Mrs. Hemans thus gracefully enshrines in verse a beautiful Indian legend from Chateaubriand's Souvenirs d'Amerique : We saw thee, O Stranger, and wept! The path of his arrows a storm to flee! But there came a voice from a distant shore: He was call'd-he is found midst his tribe no more! In the gloom of the shadowing cypress bough: and wept ! We saw thee, O stranger, and He hath none by his side when the wilds we track We looked for her eye on the feast to shine, For her breezy step-but the step was thine! We saw thee, O Stranger, and wept! spear We looked for the hunter, whose bride's lament We looked for the first-born, whose mother's cry Tell how we sat in the gloom to pine, And to watch for a step-but the step was thine! Another exquisite poem, The Messenger-Bird, by the same gifted poetess, is founded upon a tradition among the Brazilian tribes, to the effect, that this bird is a messenger sent by their deceased relatives with news from the other world. SOUTHEY, one of the most voluminous of writers (exceeding Scott in this respect), is said to have destroyed more verses between his twentieth and thirtieth year than he published during his whole life. His books were his most cherished and constant companions: as he, indeed, tells us in one of his poems : My days among the dead are passed; around me I behold Where'er these casual eyes are cast, the mighty minds of old : My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse night and day. With them I take delight in weal, and seek relief in woe; With tears of thoughtful gratitude. It is a mournful fact to add, also, that for nearly three years preceding his death, he sat amongst these silent" companions" in hope less vacuity of mind, unable to hold further "converse" with them: yet it is stated by Wordsworth, that even then he found him patting his books with both hands, affectionately, like a child. He died, thus in eclipse, at Keswick, and his body now sleeps "amid the stillness and grandeur of his old Cumberland hills." The following refrain seems tinged with his own sorrow :— The days of infancy are all a dream; How fair, but, oh! how short they seem- The days of youth advance; The bounding limb, the ardent glance, The kindling soul they bring It is life's burning Summer-time. Manhood, matured with wisdom's fruit, Succeeds, as Autumn follows Summer's prime. It is thus he moralizes on the Holly-tree : O reader! hast thou ever stood to see the holly-tree? As might confound the Atheist's sophistries. Below a circling fence its leaves are seen, wrinkled and keen; Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear. I love to view these things with curious eyes, and moralize; Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear harsh and austere, To those who on my leisure would intrude, reserved and rude; Gentle at home, amid my friends, I'd be, And as, when all the summer trees are seen so bright and green, The holly leaves their fadeless hues display less bright than they ; But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the holly-tree? So serious should my youth appear among the thoughtless throng, So would I seem amid the young and gay, more grave than they, That in my age as cheerful I might be As the green winter of the holly-tree. His sweet lyric, on the immortality of Love, is universally admired : They sin, who tell us love can die : All others are but vanity: In heaven ambition cannot dwell, Nor avarice in the vaults of hell ; Earthly these passions as of earth, But love is indestructible, Its holy flame forever burneth— From heaven it came, to heaven returneth : MOORE's Lake of the Dismal Swamp, written at Norfolk, in Virginia, is founded on the following legend :-" A young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses :" |