Bright ising-stars the little beach was spangling,
The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen
Shone like a fairy crown, enchased and beaded,
Left on some morn, when light flashed in their eyes
unheeded.

The hum-bird shook his sun-touched wings around,
The bluefinch carolled in the still retreat;
The antic squirrel capered on the ground

Where lichens made a carpet for his feet: Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle Shot up in glimmering sparks his red fin's tiny twinkle.

There were dark cedars with loose mossy tresses, White powdered dog-trees, and stiff hollies flaunting,

Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses,

Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting
A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden
Shining beneath dropt lids the evening of her wed-
ding.

The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn,
Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em,

The winding of the merry locust's horn,

The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bo

som:

Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling,

Oh! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet's dwelling.

And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand

Again in the dull world of earthly blindness? Pained with the pressure of unfriendly hands,

Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness? Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude, To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude?

Yet I will look upon thy face again,

My own romantic Bronx, and it will be

A face more pleasant than the face of men.
Thy waves are old companions, I shall see
A well-remembered form in each old tree,

And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.

TO ENNUI-FROM THE CROAKEES.

Avaunt! arch enemy of fun,
Grim nightmare of the mind;
Which way, great Momus! shall I run
A refuge safe to find?-

My puppy's dead-Miss Rumour's breath
Is stopt for lack of news,
And F*** is almost hyp'd to death
And L*** has got the blues.

I've read friend Noah's book quite through,
Appendix, notes, and all;

I've swallowed Lady Morgan's too,
I've blundered through De Staël,
The Edinburgh Review-I have seen 't
The last that has been shipt;
I've read, in short, all books in print,
And some in manuscript.

I'm sick of General Jackson's toast,
Canals are nought to me;

Nor do I care who rules the roast,
Clinton or John Targee:
No stock in any bank I own,
I fear no lottery shark:

And if the Battery were gone
I'd ramble in the Park.

Let gilded guardsmen shake their toes,
Let Altorf please the pit,

Let Mr. Hawkins "blow his nose"
And Spooner publish it.

Insolvent laws, let Marshall break,
Let dying Baldwin cavil;
And let tenth ward electors shake
Committees to the devil.

In vain, for like a cruel cat
That sucks a child to death,
Or like a Madagascar bat

Who poisons with his breath,
The fiend, the fiend is on me still;
Come, doctor!-here's your pay-
What lotion, potion, plaster, pill,
Will drive the beast away?

ODE TO FORTUNE-FROM THE CROAKERS

Fair lady with the bandaged eye!
I'll pardon all thy scurvy tricks,
So thou wilt cut me and deny

Alike thy kisses and thy kicks:
I'm quite contented as I am-

Have cash to keep my duns at bay, Can choose between beefsteaks and ham, And drink Madeira every day.

My station is the middle rank,

My fortune just a competence-
Ten thousand in the Franklin Bank,
And twenty in the six per cents:
No amorous chains my heart enthrall,
I neither borrow, lend, nor sell;
Fearless I roam the City Hall,

And bite my thumb at Mr. Bell.*
The horse that twice a year I ride,
At Mother Dawson's eats his fill;
My books at Goodrich's abide,

My country-seat is Weehawk hill; My morning lounge is Eastburn's shop

At Poppleton's I take my lunch; Niblo prepares my mutton chop,

And Jennings makes my whiskey punch.

When merry, I the hours amuse

By squibbing bucktails, guards, and balls; And when I'm troubled with the blues

Damn Clinton and abuse canals:
Then, Fortune! since I ask no prize,
At least preserve me from thy frown;
The man who don't attempt to rise
"Twere cruelty to tumble down.

TO CROAKER, JUNIOR-FROM THE CROAKERS..

Your hand, my dear Junior! we are all in a flame
To see a few more of your flashes;
The Croakers for ever! I'm proud of the name,
But brother, I fear, though our cause is the same,
We shall quarrel like Brutus and Cassius.

But why should we do so! 'tis false what they tell,
That poets can never be cronies:
Unbuckle your harness, in peace let us dwell,
Our goose quills will canter together as well

As a pair of Prime's mouse-colored ponies.
Once blended in spirit, we'll make our appeal,
And by law be incorporate too;
Apply for a charter in crackers to deal,
A fly-flapper rampant shall shine on our seal,
And the firm shall be " Croaker & Co."

Fun, prosper the union-smile, Fate, on its birth;
Miss Atropos shut up your scissors;
Together we'll range through the regions of mirth,
A pair of bright Gemini dropt on the earth,
The Castor and Pollux of quizzers.

The sheriff.

THE AMERICAN FLAG-FROM THE CROAKERS.

When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land!
Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest trumpings loud,
And see the lightning-lances driven,

When stride the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven!
Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory.

