We agree with Dr. Jackson as to the possibilities within him whom we have imperfectly sketched. James G. Clark should be more than a "newspaper poet." What he has already written is as worthy the blue and gold of our libraries as is most of that which wears the literary ermine-more worthy than much. And what he has written is only a prelude to what he ought to write. But he is not a prolific writer; he never will be. He is too much an artist ever to be voluminous. He finishes, as he goes along, and is as rigid in his choice of words as was ever the man whom he most resembles in general

-Tom Moore. He composes mainly while walking, somewhat as did Wordsworth, and not seldom will repeat an entire poem before a line of it has been penned down. If ever he does pen a long poem-and we trust he may-it will be conscientiously worked out, will be a labor of artistic love, and will place his name high among the gifted singers of the world. As showing the artistic finish of Mr. Clark's verse, and to catch, in parting from him, a little more of his delicate regard for natural beauty, albeit somewhat tinged in this instance by a shade of melancholy, we quote

THE WOOD-ROBIN.

How calmly the lingering light

Beams back over woodland and main,
As an infant, ere closing its eyelids at night,
Looks back on its mother again.

The wood-robin sings at my door,

And her song is the sweetest I hear
From all the sweet birds that incessantly pour
Their notes through the noon of the year.

'T was thus in my boyhood time

That season of emerald and gold—

Ere the storms and the shadows that fall on our prime Had told me that pleasures grow old.

I loved in the warm summer eves

To recline on the welcoming sod,

By the broad spreading temple of twilight and leaves Where the wood-robin worshiped her God.

I knew not that life could endure

The burden it beareth to-day;

And I felt that my soul was as happy and pure
As the tone of the wood-robin's lay.

O, beautiful, beautiful youth,

With its visions of hope and of love; How cruel is life to reveal us the truth That peace only liveth above.

The wood-robin trills the same tune

From her thicket in garden and glen,

And the landscape and sky and the twilight of June Look lovely and glowing as then.

But I think of the glories that fell

In the harvest of sorrow and tears,

Till the song of the forest bird sounds like a knell,
Tolling back through the valley of years.

Sweet bird, as thou singest forlorn,

Through the visions that rise from the past,

The deep of the future is purpling with morn,
And its mystery melting at last.

I know that the splendor of youth

Will return to me yet, and my soul

Will float in the sunlight of beauty and truth,
Where the tides of the Infinite roll.

O, I fain would arise and set sail

From the lowlands of trouble and pain; But I wait on the shore for the tarrying gale, And sigh for the haven in vain.

And I watch for the ripples to play,

And tell me the breezes are nigh,

Like a sailor who longs to be wafted away,
To the lands that lie hid in the sky.

But the whip-poor-will wails on the moor,
And day has deserted the west;

The moon glimmers down thro' the vines at my door

And the robin has flown to her nest.

Adieu, gentle bird; ere the sun

Shall line the green forests with light,

Thou 'It wake from thy slumber more merry than one Who heard thee and blessed thee to-night.

A

MARY F. TUCKER.

BOUT the year 1854 two poems appeared in
The National Era-a paper that had the honor

of introducing Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Gail Hamilton to the reading public-which soon became popular, and which have since periodically gone the rounds of the press. The one more often printed, perhaps, was the following:

COMETH A BLESSING DOWN.

Not to the man of dollars,

Not to the man of deeds;

Not unto craft and cunning,

Not unto human creeds;

Not to the one whose passion,
Is for a world's renown,

Not in a form of fashion,

Cometh a blessing down.

Not unto land's expansion,

Not to the miser's chest,

No. to the princely mansion,

Not to the blossomed crest:
Not to the sordid worldling,

Not to the knavish clown,
Not to the haughty tyrant,

Cometh a blessing down.

Not to the folly-blinded,

Not to the steeped in shame,

Not to the carnal-minded,

Not to unholy fame;

Not in neglect of duty,

Not to the jeweled crown,

Not at the smile of beauty,

Cometh a blessing down.

But to the one whose spirit

Yearns for the great and good;

Unto the one whose store-house
Yieldeth the hungry food;

Unto the one who labors,

Fearless of foe or frown,

Unto the kindly-hearted,

Cometh a blessing down.

Its homely truth has found wide recognition, and may have moved many hearts to nobler longings, to freer charity, to more kindly impulse. The other is similar in style, and fully as practical in application. Those who have not read it elsewhere, even those who have will thank us for reproducing it here:

GOING UP AND COMING DOWN.

This is a simple song, 't is true—

My songs are never over-nice,

And yet I'll try and scatter through
A little pinch of good advice.

Then listen, pompous friend, and learn

To never boast of much renown,

For fortune's wheel is on the turn,

And some go up, and some come down.