unfrequently happens, that the least elaborated performances of a man of real talent, outlive those which are constructed with more serious effort, and finished with more anxious care. We are by no means certain, that this may not be the fact in respect to the poem under consideration. In 1827, a small volume, entitled "Alnwick Castle and other poems," appeared in New York, and is Mr Halleck's last publication. It seems to comprise such of the author's works as he is willing to have preserved, and we suspect was intended rather to make his other productions forgotten, than to perpetuate those it embraced. We do not believe, however little the author may wish to hear about them, that he has succeeded in casting either the "Croakers or “Fanny,” into oblivion; and "Alnwick Castle, and other poems," would have lived, if the author had not collected and published them in a volume. If a man wishes to be quiet and unnoticed, he should not write like this author. We cannot better close our observations than by an extract from an article which appeared some time since in New York, from the pen, we believe, of Mr Leggett. “As a poet, Mr Halleck ranks very high. He has not written much, but what he has written is almost faultless. If tenderness and wamth of feeling, playfulness of fancy, imagery not abundant, but appropriate, and great copiousness, and invariable euphony of language, constitute a claim to excellence, his effusions are excellent. There is one censure*-we have already named it—in which all concur; and we most cordially hope that Mr Halleck will speedily amend the fault that occasions it. But whether he write more or not, as the poet is to be estimated by the quality, and not the quantity of his works, he is entitled to a place which but few can hope to attain. "There have been loftier themes than his, And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, And lays lit up with poesy's Purer and holier fires: *That he writes too little! Yet read the names that know not death; ALNWICK CASTLE. HOME of the Percys' high-born race, A gentle hill its side inclines, Lovely in England's fadeless green, As silently and sweetly still, As when, at evening, on that hill, While summer's wind blew soft and low, Seated by gallant Hotspur's side, His Katharine was a happy bride, A thousand years ago. Gaze on the Abbey's ruin'd pile : One solitary turret gray Still tells, in melancholy glory, The legend of the Cheviot day, The Percys' proudest border story. That day its roof was triumph's arch; Wild roses by the Abbey towers VOL. III. 15 Are gay in their young bud and bloom : They were born of a race of funeral flowers That garlanded, in long-gone hours, A Templar's knightly tomb. He died, the sword in his mailed hand, Where the Cross was damp'd with his dying breath; When blood ran free as festal wine, And the sainted air of Palestine Was thick with the darts of death. Wise with the lore of centuries, What tales, if there be "tongues in trees," Since on their boughs the startled bird I wandered through the lofty halls From him who once his standard set Glitter the Sultan's crescent moons; * * * * That last half stanza-it has dashed From my warm lip the sparkling cup; And beasts and borderers throng the way; Men in the coal and cattle line, From Teviot's bard and hero land, These are not the romantic times So beautiful in Spenser's rhymes, For Greece and fame, for faith and heaven, In the armed pomp of feudal state? Of Hotspur and his "gentle Kate," A chambermaid, whose lip and eye, And one, half groom half Seneschal, Who bow'd me through court, bower, and hall, From donjon keep to turret wall, For ten-and-sixpence sterling. MARCO BOZZARIS. AT midnight, in his guarded tent, In dreams, through camp and court, he bore In dreams his song of triumph heard; At midnight, in the forest shades, There had the Persian's thousands stood, And now there breathed that haunted air An hour pass'd on-The Turk awoke; "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!" "Strike-till the last arm'd foe expires; They fought-like brave men, long and well; Bleeding at every vein. His few surviving comrades saw His smile when rang their proud hurrah, And the red field was won; |