THE TUSCAN MAID. How pleasant and how sad the turning tide Along the vale of years; The pure twin-being for a little space, This turning tide is URSULINA'S now; And so are every thought and feeling join'd, The things that once she loved are still the same; She cannot call it gladness or delight; On e'en the humblest thing that lives. She grasps the pretty thing; Her thoughts now mingle with its tranquil moodSo poised in air, as if on air it stood To show its gold and purple wing. She hears the bird without a wish to snare, To mount, and with it wander there As if it told her in its happy song Now the young soul her mighty power shall prove, And make the heart her home; But no, not all this fair, enchanting earth ROSALIE. O, POUR upon my soul again That sad, unearthly strain, That seems from other worlds to plain; No-never came from aught below That makes my heart to overflow For all I see around me wears The hue of other spheres; And something blent of smiles and tears So like angelic bliss. So, at that dreamy hour of day First fell the strain of him who stole TO REMBRANDT.* As in that twilight, superstitious age When all beyond the narrow grasp of mind Seem'd fraught with meanings of supernal kind, When e'en the learned, philosophic sage, Wont with the stars through boundless space to range, Listen'd with reverence to the changeling's tale; E'en so, thou strangest of all beings strange ! E'en so, thy visionary scenes I hail; That like the rambling of an idiot's speech, No image giving of a thing on earth, Nor thought significant in Reason's reach, Yet, in their random shadowings give birth To thoughts and things from other worlds that come, And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb. TO BENJAMIN WEST. FROM one unused in pomp of words to raise Occasioned by his picture of "Jacob's Dream." JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. [Born 1779.] Mr. PAULDING is known by his numerous novels and other prose writings, much better than by his poetry; yet his early contributions to our poetical literature, if they do not bear witness that he possesses, in an eminent degree, "the vision and the faculty divine," are creditable for their patriotic spirit and moral purity. He was born in the town of Pawling,-the original mode of spelling his name,-in Duchess county, New York, on the 22d of August, 1779, and is descended from an old and honourable family, of Dutch extraction. His earliest literary productions were the papers entitled "Salmagundi," the first series of which, in two volumes, were written in conjunction with WASHINGTON IRVING, in 1807. These were succeeded, in the next thirty years, by the following works, in the order in which they are named: John Bull and Brother Jonathan, in one volume; The Lay of a Scotch Fiddle, a satirical poem, in one volume; The United States and England, in one volume; Second Series of Salmagundi, in two volumes; Letters from the South, in two volumes; The Backwoodsman, a poem, in one volume; Koningsmarke, or Old Times in the New World, a novel, in two volumes; John Bull in America, in one volume; Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham, in one volume; The Traveller's Guide, or New Pilgrim's Progress, in one volume; The Dutchman's Fireside, in two volumes; Westward Ho! in two volumes; Slavery in the United States, in one volume; Life of Washington, in two volumes; The Book of St. Nicholas, in one volume; and Tales, Fables, and Allegories, originally published in various periodicals, in three volumes. Beside these, and some less pretensive works, he has written much in the gazettes on political and other questions agitated in his time. Mr. PAULDING has held various honourable offices in his native state; and in the summer of 1838, he was appointed, by President VAN BUREN, Secretary of the Navy. He continued to be a member of the cabinet until the close of Mr. VAN BUREN's administration, in 1841. ODE TO JAMESTOWN. OLD cradle of an infant world, In which a nestling empire lay, Her gallant wing and soar'd away; All hail! thou birth-place of the glowing west, Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest! What solemn recollections throng, What touching visions rise, As, wandering these old stones among, And see the shadows of the dead flit round, The wonders of an age combined, In one short moment memory supplies; The volume of a hundred buried years, I hear the angry ocean rave, I see the lonely little barque As o'er the drowned earth 't was hurl'd, I see a train of exiles stand, Amid the desert, desolate, The fathers of my native land, The daring pioneers of fate, Who braved the perils of the sea and earth, I see the sovereign Indian range I see the gloomy forest change, The shadowy earth laid bare; And, where the red man chased the bounding deer, The smiling labours of the white appear. I see the haughty warrior gaze In wonder or in scorn, While he, the monarch of the boundless wond, A moment, and the pageant's gone; The pale-faced strangers stand alone And the proud wood-king, who their arts disdain'd, The forest reels beneath the stroke Of sturdy woodman's axe; The earth receives the white man's yoke, And pays her willing tax Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields, And all that nature to blithe labour yields. Then growing hamlets rear their heads, And gathering crowds expand, Far as my fancy's vision spreads, O'er many a boundless land, Till what was once a world of savage strife, Teems with the richest gifts of social life. Empire to empire swift succeeds, Each happy, great, and free; One empires still another breeds, A giant progeny, Destined their daring race to run, Then, as I turn my thoughts to trace The fount whence these rich waters sprung, I glance towards this lonely place, And find it, these rude stones among. Their names have been forgotten long; As bright a crown as e'er was worn, No one that inspiration drinks; No one that loves his native land; No one that reasons, feels, or thinks, Can mid these lonely ruins stand, Without a moisten'd eye, a grateful tear Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here. The mighty shade now hovers round Of HIM whose strange, yet bright career, In letters that no time shall sere; And she! the glorious Indian maid, The angel of the woodland shade, The miracle of God's own hand, Who join'd man's heart to woman's softest grace, And thrice redeem'd the scourges of her race. Sister of charity and love, Whose life-blood was soft Pity's tide, Flower of the forest, nature's pride, I care not who my themes may mock, I envy not the brute who here can stand, And if the recreant crawl her earth, Or, in New England claim his birth, He is a bastard, if he dare to mock Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock. PASSAGE DOWN THE OHIO.* As down Ohio's ever ebbing tide, Sent forth blithe labour's homely, rustic song; EVENING. "T WAS sunset's hallow'd time-and such an eve Might almost tempt an angel heaven to leave. Never did brighter glories greet the eye, Low in the warm and ruddy western sky: Nor the light clouds at summer eve unfold More varied tints of purple, red, and gold. Some in the pure, translucent, liquid breast Of crystal lake, fast anchor'd seem'd to rest, Like golden islets scatter'd far and wide, By elfin skill in fancy's fabled tide, Where, as wild eastern legends idly feign, Fairy, or genii, hold despotic reign. *This, and the two following extracts, are from the "Backwoodsman." |