Some have dark and drooping wings,
Children all of sorrow;
Some are as gay, as if to-day

Could see no cloudy morrow,
And yet like light and shade they each
Must from the other borrow.

One by one they come to me

On their destined mission; One by one I see them fade With no hopeless vision; For they 've led me on a step To their home Elysian.

BEAUTY.

SAY, where does beauty dwell?
I gazed upon the dance, where ladies bright

Were moving in the light

Of mirrors and of lamps. With music and with

flowers,

Danced on the joyous hours;

And fairest bosoms

Heaved happily beneath the winter-roses' blossoms:

And it is well;

Youth hath its time,

Merry hearts will merrily chime.
The forms were fair to see,

The tones were sweet to the ear,
But there's beauty more rare to me,
That beauty was not here.

I stood in the open air,
And gazed on nature there.

The beautiful stars were over my head,

The crescent moon hung over the west: Beauty o'er river and hill was spread,

Wooing the feverish soul to rest:
Beauty breathed in the summer-breeze,
Beauty rock'd the whispering trees,
Was mirror'd in the sleeping billow,
Was bending in the swaying willow,
Flooding the skies, bathing the earth,
Giving all lovely things a birth:
All-all was fair to see-

All was sweet to the ear:

But there's beauty more fair to me-
That beauty was not here.

I sat in my room alone.

My heart began a tone:

Its soothing strains were such
As if a spirit's touch
Were visiting its chords.
Soon it gather'd words,
Pouring forth its feelings,
And its deep revealings:
Thoughts and fancies came
With their brightening flame.
Truths of deepest worth
Sprang imbodied forth-

Deep and solemn mysteries,
Spiritual harmonies,

And the faith that conquers time-
Strong, and lovely, and sublime.

Then the purposes of life
Stood apart from vulgar strife.
Labour in the path of duty

Gleam'd up like a thing of beauty.

Beauty shone in self-denial,

In the sternest hour of trial—

In a meek obedience

To the will of Providence

In the lofty sympathies
That, forgetting selfish ease,
Prompted acts that sought the good
Of every spirit:-understood
The wants of every human heart,
Eager ever to impart

Blessings to the weary soul

That hath felt the better world's control.

Here is beauty such as ne'er Met the eye or charm'd the ear. In the soul's high duties then I felt That the loftiest beauty ever dwelt.

MR. MATHEWs was born in New York in 1815; was graduated at Columbia College, in that city, in 1835; was admitted an attorney and counsellor in 1837; and has since devoted his attention chiefly to literature. A notice of his novels and essays may be found in The Prose Writers of America," pages 543-554. His principal poetical compositions are, "Wakondah, the Master of Life," founded upon an Indian tradition, and " Man in the Republic, a series of Poems." Each of these works has appeared in several editions. There is a diversity of opinions as to the merits of Mr. MATHEWS. He has been warmly praised, and ridiculed with unsparing severity. The "North American Review," which indeed does not profess any consistency, has spoken of his "Man in the Republic" with both derision and respect, and for

A dark-eyed spirit, he who coins the time,
To virtue's wrong, in base disloyal lies--
Who makes the morning's breath,the evening's tide,
The utterer of his blighting forgeries.
How beautiful who scatters, wide and free,
The gold-bright seeds of loved and loving truth!
By whose perpetual hand each day supplied,
Leaps to new life the nation's heart of youth.
To know the instant, and to speak it true,
Its pasing lights of joy, its dark, sad cloud-
To fix upon the unnumber'd gazers' view,
Is to thy ready hand's broad strength allowed.
There is an inwrought life in every hour,
Fit to be chronicled at large and told-
'Tis thine to pluck to light its secret power,
And on the air its many-coloured heart unfold.
The angel that in sand-dropp'd minutes lives,
Demands a message cautious as the ages-
Who stuns, with whirling words of hate, his ear,
That mighty power to boundless wrath enrages.
Shake not the quiet of a chosen land,

Thou grimy man over thine engine bending; The spirit pent that breathes the life into its limbs, Docile for love is tyrannous in rending.

whatever condemnation others have expressed, his friends can perhaps cite as high authorities in approval. This may doubtless be said, both of his prose and verse, that it illustrates truly, to the extent of the author's abilities, directed by much and honest observation, the present, in our own country; or perhaps it may be said with more justice, in New York. The poems on "Man in the Republic" are entitled, "The Child," "The Father," "The Teacher," "The Statesman," "The Reformer," "The Masses," &c.

