INDIAN SUMMER, 1828.

LIGHT as love's smiles, the silvery mist at morn Floats in loose flakes along the limpid river; The blue bird's notes upon the soft breeze borne, As high in air he carols, faintly quiver; The weeping birch, like banners idly waving, Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving; Beaded with dew, the witch-elm's tassels shiver; The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping, And from the springy spray the squirrel's gayly leaping.

I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery ere The blasts of winter chase the varied dyes That richly deck the slow-declining year; I love the splendour of thy sunset skies, The gorgeous hues that tinge each failing leaf, Lovely as beauty's cheek, as woman's love too, I love the note of each wild bird that flies, [brief; As on the wind he pours his parting lay, And wings his loitering flight to summer climes away.

O, Nature! still I fondly turn to thee, With feelings fresh as e'er my childhood's were;Though wild and passion-toss'd my youth may be, Toward thee I still the same devotion bear; To thee to thee-though health and hope no more Life's wasted verdure may to me restoreI still can, child-like, come as when in prayer I bow'd my head upon a mother's knee, And Jeem'd the world, like her, all truth and purity.

TOWN REPININGS.

RIVER! O, river! thou rovest free,

From the mountain height to the fresh blue sea
Free thyself, but with silver chain,
Linking each charm of land and main,
From the splinter'd crag thou leap'st below,
Through leafy glades at will to flow-
Lingering now, by the steep's moss'd edge-
Loitering now mid the dallying sedge:
And pausing ever, to call thy waves
From grassy meadows and fern-clad caves-
And then, with a prouder tide to break
From wooded valley, to breezy lake:
Yet all of these scenes, though fair they be,
River! O, river! are bann'd to me.

River! O, river! upon thy tide
Full many a freighted bark doth glide;
Would that thou thus couldst bear away
The thoughts that burthen my weary day!
Or that I, from all save them made free,
Though lader. sti'', might rove with thee!
True that thy waves brief lifetime find,
And live at the will of the wanton wind-
True that thou seekest the ocean's flow,
To be lost therein for evermoe.

Yet the slave who worships at Glory's shrine,
But toils for a bubble as frail as thine:
But loses his freedom here, to be
Forgotten as soon as in death set free.

THE WESTERN HUNTER TO HIS

MISTRESS.

WEND, love, with me, to the deep woods, wend, Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, Where no watching eye shall over us bend,

Save the blossoms that into thy bower peep. Thou shalt gather from buds of the oriole's hue, Whose flaming wings round our pathway flit, From the saffron orchis and lupin blue,

And those like the foam on my courser's bit. One steed and one saddle us both shall bear, One hand of each on the bridle meet; And beneath the wrist that entwines me there, An answering pulse from my heart shall beat. I will sing thee many a joyous lay,

As we chase the deer by the blue lake-side, While the winds that over the prairie play

Shall fan the cheek of my woodland bride. Our home shall be by the cool, bright streams, Where the beaver chooses her safe retreat, And our hearth shall smile like the sun's warm gleams [meet. Through the branches around our lodge that Then wend with me, to the deep woods wend, Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, Where no watching eye shall over us bend, Save the blossoms that into thy bower peep.

THY NAME.

IT comes to me when healths go round,

And o'er the wine their garlands wreathing
The flowers of wit, with music wound,

Are freshly from the goblet breathing;
From sparkling song and sally gay
It comes to steal my heart away,
And fill my soul, mid festal glee,
With sad, sweet, silent thoughts of thee.
It comes to me upon the mart,

Where care in jostling crowds is rife;
Where Avarice goads the sordid heart,

Or cold Ambition prompts the strife;
It comes to whisper, if I'm there,
"Tis but with thee each prize to share,
For Fame were not success to me,
Nor riches wealth unshared with thee.
It comes to me when smiles are bright
On gentle lips that murmur round ine,
And kindling glances flash delight

In eyes whose spell would once have bound mo
It comes--but comes to bring alone
Remembrance of some look or tone,
Dearer than aught I hear or see,
Because 't was born or breathed by thee

It comes to me where cloister'd boughs
Their shadows cast upon the sod;
A while in Nature's fane my vows

Are lifted from her shrine to God;
It comes to tell that all of worth

I dream in heaven or know on earth,
However bright or dear it be,

Is blended with my thought of thec.

THE MYRTLE AND STEEL.

