands His tatter'd garments round. On, on we went through the livelong night, We turn'd not aside for forest or stream But straight and swift as the hurricane sweeps Once, once I stopp'd, where something gleam'd, At length our army reach'd the verge Death drove them into the sea, and said, He estranged himself from us, and cheerfully ther And its soft,melting tones still held captive the car, While we look'd for her fingers to glide o'er the wire, And waited in fancy her sweet voice to hear; He turn'd from her harp and its melody then, Sought out a new minstrel and wedded again. The turf had not yet by a stranger been trod, Nor the pansy a single leaf shed on her grave, The cypress had not taken root in the sod, [gave; Nor the stone lost the freshness the sculptor first He turn'd from these mournful remembrances then, Wove a new bridal chaplet, and wedded again. His dwelling to us, O, how lonely and sad! When we thought of the light death had stolen away, Of the warm hearts which once in its keeping it had, When she with our lost one forgotten is laid? She must know he will worship some other star then, Seek out a new love, and be wedded again. SONG. SHOULD Sorrow o'er thy brow Its darken'd shadows fling, And hopes that cheer thee now, Die in their early spring; Should pleasure at its birth Fade like the hues of even, Turn thou away from earth,There's rest for thee in heaven' If ever life shall seem To thee a toilsome way, And gladness cease to beam Upon its clouded day; If, like the wearied dove, O'er shoreless ocean driven, Undimn'd by earthly gloom; Thy better rest in heaven! Tell of a time to die Sweet hope shall whisper ther "Though thou from earth be riven, There's bliss beyond thy ken, There's rest for thee in heaven!" OTWAY CURRY. [Born 1804. Died 1855.] COLONEL JAMES CURRY of Virginia served in the continental army during the greater part of the revolutionary war, and was taken prisoner with the forces surrendered by General LINCOLN at Charleston in 1780. After the peace he emigrated to Ohio, distinguished himself in civil affairs, rose to be a judge, and was one of the electors of President who gave the vote of that state for JAMES MONROE. His son, OTWAY CURRY, was born in what is now Greenfield, Highland county, on the twenty-sixth of March, 1804, and having received such instruction as was offered in the common school, and declining an opportunity to study the law, he proceeded to Chilicothe, and there worked several years as a carpenter, improving his mind meanwhile by industrious but discursive reading during his leisure hours, so that at the end of his apprenticeship he had a familiar knowledge of the most popular contemporary literature, and a capacity for writing which was creditably illustrated from time to time in essays for the press. which kept alive their friendly interest, and greatly increased his good reputation. Dissatisfied with his experiences in the South, he returned to Ohio, and for some time turned his attention to farming, in his native town. In 1836 and 1837 he was elected to the legislature, and while attending to his duties at Columbus engaged with Mr. GALLAGHER in the publication of "The Hesperian," a monthly magazine, of which the first number was issued in May, 1838. In 1839 he removed to Maysville, the seat of justice for Union county, where he was admitted to the bar. In 1842 he was again elected to the legis lature, and during the session of the following winter, "The Hesperian" having been discontinued, purchased the "Torch Light," a newspaper printed at Xenia, Green county, which he edited two years, on the expiration of which he retired to Maysville, and entered upon the practice of the law. In 1850 he was chosen a member of the State Convention for forming a new Constitution, in 1851 he bought the "Scioto Gazette,” a journal published at Chilicothe; and in the spring of 1854 returned again to Mays seemed to be an opening career of success, died suddenly, on the fifteenth of February, 1855. He now removed to Cincinnati, where he found more profitable employment, and in 1827 published in the journals of that city, under the sig-ville, was made District Attorney, and in what nature of "Abdallah," several poems which attracted considerable attention, and led to his acquaintance with WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER and other young men of congenial tastes. At this period he was a frequent player on the flute; his music, as well as his poetry, was pensive and dreamy; and his personal manners were singularly modest and engaging. On the seventeenth of December, 1828, the young carpenter was married, and setting out on his travels, he worked at various places in the lower part of the valley of the Mississippi, sending back occasional literary performances to his friends in Cincinnati, THE GREAT HEREAFTER.* When through the nameless ages Before me, like a boundless sea, The Great Hereafter lies. Along its brimming bosom Perpetual summer smiles; Around the emerald isles. "In the great hereafter I see the fulfilment of my desires. Yea, amid all this turmoil and humiliation I enter already upon its rest and glory."