MR. STREET was born in Poughkeepsie, one of the most beautiful of the many arge towns apon the Hudson, on the eighteenth et December, 1811. General RANDALL S. STREET, his father, was an officer in active service during our second war with England, and subsequently several years a representative in Congress; and his paternal grandfather was a direct and lineal descendant of the Reverend NICHOLAS STREET, who came to this country soon after the landing of JOHN CARVER, and was ordained minister of the first church in New Haven, in 1659. His mother's father was Major ANDREW BILLINGS, of the revolutionary army, who was connected by marriage with the influential and wealthy family of the LivINGSTONS, which has furnished for some two centuries so many eminent citizens of the State of New York.

When the poet was about fourteen years of age his father removed to Monticello, in the county of Sullivan. Up to this period he had been in an academy at Poughkeepsie, and had already written verses in which is exhibited some of that peculiar taste, and talent for description, for which his later works are so much distinguished. Sullivan is what is called a " wild county," though it is extremely fertile where well cultivated. Its scenery is magnificent, and its deep forests, streams as clear as dew-drops, gorges of piled rock and black shade, mountains and valleys, could hardly fail to waken into life all the faculties that slumbered in the brain of a youthful poet.

Mr. STREET studied law in the office of his father, and, in the first years after his admission to the bar, attended the courts of Sullivan county; but in the winter of 1839 he removed to Albany, and has since successfully practised his profession in that city.

His "Nature," a poem read before the literary societies of the college at Geneva, appeared in 1840; "The Burning of Schenectady and other Poems," in 1843, and "Drawings and Tintings," a collection of pieces chiefly descriptive, in 1844. The last and most complete edition of his poems was published by Clark and Austin, of New York, in 1845.

Mr. STREET, as has been intimated above, is a descriptive poet, and in his particular department he has, perhaps, no superior in this country. He has a hearty love of rural sports and pastimes, a quick perception of the grand and beautiful, and he writes with apparent ease and freedom, from the impulses of his own heart, and from actual observations of life and nature.

The greatest merits of any style of writing are clearness, directness and condensation. Dit ise

ness is even more objectionable in verse than in prose, and in either is avoided by men of taste. À needless word is worse than one ill chosen, and scarcely any thing is more offensive than a line, though never was other one so musical, which could be omitted without affecting the transparency or force of the attempted expression. The beauty of Mr. STREET's poems would sometimes be greater but for the use of epithets which serve no other purpose than to fill his lines, and his singular minuteness, though the most extreme particularity is a fault in description only when it lessens the distinctness and fidelity of the general impression. Occasionally his pictures of still nature remind us of the daguerreotype, and quite as often of the masterly landscapes of our COLE and DOUGHTY. Some of his exhibitions of the ordinary phenomena of the seasons have rarely been equalled. What, for example, could be firer than these lines on a rain in June?

Wafted up,

The stealing cloud with soft gray blinds the sky,
And, in its vapoury mantle, onward steps
The summer shower; over the shivering grass
It merrily dances, rings its tinkling bells
Upon the dimpling stream, and moving on,
It treads upon the leaves with pattering feet
And softly murmur'd music. Off it glides,
And as its misty robe lifts up, and melts,
The sunshine, darting, with a sudden burst,
Strikes o'er the scene a magic brilliancy.

His works are full of passages not less picturesque and truthful. The remarkable fidelity of Mr. STREET'S description and narrative is best appreciated by persons who are familiar with new set tlements in our northern latitudes. To others he may seem always lashing himself into excitement, to be extravagant, and to exaggerate beyond the requirements of art. But within a rifle-shot of the little village where nearly all his life has been passed, are centurial woods, from which the howlings of wolves have disturbed his sleep, and in which he has tracked the bear and the deer, and roused from their nests their winged inhabitants. In the spring time he has looked from his window upon fallow fires, and in the summer upon fields of waving grain, spotted by undecayed stumps of forest giants, and on trees that stand, charred and black, in mournful observation of the settler's inva sion. Scenes and incidents which the inhabitant of the city might regard as extraordinary have been to him common and familiar, and his writings are valuable as the fruits of a genuine American ex perience, to which the repose, of which it is com. plained that they are deficient, does not belong. They are on some accounts among the most pecu liarly national works in our literature.

THE GRAY FOREST-EAGLE.

