462 JACOB'S WELL.* HERE, after JACOB parted from his brother, And talk'd with JESUS, wondering and afraid. And JACOB's race grew strong for many an hour, Has crumbled like these shafts and stones away; But still the waters, fed by dew and shower, Come up, as ever, to the light of day, And still the maid bends downward with her urn, 'Well pleased to see its glass her lovely face return. And those few words of truth, first utter'd here, Have sunk into the human soul and heart; A spiritual faith dawns bright and clear, Dark creeds and ancient mysteries depart; The hour for Gon's true worshippers draws near; Then mourn not o'er the wrecks of earthly art: Kingdoms may fall, and human works decay, Nature moves on unchanged-Truths never pass away. THE VIOLET.t WHEN April's warmth unlocks the clod, Some plants, in gardens only found, Some scentless flowers stand straight and high, Do more than I profess. Sweet flower, be thou a type to me And unpretending worth. TO A BUNCH OF FLOWERS. LITTLE firstlings of the year! For lovely woman you were meant Richer ornaments are ours, We will dress our homes with flowers, Yet no terror need we feel Lest the thief break through to steal. Ye are playthings for the child, Precious things, dear flowers, you say, Telling that the Being good These mute messages so sweet: That beauty may be rain'd from heaven, With freshest fragrance sunrise greeting: Therefore are ye, flowers, so fleeting. GEORGE W. CUTTER. [Born, 18-] MR. CUTTER published at Cincinnati, in 1848, a volume entitled "Buena Vista, and other Poems," in the preface of which he says to the "gentle reader," "I desire that you will not for a moment suppose me insensible to their many and great imperfections, or deem me so vain as to expect that you will be startled by any sudden display of genius, or charmed by any imposing array of erudition. They were written, for the most part, amid the turmoil and excitement incident to the discharge of the duties of an arduous profession, in hours that were clouded by no ordinary toils, with no other object or end in view but to lighten the burden of existence, to dissipate the gloom of the moment." In the previous year, Mr. CUTTER had joined the army for the invasion of Mexico, as a captain of volunteers, and he participated in the victory of Buena Vista, and wrote upon the field his poem descriptive of that battle. The finest of his compo sitions is "The Song of Steam," which is worthy of the praise it has received, of being one of the best lyrics of the century. "The Song of Lightning," written more recently, is perhaps next to it in merit ~ THE SONG OF STEAM. HARNESS me down with your iron bands; Or waiting the wayward breeze; When I measured the panting courser's speed, The flight of the courier-dove, As they bore the law a king decreed, Or the lines of impatient love I could not but think how the world would feel, As these were outstripp'd afar, When I should be bound to the rushing keel, Or chain'd to the flying car! Ha, ha, ha! they found me at last; They invited me forth at length, And I rushed to my throne with a thunder-blast, The mountains steep decline; The rivers the sun hath earliest blest, Or those where his beams decline; The ocean pales where'er I sweep, I carry the wea'th and the lord of earth, In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine Where the rocks never saw the sun's decline, I bring earth's glittering jewels up I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, I hammer the ore and turn the wheel I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint-- And all my doings I put into print I've no muscles to weary, no breast to decay, For I scorn the strength of your puny hands, THE SONG OF LIGHTNING. AWAY, away through the sightless air- Let it reach the world around, And the journey ye make in a hundred years I'll clear at a single bound! Though I cannot toil like the groaning slave Ye have fetter'd with iron skill, To ferry you over the boundless wave, Or grind in the noisy mill; Let him sing his giant strength and speed: On the horizon far below, And deck the skies where storms expire The deepest recesses of earth are mine- My being is like a lovely thought That dwells in a sinless breast; A tone of music that ne'er was caught- I burn in the bright and burnish'd halls, O'er the scenes of the dying day. With a glance I cleave the sky in twain, When fall the boding drops of rain Through the darkly-curtain'd air; From the Alps' or the highest Andes' crag, Gleam o'er the world below; The earthquake heralds my coming power, Ye tremble when my legions come- Ye quail on the land or upon the seas, At last the hour of light is here, Nor the bigots crush with craven fear And soon the sun of better days Shall rise upon the world. But away, away, through the sightless ai Ay, rear it upon its milion piers- ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WORTH. Now let the solemn minute gun Arouse the morning ray. And only with the setting sun In echoes die