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high!
When speaks the signal trumpet tone
And the long line comes gleaming on,
(Ere yet the life-blood warm and wet
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet)
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
To where thy skyborn glories burn,
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon mouthings loud,
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;
There shall thy meteor-glances glow,

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath,
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.
Flag of the seas! on ocean wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendours fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valour given;
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome

And all thy hues were born in heaven! For ever float that standard sheet! Where breathes the foe but falls before us? With freedom's soil beneath our feet, And freedom's banner streaming o'er us?*

sions-it is said there were some earlier-was published in a New York paper, in 1809, when he was fourteen.* At the age of eighteen, in 1813, he came to New York, and entered the banking-house of Jacob Barker, with which he was associated for many years, subsequently performing the duties of a book-keeper in the pri vate office of John Jacob Astor. Not long after the decease of that eminent millionaire, he retired to his birth-place, where he has since resided.

It is said that Halleck's first appearance in print was in the columns of Holt's Columbian, New York, where, in 1813, a poem appeared, with the signature of "A Connecticut Farmer's Boy," which the editor introduced with the remark, that he did not credit that authorship"the verses were too good to be original!" + At this time too, Halleck belonged to "Swartwout's gallant corps, the Iron Grays," as he afterwards wrote in "Fanny," and stimulated their patriotism by a glowing Ode.

THE IRON GRAYS.

We twine the wreath of honor
Around the warrior's brow,
Who, at his country's altar, breathes
The life-devoting vow,

And shall we to the Iron Grays
The meed of praise deny,
Who freely swore, in danger's day,
For their native land to die.

For o'er our bleeding country

Ne'er lowered a darker storm,
Than bade them round their gallant chief,
The iron phalanx form.

When first their banner waved in air,
Invasion's bands were nigh,

And the battle-drum beat long and loud,
And the torch of war blazed high!

Though still bright gleam their bayonets,
Unstained with hostile gore,

Far distant yet is England's host,
Unheard her cannon's roar.

Yet not in vain they flew to arms;
It made the foeman know

That many a gallant heart must bleed
Ere freedom's star be low.

Guards of a nation's destiny!
High is that nation's claim,
For not unknown your spirit proud,
Nor your daring chieftain's name.
"Tis yours to shield the dearest ties
That bind to life the heart,
That mingle with the earliest breath,
And with our last depart.

The angel smile of beauty

What heart but bounds to feel?
Her fingers buckled on the belt,
That sheathes your gleaming steel;
And if the soldier's honoured death
In battle be your doom,

Her tears shall bid the flowers be green
That blossom round your tomb.

Notice in New York Mirror, Jan. 26, 1828.

+ Biographical Art. on Halleck, by Mr. James Lawson, in South Lit. Mess., 1843.

Tread on the path of duty,

Band of the patriot brave, Prepared to rush, at honor's call,

To glory or the grave."

Nor bid your flag again be furled
Till proud its eagles soar,

Till the battle-drum has ceased to beat,
And the war-torch burns no more.

Halleck, however, gained his first celebrity in literature as a town wit, one of the producers, in connexion with his friend Drake, of the poetical squibs which appeared in the columns of the Evening Post in 1819, with the signature Croaker & Co., when they quizzed Cobbett, Dr. Mitchill, the politicians of Tammany, the editors, aldermen, and small theatrical characters of the day, in poetical epistles to Edmund Simpson, Esq., manager of the theatre, and other vehicles of simple fun and well aimed satire. If these had nothing more to bring them into notice than their local allusion, they would have been forgotten, as hundreds of series of the kind have been; but their keen wit and finely moulded poetical phraseology have preserved them; and were it not for some delicacy in the avowed authorship and publication of verses filled with personalities, they would be an indispensable part of the volume which contains the collection of the poet's writings. As it is, several specimens of them are there, as of the simply poetical effusions-" The World is Bright before Thee," "There is an Evening Twilight of the Heart;" and of the lighter pieces, "Domestic Peace." The rest will undoubtedly be in request, and be some day accompanied by learned prose annotations from civic history.

As we have mentioned a number of these poems usually assigned to Drake as their author, we may add the titles of some of the others understood to be from the pen of Halleck. Among them are "The Forum," a picture of a literary debating society, to which the public were admitted, which had for its supporters some of the political celebrities of the city; "To Simon, a kick at a fashionable folly which reigns among the sons and daughters of the higher order, in the renowned city of Gotham, at this present writing;" Simon being a black caterer of fashionable entertainments

Prince of pastry cooks, Oysters and ham, and cold heat's tongue, Pupil of Mitchill's cookery books, And bosom friend of old and young; several highly humorous epistles "To Edmund Simpson, Esq., Manager of the Theatre," in one of which he advises that stage director, if he would secure a profitable season, to disband his old company and employ the political actors at Albany, from the boards of the state legislature.

