LUNA: AN ODE.

THE South wind hath its balm, the sea its cheer, And autumn woods their bright and myriad hues; Thine is a joy that love and faith endear,

And awe subdues:

The wave-toss'd seamen and the harvest crew, When on their golden sheaves the quivering dew Hangs like pure tears-all fear beguile,

In glancing from their task to thy maternal smile! The mist of hilltops undulating wreathes,

At thy enchanting touch, a magic woof, And curling incense fainter odour breathes, And in transparent clouds hangs round the vaulted Huge icebergs, with their crystal spires [roof. Slow heaving from the northern main, Like frozen monuments of high desires Destin'd to melt in nothingness again

Float in thy mystic beams,

As piles aerial down the tide of dreams!
A sacred greeting falls

With thy mild presence on the ruin'd fane, Columns time-stain'd, dim frieze, and ivied walls, As if a fond delight thou didst attain

To mingle with the Past,

And o'er her trophies lone a holy mantle cast!
Along the billow's snowy crest

Thy beams a moment rest,

And then in sparkling mirth dissolve away; Through forest boughs, amid the wither'd leaves, Thy light a tracery weaves,

And on the mossy clumps its rays fantastic play.
With thee, ethereal guide,

What reverent joy to pace the temple floor,
And watch thy silver tide

O'er statue, tomb, and arch, its solemn radiance pour!
Like a celestial magnet thou dost sway

The untamed waters in their ebb and flow, The maniac raves beneath thy pallid ray, And poet's visions glow.

Madonna of the stars! through the cold prison-grate Thou stealest, like a nun on mercy bent,

[spent!

To cheer the desolate,
And usher in Grief's tears when her mute pang is
I marvel not that once thy altars rose
Sacred to human woes,

And nations deem'd thee arbitress of Fate,
To whom enamor'd virgins made their prayer,
Or widows in their first despair,
And wistful gazed upon thy queenly state,
As, with a meek assurance, gliding by,
In might and beauty unelate,
Into the bridal chambers of the sky!
And less I marvel that Endymion sigh'd
To yield his spirit unto thine,
And felt thee soul-allied,
Making his being thy receptive shrine!

A lofty peace is thine!-the tides of life Flow gently when thy soothing orb appears,

And Passion's fever'd strife [spheres! From thy chaste glow imbibes the calmness of the O twilight glory! that doth ne'er awake

Exhausting joy, but evenly and fond Allays the immortal thirst it cannot slake,

And heals the chafing of the work-day bond;

Give me thy patient spell!-to bear

With an unclouded brow the secret pain (That floods my soul as thy pale beams the air) Of hopes that Reason quells, for Love to wake again!

TASSO TO LEONORA.

IF to love solitude because my heart

May undisturbed upon thy image dwell, And in the world to bear a cheerful part To hide the fond thoughts that its pulses swell; If to recall with credulous delight

Affection's faintest semblances in thee, To feel thy breath upon my cheek at night, And start in anguish that it may not be; If in thy presence ceaselessly to know

Delicious peace, a feeling as of wings, Content divine within my bosom glow,

A noble scorn of all unworthy thingsThe quiet bliss that fills one's natal air, When once again it fans the wanderer's brow, The conscious spirit of the good and fairThe wish to be forever such as now; If in thy absence still to feel thee nigh, Or with impatient longings waste the day, If to be haunted by thy love-lit eyeIf for thy good devotedly to pray;

And chiefly sorrow that but half reveal'd Can be the tenderness that in me lies,

That holiest pleasure must be all conceal'dShrinking from heartless scoff or base surmise; If, as my being's crowning grace, to bless

The hour we recognised each other's truth, And with calm joy unto my soul confess

That thou hast realized the dreams of youthMy spirit's mate, long cherish'd, though unknown, Friend of my heart bestow'd on me by GoD, At whose approach all visions else have flown From the vain path which I so long have trod; If from thy sweet caress to bear new life As one possess'd by a celestial spell, That armeth me against all outward strife, And ever breathes the watchword-all is well ; If with glad firmness, casting doubt aside,

To bare my heart to thee without disguise,
And yield it up as to my chosen bride,

Feeling that life vouchsafes no dearer prize;
If thus to blend my very soul with thine
By mutual consecration, watching o'er
The hallow'd bond with loyalty divine-
If this be love,-I love forevermore!