WITH storm-daring pinion and sun-gazing eye,
The gray forest-eagle is king of the sky!
O, little he loves the green valley of flowers,
Where sunshine and song cheer the bright sum-
mer hours,

For he hears in those haunts only music, and sees
Only rippling of waters and waving of trees;
There the red robin warbles, the honey-bee hums,
The timid quail whistles, the sly partridge drums;
And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along,
There's a shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song;
The sunlight falls stilly on leaf and on moss,
And there's naught but his shadow black gliding

across;

But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges

the foam

Of the fierce, rock-lash'd torrent, he claims as his home:

There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood,

And the many-voiced sounds of he blast-smitten wood;

From the crag-grasping fir-top, where morn hangs its wreath,

1

He views the mad waters white writhing beneath: On a limb of that moss-bearded hemlock far down, With bright azure mantle and gay mottled crown, The kingfisher watches, where o'er him his foc, The fierce hawk, sails circling, each moment more low:

Now poised are those pinions and pointed that beak, His dread swoop is ready, when, hark! with a shriek, His eye-balls red-blazing, high bristling his crest, His snake-like neck arch'd, talons drawn to his breast,

With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light, The gray forest-eagle shoots down in his flight; One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck, The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck;

And as dives the free kingfisher, dart-like on high
With his prey soars the eagle, and melts in the sky.

A fitful red glaring, a low, rumbling jar,
Proclaim the storm demon yet raging afar: [red,
The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more
And the rol of the thunder more deep and more
A thick pall of darkness is cast o'er the air, [dread;
And on bounds the blast with a howl from its lair:
The lightning darts zig-zag and fork'd through the
gloom,

And the bolt launches o'er with crash, rattle, and

boom;

The gray forest-eagle, where, where has he sped?
Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread?
Does the glare blind his eye? Has the terrible blast
On the wing of the sky-king a fear-fetter cast?
No, no,
the brave eagle! he thinks not of fright;
The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight;
To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam,
To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream,
And with, ont like a warrior that speeds to the fray,
And a clapping or pinions, he's up all away!

Away, O, away, soars the fearless and free!
What recks he the sky's strife?-its monarch is he
The lightning darts round him, undaunted his sight
The blast sweeps against him, unwaver'd his flight
High upward, still upward, he wheels, till his form
Is lost in the black, scowling gloom of the storm.

The tempest sweeps o'er with its terrible train,
And the splendour of sunshine is glowing again.;
Again smiles the soft, tender blue of the sky,
Waked bird-voices warble, fann'd leaf-voices sigh;
On the green grass dance shadows, streams sparkle
and run,

The breeze bears the odour its flower-kiss has won,
And full on the form of the demon in flight
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight!
The gray forest-eagle! O, where is he now,
While the sky wears the smile of its GoD on its
brow?

There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath,

With the speed of the arrow 't is shooting beneath! Down, nearer and nearer it draws to the gaze, Now over the rainbow, now blent with its blaze, To a shape it expands, still it plunges through air, A proud crest, a fierce eye, a broad wing are there; 'Tis the eagle-the gray forest-eagle-once more He sweeps to his eyrie: his journey is o'er! Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away, But the gray forest-eagle minds little his sway; The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,

Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;

But the eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud! The green, tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss, The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across; The beech-nut down dropping would crush it beneath,

But 'tis warm'd with heaven's sunshine, and fann'd by its breath;

The seasons fly past it, its head is on high,
Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky;
On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates,
And the deer from his antlers the velvet-down grates;
Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air
A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagg'd and bare,
Till it rocks in the soft breeze, and crashes to earth,
Its blown fragments strewing the place of its birth.
The eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight,
He has seen it defying the storm in its might,
Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting
But the gray forest-eagle is still as of yore. [o'er,
His flaming eye dins not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
He has seen from his eyrie the forest below
In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow.
The thickets,deep wolf-lairs,the high crag his throne,
And the shriek of the panther has answer'd his own.
He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades,
And the smoke of his wigwams curl thick in the
glades;

He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like away
And the breast of the carth lying bare to the day

He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair, And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air; And his shriek is now answer'd, while sweeping along,

By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song; He has seen the wild red man off-swept by his foes, And he sees dome and roof where those smokes

once arose ;

