HENRY T. TUCKERMAN was born in Boston on the twentieth of April, 1813. After preparing for college, the state of his health rendered it necessary for him to relinquish his studies and seek a milder climate. In September, 1833, he sailed from New York for Havre, and after a brief sojourn at Paris, proceeded to Italy, where he remained until the ensuing summer. In the spring after his return, he gave the results of his observation to the public, in a duodecimo volume, entitled "The Italian Sketch Book." This work was received with much favour, and passed to a second edition. The author resumed and, for a time, prosecuted his academical studies, but again experiencing the injurious effects of a sedentary life and continued mental application, he embarked in October, 1837, for the Mediterranean; visited

MARY.

WHAT though the name is old and oft repeated,
What though a thousand beings bear it now;
And true hearts oft the gentle word have greeted,—
What though 'tis hallow'd by a poet's vow?
We ever love the rose and yet its blooming
Is a familiar rapture to the eye,

And yon bright star we hail, although its looming
Age after age has lit the northern sky.

As starry beams o'er troubled billows stealing,
As garden odours to the desert blown,
In bosoms faint a gladsome hope revealing,
Like patriot music or affection's tone-
Thus, thus, for aye, the name of MARY spoken
By lips or text, with magic-like control,
The course of present thought has quickly broken
And stirr'd the fountains of my inmost soul.
The sweetest tales of human weal and sorrow,
The fairest trophies of the limner's fame,
To my fond fancy, MARY, seem to borrow

Celestial halos from thy gentle name:
The Grecian artist gleaned from many faces,
And in a perfect whole the parts combined,
So have I counted o'er dear woman's graces
To form the MAR of my ardent mind.
And marvel not I thus call my ideal,

We inly paint as we would have things be,
The fanciful springs ever from the real,

As APHRODITE rose from out the sea; Who smiled upon me kindly day by day,

In a far land where I was sad and lone? Whose presence now is my delight alway? Both angels must the same bless'd title own. What spirits round my weary way are flying, What fortunes on my future life await, Like the mysterious hymns the winds are sighing, Are all unknown,-in trust I bide my fate;

Gibraltar and Malta, made the tour of Sicily, and, after a winter's residence at Palermo, crossed over to the continent. The winter of 1838 he passed chiefly in Florence, and returned to the United States in the course of the ensuing summer. In 1839 appeared from his pen "Isabel, or Sicily, a Pilgrimage." Under the guise of a romance, it embraces many interesting descriptions and reflections incident to a Sicilian tour. For several years, he has been a contributor to our periodical literature, both in prose and verse. A selection from his writings, consisting of sketches, essays, and tales, was published in New York, in the autumn of 1841, under the title of "Rambles and Reveries." His style is graceful and correct, but not distinguished for vigour; and his thoughts and illustrations are pleasing and poetical.

But if one blessing I might crave from Heaven, 'T would be that MARY should my being cheer, Hang o'er me when the chord of life is riven, Be my dear household word, and my last accent here.

THE RINGLET.

THE statesman's cabinet was thickly strown
With parchment scrolls, Ambition's implements:
The hum of passers by, the low, quick note
Of the rich time-piece, the fantastic play
Of chequer'd light athwart the dusky room,
The sweet aroma and the pensive strain
From his wife's terrace stealing winningly-
Were all unheeded by the man of cares.
You might have known the failure of some aim,
Of more than common import, in the plan
Too intricately wove-of his deep schemes:
For fix'd in troubled musings was his gaze;
As restlessly he scann'd each letter'd roll,
Till thrusting back, in very petulance,
A half-read packet on his escretoir,

The spring-lock of a secret drawer was touch'd,
And the forgotten nook where, in his youth,
He had been wont to store the treasures small
Of every doting hope, sprang forth unbid!
What mystic token stays his anxious gaze?
And whence that glowing flush ?-that mournful
smile?