FROM THE SPIRIT OF POETRY.

THE LAW OF BEAUTY.

READ the great law in Beauty's cheering reign, Blent with all ends through matter's wide domain; She breathes Hope's language, and with boundless [change,

range Sublimes all forms, smiles through each subtle And with insensate elements combined Ordains their constant ministry to mind. The breeze awoke to waft the feather'd seed, And the cloud-fountains with their dew to feed,

Upon its many errands might have flown,
Nor woke one river song or forest moan,
Stirr'd not the grass, nor the tall grain have bent,
Like shoreless billows tremulously spent ;
Frost could the bosom of the lake have glass'd,
Nor paused to paint the woodlands as it pass'd;
The glossy seabird and the brooding dove
Might coyly peck with twinkling eye of love,
Nor catch upon their downy necks the dyes,
So like the mottled hues of summer skies:
Mists in the west could float, nor glory wear,
As if an angel's robes were streaming there;
The moon might sway the tides, nor yet impart
A solemn light to tranquillize the heart,
And leagues of sand could bar the ocean's swell,
Nor yield one crystal gleam or pearly shell.
The very sedge lends music to the blast,
And the thorn glistens when the storm is past;
Wild flowers nestle in the rocky cleft,
Moss decks the bough of leaf and life bereft,
O'er darkest clouds the moonbeams brightly steal,
The rainbow's herald is the thunder's peal;
Gay are the weeds that strew the barren shore,
And anthem-like the breaker's gloomy roar.
As love o'er sorrow spreads her genial wings
The ivy round a fallen column clings,
While on the sinking walls, where owlets cry,
The weather stains in tints of beauty lie.
The wasting elements adorn their prey
And throw a pensive charm around decay;
Thus ancient limners bade their canvas glow,
And group'd sweet cherubs o'er a martyr's wo.

COLUMBUS.

HEROIC guide! whose wings are never furl'd, By thee Spain's voyager sought another world; What but poetic impulse could sustain That dauntless pilgrim on the dreary main? Day after day his mariners protest, And gaze with dread along the pathless west; Beyond that realm of waves, untrack'd before, Thy fairy pencil traced the promised shore, Through weary storms and faction's fiercer rage, The scoffs of ingrates and the chills of age, Thy voice renewed his earnestness of aim, And whisper'd pledges of eternal fame; Thy cheering smile atoned for fortune's frown, And made his fetters garlands of renown.

FLORENCE.

PRINCES, when softened in thy sweet embrace, Yearn for no conquest but the realm of grace, And thus redeemed, Lorenzo's fair domain Smiled in the light of Art's propitious reign. Delightful Florence! though the northern gale Will sometimes rave around thy lovely vale, Can I forget how softly Autumn threw Beneath thy skies her robes of ruddy hue, Through what long days of balminess and peace, From wintry bonds spring won thy mild release? Along the Arno then I loved to pass, And watch the violets peeping from the grass, Mark the gray kine each chestnut grove between, Startle the pheasants on the lawny green,

Or down long vistas hail the mountain snow,
Like lofty shrines the purple clouds below.
Within thy halls, when veil'd the sunny rays,
Marvels of art await the ardent gaze,
And liquid words from lips of beauty start,
With social joy to warm the stranger's heart.
How beautiful at moonlight's hallow'd hour,
Thy graceful bridges, and celestial tower!
The girdling hills enchanted seem to hang
Round the fair scene whence modern genius sprang
O'er the dark ranges of thy palace walls
The silver beam on dome and cornice falls;
The statues cluster'd in thy ancient square,
Like mighty spirits print the solemn air;
Silence meets beauty with unbroken reign,
Save when invaded by a choral strain,
Whose distant cadence falls upon the ear,
To fill the bosom with poetic cheer!

