GEORGE W. DOANE. [Born, 1799.] THE Right Reverend GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, D. D., LL. D., was born in Trenton, New Jersey, 1799. He was graduated at Union College, Schenectady, when nineteen years old, and immediately after commenced the study of theology. He was ordained deacon by Bishop HOBART, in 1821, and priest by the same prelate in 1823. He officiated in Trinity Church, New York, three years, and, in 1824, was appointed Professor of Belles Lettres and Oratory in Washington College, Connecticut. He resigned that office in 1828, and soon after was elected rector of Trinity Church, in Boston. He was conse crated Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey, on the thirty-first of October, 1832. The church has few more active, efficient, or popular prelates. Bishop DOANE's "Songs by the Way," a collection of poems, chiefly devotional, were published in 1824, and appear to have been mostly produced during his college-life. He has since, from time to time, written poetry for festival-days and other occasions; but he has published no second volume. His contributions to the religious literature of the country are more numerous and valuable. ON A VERY OLD WEDDING-RING. THE DEVICE-Two hearts united. THE MOTTO-" Dear love of mine, my heart is thine." I LIKE that ring-that ancient ring, As were the sterling hearts of old. I like it for it wafts me back, Far, far along the stream of time, To other men, and other days, The men and days of deeds sublime. But most I like it, as it tells The tale of well-requited love; Though she, unpitying, long denied, He won his "fair and blooming bride.”— How, till the appointed day arrived, Strew'd their glad way with freshest flowersAnd how, before the holy man, They stood, in all their youthful pride, And spoke those words, and vow'd those vows, All this it tells; the plighted troth- The hand in hand-the heart in heart For this I like that ancient ring. I like its old and quaint device; "Two blended hearts"-though time may wear them, No mortal change, no mortal chance, "Till death," shall e'er in sunder tear them. Year after year, 'neath sun and storm, Their hopes in heaven, their trust in GoD, In changeless, heartfelt, holy love, These two the world's rough pathway trod. Age might impair their youthful fires, Their strength might fail, mid life's bleak weather, Still, hand in hand, they travell❜d on Kind souls! they slumber now together. I like its simple poesy too: "Mine own dear love, this heart is thine!" Thine, when the dark storm howls along, As when the cloudless sunbeams shine. "This heart is thine, mine own dear love!" Thine, and thine only, and forever; Thine, till the springs of life shall fail, Thine, till the cords of life shall sever. Remnant of days departed long, Emblem of plighted troth unbroken, Pledge of devoted faithfulness, Of heartfelt, holy love the token: What varied feelings round it cling!For these I like that ancient ring. THE VOICE OF RAMA. "RACHEL Weeping for her children, and would not be comforted." HEARD ye, from Rama's ruin'd walls, That voice of bitter weeping! Is it the moan of fetter'd slave, His watch of sorrow keeping? Heard ye, from Rama's wasted plains, That cry of lamentation !— Is it the wail of ISRAEL'S Sons, Ah, no-a sorer ill than chains That bitter wail is waking, And deeper wo than Salem's fall That tortured heart is breaking: "Tis RACHEL, of her sons bereft, Who lifts that voice of weeping; Her wasted form is bending; Thy tears and bitter sobbing- To whom no hope is given Snatch'd from the world, its sins and snares, Thy infant rests in heaven. THAT SILENT MOON. THAT silent moon, that silent moon, Have pass'd beneath her placid eye, Profaned her pure and holy light: By rippling wave, or tufted grove, And heart meets heart in holy love, When friends are far, and fond ones rove, How powerful she to wake the thought, And start the tear for those we love, The happy eves of days gone by; On lonely eyes that wake to weep In dungeon dark, or sacred cell, Or couch, whence pain has banish'd sleep: O! softly beams her gentle eye On those who mourn, and those who die! But, beam on whomsoe'er she will, Or bask them in the noontide ray; From dawning light to dying day :But, O! be mine a fairer boonThat silent moon, that silent moon! THERMOPYLÆ. "Twas an hour of fearful issues, When the bold three hundred stood, For their love of holy freedom, By that old Thessalian flood; When, lifting high each sword of flame, They call'd on every sacred name, And swore, beside those dashing waves, They never, never would be slaves! And, O! that oath was nobly kept: From morn to setting sun Did desperation urge the fight Which valour had begun; The foeman's fetters spurn; THE WATERS OF MARAH. "And Moses cried unto the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree, which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet." Br Marah's stream of bitterness Whene'er affliction o'er thee sheds Then, sufferer, be the prophet's prayer "WHAT IS THAT, MOTHER?" WHAT is that, Mother?-The lark, my child!— Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays What is that, Mother?-The dove, my son!- Ever, my son, be thou like the dove, In friendship as faithful, as constant in love. What is that, Mother?-The eagle, boy!— What is that, Mother?-The swan, my love!- Live so, my love, that when death shall come, A CHERUB. "Dear Sir, I am in some little disorder by reason of the death of a little child of mine, a boy that lately made us very glad; but now he rejoices in his little orbe, while we thinke, and sigh, and long to be as safe as he is."JEREMY TAYLOR to EVELYN, 1656. - BEAUTIFUL thing, with thine eye of light, Be tiful thing! thou art come in love, To the better thoughts, to the brighter skies, Beautiful thing! thou art come in joy, With the look and the voice of our darling boy- LINES BY THE LAKE SIDE. THIS placid lake, my gentle girl, A mirror'd image lies; To GoD and virtue given, And thought, and word, and action bear The imagery of heaven. THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. LIFT not thou the wailing voice, Ransom'd now, the spirit flieth; Heaven its book of comfort opeth; Bids thee sorrow not, nor fear, But, as one who alway hopeth, Humbly here in faith relying, Peacefully in JESUS dying, Heavenly joy her eye is flushing,Why should thine with tears be gushing? They who die in CHRIST are bless'd,— Ours be, then, no thought of grieving! All their toils and troubles leaving: Love that to the end endureth, And, through CHRIST, the crown secureth! GRENVILLE MELLEN. [Born, 1799. Died, 1841.] GRENVILLE MELLEN was the third son of the late Chief Justice PRENTISS MELLEN, LL. D., of Maine, and was born in the town of Biddeford, in that state, on the nineteenth day of June, 1799. He was educated at Harvard College, and after leaving that seminary became a law-student in the office of his father, who had before that time removed to Portland. Soon after being admitted to the bar, he was married, and commenced the practice of his profession at North Yarmouth, a pleasant village near his native town. Within three years-in October, 1828-his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, died, and his only child followed her to the grave in the succeeding spring. From this time his character was changed. He had before been an ambitious and a happy man. The remainder of his life was clouded with melancholy. I believe Mr. MELLEN did not become known as a writer until he was about twenty-five years old. He was then one of the contributors to the Cambridge "United States Literary Gazette." In the early part of 1827, he published a satire entitled "Our Chronicle of Twenty-six," and two years afterward, "Glad Tales and Sad Tales," a collection of prose sketches, which had previously been printed in the periodicals. "The Martyr's Triumph, Buried Valley, and other Poems," appeared in 1834. The principal poem in this volume is founded on the history of Saint Alban, the first Christian martyr in England. It is in the measure of the "Faery Queene," and has some creditable passages; but, as a whole, it hardly rises above mediocrity. In the "Buried Valley" he describes the remarkable avalanche near the Notch in the White Mountains, by which the Willey family were destroyed, many years ago. In a poem entitled "The Rest of Empires," in the same collection, he laments the custom of the elder bards to immortalize the deeds of conquerors alone, and contrasts their prostitution of the influence of poetry with the nobler uses to which it is applied in later days, in the following lines, which are characteristic of his best manner : "We have been taught, in oracles of old, Of the enskied divinity of song; That Poetry and Music, hand in hand, Came in the light of inspiration forth, And claim'd alliance with the rolling heavens. And were those peerless bards, whose strains have come In an undying echo to the world, Whose numbers floated round the Grecian isles, And made melodious all the hills of Rome, Were they inspired 1-Alas, for Poetry! It was the menial service of the bard- "But other times have strung new lyres again, To those who journey with us through the vale; It points to moral greatness-deeds of mind, And the high struggles, worthy of a man. Have we no minstrels in our echoing halls, No wild CADWALLON, with his wilder strain, Pouring his war-songs upon helmed ears? We have sounds stealing from the far retreats Of the bright company of gifted men, Who pour their mellow music round our age, And point us to our duties and our hearts; The poet's constellation beams aroundA pensive CowPER lives in all his lines, And MILTON hymns us on to hope and heaven!” After spending five or six years in Boston, Mr. MELLEN removed to New York, where he resided He wrote nearly all the remainder of his life. much for the literary magazines, and edited several works for his friend, Mr. COLMAN, the publisher. In 1839, he established a Monthly Miscellany, but it was abandoned after the publication of a few numbers. His health had been declining for several years; his disease finally assumed the form of consumption, and he made a voyage to