"The strife for fame and the high praise of power, Seeing this man so heathenly inclined— Bears a great stone, then, straining all his thews, I felt a kind of heat of earnest thought; And studying in reply, Thou dost amaze me that thou dost mistake An end that none attain, Plainly, this world is not a scope for bliss, Whispers where man aspires. But what and where are we? what now-to-day! Their gonfalons have set. Dust though we are, and shall return to dust, Then since we see about us sin and dole, Grasping the swords of strife, Yea, all that we can wield is worth the end, Let us not use them ill. As for the creeds, Nature is dark at best; But rouse thee, man! Shake off this hideous death! Come, here is work-and a rank field-begin. Approach and say: "Well done!" This at the last: They clutch the sapless fruit, That, to be greatly good, THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. [Born, 1822.-Died, 1872.] already touched on this ground very successfully "In lands less free, less fair, but far more known, MR. READ was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the twelfth of March, 1822. His family having separated, in consequence of the death of his father, he in 1839 went to Cincinnati, where he was employed in the studio of CLEVENGER the sculptor, and here his attention was first directed to painting, which he chose for his profession, and soon practised with such skill as to arrest the favourable notice of some of the most eminent persons of the city and adjoining country, several of whom, including the late President HARRISON, sat to him for portraits, which he carried as specimens of his abilities to New York, when he settled in that city in 1841, while still under twenty years of age. After a few months he removed to Boston, where he remained until 1846, and then went to Philadelphia, where he practised his profession, occasionally writing for the periodicals, until 1850, in which year he made his first visit to Europe. After spending a few months in Great Britain and on the continent, he returned, in 1852, passed the following winter in Cincinnati, and in the summer of 1853 went abroad a second time, accompanied by his family, and settled in Florence, where he has since resided, in friendly intercourse with an agreeable society of artists and men of letters. Here, in July, 1855, his wife and daughter died suddenly of a prevailing epidemic. Mr. READ's earliest literary performances were a series of lyrics published in the Boston Courier" in 1843 and 1844. In 1847 he printed in Boston the first collection of his " Poems;" in 1848, in Philadelphia, "Lays and Ballads;" in 1849, in the same city, "The Pilgrims of the Great Saint Ber-parison, his muse most delights in common and nard," a prose romance, in the successive numbers of a magazine; in 1853 an illustrated edition of his "Poems," comprising, with some new pieces, all he wished to preserve of his other volumes; and in 1855 the longest of his works, "The New Pastoral," in thirty-seven books. Familiar experiences enable him to invest his descriptions with a peculiar freshness. His recollections are of the country, and of the habits of the primitive Pennsylvania farmers, in many respects the most picturesque and truly pastoral to be found in these active and practical times. A school of American pastoral poetry is yet to be established. The fresh and luxuriant beauty of our inland scenery has been sung in noble verse by BRYANT and WHITTIER, and with less power in the sweet and plaintive strains of CARLOS WILCOX, and the striking productions of STREET and GALLAGHER; but the life of an American farmer has not yet received a just degree of attention from our poets. Mr. READ has made it the subject of a work in every way creditable to his talents and taste. He had The poem consists of a series of sketches of rustic and domestic life, mostly of primitive simplicity, and so truthful as to be not less valuable as history than attractive as poetry. Mr. READ's distinguishing characteristic is a delicate and varied play of fancy. His more ambitious productions display its higher exercise, rather than that of a distinct and creative imagination; he is a lark, flickering aloft in the pure air of song, not an eagle, courting its storms and undazzled by its meridian splendour. And, to extend the com humble subjects. The flowers that spring by the dusty wayside, the cheerful murmur of the meadow brook, the village tavern, and rustic mill, and all quiet and tender impulses and affections, are his favourite sources of inspiration. He excels in homely description, marked frequently by quaintness of epithet and quiet and natural pathos. His verse, though sometimes irregular, is always musical. Indeed, in the easy flow of his stanzas and in the melody of their cadences, he seems to follow some chime of sound within his brain. This is the pervading expression of his poems, many of which might more properly be called songs. Though he has written