POETRY IMMORTAL.

FOR fame life's meaner records vainly strive,
While, in fresh beauty, thy high dreams survive.
Still Vesta's temple throws its classic shade
O'er the bright foam of Tivoli's cascade,
And to one Venus still we bow the knee,
Divine as if just issued from the sea;
In fancy's trance, yet deem on nights serene
We hear the revels of the fairy queen,
That Dian's smile illumes the marble fane,
And Ceres whispers in the rustling grain,
That Ariel's music has not died away,
And in his shell still floats the Culprit Fay.
The sacred beings of poetic birth
Immortal live to consecrate the earth.
San Marco's pavement boasts no doge's tread,
And all its ancient pageantry has fled;
Yet, as we muse beneath some dim arcade,
The mind's true kindred glide from ruin's shade;
In every passing eye that sternly beams
We start to meet the Shylock of our dreams;
Each maiden form, where virgin grace is seen,
Crosses our path with Portia's noble mien;
While Desdemona, beauteous as of yore,
Yields us the smile that once entranced the Moor.
How Scotland's vales are peopled to the heart
By her bold minstrel's necromantic art!
Along this fern moved Jeannie's patient feet,
Where hangs yon mist rose Ellangowan's seat,
Here the sad bride first gave her love a tongue,
And there the chief's last shout of triumph rung;
Beside each stream, down every glen they throng,
The cherish'd offspring of creative song!
Long ere brave Nelson shook the Baltic shore,
The bard of Avon hallow'd Elsinore:
Perchance when moor'd the fleet, awaiting day,
To fix the battle's terrible array,

Some pensive hero, musing o'er the deep,
So soon to fold him in its dreamless sleep,
Heard the Dane's sad and self-communing tone
Blend with the water's melancholy moan,
Recall'd, with prayer and awe-suspended breath,
His wild and solemn questionings of death,
Or caught from land Ophelia's dying song,
Swept by the night-breeze plaintively along!

2Q2

MR. HIRST was born in Philadelphia, on the twenty third day of August, 1817. His father, THOMAS HIRST, was a reputable merchant of that city, and held in high respect. When only eight years old he entered the law office of his brother, WILLIAM L. HIRST, Esq., and at the age of eighteen he was registered as a student. His professional studies were now interrupted for a long period, and he engaged in mercantile pursuits, but at the age of twenty-five he made his application for admission, and graduated with the highest honors in the early part of 1843, and is now in successful practice at the Philadelphia Bar.

Mr. HIRST's first attempts at poetry, he informs me, were in his twenty-first or twenty-second year, about which time he became a contributor to Graham's Magazine. His poems were very successful and extensively copied. In 1845 he published in Boston his first volume, "The Coming of the Mammoth, the Funeral of Time, and other Poems," a book which certainly received all the praises to which it was entitled. It was not without graceful fancies, but its most striking characteristics were a clumsy extravagance of invention, and a vein of sentiment neither healthful nor poetical. It had the merit, however, of musical though somewhat mechanical versification, and its reception was such as to encourage the author to new and more ambitious efforts.

In the summer of 1848 he published "Endymion, a Tale of Greece," an epic poem, in four cantos. It was a long-meditated and carefully elaborated production, some parts of which had been kept the full Horatian period. It may be regarded, therefore, as an exhibition of his best abilities. He evinced a certain boldness in subjecting himself to a comparison with KEATS, whose fine fancies, woven about it, will share the immortality of the Grecian fable. In the finish and musical flow of his rhythm, and in the distinctness and just proportion with which he has told his story, he has equalled KEATS: but in nothing else. With passages of graphic and beautiful description, and a happy clearness in narrative, the best praise of Mr. HIRST's performance is, that it is a fine piece of poetical rhetoric. There is not much thought in the poem, and where there is any that arrests attention, it whispers of familiar readings.