away...... The muffled drum, the wailing fife, Ah! let them murmur low, O'er him who was their breath of life, At Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, Around him fell the crimson rain, When charging o'er the cannon's blaze Upon the heights of Monterey Again his flag unroll'd, And when the grape-shot rent away His plumed cap above his head He waved upon the air, And cheer'd the gallant troops he led But ab the dreadful seal is broke- ROBERT T. CONRAD. [Born 1810. Died 1858.] to the bench. He was the youngest man, with, perhaps, the exception of Judge WILSON, ever dignified with the ermine in Pennsylvania. In March, 1838, he was elected to a court of higher an executive of conflicting politics, and against the and more extended jurisdiction, and in 1840, by protests of the administration party, on the unanimous recommendation of the bar was appointed came his duty to try many of the most important to a still more elevated judicial position. It being from those mercantile convulsions which a few cases ever adjudicated in the commonwealth, arisyears ago crushed the most powerful corporations and threw their officers and dependants before the bar of justice. A change occurred in the judicial clining a place in the newly constituted court, he system of which he had been a minister, and deresumed the place of a counsellor and advocate. ROBERT T. CONRAD was born in Philadelphia on the tenth of June, 1810. His first American ancestor was DENNIS CONRAD, an enlightened German pastor, who withdrew his flock from the religious intolerance of the father-land and settled with them in the neighborhood of Philadelphia during the residence of WILLIAM PENN in the colony. The family remained in the vicinity, and has furnished a succession of good citizens. The grandfather of our author, Mr. MICHAEL CONRAD, an eminent teacher of mathematics, discharged his class, on the breaking out of the revolution, and with his musket joined the army of WASHINGTON. His father, JOHN CONRAD, was from 1798 for many, years the most extensive publisher and bookseller in this country, his main establishment being in Philadelphia, with branches in the principal cities of the South and West. He represented the city in the legislature, filled other offices of trust and honor here, and for several years before his death was mayor of the Northern Liberties, next to the city proper the most important of those municipalities which now constitute the consolidated town. He possessed a vigorous and finely culti-panies, and on the union of the various municipavated understanding, gentle affections, and in all respects a perfect integrity of character. Mr. CONRAD's poems are in his best sonnet dedicated to his father. His maternal grandfather, JOHN WILKES KITTERA, was a learned lawyer, long at the head of the bar of Lancaster, which county he represented in Congress, and an intimate friend of the elder President ADAMS, who appointed him the federal attorney-general for the state. Mr. CONRAD studied law with his uncle, Mr. THOMAS KITTERA, a distinguished jurist who represented Philadelphia several years in the national legislature, and was admitted to practice in 1830. While a student he wrote his first tragedy, "Conrad of Naples," which was successfully produced in the principal theatres of the country, and has been regarded by his friends as the best of his poems. He withdrew it from the stage, and with characteristic carelessness as to his literary productions, has suffered it to be lost. time of his early admission to the bar, being marAbout the ried, he connected himself with the press, and after having shared in the editorial duties of several journals, commenced in 1832 the publication of the Daily Intelligencer," some years afterwards united with the ancient "Philadelphia Gazette," in the management of which he was associated with CONDY RAGUET, the able economist, subsequently well known as our chivalric minister, during a stormy crisis, at Rio Janeiro. The arduous labors of the editor's room enfeebled his health, and in 1834 he resumed the practice of his profession, and in the following year was called 30 dertake the leading articles of the "North AmeriHis interest in public affairs soon led him to uncan," and the editorial charge of " Graham's Magazine." More recently he has been president of one of the more important western railroad com lities of Philadelphia into one great city, was elect ed by an extraordinary majority its first chief magistrate. To the duties of this office, involving the establishment of a new and complicated system of administration, he has since devoted himself. 