Halleck's lines "To Twilight," one of his earliest poems, appeared in the Erening Post of October, 1818. The next year, when the Croakers had made a reputation for themselves, the little poem was reprinted by the editor Coleman, with the following introduction :-" We republish the following beautiful lines from our own files of October last, for the three following reasons: first, because they deserve it for their intrinsic .nerit; they are the inspirations of poetry itself.

Second, because they were injured in their first publication by a typographical error and lastly, because they show that our correspondent Croaker (whose we have just discovered they are) no less resembles P. Pindar in his elegiac than in his humor and satiric vein."

Several of the Croakers appeared in the National Advocate published by Noah, and there are several longer pieces in the author's volume, as "The Recorder," and the lines "To Walter Bowne," which, though not numbered with the Croakers, have their general characteristics.

Fanny, which grew out of the success of the Croakers, was published in 1821. It is a satirical squib in Don Juan measure, at the fashionable literary and political enthusiasms of the day. The story which is the vehicle for this pleasantry, is simply the emergence of a belle from low birth and fortune to an elysium of fashionable prosperity, when the bubble bursts in bankruptcy. Like everything of the kind, which has the good fortune to be both personal and poetic, it made its hit. It owed its permanent success, of course, to its felicitous execution, in the happiest of musical verses. The edition was soon exhausted; it was not reprinted, and copies were circulated, fairly copied out in manuscript,

though a stray copy now and then, from a bookseller, who re-published the poem in Glasgow, helped to keep alive the tradition of its humor. The authorship was for a long while unacknowledged. In 1839 it was published by the Harpers, in a volume, with a few poems of similar charac ter, collected by the author, and is now included in the standard edition of his writings.

In 1822 Halleck visited England and the Continent, of which tour we have a reminiscence in the poet's "Alnwick Castle."

In 1825, and subsequently, he was a contributor to Bryant's periodicals, the New York Review,

and U.S. Review, where his Marco Bozzaris and Burns first appeared. A collection of these and other poems was published in a volume in 1827. They were reprinted, in other editions, by the Harpers; the Appletons, with illustrations by Weir, in 1847; and by Redfield, with additions to the poem "Connecticut," in 1852.

The characteristic of Halleck's poetry is its music; its perfection of versification, whether embalming a trifle of the hour or expressing a vigorous manly eloquence, a true lyric fire and healthy sentiment. Though of an old school of English literature, and fastidiously cultivated with a thorough knowledge of the author's predecessors, the poetry of Halleck is strictly original. In some of his poems he appears to have been led by dislike to even the suspicion of sentimentality, to fasten a ludicrous termination to a serious emotion; but this is more dangerous to his imitators than injurious to his own powers. In Connecticut, which appears to be indebted to a happy idea struck out by Brainard, in his New Year's verse on the same theme, his subtle humor has happily blended the two qualities. For separate examples the reader may consult his "Field of the Grounded Arms," his 66 Burns," and his "Fanny."

TO ***

The world is bright before thee,
Its summer flowers are thine,
Its calm blue sky is o'er thee,
Thy bosom pleasure's shrine;
And thine the sunbeam given

To Nature's morning hour,
Pure, warm, as when from heaven
It burst on Eden's bower.

There is a song of sorrow,
The death-dirge of the gay,
That tells, ere dawn of morrow,
These charms may melt away,
That sun's bright beam be shaded,
That sky be blue no more,
The summer flowers be faded,

And youth's warm promise o'er.
Believe it not-though lonely
Thy evening home may be;
Though Beauty's bark can only

Float on a summer sea; Though Time thy bloom is stealing, There's still beyond his art The wild-flower wreath of feeling, The sunbeam of the heart.

Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long where thou art lying,

Will tears the cold turf steep.
When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine, are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth.
And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine:

It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow,
Bnt I've in vain essayed it,

And feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply

That mourns a man like thee.

MARCO POZZARIS.

At midnight, in his guarded tent,

The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power:

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of triumph heard:
Then wore his monarch's signet ring:
Then pressed that monarch's throne-a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,

Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood
On old Platan's day;

And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on-the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke to hear his sentries shriek,

To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"
He woke to die 'midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre stroke,
And death shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud;

And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

"Strike-till the last armed foe expires;
Strike-for your altars and your fires;
Strike-for the green graves of your sires;
God-and your native land!"

They fought-like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquered-but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;

Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose,

Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal chamber, Denth!

Come to the mother's, when she feels, For the first time, her first-born's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm,

With banquet song, and dance, and wine; And thou art terrible-the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier;
And all we know, or dream, or fear

Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword

Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard

The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought-
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought-
Come in her crowning hour-and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight

Of sky and stars to prisoned men:
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh

To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land wind, from woods of palm,
And orange groves, and fields of balın,
Blew o'er the Haytian seas.
Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time,
Rest thee-there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.

She wore no funeral weeds for thee,

Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,

The heartless luxury of the tomb
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone;
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears:
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek