With Zephyr from his palace in the west,
Thou dost upsnatch the Twins from cradled rest,
And strain them to thy breast,
And haste to meet the expectant, bright new comer,
The opulent queen of Earth, the gay, voluptuous
Summer!
Unmuffled now, shorn of thy veil of showers,
Thou tripp'st along the mead with shining hair
Blown back, and scarf out-fluttering on the air,
White-handed, strewing the fresh sward with
flowers!
The green hills lift their foreheads far away;
But where thy pathway runs the sod is pressed
By fleecy lambs, behind the budding spray ;
And troops of butterflies are hovering round,
And the small swallow drops upon the ground
Beside his mate and nest!
A little month ago, the sky was gray;
Snow tents were pitched along the mountain-side,
Where March encamped his stormy legions wide,
And shook his standard o'er the fields of Day!
But now the sky is blue, the snow is flown,
And every mountain is an emerald throne,
And every cloud a dais fringed with light,
And all below is beautiful and bright!
The forest waves its plumes, the hedges blow,
The south wind scuds along the meadowy sea
Thick-flecked with daisied foam,-and violets grow
Blue-eyed, and cowslips star the bloomy lea:
The skylark floods the scene with pleasant rhyme;
The ousel twitters in the swaying pine;
And wild bees hum about the beds of thyme,
And bend the clover-bells and eglantine;
The snake casts off his skin in mossy nooks;
The long-eared rabbits near their burrows play;
The dormouse wakes; and see! the noisy rooks
Sly foraging, about the stacks of hay!
What sights! what sounds! what rustic life and
Housed all the winter long from bitter cold, Huddling in chimney-corners, young and old Come forth and share the gladness of the Earth. The ploughmen whistle as the furrows trail
Behind their glittering shares, a billowy row; The milkmaid sings a ditty while her pail
Grows full and frothy; and the cattle low;
The hounds are yelping in the misty wood,
Starting the fox: the jolly huntsmen cheer;
And winding horns delight the listening ear,
And startle Echo in her solitude;
The teamster drives his wagon down the lane,
Flattening a broader rut in weeds and sand;
The angler fishes in the shady pool;
And loitering down the road with cap in hand,
The truant chases butterflies,-in vain,
Heedless of bells that call the village lads to school!
Methinks the world is sweeter than of yore,
More fresh, and fine, and more exceeding fair;
There is a presence never felt before,
The soul of inspiration everywhere; Incarnate Youth in every idle limb,
My vernal days, my prime, return anew; My tranced spirit breathes a silent hymn, My heart is full of dew!
ALONG the shore the slimy brine-pits yawn,
Covered with thick green scum; the billows rise,
And fill them to the brim with clouded foam,
And then subside, and leave the scum again;
The ribbed sand is full of hollow gulfs,
Where monsters from the waters come and lie:
Great serpents bask at noon among the rocks,
To me no terror; coil on coil they roll
Back to their holes, before my flying feet;
The Dragon of the Sea, my mother's god,
Enormous Setebos, comes here to sleep;
Him I molest not; when he flaps his wing
A whirlwind rises, when he swims the deep
It threatens to engulf the trembling isle.
Sometimes when winds do blow, and clouds are
dark,
I seek the blasted wood, whose barkless trunks
Are bleached with summer suns; the creaking trees
Stoop down to me, and swing me right and left
Through crashing limbs, but not a jot care I:
The thunder breaks o'erhead, and in their lairs
The panthers roar; from out the stormy clouds
With hearts of fire, sharp lightnings rain around
And split the oaks; not faster lizards run
Before the snake up the slant trunks than I;
Not faster down, sliding with hands and feet.
I stamp upon the ground, and adders rouse
Sharp-eyed, with poisonous fangs; beneath the
leaves
They couch, or under rocks, and roots of trees
Felled by the winds; through briery undergrowth
They slide with hissing tongues, beneath my feet
To writhe, or in my fingers squeezed to death.
There is a wild and solitary pine,
Deep in the meadows; all the island birds
From far and near fly there, and learn new songs;
Something imprisoned in its wrinkled bark
Wails for its freedom; when the bigger light
Burns in mid-heaven, and dew elsewhere is dried,
There it still falls; the quivering leaves are tongues,
And load the air with syllables of wo.
One day I thrust my spear within a cleft
No wider than its point, and something shrieked,
And falling cones did pelt me sharp as hail :
I picked the seeds that grew between their plates,
And strung them round my neck, with sea-mew
eggs.