Ay, and the tear in that world-tutor'd eye?
List, list!-he speaks !-mark well his thoughtful

words;

They may instruct thee,-for men call him GREAT:

"RINGLET of golden hair!

How thou dost move my very manhood now!
Stirring in radiance, there,

As once thou didst above this care-worn brow.

"Methinks it cannot be

That thou art mine; yet, gazing, I do feel
The spell of infancy,

Like distant music, through my bosom steal.
"Sweet relic of that hour!

She who so fondly deck'd thee, day by day,
As some love-cherish'd flower,

From the green earth, for aye, has pass'd away!

"O! what unconscious bliss

Fill'd this lone breast when thou wert floating free, Wooing the breeze's kiss!

Symbol of early joy, I welcome thee!

"Would that the sunny hue

That gilds thy silken threads so brightly o'er,Would that life's morning dew

Might bathe my restless heart forever more!

BRAVELY thy old arms fling

Their countless pennons to the fields of air,
And, like a sylvan king,

Their panoply of green still proudly wear.

As some rude tower of old,

Thy massive trunk still rears its rugged form,
With limbs of giant mould,

To battle sternly with the winter storm.
In Nature's mighty fane,

Thou art the noblest arch beneath the sky;
How long the pilgrim train

That with a benison have pass'd thee by!
Lone patriarch of the wood!
Like a true spirit thou dost freely rise,
Of fresh and dauntless mood,
Spreading thy branches to the open skies.
The locust knows thee well,

And when the summer-days his notes prolong,
Hid in some leafy cell,

Pours from thy world of green his drowsy song.

Oft, on a morn in spring,

The yellow-bird will seek thy waving spray,
And there securely swing,

To whet his beak, and pour his blithesome lay.
How bursts thy monarch wail,

When sleeps the pulse of Nature's buoyant life,
And, bared to meet the gale,
Wave thy old branches, eager for the strife!
The sunset often weaves

Upon thy crest a wreath of splendour rare,

While the fresh-murmuring leaves
Fill with cool sound the evening's sultry air.
Sacred thy roof of green

To rustic dance, and childhood's gambols free,
Gay youth and age serene
Turn with familiar gladness unto thee.

O, hither should we roam,

To hear Truth's herald in the lofty shade.
Beneath thy emerald dome

Might Freedom's champion fitly draw his blade.
With blessings at thy feet,

Falls the worn peasant to his noontide rest;
Thy verdant, calm retreat

Inspires the sad and soothes the troubled breast.

When, at the twilight hour,

Plays through thy tressil crown the sun's last gleam,
Under thy ancient bower

The schoolboy comes to sport, the bard to dream.
And when the moonbeams fall
Through thy broad canopy upon the grass,

Making a fairy hall,

As o'er the sward the flitting shadows pass;

Then lovers haste to thee,

With hearts that tremble like that shifting light, To them, O, brave old tree,

Thou art joy's shrine-a temple of delight!

The breeze, at noontide, whisper'd soft
Their emerald knolls among,
And midnight's wind, amid their heights,
Its wildest dirges sung.

As on their brow the forest-king
Paused in his weary way,

From far below his quick ear caught

The moaning of the bay;

The dry leaves, fann'd by autumn's breath,

Along their ridges crept;

And snow-wreaths, like storm-whiten'd waves, Around them rudely swept.

For ages, o'er their swelling sides,

Grew the wild flowers of spring,
And stars smiled down, and dew-founts pour'd
Their gentle offering.

The moonbeams play'd upon their peaks,
And at their feet the tide;

And thus, like altar-mounts they stood,
By nature sanctified.

Now, when to mark their beacon-forms

The seaman turns his gaze,

It quails, as roof, and spire, and dome

Flash in the sun's bright rays.

On those wild hills a thousand homes
Are rear'd in proud array,
And argosies float safely o'er

That lone and isle-gemm'd bay.
Those shadowy mounds, so long untrod,
By countless feet are press'd;
And hosts of loved ones meekly sleep

Below their teeming breast.

