L'INCONNUE.

Is thy name MARY, maiden fair?

Such should, methinks, its music be; The sweetest name that mortals bear, Were best befitting thee;

And she to whom it once was given, Was half of earth and half of heaven.

I hear thy voice, I see thy smile,

I look upon thy folded hair; Ah! while we dream not they beguile, Our hearts are in the snare;

And she, who chains a wild bird's wing, Must start not if her captive sing.

So, lady, take the leaf that falls,

To all but thee unseen, unknown; When evening shades thy silent walls, Then read it all alone;

In stillness read, in darkness seal,
Forget, despise, but not reveal!

THE LAST READER.

I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree,

And read my own sweet songs;
Though naught they may to others be,
Each humble line prolongs

A tone that might have pass'd away,
But for that scarce-remember'd lay.

I keep them like a lock or leaf,

That some dear girl has given;
Frail record of an hour, as brief

As sunset clouds in heaven,
But spreading purple twilight still
High over memory's shadow'd hill.
They lie upon my pathway bleak,

Those flowers that once ran wild,
As on a father's care-worn cheek

The ringlets of his child;
The golden mingling with the gray,
And stealing half its snows away.
What care I though the dust is spread
Around these yellow leaves,

Or o'er them his sarcastic thread

Oblivion's insect weaves;

Though weeds are tangled on the stream,
It still reflects my morning's beam.
And therefore love I such as smile
On these neglected songs,
Nor deem that flattery's needless wile
My opening bosom wrongs;
For who would trample, at my side,
A few pale buds, my garden's pride?

It may be that my scanty ore

Long years have wash'd away,
And where were golden sands before,
Is naught but common clay;
Still something sparkles in the sun,
For Memory to look back upon.
And when my name no more is heard,
My lyre no more is known,

OLD IRONSIDES.*

Ar, tear her tatter'd ensign down!

Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see

That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle-shout,

And burst the cannon's roar; The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,

Where knelt the vanquish'd foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquer'd knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

O, better that her shatter'd hulk

Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,-
The lightning and the gale!

STANZAS.

STRANGE! that one lightly-whisper'd tone
Is far, far sweeter unto me,

Than all the sounds that kiss the earth,
Or breathe along the sea;

But, lady, when thy voice I greet,
Not heavenly music seems so sweet.
I look upon the fair, blue skies,

And naught but empty air I see;
But when I turn me to thine eyes,
It seemeth unto me

Ten thousand angels spread their wings
Within those little azure rings.

The lily hath the softest leaf

That ever western breeze hath fann'd, But thou shalt have the tender flower, So I may take thy hand; That little hand to me doth yield More joy than all the broider'd field.

O, lady! there be many things

That seem right fair, below, above;
But sure not one among them all
Is half so sweet as love;-
Let us not pay our vows alone,
But join two altars both in one.

Written when it was proposed to break up the frigate Constitution, as unfit for service.

THE STEAMBOAT.

SEE how yon flaming herald treads
The ridged and rolling waves,

As, crashing o'er their crested heads,
She bows her surly slaves!
With foam before and fire behind,
She rends the clinging sea,
That flies before the roaring wind,
Beneath her hissing lee.

The morning spray, like sea-born flowers,
With heap'd and glistening bells,
Falls round her fast in ringing showers,
With every wave that swells;
And, flaming o'er the midnight deep,
In lurid fringes thrown,

The living gems of ocean sweep

Along her flashing zone.

With clashing wheel, and lifting keel, And smoking torch on high, When winds are loud, and billows reel, She thunders foaming by!

When seas are silent and serene,

With even beam she glides,

The sunshine glimmering through the green
That skirts her gleaming sides.
Now, like a wild nymph, far apart
She veils her shadowy form,
The beating of her restless heart

Still sounding through the storm;
Now answers, like a courtly dame,

The reddening surges o'er,
With flying scarf of spangled flame,
The Pharos of the shore.
To-night yon pilot shall not sleep,

Who trims his narrow'd sail;
To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep
Her broad breast to the gale;
And many a foresail, scoop'd and strain'd,
Shall break from yard and stay,
Before this smoky wreath has stain'd
The rising mist of day.

Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, I see yon quivering mast;

The black throat of the hunted cloud

Is panting forth the blast!

An hour, and, whirl'd like winnowing chaff,
The giant surge shall fling
His tresses o'er yon pennon-staff,

White as the sea-bird's wing!

Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep;
Nor wind nor wave shall tire
Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap
With floods of living fire;
Sleep on-and when the morning light
Streams o'er the shining bay,

O, think of those for whom the night

Shall never wake in day!

