With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee.

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound,
The links are shivered, and the prison walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

MARIA BROOKS. 1795-1845. (Manual, p. 523.)

THE bard has sung, God never formed a soul
Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete !

But thousand evil things there are that hate

To look on happiness: these hurt, impede,

And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine, and pant, and bleed.

And as the dove to far Palmyra flying,

From where her native founts of Antioch beam,

Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,

Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream;

So, many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring,

Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed,

Suffers, recoils, then thirsty and despairing

Of what it would, descends, and sips the nearest draught.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

1795-1820. (Manual, p. 517.)

273. From "The Culprit Fay."

THE moth-fly, as he shot in air,

Crept under the leaf, and hid her there ;

The katy-did forgot its lay,

The prowling gnat fled fast away,

The fell mosquito checked his drone
And folded his wings till the Fay was gone,
And the wily beetle dropped his head,

And fell on the ground as if he were dead;

They crouched them close in the darksome shade,
They quaked all o'er with awe and fear,

For they had felt the blue-bent blade,

And writhed at the prick of the elfin spear;
Many a time on a summer's night,

When the sky was clear, and the moon was bright,
They had been roused from the haunted ground,
By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;
They had heard the tiny bugle-horn,

They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string,
When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,
And the nettle shaft through air was borne,
Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing.
And now they deemed the courier-ouphe,

Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground;
And they watched till they saw him mount the roof
That canopies the world around;

Then glad they left their covert lair,

And freaked about in the midnight air.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 1795-1869. (Manual, p. 515.)

274. From "Marco Bozzaris."

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 -
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.

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

He woke to hear his sentries shriek,

a king;

"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"

HER father sent to Albany a prayer

For office, told how fortune had abused him, And modestly requested to be mayor

The council very civilly refused him;

Because, however much they might desire it,
The "public good," it seems, did not require it.

Some evenings since, he took a lonely stroll
Along Broadway, scene of past joys and evils;
He felt that withering bitterness of soul,

Quaintly denominated the "blue devils ; And thought of Bonaparte and Belisarius, Pompey, and Colonel Burr, and Caius Marius.

And envying the loud playfulness and mirth

Of those who passed him, gay in youth and hope,

He took at Jupiter a shilling's worth

Of gazing, through the showman's telescope;
Sounds as of far-off bells came on his ears,
He fancied 'twas the music of the spheres.

He was mistaken, it was no such thing,

'Twas Yankee Doodle, played by Scudder's band; He muttered, as he lingered listening,

Something of freedom and our happy land ; Then sketched, as to his home he hurried fast,

This sentimental song—his saddest and his last.

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD. 1796-1828. (Manual, p. 523.)

276. From Lines "To the Connecticut River."

FROM that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain,
That links the mountain to the mighty main,
Fresh from the rock and swelling by the tree,
Rushing to meet, and dare, and breast the sea-
Fair, noble, glorious river! in thy wave
The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave;
The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar,
Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore:
The promontories love thee- and for this
Turn their rough cheeks, and stay thee for thy kiss.

What Art can execute, or Taste devise,
Decks thy fair course and gladdens in thine eyes -
As broader sweep the bendings of thy stream,
To meet the southern sun's more constant beam.
Here cities rise, and sea-washed commerce hails
Thy shores and winds with all her flapping sails,
From Tropic isles, or from the torrid main -
Where grows the grape, or sprouts the sugar-cane-
Or from the haunts where the striped haddock play,
By each cold northern bank and frozen bay.
Here, safe returned from every stormy sea,
Waves the striped flag, the mantle of the free-
That star-lit flag, by all the breezes curled

Of yon vast deep whose waters grasp the world.

ROBERT C. SANDS. 1799-1832. (Manual, p. 504.) 277. From "Weehawken."

EVE o'er our path is stealing fast;
Yon quivering splendors are the last
The sun will fling, to tremble o'er

The waves that kiss the opposing shore;
His latest glories fringe the height
Behind us, with their golden light.

O'er yon rough heights and moss-clad sod
Oft hath the stalwart warrior trod;
Or peered with hunter's gaze, to mark

GEORGE W. DOANE. 1799-1859. (Manual, p. 523.)

278. From "Evening."

SOFTLY now the light of day
Fades upon my sight away;

Free from care, from labor free,

Lord, I would commune with thee.

Thou, whose all-pervading eye
Nought escapes, without, within,
Pardon each infirmity,

Open fault, and secret sin.

Soon for me the light of day

Shall forever pass away;

Then, from sin and sorrow free,

Take me, Lord, to dwell with thee!

Thou who sinless, yet hast known
All of man's infirmity ;

Then, from thy eternal throne,

Jesus, look with pitying eye.

1 Alexander Hamilton, who fell at Weehawken in a duel with Aaron Burr, in 1804.