lege, or soon after his return, between his fifteenth and eighteenth years; but they had not the most noticeable characteristics of his later productions. The chivalric poetry occupied his attention early and long, and he was only banishing it for the more independent and beautiful growth of his own nature, when his untimely death destroyed the hopes of fruits which his youth foretold in such prodigality and perfection. Of his love poems, the little song entitled "Florence Vane," written when he was scarcely more than twenty, is perhaps the finest. In the lines "To my Daughter Lily," may be discovered the tenderness and warmth of his affections; in his "Ballads," the fiery and chivalrous phase of his intelligence; in "Ugolino," his pathos; and in "Life in the Autumn Woods," his love of nature. «Ugolino," was in his own opinion the best of all his poems, but it fell far short of his estimate of the capacities of the subject. "I have merely tried my hand in it," he said, "and can only praise what I have done as true to FROISSART. I shall do much better than this."

As a boy and as a young man, I understand. his life was always poetical-apart, original, and commanding affectionate respect. As he grew older, and married, he became practical in his views, reaching that point in the life of genius in which its beautiful ideals take the forms of duty or become the strength of wise resolves. Toward his family, including his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, he cherished a deep and unfaltering devotion. A short time before his last illness he introduced into his household morning and evening prayers. He died, as he had lived, a pure-minded gentleman, and humble Chris

tian.

His voice has been described to me as musically joyous, sometimes varying to a sad sweetness, sometimes wild. His carriage was graceful and upright; his frame vigorous and elastic, trained as he was by constant hunting in the Blue Ridge; his hair was black and curling; his eye dark and bright; his expression calm and thoughtful; his manner impressed with dignity.

EMILY:

PROEM TO THE "FROISSART BALLADS."

YOUNG Emily has temples fair, Caress'd by locks of dark brown hair.

A thousand sweet humanities

Speak wisely from her hazel eyes.

Her speech is ignorant of command, And yet can lead you like a hand.

Her white teeth sparkle, when the eclipse

Is laughter-moved, of her red lips.

She moves, all grace, with gliding limbs
As a white-breasted cygnet swims.
In her sweet childhood, Emily
Was wild with natural gayety,
A little creature, full of laughter,
Who cast no thought before or after,
And knew not custom or its chains.
The dappled fawns upon the plains,
The birds that love the upper sky,
Lived not in lovelier liberty.

But with this natural merriment,
Mind, and the ripening years have blent
A thoughtfulness-not melancholy-
Which wins her life away from folly;
Checking somewhat the natural gladness,
But saved, by that it checks, from sadness-
Like clouds athwart a May-morn sailing,
Which take the golden light they are veiling.
She loves her kind, and shuns no duty,
Her virtues sanctify her beauty,
And all who know her say that she
Was born for man's felicity-

I know that she was born for mine.

Dearer than any joy of wine,

Or pomp, or gold, or man's loud praise,
Or purple power, art thou to me-
Kind cheerer of my clouded ways-
Young vine upon a rugged tree.

Maidens who love are full of hope,
And crowds hedge in its golden scope;
Wherefore they love green solitudes
And silence for their better moods.

I know some wilds, where tulip trees,
Full of the singing toil of bees,
Depend their loving branches over
Great rocks, which honeysuckles cover
In rich and liberal overflow.

In the dear time of long ago
When I had woo'd young Emily,
And she had told her love to me,
I often found her in these bowers,
Quite rapt away in meditation,
Or giving earnest contemplation
To leaf, or bird, or wild wood flowers;
And once I heard the maiden singing,
Until the very woods were ringing-
Singing an old song to the Hours!

I well remember that rare song,

It charged the Hours with cruel wrong—
Wrong to the verdure of the boughs-
Wrong to the lustre of fair brows,
Its music had a wondrous sound,
And made the greenwood haunted ground.
But I delay: one jocund morn—
A morn of that blithe time of spring,
When milky blossoms load the thorn,
And birds so prate, and soar, and sing,
That melody is everywhere,

On the glad earth, and in the air,-
On such a morn I went to seek

In our wild haunts for Emily.

