To his mother. This, his last request, shall be,Though she who bore him ne'er his fate should An iris, glittering o'er his memory, [knowWhen all the streams have worn their barriers low, And, by the sea drunk up, forever cease to flow. On him who chooses to jump down cataracts,

Why should the sternest moralist be severe ? Judge not the dead by prejudice-but facts, Such as in strictest evidence appear; Else were the laurels of all ages sere. Give to the brave, who have pass'd the final goal,The gates that ope not back,-the generous tear; And let the muse's clerk upon her scroll, [roll. In coarse, but honest verse, make up the judgment

HAIL! sober evening! thee the harass'd brain
And aching heart with fond orisons greet;
The respite thou of toil; the balm of pain;
To thoughtful mind the hour for musing meet:
"Tis then the sage, from forth his lone retreat,
The rolling universe around espies;

"Tis then the bard may hold communion sweet With lovely shapes, unkenn'd by grosser eyes, And quick perception comes of finer mysteries.

The silent hour of bliss! when in the west
Her argent cresset lights the star of love:-
The spiritual hour! when creatures bless'd
Unseen return o'er former haunts to rove;
While sleep his shadowy mantle spreads above,
Sleep, brother of forgetfulness and death,
Round well-known couch, with noiseless tread

they rove,

In tones of heavenly music comfort breathe, And tell what weal or bale shall chance the moon beneath.

Hour of devotion! like a distant sea,
The world's loud voices faintly murmuring die;
Responsive to the spheral harmony,
While grateful hymns are borne from earth on high.
O! who can gaze on yon unsullied sky,
And not grow purer from the heavenward view?
As those, the Virgin Mother's meek, full eye,
Who met, if uninspired lore be true,

Felt a new birth within, and sin no longer knew.

Let others hail the oriflamme of morn,
O'er kindling hills unfurl'd with gorgeous dyes!
O, mild, blue Evening! still to thee I turn,
With holier thought, and with undazzled eyes;-

From "Yamoyden."

Where wealth and power with glare and splendour rise,

Let fools and slaves disgustful incense burn! Still Memory's moonlight lustre let me prize; The great, the good, whose course is o'er, discern, And, from their glories past, time's mighty lessons learn!

WEEHAWKEN.

EVE o'er our path is stealing fast;
Yon quivering splendours are the last
The sun will fling, to tremble o'er
The waves that kiss the opposing shore;
His latest glories fringe the height
Behind us, with their golden light.

The mountain's mirror'd outline fades
Amid the fast-extending shades;
Its shaggy bulk, in sterner pride,
Towers, as the gloom steals o'er the tide;
For the great stream a bulwark meet
That leaves its rock-encumber'd feet.

River and mountain! though to song
Not yet, perchance, your names belong;
Those who have loved your evening hues
Will ask not the recording muse
What antique tales she can relate,
Your banks and steeps to consecrate.

Yet, should the stranger ask, what lore
Of by-gone days, this winding shore,
Yon cliffs and fir-clad steeps could tell,
If vocal made by Fancy's spell,-
The varying legend might rehearse
Fit themes for high, romantic verse.

O'er yon rough heights and moss-clad sod
Oft hath the stalworth warrior trod;
Or peer'd, with hunter's gaze, to mark
The progress of the glancing bark.
Spoils, strangely won on distant waves,
Have lurk'd in yon obstructed caves.

When the great strife for Freedom rose,
Here scouted oft her friends and foes,
Alternate, through the changeful war,
And beacon-fires flash'd bright and far;
And here, when Freedom's strife was won,
Fell, in sad feud, her favour'd son ;-

Her son, the second of the band,
The Romans of the rescued land.
Where round yon capes the banks ascend,
Long shall the pilgrim's footsteps bend;
There, mirthful hearts shall pause to sigh,
There, tears shall dim the patriot's eye.

There last he stood. Before his sight
Flow'd the fair river, free and bright;
The rising mart, and isles, and bay,
Before him in their glory lay,-
Scenes of his love and of his fame,-
The instant ere the death-shot came.

