JONATHAN LAWRENCE, 1807-1833. THIS young poet of great promise was born in New York in November, 1807, and was graduated at Columbia College in 1823. He entered the profession of the law; and the highest expectations were formed of his future eminence, when he was suddenly removed by death on the 26th of April, 1833. After his death, his brother collected, and had printed for private circulation, his various writings, consisting of prose essays and poetry, which are distinguished for great beauty and purity of thought and style. Among them is the encouraging direction, in all the trials of life, to LOOK ALOFT.1 In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart, "Look aloft," from the darkness and dust of the tomb, And oh when death comes in his terrors, to cast In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER, 1807-1834. THIS lovely poet and prose-writer, the last years of whose short life were devoted to the cause of humanity, was born at Centre, near Wilmington, Delaware, on the 24th of December, 1807. She had the misfortune to lose both her parents at an early age, when she was placed under the care of her grandmother, Elizabeth Evans, of Philadelphia, and there attended school till she was thirteen or fourteen. At the age of sixteen, she began to write for the press, and her pieces were This spirited piece was suggested to Mr. Lawrence by an anecdote related to him of a ship-boy who, growing dizzy, was about to fall from the rigging, but wai saved by the mate's characteristic exclamation, "Look aloft, you lubber!" extensively copied; but what brought her especially into notice was her poem entitled The Slave Ship, written when she was but eighteen, and which gained for her the prize offered by the publishers of "The Casket," a monthly magazine. Soon after this, she became a frequent contributor to "The Genius of Universal Emancipation," published in Baltimore, and edited by Benjamin Lundy. "It is not enough to say that her productions were chaste, eloquent, and classical. Her language was appropriate, her reasoning clear, her deductions logical, and her conclusions impressive and convincing. Her appeals were tender, persuasive, and heart-reaching; while the strength and cogency of her arguments rendered them incontrovertible. She was the first American female author that ever made the Abolition of Slavery the principal theme of her active exertions." Miss Chandler continued to reside in Philadelphia till 1830, when she removed with her aunt and brother to Tecumseh, Lenawee County, Michigan, about sixty miles southwest of Detroit. Here, at her home called "Hazlebank," on the banks of the river Raisin, which has been appropriately called "classic ground," she continued to write and labor in the cause of the oppressed, till 1834, when she was attacked by a remittent fever, which terminated in her death on the 2d of November of that year. Never did the grave close over a purer spirit, nor one more fully sensible of a strict accountability for the right employment of every talent. THE SLAVE'S APPEAL. Christian mother! when thy prayer Christian daughter, sister, wife! Will ye hear, with careless eye, Of the wild despairing cry Rising up from human hearts, As their latest bliss departs? Blest ones! whom no hand on earth Dares to wrench from home and hearth, By affection's holy spell, Oh, forget not those for whom Life is naught but changeless gloom; Hope may paint no brighter morrow. Poetical Works and Essays of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler; with a Memoir of her Life and Character, by Benjamin Lundy. This early pioneer in the cause of freedom--Benjamin Lundy-has never received the attention he deserved. THE PARTING.' It has been well and beautifully said that there is no medicine for a wounded heart like the sweet influences of Nature. The broad, still, beautiful expansion of a summer landscape, the stealing in of the sunlight by glimpses among the trees, the unexpected meeting with a favorite blossom, half hidden among the luxuriant verdure, the sudden starting of a wild bird almost from beneath your feet, the play of light and shade upon the surface of the gliding brook, and the ceaseless, glad, musical ripple of its waters, the gushing melody poured from a thousand throats, or the rapid and solitary warble, breaking out suddenly on the stillness, and withdrawn again almost as soon as heard, the soft, hymn-like murmur of the honey-bees,and, above all, the majesty of the blue, clear, bending sky!— from all these steals forth a spirit of calm enjoyment, that mingles silently with the darker thoughts of the heart, and removes their bitterness. "If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows that thou wouldst forget,- Go to the woods and hills!-no tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.' 