By hosts assail'd, her little Spartan band

Braved the swift onset, and the cool command.
Historic glory rushed through British veins,
And shades of heroes stalk'd Corunna's plains;
While Gallia saw, amid the battle's glare,
That Minden, Blenheim, Agincourt were there!
Illustrious MOORE, by foe and famine press'd,
Yet, by each soldier's proud affection bless'd,
Unawed by numbers, saw the impending host,
With front extending, lengthen down the coast.
"Charge! Britons, charge!" the exulting chief
exclaims:

Swift moves the field; the tide of armour flames;
On, on they rush; the solid column flies,
And shouts tremendous, as the foe defies.
While all the battle rung from side to side,
In death to conquer, was the warrior's pride.
Where'er the unequal war its tempest pour'd,
The leading meteor was his glittering sword!
Thrice met the fight; and thrice the vanquish'd Gaul
Found the firm line an adamantine wall.
Again repulsed, again the legions drew,
And Fate's dark shafts in vollied shadows flew.
Now storm'd the scene, where soul could soul attest,
Squadron to squadron join'd, and breast to breast!
From rank to rank the intrepid valour glow'd;
From rank to rank the inspring champion rode.
Loud broke the war-cloud, as his charger sped;
Pale the curved lightening quiver'd o'er his head!
Again it bursts! Peal, echoing peal, succeeds!
The bolt is launch'd; the peerless soldier bleeds!
Hark! as he falls, Fame's swelling clarion cries,
Britannia triumphs, though her hero dies!
The grave he fills is all the realm she yields,
And that proud empire deathless honour shields.
No fabled phoenix from his bier revives;
His ashes perish, but his country lives!

Immortal dead! with musing awe, thy foes
Tread not the hillock where thy bones repose!
There, sacring mourner, see, Britannia spreads
A chaplet, glistening with the tears she sheds;
With burning censer glides around thy tomb,
And scatters incense where thy laurels bloom;
With rapt devotion sainted vigil keeps;
Shines with Religion, and with Glory weeps!
Sweet sleep thee, brave! In solemn chant shall sound
Celestial vespers o'er thy sacred ground!
Long ages hence, in pious twilight seen,
Shall choirs of seraphs sanctify thy green;
At curfew hour shall dimly hover there,
And charm, with sweetest dirge, the listening air!
With homage tranced, shall every pensive mind
Weep, while the requiem passes on the wind;
Till, sadly swelling Sorrow's softest notes,
It dies in distance, while its echo floats!

No stoneless sod shall hold that mighty shade, Whose life could man's wide universe pervade. No mouldering prison of sepulchral earth, In dumb oblivion shall confine thy worth; The battle heath shall lift thy marble fame, And grow immortal, as it marks thy name. Heaven's holiest tears shall nightly kiss thy dust, That dawn's first smiles may gem the hero's bust; And pilgrim Glory, in remotest years, Shall seek thy tomb, to read the tale it bears.

FROM THE "RULING PASSION."

WERE the wild brood, who dwell in glade and brake,

Some kindred character of man to take;
In the base jackal's, or gay leopard's mien,
The servile pimp, or gay coquette were seen;
The patient camel, long inured to dine
But once a fortnight, would a poet shine;
The stag, a cit, with antler'd brows content;
The rake, a pointer, always on the scent;
The snake, a statesman; and the wit, a gnat;
The ass, an alderman; the scold, a cat;
The wife, a ring-dove, on the myrtle's top;
The wolf, a lawyer; the baboon, a fop!

FROM THE SAME.

To fame unknown, and happy fortune born,
The blithe Savoyard hails the peep of morn:
And while the fluid gold his eye surveys,
The hoary glaciers fling their diamond blaze;
Geneva's broad lake rushes from its shores,
Arve gently murmurs, and the rough Rhone roars.
Mid the cleft Alps, his cabin peers from high,
Hangs o'er the clouds, and perches on the sky.
O'er fields of ice, across the headlong flood,
From cliff to cliff he bounds in fearless mood.
While, far beneath, a night of tempest lies,
Deep thunder mutters, harmless lightning flies;
While, far above, from battlements of snow,
Loud torrents tumble on the world below;
On rustic reed he wakes a merrier tune,
Than the lark warbles on the "Ides of June."
Far off let Glory's clarion shrilly swell;
He loves the music of his pipe as well.
Let shouting millions crown the hero's head,
And Pride her tesselated pavement tread;
More happy far, this denizen of air

Enjoys what Nature condescends to spare;
His days are jocund, undisturb'd his nights;
His spouse contents him, and his mule delights!

