PROEM TO YAMOYDEN. Go forth, sad fragments of a broken strain, Shall ne'er the minstrel's hallowed honours crave; His harp lies buried deep, in that untimely grave! Friend of my youth, with thee began the love Of sacred song; the wont, in golden dreams, 'Mid classic realms of splendours past to rove, O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams; Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom gleams Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage, For ever lit by memory's twilight beams; Where the proud dead that live in storied page, Beckon, with awful port, to glory's earlier age. There would we linger oft, entranced, to hear, O'er battle fields, the epic thunders roll; Or list, where tragic wail upon the ear, Through Argive palaces shrill echoing, stole; There would we mark, uncurbed by all control, In central heaven, the Theban eagle's flight; Or hold communion with the musing soul Of sage or bard, who sought, 'mid pagan night, In loved Athenian groves, for truth's eternal light. Homeward we turned, to that fair land, but late Redeemed from the strong spell that bound it fast, Where mystery, brooding o'er the waters, sate And kept the key, till three millenniums past; When, as creation's noblest work was last, Latest, to man it was vouchsafed, to see Nature's great wonder, long by clouds o'ercast, And veiled in sacred awe, that it might be An empire and a home, most worthy for the free. And here, forerunners strange and meet were found, Of that blessed freedom, only dreamed before;Dark were the morning mists, that lingered round Their birth and story, as the hue they bore. "Earth was their mother;" "-or they knew no more, Or would not that their secret should be told; For they were grave and silent, and such lore, To stranger ears, they loved not to unfold, The long-transmitted tales their sires were taught of old. Kind nature's commoners, from her they drew Their needful wants, and learned not how to hoard, And him whom strength and wisdom crowned, they knew, But with no servile reverence, as their lord. And on their mountain summits they adored One great, good Spirit, in his high abode, And thence their incense and orisons poured To his pervading presence, that abroad They felt through all his works, their Father, King, and God, And in the mountain mist, the torrent's spray, As the fresh sense of life, through every vein, Comely they grew, patient of toil and pain, And still avenge each wrong, to friends or kindred done. From forest shades they peered, with awful dread, And many a gloomy tale, tradition yet Where Narraganset's tides roll by their grave, And Haup's romantic steeps are piled above the wave. Friend of my youth! with thee began my song, And o'er thy bier its latest accents die; Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long,Though not to me the muse averse deny, Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to descry, Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er; And he who loved with thee his notes to try, But for thy sake, such idlesse would deplore, And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more. But, no! the freshness of the past shall still Sacred to memory's holiest musings be; When through the ideal fields of song, at will, He roved and gathered chaplets wild with thee; When, reckless of the world, alone and free, Like two proud barks, we kept our careless way, That sail by moonlight o'er the tranquil sea; Their white apparel and their streamers gay, Bright gleaming o'er the main, beneath the ghostly ray; And downward, far, reflected in the clear Blue depths, the eye their fairy tackling sees; So buoyant, they do seem to float in air, And silently obey the noiseless breeze; Till, all too soon, as the rude winds may please, They part for distant ports: the gales benign Swift wafting, bore, by Heaven's all-wise decrees To its own harbour sure, where each divine And joyous vision, seen before in dreams, is thine. Muses of Helicon! melodious race Of Jove and golden-haired Mnemosyné; Whose art from memory blots each sadder trace, Aud drives each scowling form of grief away! Who, round the violet fount, your measures gay Once trod, and round the altar of great Jove, Whence, wrapt in silvery clouds, your nightly On your own mountain's side ye taught of yore, Whose honoured hand took not your gift in vain, Worthy the budding laurel-bough it bore,-* Farewell! a long farewell! I worship thee no more. A MONODY MADE ON THE LATE MI. SAMUEL PATCH, BY AN ADMIRER OF THE BATHOS. By waters shall he die, and take his end.-SHAKESPEARE. Toll for Sam Patch! Sam Patch, who jumps no more, This or the world to come. Sam Patch is dead! The vulgar pathway to the unknown shore Of dark futurity he would not tread. No friends stood sorrowing round his dying bed; Nor with decorous woe, sedately stepped Behind his corpse, and tears by retail shed;— The mighty river, as it onward swept, In one great wholesale sob, his body drowned and kept. Toll for Sam Patch! he scorned the common way That some great men had risen to falls, he went He wooed the bathos down great water-falls; Pleasant, as are to women lighted halls, Crammed full of fools and fiddles; to the sound Of the eternal roar, he timed his desperate bound. Sam was a fool. But the large world of such, Has thousands-better taught, alike absurd, And less sublime. Of fame he soon got much, Where distant cataracts spout, of him men heard. Alas for Sam! Had he aright preferred The kindly element, to which he gave Himself so fearlessly, we had not heard That it was now his winding-sheet and grave, Nor sung, 'twixt tears and smiles, our requiem for the brave. He soon got drunk, with rum and with renown, By one mad impulse driven, they flounder through For wool (and if the best accounts be straight, Came back, in negro phraseology, With the same wool each upon his pate), In which she chronicled the deathless fate Of him who jumped into the perilous ditch Left by Rome's street commissioners, in a state Which made it dangerous, and by jumping which He made himself renowned, and the contractors rich I say, the muse shall quite forget to sound She do not strike it when Sam Patch is drowned. *Hesiod. Theog. 