112 Yet there are moods of the soul that even the ministering tenderness of Nature cannot brighten. There are sorrows which she cannot soothe, and, too often, alas! darker passions, which all her sweet and balmy influences cannot hush into tranquillity. When the human heart is foul with avarice and the unblest impulses of tyranny, the eloquence of her meek beauty is breathed in vain. The most sublime and lovely scenes of nature have been made the theatre of wrong and violence; and the stony heart of the oppressor, though surrounded by the broad evidences of omnipotent love, has persisted, unrelenting, in the selfishness of its own device. There was all the gloriousness of summer beauty round the little bay, in whose sleeping waters rested a small vessel, almost freighted for her departure. A few human beings, only, were to be added to her cargo, and as her spiry masts caught the first rays of the beaming sunlight, the frequent hoarse and brief command, and the ready response of the seamen, told that they were about 1 Heart-rending as this "Parting" is, the author assures us in a note that it is out a description of what, to her own knowledge, had actually occurred. "Longfellow. to weigh anchor and depart. Among those who approached the shore was a household group,-a mother and her babes, the price of whose limbs lay heaped in the coffers of one who called himself a Christian, and who were now about to be torn from the husband and the father forever. It was a Christian land; and, perchance, if the bustle of the departing vessel had not drowned its murmur, the voice of praise and prayer to the merciful and just God might have been dimly heard floating off upon the still waters. But there was no one to save those unhappy beings from the grasp of unrighteous tyranny. The husband had been upon the beach since daybreak, pacing the sands with a troubled step, or lying in moody anguish by the water's edge, covering his face from the breaking in of the glorious sunlight, and pleading at times with the omnipotent God, whom, slave as he was, he had learned to worship, for strength to subdue the passionate grief and indignation of his heart, and for humility patiently to endure his many wrongs. A little fond arm was twined about his neck, and the soft lip of a young child was breathing loving, but half-sorrowful kisses all over his burning forehead. "Father! dear father! we are going! will you not come with us? Look where my mother, and my sisters and brothers, are waiting for you." With a shuddering and convulsive groan, the unhappy man arose, and lifted the frighted child to his bosom. "Will you not go with us, father?" repeated the boy; but the slave made him no answer, except by straining him to his bosom with a short bitter laugh, and imprinting one of his sobbing kisses upon his cheek. With a convulsive effort for the mastery, he subdued the workings of his features, and, with a seemingly calm voice and countenance, approached his children. One by one he folded them in his arms, and, breathing over them a prayer and a blessing, gave them up forever. Then once more he strove to nerve his heart for its severest trial. There was one more parting, one more sad embrace to be given and returned. There stood the mother of his children, his own fond and gentle wife, who had been for so many years his heart's dearest blessing; and who, ere one short hour had passed, was to be to him as if the sea had swallowed her up in its waves, or the dark gloomy earth had hidden her beneath its bosom ! A thousand recollections and agonizing feelings came rushing at once upon his heart, and he stood gazing on her, seemingly bewildered and stupefied, motionless as a statue, and with features to which the very intensity of his passion gave the immobility of marble; till, suddenly flinging up his arms with a wild cry, he dropped at once senseless to the earth,' with the blood gushing in torrents from his mouth and nostrils. And the miserable wife, amid the shrieks of her despair, was hurried on board the vessel, and borne away from him, over the calm, sleeping, and beautiful sea, forever. MARY S. B. DANA. THIS lady is the daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Palmer, of Charleston, South Carolina. She is the author of a volume of sweet religious ahd elegiac poetry, entitled The Parted Family, and other Poems; also of the Northern Harp; the Southern Harp; Original Sacred and Moral Songs; and Temperance Lyre. From The Parted Family I select the following beautiful and instructive piece, which was written soon after she had lost her husband and her only child. PASSING UNDER THE ROD. I saw the young bride, in her beauty and pride, And the bright flush of joy mantled high on her cheek, And with woman's devotion she laid her fond heart And she anchor'd her hopes to this perishing earth, By the chain which her tenderness wove. But I saw, when those heartstrings were bleeding and torn, She had changed her white robes for the sables of grief, And her bloom for the paleness of woe! But the Healer was there, pouring balm on her heart, And he strengthen'd the chain he had broken in twain, There had whisper'd a voice-'twas the voice of her God: I saw the young mother in tenderness bend O'er the couch of her slumbering boy, And she kiss'd the soft lips as they murmur'd her name, Oh, sweet as the rosebud encircled with dew, So fresh and so bright to that mother he seem'd, 1 This reminds us of Bryant's touching poem-"The African Chief." |