FROM THE "INVENTION OF

LETTERS."

FOR place or power while demagogues contend, Whirl'd in their vortex, sinks each humbler friend. See Crispin quit his stall, in Faction's cause To cobble government, and sole the laws! See Frisseur scent his dust, his razor set, To shave the treaty, or to puff Genet! In doubtful mood, see Mulciber debate, To mend a horse-shoe, or to weld the state! The whip's bold knight in barn his truck has laid, To spout in favour of the carrying trade! While Staytape runs, from hissing goose, too hot, To measure Congress for another coat; And still, by rule of shop, intent on pelf, Eyes the spare cloth, to cabbage for himself!

THIS great artist is the oldest of the living "Poets of America," being now in the sixty-third year of his age. He was born in South Carolina, of a family which has contributed some eminent names to our annals, though none that sheds more lustre upon the parent stock than his own.

When very young, by the advice of physicians, he was sent to Newport, Rhode Island, where he remained until he entered Harvard College, in 1796. In his boyhood he exhibited evidences of that genius for which he has since been distinguished, and before the completion of his education he gained laurels in both poetry and painting. A Scottish gentleman named BowMAN, discovered in some verses written while he was in the university, and in a head of St. Peter painted during the same period, such promise of after eminence, that he offered him one hundred pounds a year while he should remain abroad; but ALLSTON declined the generous aid, having already sold his paternal estate for an amount of money sufficient to defray his looked-for expenses; and with a brother artist embarked for London in the summer of 1801.

Soon after his arrival in that great metropolis, he became a student of the Royal Academy, then under the presidency of our countryman, WEST, with whom he contracted an intimate and lasting friendship. His abilities as an artist, brilliant conversation, and gentlemanly manners, made him a welcome guest at the houses of the great painters of the time. Within a year from the beginning of his residence in London, he was a successful exhibitor at Somerset House, and a general favourite with the most distinguished members of his profession.

In 1804, having passed three years in England, ALLSTON accompanied JOHN VANDERLYN, another eminent American painter, to Paris. After spending a few months in that capital, he proceeded to Italy, where he remained four years. Among his fellow-students and intimate associates at Rome, were VANDERLYN, and the world-renowned Danish sculptor, THOR WALDSEN. Another friend with whom he became acquainted here, was the great philosopher and poet, COLERIDGE. In one of his letters he says: "To no other man do I owe so much, intellectually, as to Mr. COLERIDGE, with whom I become acquainted in Rome, and who has honoured me with his friendship for more than five-and-twenty years. He used to call Rome the silent city; but I never could think of it as such, while with him; for, meet him when or where I would, the fountain of his mind was never dry, but, like the far-reaching aqueducts that once supplied this mistress of the world, its living stream seemed specially to flow for every classic ruin over which we wandered. And when I recall some of our walks under the pines of the Villa Borghese,

6

I am almost tempted to dream that I had once listened to PLATO in the groves of the Academy."

In 1809, ALLSTON returned to America, and was soon after married at Boston to a sister of the celebrated Doctor CHANNING. In 1811, he went a second time to England. His reputation as a painter was now well established, and he gained by his picture of the "Dead Man Raised by Elisha's Bones," a prize of two hundred guineas, at the British Institution, where the first artists in the world were his competitors. A long and dangerous illness succeeded his return to London, and he removed to the village of Clifton, where he wrote "The Sylphs of the Seasons," and some of the other poems included in a volume which he published in 1813. Within two weeks after the renewal of his residence in the metropolis, in the last mentioned year, his wife died, very suddenly; and the event, for a time, affected seriously his physical and mental powers.