Cuba, in the summer of 1840, in the hope that he would derive advantage from a change of climate, and the sea air. He was disappointed; and learning of the death of his father, in the following spring, he returned to New York, where he died, on the fifth of September, 1841. Mr. MELLEN was a gentle-hearted, amiable man, social in his feelings, and patient and resigned in the long period of physical suffering which preceded his death. As a poet, he enjoyed a higher reputation in his lifetime than his works will preserve. They are without vigour of thought or language, and are often dreamy, mystic, and unintelligible. In his writings there is no evidence of creative genius; no original, clear, and manly thought; no spirited and natural descriptions of life or nature; no humour, no pathos, no passion; nothing that appeals to the common sympathies of mankind. The little poem entitled « The Bu. gle," although "it whispers whence it stole its spoils," is probably superior to any thing else he wrote. It is free from the affectations and unmeaning epithets which distinguish nearly all his works. ENGLISH SCENERY. THE woods and vales of England!—is there not A magic and a marvel in their names? Is there not music in the memory Of their old glory?-is there not a sound, As of some watchword, that recalls at night All that gave light and wonder to the day? In these soft words, that breathe of loveliness, And summon to the spirit scenes that rose Rich on its raptured vision, as the eye Hung like a tranced thing above the page That genius had made golden with its glowThe page of noble story-of high towers, And castled halls, envista'd like the line Of heroes and great hearts, that centuries Had led before their hearths in dim arrayOf lake and lawn, and gray and cloudy tree, That rock'd with banner'd foliage to the storm Above the walls it shadow'd, and whose leaves, Rustling in gather'd music to the winds, Seem'd voiced as with the sound of many seas! The woods and vales of England! O, the founts, The living founts of memory! how they break And gush upon my stirr❜d heart as I gaze! I hear the shout of reapers, the far low Of herds upon the banks, the distant bark Of the tired dog, stretch'd at some cottage door, The echo of the axe, mid forest swung, And the loud laugh, drowning the faint halloo. Land of our fathers! though 'tis ours to roam Than thou couldst e'er unshadow to thy sons,- MOUNT WASHINGTON. MOUNT of the clouds, on whose Olympian height The tall rocks brighten in the ether air, And spirits from the skies come down at night, To chant immortal songs to Freedom there! Thine is the rock of other regions, where The world of life, which blooms so far below, Sweeps a wide waste: no gladdening scenes appear, Save where, with silvery flash, the waters flow Beneath the far-off mountain, distant, calm, and slow. Thine is the summit where the clouds repose, Or, eddying wildly, round thy cliffs are borne; When Tempest mounts his rushing car, and throws His billowy mist amid the thunder's home! Far down the deep ravine the whirlwinds come, And bow the forests as they sweep along; While, roaring deeply from their rocky womb, The storms come forth, and, hurrying darkly on, Amid the echoing peaks the revelry prolong! And when the tumult of the air is fled, And quench'd in silence all the tempest flame, There come the dim forms of the mighty dead, Around the steep which bears the hero's name: The stars look down upon them; and the same Pale orb that glistens o'er his distant grave Gleams on the summit that enshrines his fame, And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave, The richest, purest tear that memory ever gave! Mount of the clouds! when winter round thee The hoary mantle of the dying year, [throws Sublime amid thy canopy of snows, Thy towers in bright magnificence appear! 'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear, Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue; When, lo! in soften'd grandeur, far, yet clear, Thy battlements stand clothed in heaven's own hue, To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view! THE BUGLE. O! WILD, enchanting horn! Whose music up the deep and dewy air Swells to the clouds, and calls on Echo there, Till a new melody is born Wake, wake again, the night Is bending from her throne of beauty down, Night, at its pulseless noon! When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long Barks at the melancholy moon. Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky, As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, With lone halloo and roundelay! Swell, swell in glory out! Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart, And my stirr'd spirit hears thee with a start As boyhood's old remember'd shout. O! have ye heard that peal, From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements, Or from the guarded field and warrior tents, Like some near breath around you steal? Or have ye in the roar Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise, Where wings and tempests never soar? No music that of air or earth is born, |