Hard by are swamps and marshes, reedy fens
Knee-deep in water; monsters wade therein
Thick-set with plated scales; sometimes in troops
They crawl on slippery banks; sometimes they lash
The sluggish waves, among themselves at war;
Often I heave great rocks from off the crags,
And crush their bones; often I push my spear
Deep in their drowsy eyes, at which they howl
And chase me inland; then I mount their humps
And prick them back again, unwieldy, slow:
At night the wolves are howling round the place,
And bats sail there athwart the silver light,
Flapping their wings; by day in hollow trees
They hide, and slink into the gloom of dens.
We live, my mother Sycorax and I,
In caves with bloated toads and crested snakes;
And ne'er on earth the child grew older."
I've lost my little MAY at last!
She perished in the spring,
When earliest flowers began to bud,
And earliest birds to sing;
I laid her in a country grave,
A green and soft retreat,
A marble tablet o'er her head,
And violets at her feet.
I would that she were back again,
In all her childish bloom;
My joy and hope have followed her,
My heart is in her tomb!
I know that she is gone away,
I know that she is fled,
I miss her everywhere, and yet
I cannot think her dead!
I wake the children up at dawn,
And say a single prayer,
And draw them round the morning meal,
But one is wanting there!
I see a little chair apart,
A little pinafore,
And Memory fills the vacancy,
As Time will-nevermore!
I sit within my quiet room,
Alone, and write for hours, And miss the little maid again
Among the window flowers,
And miss her with her toys beside
My desk in silent play;
And then I turn and look for her,
But she has flown away!
I drop my idle pen, and hark,
And catch the faintest sound; She must be playing hide-and-seek In shady nooks around;
She'll come and climb my chair again,
And peep my shoulders o'er;
I hear a stifled laugh,-but no,
She cometh nevermore!
I waited only yester-night
The evening service read, And lingered for my idol's kiss Before she went to bed; Forgetting she had gone before, In slumbers soft and sweet, A monument above her head, And violets at her feet.
THE fair boy Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
It was his duty evermore
To tend the Lady Imogen;
By peep of day he might be seen
Tapping against her chamber door,
To wake the sleepy waiting-maid;
She woke, and when she had arrayed
The Princess, and the twain had prayed,
(They prayed with rosaries of yore,)
They called him, pacing to and fro;
And cap in hand, and bowing low,
He entered, and began to feed
The singing birds with fruit and seed.
The brave boy Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
He tripped along the kingly hall,
From room to room, with messages;
He stopped the butler, clutched his keys,
(Albeit he was broad and tall,)
And dragged him down the vaults, where win
In bins lay beaded and divine,
To pick a flask of vintage fine;
Came up, and clomb the garden wall,
And plucked from out the sunny spots
Peaches, and luscious apricots,
And filled his golden salver there,
And hurried to his Lady fair.
The gallant Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
He had a steed from Arab ground,
And when the lords and ladies gay
Went hawking in the dews of May,
And hunting in the country round,
And Imogen did join the band,
He rode him like a hunter grand,
A hooded hawk upon his hand,
And by his side a slender hound:
But when they saw the deer go by
He slipped the leash, and let him fly,
And gave his fiery barb the rein,
And scoured beside her o'er the plain.
The strange boy Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
Sometimes he used to stand for hours
Within her room, behind her chair;
The soft wind blew his golden hair
Across his eyes, and bees from flowers
Hummed round him, but he did not stir
He fixed his earnest eyes on her,
A pure and reverent worshipper,
A dreamer building airy towers:
But when she spoke he gave a start,
That sent the warm blood from his heart
To flush his cheeks, and every word
The fountain of his feelings stirred.
The sad boy Leonatus,
The page of Imogen :
He lost all relish and delight,
For all things that did please before;
By day he wished the day was o'ef,
By night he wished the same of night:
He could not mingle in the crowd,
He loved to be alone, and shroud
His tender thoughts, and sigh aloud,
And cherish in his heart its blight.
At last his health began to fail,
His fresh and glowing cheeks to pale;
And in his eyes the tears unshed
Did hang like dew in violets dead.
The timid Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
"What ails the boy!" said Imogen:
He stammer'd, sigh'd, and answer'd "Naught." She shook her head, and then she thought What all his malady could mean;
It might be love; her maid was fair,
And Leon had a loving air;
She watched them with a jealous care,
And played the spy, but naught was seen:
And then she was aware at first,
That she, not knowing it, had nursed
His memory till it grew a part-
A heart within her very heart!
The dear boy Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
She loved, but owned it not as yet;
When he was absent she was lone,
She felt a void before unknown,
And Leon filled it when they met;
She called him twenty times a day,
She knew not why, she could not say;
She fretted when he went away,
And lived in sorrow and regret ;
Sometimes she frowned with stately mien,
And chid him like a little queen;
And then she soothed him meek and mild,
And grew as trustful as a child.