A world's unnumber'd voices float
Within their narrow bound:
Love's gentle tone, and traffic's hum,

And music's thrilling sound.
There Liberty first found a tongue

Beneath New England's sky,
And there her earliest martyrs stood,
And nerved themselves to die.
And long upon these ancient hills,
By glory's light enshrined,
May rise the dwellings of the free,
The city of the mind.

LOVE AND FAME.

GIVE me the boon of love!

I ask no more for fame;
Far better one unpurchased heart
Than glory's proudest name.
Why wake a fever in the blood,

Or damp the spirit now,

To gain a wreath whose leaves shall wave
Above a wither'd brow?
Give me the boon of love!

Ambition's meed is vain;
Dearer affection's earnest smile
Than honour's richest train.
I'd rather lean upon a breast
Responsive to my own,
Than sit pavilion'd gorgeously
Upon a kingly throne.
Like the Chaldean sage,

Fame's worshippers adore
The brilliant orbs that scatter light
O'er heaven's azure floor;

But, in their very heart enshrined,
The votaries of love

Keep o'er the holy flame, which once

Illumed the courts above.
Give me the boon of love!

Renown is but a breath,
Whose loudest echo ever floats
From out the halls of death.
A loving eye beguiles me more
Than fame's emblazon'd seal,
And one sweet note of tenderness
Than triumph's wildest peal.
Give me the boon of love!

The path of fame is drear,,
And glory's arch doth ever span
A hill-side cold and sere.

His gaze around is cast,

As if the joys of Freedom, newly-gain'd,

Before his vision pass'd;

As if a nation's shout of love and pride

With music fill'd the air,

And his calm soul was lifted on the tide
Of deep and grateful prayer;

As if the crystal mirror of his life

To fancy sweetly came,

With scenes of patient toil and noble strife,
Undimm'd by doubt or shame;

As if the lofty purpose of his soul
Expression would betray-
The high resolve Ambition to control,
And thrust her crown away!

O, it was well in marble firm and white
To carve our hero's form,

Whose angel guidance was our strength in fight,
Our star amid the storm!

Whose matchless truth has made his name divine, And human freedom sure,

His country great, his tomb earth's dearest shrine,
While man and time endure!

And it is well to place his image there,
Beneath the dome he blest;

Let meaner spirits who its councils share,
Revere that silent guest!

Let us go up with high and sacred love
To look on his pure brow,
And as, with solemn grace, he points above,
Renew the patriot's vow!

THE author of "Velasco" is a native of Gloucester, a town on the sea-coast of Massachusetts, and was born on the twenty-seventh of September, 1816. His father, a respectable merchant, of the same name, is still living, and resides in Boston. The subject of this sketch was educated in the schools of that city and the neighbourhood, where he lived until his removal to New York, in 1837. His earliest metrical compositions were printed in "The Collegian," a monthly miscellany edited by several of the students of Harvard College, of the junior and senior classes of 1830. One of his contributions to that work, entitled "Twilight Sketches," exhibits the grace of style, ease of versification, and variety of description, which are characteristic of his more recent effusions. It was a sketch of the Summer Gardens of St. Petersburg, and was written during a visit to that capital in the spring of 1828.

Mr. SARGENT's reputation rests principally on his dramas, for he has not published any collection of his miscellaneous poems. His first appearance as a dramatic author was in the winter of 1836, when his "Bride of Genoa" was brought out at the Tremont Theatre, in Boston. This was a five-act play, founded on incidents in the career of ANTONIO MONTALDO, a plebeian, who at the age of twentytwo, made himself doge of Genoa, in 1693, and who is described in the history of the times as a man of "forgiving temper," but daring and ambitious, with a genius adequate to the accomplishment of vast designs. In the delineation of his hero, the author has followed the historical record, though the other characters and incidents of the drama are entirely fictitious. It was successfully