In 1817, he accompanied LESLIE to Paris, and in the autumn of the following year came back to America, having been previously elected an associate of the Royal Academy of England. He has since that time resided principally at Cambridgeport, near Boston, where he has been engaged on various works of art, one of which is "Belshazzar's Feast, or the Handwriting on the Wall,” a picture sixteen feet long, and twelve feet wide, commenced nearly twenty years ago. This is said to be nearly finished now; but it has never been seen by any one save the artist. In 1830, he married his present wife, a sister of the poet DANA. His last literary work was the beautiful story entitled “Monaldi,” published in 1841.

A great painter is a true poet, though he may lack the power to express in beautiful language his conceptions. Poet and painter must study still nature and humanity, and must look upon the world with an affectionate spirit. "The Sylphs of the Seasons," ALLSTON's longest poem, in which he describes the scenery of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and the effects of each season on the mind, shows that he has regarded nature with a curious eye, and has power to exhibit her beauties with singular distinctness and fidelity. "The Two Painters," an admirable satire, intended to ridicule the attempts to reach perfection in one excellency in the art of painting, to the neglect of every other, proves equally his descriptive powers. These poems, and the "Paint King," a singularly wild, imaginative story, evidence, also, his creative genius. They are all original, in their fable, style, and cast of thought; and all have the purest and most cheerful influences upon the mind.

LONG has it been my fate to hear
The slave of Mammon, with a sneer,

My indolence reprove.
Ah, little knows he of the care,
The toil, the hardship that I bear
While lolling in my elbow-chair,

And seeming scarce to move:

For, mounted on the poet's steed,
I there my ceaseless journey speed
O'er mountain, wood, and stream:
And oft, within a little day,

Mid comets fierce, 't is mine to stray,
And wander o'er the milky-way
To catch a poet's dream.

But would the man of lucre know
What riches from my labours flow-

A DREAM is my reply.

And who for wealth has ever pined,
That had a world within his mind,
Where every treasure he may find,
And joys that never die!

One night, my task diurnal done,
(For I had travell'd with the sun

O'er burning sands, o'er snows,) Fatigued, I sought the couch of rest; My wonted prayer to Heaven address'd; But scarce had I my pillow press'd,

When thus a vision rose :

Methought, within a desert cave,
Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave,
I suddenly awoke.

It seem'd of sable night the cell,
Where, save when from the ceiling fell
An oozing drop, her silent spell
No sound had ever broke.

There motionless I stood alone,
Like some strange monument of stone
Upon a barren wild;

Or like (so solid and profound

The darkness seem'd that wall'd me round)
A man that's buried under ground,
Where pyramids are piled.

Thus fix'd, a dreadful hour I pass'd,
And now I heard, as from a blast,

A voice pronounce my name:
Nor long upon my ear it dwelt,
When round me 'gan the air to melt,
And motion once again I felt

Quick circling o'er my frame.
Again it call'd; and then a ray,
That seem'd a gushing fount of day,
Across the cavern stream'd.
Half-struck with terror and delight,
I hail'd the little blessed light,
And follow'd till my aching sight
An orb of darkness seem'd.

Nor long I felt the blinding pain ;
For soon upon a mountain plain

I gazed with wonder new.
There high a castle rear'd its head;
And far below a region spread,
Where every season seem'd to shed
Its own peculiar hue.

Now, at the castle's massy gate,
Like one that's blindly urged by fate,
A bugle-horn I blew.
The mountain-plain it shook around,
The vales return'd a hollow sound,
And, moving with a sigh profound,
The portals open flew.

Then entering, from a glittering hall
I heard a voice seraphic call,

That bade me "Ever reign!
All hail!" it said in accent wild,
"For thou art Nature's chosen child,
Whom wealth nor blood has e'er defiled,
Hail, lord of this domain !"

And now I paced a bright saloon,
That seem'd illumined by the moon,

So mellow was the light.
The walls with jetty darkness teem'd,
While down them crystal columns stream'd,
And each a mountain torrent seem'd,
High-flashing through the night.

Rear'd in the midst, a double throne
Like burnish'd cloud of evening shone;
While, group'd the base around,
Four damsels stood of fairy race;
Who, turning each with heavenly grace
Upon me her immortal face,

Transfix'd me to the ground.

And thus the foremost of the train:
"Be thine the throne, and thine to reign
O'er all the varying year!.