The neat scribe Leonatus,
The page of Imogen :
She wondered that he did not speak,
And own his love, if love indeed
It was that made his spirit bleed;
And she bethought her of a freak
To test the lad; she bade him write
A letter that a maiden might,
A billet to her heart's delight;
He took the pen with fingers weak,
Unknowing what he did, and wrote,
And folded up and sealed the note:
She wrote the superscription sage,
"For Leonatus, Lady's Page!"
The happy Leonatus,
The page of Imogen:
The page of Imogen no more,
But now her love, her lord, her life,
For she became his wedded wife,
As both had hoped and dreamed before.
He used to sit beside her feet,
And read romances rare and sweet,
And, when she touched her lute, repeat
Impassioned madrigals of yore,
Uplooking in her face the while,
Until she stooped with loving smile,
And pressed her melting mouth to his,
That answered in a dreamy blissThe joyful Leonatus,
The lord of Imogen!
A FEW frail summers had touched thee,
As they touch the fruit;
Not so bright as thy hair, the sunshine,
Not so sweet as thy voice the lute.
Hushed the voice, shorn the hair, all is over:
An urn of white ashes remains;
Nothing else save the tears in our eyes,
And our bitterest, bitterest pains!
We garland the urn with white roses,
Burn incense and gums on the shrine, Play old tunes with the saddest of closes, Dear tunes that were thine!
But in vain, all in vain;
Thou art gone-we remain !
You were very charming, Madam,
In your silks and satins fine;
And you made your lovers drunken,
But it was not with your wine!
There were court gallants in dozens,
There were princes of the land,
And they would have perished for you
As they knelt and kissed your hand—
For they saw no stain upon it,
It was such a snowy hand!
But for me I knew you better,
And, while you were flaunting there,
I remembered some one lying,
With the blood on his white hair!
He was pleading for you, Madam,
Where the shriven spirits stand;
But the Book of Life was darkened,
By the Shadow of a Hand!
It was tracing your perdition,
For the blood upon your hand!
THE moon is muffled in a cloud,
That folds the lover's star,
But still beneath thy balcony
I touch my soft guitar.
If thou art waking, Lady dear,
The fairest in the land,
Unbar thy wreathéd lattice now,
And wave thy snowy hand.
She hears me not; her spirit lies
In trances mute and deep ;-
But Music turns the golden key
Within the gate of Sleep!
Then let her sleep, and if I fail
To set her spirit free! My song shall mingle in her dream, And she will dream of me!
THE yellow moon looks slantly down,
Through seaward mists, upon the town;
And like a dream the moonshine falls
Between the dim and shadowy walls.
I see a crowd in every street,
But cannot hear their falling feet; '
They float like clouds through shade and light,
And seem a portion of the night.
The ships have lain, for ages fled,
Along the waters, dark and dead;
The dying waters wash no more
The long black line of spectral shore.
There is no life on land or sea,
Save in the quiet moon and me;
Nor ours is true, but only seems,
Within some dead old world of dreams!
DRAW the curtains round your bed,
And I'll shade the wakeful light;
"T will be hard for you to sleep,
If you have me still in sight:-
But you must though, and without me,
For I have a song to write:
Then sleep, love, sleep!
The flowers have gone to rest,
And the birds are in the nest:
"T is time for you to join them beneath the wings of Sleep!
Wave thy poppies round her, Sleep!
Touch her eye-lids, flood her brain; Banish Memory, Thought, and Strife, Bar the portals of her life,
Till the morning comes again!
Let no enemy intrude
On her helpless solitude:
Fear and Pain, and all their train
Keep the evil hounds at bay,
And all evil dreams away!
Thou, thyself, keep thou the key,
Or intrust it unto me,
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!
A lover's eyes are bright
In the darkest night;
And jealous even of dreams, almost of thee, dear
I must sit, and think, and think,
Till the stars begin to wink:
(For the web of Song is wrought
Only in the looms of Thought!)
She must lie, and sleep, and sleep,
(Be her slumbers calin and deep!)
Till the dews of morning weep;
Therefore bind your sweetest sprite
To her service and delight,
All the night,
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!
And I'll whisper in her ear,
(Even in dreams it will be dear!)
What she loveth so to hear,
Tiding sweeter than the flowers,
All about this love of ours,
And its rare increase:
Singing in the starry peace,
Ditties delicate, and free,
Dedicate to her, and thee,
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!