In the last edition, the author, referring to some friendly criticisms, observes: "I have carefully considered whatever has been objected to them, and where I could, in good conscience, and according to the motions of my own taste, have made amendment."

Obey, rhinoceros! an infant's handLeviathan! obey the fisher mild and young! Vex'd ocean! smile, for on thy broad-beat sand The little curlew pipes his shrilly song.

THE CITIZEN.

WITH plainness in thy daily pathway walk,
And disencumber'd of excess: no other
Jostling, servile to none, none overstalk,
For, right and left, who passes is thy brother.

Let him who in thy upward countenance looks,
Find there in meek and soften'd majesty
Thy Country writ, thy Brother, and thy God;
And be each motion onward, calm, and free.

Feel well with the poised ballot in thy hand,
Thine unmatch'd sovereignty of right and wrong,
'Tis thine to bless or blast the waiting land,
To shorten up its life or make it long.

Who looks on thee, with gladness should behold
A self-delivered, self-supported Man-
True to his being's mighty purpose-true
To this heaven-bless'd and God-imparted plan.

Nowhere within the great globe's skyey round
Canst thou escape thy duty, grand and high-
A man unbadged, unbonneted, unbound-
Walk to the tropic, to the desert fly.

A full-fraught hope upon thy shoulder leans,
And beats with thine, the heart of half the world;
Ever behind thee walks the shining past,
Before thee burns the star-stripe, far unfurl'd.

THE REFORMER.

MAN of the future! on the eager headland standing, Gazing far off into the outer sea,

Thine eye, the darkness and the billows rough commanding,

Beholds a shore, bright as the heaven itself may be ; Where temples, cities, homes, and haunts of men, Orchards and fields spread out in orderly array, Invite the yearning soul to thither flee,

And there to spend in boundless peace its happier day.

By passion and the force of earnest thought,
Borne up and platformed at a height,
Where,'gainst thy feet the force of earth and heaven
are brought,

Yet, so into the frame of empire wrought,

Thou, stout man, canst not thence be sever'd, Till ruled and rulers, fiends or men, are taught And feel the truths by thee delivered.

Seize by its horns the shaggy Past,
Full of uncleanness; heave with mountain-cast
Its carcase down the black and wide abyss-
That opens day and night its gulfy precipice,
By faded empires, projects old and dead
Forever in its noisy hunger fed:

But rush not, therefore, with a brutish blindness,
Against the 'stablished bulwarks of the world;
Kind be thyself, although unkindness

Thy race to ruin dark and suffering long has hurl'd. For many days of light, and smooth repose, "Twixt storms and weathery sadness intervene; Thy course is nature's: on thy triumph flows, Assured, like hers, though noiseless and serene.

Wake not at midnight and proclaim it day, When lightning only flashes o'er the way; Pauses and starts, and strivings towards an end, Are not a birth, although a god's birth they portend. Be patient, therefore, like the old broad earth

That bears the guilty up, and through the night Conducts them gently to the dawning lightThy silent hours shall have as great a birth.

THE MASSES.

WHEN, wild and high, the uproar swells
From crowds that gather at the set of day,
When square and market roar in stormy play,
And fields of men, like lions, shake their fells
Of savage hair; when, quick and deep call out the
Through all the lower heaven ringing,

As if an earthquake's shock

The city's base should rock,

And set its troubled turrets singing: Remember, men! on massy strength relying,

There is a heart of right

Not always open to the light,
Secret and still, and force-defying.
In vast assemblies calm let order rule,
And every shout a cadence owning,
Make musical the vex'd wind's moaning,
And be as little children at singing-school.

[bells

But, when thick as night the sky is crusted o'et, Stifling life's pulse, and making heaven an ide dream,

Arise! and cry, up through the dark, to God's own throne:

Your faces in a furnace-glow,

Your arms uplifted for the deathward blowFiery and prompt as angry angels show; Then draw the brand and fire the thunder gun! Be nothing said and all things done,

Till every cobweb'd corner of the common wes! Is shaken free, and, creeping to its scabbard back, the steel,

Lets shine again God's rightful sun.

THE MECHANIC.

