SUMMER LOVE. THERE was a youth who lived beneath the sun That roamed its hill-sides and savannahs o'er. If what thereon is carved may pleasure thee, Within me it is reared so curiously Half crowned with memory and wreathed with care. Not of mine own, but spirits tenderly Preserve a feeble form when Love is there; He was my friend, though we each other knew Without familiar intercourse, as spirits do. His face was very fair; his large calm eyes, With a full sense of beauty growing nigher, His wondrous beauty among other men Won for his brow the golden crown of praise, For beauty waked a host of buried days, And women looked at him with peaceful heart, With cruel selfishness withheld apart, For his full life, unmoulded by low art, Flowed largely out like the unmeasured sea, We met as strangers meet; scarcely a word What words had never spoken half so well. Yet sometimes I would fain have told to him, Then his remembrance was the charm of rest; I waited eagerly, but could not gaze, He left his home while yet his years were few, In the still fragrance of the summer hours, I sat alone and dreamed what we might be, I lived the future in those golden bowers, That he could not be fair, as him of whom I dreamed. I said we parted and my eyes no more Revelled amid such beauty's fairy prime; With willing gaze he saw his native shore, Heard with deep joy the old accustomed chime, In the wan dying of the summer time. My heart was very calm, when it was said That the young stranger in his island home was dead. My heart was calm, but evermore a fair And shadowy presence streamed my life around, Sweetened by early flowers or spring birds' sound, But never early flowers or spring bird there Amid the dewy freshness can be found. Ah! might I speak the thought that I would say! 'Tis pictured here, that calm majestic face, His motions liquid with a flowing grace, As when the wooing wind the tall tree stirs, The Indian boy sleeps silent o'er the sea, C. PERSICO'S COLUMBUS. Our last Number contained a paper from a valued contributor, Mr. Alexander H. Everett, devoted to one noble production of the chisel, with which the federal Capitol has been recently adorned, Greenough's colossal statue of Washington. At the period at which the accomplished writer was at Washington, gazing upon the work to which it was a grateful task to render its just meed of praise, another glorious performance in the same glorious art had not yet been erected to its place, and exhibited to the public eye. We refer to Persico's group of Columbus and a female Indian, with which the east part of the Capitol is now adorned. Had it then been visible, it would not have failed to receive from the same elegant and graceful pen a notice better worthy of its merits, than that which we now hasten with pleasure to supply. An intelligent correspondent in the "New World" thus discourses of it. Coinciding as his views do for the most part with our own, we cheerfully adopt in quoting them : "By far, the greatest object of attraction and admiration at Washington is Persico's last and best work, the Discoverer and Discovered of America, which now occupies its permanent resting-place, in front of the eastern portico of the Capitol building. As a work of art, of prolific genius, of intellectual conception, of precise and admirable execution, this group, consisting of Columbus, at the moment he realizes his theory of the rotundity of the earth, which is simply yet beautifully illustrated by the globe held forth triumphantly in the right hand, and the figure of an Indian female, startled at the approach of the bold adventurer, presents an entire picture, unequalled in grace, and unapproached in majesty, by anything which native or foreign talent affords in the public or private collections of the country. The artist has grasped the history of the man, his undismayed courage amidst all vicissitudes, the providential guidance which overruled his destiny, the great aim and the beginning of an enterprise, whose results have changed the character and condition of the world. The wondering beholder is irresistibly impressed with all the higher faculties of patient endurance, elevated purpose, discriminating judgment, and the well balanced spirit of resolution and of consummation which are developed and harmonized in the head of Colum bus. Mind, majesty and grandeur pervade, and thought seems to utter the poetical realisation of all the principles at which an ignorant world had scoffed. One is not approached as with statuary generally, and other works of the same sculptor which stand near by (the statues of Peace and War, eminently distinguished for ability), fail in the effect of this composition. "In Columbus, there is an eloquent and touching appeal to the feelings, an energy of character, and an emotion which excites and moves, which persuades to esteem, and carries recollection along through the dark chambers of five centuries, placing us, as it were, face to face, with a common ancestor, distinguished beyond the men of his time, and foremost in the march of civilisation and Christianity. Even this generation, in the mind's eye, has formed a fellowship with the man and his age; and the promptings, both of affection and reverence, urge the American heart, as it expands in glowing homage to the discoverer of a Continent, designed as the experiment and perpetuation of free institutions. "The Indian figure is of extraordinary ease and most pleasing attitude. She is unnoticed by Columbus, but is herself alarmed at the advent of the mailed discoverer. Every characteristic feature of that peculiar race is most appropriately blended and developed in the lineaments and symmetry of this animated marble; and the combination is so perfect, and the scene so real to the active mind, that it wants but a Prometheus to set the machine of life in motion. Ignorance, as usual, has become quite offended at the indelicacy of this figure, because the drapery has fallen naturally and gracefully at the instant of her surprise, which discovers |