1. 1. 60. 30. The Lesbian Sappho leapt from in a miff, Because the wax did not continue stiff; As everybody knows. Why sing of these? I think he called himself. Themselves to please, Or else unwillingly, they made their springs; For glory in the abstract, Sam made his, To prove to all men, commons, lords, and kings, That "some thi gs may be done, as well as other things." I will not be fatigued, by citing more Who jumped of old, by hazard or design, Nor plague the weary ghosts of boyish lore, Vulcan, Apollo, Phaeton-in fine All Tooke's Pantheon. Yet they grew divine By their long tumbles; and if we can match Their hierarchy, shall we not entwine One wreath? Who ever came "up to the scratch." In logic, and the safer course they took; And quite dumb-founded, which they cannot brook; They break no bones, and suffer no contusion, In slang and gibberish, sputtering and confusion; But that was not the way Sam came to his conclusion. He jumped in person. Death or Victory Was his device," and there was no mistake," Except his last; and then he did but die, A blunder which the wisest men will make. And down into the coil and water-quake, Though still the rock primeval disappears, And nations change their bounds-the theme of wonder Shall Sam go down the cataract of long years; Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed When his frail star gave way, and waked his fers Lest, by the ungenerous crowd it might be said, That he was all a hoax, or that his pluck had fled. Who would compare the maudlin Alexander, Blubbering, because he had no job in hand, Acting the hypocrite, or else the gander, With Sam, whose grief we all can understand? His crying was not womanish, nor planned For exhibition; but his heart o'erswelled With its own agony, when he the grand Natural arrangements for a jump beheld, And measuring the cascade, found not his courage quelled. His last great failure set the final seal Unto the record Time shall never tear, While bravery has its honour,-while men feel First, last, and mightiest in the bosom. Where The tortured tides of Genesee descend, He came his only intimate a bear, (We know not that he had another friend), The martyr of renown, his wayward course to end. The fiend that from the infernal rivers stole Hell-draughts for man, too much tormented him, With nerves unstrung, but steadfast in his soul, He stood upon the salient current's brim; His head was giddy, and his sight was dim; And then he knew this leap would be his last,Saw air, and earth, and water wildly swim, With eyes of many multitudes, dense and vast, That stared in mockery; none a look of kindness cast. Beat down, in the huge amphitheatre "I see before me the gladiator lie," And tier on tier, the myriads waiting there The bow of grace, without one pitying eyeHe was a slave-a captive hired to die ;Sam was born free as Cæsar; and he might 66 The hopeless issue have refused to try; No! with true leap, but soon with faltering flight,Deep in the roaring gulf, he plunged to endless night." But, ere he leapt, he begged of those who made As might be picked up from the "company" When all the streams have worn their barriers low, In coarse, but honest verse, make up the judgment roll. Therefore it is considered, that Sam Patch Shall never be forgot in prose or rhyme; His name shall be a portion in the batch Of the heroic dough, which baking Time Kneads for consuming ages-and the chime Of Fame's old bells, long as they truly ring, Shall tell of him; he dived for the sublime, And found it. Thou, who with the eagle's wing Being a goose, would'st fly,-dream not of such a thing! THE DEAD OF 1832. Oh Time and Death! with certain pace, The cot, the palace, and the throne! Not always in the storm of war, Nor by the pestilence that sweeps From the plague-smitten realms afar, Beyond the old and solemn deeps: In crowds the good and mighty go, And to those vast dim chambers hie:Where mingled with the high and low, Dead Caesars and dead Shakespeares lie! Dread Ministers of God! sometimes Ye smite at once, to do His will, Men sadly ask, when shall return For where is he*--who lived so long Who raised the modern Titan's ghost, And showed his fate, in powerful song, Whose soul for learning's sake was lost? Where he who backwards to the birth Of Time itself, adventurous trod, And in the mingled mass of earth Found out the handiwork of God?t Where he who in the mortal head,‡ Ordained to gaze on heaven, could trace The soul's vast features, that shall tread The stars, when earth is nothingness? Where he who struck old Albyn's lyre,§ Till round the world its echoes roll, And swept, with all a prophet's fire, The diapason of the soul? Where he who read the mystic lore, Buried, where buried Pharaohs sleep; And dared presumptuous to explore Secrets four thousand years could keep? Where he who with a poet's eye¶ Of truth, on lowly nature gazed, And made even sordid Poverty Classic, when in HIS numbers glazed! Where that old sage so hale and staid,** The "greatest good" who sought to find; Who in his garden mused, and made All forms of rule, for all mankind? And thou-whom millions far removed++ Revered-the hierarch meek and wise, Thy ashes sleep, adored, beloved, Near where thy Wesley's coffin lies. He too-the heir of glory-where Hath great Napoleon's scion fled? Ah! glory goes not to an heir! Take him, ye noble, vulgar dead! They go, and with them is a crowd, All earth is now their sepulchre, The MIND, their monument sublimeYoung in eternal fame they are Such are YOUR triumphs, Death and Time. GRENVILLE MELLEN. GRENVILLE MELLEN Was born at Biddeford, Maine, June 19, 1799. He was the eldest son of Chief-justice Mellen, of the court of common pleas in that state. He was graduated at Harvard in 1818; studied law with his father, and