-The Huguenot. Mr. CURRY wrote much, in prose as well as in verse, and always with apparent sincerity and earnestness. He was many years an active member of the Methodist church, and his poems are frequently marked by a fine religious enthusiasm, which appears to have been as characteristic of his temper as their more strictly poetical qualities were of his intellect. In dying he remarked to a friend that one of his earliest compositions, entitled "Kingdom Comc," embodied the belief and hope of his life and death. There in the blue long distance, I seem to see the flowering groves And far beyond the islands Unto the Great Hereafter- I freely now and gladly give And in the far-off haven, KINGDOM COME. I Do not believe the sad story I shall pass far away to the glory And grandeur of Kingdom Come. The paleness of death, and its stillness, May rest on my brow for awhile; And my spirit may lose in its chillness The splendour of hope's happy smile; But the gloom of the grave will be transient, And light as the slumbers of worth; And then I shall blend with the ancient And beautiful forms of the earth. Through the climes of the sky, and the bowers Of bliss, evermore I shall roam, Wearing crowns of the stars and the flowers That glitter in Kingdom Come. The friends who have parted before me From life's gloomy passion and pain, THE ARMIES OF THE EVE. NOT in the golden morning The lights of memory burn: Its sunny light and smile, And gentle winds are whispering back O, then those starry millions Their streaming banners weave, To marshal on their wildering way The Armies of the Eve: The dim and shadowy armies Of our unquiet dreams, Whose footsteps brush the feathery fern Of high and holier climes; We greet them with the blessed names And, marching in the starlight They freshen all the fountain-springs In beauteous ranks they roam, TO A MIDNIGHT PHANTOM. PALE, melancholy one! Herald of darkness near: Thou stand'st immortal, undefiledEven thou, the unknown, the strange, the wild, Spell-word of mortal fear. Thou art a shadowy form, That unseen spirits wear. Thou hast revealed to me Chiming the whole night long Through all the dreary night, Send to the brain their maddening blight, My phrenzied thoughts all wildly blend With spell-wrought shapes that round me wend, Or down in mockery bow. Away, pale form, away- The eternal night-glooms lie: Art thou of the blue waves, Or of the heavens sublime? Hast thou forever won Or wanderest thou on weary wing Thou answerest not. The sealed Unseen by mortal eye- May win the viewless sky. WILLIAM CROSWELL. [Born, 1804. Died, 1851.] WILLIAM CROSWELL was born at Hudson, in New York, on the seventh of November, 1804. His father, then editor of a literary and political journal, in a few years became a clergyman of the Episcopal church, and removed to New Haven, Connecticut, where the son was prepared for college by Mr. JOEL JONES, since well known as one of the justices of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. He was graduated at New Haven, in 1822, and, with his brother SHERMAN, Soon after opened a select school in that city, which was surrendered at the end of the second quarter, after which he passed nearly four years in desultory reading in the house of his father. An invitation to study medicine, with an uncle, was declined, partly from an unconquerable aversion to surgical exhibitions; and a short experience of the editorial profession, in the office of his cousin, Mr. EDWIN CROSWELL, of the Albany Argus, discouraged all thoughts of devotion to the press and to politics. In the summer before his twentieth birth-day, his reputation for talents was such that the public authorities of Hartford requested him to deliver an oration on the anniversary of the declaration of independence, and he accepted the invitation, substituting a poem of several hundred lines for a discourse in prose. In 1826, after much hesitation, arising from the modesty of his nature, and his sense of the dignity of the priestly office, he entered the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, in New York, and there, and subsequently under Bishop BROWNELL, in Hartford, pursued the usual course of professional studies, conducting meanwhile for two years, with Mr. DOANE, now Bishop of the Episcopal Church in New Jersey, a religious newspaper called "The Episcopal Watchman." An intimate friendship 66 thus commenced between Mr. CROSWELL and Mr. DOANE, ended only with Mr. CROSWELL'S life. Man has never been in closer bonds with man,” says the Bishop, in a discourse on his death, "than he with me, for five and twenty years." Mr. DOANE having resigned his professorship in Washington College, Hartford, to become rector of Trinity church, in Boston, the editorship of the "Episcopal Watchman" was relinquished; and soon after Mr. CROSWELL received priest's orders, in 1829, he too went to Boston, where for eleven years he was settled as minister of Christ church. In this period he was a bachelor, and passing most of his time in "the cloister," a room fitted up in the rear of the church for his study, and at the Athenæum, attended with singular faithfulness to the duties of his calling, while he kept up a loving acquaintance with literature and art, and with a few men of congenial tastes and pursuits. When Mr. DOANE became bisho; of the Epis copal church in New Jersey, Bost in no longer possessed its most agreeable charm for nis friend and he wrote: "TO G. W. D. "I miss thee at the morning tide, I miss thee more, when day has died, "How can I pass that gladsome door, Is loneliness and gloom? Each place where most thou lov'dst to be, He also addressed the youthful bishop the follow ing sonnet, which seems now to have had a sort of prophetic significance. "AD AMICUM. "Let no gainsaying lips despise thy youth; Like his, the great Apostle's favorite son, A sevenfold grace on thine anointed head, And heaven's own palms of triumph bright in view, A mightier rule be thine, O servant good and true."" In 1840 Mr. CROSWELL resigned the rectorship of Christ church in Boston, to accept that of St. Peter's, in Auburn, New York, where he remained four years, during which period he was married to an estimable woman of Boston; and this last circumstance was perhaps one of the causes of his return to that city, in 1844, though the chief cause was doubtless his sympathy with several of his old friends there as to those views which are known in the Episcopal church as "Tractarian." A new parish was organized, the church of the Advent was erected, and he became its rector, with a congregation in which were the venerable poet DANA, his son, the author of "Two Years before the Mast," and other persons of social and intellectual eminence. Of the unhappy controversy which ensued between the rector of the Advent and his bishop this is not the place to speak; nor, were it otherwise, am I sufficiently familiar with it. merits to attempt to do justice to either party in a statement of it. This controversy was a continual pain to Dr. CROSWELL, and his more intimate friends, until his death, which occurred under the most impressive circumstances, on Sunday, the ninth of November, 1851, just seven years after his return to Boston. He had preached in the morning and during the afternoon service, which was appointed for the children of the congregation, his strength suddenly failed, he gave out a hymn, repeated with touching pathos a prayer, and in a feeble voice, while still kneeling, pronounced the apostolic benediction, and in a little while was dead. Since the death of Dr. CROSWELL, his aged father, who had previously been occupied with the arrangement of materials for his own memoirs that they might be written by his son, has published a most interesting biography of that son and in this is the only collection of his poems which has appeared, except a small one which Bishop DOANE many years ago added to an edition of KEBLE'S Christian Year." Dr. CROSWELL had a fine taste in literature, and among his poems are many of remarkable grace and sweetness. They are for the most part souvenirs of his friendships, or of the vicissitudes of his religious life, and seem to have been natural and unstudied expressions of his feelings. Bishop DOANE well describes him by saying "he had more unwritten poetry in him" than any man he ever knew. THE SYNAGOGUE. "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to Fe Lord, the veil shall be taken away."-ST. PAUL. I SAW them in their synagogue, As in their ancient day, For, dazzling on my vision, still It is the holy Sabbath eve,- Sheds, mingled with the hues of day, A lustre nothing bright; On swarthy brow and piercing glance The two-leaved doors slide slow apart As rise the Hebrew harmonies, With chanted prayers between, Robed in his sacerdotal vest, The glow and power that sate And fervently that hour I pray'd, Might break on every soul, That on their harden'd hearts the veil Might be no longer dark, But be forever rent in twain Like that before the ark. For yet the tenfold film shall fall, Thy testimonies right, When thou, with all MESSIAH's signs In CHRIST distinctly seen, Shall, by JEHOVAH's nameless name, Invoke the Nazarene. THE CLOUDS. "Cloud land! Gorgeous land!"-COLERIDGE. I CANNOT look above and see Of evening clouds, so swimmingly In gold and purple pass, And think not, LORD, how thou wast seen On Israel's desert way, Before them, in thy shadowy screen, Pavilion'd all the day! Or, of those robes of gorgeous hue When, ravish'd from his followers' view, When lifted, as on mighty wing, He curtained his ascent, And, wrapt in clouds, went triumphing Is it a trail of that same pall My soul, hast thou forgot?- When man expecteth not! Strength, Son of man, against that hour, Be to our spirits given, When thou shalt come again with power Upon the clouds of heaven' |