Bursting from space, and standing in his might— Of dainty Poesy-and boyishly supreme! MORNING AFTER A BATTLE. Who thinks of battle now? The stirring sounds Spring lightly from the trumpet, yet who bounds On this sad, still, and melancholy morn, As he was wont to bound, when the fresh horn Came dancing on the winds, and peal'd to heaven, In gone-by hours, before the battle even? The very horses move with halting pace; No more they heave their manes with fiery grace, With plunge, and reach, and step that leaves no trace; No more they spurn the bit, and sudden fling Their light hoofs on the air. The bugles sing, And yet the meteor mane and rolling eye Lighten no longer at their minstrelsy; No more their housings blaze, no more the gold Or purple flashes from the opening fold; No rich-wrought stars are glittering in their pride Of changing hues; all, all, is crimson-dyed. They move with slow, far step; they hear the tread That measures out the tombing of the dead The cannon speaks, but now no longer rolls In heavy thunders to the answering poles; But bursting suddenly, it calls, and flies, Less stately in his strength, less lordly in his pride. MUSIC OF THE NIGHT. THERE are harps that complain to the presence of night, To the presence of night alone In a near and unchangeable tone- Like a conqueror, shaking his brilliant hair On the clouds that unfold, Rolling on, and erect, in a charioting throne! Yes! strings that lie still in the gushing of day, That awake, all alive, to the breezes of night. There are hautboys and flutes too, for ever at play When the evening is near, and the sun is away, Breathing out the still hymn of delight. In one sweet dreamy tone, For ever and for ever. NIGHT. "Tis dark abroad. The majesty of Night Bows down superbly from her utmost height, Stretches her starless plumes across the world, And all the banners of the wind are furl'd. How heavily we breathe amid such gloom, As if we slumber'd in creation's tomb. It is the noon of that tremendous. When life is helpless, and the dea. have power; When solitudes are peopled; when the sky Is swept by shady wings that, sailing by, Proclaim their watch is set; when hidden rills Are chirping on their course, and all the hills Are bright with armour; when the starry vests, And glittering plumes, and ficry twinkling crests Of moon-light sentinels are sparkling round, And all the air is one rich floating sound; When countless voices, in the day unheard, Are piping from their haunts, and every bird That loves the leafy wood and blooming bower And echoing cave, is singing to her flower; When every lovely, every lonely place, Is ringing to the light and sandal'd pace Of twinkling feet; and all about, the flow Of new-born fountains, murmuring as they go; When watery tunes are richest, and the call Of wandering streamlets, as they part and fall In foaming melody, is all around, Like fairy harps beneath enchanted ground— Sweet, drowsy, distant music! like the breath Of airy flutes that blow before an infant's death. It is that hour when listening ones will weep And know not why; when we would gladly sleep Our last, last sleep, and feel no touch of fear, Unconscious where we are, or what is near, Till we are startled by a falling tear, That unexpected gather'd in our eye, While we were panting for yon blessed sky; That hour of gratitude, of whispering prayer, When we can hear a worship in the air; When we are lifted from the earth, and feel Light fanning wings around us faintly wheel, And o'er our lids and brow a blessing steal; And then, as if our sins were all forgiven, And all our tears were wiped, and we in heaven! ONTARIO. No sound is on the ear, no boatman's oar Drops its dull signal to the watchful shore; But all is listening, as it were to hear Some seraph harper stooping from her sphere And calling on the desert to express Its sense of Silence in her loveliness. What holy dreaming comes in nights like these, When, like yon wave, unruffled by a breeze, The mirrors of the memory all are spread And fanning pinions sail around your head; When all that man may love, alive or dead, Come murmuring sweet, unutterable things, And nestle on his heart with their young wings, And all perchance may come, that he may fear, And mutter doubtful curses in his ear; Hang on his loaded soul, and fill his brain With indistinct forebodags, dim, and vain.... The moon goes lightly up her thronging way, A gorgeous carpeting bestrews the ground; This is the mirror of dim Solitude, On which unholy things may ne'er intrude; But sunshine, stars, the moon, and clear-blue sky. TREES. THE heave, the wave and bend Of everlasting trees, whose busy leaves INVASION OF THE SETTLER. WHERE now