ONE bumper yet, gallants, at parting,

One toast ere we arm for the fight; Fill round, each to her he loves dearest

"T is the last he may pledge her, to-night. Think of those who of old at the banquet Did their weapons in garlands conceal, The patriot heroes who hallowed

The entwining of myrtle and steel!
Then hey for the myrtle and steel,
Then ho for the myrtle and steel,
Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid,
Fill round to the myrtle and steel!

"Tis in moments like this, when each bosom
With its highest-toned feeling is warm,
Like the music that's said from the ocean
To rise ere the gathering storm,
That her image around us should hover,
Whose name, though our lips ne'er reveal,
We may breathe mid the foam of a bumper,
As we drink to the myrtle and steel.
Then hey for the myrtle and steel,
Then ho for the myrtle and steel,

Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid,
Fill round to the myrtle and steel!

Now mount, for our bugle is ringing
To marshal the host for the fray,
Where proudly our banner is flinging
Its folds o'er the battle-array;
Yet gallants-one moment-remember.

When your sabres the death-blow would deal,
That MERCY wears her shape who's cherish'd
By lads of the myrtle and steel.
Then hey for the myrtle and steel,
Then ho for the myrtle and steel,

Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid, Fill round to the myrtle and steel!

EPITAPH UPON A DOG.

An ear that caught my slightest tone,
In kindness or in anger spoken;
An eye that ever watch'd my own,

In vigils death alone has broken;
Its changeless, ceaseless, and unbought
Affection to the last revealing;
Beaming almost with human thought,
And more far more than human feeling!

Can such in endless sleep be chill'd,

And mortal pride disdain to sorrow, Because the pulse that here was still'd May wake to no immortal morrow? Can faith, devotedness, and love,

That seem to humbler creatures given To tell us what we owe above,

The types of what is due to Heaven,— Can these be with the things that were, Things cherish'd-but no more returning, And leave behind no trace of care,

No shade that speaks a moment's mourning?

Alas! my friend, of all of worth

That years have stolen or years yet leave me, I've never known so much on earth, But that the loss of thine must grieve me

ANACREONTIC.

BLAME not the bowl-the fruitful bowl, Whence wit, and mirth, and music spring, And amber drops elysian roll,

To bathe young Love's delighted wing. What like the grape OSIRIS gave

Makes rigid age so lithe of limb? Illumines memory's tearful wave,

And teaches drowning hope to swim?
Did ocean from his radiant arms

To earth another VENUS give,
He ne'er could match the mellow charms
That in the breathing beaker live.

Like burning thoughts which lovers hoard,
In characters that mock the sight,
Till some kind liquid, o'er them pour'd,

Brings all their hidden warmth to light-. Are feelings bright, which, in the cup,

Though graven deep, appear but dim, Till, fill'd with glowing BACCHUS up, They sparkle on the foaming brim. Each drop upon the first you pour

Brings some new tender thought to life, And, as you fill it more and more,

The last with fervid soul is rife.

The island fount, that kept of old

Its fabled path beneath the sea, And fresh, as first from earth it roll'd, From earth again rose joyously: Bore not beneath the bitter brine Each flower upon its limpid tide, More faithfully than in the wine

Our hearts toward each.other glide Then drain the cup, and let thy soul Learn, as the draught delicious flies, Like pearls in the Egypt.an's bowl, Truth beaming at th. bottom lies.

A HUNTER'S MATIN.

Ur, comrades, up! the morn's awake
Upon the mountain side,

The curlew's wing hath swept the Lake,
And the deer has left the tangled brake,

To drink from the limpid tide
Up, comrades, up! the mead-lark's note
And the plover's cry o'er the prairie ficat;
The squirrel, he springs from his covert now,
To prank it away on the chestnut bough,
Where the oriole's pendant nest, high up,

Is rock'd on the swaying trees,
While the humbird sips from the harebell's cup,
As it bends to the morning breeze.
Up, comrades, up! our shallops grate
Upon the pebbly strand,

And our stalwart hounds impatient wait
To spring from the huntsman's hand.

SPARKLING AND BRIGHT.

SPARKLING and bright in liquid light

Does the wine our goblets gleam in,
With hue as red as the rosy bed

Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

O' if Mirth might arrest the flight

Of Time through Life's dominions,
We here a while would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,

To drink to-night with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

But since delight can't tempt the wight,
Nor fond regret delay him,

Nor Love himself can hold the elf,
Nor sober Friendship stay him,

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

SEEK NOT TO UNDERSTAND HER.

WHY seek her heart to understand,
If but enough thou knowest
To prove that all thy love, like sand,
Upon the wind thou throwest?
The ill thou makest out at last
Doth but reflect the bitter past,
While all the good thou learnest yet,
But makes her harder to forget.

