Pile rocks on rocks, bid woods and mountains rise,
Eclipse her native shades, her native skies:-
'Tis vain! through Ether's pathless wilds she goes,
And lights at last where all her cares repose.

Sweet bird! thy truth shall Harlem's walls attest,
And unborn ages consecrate thy nest.

When, with the silent energy of grief,

With looks that asked, yet dared not hope relief,
Want with her babes round generous Valor clung
To wring the slow surrender from his tongue,

"Twas thine to animate her closing eye;

Alas! 'twas thine perchance the first to die,

Crushed by her meagre hand, when welcomed from the sky.

Hark! the bee winds her small but mellow horn,

Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn.

O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course,

And many a stream allures her to its source.
'Tis noon, 'tis night. That eye, so finely wrought,
Beyond the search of sense, the soar of thought,
Now vainly asks the scenes she left behind:

Its orb so full, its vision so confined!

Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell?

Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell?

With conscious truth, retrace the mazy clue.

Of summer-scents, that charmed her as she flew. Hail, MEMORY, hail! thy universal reign

Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain.

PART II.

Delle cose custode e dispensiera.

TASSO.

ANALYSIS OF THE SECOND PART.

She

THE Memory has hitherto acted only in subservience to the senses, and so far man is not eminently distinguished from other animals: but, with respect to man, she has a higher province; and is often busily employed, when excited by no external cause whatever. preserves, for his use, the treasures of art and science, history and philosophy. She colors all the prospects of life; for we can only anticipate the future, by concluding what is possible from what is past. On her agency depends every effusion of the Fancy, who with the boldest effort can only compound or transpose, augment or diminish the materials which she has collected and still retains.

When the first emotions of despair have subsided, and

sorrow has softened into melancholy, she amuses with a retrospect of innocent pleasures, and inspires that noble confidence which results from the consciousness of having acted well. When sleep has suspended the organs of sense from their office, she not only supplies the mind with images, but assists in their combination. And even in madness itself, when the soul is resigned over to the tyranny of a distempered imagination, she revives past perceptions, and awakens that train of thought which was formerly most familiar.

Nor are we pleased only with a review of the brighter passages of life. Events, the most distressing in their immediate consequences, are often cherished in remembrance with a degree of enthusiasm.

But the world and its occupations give a mechanical impulse to the passions, which is not very favorable to the indulgence of this feeling. It is in a calm and wellregulated mind that the Memory is most perfect; and solitude is her best sphere of action. With this sentiment is introduced a Tale illustrative of her influence in solitude, sickness, and sorrow. And the subject having now been considered, so far as it relates to man and the animal world, the Poem concludes with a conjecture that superior beings are blest with a nobler exercise of this faculty.

POEM.

PART II.

SWEET MEMORY, wafted by thy gentle gale,

Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail,
To view the fairy haunts of long-lost hours,
Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flowers.
Ages and climes remote to Thee impart

What charms in Genius, and refines in Art;
Thee, in whose hand the keys of Science dwell,
The pensive portress of her holy cell;
Whose constant vigils chase the chilling damp
Oblivion steals upon her vestal lamp.

They in their glorious course the guides of Youth,
Whose language breathed the eloquence of Truth;
Whose life, beyond preceptive wisdom, taught
The great in conduct, and the pure in thought;