The Poets and Poetry of America

THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS.

[Born, 1819.]

THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS, son of Dr. T. W. | to the ear and the brain, and their old-fashioned

PARSONS, was born in Boston on the eighteenth
of August, 1819, and at nine years of age entered
the Latin School in that city, where he remained
during six years. After a brief interval of study
at home, he travelled abroad, having sailed in com-
pany with his father for Malta and Messina, in
Prevented by the cholera,
the autumn of 1836.
which was then raging in southern Italy, from
visiting either of the Sicilies, he went from Malta
in an Italian brig to Leghorn, having a tempestu-
ous passage of fourteen days, during which the
little vessel escaped wreck by putting into the is
land of Elba. He spent the winter partly in Pisa,
but principally in Florence and Rome, proceeded
to Paris, and thence to London; and near the
close of 1837 returned home, where he commenced
the study of medicine, which circumstances after-
wards led him to relinquish.

In Florence Mr. PARSONS had accidentally be-
came acquainted with a lady, Signora GUISEPPA
DANTI, in whose house he dwelt during the whole
period of his stay in that city. Whether from a
coincidence of name, or from the delight, natural
to a boy, of acquiring some insight into the
vina Commedia" amid the gentle influences of
the Etrurian Athens, Mr. PARSONS seems to have
learned a passionate admiration for the poet in
whose native city he was a resident. That the
lady's instruction was not without its charm may
be inferred from the following dedication to a trans-
lation of "The First Ten Cantos of the Inferno,"
which he published in Boston in 1843:

"TO GUISEPPA DANTI,

Under whose roof, in Florence,

The language of her immortal namesake
First grew familiar to her GRATEFUL GUEST."

In 1847 Mr. PARSONS made a second voyage
to Europe in company with his friend, Professor
DANIEL TREADWELL, and passed a year abroad.

His poems, written in the various intervals of
business, have mostly appeared in periodicals. A
few of them, collected in a volume, were published
His translation of the "In-
in Boston in 1855.
ferno" has been completed several years, but has
not yet been given to the press.

music is in keeping with their vigorous sense, fine
humour, sharp, but not ungenial wit, and delicate
though always manly sentiment. His volume
opens with a series of "Letters" supposed to have
been written by a British traveller in this country
to some of his friends in London. They are full
of brilliant sarcasm and just reflection. In one
of them, addressed to WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR,
he has some lines which may have been intended
as an apology for his love of Italian art, and pre-
ference of Italian before American subjects for
Here," he says-
poetical illustration.

"Here, by the ploughman, as with daily tread
Ile tracks the furrows of his fertile ground,
Dark locks of hair, and thigh-bones of the dead,
Spear-heads, and skulls, and arrows oft are found.
"On such memorials unconcerned we gaze;

No trace returning of the glow divine,
Wherewith, dear WALTER! in our Eton days
We eped a fragment from the Palentine.
"It fired us then to trace upon the map

The forum's line-proud empire's church-yard paths,
Ay, or to finger but a marble scrap

Or stucco piece from Diocletian's baths.
"Cellini's workmanship could nothing add
Nor any casket rich with gems and gold,
To the strange value every pebble had
O'er which perhaps the Tiber's wave had rolled.
"A like enchantment all thy land pervades,

Mellows the sunshine-softens every breeze→
O'erhangs the mouldering town, and chestnut shades,
And glows and sparkles in her storied seas...
"Art's rude beginnings, wheresoever found,

The same dull chord of feeling faintly strike;
The Druid's pillar, and the Indian mound,

And Uxmal's monuments, are mute alike.
"Nor here, although the gorgeous year hath brought
Crimson October's beautiful decay,
Can all this loveliness inspire a thought
Beyond the marvels of the fleeting day.
"For here the Present overpowers the Past;
No recollections to these woods belong,
(O'er which no minstrelsy its veil hath cast,)
To rouse our worship, or supply my song."

He has not however been altogether neglectful of American themes. His "Hudson River" is the noblest tribute any stream on this continent has received from a poet; and his lines "On the Death of Daniel Webster," are a display of genius suitable for their impressive occasion: far better than any thing else ever written in verse on the death of an American statesman.

That portion of his version of DANTE which Mr. PARSONS has published, is executed in a very masterly manner. The best critics have pronounced it the most successful reproduction of the spirit and power of the "Divina Commedia" in the English Although not a graduate of any university, language. His original poems are variously admiMr. PARSONS was, at the instance of the late Rev. rable. They have the careful finish to which ANDREWS NORTON, elected a member of the Phi poets endeavoured to attain when it was deemed Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College, and in of importance not only that poetry should have 1853 received the honorary degree of master of meaning, but that both its writers and its readers arts from that venerable institution. His verses are clear alike should understand it.

