"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil- By that heaven that bends above us→ Whom the angels name Lenore- "Be that word our sign of parting, And the Night's Plutonian shore! And the raven, never flitting, Just above my chamber door; And the lamplight o'er him streaming THE BROOKLET.-WM. G. SIMMS. A little farther on, there is a brook Beside its banks, through the whole livelong day, Nor cared to know him better, I have lain ; From the thick thrush, that, gliding through the copse, That came down to the brooklet's edge to drink, And not disturbing, while surveying mine. Thou smilest-and on thy lips a straying thought POETRY AND NATURE.-RALPH WALDO EMERSON. By Latin and English poetry, we were born and bred in an oratorio of praises of nature-flowers, birds, mountains, sun, and moon; yet the naturalist of this hour finds that he knows nothing, by all their poems, of any of these fine things; that he' has conversed with the merest surface and show of them all; and of their essence, or of their history, knows nothing. Further inquiry will discover that nobody-that not these chanting poets themselves, knew anything sincere of these handsome natures they so commended; that they contented themselves with the passing chirp of a bird that they saw one or two mornings, and listlessly looked at sunsets, and repeated idly these few glimpses in their song. But, go into the forest, you shall find all new and undescribed. The screaming of the wild geese, flying by night; the thin note of the companionable titmouse, in the winter day; the fall of swarms of flies in autumn, from combats high in the air, pattering down on the leaves like rain; the angry hiss of the wood-birds; the pine throwing out its pollen for the benefit of the next century; the turpentine exuding from the tree-and, indeed, any vegetation-any animation, any and all are alike unattempted. The man who stands on the sea-shore, or who rambles in the woods, seems to be the first man that ever stood on the shore, or entered a grove, his sensations and his world are so novel and strange. Whilst I read the poets, I think that nothing new can be said about morning and evening; but when I see the daybreak, I am not reminded of these Homeric, or Shakspearian, or Miltonic, or Chaucerian pictures. No; but I feel, perhaps, the pain of an alien world—a world not yet subdued by the thought; or I am cheered by the moist, warm, glittering, budding, melodious hour, that takes down the narrow walls of my soul, and extends its life and pulsation to the very horizon. That is morning, to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body, and to become as large as nature. The noonday darkness of the American forest, the deep, echoing aboriginal woods, where the living columns of the oak and fir tower up from the ruins of the trees of the last millennium; where, from year to year, the eagle and the crow see no intruder; the pines, bearded with savage moss, yet touched with grace by the violets at their feet; the broad, cold lowland, which forms its coat of vapor with the stillness of subterranean crystallization; and where the traveler amid the repulsive plants that are native in the swamp, thinks with pleasing terror of the distant town; this beauty-haggard and desert beauty, which the sun and the moon, the snow and the rain repaint and vary, has never been recorded by art, yet is not indifferent to any passenger. All men are poets at heart. They serve nature for bread, but her loveliness overcomes them sometimes. What mean these journeys to Niagara; these pilgrims to the White Hills? Men believe in the adaptations of utility, always. In the mountains, they may believe in the adaptations of the eye. Undoubtedly, the changes of geology have a relation to the prosperous sprouting of the corn and peas in my kitchen garden; but not less is there a relation of beauty between my soul and the dim crags of Agiocochook up there in the clouds. Every man, when this is told, hearkens with joy, and yet his own conversation with nature is still unsung. THE WIDOW OF NAIN.-N. P. WILLIS. The Roman sentinel stood helm'd and tall Of some poor mendicant, he raised his head And slumberously dozed on. 'Twas now high noon. The dull, low murmur of a funeral Went through the city-the sad sound of feet Shook off his slumber, and gazed earnestly And by the crowd that in the burning sun, The only tie she had in the wide world, And he was dead. They could not comfort her. Jesus drew near to Nain as from the gate |