But ere thou rulest, the Fates command,
That of our chosen rival band

A Sylph shall win thy heart and hand,
Thy sovereignty to share.

"For we, the sisters of a birth,
Do rule by turns the subject earth
To serve ungrateful man;
But since our varied toils impart
No joy to his capricious heart,
'Tis now ordain'd that human art
Shall rectify the plan."

Then spake the Sylph of Spring serene,
""Tis I thy joyous heart, I ween,

With sympathy shall move:
For I with living melody
Of birds in choral symphony,
First waked thy soul to poesy,

To piety and love.

"When thou, at call of vernal breeze, And beckoning bough of budding trees, Hast left thy sullen fire;

And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell,
And heard the browsing wether's bell,
Blithe echoes rousing from their cell

To swell the tinkling choir :

"Or heard from branch of flowering thorn The song of friendly cuckoo warn

The tardy-moving swain ;
Hast bid the purple swallow hail;
And seen him now through ether sail,
Now sweeping downward o'er the vale,

And skimming now the plain;

"Then, catching with a sudden glance
The bright and silver-clear expanse
Of some broad river's stream,
Beheld the boats adown it glide,
And motion wind again the tide,
Where, chain'd in ice by winter's pride,

Late roll'd the heavy team:

"Or, lured by some fresh-scented gale
That woo'd the moored fisher's sail

To tempt the mighty main,
Hast watch'd the dim, receding shore,
Now faintly seen the ocean o'er,
Like hanging cloud, and now no more

To bound the sapphire plain;

"Then, wrapt in night, the scudding bark,
(That seem'd, self-poised amid the dark,
Through upper air to leap,)
Beheld, from thy most fearful height,
The rapid dolphin's azure light
Cleave, like a living meteor bright,

The darkness of the deep:

"'T was mine the warm, awakening hand
That made thy grateful heart expand,
And feel the high control
Of Him, the mighty Power that moves
Amid the waters and the groves,
And through his vast creation proves

His omnipresent soul.

“Or, brooding o’er some forest rill, Fringed with the early daffodil,

And quivering maiden-hair,

When thou hast mark'd the dusky bed,
With leaves and water-rust o'erspread,
That seem'd an amber light to shed

On all was shadow'd there;

"And thence, as by its murmur call'd,
The current traced to where it brawl'd
Beneath the noontide ray;

And there beheld the checker'd shade
Of waves, in many a sinuous braid,
That o'er the sunny channel play'd,
With motion ever gay:

""T was I to these the magic gave,
That made thy heart, a willing slave,

To gentle Nature bend;

And taught thee how with tree and flower, And whispering gale, and dropping shower, In converse sweet to pass the hour,

As with an early friend:

"That mid the noontide, sunny haze Did in thy languid bosom raise

The raptures of the boy; When, waked as if to second birth, Thy soul through every pore look'd forth, And gazed upon the beauteous earth With myriad eyes of joy :

"That made thy heart, like HIS above,
To flow with universal love

For every living thing.
And, O! if I, with ray divine,
Thus tempering, did thy soul refine,
Then let thy gentle heart be mine,

And bless the Sylph of Spring."

And next the Sylph of Summer fair;
The while her crisped, golden hair
Half-veil'd her sunny eyes:
"Nor less may I thy homage claim,
At touch of whose exhaling flame
The fog of Spring, that chill'd thy frame,
In genial vapour flies.

"Oft, by the heat of noon oppress'd
With flowing hair and open vest,

Thy footsteps have I won
To mossy couch of welling grot,
Where thou hast bless'd thy happy lot,
That thou in that delicious spot

Mayst see, not feel, the sun : "Thence tracing from the body's change, In curious philosophic range,

The motion of the mind;

And how from thought to thought it flew,

Still hoping in each vision new
The fairy land of bliss to view,

But ne'er that land to find.

"And then, as grew thy languid mood, To some embowering, silent wood

I led thy careless way; Where high from tree to tree in air Thou saw'st the spider swing her snare, So bright!-as if, entangled there, The sun had left a ray:

"Or lured thee to some beetling steep,
To mark the deep and quiet sleep

That wrapt the tarn below;
And mountain blue and forest green
Inverted on its plane serene,
Dim gleaming through the filmy sheen
That glazed the painted show;
"Perchance, to mark the fisher's skiff
Swift from beneath some shadowy cliff
Dart, like a gust of wind;
And, as she skimm'd the sunny lake,
In many a playful wreath her wake
Far-trailing, like a silvery snake,

With sinuous length behind.