THE GREEN ISLE OF LOVERS.

THEY say that, afar in the land of the west, Where the bright golden sun sinks in glory to rest, Mid fens where the hunter ne'er ventured to tread, A fair lake unruffled and sparkling is spread; Where, lost in his course, the rapt Indian discovers, In distance seen dimly, the green Isle of Lovers.

There verdure fades never; immortal in bloom, Soft waves the magnolia its groves of perfume; And low bends the branch with rich fruitage depress'd,

All glowing like gems in the crowns of the east; There the bright eye of nature, in mild glory hovers: "Tis the land of the sunbeam,-the green Isle of Lovers!

Sweet strains wildly float on the breezes that kiss The calm-flowing lake round that region of bliss Where, wreathing their garlands of amaranth, fair choirs

Glad measures still weave to the sound that inspires The dance and the revel, mid forests that cover On high with their shade the green Isle of the Lover.

But fierce as the snake, with his eyeballs of fire, When his scales are all brilliant and glowing with ire, Are the warriors to all, save the maids of their isle, Whose law is their will, and whose life is their smile; From beauty there valour and strength are not rovers,

And peace reigns supreme in the green Isle of
Lovers.

And he who has sought to set foot on its shore,
In mazes perplex'd, has beheld it no more;
It flcets on the vision, deluding the view,
Its banks still retire as the hunters pursue;
O! who in this vain world of wo shall discover
The home undisturb'd, the green Isle of the Lover!

THE DEAD OF 1832.

O, TIME and Death! with certain pace, Though still unequal, hurrying on, O'erturning, in your awful race,

The cot, the palace, and the throne!

Not always in the storm of war,

Nor by the pestilence that sweeps From the plague-smitten realms afar, Beyond the old and solemn deeps:

In crowds the good and mighty go,

And to those vast, dim chambers hie: Where, mingled with the high and low, Dead CESARS and dead SHAKSPEARES lie!

Dread ministers of God! sometimes
Ye smite at once to do his will,
In all earth's ocean-sever'd climes,
Those whose renown ye cannot kill!

When all the brightest stars that burn
At once are banish'd from their spheres,
Men sadly ask, when shall return

Such lustre to the coming years!

For where is he*-who lived so long

Who raised the modern Titan's ghost, And show'd his fate in powerful song,

Whose soul for learning's sake was lost? Where he who backward to the birth

Of Time itself, adventurous trod, And in the mingled mass of earth

Found out the handiwork of Gon ?† Where he who in the mortal head,+

Ordain'd to gaze on heaven, could trace The soul's vast features, that shall tread The stars, when earth is nothingness? Where he who struck old Albyn's lyre,§ Till round the world its echoes roll, And swept, with all a prophet's fire,

The diapason of the soul?

Where he who read the mystic lore

Buried where buried PHARAOнs sleep; And dared presumptuous to explore Secrets four thousand years could keep? Where he who, with a poet's eye¶

Of truth, on lowly nature gazed, And made even sordid Poverty

Classic, when in his numbers glazed? Where that old sage so hale and staid,** The "greatest good" who sought to find; Who in his garden mused, and made

All forms of rule for all mankind?
And thou-whom millions far removedt
Revered--the hierarch meek and wise,
Thy ashes sleep, adored, beloved,
Near where thy WESLEY'S coffin lies.
He, too-the heir of glory-where++
Hath great NAPOLEON'S Scion fled?
Ah! glory goes not to an heir!

Take him, ye noble, vulgar dead!
But hark! a nation sighs! for he,§§
Last of the brave who perill'd all
To make an infant empire free,
Obeys the inevitable call!

They go-and with them is a crowd,
For human rights who thought and did:
We rear to them no temples proud,

Each hath his mental pyramid.

All earth is now their sepulchre,

The mind, their monument sublimeYoung in eternal fame they areSuch are your triumphs, Death and Time.

PARTING.

