The vow, it is spoken all pure from the heart, That must not be broken till life shall depart. Hark! 'mid the gay clangor that compassed their car, As wakes the good shepherd, the watchful and bold, When the ounce or the leopard is seen near the fold, So rises already the chief in his mail, Chauncy Hare Townshend. A graduate of Cambridge University, England, Townshend (1803-1860) wrote verses early in life. He studied for the Church, and his convictions took the form of Universalism. In 1839 he published "Facts in Mesmerism," one of the best and most philosophical works on the subject. In his Preface he says: "I have scarcely conversed with one person of education in Germany who was not able to detail to me some interesting fact relating to mesmerism which had been personally witnessed and authenticated." In 1851 appeared his "Sermons in While the new-married lady looks fainting and pale. Sonnets, and other Poems." He made Charles Dickens "Son, husband, and brother! arise to the strife! Farrah! to the battle!-they form into line;— The shields, how they rattle! the spears, how they shine! Soon, soon shall the foeman his treachery rue:On, burgher and yeoman! to die or to do! The eve is declining in lone Malahide; Hark! loud from the mountain-'tis victory's cry! With foreheads unruffled the conquerors come;- Ye saw him at morning-how gallant and gay! But, oh! for the maiden who mourns for that chief, Ye maidens attending, forbear to condole! his literary executor. "JUDGE NOT."-MATT. vii. 1. FROM SERMONS IN SONNETS." Judge not, because thou canst not judge aright. And the worst temper for the courts of heaven. "WHAT GOD HATH CLEANSED, THAT CALL NOT THOU COMMON."-ACTS x. 15. FROM "SERMONS IN SONNETS." Behold men's judgments! Common and unclean "HIS BANNER OVER ME WAS LOVE." CANT. ii. 4. FROM SERMONS IN SONNETS." He who loves best knows most. Then why should I "IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS."--ST. JOHN xiv. 2. FROM "SERMONS IN SONNETS." Ye orbs that tremble through infinity, And are ye, then, linked only with our eyes, Dissevered from our thoughts, our smiles, our sighs, Our hopes and dreams of being yet to be? (As sure it is), why in those solemn skies ON POETRY. With thine compared, O sovereign Poesy, MAY. FROM THE MONTHS." Oh, darling of the year,-delicious May! CONCLUDING SONNET. Man-the external world-the changeful year- To all the soul's great wards a mighty key AN EVENING THOUGHT. Reflected in the lake, I love To mark the star of evening glow; So tranquil in the heaven above, So restless on the wave below! Thus heavenly hope is all serene; Rufus Dawes. AMERICAN. Dawes (1803-1856) was a native of Boston, one of a family of sixteen. His father, Thomas Dawes, was a judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and author of a poem entitled "The Law given on Mount Si nai." Rufus entered Harvard College in 1820, but left in consequence of some boyish irregularity. He studied law, but never practised his profession. In 1830 he published a volume of poems, and subsequently "Nix's Mate," a novel. He was connected for some years with the newspaper press in New York. He married a sister of C. P. Cranch, the poet-artist. TO GENEVIEVE. I'll rob the hyacinth and rose, I'll search the cowslip's fragrant cell, Nor spare the breath that daily blows Her incense from the asphodel. And these shall breathe thy gentle name,- That Passion kindles in his dream. Thy soul of Music broke the spell That bound my lyre's neglected strings; Attuned its silent echo's shell, And loosed again his airy wings. Ah! long had beanty's eyes in vain Diffused their radiant light divine; Alas! it never woke a strain, Till inspiration breathed from thine. Thus vainly did the stars at night O'er Memuon's lyre their watch prolong, When naught but bright Aurora's light Could wake its silence into song. LOVE UNCHANGEABLE. Yes, still I love thee! Time, who sets And dims my sunken eye, forgets How love may sometimes last; The dew-drop hanging o'er the rose A snow-drop in the sun! A moment finely exquisite, Alas! but only one. I would not have thy married heart Think momently of me; Nor would I tear the chords apart That bind me so to thee. No! while my thoughts seem pure and mild, As dew upon the roses wild, I would not have thee know The stream that seems to thee so still Enough, that in delicious dreams I see thee and forget: Enough, that when the morning beams I feel my eyelids wet! Yet could I hope, when Time shall fall The darkness for creation's pall, To meet thee