to depict a scene so essentially august and sublime,―transcending, indeed, the limits of the loftiest intellect adequately to portray,— must of necessity fail to present it in all its stateliness and grandeur. Our poet BRAINARD's lines are, we think, among the best that have appeared on the subject: The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, As if God poured thee from His "hollow hand,” And notch His centuries in the eternal rocks. And yet, bold babbler, wnat art thou to Him That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might. Brainard is not unknown to fame by his fine poem, The Connecticut River; which commences thus: From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain, The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar, Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore: Turn their rough cheeks, and stay thee for thy kiss. The young Or hear the young fox practising to bark. Dark as the frost-nipp'd leaves that strew'd the ground, The Indian hunter here his shelter found; Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true, Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe, * Something of the Promethean fire of the Elizabethan age seems to glow in the following lines by PINKNEY, of Maryland :— I fill this cup to one made up of loveliness alone, A woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon; To whom the better elements and kindly stars have given 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, one 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, For I scorn the power of your puny hands, How I laughed, as I lay concealed from sight At the childish boast of human might, When I saw an army upon the land, Or waiting the wayward breeze; When I measured the panting courser's speed, As they bore the law a king decreed, I could but think how the world would feel, When I should be bound to the rushing keel, Ha, ha, ha! they found me at last, They invited me forth at length; And I rushed to my throne with a thunder-blast, The following graceful little melody is from the pen of GEORGE D. PRENTICE: In Southern seas there is an isle, Where earth and sky forever smile; Where storms cast not their sombre hue Upon the welkin's holy blue; Where clouds of blessèd incense rise From myriad flowers of myriad dyes, And strange bright birds glance through the bowers, Like mingled stars, or mingled flowers. Oh, dear one! would it were our lot To dwell upon that lovely spot, To stray through woods with blossoms starred, Bright as the dreams of seer or bard; To hear each other's whispered words And deem our lives, in those bright bowers, 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 floating 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. |