A battle whose great scheme and scope

They little cared to know,

Content, as men-at-arms, to cope

Each with his fronting foe.

Man now his virtue's diadem

Puts on, and proudly wears

Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them,
Like instincts, unawares:
Blending their souls' sublimest needs
With tasks of every day,

They went about their gravest deeds
As noble boys at play.

And what if Nature's fearful wound
They did not probe and bare,
For that their spirits never swooned

To watch the misery there

For that their love but flowed more fast,
Their charities more free,

Not conscious what mere drops they cast
Into the evil sea.

A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet,

It is the distant and the dim

That we are sick to greet:

For flowers that grow our hands beneath
We struggle and aspire-

Our hearts must die, except they breathe
The air of fresh desire.

But, brothers, who up Reason's hill
Advance with hopeful cheer-
Oh! loiter not; those heights are chill,
As chill as they are clear;
And still restrain your haughty gaze,
The loftier that ye go,

Remembering distance leaves a haze
On all that lies below.

From The Long-ago?

On that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high:
Sorrows that are sorrows still

Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill

In the griefs of Long-ago. Tombs where lonely love repines, Ghastly tenements of tears, Wear the look of happy shrines

Through the golden mist of years:
Death, to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow;
Oh! we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-ago!

Though the doom of swift decay
Shocks the soul where life is strong,
Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and overlong-
Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its heaven,
And the past its Long-ago.

FITZGREENE HALLECK.

Without attempting, in our confined limits, to range over the fields of American literature, now rapidly extending, and cultivated with ardour and success, we have pleasure in including some eminent transatlantic names in our list of popular

authors. MR HALLECK became generally known in this country in 1827 by the publication of a volume of Poems, the result partly of a visit to England. In this volume are some fine verses on Burns, on Alnwick Castle, &c., and it includes the most elevated of his strains, the martial lyric Marco Bozzaris. Our poet-laureate, Mr Tennyson, has described the poetical character:

The poet in a golden clime was born,

With golden stars above;

Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.

His

Mr Halleck was a native of Guildford, Connecticut, born in 1790. He resided some time in New York, following mercantile pursuits. In 1819 he published Fanny, a satirical poem in the ottava rima stanza. Next appeared his volume of Poems, as already stated, to which additions were made in subsequent republications. works are comprised in one volume, and it is to be regretted that his muse was not more prolific. He died November 19, 1867. His Life and Letters were published in one volume in 1869 by James Grant Wilson of New York, who has also edited the poetical works of Halleck (1871), and written a short Memoir of Bryant, in the Western Monthly, November 1870.

Marco Bozzaris.

The Epaminondas of Modern Greece. He fell in a nightattack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platea, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were: To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain.'

At midnight, in his guarded tent,

The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of triumph heard,
Then wore his monarch's signet-ring,
Then pressed that monarch's throne-a King;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,

As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood
On old Platea's day;

And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on, the Turk awoke ;
That bright dream was his last ;

He woke to hear his sentries shriek :

'To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek !'
He woke to die, 'midst flame and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
Like forest-pines before the blast,
Or lightnings from the mountain cloud;
And heard with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

'Strike, till the last armed foe expires;
Strike, for your altars and your fires;
Strike, for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!'

They fought, like brave men, long and well,
They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquered-but Bozzaris fell,

Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly as to a night's repose,

Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal-chamber, Death!

Come to the mother's when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessed seals
Which close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in Consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake's shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet-song, and dance, and wine-
And thou art terrible; the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear,
Of agony are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword

Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
And in its hollow tones are heard

The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought;
Come with her laurel-leaf blood-bought;
Come in her crowning hour, and then
Thy sunken eyes' unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight

Of sky and stars to prisoned men ;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
Which told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,

When the land-wind from woods of palm,
And orange groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o'er the Haytien seas.

Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee: there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime;

She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from Death's leafless tree
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,

The heartless luxury of the tomb;
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone.
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babe's first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed.
Her soldier closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears;
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys;
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,

Talk of thy doom without a sigh ; For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's; One of the few, the immortal names, That were not born to die!