fresh streamlets answer to the hues Of passing seraph-wings; and fiery dews Hang thick on every bush, when morning wakes, Like sprinkled flame; and all the green-wood shakes With liquid jewelry. that Night bath flung Upon her favourite tresses, while they swung And wanton'd in the wind-henceforth will be No lighted dimness, such as you see, In yonder faint, mysterious scenery, Where all the woods keep festival, and seem, Beneath the midnight sky, and mellow beam Of yonder breathing light, as if they were Branches and leaves of unimbodied air. WILLIAM B. TAPPAN. [Born, 1794. Died, 1849.] to a newspaper, and was subsequently as much surprised as delighted to find that they were widely copied and much praised. Thus encouraged, he began to look for a more congenial occupation, and determining to become a teacher, entered an academy at Somerville, New Jersey, in his twenty-fourth year, to prosecute the necessary preliminary studies. Unfaltering industry and a strong will, with good natural abilities, enabled to make very rapid advancement, so that in 1821 he was fairly entered upon his new profession, in which he had prospects of abundant success. In 1822 he was married, and four years later he entered the service of the American Sunday School Union, with which society he was connected the rest of his life, a period of more than quarter of a century. For the prosecution of its business, he resided four years in Cincinnati, and in 1837 removed to Boston. He was ordained an evangelist, according to the forms of the Congregational churches, in 1841, and died at West Needham, Massachusetts, on the eighteenth of June, 1849, greatly respected by all who knew him. THE late Rev. WILLIAM B. TAPPAN, the mox: industrious and voluminous of our religious poets, was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, on the twenty-ninth of October, 1794. His ancestors were among the earliest of the settlers from England, and for one hundred and fifty years had furnished ministers of the gospel in nearly uninterrupted succession. His father was a soldier during the revolution, and afterwards many years a teacher. Upon his death, at Portsmouth, in 1805, WIL-him LIAM, then in his twelfth year, was apprenticed to a mechanic in Boston. He had already acquired an unusual fondness for reading, though the books to which he had access were comparatively few. "The Bible," The Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," and "The Surprising Adventures of Philip Quarles," constituted his library, and of these he was thoroughly master. At nine years of age he commenced rhyming, and he occasionally wrote verses during his apprenticeship, which lasted, by agreement, till he was twenty. There were then none of the lyceums, apprentices' libraries, Lowell lectures, or other means of self-education which are now so abundant in Boston, and he had no resource for intellectual improvement or amusement, except a neighbouring circulating library, the novels, romances, and poems of which he was never weary of reading. What little he had gained, at home, of the common elementary branches of knowledge, he lost during these years; but, master of his business (which however he never fully loved) and with high hopes, he proceeded to Philadelphia, where there seemed to be an opening for him, in 1815, and permanently established himself in that city. He frequently indulged his propensity to write, but was so diffident of his powers, that until he was twenty-three years old he never offered any thing for publication. He then permitted a friend to give several of his pieces THE TWENTY THOUSAND CHILDREN OF THE SAB- O, SIGHT sublime, O, sight of fear! Like whisperings of the mighty sea! Mr. TAPPAN published his first volume of Poems in Philadelphia, in 1819, encouraged to do so by Mr. ROBERT WALSH, then editor of the "American Quarterly Review," and Mr. JOSEPH R. CHANDLER, the accomplished editor for many years of the United States Gazette." He subsequently gave to the public more than a dozen volumes, the contents of which are for the most part included in the five comprising his complete Poetical Works, with his final revisions-"The Poetry of Life," "The Sunday-school and other Poems," "The Poetry of the Heart," "Sacred and Miscel laneous Poems," and "Late and Early Poems," which appeared in 1848 and 1849. He wrote with great facility, and many of his pieces are pleasing expressions of natural and pious emotion. Wealth of young beauty! that now blooms The hue of life's serenest hours; Are ye immortal? Of life, be life, undying still, When all these sentient thousands pass To where corruption works its will? Thought! that takes hold of heaven and hell, Be in