ALBERT PIKE was born in Boston, on the twenty-ninth day of December, 1809. When he was about four years old, his parents removed to Newburyport. His father, he informs me, "was a journeyman shoemaker, who worked hard, paid his taxes, and gave all his children the benefit of an education." The youth of the poet was passed principally in attending the district-schools at Newburyport, and an academy at Framingham, until he was sixteen years of age, when, after a rigid and triumphant examination, he was admitted to Harvard College. Not being able to pay the expenses of a residence at Cambridge, however, he soon after became an assistant teacher in the grammar-school at Newburyport, and, at the end of a year, its principal. He was induced to resign this office after a short time, and in the winter which followed was the preceptor of an academy at Fairhaven. He returned to Newburyport in the spring, on foot, and for one year taught there a private school. During all this time he had been a diligent student, intending to enter the university, in advance; but in the spring of 1831 he changed his plans, and started on his travels to the west and south.

He went first to Niagara, and then, through Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville, and Paducah, much of the way on foot, to Saint Louis. He left that city in August, with a company of forty persons, among whom were two young men besides himself from Newburyport, for Mexico; and after much fatigue and privation, arrived at Santa Fe on the twenty-eighth of November. Here he remained nearly a year, passing a part of the time as a clerk in a store, and the residue in selling merchandise through the country. Near the close of September, 1832, he left Taos, with a trappingparty; travelled around the sources of Red River to the head waters of the Brazos; separated from the company, with four others, and came into Arkansas, travelling the last five hundred miles on foot, and reaching Fort Smith, in November, "without a rag of clothing, a dollar in money, or knowing a person in the territory,"

Near this place he spent the winter in teaching a few children, and in the following July he went further down the country, and opened a school under more favourable auspices; but after a few weeks, being attacked by a fever, was compelled to abandon it. He had in the mean time written several poems for a newspaper printed at Little Rock, which pleased the editor so much that he sent for him to go there and become his partner. The proposition was gladly accepted, and in October he crossed the Arkansas and landed at Little Rock, paying his last cent for the ferriage of a poor old soldier, who had known his father in New England.

Here commenced a new era in the life of PIKE.

From this time his efforts appear to have been crowned with success. The Arkansas Advo cate" was edited by him until the autumn of 1834, when it became his property. Soon after his arrival at his new home he began to devote his leisure to the study of the law, and he was now admitted to the bar. He continued both to write for his paper and to practise in the courts, until the summer of 1836, when he sold his printing establishment; and since then he has successfully pursued his profession. He was married at Little Rock, in November, 1834.

In

About this time he published at Boston a volume of prose sketches and poems, among which are an interesting account of his journeys over the prairies, and some fine poetry, written at Santa Fe and among the mountains and forests of Mexico. the preface to it, he says: "What I have written has been a transcript of my own feelings-too much so, perhaps, for the purposes of fame. Writing has always been to me a communion with my own soul. These poems were composed in desertion and loneliness, and sometimes in places of fear and danger. My only sources of thought and imagery have been my own mind, and Nature, who has appeared to me generally in desolate guise and utter dreariness, and not unfrequently in sublimity."

His "Hymns to the Gods," published afterward, were composed at an carly age, in Fairhaven, and principally while he was surrounded by pupils, in the school-room. They are bold, spirited, scholarly and imaginative, and their diction is appropriate and poetical, though in some instances marred by imperfect and double rhymes. Of his minor pieces, "Spring" and "To the Mockingbird," are the best. I have heard praise bestowed on "Ariel," a poem much longer than these, published in 1835, but as it appeared in a periodical which had but a brief existence, I have not been able to obtain a copy of it. In "Fantasma," in which, I suppose, he intended to shadow forth his own "eventful history," he speaks of one who

"Was young,

And had not known the bent of his own mind,
Until the mighty spell of COLERIDGE woke
Its hidden powers,"

and in some of his poems there is a cast of thought similar to that which pervades many of the works of this poet, though nothing that amounts to imitation. His early struggles, and subsequent wanderings and observations furnished him with the subjects, thoughts, and imagery of many of his pieces, and they therefore leave on the mind an impression of nature and truth. He still writes occasionally for the literary magazines, but none of his later poems seem to be equal to those which I have quoted in this work.

Bringest futurity, that it comes by
In visible shape, passing before the eye
Shrouded in visions: thou in whose high power
Are health and sickness: thou who oft dost shower
Great plagues upon the nations, with hot breath
Scorching away their souls, and sending death
Like fiery mist amid them; or again,

Like the sweet breeze that comes with summer rain,
Touching the soul with joy, thou sendest out
Bright health among the people, who about
With dewy feet and fanning wings doth step,
And touch each poor, pale cheek with startling lip,
Filling it with rich blood, that leaps anew
Out from the shrivell'd heart, and courses through
The long-forsaken veins !-O. thou, whose name
Is sung by all, let us, too, dare to claim

Thy holy presence here!

