And well the poet at her shrine, May bend, and worship while he woos; The inspiration of his line, His loved one, and his muse. If to his song the echo rings Of fame, 'tis woman's voice he hears; Smiles, tears,-whose blest and blessing power THE MINSTREL GIRL.-WHITTIER She leaned against her favorite tree, Like a broad lustre to send back As quickened by some spiritual breath, And there she leaned,—that minstrel girl, On parted lips, and glowing cheek; Her dark and lifted eye had caught For genius, as a living coal, Had touched her heart with living flame, The fire of inspiration came. Each holy charm to nature given,— Were prompters to her dreams of heaven; To form the gorgeous canopy Of monarchs to their slumbers gone. AMERICAN HISTORY.-VERPLANCK. The study of the history of most other nations, fills the mind with sentiments not unlike those which the American traveler feels on entering the venerable and lofty cathedral of some proud old city of Europe. Its solemn grandeur, its vastness, its obscurity, strikes awe to his heart. From the richly painted windows, filled with sacred emblems and strange antique forms, a dim religious light falls around. A thousand recollections of romance and poetry, and legendary story, come thronging in upon him. He is surrounded by the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labors of ancient art and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry. What names does he read upon them? Those of princes and nobles who are now remembered only for their vices; and of sovereigns, at whose death no tears were shed, and whose memories live not an hour in the affections of their people. There, too, he sees other names long familiar to him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest, the blood-stained soldier of fortune-the orator, who was ever the ready apologist of tyranny-great scholars, who were the pensioned flatterers of power and poets, who profaned the high gift of genius, to pamper the vices of a corrupted court. Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical temple of fame, reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and decorated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively dedicated to the memory of the truly great. Or rather, like the Pantheon of Rome, it stands in calm and severe beauty amid the ruins of ancient magnificence and the " toys of modern state." Within, no idle ornament encumbers its bold simplicity. The pure light of heaven enters from above and sheds an equal and serene radiance around. As the eye wanders about its extent, it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and good men who have greatly bled or toiled for their country, or it rests on votive tablets inscribed with the names of the best benefactors of mankind. "Patriots are here, in Freedom's battles slain, Priests, whose long lives were closed without a stain, And lovers of our race, whose labors gave NOURMAHAL.-MOORE. There's a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright, And when angry, for e'en in the tranquillest climes Light breezes will ruffle the flowers sometimesThe short, passing anger but seemed to awaken New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when shaken. If tenderness touched her, the dark of her eye At once took a darker, a heavenly dye, From the depth of whose shadow, like holy revealings Yet playful as Peris just loosed from their cages. When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun. PLEASURES.-BURNS. But pleasures are like poppies spread, That flit ere you can point their place; GENIUS-WILLIS Oh how poor Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies, MARIA.-COLERIDGE. Her early youth passed away in sorrow: she grew up in tears, a stranger to the amusements of youth and its more delightful schemes and imaginations. She was not however unhappy; she attributed, indeed, no merit to herself for her virtues, but for that reason were they the more her reward. The peace which passeth all understanding, disclosed itself in all her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance, like a steady unshadowed moonlight; and her voice, which was naturally at once sweet and subtle, came from her, like the fine flute-tones of a masterly performer, which, still floating at some uncertain distance, seem to be created by the player rather than to proceed from the instrument. If you had listened to it in one of those brief sabbaths of the soul, when the activity and discursiveness of the thoughts are suspended, and the mind quietly eddies round, instead of flowing onward-(as at late evening in the spring I have seen a bat wheel in silent circles round and round a fruit-tree in full blossom, in the midst of which, as within a close tent of the purest white, an unseen nightingale was piping its sweetest notes)-in such a mood you might have half-fancied, half-felt, that her voice had a separate being of its own-that it was a living something, whose mode of existence was for the ear only: so deep was her resignation, so entirely had it become the unconscious habit of her nature, and in all she did or said, so perfectly were both her movements and her utterance without effort and without the appearance of effort. "MOTHER WHAT IS DEATH?"-MRS GILMAN. |