That now, upon the water, dances, now,
Leaps up and dances in the hanging bough.
Is it not lovely? Tell me, where doth dwell
The fay that wrought so beautiful a spell?
In thine own bosom, brother, didst thou say?
Then cherish as thine own so good a fay.
And if, indeed, 'tis not the outward state,
But temper of the soul, by which we rate
Sadness or joy, then let thy bosom move
With noble thoughts, and wake thee into love.
Then let the feeling in thy breast be given
To honest ends; this, sanctified by Heaven,
And springing into life, new life imparts,
Till thy frame beats as with a thousand hearts.
Our sins our nobler faculties debase,
And make the earth a spiritual waste
Unto the soul's dimmed eye :-'tis man, not earth-
'Tis thou, poor, self-starved soul, hast caused the dearth.
Give to the eager, straining eye,
A wild and shifting light."
Again, as a more general instance, and a more sublime one; speaking of the prospect of immortality: :
""Tis in the gentle moonlight;
'Tis floating 'midst day's setting glories; Night,
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step,
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears:
Night, and the dawn, bright day, and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast mystic instrument, are touched
By an unseen living hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.”—
In these respects,-in the power of giving in one word, as it were, a whole picture, in his admirable skill in the perspective, and in the faculty of chaining down the vast and the infinite to the mind's observation,-he reminds us both of Collins and of Milton. We have not space hero, in a note, to illustrate the resemblance, by instances which would show our meaning, and his merits, better than a whole chapter of criticism.
But, above all, we admire Mr. Dana, more than any other American poet, because he has aimed not merely to please the imagination, but to rouse up the soul to a solemn consideration of its future destinies. We admire him, because his poetry is full of benevolent, affectionate, domestic feeling; but, more than this, because it is full of religious feeling. The fountain which gushes here has mingled with the "well of water springing up to everfasting life." The aspirations breathed forth in this poetry are humble, earnest desires after that holiness, "without which no man shall see God." It speaks of a better land of rest, "but bids us turn to God, and seek our rest in Him."-ED.
The earth is full of life: the living Hand
Touched it with life; and all its forms expand
With principles of being made to suit
Man's varied powers, and raise him from the brute.
And shall the earth of higher ends be full?—
Earth which thou tread'st!-and thy poor mind be dull?
Thou talk of life, with half thy soul asleep!
Thou"living dead man," let thy spirits leap
Forth to the day; and let the fresh air blow
Through thy soul's shut up mansion.
Something of what is life, shake off this death;
Have thy soul feel the universal breath
With which all nature's quick! and learn to be
Sharer in all that thou dost touch or see.
Break from thy body's grasp thy spirit's trance;
Give thy soul air, thy faculties expanse :-
Love, joy,-e'en sorrow,-yield thyself to all!
They'll make thy freedom, man, and not thy thrall.
Knock off the shackles which thy spirit bind
To dust and sense, and set at large thy mind.
Then move in sympathy with God's great whole,
And be, like man at first, A LIVING SOUL ""
Debased by sin, and used to things of sense,
How shall man's spirit rise and travel hence,
Where lie the soul's pure regions, without bounds
Where mind's at large-where passion ne'er confounds
Clear thought-where thought is sight-the far brings nigh,
Calls up the deep, and, now, calls down the high.
Cast off thy slough! Send thy low spirit forth
Up to the Infinite; then know thy worth.
With Infinite, be infinite; with Love, be love;
Angel, midst angel throngs that move above;
Ay, more than angel: nearer the great CAUSE,
Through his redeeming power, now read his laws-
Not with thy earthly mind, that half detects
Something of outward things by slow effects;
Viewing creative causes, learn to know
The hidden springs; nor guess, as here below,
Laws, purposes, relations, sympathies-
In errors vain.-Clear Truth's in yonder skies.
Creature all grandeur, son of truth and light, Up from the dust! the last, great day is bright
Bright on the holy mountain, round the throne,
Bright where in borrowed light the far stars shone.
Look down! the depths are bright! and hear them cry,
Light! light!"-Look up! 'tis rushing down from high!
Regions on regions-far away they shine:
"Tis light ineffable, 'tis light divine!
"Immortal light, and life for evermore!"
Off through the deeps is heard from shore to shore
Of rolling worlds-" Man, wake thee from the sod-
Wake thee from death-awake!-and live with God!"
To Pneuma.-JAMES WALLIS EASTBUrn.
TEMPESTS their furious course may sweep
Swiftly o'er the troubled deep,
Darkness may lend her gloomy aid,
And wrap the groaning world in shade;
But man can show a darker hour,
And bend beneath a stronger power;-
There is a tempest of the sOUL,
A gloom where wilder billows roll!
The howling wilderness may spread
Its pathless deserts, parched and dread,
Where not a blade of herbage blooms,
Nor yields the breeze its soft perfumes;
Where silence, death, and horror reign,
Unchecked, across the wide domain;-
There is a desert of the MIND
More hopeless, dreary, undefined!
There Sorrow, moody Discontent,
And gnawing Care, are wildly blent;
There Horror hangs her darkest clouds,
And the whole scene in gloom enshrouds;
A sickly ray is cast around,
Where nought but dreariness is found;
A feeling that may not be told,
Dark, rending, lonely, drear, and cold.
The wildest ills that darken life
Are rapture to the bosom's strife;
The tempest, in its blackest form,
Is beauty to the bosom's storm;
The ocean, lashed to fury loud,
Its high wave mingling with the cloud,
Is peaceful, sweet serenity
To passion's dark and boundless sea.
There sleeps no calm, there smiles no rest,
When storms are warring in the breast;
There is no moment of repose
In bosoms lashed by hidden woes;
The scorpion sting the fury rears,
And every trembling fibre tears;
The vulture preys with bloody beak
Upon the heart that can but break!
To a Star.-LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON.
Written in her fifteenth year.
THOU brightly glittering star of even,
Thou gem upon the brow of heaven!
Oh! were this fluttering spirit free,
How quick 'twould spread its wings to thee!
How calmly, brightly, dost thou shine,
Like the pure lamp in virtue's shrine!
Sure the fair world which thou may'st boast
Was never ransomed, never lost.
There, beings pure as heaven's own air,
Their hopes, their joys, together share;
While hovering angels touch the string,
And seraphs spread the sheltering wing.
There, cloudless days and brilliant nights,
Illumed by heaven's refulgent lights;
There, seasons, years, unnoticed roll,
And unregretted by the soul.
Thou little sparkling star of even,
Thou gem upon an azure heaven!
How swiftly will I soar to thee,
When this imprisoned soul is free!
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,--
Go forth unto the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
*This poem, so much admired, both in England and America, was first published in 1817, in the North American Review. The following verses were then prefixed to it; they are in themselves beautiful, but more so as an introduction to the solemn grandeur of the piece which they preceded.
"Not that from life, and all its woes,
The hand of death shall set me free;
Not that this head shall then repose,
In the low vale, most peacefully.
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