What matters all the nobleness

Which in her breast resideth,
And what the warmth and tenderness
Her mien of coldness hideth,
If but ungenerous thoughts prevail
When thou her bosom wouldst assail,
While tenderness and warmth doth ne'er,
By any chance, toward thee appear.

Sum up each token thou hast won
Of kindred feeling there-
How few for Hope, to build upon,

How many for Despair!
And if e'er word or look declareth
Love or aversion, which she beareth,
While of the first, no proof thou hast,
How many are there of the last!
Then strive no more to understand

Her heart, of whom thou knowest
Enough to prove thy love like sand
Upon the wind thou throwest:
The ill thou makest out at last
Doth but reflect the bitter past,
While all the good thou learnest yet
But makes her harder to forget.

ASK NOT WHY I SHOULD LOVE HER.

Ask me not why I should love her:
Look upon those soul-full eyes!
Look while mirth or feeling move her,

And see there how sweetly rise
Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast,
Which is of innocence the nest-
Which, though each joy were from it shred,
By truth would still be tenanted!

See, from those sweet windows peeping,
Emotions tender, bright, and pure,
And wonder not the faith I'm keeping
Every trial can endure!

Wonder not that looks so winning
Still for me new ties are spinning;
Wonder not that heart so true
Keeps mine from ever changing too.

SHE LOVES, BUT 'TIS NOT ME.

SHE loves, but 't is not me she loves:

Not me on whom she ponders, When, in some dream of tenderness,

Her truant fancy wanders. The forms that flit her visions through Are like the shapes of old, Where tales of prince and paladin

On tapestry are told.

Man may not hope her heart to win, Be his of common mould.

But I though spurs are won no more
Where herald's trump is pealing,
Nor thrones carved out for lady fair

Where steel-clad ranks are wheeling

I loose the falcon of my hopes

Upon as proud a flight

As those who hawk'd at high renown,
In song-ennobled fight.

If during, then, true love may crown,
My love she must requite.

THY SMILES.

"T is hard to share her smiles with many! And while she is so dear to me,

To fear that I, far less than any,

Call out her spirit's witchery!

To find my inmost heart when near her
Trembling at every glance and tone,
And feel the while each charm grow dearer
That will not beam for me alone.

How can she thus, sweet spendthrift, squander
The treasures one alone can prize!
How can her eyes to all thus wander,

When I but live in those sweet eyes!
Those syren tones so lightly spoken
Cause many a heart I know to thrill:
But mine, and only mine, till broken,
In every pulse must answer still.

LOVE AND POLITICS.

A BIRTH-DAY MEDITATION.

ANOTHER year! alas, how swift,

ALINDA, do these years flit by,

Like shadows thrown by clouds that drift
In flakes along a wintry sky.
Another year! another leaf

Is turn'd within life's volume brief,
And yet not one bright page appears
Of mine within that book of years.

There are some moments when I feel
As if it should not yet be so;
As if the years that from me steal

Had not a right alike to go,

And lose themselves in Time's dark sea,
Unbuoy'd up by aught from me;
Aught that the future yet might claim
To rescue from their wreck a name.

But it was love that taught me rhyme,
And it was thou that taught me love;
And if I in this idle chime

Of words a useless sluggard prove,
It was thine eyes the habit nurs'd,
And in their light I learn'd it first.
It is thine eyes which, day by day,
Consume my time and heart away.

And often bitter thoughts arise

Of what I've lost in loving thee, And in my breast my spirit dies, The gloomy cloud around to see, Of baffled hopes and ruined powers Of mind, and miserable hoursOf self-upbraiding, and despairOf heart, too strong and fierce to bear.

"Why, what a peasant slave am I,"

To bow my mind and bend my knee To woman in idolatry,

Who takes no thought of mine or me.
O, Gon! that I could breathe my life
On battle-plain in charging strife-
In one mad impulse pour my soul
Far beyond passion's base control.

Thus do my jarring thoughts revolve
Their gather'd causes of offence,
Until I in my heart resolve

To dash thine angel image thence;
When some bright look, some accent kind,
Comes freshly in my heated mind,
And scares, like newly-flushing day,
These brooding thoughts like owls away.

And then for hours and hours I muse

On things that might, yet will not be, Till, one by one, my feelings lose

Their passionate intensity, And steal away in visions soft, Which on wild wing those feelings waft Far, far beyond the drear domain Of Reason and her freezing reign.