The fault of the book is the want of a poetical del icacy of feeling; it is not classical; it is not beautiful; it is merely sensual; there is none of the diviner odour of poetry about it. Mr. HIRST'S "chaste Diana" is a strumpet. The metre, though inappropri ate, to such a poem, is unusual, and is managed by Mr. HIRST with singular skill. To illustrate his mastery of versification, and at the same time to

present one of the most attractive passages of the poem, the following lines are quoted from the first canto:

Through a deep dell with mossy hemlocks girded-
A dell by many a sylvan Dryad prest,—
Which Latmos' lofty crest

Flung half in shadow-where the red deer herded-
While mellow murmurs shook the forests gray-
ENDYMION took his way.....

Mount Latmos lay before him. Gently gleaming,
A roseate halo from the twilight dim
Hung round its crown. To him
The rough ascent was light; for, far off, beaming,
Orion rose-and Sirius, like a shield,

Shone on the azure field.....

At last he gain'd the top, and, crown'd with splendour,
The moon, arising from the Latmian sea,
Stepp'd o'er the heavenly lea,
Flinging her misty glances, meek and tender
As a young virgin's, o'er his marble brow
That glisten'd with their glow.
Beside him gush'd a spring that in a hollow
Had made a crystal lake, by which he stood
To cool his heated blood-

His blood yet fever'd, for the fierce APOLLO

Throughout the long, the hot, the tropic day,
Embraced him with his ray.

Beside the lake whose waves were glassily gleaming,
A willow stood in DIAN'S rising rays,
And from the woodland ways

Its feather'd, lance-like leaves were gently streaming
Along the water, with their lucent tips
Kissing its silver lips.

And still the moon arose, serenely hovering,
Dove-like, above the horizon. Like a queen
She walk'd in light between
The stars-ber lovely handmaids-softly covering
Valley and wold, and mountain-side and plain.
With streams of lucid rain.

ENDYMION Watch'd her rise, his bosom burning
With princely thoughts; for though a shepherd's son.
He felt that fame is won

By high aspirings; and a lofty yearning,
From the bright blossoming of his boyish days,
Made his deeds those of praise.

Like her's, his track was tranquil: he had gather'd
By slow degrees the glorious, golden lore,
Hallowing his native shore;
And when at silent eve his flock was tether'd,
He read the stars, and drank, as from a stream,
Great knowledge from their gleani.

And so he grew a dreamer-one who, panting
For shadowy objects, languish'd like a bird
That, striving to be heard

Above its fellows, fails, the struggle haunting
Its memory ever, for ever the strife pursuing
To its own dark undoing.

In the summer of 1849 Mr. HIRST published in Boston a third volume, entitled "The Penance of Roland, a Romance of the Peiné Forte et Dure, and other Poems," from which the extracts in the next pages are copied. Its contents are all well versified, and their rhetoric is generally poetical.

THE LAST TILT.

Ar twilight, through the shadow, fled An ancient, war-worn knight, Array'd in steel, from head to heel, And on a steed of white; And, in the knight's despite, The horse pursued his flight: For the old man's cheek was pale, And his hands strove at the rein, With the clutch of phrensied pain; And his courser's streaming mane Swept, dishevell'd, on the gale. "Dong-dong!" And the sound of a bell Went wailing away over meadow and mere"SEVEN!"

Counted aloud by the sentinel clock

On the turret of Time; and the regular beat Of his echoing feet

Fell, like lead, on the ear

As he left the dead Hour on its desolate bier.

The old knight heard the mystic clock;
And the sound, like a funeral-bell,
Rang in his ears till their caverns were full

Of the knoll of the desolate kne'l.
And the steed, as aroused by a spell,
Sprang away with a withering yell,
While the old man strove again,

But each time with feebler force,

To arrest the spectral horse

In its mad, remorseless course,

But, alas! he strove in vain.