performed in Boston, and since in many of the first theatres of the country. His next production was of a much higher order, and as a specimen of dramatic art, has received warm commendation from the most competent judges. It was the tragedy of "Velasco," first performed at Boston, in November, 1837, Miss ELLEN TREE in the character of IZIDORA, and subsequently at the principal theatres in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and New Orleans. It was published in New York in 1839. "The general action of the piece," says the author in his preface, "is derived from incidents in the career of RODRIGO DIAZ, the Cid, whose achievements constitute so considerable a portion of the historical and romantic literature of Spain." The subject had been variously treated by French and Spanish dramatists, among others, by ConNEILLE, but Mr. SARGENT was the first to introduce it successfully upon the English stage. It is a chaste and elegant performance, and probably has not been surpassed by any similar work by so youthful an author. It was written before Mr. SARGENT was twenty-one years of age.

The minor poems of Mr. SARGENT have appeared at various times in the monthly miscellanies and other periodicals. The selections which I have made convey a not inaccurate idea of their style. The quatorzains written during a voyage to Cuba in the spring of 1835, appear to be the most carefully finished, though in other respects they are not, perhaps, superior to several of his other compositions. He has written several interesting prose works, which have been published anonymously. Like his poems, they are distinguished for elegance of thought and diction.

RECORDS OF A SUMMER-VOYAGE TO

CUBA.

I. THE DEPARTURE.

AGAIN thy winds are pealing in mine ear! Again thy waves are flashing in my sight! Thy memory-haunting tones again I hear, As through the spray our vessel wings her flight! On thy cerulean breast, now swelling high, Again, thou broad Atlantic, am I cast! Six years, with noiseless tread, have glided by, Since, an adventurous boy, I hail'd thee last, The sea-birds o'er me wheel, as if to greet An old companion; on my naked brow The sparkling foam-drops not unkindly beat; [now Flows through my hair the freshening breeze-and The horizon's ring enclasps me; and I stand Gazing where fades from view, cloud-like, my fatherland!

II. THE GALE.

The night came down in terror. Through the

air Mountains of clouds, with lurid summits, roll'd; The lightning kindling with its vivid glare Their outlines, as they rose, heap'd fold on fold, The wind, in fitful sughs, swept o'er the sea; And then a sudden lull, gentle as sleep, Soft as an infant's breathing, seem'd to be Lain, like enchantment, on the throbbing deep. But, false the calm! for soon the strengthen'd gale

Burst, in one loud explosion, far and wide, Drowning the thunder's voice! With every sail Close-reef'd, our groaning ship heel'd on her side; The torn waves comb'd the deck; while o'er the

mast

The meteors of the storm a ghastly radiance cast!

III. MORNING AFTER THE GALE.

Bravely our trim ship rode the tempest through;
And, when the exhausted gale had ceased to rave,
How broke the day-star on the gazer's view!
How flush'd the orient every crested wave!
The sun threw down his shield of golden light
In fierce defiance on the ocean's bed;
Whereat, the clouds betook themselves to flight,
Like routed hosts, with banners soil'd and red.
The sky was soon all brilliance, east and west;
All traces of the gale had pass'd away-
The chiming billows, by the breeze caress'd,
Toss'd lightly from their heads the feathery spray.
Ah! thus may Hope's auspicious star again
Rise o'er the troubled soul where gloom and grief
have been!

IV. TO A LAND-BIRD.

Thou wanderer from green fields and leafy nooks! Where blooms the flower and toils the honey-bee; Where odorous blossoms drift along the brooks, And woods and hills are very fair to seeWhy hast thou left thy native bough to roam, With drooping wing, far o'er the briny billow? Thou canst not, like the osprey, cleave the foam, Nor, like the petrel, make the wave thy pillow. Thou'rt like those fine-toned spirits, gentle bird, Which, from some better land, to this rude life Seem borne-they struggle, mid the common herd, With powers unfitted for the selfish strife! Haply, at length, some zephyr wafts them back To their own home of peace, across the world's dull track.