But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud!
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high,
Is the gray forest-eagle, that king of the sky!
It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of earth-
By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth;
There rock'd by the wild wind, baptized in the foam,
It is guarded and cherish'd, and there is its home!
When its shadow steals black o'er the empires of
kings,

Deep terror, deep heart-shaking terror it brings;
Where wicked Oppression is arm'd for the weak,
Then rastles its pinion, then echoes its shrick;
Its eye flames with vengeance, it sweeps on its way,
And its talons are bathed in the blood of its prey.
O, that eagle of Freedom! when cloud upon cloud
Swathed the sky of my own native land with a
shroud,

When lightnings gleam'd fiercely, and thunderbolts rung,

How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung! Though the wild blast of battle swept fierce through the air

With darkness and dread, still the eagle was there; Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on, Till the rainbow of Peace crown'd the victory won. O, that eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye, He has seen Earth's mortality spring, bloom,and die! He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall, He mocks at Time's changes, he triumphs o'er all: He has seen our own land with wild forests o'er

And the turkey, too, smoothing his plumes in your face,

Then ruffling so proud, as you bound from the place, Ha! ha! that old hen, bristling up mid her brood, Has taught you a lesson, I hope, for your good; By the wink of your eye, and the droop of your crest, I see your maraudings are now put at rest.

The rail-fence is leap'd, and the wood-boughs are round,

And a moss-couch is spread for my foot on the ground: A shadow has dimm'd the leaves' amethyst glow, The first glance of Autumn, his presence to show. The beech-nut is ripening above in its sheath, Which will burst with the black frost, and drop it beneath.

The hickory hardens, snow-white, in its burr, [fir; And the cones are full grown on the hemlock and The hopple's red berries are tinging with brown, And the tips of the sumach have darken'd their down; The white, brittle Indian-pipe lifts up its bowl, And the wild turnip's leaf curls out broad like a scroll;

The cohosh displays its white balls and red stems, And the braid of the mullen is yellow with gems; While its rich, spangled plumage the golden-rod

shows,

And the thistle yields stars to each air-breath that blows.

A quick, startling whirr now bursts loud on my ear, The partridge! the partridge! swift pinion'd by fear, Low onward he whizzes, Jupe yelps as he sees, And we dash through the brushwood, to note where he trees;

I see him! his brown, speckled breast is display'd On the branch of yon maple, that edges the glade; My fowling-piece rings, Jupe darts forward so fleet, While loading, he drops the dead bird at my feet: pass by the scaurberries' drops of deep red,

I

In their green, creeping leaves, where he daintily fed, And his couch near the root, in the warm forest

mould,

Where he wallow'd, till sounds his close danger foretold.

On yon spray, the bright oriole dances and sings, With his rich, crimson bosom, and glossy black

wings;

And the robin comes warbling, then flutters away, For I harm not God's creatures so tiny as they; But the quail, whose quick whistle has lured me along,

No more will recall his stray'd mate with his song,
And the hawk that is circling so proud in the blue,
Let him keep a look-out, or he'll tumble down too
He stoops-the gun echoes-he flutters beneath,
His yellow claws curl'd, and fierce eyes glazed ir
death:

Lie there, cruel Arab! the mocking-bird now
Can rear her young brood, without fear of thy blow
And the brown wren can warble his sweet little lay,
Nor dread more thy talons to rend and to slay:
And, with luck, an example I'll make of that crow,
For my green, sprouting wheat knew no hungrier foe;
But the rascal seems down from his summit to scoff,
And as I creep near him, he croaks, and is off

The woods shrink away, and wide spreads the

morass,

With junipers cluster'd, and matted with grass; Trees, standing like ghosts, their arms jagged and bare,

And hung with gray lichens, like age-whiten'd hair.
The tamarack here and there rising between,
Its boughs clothed with rich, star-like fringes of
green,

And clumps of dense laurels, and brown-headed flags,

And thick, slimy basins, black dotted with snags :
Tread softly now, Carlo! the woodcock is here,
He rises his long bill thrust out like a spear;
The gun ranges on him-his journey is sped;
Quick scamper, my spaniel! and bring in the dead!
We plunge in the swamp-the tough laurels are
round;