I found her where a flowering tree

Gave odours and cool shade. He cheek

A little rested on her hand;

Her rustic skill had made a band
Of rare device which garlanded
The beauty of her bending head;

Some maiden thoughts most kind and wise
Were dimly burning in her eyes.
When I beheld her-form and face
So lithe, so fair-the spirit race,
Of whom the better poets dream'd,
Came to my thought, and I half deem'd
My earth-born mistress, pure and good,
Was some such lady of the wood,

As she who work'd at spell, and snare,
With Huon of the dusky hair,
And fled, in likeness of a doe,
Before the fleet youth Angelo.
But these infirm imaginings
Flew quite away on instant wings.
I call'd her name. A swift surprise
Came whitely to her face, but soon
It fled before some daintier dyes,
And, laughing like a brook in June,
With sweet accost she welcomed me,
And I sat there with Emily.
The gods were very good to bless
My life with so much happiness.
The maiden on that lowly seat-
I sitting at her little feet!
Two happier lovers never met,
In dear and talk-charm'd privacy.
It was a golden day to me,

And its great bliss is with me yet,
Warming like wine my inmost heart—
For memories of happy hours

Are like the cordials press'd from flowers,
And madden sweetly. I impart
Naught of the love-talk I remember,
For May's young pleasures are best hid
From the cold prudence of December,
Which clips and chills all vernal wings;
And Love's own sanctities forbid,
Now as of old, such gossipings
In Hall, of what befalls in Bower,
But other matters of the hour,
Of which it breaks no faith to tell,
My homely rhyme shall chronicle.

As silently we sat alone-
Our love-talk spent-two mated birds
Began to prate in loving tone;
Quoth Emily, "They sure have words!
Didst hear them say My sweet,' My dear'?"
And as they chirp'd we laugh'd to he
Soon after this a southern wind

Came sobbing like a hunted hind
Into the quiet of the glen:

The maiden mused awhile, and then

Worded her thought right playfully.

The winds," she said, "of land and sea,

My friend, are surely living things
That come and go on unseen wings.
The teeming air and prodigal,
Which droops its azure over all,
Is full of immortalities

That look on us with unseen eyes.
This sudden wind that hath come here,
With its hard sobs of pain or fear,
It may be, is a spirit kind,

That loves the bruised flowers to bind,
Whose task it is to shake the dew

From the sad violet's eye of blue,
Or chase the honey-making thieves
From off the rose, and shut its leaves
Against the cold of April eves.
Perhaps its dainty, pink-tipt handr.
Have plied such tasks in fur off lands
And now, perchance, so.ne grim foe follows
The little wight to these green hollows."
Such gentle words had Emily

For the south wind in the tulip tree.
A runnel, hidden by the trees,
Gave out some natural melodies.
She said, "The brook, among the stones,
Is solemn in its undertones;

How like a hymn! the singing creature
Is worshipping the God of nature.'
But I replied, "My dear-not so;
Thy solemn eyes, thy brow of snow,
And, more than these, thy maiden merit
Have won Undine, that gentle spirit,
To sing her songs of love to thee."
Swift answer'd merry Emily-

Undine is but a girl, you know,

And would not pine for love of me;

She has been peering from the brook,
And glimpsed at you." She said and shook
With a rare fit of silvery laughter.

66

I was more circumspect thereafter,
And dealt in homelier talk. A man
May call a white-brow'd girl « Dian,”
But likes not to be turn'd upon,
And nick-named "Young Endymion."