SAY, when afar from mine thy home shall be,
Still will thy soul unchanging turn to me?
When other scenes in beauty round thee lie,
Will these be present to thy mental eye?
Thy form, thy mind, when others fondly praise,
Wilt thou forget thy poet's humbler lays?
Ah me! what is there, in earth's various range,
That time and absence may not sadly change!
And can the heart, that still demands new ties,
New thoughts, for all its thousand sympathies—
The waxen heart, where every seal may set,
In turn, its stamp-remain unalter'd yet,
While nature changes with each fleeting day,
And seasons dance their varying course away?
Ah! shouldst thou swerve from truth, all else must
part,

That yet can feed with life this wither'd heart!
Whate'er its doubts, its hopes, its fears may be,
"T were, even in madness, faithful still to thee;
And shouldst thou snap that silver chord in twain,
The golden bowl no other links sustain;
Crush'd in the dust, its fragments then must sink,
And the cold earth its latest life-drops drink.
Blame not, if oft, in melancholy mood,
This theme, too far, sick fancy hath pursued;
And if the soul, which high with hope should beat,
Turns to the gloomy grave's unbless'd retreat.

Majestic nature! since thy course began,
Thy features wear no sympathy for man;
The sun smiles loveliest on our darkest hours;
O'er the cold grave fresh spring the sweetest flowers,
And man himself, in selfish sorrows bound,
Heeds not the melancholy ruin round.

The crowd's vain roar still fills the passing breeze
That bends above the tomb the cypress-trees.
One only heart, still true in joy or wo,

Is all the kindest fates can e'er bestow.
If frowning Heaven that heart refuse to give,
O, who would ask the ungracious boon--to live?
Then better 't were, if longer doom'd to prove
The listless load of life, unbless'd with love,
To seek midst ocean's waste some island fair,-
And dwell, the anchorite of nature, there;-
Some lonely isle, upon whose rocky shore
No sound, save curlew's scream, or billow's roar,
Hath echoed ever; in whose central woods,
With the quick spirit of its solitudes,
In converse deep, strange sympathies untried,
The soul might find, which this vain world denied.
But I will trust that heart, where truth alone,
In loveliest guise, sits radiant on her throne;
And thus believing, fear not all the power
Of absence drear, or time's most tedious hour.
If e'er I sigh to win the wreaths of fame,
And write on memory's scroll a deathless name,
'Tis but thy loved, approving smile to meet,
And lay the budding laurels at thy feet.
If e'er for worldly wealth I heave a sigh,
And glittering visions float on fancy's eye,
"Tis but with rosy wreaths thy path to spread,
And place the diadem on beauty's head.
Queen of my thoughts, each subject to thy sway,
Thy ruling presence lives but to obey;

And shouldst thou e'er their bless'd allegiance slight,
The mind must wander, lost in endless night.
Farewell! forget me not, when others gaze
Enamour'd on thee, with the looks of praise;
When weary leagues before my view are cast,
And each dull hour seems heavier than the last,
Forget me not. May joy thy steps attend,
And mayst thou find in every form a friend;
With care unsullied be thy every thought;
And in thy dreams of home, forget me not!

CONCLUSION TO YAMOYDEN.

SAD was the theme, which yet to try we chose, In pleasant moments of communion sweet; When least we thought of earth's unvarnish'd

woes,

And least we dream'd, in fancy's fond deceit, That either the cold grasp of death should meet, Till after many years, in ripe old age; Three little summers flew on pinions fleet, And thou art living but in memory's page, And earth seems all to me a worthless pilgrimage. Sad was our theme; but well the wise man sung, "Better than festal halls, the house of wo;" "Tis good to stand destruction's spoils among, And muse on that sad bourne to which we go. The heart grows better when tears freely flow; And, in the many-colour'd dream of earth, One stolen hour, wherein ourselves we know, Our weakness and our vanity,--is worth Years of unmeaning smiles, and lewd, obstreperous mirth.

"Tis good to muse on nations pass'd away, Forever, from the land we call our own; Nations, as proud and mighty in their day, Who deem'd that everlasting was their throne. An age went by, and they no more were known! Sublimer sadness will the mind control, Listening time's deep and melancholy moan; And meaner griefs will less disturb the soul; And human pride falls low, at human grandeur's goal.