Dong-dong!" And the sound of a bell

Went wailing away over meadow and mere"EIGHT!"

Counted aloud by the sentinel clock

On the turret of Time; and the regular beat Of his echoing feet

Fell, like lead, on the ear

As he left the dead Hour on its desolate bier.

The steed was white, and gaunt, and grim,
With lidless, leaden eyes,

That burn'd with the lurid, livid glare
Of the stars of Stygian skies;
And the wind, behind, with sighs,
Mimick'd his maniac cries,

While through the ebony gloom, alone,
Wan-visaged Saturn gazed

On the warrior-unamazedOn the steed whose eyeballs blazed With a lustre like his own. "Dong-dong!" And the sound of a bell Went wailing away over meadow and mere"NINE!"

Counted aloud by the sentinel clock

On the turret of Time; and the regular beat
Of his echoing feet

Fell, like lead, on the ear

As he left the dead Hour on its desolate bier.

Athwart a swart and shadowy moor
The struggling knight was borne,
And far away, before him, gleam'd
A light like the gray of morn;

While the old man, weak, forlorn, And wan, and travel-worn, Gazed, mad with deathly fear: For he dream'd it was the day, Though the dawn was far away, And he trembled with dismay In the desert, dark and drear! "Dong-dong!" And the sound of a bell Went wailing away over meadow and mere-"TEN!"

Counted aloud by the sentinel clock

On the turret of Time; and the regular beat Of his echoing feet

Fell, like lead, on the ear

As he left the dead Hour on its desolate bier.
In casque and cuirass, white as snow,
Came, merrily, over the wold,

66

A maiden knight, with lance and shield,
And a form of manly mould,
And a beard of woven gold:
When, suddenly, behold!—
With a loud, defiant cry,

And a tone of stern command,

The ancient knight, with lance in hand, Rush'd, thundering, over the frozen land, And bade him "Stand, or die!"

"Dong-dong!" And the sound of a bell Went wailing away over meadow and mere"ELEVEN!"

Counted aloud by the sentinel clock

On the turret of Time; and the regular beat Of his echoing feet

Fell, like lead, on the ear

As he left the dead Hour on its desolate bier.

With his ashen lance in rest,

Career'd the youthful knight,

With a haughty heart, and an eagle eye,
And a visage burning bright-
For he loved the tilted fight-
And, under Saturn's light,
With a shock that shook the world,
The rude old warrior fell-and lay
A corpse-along the frozen clay!
As with a crash the gates of day
Their brazen valves unfurl'd.

"Dong-dong!" And the sound of a bell Went wailing away over meadow and mcre“TWELVE!"

Counted aloud by the sentinel clock

On the turret of Time; and the regular beat Of his echoing feet

Fell, like lead, on the ear

As he left the dead Year on his desolate bier!

BERENICE.

I WOULD that I could lay me at thy feet,
And with a bosom, warm with rapture, greet
The rose-like fragrance of thy odorous sighs,
Drinking, with dazzled eyes,

The radiant glory of a face

Which, even in dreams, adorns the Italian skies Of passionate love-the Astarté of their space!

This, in some quiet, column'd chamber, where
The glare of sunlight dies, yet all is light;
With all around us ruddy, rich, and rare-
Books red with gold, and mirrors diamond-bright,
And choicest paintings, and rich flowers which bear
Their beauty, bloom, and fragrance, day and night,
And stately statues, white as gods, between
The scarlet blossoms and the leaves of green,
With all that Art creates, and Fancy rears,
And Genius snatches from supernal spheres.

All day, all day, dear love, would I lie there,
With elbow sunk in some soft ottoman,
Feeling far more than man,
Breathing the fragrance of the enchanted air
Swimming around thee; while, with book in hand,
I would unfold to thee the ancient sages-
Poet's, like CHAUCER'S, quaint, delicious pages,
And wander thoughtfully through the poet's land—
Through it by night-a calm, unclouded night,
Full of sweet dreams.