and to love, I would not shrink from aught below, Nor ask for more above! James Clarence Mangan. Mangan was born in Dublin in 1803, and died there in 1849. He had to struggle with poverty, and at fifteen got a situation in a scrivener's office, where he remained seven years, and then became a solicitor's clerk for three years. His situation was distasteful, and he says: "In seeking to escape from this misery, I had laid the foundation of that evil habit which has proved to be my ruin." He became an opium-eater. In spite of his wild habits, he attained great proficiency in a knowledge of languages. He died in a state of destitution in a public hospital. His translations from the German were published in 1845, under the title of "Anthologia Germanica." An edition of his poems, with a biographical introduction by John Mitchel, was published in 1870, in New York. THE MARINER'S BRIDE. Look, mother! the mariner's rowing I saw him one day through the wicket, I've lost my maidenly pride A name to waken lightning thought, And fire the soul of him who reads, This tells above. Napoleon sinks to-day before The ungilded shrine, the single soul Of Washington; Truth's name alone shall man adore, Long as the waves of time shall roll Henceforward on! George Henry Calvert. AMERICAN. A native of Prince George's County, Md., Calvert, born 1803, was a great-grandson of Lord Baltimore, and also a descendant on the mother's side from the painter Rubens. He was educated partly at Harvard, and partly at Göttingen, where he acquired his taste for German literature. He edited at one time the Baltimore American, but in 1843 removed to Newport, R. I. He has published "Count Julian, a Tragedy," " Ellen, a Poem," and is the author of numerous prose works, criticisms, essays, and translations, showing extensive literary and philosophical culture. el. A collection of his poems, with a memoir, appeared in 1851. He died in his forty-seventh year, at Frankfort, from an accidental prick on his finger, got while dissecting. TO SEA! To sea to sea! the calm is o'er, To sea! to sea! our white-winged bark Shall billowing cleave its watery way, And with its shadow, fleet and dark, Break the caved Triton's azure day, Like mountain eagle soaring light O'er antelopes on Alpine height! The anchor heaves! The ship swings free! Our sails swell full! To sea! to sea! ON THE FIFTY-FIFTH SONNET OF SHAK SPEARE.' The soul leaps up to hear this mighty sound Was the deep joy that thou hast here proclaimed Oh, the world thanks thee that thou'st let us see Thou knew'st how great thou wast, how prized to be! Thomas Lovell Beddoes. Ralph Waldo Emerson. AMERICAN. More generally known as a free and subtle thinker and an essayist, somewhat after the manner of Montaigne, than as a writer of verse, Emerson has shown that the poetical gift is his in abounding measure. He is a true artist in words, at the same time that he disdains all the arts that would make style compensate for the absence of earnest, profound thought, presented with no particle of tinsel or of superfluous drapery. He impresses us with his absolute sincerity in aiming less at perfect consistency than at fidelity to his own mood; his own uppermost convictions. His forte is rather introspective than dramatic. In a letter to Henry Ware (1838) he wrote: "I could not possibly give you one of the 'arguments' on which any doctrine of mine stands; for I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortals." Born in Boston in 1803, the son of an excellent clergyman, Emerson graduated at Harvard, became a minister of a Unitarian church, withdrew from it in 1832, and, after passing a year or two in Europe, devoted himself thenceforward almost exclusively to literature and lect Beddoes (1803-1849), son of an eminent physician, and nephew of Maria Edgeworth, was educated at Oxford, and in his nineteenth year published "The Bride's Trag-uring, residing most of the time at Concord, Mass. It is edy," of which Blackwood's Magazine says: "With all its extravagances, and even sillinesses and follies, it shows far more than glimpses of a true poetical genius." Beddoes devoted himself to scientific study and foreign trav 1 See page 30. difficult to deduce from his writings his exact opinions as to the destiny of man after this life; but according to the declaration of his friend and townsman, A. B. Alcott, his views as late as 1879 inclined to theism and belief in a conscious Orderer of the Universe. His career has been that of a pure-hearted, independent thinker, wed |