Hear us, bright god, and come in beauty near!

O, thou, the lover of the springing bow!
Who ever in the gloomy woods dost throw
Thine arrows to the mark, like the keen flight
Of those thine arrows that with midday light
Thou proudly pointest; thou from whom grim bears
And lordly lions flee, with strange, wild fears,
And hide among the mountains: thou whose cry
Sounds often in the woods, where whirl and fly
The time-worn leaves-when, with a merry train,
BACCHUS is on the hills, and on the plain
The full-arm'd CERES-when upon the sea
The brine-gods sound their horns, and merrily
The whole earth rings with pleasure: then thy voice
Stills into silence every stirring noise,
With utmost sweetness pealing on the hills,
And in the echo of the dancing rills,
And o'er the sea, and on the busy plain,
And on the air, until all voices wane
Before its influence-

O, come, great god, be ever our defence!

By that most gloomy day, when with a cry
Young HYACINTH fell down, and his dark eye
Was fill'd with dimming blood-when on a bed
Of his own flowers he laid his wounded head,
Breathing deep sighs; by those heart-cherish'd eyes
Of long-loved HYACINTH-by all the sighs
That thou, O, young APOLLO, then didst pour
On every gloomy hill and desolate shore,
Weeping at thy great soul, and making dull
Thy ever-quenchless eye, till men were full
Of strange forebodings for thy lustre dimm'd,
And many a chant in many a fane was hymn'd
Unto the pale-eyed sun; the satyrs stay'd
Long time in the dull woods, then on the glade
They came and look'd for thee; and all in vain
Poor DIAN sought thy love, and did complain
For want of light and life;-by all thy grief,
O, bright APOLLO! hear, and give relief
To us who cry to thee-

O, come, and let us now thy glory see!

NO. III.-TO VENUS.

O, thou, most lovely and most beautiful! Whether thy doves now lovingly do lull

Thy bright eyes to soft slumbering upon
Some dreamy south wind: whether thou hast gone
Upon the heaven now, or if thou art
Within some floating cloud, and on its heart
Pourest rich-tinted joy; whether thy wheels
Are touching on the sun-forsaken fields,
And brushing off the dew from bending grass,
Leaving the poor green blades to look, alas!
With dim eyes at the moon- -(ah! so dost thou
Full oftquench brightness!)--VENUS, whether now
Thou passest o'er the sea, while each light wing
Of thy fair doves is wet, while sea-maids bring
Sweet odours for thee-(ah! how foolish they!
They have not felt thy smart!)—

They know not, while in ocean-caves they play,
How strong thou art.

Where'er thou art, O, VENUS! hear our song-
Kind goddess, hear! for unto thee belong

All pleasant offerings: bright doves coo to thee,
The while they twine their necks with quiet glee
Among the morning leaves; thine are all sounds
Of pleasure on the earth; and where abounds
Most happiness, for thee we ever look ;
Among the leaves, in dimly-lighted nook,
Most often hidest thou, where winds may wave
Thy sunny curls, and cool airs fondly lave
Thy beaming brow, and ruffle the white wings
Of thy tired doves; and where his love-song sings,
With lightsome eyes, some little, strange, sweet bird,
With notes that never but by thee are heard—
O, in such scene, most bright, thou liest now,
And, with half-open eye,

Drinkest in beauty-O, most fair, that thou
Wouldst hear our cry!

O, thou, through whom all things upon the earth
Grow brighter: thou for whom even laughing mirth
Lengthens his note; thou whom the joyous bird
Singeth continuously; whose name is heard
In every pleasant sound: at whose warm glance
All things look brighter: for whom wine doth dance
More merrily within the brimming vase,
To meet thy lip: thou, at whose quiet pace
Joy leaps on faster, with a louder laugh,
And Sorrow tosses to the sea his staff,
And pushes back the hair from his dim eyes,
To look again upon forgotten skies;
While Avarice forgets to count his gold,
Yea, unto thee his wither'd hand doth hold,
Fill'd with that heart-blood: thou, to whose high
All things are made to bow, [might
Come thou to us, and turn thy looks of light
Upon us now!

O, hear, great goddess! thou whom all obey;
At whose desire rough satyrs leave their play,
And gather wild-flowers, decking the bright hair
Of her they love, and oft blackberries bear
To shame them at her eyes: O, thou! to whom
They leap in awkward mood, within the gloom
Of darkening oak trees, or at lightsome noon
Sing unto thee, upon their pipes, a tune [power
Of wondrous languishment: thou whose great
Brings up the sea-maids from each ocean-bower,
With many an idle song, to sing to thee,
And bright locks flowing half above the sea,