By murmurous streams,
Sparkling with starry gleams,

We'd pause, entranced by Dian's amber light,
And watch the Nereid rising from the wave,
Or see the Oread lave

Her faultless feet in lucid ripples, white
As Indian ivory with the milky ray,
Trembling around their forms in liquid play.

Then to some tall old wood, beneath old trees,
Which, in the primal hours,
Gave birth to flowers

Fairer than those which jewell'd Grecian leas
What time the Dryads woo'd the summer breeze.
We'd seek some mossy bank, and sit, and scan
The stars, forgetting earth and man,
And all that is of earth, and watch the spheres,
And dream we heard their music; and, with tears
Born of our bliss, arise, and walk again,
Languid with passion's epicurean pain.

Treading the feather'd grasses,
Through misty, moonlit passes,
On, on, along some vernal, verdant plain

Our steps should falter, while the linnet's strain
Made music for our feet, and, keeping time,
Our hearts replied with gentle chime,
As our souls throbb'd responsive to the rhyme
Of perfect love, which Nature murmur'd round,
Making earth holy ground,

And as the gods who ruled all things we saw.

Then giving way to mad imaginings
Born of the time and place-
The perfume which pervaded space,
The natural emotions of our race-
We'd vow that love should be the only law

Henceforth for earth; that even the rudest things
Should love and be beloved: while we,
The ADAM and EVE, should sit enthroned, and see
All earth an Eden, and with thankful eyes
Reverence God in our new paradise.

THE LOST PLEIAD.
BEAUTIFUL sisters! tell me, do you ever
Dream of the loved and lost one, she who fell
And faded in Love's turbid, crimson river?
The sacred secret tel.

Calmly the purple heavens reposed around her,
As, chanting harmonies, she danced along:
Ere Eros in his silken meshes bound her,
Her being pass'd in song.

Once on a day she lay in dreamy slumber;
Beside her slept her golden-tongued lyre;
And radiant visions-fancies without number-
Fill'd breast and brain with fire.
She dream'd; and in her dreams saw bending o'er
her

A form her fervid fancy deified;
And, waking, view'd the noble one before her,
Who woo'd her as his bride.

What words, what passionate words he breathed, beseeching,

Have long been lost in the descending years; Nevertheless, she listen'd to his teaching,

Smiling between her tears.

And ever since that hour the happy maiden
Wanders unknown of any one but Jove;
Regretting not the lost Olympian Aidenn
In the Elysium-Love!

NO MORE.

No MORE-no more!

What vague, mysterious, Inexplicable terrors in the sound! What soul-disturbing secrecies abound In those sad syllables! and what delirious, Wild phantasies, what sorrowful and what serious Mysteries lie hid in them! No More-No More! Where is the silent and the solemn shore, Wash'd by what soundless seas, where all imperious He reigns? And over what his awful reign?

Who questions, maddens! what is veil'd in shade, Let sleep in shadow. When No More was made, Eternity felt his deity on the wane, And Zeus rose shrieking, Saturn-like and hoar, Before that dread Prometheus-No MORE!

ASTARTE.

Tur lustre, heavenly star! shines ever on me. I, trembling like Endymion over-bent By dazzling Dian, when with wonderment He saw her crescent light the Latmian lea: And like a Naiad's sailing on the sea,

Floats thy fair form before me the azure air Is all ambrosial with thy hyacinth hair: While round thy lips the moth in airy glee Hovers, and hums in dim and dizzy dreams,

Drunken with odorous breath: thy argent eyes (Twin planets swimming through Love's lustrous skies)

Are mirror'd in my heart's serenest streamsSuch eyes saw SHAKSPERE, flashing bold and bright, When queenly Egypt rode the Nile at night.