And now again from their gay track

I call, as I despondent sit,

Once more these truant fancies back,

Which round my brain so idly flit;
And some I treasure, some I blush
To own-and these I try to crush-
And some, too wild for reason's reign,
I loose in idle rhyme again.

And even thus my moments fly,
And even thus my hours decay,
And even thus my years slip by,

My life itself is wiled away;
But distant still the mounting hope,
The burning wish with men to cope
In aught that minds of iron mould
May do or dare for fame or gold.
Another year! another year,

ALINDA, it shall not be so; Both love and lays forswear I here, As I've forsworn thee long ago. That name, which thou wouldst never share, Proudly shall Fame emblazon where On pumps and corners posters stick it. The highest on the JACKSON ticket.

WHAT IS SOLITUDE?

Not in the shadowy wood,

Not in the crag-hung glen, Not where the echoes brood

In caves untrod by men;
Not by the bleak sea-shore,

Where loitering surges break,
Not on the mountain hoar,
Not by the breezeless lake,
Not on the desert plain,

Where man hath never stood,
Whether on isle or main-
Not there is solitude!
Birds are in woodland bowers,

Voices in lonely dells,
Streams to the listening hours

Talk in earth's secret cells; Over the gray-ribb'd sand

Breathe ocean's frothing lips, Over the still lake's strand

The flower toward it dips; Pluming the mountain's crest, Life tosses in its pines; Coursing the desert's breast,

Life in the steed's mane shines. Leave-if thou wouldst be lonely

Leave Nature for the crowd; Scek there for one-one onlyWith kindred mind endow'd! There-as with Nature erst

Closely thou wouldst commune The deep soul-music, nursed In either heart, attune! Heart-wearied, thou wilt own.

Vainly that phantom woo'd, That thou at last hast known What is true solitude!

THERE are few more interesting characters in our literary annals than JAMES NACK. He is a native of New York, and when between nine and ten years of age, by a fall, while descending a flight of stairs with a little playmate in his arms, received such injury in his head as deprived him irrecoverably of the sense of hearing, and, gradually, in consequence, of the faculty of speech. He was placed in the Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, where he acquired knowledge in all departments with singular exactness and rapidity. He was subsequently for many years an assistant in the office of the Clerk of the City and County, and in 1838 was married.

In 1827 Mr. NACK published "The Legend of the Rocks, and other Poems;" in 1839, "Earl

MIGNONNE.

SHE calls me "father!" though my ear
That thrilling name shall never hear,
Yet to my heart affection brings
The sound in sweet imaginings;
I feel its gushing music roll
The stream of rapture on my soul;
And when she starts to welcome me,
And when she totters to my knee,
And when she climbs it, to embrace
My bosom for her hiding-place,
And when she nestling there reclines,
And with her arins my neck entwines,
And when her lips of roses seek
To press their sweetness on my cheek,
And when upon my careful breast
I lull her to her cherub rest,
I whisper o'er the sinless dove--
"I love thee with a father's love!"

SPRING IS COMING.

SPRING is coming! spring is coming!
Birds are chirping, insects humming,
Flowers are peeping from their sleeping,
Streams escaped from winter's keeping,
In delighted freedom rushing,
Dance along in music gushing;
Scenes of late in deadness sadden'd
Smile in animation gladden'd:
All is beauty, all is mirth,
All is glory upon earth.
Shout we then, with Nature's voice-
Welcome Spring! rejoice! rejoice!
Spring is coming! come, my brother,
Let us rove with one another,

To our well-remember'd wild-wood,
Flourishing in nature's childhood,
Where a thousand flowers are springing,
And a thousand birds are singing;
Where the golden sunbeains quiver
On the verdure-bordered river;
Let our youth of feeling out
To the youth of nature shout,
While the waves repeat our voice—
Welcome Spring! rejoice! rejoice!

MARY'S BEE.

AS MARY with her lip of roses

Is tripping o'er the flowery mead, A foolish little bee supposes

The rosy lip a rose indeed, And so, astonish'd at his bliss, He steals the honey of her kiss.

A moment there he wantons; lightly

He sports away on careless wing; But ah! why swells that wound unsightly? The rascal! he has left a sting! She runs to me with weeping eyes, Sweet images of April skies.

"Be this," said I, "to heedless misses,

A warning they should bear in mind; Too oft a lover steals their kisses,

66

Then flies, and leaves a sting behind." This may be wisdom to be sure," Said MARY, "but I want a cure." What could I do? To ease the swelling My lips with hers impassion'd meetAnd trust me, from so sweet a dwelling, I found the very poison sweet! Fond boy! unconscious of the smart, I sucked the poison to my heart!