For I owe ye both a boon,
And I mean to grant it soon,
In my golden numbers that breathe of Love and
Sleep!
BENEATH the heavy curtains,
My face against the pane,
I peer into the darkness,
And scan the night in vain.
The vine o'erruns the lattice,
And lies along its roof,
So thick with leaves and clusters,
It keeps the moon aloof.
By yonder pear-tree splintered,
The ghostly radiance falls,
But fails to pierce the branches,
Or touch the sombre walls.
No moon, no starlight gleaming,
The dark encircles me;
And what is more annoying,
My neighbor cannot see.
She stands beneath her curtains, Her face against the pane, Nor knows that I am watching For her to-night again!
WITH folded hands the lady lies
In flowing robes of white,
A globéd lamp beside her couch,
A round of tender light.
With such a light above her head,
A little year ago,
She walked adown the shadowy vale,
Where the blood-red roses grow!
A shape or shadow joined her there,
To pluck the royal flower,
But from her breast the lily stole,
Which was her only dower.
That gone, all went: her false love first,
And then her peace of heart;
The hard world frowned, her friends grew
She hid in tears apart:
And now she lies upon her couch,
Amid the dying light:
Nor wakes to hear the little voice
That moans throughout the night!
MR. BUTLER is a son of BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, recently Attorney-General of the United States, and long conspicuous in public affairs. He was born in Albany, in 1825, and was educated at the New York University, where he graduated in 1843. From July, 1846, to December, 1848, he travelled in Europe, and he has since been associated with his father in the practice of the law, in the city of New York.
TO-DAY the good ship sails,
Across the sparkling sea-
To-day the northern gales
Are blowing swift and free;
Speed, speed her distant way,
To that far land of gold:
A richer prize we seek than they,
The Argonauts of old!
Who goes with us? who quits the tiresome shore,
And sails where Fortune beckons him away; Where in that marvellous land, in virgin ore, The wealth of years is gather'd in a day? Here, toil and trouble are our portion still, And still with want our weary work is paid; Slowly the shillings drop into the till,
Small are the profits of our tedious trade; There, Nature proffers with unstinted hands,
The countless wealth the wide domain confines, Sprinkles the mountain-streams with golden sands, And calls the adventurer to exhaustless mines. Come, then, with us! what are the charms of home, What are the ties of friends or kindred worth? Thither, oh thither, let our footsteps roam
There is the Eden of our fallen earth! Well do we hold the fee of those broad lands Wrested from feebler hands,
By our own sword and spear;
Well may the weeping widow be consoled,
And orphan'd hearts their ceaseless grief withhold;
Well have our brothers shed their life-blood here.
Say, could we purchase at a price too dear,
These boundless acres of uncounted gold?
Come, then! it is to-day,
To-day the good ship sails,
And swift upon her way
Blow out the northern gales.
A twelvemonth more, and we
Our homeward course shall hold,
With richer freight within than theirs,
The Argonauts of old!
Alas! for honest labour from honest ends averted;
Alas! for firesides left, and happy homes deserted
The principal literary compositions of Mr. Bur LER are a class-poem entitled “The Future,” published in 1846; occasional contribution to the "Democratic Review" and "Literary World," and a small volume of the character of "Rejected Addresses," entitled "Barnum's Parnassus." He has wit and humor, and a natural and flexible style, abounding in felicities of expression. In general he writes hastily, and finishes a piece at a sitting.
Brightly the bubble glitters; bright in the distanc
The land of promise gleams;
But ah, the phantom fortunes of existence
Live but in dreams!
Behold the end afar:
Beyond the bright, deceptive cloud, Beneath what dim, malignant star,
Sails on the eager crowd!
Some gain the wish'd-for shore,
And grasp the golden ore,
[die! But sicken as they grasp, and where they sicken, There have they found beside the mountain streams, On desolate crags where the wild eagle screams, In dark ravines where western forests waveGold, and a grave!
Some for the spendthrift's eager touch,
Some for the miser's hoarded store,
Some for the robber's grasp, the murderer's clutch,
Heap up the precious ore, [wither'd core!
Dear bought with life's lost strength, and the heart's
Oh, cursed love of gold!
Age follows age,
And still the world's slow records are unroll'd,
Page after page;
And the same tale is told
The same unholy deeds, the same sad scenes unfold! Where the assassin's knife is sharpen'd,
Where the maiden of sixteen weds the old man For his acres ;
Where the gambler stakes his all on the last throw Of the dice;
Where the statesman for his country and its glory Sets a price!
There are thy altars rear'd, thy trophies told, Oh, cursed love of gold!
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