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1821-341

Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,
A hate of tyrant and of knave,

A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward and of slave;

A kind, true heart, a spirit high,

That could not fear and would not bow,
Were written in his manly eye

And on his manly brow.

Praise to the bard! his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame have flown.

Praise to the man! a nation stood
Beside his coffin with wet eyes,
Her brave, her beautiful, her good,
As when a loved one dies.

And still, as on his funeral-day,

Men stand his cold earth-couch around,

With the mute homage that we pay
To consecrated ground.

And consecrated ground it is,

The last, the hallowed home of one

Who lives upon all memories,

Though with the buried gone.

Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,

Shrines to no code or creed confined-
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.

Sages, with wisdom's garland wreathed,
Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power,
And warriors with their bright swords sheathed,
The mightiest of the hour;

And lowlier names, whose humble home

Is lit by fortune's dimmer star,

Are there-o'er wave and mountain come,
From countries near and far;

Pilgrims whose wandering feet have pressed
The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand,

Or trod the piled leaves of the West,
My own green forest-land.

All ask the cottage of his birth,

Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung,

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RED JACKET.

OOPER, whose name is with his country's woven, First in her files, her PIONEER of mindA wanderer now in other climes, has proven His love for the young land he left behind;

And throned her in the senate-hall of nations, Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought; Magnificent as his own mind's creations,

And beautiful as its green world of thought:

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Thy name is princely-if no poet's magic

Could make RED JACKET grace an English rhyme, Though some one with a genius for the tragic Hath introduced it in a pantomime

Yet it is music in the language spoken

Of thine own land, and on her herald-roll; As bravely fought for, and as proud a token As Cœur de Lion's of a warrior's soul.

Thy garb-though Austria's bosom-star would frighten
That medal pale, as diamonds the dark mine,
And George the Fourth wore, at his court at Brighton,
A more becoming evening dress than thine;

Yet 'tis a brave one, scorning wind and weather
And fitted for thy couch, on field and flood,
As Rob Roy's tartan for the Highland heather,
Or forest green for England's Robin Hood.

Is strength a monarch's merit, like a whaler's?
Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong
As earth's first kings-the Argo's gallant sailors,
Heroes in history and gods in song.

Is beauty?-Thine has with thy youth departed;
But the love-legends of thy manhood's years,
And she who perished, young and broken-hearted,
Are-but I rhyme for smiles and not for tears.

Is eloquence ?-Her spell is thine that reaches
The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport;
And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches,
The secret of their mastery-they are short.

The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding,
The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, banding
The hearts of millions till they move as one:

Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded
The road to death as to a festival;
And minstrels, at their sepulchres, have shrouded
With banner-folds of glory the dark pall.

Who will believe? Not I-for in deceiving
Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream;

I cannot spare the luxury of believing

That all things beautiful are what they seem;

Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing
Would, like the Patriarch's, soothe a dying hour,
With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing,

As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlit bower;

With look like patient Job's eschewing evil;
With motions graceful as a bird's in air;
Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil
That e'er clinched fingers in a captive's hair!

That in thy breast there springs a poison fountain
Deadlier than that where bathes the Upas-tree;

And in thy wrath a nursing cat-o'-mountain
Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee!

And underneath that face, like summer ocean's,
Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear,
Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions,
Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow-all save fear.

Love for thy land, as if she were thy daughter,
Her pipe in peace, her tomahawk in wars;
Hatred of missionaries and cold water;

Pride-in thy rifle-trophies and thy scars;

Hope that thy wrongs may be, by the Great Spirit,
Remembered and revenged when thou art gone;
Sorrow-that none are left thee to inherit

Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne!

Edward Tyrrel Channing.

BORN in Newport, R. I., 1790. DIED at Cambridge, Mass., 1856.

LITERARY FAME.

[Lectures read to the Seniors in Harvard College. 1856.]

CONTEMPORARY REPUTATION.

ET us now observe the impression which an author makes, to learn whether it indicates a firm hold on public favor. We do not promise him, or require for him, in the distant, tranquil future, the bustling admiration of his contemporaries; but he must have qualities that will secure men's sober love and gratitude in their homes, in their solitary walks, in their studies, in the highest and the most familiar intercourse of social life, through all time, and, to a degree, in every reading country. To be immortal as a writer is more than to have a place among the customary tenants of large libraries, to be hidden perhaps for ages ; and, when brought to light, like an embalmed corpse of the East, for the examination of the curious,-to be wondered at chiefly for having lasted so long. It is more than to have a deserved name for wisdom and genius, if these come not with a gracious as well as an awakening power. The writer, whom we presume to call immortal, must have life in the hearts, the experience and the wants of men. He must be essential to them. He must be a part of them, of their pride, their prefer

VOL. V.-15

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