engaged, than had been before witnessed. The Americans, from this trial of strength and skill, acquired an universal confidence of their power successfully to resist and expel the enemy.

ARGUMENT.

THE scene of the following poem is Bunker Hill. An old man, a veteran who fought on the seventeenth of June, 1775, accompanied by a youth, on the fiftieth anniversary, ascends the hill to be present at the laying of the foundation of a monument which is about to be erected in commemoration of the battle. The youth, fearing that the octogenarian will be exhausted by fatigue, or overcome by vivid recollections, proposes to him to retire from this scene of popular festivity and noise. The old man, animated to unusual energy, turns with some asperity, and declares that the very last desire of his heart is about to be accomplished in the consecration of this place. Glowing with the prospect around him, and contrasting it with that at the commencement of the revolution, he demands what would now be the state of things, if the Americans had failed to establish their independence. He then, under the pressure of strong emotions, sometimes in broken sentences, rapidly enumerates some of the circumstances which provoked resistance to the mother country, and pointing to the

several places, notices the events of the war in their vicinity, the final success of the American arms, and the consequent happiness we now enjoy. Recollecting the fondness with which some people cherish every relic of ancient date, he reverts to Sir Walter Raleigh and the young Pocahontas, laments that men of one common origin should indulge a spirit of hostility, and admonishes the youth, that the liberty we now enjoy can be preserved from the grasp of tyranny only by cherishing those virtues which are hostile to its exercise, as well as hateful in the eyes of despotism from the superiority of their lustre.

BUNKER HILL.

A POEM.

He looked

Ocean and Earth, the solid frame of Earth,
And Ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay
In gladness and deep joy-

-his spirit drank

The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form

All melted in him.

Wordsworth.

HARK! around the world's employ Seems but laughter, sport, and joy ! 1 How they shout, they leap, they haste, Care from every brow is chased!

"If thy cheek no falsehood tells,
With their joy, thy bosom swells;
Emanations from thine eye
Flash with glowing radiancy;
On thy quivering lips a feeling

Silent seems to Heaven appealing.

What do hoary locks here seek?
Why ascend this lofty peak?

Age, on level plains, and still

Sloping bank, or sunny hill,

Where the lambs are wont to bleat,

Loves to rest-a mild retreat!

Age must all excess forbear,
Joy, tumultuous joy, or care;
Age must not forget to live,
By the rules he loves to give ;
Not a cloud must come to mar
His illustrious evening star.

"With the sparkling ruby bring

Water from the crystal spring,

Lest, inflamed, the nerves expire,
Kindled by the rarer fire;

Lest like Bacchanals we rave

At the hero's solemn grave;
Youth has many a bumper quaffed,
Age forbears so deep a draught;
Memory's tide too strong may rush,
Hearts may bleed, or tears may gush;
Let me lead thee back, or rest

On my yet unpanting breast;