each teacher's heart to-day! So shall eternity be well With these, when time has fled away. SONG OF THE THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DRUNKARDS IN THE UNITED STATES. WE come! we come! with sad array, And in procession long, To join the army of the lost, Three hundred thousand strong. Our banners, beckoning on to death, Ye heard what music cheers us on,- So wildly, and the babe's that wailed We've taken spoil; and blighted joys We've trampled on the throbbing heart, And flouted sorrow's tear. We come! we come! we've searched the land, The rich and poor are ours Enlisted from the shrines of God, From hovels and from towers. And who or what shall balk the brave, What boots to such man's muttered curse Our leader! who of all the chiefs, Who 've triumphed from the first, We come! Of the world's scourges, who To his stern prowess known? Hang Misery's countless train; We come! we come! to fill our graves, HEAVEN. THERE is an hour of peaceful rest When toss'd on life's tempestuous shoals, There faith lifts up her cheerful eye, There, fragrant flowers immortal bloom, TO THE SHIP OF THE LINE PENN. SYLVANIA. "LEAP forth to the careering scas," O ship of lofty name! And toss upon thy native breeze Oh! holy is the covenant made We pledge our fervent love, and thou Alive with men who cannot bow Speed lightnings o'er the Carib sea, Go! lie upon the Egean's breast, Where sparkle emerald isles- And keep, where sail the merchant ships, In pride of their own little hour, A freeborn, noble mind. Spread out those ample wings of thine!— While crime doth govern men, 'Tis fit such bulwark of the brine Should leave the shores of PENN; For her wilt win renown, EDWARD EVERETT. [Born 1794. Died 1885.] THIS eminent scholar, orator, statesman, and man of letters, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1794; graduated at Harvard College in 1811; appointed professor of Greek literature in 1814; after five years of travel and residence at foreign universities entered upon the duties of his office in 1819; became editor of the North American Review in 1820; was a member of Congress from 1824 to 1834; governor of Massachusetts from 1835 to 1839; minister to England from 1841 to 1845; president of Harvard College from 1845 to 1849; a member of the Senate; Secretary of State; again member of the Senate; and finally retired from public life, in consequence of ill-health, in 1854. I have given some account of Mr. EVERETT'S principal prose writings in «The Prose Writers of America." In 1822 he contributed to the North American Review an article on the works of Dr. PERCIVAL, in the introductory pages of which he presents an admirable sketch of the condition and promise of our poetical literature at that time. Referring to the great number of those who in this country have published "occasional verses," he remarks that "it happens to almost all men of superior talents to have made an essay at poetry in early life. Whatever direction be SANTA CROCE. NOT chiefly for thy storied towers and halls, To breathe her peaceful monumental air; Next, in an urn, not void, though cold as thin, finally forced upon them by strong circumstances or strong inclinations, there is a period after the imagination is awakened and the affections are excited, and before the great duties and cares of life begin, when all men of genius write a few lines in the shape of a patriotic song, a sonnet by Julio in a magazine, or stanzas to some fair object. This is the natural outlet." In these sentences Mr. EVERETT recalls his own poetical effusions, which however are not so few or so unimportant as to be justly described in this manner. His first considerable poem was pronounced before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, in 1812. It is entitled "American Poets," and comprises about four hundred lines, in which some of the most striking themes of American song are suggested, and several of our earlier poets are referred to in phrases of kindly but suitable characterization. From time to time, in his maturer years, Mr. EVERETT has written poems which evince unquestionable taste and a genuine poetical inspiration. Those which follow are contrasted examples of his abilities in this line, and they are not unworthy the author of some of the noblest orations in defence and illustration of liberty which have appeared in our time. Speak to me, Painter, Builder, Sculptor, Bard! And thou, illustrious sage! thine eye is closed, by Donatello, used to say, "Marco, perchè non mi parli?" * MICHAEL ANGELO, contemplating the statue of St. Mark, † GALILEO, toward the close of his life, was imprisoned at Arcetri, near Florence, by order of the Inquisition. |