559

CAMPANILE DE PISA.

Brought from Calvary's holy mountain fitting soil for knightly graves.

SNOW was glistening on the mountains, but the When the Saracen surrendered, one by one, his

air was that of June,

Leaves were falling, but the runnels playing still their summer tune,

And the dial's lazy shadow hovered nigh the brink of noon.

pirate isles,

And Ionia's marbled trophies decked Lungarno's Gothic piles,

Where the festal music floated in the light of ladies' smiles;

On the benches in the market, rows of languid Soldiers in the busy court-yard, nobles in the halls idlers lay, above, When to Pisa's nodding belfry, with a friend, I O, those days of arms are over-arms and courtook my way.

From the top we looked around us, and as far as eye might strain,

Saw no sign of life or motion in the town, or on the plain,

tesy and love!

Down in yonder square at sunrise, lo! the Tuscan troops arrayed,

Every man in Milan armor, forged in Brescia every blade:

Hardly seemed the river moving, through the wil- Sigismondi is their captain-Florence! art thou

lows to the main;

not dismayed?

Nor was any noise disturbing Pisa from her There's Lanfranchi! there the bravest of Ghe

rardesca stem,

Hgolino-with the bishop-but enough-enough

of them.

Now, as on Achilles' buckler, next a peaceful scene succeeds;

Pious crowds in the cathedral duly tell their blessed beads;

Students walk the learned cloister-Ariosto wakes the reeds

Science dawns-and Galileo opens to the Italian youth,

As he were a new Columbus, new discovered realms of truth.

Hark! what murmurs from the million in the bustling market rise!

All the lanes are loud with voices, all the windows dark with eyes;

Black with men the marble bridges, heaped the

shores with merchandise;

Turks and Greeks and Libyan merchants in the square their councils hold,

And the Christian altars glitter gorgeous with Byzantine gold.

Look! anon the masqueraders don their holiday

attire;

Every palace is illumined-all the town seems

built of fire

Rainbow-coloured lanterns dangle from the top of every spire.

Pisa's patron saint hath hallowed to himself the joyful day,

Never on the thronged Rialto showed the Carni

val more gay.

THE SHADOW OF THE OBELISK.

HOME returning from the music which had so en

tranced my brain,

Where for centuries every morning saw it creeping, long and dun,

O'er the stones perchance of Memphis, or the City of the Sun.

That the way I scarce remember'd to the Pincian Kingly turrets look'd upon it—pyramids and sculp

Hill again,

Nay, was willing to forget it underneath a moon so fair.

In a solitude so sacred, and so summer-like in airCame I to the side of Tiber, hardly conscious where I stood,

Till I marked the sullen murmur of the venerable flood.

Rome lay doubly dead around me, sunk in silence calm and deep;

"T was the death of desolation-and the nightly one of sleep.

Dreams alone, and recollections peopled now the solemn hour;

Such a spot and such a season well might wake the Fancy's power;

Yet no monumental fragment, storied arch or

temple vast,

tured fanes:

Towers and palaces have moulder'd--but the shadow still remains.

Tired of that lone tomb of Egypt, o'e. he seas the trophy flew ;

Here the eternal apparition met the millions' daily view.

Virgil's foot has touch'd it often-it has kiss'd Octavia's face

Royal chariots have rolled o'er it, in the frenzy of the race,

When the strong, the swift, the valiant, mid the throng'd arena strove,

In the days of good Augustus, and the dynasty of Jove.

Herds are feeding in the Forum, as in old Evander's time:

Mid the mean, plebeian buildings loudly whisper'd Tumbled from the steep Tarpeian all the towers

of the Past.

Tether'd by the shore, some barges hid the wave's august repose;

Petty sheds of humble merchants, nigh the Campus Martius rose;

Hardly could the dingy Thamis, when his tide is ebbing low,

Life's dull scene in colder colours to the homesick exile show.

Winding from the vulgar prospect, through a labyrinth of lanes,

Forth I stepp'd upon the Corso, where its greatness Rome retains.

Yet it was not ancient glory, though the midnight radiance fell

Soft on many a princely mansion, many a dome's majestic swell;

Though, from some hush'd corner gushing, oft a modern fountain gleam'd,

Where the marble and the waters in their fresh

that sprang sublime.

Strange! that what seem'd most inconst int should

Since if Cæsar's best ambition, living, was to be renown'd,

What shall Cæsar leave behind him, save the shadow of a sound?

ON A LADY SINGING.

OFT as my lady sang for me

That song of the lost one that sleeps by the sea, Of the grave on the rock, and the cypress-tree, Strange was the pleasure that over me stole, For 't was made of old sadness that lives in my soul.