66 the most part been but relaxations from more arduThe literary labors of Judge CONRAD have for ous and less congenial pursuits; yet in a career probably written as much for the press as any singularly various, and always laborious, he has man so young. Most of his productions, in prose or verse, have been occasional, and have not dibe the paramount obligations of practical life. His verted him from what he may have conceived to ing a period in which he was not absent for a day Aylmere" was written in intervals of leisure durfrom the bench. It was intended for Mr. FORREST, and has proved the most successful American drama yet written. After deriving a large amount of money from its popularity on the American fortune in the theatres of Great Britain and Irestage, Mr. FORREST presented it with equal good every night for an entire season in London. At land. Mr. DAVENPORT also played in it nearly the request of Mr. FORREST the author wrote another tragedy for him; it is entitled "The Heretic," and is founded on the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but though accepted by the actor, and paid duced on the stage. for with his usual liberality, it has not been pro In 1852 Judge CONRAD published in one volPoems," and he has prepared for the press a work ume "Aylmere or the Bondman of Kent, and other under the title of "Bible Breathings," some portions of which have appeared in the periodicals. "Aylmere" is his principal production, and its merits as a poem are not less remarkable than those it possesses as an acting play. The hero, known in history as JACK CADE, AYLMERE, MENDALL, or MORTIMER, leader of the English pea santry in the insurrection of 1450, is a noble subject for a republican dramatist, and Judge CoxRAD has presented him in the splendid colors of a patriot, sharing the extremest sufferings of the oppressed masses, knowing their rights, and braving all dangers for their vindication. The influence of institutions upon literature is strikingly illustrated in the different treatment which “ Mr. JOHN AYLMERE, physician," as he is styled in contemporary records - — a man of talents and discretion, according to the best authorities-receives from SHAKSPEARE, who pleases a court by contemptuous portrayal of his own peer in social elevation, and from Judge CONRAD, who, in the audience of the people," delineates a man of the people as possessed of that respectability which ON A BLIND BOY, BOLICITING CHARITY BY PLAYING ON HIS FLUTE. "Had not God, for some wise purpose, steeled The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him.” Tis vain! They heed thee not! Thy flute's meek tone justifies his eminence. The vehement, daring, and aspiring character of AYLMERE, softened and harmonized by a fine enthusiasm, is happily contrasted with the gentle nature of his wife, which is delineated with much delicacy, and presents frequent occasions for the author to show that conspicuous as are his powers as a rhetorician, displayed appropriately in the passionate declamation of the master in the play's movement, he is not less at home in passages of repose and tender grace. The other principal poems of Judge CONRAD, are "The Sons of the Wilderness," and a series of " Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer," marked alike by earnestness, vigor, and pathos; and in his volume are a considerable number of shorter pieces, of which some of the most characteristic are here copied. The finest examples of his imagination, passion, and skill in the details of art, are undoubtedly to be found in his dramatic poems, but from these it is extremely difficult to make satisfactory extracts, so dependent for its effect is every sentence upon the lines to which it is in relation, or the character or situation of the person speaking. THE STRICKEN.* HEAVY! heavy! Oh, my heart Seems a cavern deep and drear, From whose dark recesses start, Flutteringly, like birds of night, Throes of passion, thoughts of fear, Screaming in their flight; Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep, Thrills thine own breast alone. As streams that Spreading a horror dim--a woe that cannot weep! glide Over the desert rock, whose sterile frown Melts not beneath the soft and crystal tide, So passes thy sweet strain o'er hearts of stone. Weary! weary! What is life But a spectre-crowded tomb? Startled with unearthly strife— Spirits fierce in conflict met, In the lightning and the gloom, The agony and sweat; Passions wild and powers insane, Away! Those tears unmarked, fall from thy And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Pro sightless eye! Ay, get thee gone, benighted one! Away! This is no place for thee. The buzzing mart Of selfish trade, the glad and garish day, Are not for strains like thine. There is no heart To echo to their soft appeal:-depart! Go seek the noiseless glen, where shadows reign, Spreading a kindred gloom; and there, apart methean pain! Gloomy-gloomy is the day; From the cold world, breathe out thy pensive strain; At that deep earthquake voice--the earthquake Better to trees and rocks, than heartless man, complain! I pity thee! thy life a live-long night; No friend to greet thee, and no voice to cheer; not see! of the heart! Hopeless! hopeless! Every path We never more shall part! "Turn thou unto me, and have mercy npon me; for 1 am desolate and in misery."-PSALMS |