in the dramatic form with freedom and unaffected feeling, and extremely well in didactic and descriptive blank verse, his province is evidently the lyrical. Like most of our poets, in his earlier poems Mr READ wrote from the inspiration of foreign song and story, and he seems but lately to have per ceived that the most appropriate field for the exer cise of his powers is to be found at home. THE BRICKMAKER. I. LET the blinded horse go round Long, and dark, and smother'd aisles: Hear him shout his loud alarms; Then, when this shall break asunder, Blazing through its pillar'd halls. Old defenders of the land. There shall mighty words be spoken, But anon those glorious uses In these chambers shall lie dead, But this wrong not long shall linger- But when break the walls asunder, There shall grow a church whose steeple To the music of the choir. On the infant, robed in whiteness, There shall stand enwreathed in marriage Shall bring forms and hearts grown still! Deck'd in garments richly glistening, Rustling wealth shall walk the aisle; And the poor without stand listening, Praying in their hearts the while. There the veteran shall come weekly With his cane, oppress'd and poor, Mid the horses standing meekly, Gazing through the open door. But these wrongs not long shall linger-- For, behold! the fiery finger 111. Let the blinded horse go round Not the hall with column'd chambers, With its cells and grated door. With a throbbing, burning head, There the veteran, a poor debtor, Shall gaze idly, not demurring, Though with thick oppression bow'd, While the many, doubly erring, Shall walk honour'd through the crowd. THE STRANGER ON THE SILL. And when you crowd the old barn eaves, THE DESERTED ROAD. ANCIENT road, that wind'st deserted And, as in the light of dreams, Like thy whitely-tented teams. Here I stroll along the village As in youth's departed morn; But I miss the crowded coaches, And the driver's bugle-hornMiss the crowd of jovial teamsters Filling buckets at the wells, Comes the noisy throng no more; Waiting for the few who pass, In the thickly-springing grass. Exultations on the gale. Thou art vanquish'd and neglected; Shall be deathless as the sun. THE CLOSING SCENE. WITHIN his sober realm of leafless trees On slumb'rous wings the vulture held his flight; The sentinel-cock upon the hill-side crew- His alien horn, and then was heard no more. Where erst the jay, within the elin's tall crest, Made garruious trouble round her unfledg'd young, And where the oriole hung her swaying nest, By every light wind like a censer swung :Where sang the noisy masons of the eaves, The busy swallows circling ever near, Foreboding, as the rustic mind believes, An early harvest and a plenteous year;— Where every bird which charm'd the vernal feast, Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn, To warn the reaper of the rosy east, All now was songless, empty and forlorn. Alone from out the stubble piped the quail, And croak'd the crow thro' all the dreamy gloom; Alone the pheasant, drumming in the vale, Made echo to the distant cottage loom. There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers; The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; The thistle-down, the only ghost of flowers, Sailed slowly by, pass'd noiseless out of sight. Amid all this, in this most cheerless air, And where the woodbine shed upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there Firing the floor with his inverted torch; Amid all this, the centre of the scene, The white-haired matron with monotonous tread, Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien, Sat, like a Fate, and watched the flying thread. She had known Sorrow,-he had walk'd with her, Oft supp'd and broke the bitter ashen crust; And in the dead leaves still he heard the stir Of his black mantle trailing in the dust. While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom, Nor him who, to his sire and country true, AN INVITATION. TO GEORGE HAMMERSLEY. COME thou, my friend ;-the cool autumnal eves About the hearth have drawn their magic rings; There, while his song of peace the cricket weaves, The simmering hickory sings. The winds unkennell'd round the casements whine, The shelter'd hound makes answer in his dream, And in the hayloft, hark, the cock at nine, Crows from the dusty beam. The leafless branches chafe the roof all night, And through the house the troubled noises go, While, like a ghostly presence, thin and white, The frost foretells the snow. The muffled owl within the swaying elm Come, then, my friend, and this shall seem no more, And when old Winter through his fingers numb Then come, for nights like these have power to wake And I will weave athwart the mystic gloom, With hand grown weird in strange romance for thee Bright webs of fancy from the golden loom And let no censure in thy looks be shown, That I, with hands adventurous and bold, Should grasp the enchanted shuttle which was thrown Through mightier warps of old. |