So still grew my heart at each tender word, That the pulse in my bosom scarcely stirred, And I hardly breathed, but only heard: Where was I-not in the world of men, Until she awoke me with silence again.

Like the smell of the vine, when its early bloom Sprinkles the green lane with sunny perfume, Such a delicate fragrance filled the room:

Whether it came from the vine without,
Or arose from her presence, I dwell in doubt.
Light shadows played on the pictured wall
From the maples that fluttered outside the hall,
And hindered the daylight-yet ah! not all;
Too little for that all the forest would be,-
Such a sunbeam she was, and is, to me!

When my sense returned, as the song was o'er,
I fain would have said to her, "Sing it once more,'
But soon as she smiled my wish I forbore:
'Music enough in her look I found,
And the hush of her lip seemed sweet as the sound.

HUDSON RIVER.

RIVERS that roll most musical in song
Are often lovely to the mind alone;
The wanderer muses, as he moves along
Their barren banks, on glories not their own.
When to give substance to his boyish dreams,
He leaves his own, far countries to survey,
Oft must he think, in greeting foreign streams,
"Their names alone are beautiful, not they."

If chance he mark the dwindled Arno pour

A tide more meagre than his native Charles; Or views the Rhone when summer's heat is o'er, Subdued and stagnant in the fen of Arles;

Or when he sees the slimy Tiber fling

His sullen tribute at the feet of Rome, Oft to his thought must partial memory bring More noble waves, without renown, at home: Now let him climb the Catskill, to behold

The lordly Hudson, marching to the main, And say what bard, in any land of old,

Had such a river to inspire his strain Along the Rhine, gray battlements and towers Declare what robbers once the realm possessed; But here Heaven's handiwork surpasseth ours, And man has hardly more than built his nest. No storied castle overawes these heights,

Nor antique arches check the current's play, Nor mouldering architrave the mind invites

To dream of deities long passed away. No Gothic buttress, or decaying shaft

Of marble, yellowed by a thousand years, Lifts a great landmark to the little craft,

A summer-cloud! that comes and disappears: But cliffs, unaltered from their primal form, Since the subsiding of the deluge rise, And hold their savins to the upper storm, While far below the skiff securely plies. Farms, rich not more in meadows than in men Of Saxon mould, and strong for every toil, Spread o'er the plain, or scatter through the glen, Baotian plenty on a Spartan soil.

Then, where the reign of cultivation ends, Again the charming wilderness begins; From steep to steep one solemn wood extends,

Till some new hamlet's rise the boscage thins.

And these deep groves forever have remained

Touched by no axe-by no proud owner nursed Asnow they stand they stood when Pharaoh reign'd Lineal descendants of creation's first.

Thou Scottish Tweed,* a sacred streamlet now Since thy last minstrel laid him down to die, Where through the casement of his chamber thou Didst mix thy moan with his departing sigh; A few of Hudson's more majestic hills

Might furnish forests for the whole of thine, Hide in thick shade all Humber's feeding rills, And darken all the fountains of the Tyne.

Name all the floods that pour from Albion's heart,
To float her citadels that crowd the sea,
In what, except the meaner pomp of Art,
Sublimer Hudson! can they rival thee:
Could boastful Thames with all his riches buy,
To deck the strand which London loads with gold,
Sunshine so bright-such purity of sky-

As bless thy sultry season and thy cold?
No tales, we know, are chronicled of thee
In ancient scrolls; no deeds of doubtful claim
Have hung a history on every tree,

And given each rock its fable and a fame. But neither here hath any conqueror trod,

Nor grim invader from barbarian climes; No horrors feigned of giant or of god

Pollute thy stillness with recorded crimes. Here never yet have happy fields, laid waste, The ravished harvest and the blasted fruit, The cottage ruined, and the shrine defaced, Tracked the foul passage of the feudal brute. "Yet, O, Antiquity !" the stranger sighs,

"Scenes wanting thee soon pall upon the view; The soul's indifference dulls the sated eyes,

Where all is fair indeed—but all is new." False thought! is age to crumbling walls confined, To Grecian fragments and Egyptian bones! Hath Time no monuments to raise the mind, More than old fortresses and sculptured stones Call not this new which is the only land

That wears unchanged the same primeval face Which, when just dawning from its Maker's hand, Gladdened the first great grandsire of our race. Nor did Euphrates with an earlier birth [south, Glide past green Eden towards the unknown Than Hudson broke upon the infant earth,

And kissed the ocean with his nameless mouth.

Twin-born with Jordan, Ganges, and the Nile!
Thebes and the pyramids to thee are young;
O! had thy waters burst from Britain's isle,
Till now perchance they had not flowed unsung

It was a beautiful day,-so warm that every window was wide open, and so still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear-the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles,-was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed; and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."LOCKHART's Life of Sir Walter Scott.