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

This singular and unfortunately degraded man of genius-the Richard Savage of American literature was born at Boston, January 19, 1809. He was left destitute when a child by the death of his parents (strolling players), but was adopted and liberally educated by a benevolent Virginian planter, Mr Allan. All attempts to settle him respectably in life failed. He was reckless, debauched, and unmanageable. He was expelled from college and from a military academy in which he was placed by Mr Allan; he enlisted in the army, but soon deserted; and after various scenes of wretchedness, he became a contributor to, and occasional editor of, several American periodicals. His prose tales attracted notice from their ingenuity and powerful, though morbid and gloomy painting; and his poem of The Raven, coloured by the same diseased imagination, but with bright gleams of fancy, was hailed as the most original and striking poem that America had ever produced. Poe died in a hospital at Baltimore, the victim of intemperance, October 7, 1849. A complete edition of the works of Poe, with Memoir by John H. Ingram, was published in 1875, in four volumes-three of them prose, and one poetry. The editor clears the memory of the unfortunate poet from certain charges brought against him by Griswold, the American editor. Some of the criticisms by Poe collected in this edition of his works are marked by a fine critical taste and acuteness.

Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's
Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the Raven: 'Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning-little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber-door

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber-door, With such name as 'Nevermore.'

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered

Till I scarcely more than muttered: Other friends have flown before

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'

Then the bird said: 'Never more.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 'Doubtless,' said I, 'what it utters is its only stock and

store,

Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 'Lenore!'

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, Lenore!'

Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.

'Surely,' said I-'surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore

Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.

'Tis the wind, and nothing more.' Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of

yore.

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber-door

Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamberdoor

Perched and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it

wore,

'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, 'art sure no craven,

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;

Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of

yore

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking 'Never more.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core ;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,

But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamp-light gloating o'er,

She shall press, ah, never more!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from

an unseen censer

Swung by seraphim, whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.

'Wretch!' I cried, 'thy god hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of

Lenore!

Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost
Lenore!'
Quoth the Raven: 'Never more!'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!

Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

The father of the present generation of American poets, and one of the most original of the brotherhood, is WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, born at Cummington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794. With a precocity

rivalling that of Cowley or Chatterton, Bryant at the age of thirteen wrote a satirical poem on the Jeffersonian party, which was published in 1808 under the title of The Embargo. A few lines from this piece will shew how well the boy-poet had mastered the art of versification :

E'en while I sing, see Faction urge her claim,
Mislead with falsehood and with zeal inflame;
Lift her black banner, spread her empire wide,
And stalk triumphant with a Fury's stride!
She blows her brazen trump, and at the sound
A motley throng, obedient, flock around;
A mist of changing hue around she flings,
And Darkness perches on her dragon wings!
Oh, might some patriot rise, the gloom dispel,
Chase Error's mist, and break her magic spell!
But vain the wish-for, hark, the murmuring meed
Of hoarse applause from yonder shed proceed!
Enter and view the thronging concourse there,
Intent with gaping mouth and stupid stare;
While in their midst their supple leader stands,
Harangues aloud and flourishes his hands,
To adulation tones his servile throat,

And sues successful for each blockhead's vote.

From this perilous course of political versifying, the young author was removed by being placed at Williams College. He was admitted to the bar, and practised for several years with fair success; but in 1825 he removed to New York, and entered upon that literary life which he has ever since followed. In 1826 Mr Bryant became editor of the New York Evening Post, and his connection with that journal still subsists. His poetical works consist of Thanatopsis-an exquisite solemn strain of blank verse, first published in 1816; The Ages, a survey of the experience of mankind, 1821; and various pieces scattered through periodical works. Mr Washington Irving, struck with the beauty of Bryant's poetry, had it collected and published in London in 1832. The British public, he said, had expressed its delight at the graphic descriptions of American scenery and wild woodland characters contained in the works of Cooper. 'The same keen eye and just feeling for nature,' he added, 'the same indigenous style of thinking and local peculiarity of imagery, which give such novelty and interest to the pages of that gifted condensed into a narrower compass, and sublimwriter, will be found to characterise this volume, ated into poetry. From this opinion Professor

