And longer had she sung- but, with a frown, The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys, were seen Peeping from forth their alleys green; Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen sp Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: First to the lively pipe his hand addrest ; To some unwearied minstrel dancing, He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbou And, with a withering look, The war-denouncing trumpet took, And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; Her soul-subduing voice applied, from his head. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed, With eyes upraised, as one inspired, Pale Melancholy sate retired; And from her wild sequestered seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. O Music! sphere-descended maid, Poured through the mellow horn her pensive E'en all at once together found, soul; And, dashing soft from rocks around, Oro'er some haunted stream, with fond delay, Love of peace, and lonely musing, But O, how altered was its sprightlier tone Cecilia's mingled world of sound. WILLIAM COL A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead! Then cold and hot and moist and dry What passion cannot Music raise and quell? The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms, And mortal alarms, The double double double beat The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame. But O, what art can teach, Notes inspiring holy love, Orpheus could lead the savage race; Sequacious of the lyre; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher; When to her organ vocal breath was given, An angel heard, and straight appeared Mistaking earth for heaven. GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays The spheres began to move, How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, A worm a God! - I tremble at myself, Triumphantly distressed! What joy! what dread! What can preserve my life? or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there. DR. EDWARD YOUNG. MAN-WOMAN. Man's home is everywhere. On ocean's flood, rove; He with short pang and slight Doth turn him from the checkered light Of the fair moon through his own forests dancing, Where music, joy, and love Were his young hours entrancing; Or fitful wealth allures to roam, It is not thus with Woman. The far halls, Though ruinous and lone, Where first her pleased ear drank a nursingmother's tone; The home with humble walls, Where breathed a parent's prayer around her bed; The valley where, with playmates true, She culled the strawberry, bright with dew; The bower where Love her timid footsteps led; The hearthstone where her children grew; The damp soil where she cast The flower-seeds of her hope, and saw them bide the blast, Affection with unfading tint recalls, Where every rose hath in its cup a bee, Making fresh honey of remembered things, Each rose without a thorn, each bee bereft of stings. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. But, lovely child! thy magic stole To me thy parents are unknown; JOHN WILSON. TO A SLEEPING CHILD. ART thou a thing of mortal birth Whose happy home is on our earth? Does human blood with life imbue Those wandering veins of heavenly blue That stray along thy forehead fair, Lost mid a gleam of golden hair? O, can that light and airy breath Steal from a being doomed to death? Those features to the grave be sent In sleep thus mutely eloquent? Or art thou, what thy form would seem, The phantom of a blessed dream? A human shape I feel thou art Those tremors both of soul and sense Concealing, but still showing, the fair realm Wore the same color, rich and warm and fresh: WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. FORTUNE. FRAGMENT FROM "FANNY." BUT Fortune, like some others of her sex, Delights in tantalizing and tormenting. Eve never walked in Paradise more pure Than on that morn when Satan played the devil With her and all her race. A lovesick wooer Ne'er asked a kinder maiden, or more civil, Than Cleopatra was to Antony The day she left him on the Ionian sea. The serpent-loveliest in his coiléd ring, With eye that charms, and beauty that outvies The tints of the rainbow-bears upon his sting The deadliest venom. Ere the dolphin dies Its hues are brightest. Like an infant's breath Are tropic winds before the voice of death Is heard upon the waters, summoning The midnight earthquake from its sleep of years To do its task of woe. The clouds that fling The lightning brighten ere the bolt appears; The pantings of the warrior's heart are proud Upon that battle-morn whose night-dews wet his shroud ; The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest; So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure: "T WAS whispered in heaven, and muttered in hell, The leaves of Autumn smile when fading fast; And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell; The swan's last song is sweetest. On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed; 'T was seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder; 'T will be found in the spheres, when riven asunder; Assists at his birth, and attends him in death; It begins every hope, every wish it must bound, And though unassuming, with monarchs is crowned. In the heaps of the miser 't is hoarded with care, MISS FANSHAWE. THE GIFTS OF GOD. WHEN God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, Let us (said he) pour on him all we can : Let the world's riches, which disperséd lie, Contract into a span. FATHER LAND AND MOTHER TONGUE. OUR Father Land and wouldst thou know Why we should call it Father Land? It is that Adam here below Was made of earth by Nature's hand. The thought was small; its issue great; a watchfire on the hill; It sheds its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still! A nameless man, amid a crowd that thronged the daily mart, Let fall a word of Hope and Love, unstudied, from the heart; A whisper on the tumult thrown, - a transitory breath, It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from death. O germ ! O fount ! O word of love! O thought at random cast! Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the last. CHARLES MACKAY. Glide around my wakeful pillow with their praise or mild reproof, A dreamer dropped a random thought; 't was As I listen to the murmur of the soft rain on the old, and yet 't was new; A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being true. It shone upon a genial mind, and lo! its light became A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame. roof. And another comes to thrill me with her eyes' delicious blue. I forget, as gazing on her, that her heart was all untrue; |