No matter; our shy prey not lightly is found;
Another up-darts, but unharm'd is his flight;
Confound it! the sunshine then dazzled my sight;
But the other my shot overtakes as he flies:
Come, Carlo! come, Carlo! I wait for my prize;
One more still another-till, proofs of my sway,
From my pouch dangle heads, in a ghastly array.
From this scene of exploits, now made birdless, I
pass;

Pleasant Pond gleams before me, a mirror of glass: The boat's by the marge, with green branches supplied,

From the keen-sighted duck my approaches to hide;

A flock spots the lake; now crouch, Carlo, below!
And I move with light paddle, on softly and slow,
By that wide lily-island, its meshes that weaves
Of rich yellow globules, and green oval leaves.
I watch them; how bright and superb is the sheen
Of their plumage, gold blended with purple and

green;

How graceful their dipping-how gliding their way!

Are they not all too lovely to mark as a prey? One flutters, enchain'd, in those brown, speckled

stems,

His yellow foot striking up bubbles, like gems, While another, with stretch'd neck, darts swiftly

across

To the grass, whose green points dot the mirrorlike gloss.

But I pause in my toil; their wise leader, the drake,
Eyes keen the queer thicket afloat on the lake;
Now they group close together-both barrels !-
O, dear!

What a diving, and screaming, and splashing are

here!

The smoke-curls melt off, as the echoes rebound, Hurrah! five dead victims are floating around!

But "cloud-land" is tinged now with sunset, and bright

On the water's smooth polish stretch long lines of light;

The headlands their masses of shade, too, have

lain,

And I pull with my spoil to the margin again.

A FOREST WALA

A LOVELY sky, a cloudless sur,

A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers
O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won,
To the cool forest's shadowy bowers;
One of the paths all round that wind,

Traced by the browsing herds, I choose,
And sights and sounds of human kind
In nature's lone recesses lose ;
The beech displays its marbled bark,

The spruce its green tent stretches wide
While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark,
The maple's scallop'd dome beside:
All weave on high a verdant roof,
That keeps the very sun aloof,
Making a twilight soft and green,
Within the column'd, vaulted scene.
Sweet forest-odours have their birth
From the clothed boughs and teeming earth:
Where pine-cones dropp'd, leaves piled and dead
Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern,
With many a wild flower's fairy urn,
A thick, elastic carpet spread;
Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk,
Resolving into soil, is sunk;
There, wrench'd but lately from its throne,
By some fierce whirlwind circling past,
Its huge roots mass'd with earth and stone,
One of the woodland kings is cast.
Above, the forest-tops are bright
With the broad blaze of sunny light:
But now a fitful air-gust parts

The screening branches, and a glow
Of dazzling, startling radiance darts
Down the dark stems, and breaks below;
The mingled shadows off are roll'd,
The sylvan floor is bathed in gold:
Low sprouts and herbs, before unseen,
Display their shades of brown and green:
Tints brighten o'er the velvet moss,
Gleams twinkle on the laurel's gloss;
The robin, brooding in her nest,

Chirps as the quick ray strikes her breast;

And, as my shadow prints the ground,

I see the rabbit upward bound,
With pointed ears an instant look,

Then scamper to the darkest nook,

Where, with crouch'd limb, and staring eye,
He watches while I saunter by.

A narrow vista, carpeted

With rich green grass, invites my tread;
Here showers the light in golden dots,
There sleeps the shade in ebon spots,
So blended, that the very air
Seems network as I enter there.
The partridge, whose deep-rolling drum
Afar has sounded on my ear,
Ceasing his beatings as I come,

Whirrs to the sheltering branches near;
The little milk-snake glides away,
The brindled marmot dives from day;
And now, between the boughs. a space
Of the blu, laughing sky I trace:

On each side shrinks the bowery shade;
Before me spreads an emerald glade;
The sunshine steeps its grass and moss,
That couch my footsteps as I cross;
Merrily hums the tawny bee,
The glittering humming-bird I see;
Floats the bright butterfly along,
The insect choir is loud in song:
A spot of light and life, it seems
A fairy haunt for fancy dreams.
Here stretch'd, the pleasant turf I press,
In luxury of idleness;

Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky,
Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye.
While murmuring grass, and waving trees
Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze,
And water-tones that tinkle near,
Blend their sweet music to my ear;
And by the changing shades alone
The passage of the hours is known.