On, when thou walkest by the river's side,
Thy bulky figure outlined in the wave,
Or, on thine adze-staff resting, 'neath the ship
Thy strokes have shaped, or hearest loud and brave
The clangour of the boastful forge, think not
To strength of limb, to sinews large and tough,
Are given rights masterless and vantage-proof,
Which the pale scholar and is puny hand
Writing his thoughts upon the idle sand,
May not possess as full: oh, maddened, drink nɔt
With greedy ear what selfish Passion pours!
His a sway peculiar is, no less than yours.
The inner world is his, the outer thine-
(And both are God's)—a world, maiden and new,
To shape and finish forth, of rock and wood,
Iron and brass, to fashion, mould, and bew-
In countless cunning forms to recreate,
Till the great God of order shall proclaim it
"Good!"

Proportioned fair, as in its first estate.

It consecrates whate'er it strikes each blow,
From the small whisper of the tinkling smith,

Up to the big-voiced sledge that heaving slow

Roars 'gainst the massy bar, and tears Its entrail, glowing, as with angry teeth-Anchors that hold a world should thus-wise grow. In the First Builder's gracious spirit-workThrough hall, through enginery, and temples meek,

In grandeur towered, or lapsing, beauty-sleek, Let order and creative fitness shine:

Though mountains are no more to rear, Though woods may rise again no more, The noble task to reproduce is thine!

The spreading branch, the firm-set peak, may live With thee, and in thy well-sped labours thrive. The untried forces of the air, the earth, the sea, Wait at thy bidding: oh, compel their powers To uses holy! Let them ever be

Servants to tend and bless these new-found bow

ers,

And make them household-workers, free and swift,
On daily use--on daily service bent:
Her face again old Eden may uplift,
And God look down the open firmament.

THE author of " Alice, or the New Una," is of the eminent families of HUNTINGTON and TRUMBULL, in Connecticut, and is a brother of Mr. HuxTINGTON the painter. He was born in 1814, and was educated for the profession of physic, which he practised for several years; but turning his attention to theology, he became in 1839 a candidate for orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and soon after was appointed one of the professors in St. Paul's College, Long Island. He was subsequently, during a short period, rector of a church in Middlebury, Vermont; but his health failing, he went to Europe, and passed several years in Italy. In 1843 he published, in New York, a volume of Poems, comprising "The Trysting-Place," a romantic story; "Fragments and Inscriptions from the Greek;" "Inscriptions and Fragments from the

Female Poets of Greece;" "Sacred Pieces," consisting chiefly of translations from ancient Latin hymns; "The Northern Dawn," "Sketches in the Open Air," and miscellaneous sonnets and other short pieces, all of which are in a style of scholarly elegance.

In 1849 Mr. HUNTINGTON published, in London, "Alice, or the New Una," a romance which attracted much attention for its literary and speculative characteristics. Its ingeniously dramatic though frequently improbable incidents, its highlyfinished and poetical diction, and the skill with which the views of the author-those of the extreme "Tractarians"-are maintained and illustrated, secured for it at once the favourable consideration of critics in art, and the applause of a reli❘gious party.

SONNETS

SUGGESTED BY THE CORONATION OF QUEEN

VICTORIA.

AUGUST 4, 1838.

I. THE ABBEY.

WITHIN the minster's venerable pile
What pomps unwonted flash upon our eyes!
What galleries, in gold and crimson, rise
Between the antique pillars of the aisle,
Crowded with England's gayest life; the while
Beneath, her dead, unconscious glory lies;
Above, her ancient faith still seeks the skies;
And with apparent life doth well beguile
Our senses in that ever-growing roof;
Whence on the soul return those recollections
Of her great annals-built to be time-proof,
Which chiefly make this spot the fittest scene
Wherein to consecrate those new affections
We plight this day to Britain's virgin queen.

11. THE QUEEN.

How strange to see a creature young and fair
Assume the sceptre of these widespread lands!—
How in her femininely feeble hands
The orb of empire shall she ever bear!—
And crowns, they say, not more with gems than care
Are weighty yet with calmest mien she stands;
August in innocence herself commands,
And will that stately burden lightly wear.
Claims surely inoffensive!-What is she?
Of ancient sovereignty a living shoot;
The latest blossom on a royal tree
Deep in the past extends whose famous root;
And realms from age to age securely free,
Gather of social peace its yet unfailing fruit.