PHILIP! farewell! thee King, in idle jest, Thy persecutors named; and if indeed, The jewell'd diadem thy front had press'd, It had become thee better, than the breed Of palaces, to sceptres that succeed, To be of courtier or of priest the tool, Satiate dull sense, or count the frequent bead, Or pamper gormand hunger; thou wouldst rule Better than the worn rake, the glutton, or the fool!

I would not wrong thy warrior shade, could I Aught in my verse or make or mar thy fame; As the light carol of a bird flown by [name: Will pass the youthful strain that breathed thy But in that land whence thy destroyers came, A sacred bard thy champion shall be found; He of the laureate wreath for thee shall claim The hero's honours, to earth's farthest bound, Where Albion's tongue is heard, or Albion's songs resound.

NORA'S SONG.*

SLEEP, child of my love! be thy slumber as light
As the red bird's 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 linger'd to hearken her song,

So sad o'er the wave, e'er she harden'd 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.

WOMAN.*

WOMAN! bless'd partner of our joys and woes! Even in the darkest hour of earthly ill, Untarnish'd yet, thy fond affection glows, Throbs with each pulse, and beats with every thrill! Bright o'er the wasted scene thou hoverest still, Angel of comfort to the failing soul; Undaunted by the tempest, wild and chill, That pours its restless and disastrous roll O'er all that blooms below, with sad and hollow how!! When sorrow rends the heart, when feverish pain Wrings the hot drops of anguish from the brow, To soothe the soul, to cool the burning brain, O, who so welcome and so prompt as thou! The battle's hurried scene and angry glow, The death-encircled pillow of distress, The lonely moments of secluded wo, Alike thy care and constancy confess,

Alike thy pitying hand and fearless friendship bless!

From "Yamoyden."

Thee youthful fancy loves in aid to call; Thence first invoked the sacred sisters were ; The form that holds the enthusiast's heart in thrall, He, mid his bright creation, paints most fair; True, in this earthly wilderness of care,As hunters path the wilds and forests through; And firm,—all fragile as thou art,-to bear Life's dangerous billows,-as the light canoe, That shoots, with all its freight, the impetuous rapid's flow.

Thee, Indians tell, the first of men to win, Clomb long the vaulted heaven's unmeasured height:

And well their uncouth fable speaks therein The worth even savage souls can never slight. Tired with the chase, the hunter greets at night Thy welcome smile, the balm of every wo; Thy patient toil makes all his labours light; And from his grave when friends and kindred go, Thou weeping comest, the sweet sagamité to strow!

GOOD-NIGHT.

GOOD-NIGHT to all the world! there's none,
Beneath the "over-going" sun,

To whom I feel or hate or spite,
And so to all a fair good-night.

Would I could say good-night to pain,
Good-night to conscience and her train,
To cheerless poverty, and shame
That I am yet unknown to fame!

Would I could say good-night to dreams
That haunt me with delusive gleams,
That through the sable future's veil
Like meteors glimmer, but to fail.
Would I could say a long good-night
To halting between wrong and right,
And, like a giant with new force,
Awake prepared to run my course!
But time o'er good and ill sweeps on,
And when few years have come and gone,
The past will be to me as naught,
Whether remember'd or forgot.

Yet let me hope one faithful friend
O'er my last couch shall tearful bend;
And, though no day for me was bright,
Shall bid me then a long good-night.

T

GRENVILLE MELLEN was the third son of the late Chief Justice PRENTISS MELLEN, LL. D., of Maine, and was born in the town of Biddeford, in that state, on the nineteenth day of June, 1799. He was educated at Harvard College, and after leaving that seminary became a law-student in the office of his father, who had before that time removed to Portland. Soon after being admitted to the bar, he was married, and commenced the practice of his profession at North Yarmouth, a pleasant village near his native town. Within three years-in October, 1828-his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, died, and his only child followed her to the grave in the succeeding spring. From this time his character was changed. He had before been an ambitious and a happy man. The remainder of his life was clouded with melancholy.

