R. H. DANA-N. P. WILLIS-O. W. HOLMES.

RICHARD HENRY DANA (born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1787) was author of a small volume, The Buccaneer, and other Poems (1827); which was hailed as an original and powerful contribution to American literature. He had previously published The Dying Raven, a poem (1825), and contributed essays to a periodical work. The Buccaneer is founded on a tradition of a murder committed on an island on the coast of New England by a pirate, and has passages of vivid, dark painting resembling the style of Crabbe.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1806-1867) was a prolific and popular American writer, who excelled in light descriptive sketches. He commenced author in 1827 with a volume of fugitive pieces, which was well received, and was followed in 1831 and 1835 by two volumes of similar character. In 1835 he published two volumes of prose, Pencillings by the Way, which formed agreeable reading, though censurable on the score of personal disclosures invading the sanctity of private life. On this account, Willis was sharply criticised and condemned by Lockhart in the Quarterly Review. Numerous other works of the same kind-Inklings of Adventure (1836), Dashes at Life (1845), Letters from Wateringplaces (1849), People I have Met (1850), &c., were thrown off from time to time, amounting altogether to thirty or forty separate publications; and besides this constant stream of authorship, Mr Willis was editor of the New York Mirror and other periodicals. Though marred by occasional affectation, the sketches of Willis are light, graceful compositions.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1809) contributed various pieces to American periodicals, and in 1836 published a collected edition of his Poems. In 1843 he published Terpsichore, a poem; in 1846, Urania; in 1850, Astræa, the Balance of Allusions, a poem; and in 1858, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, a series of light and genial essays, full of fancy and humour, which has been successful both in the Old and the New World. Mr Holmes is distinguished as a physician. He practised in Boston; in 1836 took his degree of M.D. at

Cambridge; in 1838 was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Dartmouth College; and in 1847 succeeded to the chair of Anatomy in Harvard University. In 1849 he retired from general practice. Some of the quaint sayings of Holmes have a flavour of fine American humour:

Give me the luxuries of life, and I will dispense with its necessaries.

Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. Say, rather, it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him, and the wave in which he dips.

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself. Stupidity often saves a man from going mad. Any decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds such and such opinions. It is very much to his discredit in every point of view, if he does not. I am very much ashamed of some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they would become non-compotes at once.

What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp such a one to our minds. There are men of esprit who does not bring more solace to our dazzled eye than are excessively exhausting to some people. They are the talkers that have what may be called the jerky minds. They say bright things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a squirrel.

Don't you know how hard it is for some people to get out of a room after their visit is over? We rather think we do. They want to be off, but they don't know how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your room, and were waiting to be launched. for such visitors, which being lubricated with certain I have contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane smooth phrases, I back them down, metaphorically speaking, stern foremost, into their native element of out-of-doors.

The Buccaneer's Island.-By Dana.
The island lies nine leagues away.
Along its solitary shore,

Of craggy rock and sandy bay,
No sound but ocean's roar,

Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home,
Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foan.

But when the light winds lie at rest,
And on the glassy heaving sea,

The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently-

How beautiful! no ripples break the reach,
And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach.

And inland rests the green, warm dell;
The brook comes tinkling down its side;
From out the trees the Sabbath bell
Rings cheerful, far and wide,
Mingling its sound with bleatings of the flocks,
That feed about the vale among the rocks.

Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat,
In former days within the vale;
Flapped in the bay the pirate's sheet;
Curses were on the gale;

Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men;
Pirate and wrecker kept their revels then.

Thirty-five.-By WILLIS.

O weary heart! thou 'rt half-way home!
We stand on life's meridian height-
As far from childhood's morning come,
As to the grave's forgetful night.
Give Youth and Hope a parting tear-
Look onward with a placid brow-
Hope promised but to bring us here,

And Reason takes the guidance now-
One backward look-the last-the last!
One silent tear-for Youth is past!
Who goes with Hope and Passion back?
Who comes with me and Memory on?
Oh, lonely looks the downward track-
Joy's music hushed-Hope's roses gone!
To Pleasure and her giddy troop

Farewell, without a sigh or tear!
But heart gives way, and spirits droop,

To think that Love may leave us here! Have we no charm when Youth is flown?Midway to death left sad and lone!

Yet stay!-as 'twere a twilight star
That sends its thread across the wave,
I see a brightening light, from far,

Steal down a path beyond the grave!
And now-bless God!—its golden line

Comes o'er-and lights my shadowy way-
And shews the dear hand clasped in mine!
But, list what those sweet voices say:
'The better land 's in sight,

And, by its chastening light,
All love from life's midway is driven,

Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze,
Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays,
O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis
Like blue-eyed Pallas towers erect and free,
With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows,
And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose;
Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge
The rival lily hastens to emerge,

Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips,
Till morn is sultan of her parted lips.

Then bursts the song from every leafy glade,
The yielding season's bridal serenade;
Then flash the, wings returning Summer calls
Through the deep arches of her forest halls :
The blue-bird breathing from his azure plumes,
The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms;
The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down,
Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown;
The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire,
Rent by the whirlwind from a blazing spire.
The robin jerking his spasmodic throat
Repeats, staccato, his peremptory note;
The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate
Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight.
Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings,
Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings.
Why dream I here within these caging walls,
Deaf to her voice while blooming Nature calls,
While from heaven's face the long-drawn shadows roll,
And all its sunshine floods my opening soul !