My Emily loved very well,

At times, those ancient lays which tell
Rude natural tales; she had no lore
Of trouvere, or of troubadour,

Nor knew what difference there might be
Between the tongues of or and oui;
But hearing old tales, loved them all
If truth but made them natural.
In our good talks, we oft went o'er
The little horde of my quaint lore,
Cull'd out of old melodious fable.
She little cared for Arthur's table,
For tales of doughty Launcelot,
Or Tristram, or of him who smote
The giant, Angoulafre hight,
And moan'd for love by day and night.
She little cared for such as these,
But if I cross'd the Pyrenees,
With the great peers of Charlemagne,
Descending toward the Spanish plain,
Her eye would lighten at the strain;
And it would moisten with a tear
The sad end of that tale to hear-
How all aweary, worn and white,
And urging his failing steed amain,
A courier from the south, one night,
Reach'd the great city of the Seine;
And how at that same time and hour,
The bride of Roland lay in Bower
Wakeful, and quick of ear to win
Some rumour of her Paladin-
And how it came in sudden cries,
That shook the earth and rent the skies:

And how the messenger of fate-
That courier who rode so late-
Was dragg'd on to her palace gate;
And how the lady sat in hall,
Moaning among her damsels all,
At the wild tale of Ronceval.
That story sounds like solemn truth,
And she would hear it with such ruth
As sympathetic hearts will pay
To real griefs of yesterday.

Pity look'd lovely in the maiden;
Her eyes were softer, when so laden
With the bright dew of tears unshed.
But I was somewhat envious

That other bards should move her thus,
And oft within myself had said,

66 Yea-I will strive to touch her heart
With some fair songs of mine own art"-
And many days before the day
Whereof I speak, I made assay
At this bold labour. In the wells
Of Froissart's life-like chronicles
I dipp'd for moving truths of old.
A thousand stories, soft and bold,
Of stately dames, and gentlemen,
Which good Lord Berners, with a pen
Pompous in its simplicity,

Yet tipt with charming courtesy,
Had put in English words, I learn'd;
And some of these I deftly turn'd
Into the forms of minstrel verse.

I know the good tales are the worse-
But, sooth to say, it seems to me
My verse has sense and melody-
Even that its measure sometimes flows
With the brave pomp of that old prose.
Beneath our trysting tree, that day,
With dubious face, I read one lay;
Young Emily quite understood
My fears, and gave me guerdon good
In well-timed praise, and cheer'd me on,
Into full flow of heart and tone.
And when, in days of pleasant weather,
Thereafter, we were met gether,
As our strong love oft f. us meet,
I always took my cosy seat,
Just at the damsel's little feet,
And read my tales. It was no friend
To me that day that heard their end.
It had become a play of love,
To watch the swift expression rove
Over the bright sky of her face-
To steal those upward looks, and trace
In every change of cheek and eye,
The influence of my poesy.

I made my verse for Emily-
I give it, reader, now to thee.
The tales which I have toil'd to tell
Of Dame in hall and knight in Selle,
Of faithful love, and courage high-
Sweet flower, strong staff of chivalry-
These tales indeed are old of date;
But why should time their force abate?
Shall we look back with vision dull
On the old brave and beautiful,

And, for they lived so long ago,
Be careless of their mirth or wo?
If sympathy knows but to-day-
If time quite wears its nerve away-
If deeds majestically bold,

In words of ancient music told,
Are only food for studious minds
And touch no hearts-if man but finds

An abstract virtue in the faith,

That clung to truth, and courted death,— If he can lift the dusky pall

With dainty hand artistical

And smile at woes, because some years
Have swept between them and his tears--

I say, my friend, if this may be,
Then burn old books; antiquity
Is no more than a skeleton
Of painted vein and polish'd bone.

Reader! the minstrel brotherhood,
Earnest to soothe thy listening mood,
Were wont to style thee Gentle, Good,
Noble or Gracious:-they could bow
With loyal knee, yet open brow—
They knew to temper thy decision
With graces of a proud submission.
That wont is changed. Yet I, a man
Of this new land republican,
Where insolence wins upward better
Than courtesy-that old dead letter—
And toil claims pay with utterance sharp,
Follow the good Lords of the Harp,
And dub thee with each courtly phrase,
And ask indulgence for my lays.

What passionate

And keen delight is in the proud swift chase!
Go out what time the lark at heaven's red gate
Soars joyously singing-quite infuriate

With the high pride of his place;

What time the unrisen sun arrays the morning
In its first bright adorning.