V. A THOUGHT OF THE PAST.

I woke from slumber at the dead of night,
Stirr'd by a dream which was too sweet to last—
A dream of boyhood's season of delight;
It flash'd along the dim shapes of the past!
And, as I mused upon its strange appeal,
Thrilling my heart with feelings undefined,
Old memories, bursting from time's icy seal,
Rush'd, like sun-stricken fountains, on my mind.
Scenes, among which was cast my early home,
My favourite haunts, the shores, the ancient woods,
Where, with my schoolmates, I was wont to roam,
Green, sloping lawns, majestic solitudes-
All rose before me, till, by thought beguiled,
Freely I could have wept, as if once more a child.

VI. TROPICAL WEATHER.

We are afloat upon the tropic sea!
Here summer holdeth a perpetual reign:
How flash the waters in their bounding glee!
The sky's soft purple is without a stain! [blowing,
Full in our wake the smooth, warm trade-winds
To their unvarying goal still faithful run;
And as we steer, with sails before them flowing,
Nearer the zenith daily climbs the sun.
The startled flying-fish around us skim,
Gloss'd, like the hummingbird, with rainbow dyes;
And, as they dip into the water's brim,
Swift in pursuit the preying dolphin hies.
All, all is fair; and, gazing round, we feel
The south's soft languor gently o'er our senses steal.

VII-A CALM.

O! for one draught of cooling northern air! That it might pour its freshness on me now; That it might kiss my cheek and cleave my hair, And part its currents round my fever'd brow! Ocean, and sky, and earth! a blistering calm Spread over all! how weary wears the day! O, lift the wave, and bend the distant palm, Breeze! wheresoe'er thy lagging pinions stray, Triumphant burst upon the level deep, Rock the fix'd hull and swell the clinging sail! Arouse the opal clouds that o'er us sleep, Sound thy shrill whistle! we will bid thee hail! Though wrapt in all the storm-clouds of the north, Yet from thy home of ice, come forth, O, breeze, come forth!

VIII. A WISH.

That I were in some forest's green retreat, Beneath a towering arch of proud old elms; Where a clear streamlet gurgled at my feetIts wavelets glittering in their tiny helms! Thick clustering vines, in many a rich festoon, From the high, rustling branches should depend; Weaving a net, through which the sultry noon Might stoop in vain its fiery beams to send. There, prostrate on some rock's gray sloping side, Upon whose tinted moss the dew yet lay, Would I catch glimpses of the clouds that ride Athwart the sky-and dream the hours away; While through the alleys of the sunless wood The fanning breeze might steal, with wild-flowers' breath imbued.

IX.-TROPICAL NIGHT.

But, O! the night!-the cool, luxurious night,
Which closes round us when the day grows dim,
And the sun sinks from his meridian height
Behind the ocean's occidental rim!
Clouds, in thin streaks of purple, green, and red,
Lattice his parting glory, and absorb
The last bright emanations that are shed
In wide profusion, from his failing orb.
And now the moon, her lids unclosing, deigns
To smile serenely on the charmed sea,
That shines as if inlaid with lightning-chains,
From which it hardly struggled to be free.
Swan-like, with motion unperceived, we glide,
Touch'd by the downy breeze, and favour'd by the tide.

X. THE PLANET JUPITER.

Ever, at night, have I look'd first for thee,
O'er all thy astral sisterhood supreme!
Ever, at night, have I look'd up to see
The diamond lustre of thy quivering beam;
Shining sometimes through pillowy clouds serene,
As they part from thee, like a loosen'd scroll;
Sometimes unveil'd, in all thy native sheen,
When no pale vapours underneath thee roll.
Bright planet! that art but a single ray
From our Creator's throne, illume my soul!
Thy influence shed upon my doubtful way
Through life's dark vista to the immortal goal-
Gleam but as now upon my dying eyes. [shall rise.
And hope, from earth to thee, from thee to heaven,