I believe Mr. MELLEN did not become known as a writer until he was about twenty-five years old. He was then one of the contributors to the Cambridge "United States Literary Gazette." In the early part of 1827, he published a satire entitled "Our Chronicle of Twenty-six," and two years afterward, "Glad Tales and Sad Tales," a collection of prose sketches, which had previously been printed in the periodicals. "The Martyr's Triumph, Buried Valley, and other Poems," appeared in 1834. The principal poem in this volume is founded on the history of Saint Alban, the first Christian martyr in England. It is in the measure of the "Faery Queene," and has some creditable passages; but, as a whole, it hardly rises above mediocrity. In the "Buried Valley" he describes the remarkable avalanche near the Notch in the White Mountains, by which the Willey family were destroyed, many years ago. In a poem entitled "The Rest of Empires," in the same collection, he laments the custom of the elder bards to immortalize the deeds of conquerors alone, and contrasts their prostitution of the influence of poetry with the nobler uses to which it is applied in later days, in the following lines, which are characteristic of his best manner :

"We have been taught, in oracles of old,

Of the enskied divinity of song;

That Poetry and Music, hand in hand,

Came in the light of inspiration forth,

And claim'd alliance with the rolling heavens.

And were those peerless bards, whose strains have come In an undying echo to the world,

Whose numbers floated round the Grecian isles,

And made melodious all the hills of Rome,

Were they inspired-Alas, for Poetry!

That her great ministers, in early time,

Sung for the brave alone-and bade the soul
Battle for heaven in the ranks of war!
It was the treason of the godlike art
That pointed glory to the sword and spear,
And left the heart to moulder in its mail!

It was the menial service of the bard-
It was the basest bondage of his powers,
In later times to consecrate a feast,
And sing of gallantry in hall and bower,
To courtly knights and ladies.

"But other times have strung new lyres again,
And other music greets us. Poetry
Comes robed in smiles, and, in low breathing sounds,
Takes counsel, like a friend, in our still hours,
And points us to the stars-the waneless stars-
That whisper an hereafter to our souls.
It breathes upon our spirits a rich balm,
And, with its tender tones and melody,
Draws mercy from the warrior-and proclaims
A morn of bright and universal love

To those who journey with us through the vale;
It points to moral greatness-deeds of mind,
And the high struggles, worthy of a man.
Have we no minstrels in our echoing halls,
No wild CADWALLON, with his wilder strain,
Pouring his war-songs upon helmed ears?
We have sounds stealing from the far retreats
Of the bright company of gifted men,
Who pour their mellow music round our age,
And point us to our duties and our hearts;
The poet's constellation beams around-
A pensive CowPER lives in all his lines,
And MILTON hymns us on to hope and heaven!"

After spending five or six years in Boston, Mr. MELLEN removed to New York, where he resided

nearly all the remainder of his life. He wrote much for the literary magazines, and edited several works for his friend, Mr. COLMAN, the publisher. In 1839, he established a Monthly Miscellany, but it was abandoned after the publication of a few numbers. His health had been declining for several years; his disease finally assumed the form of consumption, and he made a voyage to Cuba, in the summer of 1840, in the hope that he would derive advantage from a change of climate, and the sea air. He was disappointed; and learning of the death of his father, in the following spring, he returned to New York, where he died, on the fifth of September, 1841.

Mr. MELLEN was a gentle-hearted, amiable man, social in his feelings, and patient and resigned in the long period of physical suffering which preceded his death. As a poet, he enjoyed a higher reputation in his lifetime than his works will preserve. They are without vigour of thought or language, and are often dreamy, mystic, and unintelligible. In his writings there is no evidence of creative genius; no original, clear, and manly thought; no spirited and natural descriptions of life or nature; no humour, no pathos, no passion; nothing that appeals to the common sympathies of mankind. The little poem entitled "The Bugle," although it whispers whence it stole its spoils," is probably superior to any thing else he wrote. It is free from the affectations and unmeaning epithets which distinguish nearly all his works.