"Not less, when hill, and dale, and heath Still Evening wrapt in mimic death,

Thy spirit true I proved :

Around thee as the darkness stole,
Before thy wild, creative soul
I bade each fairy vision roll

Thine infancy had loved.

"Then o'er the silent, sleeping land, Thy fancy, like a magic wand,

Forth call'd the elfin race:

And now around the fountain's brim
In circling dance they gayly skim;
And now upon its surface swim,

And water-spiders chase;

"Each circumstance of sight or sound
Peopling the vacant air around
With visionary life:
For if amid a thicket stirr'd,
Or flitting bat, or wakeful bird,
Then straight thy eager fancy heard
The din of fairy strife;

"Now, in the passing beetle's hum
The elfin army's goblin drum

To pigmy battle sound;

And now, where dripping dew-drops plash
On waving grass, their bucklers clash,
And now their quivering lances flash,
Wide-dealing death around:

"Or if the moon's effulgent form
The passing clouds of sudden storm
In quick succession veil ;
Vast serpents now, their shadows glide,
And, coursing now the mountain's side,
A band of giants huge, they stride

O'er hill, and wood, and dale.

"And still on many a service rare
Could I descant, if need there were,
My firmer claim to bind.
But rest I most my high pretence
On that, my genial influence,
Which made the body's indolence

The vigour of the mind."

And now, in accents deep and low,
Like voice of fondly-cherish'd wo,

The Sylph of Autumn sad:
"Though I may not of raptures sing,
That graced the gentle song of Spring,
Like Summer, playful pleasures bring,
Thy youthful heart to glad;
"Yet still may I in hope aspire
Thy heart to touch with chaster fire,
And purifying love:

For I with vision high and holy,
And spell of quickening melancholy,

Thy soul from sublunary folly

First raised to worlds above.

"What though be mine the treasures fair Of purple grape and yellow pear,

And fruits of various hue,
And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain
To merry song of reaping swain,

Beneath the welkin blue;

"With these I may not urge my suit,
Of Summer's patient toil the fruit,
For mortal purpose given;
Nor may it fit my sober mood
To sing of sweetly murmuring flood,
Or dyes of many-colour'd wood,

That mock the bow of heaven.

"But, know, 't was mine the secret power That wak'd thee at the midnight hour In bleak November's reign:

"T was I the spell around thee cast, When thou didst hear the hollow blast In murmurs tell of pleasures past,

That ne'er would come again :

"And led thee, when the storm was o'er, To hear the sullen ocean roar,

By dreadful calm oppress'd;

Which still, though not a breeze was there, Its mountain-billows heav'd in air,

As if a living thing it were,

66

That strove in vain for rest.

""T was I, when thou, subdued by wo,
Didst watch the leaves descending slow,
To each a moral gave;

And as they moved in mournful train,
With rustling sound, along the plain,
Taught them to sing a seraph's strain
Of peace within the grave.

"And then, upraised thy streaming eye, I met thee in the western sky

In pomp of evening cloud;
That, while with varying form it roll'd,
Some wizard's castle seem'd of gold,
And now a crimson'd knight of old,
Or king in purple proud.

"And last, as sunk the setting sun,
And Evening with her shadows dun
The gorgeous pageant past,
"T was then of life a mimic show,
Of human grandeur here below,
Which thus beneath the fatal blow

Of Death must fall at last.

"O, then with what aspiring gaze Didst thou thy tranced vision raise

To yonder orbs on high, And think how wondrous, how sublime "T were upwards to their spheres to climb, And live, beyond the reach of Time,

Child of Eternity!"

And last the Sylph of Winter spake;
The while her piercing voice did shake
The castle-vaults below.

"O, youth, if thou, with soul refin'd,
Hast felt the triumph pure of mind,
And learn'd a secret joy to find
In deepest scenes of wo;

"If e'er with fearful ear at eve
Hast heard the wailing tempests grieve
Through chink of shatter'd wall;