Wilson-who reviewed the volume in Blackwood's Magazine-dissented, believing that Cooper's pictures are infinitely richer in local peculiarity of imagery and thought. 'The chief charm of Bryant's genius,' he considered, 'consists in a tender pensiveness, a moral melancholy, breathing over all his contemplations, dreams, and reveries, even such as in the main are glad, and giving assurance of a pure spirit, benevolent to all living creatures, and habitually pious in the felt omnipresence of the Creator. His poetry overflows with natural religion-with what Wordsworth calls the religion of the woods.' This is strictly applicable to the Thanatopsis and Forest Hymn; but Washington Irving is so far right that Bryant's grand merit is his nationality and his power of painting the American landscape, espeHis diction is pure and lucid, with scarcely a flaw, cially in its wild, solitary, and magnificent forms. and he is a master of blank verse. Mr Bryant has translated the Iliad and Odyssey, 4 vols. (Boston, 1870-1872).

From Thanatopsis.

Not to thy eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good-
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past-
All in one mighty sepulchre! The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun-the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between-
The venerable woods, rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round
all,

Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste-
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings; yet, the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest. And what if thou shalt fall
Unheeded by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure! All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of Care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men-

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-h
-headed man-
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Once hallowed by the Almighty's breath.
The soul hath quickened every part-
That remnant of a martial brow,
Those ribs that held the mighty heart,
That strong arm-strong no longer now.
Spare them, each mouldering relic spare,
Of God's own image; let them rest,
Till not a trace shall speak of where
The awful likeness was impressed.
For he was fresher from the Hand
That formed of earth the human face,
And to the elements did stand

In nearer kindred than our race.
In many a flood to madness tossed,
In many a storm has been his path;
He hid him not from heat or frost,
But met them, and defied their wrath.

Then they were kind-the forests here,
Rivers, and stiller waters, paid

A tribute to the net and spear

Of the red ruler of the shade.

Fruits on the woodland branches lay,
Roots in the shaded soil below,
The stars looked forth to teach his way,
The still earth warned him of the foe.

But they are gone,

A noble race!
With their old forests wide and deep,
And we have built our homes upon
Fields where their generations sleep.
Their fountains slake our thirst at noon,
Upon their fields our harvest waves,
Our lovers woo beneath their moon-

Ah, let us spare at least their graves!

An Indian at the Burying-place of his Fathers.
It is the spot I came to seek-

My fathers' ancient burial-place,
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak,
Withdrew our wasted race.

It is the spot-I know it well-
Of which our old traditions tell.

For here the upland bank sends out
A ridge toward the river-side;

I know the shaggy hills about,

The meadows smooth and wide; The plains that, toward the eastern sky, Fenced east and west by mountains lie.

A white man, gazing on the scene,

Would say a lovely spot was here,
And praise the lawns, so fresh and green,
Between the hills so sheer.

I like it not-I would the plain
Lay in its tall old groves again.

The sheep are on the slopes around,
The cattle in the meadows feed,
And labourers turn the crumbling ground,
Or drop the yellow seed,

And prancing steeds, in trappings gay,
Whirl the bright chariot o'er the way.

Methinks it were a nobler sight

To see these vales in woods arrayed, Their summits in the golden light,

Their trunks in grateful shade;
And herds of deer, that bounding go
O'er rills and prostrate trees below.

And then to mark the lord of all,
The forest hero, trained to wars,
Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall,
And seamed with glorious scars,
Walk forth, amid his train, to dare
The wolf, and grapple with the bear.

This bank, in which the dead were laid,
Was sacred when its soil was ours;
Hither the artless Indian maid

Brought wreaths of beads and flowers,
And the gray chief and gifted seer
Worshipped the God of thunders here.

But now the wheat is green and high
On clods that hid the warrior's breast,
And scattered in the furrows lie

The weapons of his rest;
And there, in the loose sand, is thrown
Of his large arm the mouldering bone.

Ah, little thought the strong and brave,

Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth, Or the young wife that weeping gave Her first-born to the earth, That the pale race, who waste us now, Among their bones should guide the plough!

They waste us-ay, like April snow

In the warm noon, we shrink away; And fast they follow, as we go Toward the setting day