I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, Her health! and would on earth there stood some more of such a frame, That life might be all poetry, and weariness a name ! CUTTER, cne of the poets of the West, is the author of this striking poem, entitled The Song of Steam : Harness me down with your iron bands, Be sure of your curb and rein, As the tempest scorns a chain. For many a countless hour, And the pride of human power! the Or waiting the wayward breeze ; With the toil which he daily bore, seas, When I measured the panting courser's speed, The Aight of the carrier-dove, Or the lines of impatient love ;- As these were outstripped afar, Or chained to the Aying car. Ha, ha, ha! they found me at last, They invited me forth at length ; And laughed in my iron strength. * The following graceful little melody is from the pen of George D. PRENTICE : In Southern seas there is an isle, Oh, dear one! would it were our lot These pleasing lines, on Olden Memories, are by Cist, of Cincinnati : They are jewels of the mind; they are tendrils of the heart, * In our days of mirth and gladness, we may spurn their faint control, But they come, in hours of sadness, like sweet music, to the soul: And in sorrow, o'er us stealing with their gentleness and calm, They are leaves of precious healing, they are fruits of choicest balm. Ever till, when life departs, death from dross the spirit frees, Cherish in thine heart of hearts, all thine olden memories. Now let us in imagination turn our gaze towards the magnificent spectacle of an iceberg, which our American bard, BUCHANAN READ, so well portrays : A fearless shape of brave device, our vessel drives through mist and rain, Between the Aoating fleets of ice—the navies of the northern main. These Arctic ventures, blindly hurled, the proofs of Nature's olden force, Like fragments of a crystal world long shattered from its skyey course. These are the buccaneers that fright the middle sea with dream of wrecks, And freeze the south winds in their flight, and chain the Gulf-stream to their decks. At every dragon prow and helm there stands some Viking as of yore; Grim heroes from the boreal realm where Odin rules the spectral shore. And oft beneath the sun or moon their swift and eager falchions glow, While, like a storm-vexed wind, the rune comes chafing through some beard of snow. And when the far North Aashes up with fires of mingled red and gold, They know that many a blazing cup is brimming to the absent bold. Up signal there, and let us hail yon looming phantom as we pass ! Note all her fashion, hull and sail, within the compass of your glass. See at her mast the steadfast glow of that one star of Odin's throne; Up with our fag, and let us show the Constellation on our own. No answer, but the sullen flow of ocean heaving long and vast; Very sweet and refreshing are his liquid lines to the Wayside Spring : Fair dweller by the dusty way--bright saint within a mossy shrine, * And oft the beggar, masked with tan, in rusty garments, gray with dust, Here sits and dips his little can, and breaks his scanty crust ; And, lulled beside thy whispering stream, oft drops to slumber unawares, And sees the angel of his dream upon celestial stairs. Dear dweller by the dusty way, thou saint within a mossy shrine, The tribute of a heart to-day, weary and worn, is thine! The following exquisite lines are from the same source : She came, as comes the summer wind, a gust of beauty to my heart; Then swept away, but left behind emotions which shall not depart. Unheralded she came and went, like music in the silent nightWhich, when the burthened air is spent, bequeathes to memory delight. Or like the sudden April bow that spans the violet-waking rain, She bade those blessed Aowers to grow which may not fall or fade again, For sweeter than all things most sweet, and fairer than all things most fair, She came, and passed with footsteps fleet, a shining wonder in the air! |