Hark! the quick horn

As sweet to hear as any clarion

Piercing with silver call the ear of morn;

And mark the steeds, stout Curtal and Topthorne
And Greysteil and the Don-

Each one of them his fiery mood displaying
With pawing and with neighing.

Urge your swift horse,

After the crying hounds in this fresh hour, Vanquish high hills-stem perilous streams perforce, On the free plain give free wings to your course, And you will know the power

Of the brave chase-and how of griefs the sorest A cure is in the forest.

A strong joy fills

At even told,

That spot-the hues Elysian

Of sky and plain—

I treasure in my vision,
Florence Vane.

Thou wast lovelier than the roses
In their prime;

Thy voice excell'd the closes
Of sweetest rhyme;

Thy heart was as a river
Without a main.

Would I had loved thee never,
Florence Vane!

But, fairest, coldest, wonder!
Thy glorious clay

Lieth the green sod under

Alas, the day!

And it boots not to remember Thy disdain

To quicken love's pale ember, Florence Vane.

The lilies of the valley

By young graves weep, The daisies love to dally

Where maidens sleep; May their bloom, in beauty vying, Never wane

Where thine earthly part is lying Florence Vanc

[Born,

MR. EASTMAN was educated at the University of Vermont, and has been for several years engaged as a journalist, at Burlington, Woodstock, and Montpelier. He now resides in the latter town, where he is editor of "The Vermont Patriot," the leading gazette of the democratic party in the state. In 1848 he published a collection of "Poems," nearly all of which had previously appeared in various literary miscellanies. They are chiefly lyrical, and the author displays in them

THE FARMER SAT IN HIS EASY CHAIR.
THE farmer sat in his easy chair,
Smoking his pipe of clay,

While his hale old wife with busy care
Was clearing the dinner away;

A sweet little girl with fine blue eyes
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies.
The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face;
He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self-same place:

As the tear stole down from his half-shut eyeDon't smoke," said the child; "how it makes you cry!"

The house-dog lay stretch'd out on the floor Where the shade after noon used to steal; The busy old wife by the open door

Was turning the spinning-wheel;
And the old brass clock on the manteltree
Had plodded along to almost three :

Still the farmer sat in his easy chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moisten'd brow and the cheek so fair
Of his sweet grandchild were press'd;
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay-
Fast asleep were they both, that summer day.

MILL MAY.

THE strawberries grow in the mowing, MILL MAY,
And the bob-o'-link sings on the tree;

On the knolls the red clover is growing, MILL MAY,
Then come to the meadow with me!
We'll pick the ripe clusters among the deep grass,
On the knolls in the mowing, MILL MAY,
And the long afternoon together we'll pass,

Where the clover is growing, MILL MAY. Come! come, ere the season is over, MILL MAY, To the fields where the strawberries grow, While the thick-growing stems and the clover, MILL Shall meet us wherever we go:

[MAY,

We'll pick the ripe clusters among the deep grass,
On the knolls in the mowing, MILL MAY.
And the long afternoon together we'll pass,
Where the clover is growing MILL MAY.

The sun, stealing under your bonnet, MILL MAY,
Shall kiss a soft glow to your face,

And your lip the strawberry leave on it, MILL MAY,
A tint that the sea-shell would grace;
Then come the ripe clusters among the deep grass
We'll pick in the mowing, MILL MAY,
And the long afternoon together we'll pass,
Where the clover is growing, MILL MAY.

HER GRAVE IS BY HER MOTHER'S.

HER grave is by her mother's,

Where the strawberries grow wild, And there they've slept for many a year, The mother and the child.

She was the frailest of us all,

And, from her mother's breast,
We hoped, and pray'd, and trembled, more
For her, than all the rest.

So frail, alas! she could not bear
The gentle breath of Spring,
That scarce the yellow butterfly
Felt underneath its wing.

How hard we strove to save her, love
Like ours alone can tell;

And only those know what we lost,
Who've loved the lost as well.

Some thirteen summers from her birth,
When th' reaper cuts the grain,
We laid her in the silent earth,
A flower without a stain.

We laid her by her mother,

Where the strawberries grow wild, And there they sleep together well, The mother and the child!