L'INCONNUE. Is thy name MARY, maiden fair? And she to whom it once was given, I hear thy voice, I see thy smile, I look upon thy folded hair; Ah! while we dream not they beguile, Our hearts are in the snare; And she, who chains a wild bird's wing, Must start not if her captive sing. So, lady, take the leaf that falls, To all but thee unseen, unknown; When evening shades thy silent walls, Then read it all alone; In stillness read, in darkness seal, THE LAST READER. I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree, And read my own sweet songs; A tone that might have pass'd away, I keep them like a lock or leaf, That some dear girl has given; As sunset clouds in heaven, Those flowers that once ran wild, The ringlets of his child; Or o'er them his sarcastic thread Oblivion's insect weaves; Though weeds are tangled on the stream, It may be that my scanty ore Long years have wash'd away, OLD IRONSIDES.* Ar, tear her tatter'd ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle-shout, And burst the cannon's roar; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more! Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquish'd foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquer'd knee; The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea! O, better that her shatter'd hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Set every threadbare sail, STANZAS. STRANGE! that one lightly-whisper'd tone Than all the sounds that kiss the earth, But, lady, when thy voice I greet, And naught but empty air I see; Ten thousand angels spread their wings The lily hath the softest leaf That ever western breeze hath fann'd, But thou shalt have the tender flower, So I may take thy hand; That little hand to me doth yield More joy than all the broider'd field. O, lady! there be many things That seem right fair, below, above; Written when it was proposed to break up the frigate Constitution, as unfit for service. THE STEAMBOAT. SEE how yon flaming herald treads As, crashing o'er their crested heads, The morning spray, like sea-born flowers With clashing wheel, and lifting keel, When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green Still sounding through the storm; To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, Who trims his narrow'd sail; To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep Her broad breast to the gale; And many a foresail, scoop'd and strain'd, Shall break from yard and stay, Before this smoky wreath has stain'd The rising mist of day. Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, I see yon quivering mast; The black throat of the hunted cloud Is panting forth the blast! An hour, and, whirl'd like winnowing chaff, White as the sea-bird's wing! Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; O, think of those for whom the night Shall never wake in day! B. B. THATCHER. Born, 1809. Died, 1840.] BENJAMIN BUSSEY THATCHER was born in Warren, Maine, on the eighth of October, 1809; entered Bowdoin College, two years in advance, at the age of fifteen, and was graduated bachelor of arts, in 1826. He afterward studied the law, but on being admitted to the bar, finding the duties of the profession too arduous for his delicate constitution, devoted himself to literature, and besides writing much and ably for several periodicals, produced two works on the aborigines of this country, "Indian Biography," and "Indian Traits," which had a wide and well-deserved popularity. In 1836 he went to England, where he remained about two years, writing industriously meanwhile for British and American reviews, and for two or three journals in Boston and New York as a correspondent. He returned in 1838, still struggling with disease, but with a spirit unbroken, and labored with unfaltering assiduity until near th time of his death, which occurred on the fourteenth of July, 1840, when he was in the thirtyfirst year of his age. He left an account of his residence abroad, which has not been published; nor has there been any collection of his numerous reviews, essays, and poems, many of which are creditable to his abilities, taste, and character. THE BIRD OF THE BASTILE.* COME to my breast, thou lone Of the rare music of my childhood! Dear Dear is the memory It brings my soul of many a parted year! Again, yet once again, O minstrel of the main! Lo! festal face, and form familiar, throng. Unto my waking eye; And voices of the sky Sing, from these walls of death, unwonted song. Nay, cease not: I would call Thus, from the silent hall Of the unlighted grave, the joys of old: Beam on me yet once more, Ye blessed eyes of yore, Starting life blood through all my being cold. Ah! cease not; phantoms fair They wave me from its gloom; I fly-I stand Which ne'er hath been forgot In all time's tears, my own green, glorious land! There, on each noon-bright hill, Slowly the faint flocks sought the breezy shade; And windows low, along the upland glade. It is my own blue stream, * One prisoner I saw there, who had been imprisoned from his youth, and was said to be occasionally insane in consequence. He enjoyed no companionship (the keeper told me) but that of a beautiful tamed bird. Of what name or clime it was, I know not-only that he called it fondly, his dove, and seemed never happy but when it sang to him.-MS. of a Tour through France. I see far down where white walls fleck the vale ;I know it by the hedge Of rose-trees at its edge, Vaunting their crimson beauty to the gale: And the worn threshold of my youth beneath;- [wreath. Their lithe arms up where winds the smoke's gray Sing, sing!-I am not mad- May smile that smiled, and speak that spake but now; And prayed; I might have felt Their breath upon my bosom and my brow. I might have pressed to this Cold bosom, in my bliss, Each long-lost form that ancient hearth beside: Thou mother of my childhood! and have died. It minds me I have been, and am again,- It breaks the madness, bound, This breathing thing from all life else apart:Ah! leave me not the gloom Of my eternal tomb To bear alone-alone! Come to my heart, My bird!-Thou shalt go free And come, oh come to me Again, when from the hills the spring-gale blow; So shall I learn, at least, One other year hath ceased That the long wo throbs lingering to its close. ALBERT PIKE. [Born, 1809.] ALBERT PIKE was born in Boston, on the twenty-ninth day of December, 1809. When he was about four years old, his parents removed to Newburyport. His father, he informs me, "was a journeyman shoemaker, who worked hard, paid his taxes, and gave all his children the benefit of an education." The youth of the poet was passed principally in attending the district-schools at Newburyport, and an academy at Framingham, until he was sixteen years of age, when, after a rigid and triumphant examination, he was admitted to Harvard College. Not being able to pay the expenses of a residence at Cambridge, however, he soon after became an assistant teacher in the grammar-school at Newburyport, and, at the end of a year, its principal. He was induced to resign this office after a short time, and in the winter which followed was the preceptor of an academy at Fairhaven. He returned to Newburyport in the spring, on foot, and for one year taught there a private school. During all this time he had been a diligent student, intending to enter the university, in advance; but in the spring of 1831 he changed his plans, and started on his travels to the west and south. He went first to Niagara, and then, through Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville, and Paducah, much of the way on foot, to Saint Louis. He left that city in August, with a company of forty persons, among whom were two young men besides himself from Newburyport, for Mexico; and after much fatigue and privation, arrived at Santa Fe on the twenty-eighth of November. Here he remained nearly a year, passing a part of the time as a clerk in a store, and the residue in selling merchandise through the country. Near the close of September, 1832, he left Taos, with a trappingparty; travelled around the sources of Red River to the head waters of the Brazos; separated from the company, with four others, and came into Arkansas,--travelling the last five hundred miles on foot, and reaching Fort Smith, in November, "without a rag of clothing, a dollar in money, or knowing a person in the territory." Near this place he spent the winter in teaching a few children, and in the following July he went further down the country, and opened a school under more favourable auspices; but after a few weeks, being attacked by a fever, was compelled to abandon it. He had in the mean time written seve ral poems for a newspaper printed at Little Rock, which pleased the editor so much that he sent for him to go there and become his partner. The proposition was gladly accepted, and in October he crossed the Arkansas and landed at Little Rock, paying his last cent for the ferriage of a poor old soldier, who had known his father in New England. Here commenced a new era in the life of PIKE. From this time his efforts appear to have been crowned with success. The Arkansas Advocate" was edited by him until the autumn of 1834, when it became his property. Soon after his alrival at his new home he began to devote his leisure to the study of the law, and he was now admitted to the bar. He continued both to write for his paper and to practise in the courts, until the summer of 1836, when he sold his printing establishment; and since then he has successfully pursued his profession. He was married at Little Rock, in November, 1834. In About this time he published at Boston a volume of prose sketches and poems, among which are an interesting account of his journeys over the prairies, and some fine poetry, written at Santa Fe and among the mountains and forests of Mexico. the preface to it, he says: "What I have written has been a transcript of my own feelings-too much so, perhaps, for the purposes of fame. Writing has always been to me a communion with my own soul. These poems were composed in desertion and loneliness, and sometimes in places of fear and danger. My only sources of thought and imagery have been my own mind, and Nature, who has appeared to me generally in desolate guise and utter dreariness, and not unfrequently in sublimity." His "Hymns to the Gods," published afterward, were composed at an carly age, in Fairhaven, and principally while he was surrounded by pupils, in the school-room. They are bold, spirited, scholarly and imaginative, and their diction is appropriate and poetical, though in some instances marred by imperfect and double rhymes. Of his minor pieces, "Spring" and "To the Mockingbird," are the best. I have heard praise bestowed on "Ariel," a poem much longer than these, published in 1835, but as it appeared in a periodical which had but a brief existence, I have not been able to obtain a copy of it. In "Fantasma," in which, I suppose, he intended to shadow forth his own "eventful history," he speaks of one who "Was young, And had not known the bent of his own mind, and in some of his poems there is a cast of thought similar to that which pervades many of the works of this poet, though nothing that amounts to imitation. His early struggles, and subsequent wanderings and observations furnished him with the subjects, thoughts, and imagery of many of his pieces, and they therefore leave on the mind an impression of nature and truth. In 1854 Mr. PIKE printed in Philadelphia a collection of his poems, under the title of "Nuge," for his friends. It was not published. HYMNS TO THE GODS. NO. ITO NEPTUNE. GoD of the mighty deep! wherever now Trample the storm-vex'd waters round them piled, They tread with silver feet the sleeping sea, NO. II. TO APOLLO. Bright-hair'd APOLLO!-thou who ever art Our hymn to thee, and smilingly draw near! O, most high poet! thou whose great heart's swell Of its unnumber'd waters; on the shore |