settled at Portland, Maine. In 1823 he removed to North Yarmouth, in the same state, where he remained for five years. His poems at this period and subsequently to his death, appeared frequently in the periodicals, the magazines and annuals, of the time. In 1826 he pronounced before the Peace Society of Maine, at Portland, a poem, The Rest of Empires, and in 1828 an Anniversary Poem, before the Athenian From Boston he came to reside in New York. His health, which was always delicate, was now much enfeebled; he was lingering with consumption when he made a voyage to Cuba, from which he returned without benefit, and died in New York September 5, 1841, at the residence of his friend, Mr. Samuel Colman, for whose family he felt the warmest affection, and whose house he had called his home for the latter years of his life. Before his death he was engaged upon a collection of his unpublished poems, which still remain in manuscript. A glance at his poems shows a delicate susceptibility to poetical impression, tinged with an air of melancholy. He wrote with ease, often carelessly and pretentiously-often with eloquence. With a stronger constitution his verse would probably have assumed a more condensed, energetic expression. With a consciousness of poetic power he struggled with a feeble frame, and at times yielded to despondency. The memory of his tenderness and purity of character is much cherished by his friends. THE BRIDAL See at her side Young Beauty at the altar! Oh! kneel down Has gathered on its dark transparency. And doth she tremble-this long cherished flower! With this chaste, silent picture of the heart! THE BUGLE. But still the dingle's hollow throat, O, wild enchanting horn! Wake, wake again; the night Is bending from her throne of Beauty down, With still stars beaming on her azure crown, Intense and eloquently bright! Night, at its pulseless noon! When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long, Barks at the melancholy moon! Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky, As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, With lone halloo and roundelay. Swell, swell in glory out! Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart, Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise, Where wings and tempests never soar. No music, that of air or earth is born, PROSPER M. WETMORE. PROSPER MONTGOMERY WETMORE was born at Stratford on the Housatonic, Connecticut, in 1799. At an early age he removed with his parents to New York. His father dying soon after, he was placed, when scarcely nine years of age, in a counting-room, where he continued as a clerk till he reached his majority. He has since that period been engaged in mercantile business in the city of New York. With scant early opportunities for literary culture, Mr. Wetmore was not long in improving a natural tendency to the pursuits of authorship. He made his first appearance in print in 1816, at the age of seventeen, and soon became an important aid to the struggling literature, and, it may be added, writers of the times. He wrote for the magazines, the annuals, and the old Mirror; and as literature at that period was kept up rather as a social affair than from any reward promised by the trade, it became naturally associated with a taste for the green-room, and the patronage of the theatrical stars of the day. Mr. Wetmore was the companion of Price, Simpson, Brooks, Morris, and other members of a society which supported the wit and gaiety of the town. AM. Watmon In 1830 Mr. Wetmore published in an elegant octavo volume, Lexington, with other Fugitive Poems. This is the only collection of his writings which has been made. Lexington, a picture, in an ode, of the early revolutionary battle, is a spirited poem. It has fire and ease of versification. The Banner of Murat, The Russian Retreat, Greece, Painting, and several theatrical addresses possessing similar qualities, are among the contents of this volume. In 1832 Mr. Wetmore delivered a poem in Spenserian stanza on Ambition, before one of the literary societies of Hamilton College, New York, which has not been printed. In 1838 he edited a volume of the poems of James Nack, prefaced with a brief notice of the life of that remarkable person. Mr.Wetmore, however, has been more generally known as a man of literary influence in society than as an author. He has been prominently connected with most of the liberal interests of the city, both utilitarian and refined-as Regent of the University, to which body he was appointed in 1833, promoting the public school system; as chairman of the committee on colleges and academies in the State Legislature, to which he was elected in 1834 and 1835; as member of the City Chamber of Commerce; as an efficient director of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb; as President of the American Art-Union, which rapidly extended under his management to a national institution; and as a most active member and supporter of the New York Historical Society. These varied pursuits, the public indexes to more numerous private acts of liberality, have been sustained by a graceful personal manner, a sanguine temperament which preserves the freshness of youth, and a wide versatility of talent. The military title of General Wetmore, by which he is widely known, is derived from his long and honorable service in the militia organization of the state, of which he was for many years Paymaster-General. PAINTING. Peopling, with art's creative power, The lonely home, the silent hour. 'Tis to the pencil's magic skill Life owes the power, almost divine, The lineaments beloved so well; With mailed men to people forth; On Calvary, the dying look That told life's agony was o'er- To dry the widowed mother's tear: What visions open to the gaze! "Tis nature all, and art is gone, We breathe with them of other days: Italia's victor leads the war, And triumphs o'er the ensanguined plain: Behold! the Peasant Conqueror Piling Marengo with his slain: |