WINTER.

A SABLE pall of sky-the billowy hills,
Swathed in the snowy robe that winter throws
So kindly over nature-skeleton trees,
Fringed with rich silver drapery, and the stream
Numb in its frosty chains. Yon rustic bridge
Bristles with icicles; beneath it stand

The cattle-group, long pausing while they drink
From the ice-hollow'd pools, that skim in sheets
Of delicate glass, and shivering as the air [trunks,
Cuts with keen, stinging edge; and those gaunt
Bending with ragged branches o'er the bank,
Seem, with their mocking scarfs of chilling white,
Mourning for the green grass and fragrant flowers,
That summer mirrors in the rippling flow

Of the bright stream beneath them. Shrub and rock
Are carved in pearl, and the dense thicket shows
Clusters of purest ivory. Comfortless
The frozen scene, yet not all desolate.
Where slopes, by tree and bush, the beaten track,
The sleigh glides merrily with prancing steeds,
And the low homestead, nestling by its grove,
Clings to the leaning hill. The drenching rain
Had fallen, and then the large, loose flakes had
shower'd,

Quick freezing where they lit; and thus the scene,
By winter's alchy my, from gleaming steel
Was changed to sparkling silver. Yet, though bright
And rich, the landscape smiles with lovelier look
When summer gladdens it. The fresh, blue sky
Bends like Gon's blessing o'er; the scented air
Echoes with bird-songs, and the emerald grass
Is dappled with quick shadows; the light wing
Of the soft west makes music in the leaves;
The ripples murmur as they dance along;
The thicket by the road-side casts its cool
Black breadth of shade across the heated dust.
The cattle seek the pools beneath the banks,
Where sport the guat-swarms, glancing in the sun,
Gray, whirling specks, and darts the dragon-fly,
A gold-green arrow; and the wandering flock
Nibble the short, thick sward that clothes the brink,
Down sloping to the waters. Kindly tones

And happy faces make the homestead walls A paradise. Upon the mossy roof

The tame dove coos and bows; beneath the eaves
The swallow frames her nest; the social wren
Lights on the flower-lined paling, and trills through
Its noisy gamut; the humming-bird

Shoots, with that flying harp, the honey-bee,
Mid the trail'd honeysuckle's trumpet-bloom;
Sunset wreathes gorgeous shapes within the west,
To eyes that love the splendour; morning wakes
Light hearts to joyous tasks; and when deep night
Breathes o'er the earth a solemn solitude,
With stars for watchers, or the holy moon,

A sentinel upon the steeps of heaven,
Smooth pillows yield their balm to prayer and trust,
And slumber, that sweet medicine of toil,
Sheds her soft dews and weaves her golden dreams

THE SETTLER.

His echoing axe the settler swung

Amid the sea-like solitude,

And, rushing, thundering, down were flung

The Titans of the wood;

Loud shriek'd the eagle, as he dash'd
From out his mossy nest, which crash'd
With its supporting bough,

And the first sunlight, leaping, flash'd

On the wolf's haunt below.

Rude was the garb, and strong the tram

Of him who plied his ceaseless toil:
To form that garb the wild-wood game
Contributed their spoil;

The soul that warm'd that frame disdain'd
The tinsel, gaud, and glare, that reign'd
Where men their crowds collect;
The simple fur, untrimm'd, unstain'd,
This forest-tamer deck'd.

The paths which wound mid gorgeous trees,
The stream whose bright lips kiss'd their floweTH
The winds that swell'd their harmonies

Through those sun-hiding bowers,
The temple vast, the green arcade,
The nestling vale, the grassy glade,

Dark cave, and swampy lair:
These scenes and sounds majestic, made
His world, his pleasures, there.

His roof adorn'd a pleasant spot,

Mid the black logs green glow'd the grain,
And herbs and plants the woods knew not,
Throve in the sun and rain.

The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell,
The low, the bleat, the tinkling bell,
All made a landscape strange,
Which was the living chronicle

Of deeds that wrought the change.
The violet sprung at spring's first tinge,
The rose of summer spread its glow,
The maize hung out its autumn fringe,
Rude winter brought his snow;
And still the lone one labour'd there,
His shout and whistle broke the air,
As cheerily he plied

His garden-spade, or drove his share
Along the hillock's aide.