THOMAS W. PARSONS.

ON THE DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER, But peaceful Britain knows, amid her grief,

TWENTY-FOURTH OF OCTOBER, 1852.

COMES there a frigate home? what mighty bark
Returns with torn, but still triumphant sails?
Such peals awake the wondering Sabbath-hark!
How the dread echoes die among the vales!
What ails the morning, that the misty sun

Looks wan and troubled in the autumn air?
Dark over Marshfield!-'t was the minute gun:
God has it come that we foreboded there?
The woods at midnight heard an angel's tread;
The sere leaves rustled in his withering breath;
The night was beautiful with stars; we said
"This is the harvest moon,"-'t was thine, oh,
Death!

Gone, then, the splendour of October's day!
A single night, without the aid of frost,
Has turned the gold and crimson into gray,
And the world's glory, with our own, is lost.

A little while, and we rode forth to greet

His coming with glad music, and his eye
Drew many captives, as along the street

His peaceful triumph passed, unquestioned, by.
Now there are moanings, by the desolate shore,
That are not ocean's; by the patriot's bed,
Hearts throb for him whose noble heart no more-
Break off the rhyme-for sorrow cannot stop
To trim itself with phrases for the ear,-
Too fast the tears upon the paper drop:
Fast as the leaves are falling on his bier,
Thick as the hopes that cluster'd round his name,
While yet he walked with us, a pilgrim here.
He was our prophet, our majestic oak,

That, like Dodona's, in Thesprotian land,
Whose leaves were oracles, divinely spoke.
We called him giant, for in every part

He seemed colossal; in his port and speech,
In his large brain, and in his larger heart.
And when his name upon the roll we saw

Of those who govern, then we felt secure,
Because we knew his reverence for the law.
So the young master* of the Roman realm

Discreetly thought, we cannot wander far
From the true course, with Ulpian at the helm.
But slowly to this loss our sense awakes;

To know what space it in the forum filled,
See what a gap the temple's ruin makes!
Kings have their dynasties, but not the mind;
Cæsar leaves other Cæsars to succeed,
But Wisdom, dying, leaves no heir behind.
Who now shall stand the regent at the wheel?
Who knows the dread machinery? who hath skill
Our course through oceans unsurveyed to feel?
Her mournful tidings Albion lately sent,

How he, the victor in so many fields,
Fell, but not fighting, in the fields of Kent;
The chief whose conduct in the lofty scene
Where England stood up for the world in arms,
Gave her victorious name to England's queen.

* ALEXANDER SEVERUS.

She could spare now the soldier and his sword
What can our councils do without our chief?
Blest are the peace-makers!—and he was ours,-
Winning, by force of argument, the right
Between two kindred, more than rival powers.
The richest stones require the gentlest hand

Of a wise workman-be our brother's faults,
For all have faults, by wisdom gently scanned.
Resume the rhyme, and end the funeral strain;
Dying, he asked for song,-he did not slight
[night.
Sing round his grave, great anthems day and
The harmony of numbers,-let the main
The autumn rains are falling on his head,

The snows of winter soon will shroud the shore,
The spring with violets will adorn his bed,
And summer shall return,-but he no more!
We have no high cathedral for his rest,

Dim with proud banners and the dust of years;
All we can give him is New England's breast
To lay his head on,—and his country's tears.

ON A MAGDALEN BY GUIDO.

MARY, when thou wert a virgin,
Ere the first, the fatal sin,
Stole into thy bosom's chamber,
Leading six companions in;
Ere those eyes had wept an error,

What thy beauty must have been!
Ere those lips had paled their crimson,
Quivering with the soul's despair,
Ere with pain they oft had parted
In thine agony of prayer,
Or, instead of pearls, the tear-drops
Glistened in thy streaming hair.
While in ignorance of sorrow

Still thy heart serenely dreamed,
And the morning light of girlhood

On thy cheek's young garden beam'd, Where th' abundant rose was blushing,

Not of earth couldst thou have seem'd.
When thy frailty fell upon thee,

Lovely wert thou, even then;
Shame itself could not disarm thee

Of the charms that vanquished men.
Which of Salem's purest daughters
Match'd the sullied Magdalen?
But thy Master's eye beheld thee

Foul and all unworthy heaven
Pitied, pardon'd, purged thy spirit

Of its black, pernicious leaven;
Drove the devils from out the temple—
All the dark and guilty seven.
Oh the beauty of repentance!
Mary, tenfold fairer now
Art thou with those dewy eyelids,
And that anquish on thy brow;
Ah, might every sinful sister
Grow in beauty ev'n as thou

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