57

III. THE CROWNING.

How dazzling flash the streams of colour'd light, When on her sacred brow the crown is placed! And straight her peers and dames with haughty

haste

Their coronets assume, as is their right,
With sudden blaze making the temple bright.
Does man's enthusiasm run to waste,
By which a queen's investiture is graced
With deafening demonstrations of delight,
That from the cannon's roar protect the ear?
We may not dare to think so, for His sake
Whose word has link'd king's honour and GoD's

fear.

Nor is it servile clamour that we make, Who, born ourselves to reign, in her revere The kingly nature that ourselves partake.

ON READING BRYANT'S POEM OF "THE WINDS."

YE Winds, whose various voices in his lay
That bard interpreted-your utterance mild,
Nor less your ministration fierce and wild,
Of those resistless laws which ye obey
In your apparent lawlessness-oh say!
Is not your will-less agency reviled
When it is liken'd unto what is styled
By such unwise the Spirit of the Day?
Not all the islands by tornadoes swept,

E'er knew such ruin as befalls a state
When not the winds of God, but mortal breath,
With threatening sweetness of melodious hate
Assaults the fabrics reverent ages kept
To shelter ancient loyalty and faith.

2 P2

449

TO EMMELINE: A THRENODIA.

J.

SISTER! for as such I loved thee,

May I not the privilege claim As thy brother to lament thee,

Though not mine that sacred name? For though not indeed thy brother, Yet fraternal is the grief, That in tears no solace meeting,

Now in words would find relief.

Who did watch thy final conflict?

Who did weep when it was o'er? Whose the voice which then consoled

One by thee beloved more?

Lips that kiss'd thy cold white forehead,
Sure may sing thy requiem;
Hands that closed thy stiffening eyelids,
Should it not be writ by them?
To perform those death-bed honours
Soften'd much my deep regret;
But to celebrate tby virtues

Is a task more soothing yet.
O'er thy features death-composed,
As the life-like smile that play'd,
By its beauty so familiar

Tears drew forth which soon it stay'd.

So the memory of thy goodness

Calms the grief that from it springs: That which makes our loss the greatest, Sweetest consolation brings.

II.

When the Christian maiden findeth
In the grave a maiden's rest,
We mourn not as did the heathen
Over beauty unpossess'd.

As the tender MELEAGER,

In that sweetly mournful strain, Sung the fate of CLEARISTA Borne to nuptial couch in vain : How her virgin zone unloosed,

She in Death's embraces slept; As for vainly-woo'd ANTIBIA

Pure ANYTE hopeless wept. For the soul to CHRIST united

Need regret no human bliss,
And there yet remains a marriage
Better than the earthly is.

Wedded love is but the symbol
Of a holier mystery,

Which unto the stainless only
Ever shall unfolded be.

Life and Hope, when they embracing
Seem like one, are Love on earth;
Death and Hope, so reuniting,

Are the Love of heavenly birth.

III.

In thy fairy-like proportions
Woman's dignity was yet,
And in all thy winning actions
With the grace of childhood met.
With what light and airy motion
Wert thou wont to glide or spring!
As if were that shape elastic

Lifted by an unseen wing.

In what sweet and lively accents
Flow'd or gush'd thy talk or song!
What pure thoughts and gentle feelings
Did that current bear along!
But affliction prematurely

On thy tender graces breathed,
And in sweet decay about thee

Were the faded flowerets wreathed. Blasts that smite with death the flower, Cull for use the ripen'd fruit; Suns the plant that overpower, Cannot kill the buried root: So the grief that dimm'd thy beauty Shower'd gifts of higher worth, And the germ of both is hidden

Safely now within the earth. Nature, eldest, truest sybil,

Writes upon her wither'd leaves, Words of joy restored prophetic To the heart her law bereaves.

IV.

Greenly swell the clustering mountains
Whence thy passing spirit went;
Clear the waters they embosom;
Blue the skies above them bent.
Pass'd away the spirit wholly

From the haunts to us so dear?
Or at will their forms assuming,
In them doth it reappear?
For there is a new expression

Now pervading all the place;
Rock and stream do look with meanings
Such as wore thy living face.
Nor alone the face of Nature;
Human features show it too;
Chiefly those by love illumin'd
Of the heart-united few.
We upon each other gazing,
Mystic shadows come and go,
Over each loved visage flitting,
Why and whence we do not know.

In the old familiar dances
Mingle thy accustom'd feet;
Blending with the song familiar

Still are heard thy concords sweet.

Hence we know the world of spirits Is not far from each of us; Scarce that veil forbids our entrance Which thou hast half lifted us.