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, a distin

The American Spring.-By HOLMES.

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden-drift, or sky, or sun:
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The housefly, stealing from his narrow grave,
Drugged with the opiate that November gave,
Beats with faint wing against the snowy pane,
Or crawls tenacious o'er its lucid plain;
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls
In languid curves the gliding serpent crawls;
The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep,
Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap;
On floating rails that face the softening noons
The still shy turtles range their dark platoons,
Or toiling, aimless, o'er the mellowing fields,
Trail through the grass their tesselated shields.
At last young April, ever frail and fair,
Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,
Chased to the margin of receding floods,
O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,
In tears and blushes sighs herself away,

And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.

was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. Having studied at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, the poet, after three years' travelling and residence in Europe, became Professor of Modern Languages in his native college. This appointment he held from 1829 to 1835, when he removed to the chair of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, Cambridge. While a youth at college, Mr Longfellow contributed poems and criticisms to American periodicals. In 1833 he published a translation of the Spanish verses called Coplas de Manrique, accompanying the poem with an essay on Spanish poetry. In 1835 appeared his Outre-Mer, or Sketches from beyond Sea, a series of prose descriptions and reflections somewhat in the style of Washington Irving. His next work was also in prose, Hyperion, a Romance (1839), which instantly became popular in America. In the same year he issued his first collection of poems, entitled Voices of the Night. In 1841 appeared Ballads, and other Poems; in 1842, Poems on Slavery; in 1843, The Spanish Student, a tragedy; in 1845, The Poets and Poetry of Europe; in 1846, The Belfry of Bruges; in 1847, Evangeline, a poetical tale in hexameter verse; in 1849, Kavanagh, a prose tale; and The Seaside and the Fireside, a series of short poems; in 1851, The Golden Legend, a medieval story in irregular rhyme; and in 1855, The Song of Hiawatha, an American-Indian tale, in a still more singular style of versification, yet attractive from its novelty and wild melody. Thus:

Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,

And the rushing of great rivers

Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,

Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their eyries;
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha !

In 1858 appeared Miles Standish; in 1863, Tales of a Wayside Inn; in 1866, Flower de Luce; in 1867, a translation of Dante; in 1872, The Divine Tragedy, a sacred but not successful drama, embodying incidents in the lives of John the Baptist and Christ; and the same year, Three Books of Song; in 1875, The Masque of Pandora. Other poems and translations have appeared from the fertile pen of Mr Longfellow; and several collected editions of his Poems, some of them finely illustrated and carefully edited, have been published. He is now beyond all question the most popular of the American poets, and has also a wide circle of admirers in Europe. If none of his larger poems can be considered great, his smaller pieces are finished with taste, and all breathe a healthy moral feeling and fine tone of humanity. An American critic (Griswold) has said justly that of all their native poets he best deserves the title of artist.

Excelsior.

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath;
And like a silver clarion rung,
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light

Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

'Try not the Pass!' the old man said;
'Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!'
And loud the clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!

'O stay,' the maiden said, 'and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!'
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

'Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!'

This was the peasant's last good-night.
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!

A Psalm of Life.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
'Life is but an empty dream!'
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal; 'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,' Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife.

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Foot-prints on the sands of Time; Foot-prints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er Life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait.

The Ladder of St Augustine.
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!
All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's virtues less;
The revel of the treacherous wine,
And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will:

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern-unseen before-
A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

God's-Acre.

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those who in the grave have sown
The seed that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life; alas! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,

This is the place where human harvests grow!

Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned,
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leafed,
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside aweary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves. The purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,
A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch-hazel; whilst aloud
From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings;
And merrily, with oft repeated stroke,
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.

Oh, what a glory doth this world put on
For him who with a fervent heart goes forth,
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well performed, and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings;
He shall so hear the solemn hymn, that Death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go

To his long resting-place without a tear.

A Rainy Day.

A cold, uninterrupted rain,

That washed each southern window-pane,
And made a river of the road;

A sea of mist that overflowed

The house, the barns, the gilded vane,

And drowned the upland and the plain,

Through which the oak-trees, broad and high,
Like phantom ships went drifting by ;
And, hidden behind a watery screen,
The sun unseen, or only seen

As a faint pallor in the sky

Thus cold and colourless and gray,
The morn of that autumnal day,
As if reluctant to begin,
Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,
And all the guests that in it lay.

Full late they slept. They did not hear
The challenge of Sir Chanticleer,
Who on the empty threshing-floor,
Disdainful of the rain outside,
Was strutting with a martial stride,
As if upon his thigh he wore

The famous broadsword of the Squire,
And said, 'Behold me, and admire!
Only the Poet seemed to hear

In drowse or dream, more near and near
Across the border-land of sleep
The blowing of a blithesome horn,
That laughed the dismal day to scorn;
A splash of hoofs and rush of wheels
Through sand and mire like stranding keels,
As from the road with sudden sweep
The mail drove up the little steep,
And stopped beside the tavern door;
A moment stopped, and then again,
With crack of whip and bark of dog,
Plunged forward through the sea of fog,
And all was silent as before-
All silent save the dripping rain.

CHARLES SWAIN.

A native of Manchester, and carrying on business there as an engraver, CHARLES SWAIN (18031874) became known as a poet in the pages of the Literary Gazette and other literary journals. His collected works are: Metrical Essays, 1827; The Mind and other Poems, 1831; Dramatic