Pierpont's "Airs of Palestine": Baltimore, 1816 Bryant's "Thanatopsis": North Amer. Review, Sept. 1817; “Poems” (“The Ages," etc.): Cambridge, 1821 Halleck and Drake's "The Croakers": N. Y. Evening Post, 1819 Mrs. Brooks's "Judith," etc.: Boston, 1820; “Zophiel”: London, 1833 2 Emerson's “Nature": Boston, 1836; “ Poems”: Boston, 1846 : Whittier's “Mogg Megone": Boston, 1836; “Poems”: Philadelphia, 1838 Poe's “ Tamerlane,” etc.: Boston, 1827; “ Al Aaraaf,” etc.: Baltimore, 1829 3 Lowell's "A Year's Life": Boston, 1841; “Poems": Boston, 1844 Mrs. Ilowe's "Passion Flowers": Boston, 1854 Whitman's "Leaves of Grass": Brooklyn, 1855 Boker's "Calaynos, A Tragedy": Philadelphia, 1848 1 Taylor's "Ximena": Philadelphia, 1844; “Rhymes of Travel": New York, 1849 Stoddard's "Poems": Boston, 1852; “Songs of Summer": Boston, 1856 FIRST LYRICAL PERIOD (IN THREE DIVISIONS) DIVISION I (PIERPONT, HALLECK, BRYANT, DRAKE, MRS. BROOKS, AND OTHERS) John Pierpont Till, where its rays directly fell, Wise were the men who followed thus Who 're slaves because we wear a skin Dark as is night's protecting wing, Thou art to us a holy thing. And we are wise to follow thee! I trust thy steady light alone: To burn before the Almighty's throne, To guide me, through these forests dim And vast, to liberty and IIIM. Star of the North! in bright array The constellations round thee sweep, Each holding on its nightly way, Rising, or sinking in the deep, And, as it hangs in mid-heaven flaming, The homage of some nation claiming. This nation to the Eagle cowers; Fit ensign! she's a bird of spoil; Like worships like! for each devours The earnings of another's toil.. I've felt her talons and her beak, And now the gentler Lion seek. The Lion at the Virgin's feet Crouches, and lays his mighty paw Into her lap!-an emblem meet Of England's Queen and English law:Queen, that hath made her Islands free! Law, that holds out its shield to me! Star of the North! upon that shield Shall then beneath its orb recline, And feed the Lion couched before it, Nor heed the Eagle screaming o'er it! The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest: When summer's throned on high, And the world's warm breast is in verdure drest, Go, stand on the hill where they lie. The earliest ray of the golden day On that hallowed spot is cast; And the evening sun, as he leaves the world, Looks kindly on that spot last. The Pilgrim spirit has not fled: It walks in noon's broad light; And it watches the bed of the glorious dead, With the holy stars by night. It watches the bed of the brave who have bled, And still guard this ice-bound shore, Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay, Shall foam and freeze no more. So long watched over with parental care, My spirit and my eye Seek it inquiringly, Before the thought comes that he is not there! AT midnight, in his guarded tent, In dreams, through camp and court, he bore In dreams his song of triumph heard; As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, At midnight, in the forest shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, True as the steel of their tried blades, Heroes in heart and hand. As lightnings from the mountain-cloud; |