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"But now, if I die, fulfil for me

This last request, O brother!

Take home my body to France with thee, To be laid in the lap of my mother.

"The cross of honor, with ribbon red,

Shalt thou place on my heart where they lay me; The shouldered musket beside my head,

And with girded sword array me.

"And so in the grave, like a sentinel, Waking and watching, I'll lie there, Till I hear at last the cannon's yell,

And the neighing steeds tramp by there.

"And then shall my emperor ride o'er my grave,
And myriads of swords flash and rattle;
Then armed and equipped will I rise from my grave,
For my emperor-my emperor to battle.”

ALABAMA.

There is a tradition that a tribe of Indians, defeated and hard pressed by a powerful foe, reached in their flight a river where their chief set up a staff, and exclaimed, "Alabama!" a word meaning, "Here we rest!" which from that time became the river's name.

Bruised and bleeding, pale and weary,
Onward to the South and West,
Through dark woods and deserts dreary,

By relentless foemen pressed,—
Came a tribe where evening, darkling,

Flushed a mighty river's breast;
And they cried, their faint eyes sparkling,
"Alabama! Here we rest!"

By the stern steam-demon hurried,

Far from home and scenes so blessed; By the gloomy care-dogs worried, Sleepless, houseless, and distressed,— Days and nights beheld me hieing Like a bird without a nest, Till I hailed thy waters, crying, "Alabama! Here I rest!"

Oh! when life's last sun is blinking
In the pale and darksome West,
And my weary frame is sinking,
With its cares and woes oppressed,-
May I, as I drop the burden

From my sick and fainting breast,
Cry, beside the swelling Jordan,
"Alabama! Here I rest!"

Jones Very.

AMERICAN.

A native of Salem, Mass., Jones Very (1813-1880) graduated at Harvard College in 1836. In 1823 he accompa nied his father, who was a sea-captain, to Europe; on his return, served as Greek tutor at Harvard two years, entered the ministry, and continued in it, though without a pastoral charge. In 1839 he published a volume of “Essays and Poems." His residence was in Salem, Mass., with two sisters, both of whom had the poetical gift. His brother, Washington Very (1815-1853), was also a poet in the best sense of the word. Very's meditative poems show refined taste and a strong devotional tendency.

THE BUD WILL SOON BECOME A FLOWER.
The bud will soon become a flower,
The flower become a seed;

Then seize, oh youth, the present hour,-
Of that thou hast most need.

Do thy best always-do it now;
For in the present time,
As in the furrows of a plough,
Fall seeds of good or crime.

The sun and rain will ripen fast

Each seed that thou hast sown; And every act and word at last By its own fruit be known.

And soon the harvest of thy toil Rejoicing thou shalt reap,

Or o'er thy wild, neglected soil Go forth in shame to weep.

HOME AND HEAVEN.

With the same letter, heaven and home begin,
And the words dwell together in the mind;
For they who would a home in heaven win
Must first a heaven in home begin to find.
Be happy here, yet with a humble soul
That looks for perfect happiness in heaven;
For what thou hast is earnest of the whole
Which to the faithful shall at last be given.
As once the patriarch, in a vision blessed,
Saw the swift angels hastening to and fro,
And the lone spot whereon he lay to rest
Became to him the gate of heaven below;
So may to thee, when life itself is done,
Thy home on earth and heaven above be one.

THE SPIRIT-LAND.

Father! thy wonders do not singly stand,
Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed;
Around us ever lies the enchanted laud,

In marvels rich to thine own sons displayed;
In finding Thee are all things round us found;
In losing Thee are all things lost beside;
Ears have we, but in vain;-strange voices sound,
And to our eyes the vision is denied:

We wander in the country far remote,
'Mid tombs and ruined piles in death to dwell;
Or on the records of past greatness dote,
And for a buried soul the living sell;
While on our path bewildered falls the night
That ne'er returns us to the fields of light.

NATURE.

The bubbling brook doth leap when I come by,
Because my feet find measure with its call;
The birds know when the friend they love is nigh,
For I am known to them, both great and small;
The flower that on the lovely hill-side grows
Expects me there when Spring its bloom has
given;

And many a tree or bush my wanderings knows,
And even the clouds and silent stars of heaven:-
For he who with his Maker walks aright
Shall be their lord, as Adam was before;
His ear shall catch each sound with new delight,
Each object wear the dress that then it wore;
And he, as when erect in soul he stood,
Hear from his Father's lips that all is good.

OUR SOLDIERS' GRAVES.

Strew all their graves with flowers,
They for their country died;
And freely gave their lives for ours,
Their country's hope and pride.

Bring flowers to deck each sod,

Where rests their sacred dust;

Though gone from earth, they live to God, Their everlasting trust!

Fearless in Freedom's cause

They suffered, toiled, and bled; And died obedient to her laws, By truth and conscience led.

Oft as the year returns,

She o'er their graves shall weep;

And wreathe with flowers their funeral urns, Their memory dear to keep.

Bring flowers of early spring

To deck each soldier's grave, And summer's fragrant roses bring,They died our land to save.

William Edmondstoune Aytoun.

Descended from an ancient Scottish family, Aytoun (1813-1865) was born in Edinburgh, and educated at the Academy and University of that city. He also studied in Germany, and made translations of some of the best of Uhland's poems. In 1841, in conjunction with Theodore Martin, he produced the "Bon Gaultier Ballads." But his chief success (1843) was his spirited "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers." Seventeen editions of it had been issued up to 1865. He married a daughter of Professor John Wilson, the poet, and editor of Blackwood's Magazine. With this periodical Aytoun was connected till the close of his life. Among his later works are "Firmilian; or, The Student of Badajoz," a poem in ridicule of the "spasmodic school" of verse; Bothwell," a pocm; and "Norman Sinclair," a romance.

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THE OLD SCOTTISH CAVALIER. Come, listen to another song, Should make your heart beat high, Bring crimson to your forehead, And the lustre to your eye: It is a song of olden time,

Of days long since gone by, And of a baron stout and bold As e'er wore sword on thigh! Like a brave old Scottish cavalier, All of the olden time!

He kept his castle in the North,

Hard by the thundering Spey; And a thousand vassals dwelt around, All of his kindred they.

And not a man of all that clan

Had ever ceased to pray For the royal race they loved so well, Though exiled far away

From the steadfast Scottish cavaliers, All of the olden time!

His father drew the righteous sword For Scotland and her claims,

Among the loyal gentlemen

And chiefs of ancient names, Who swore to fight or fall beneath The standard of King James, And died at Killiecrankie Pass, With the glory of the Graemes, Like a true old Scottish cavalier, All of the olden time!

He never owned the foreign rule,
No master he obeyed;

But kept his clan in peace at home
From foray and from raid;

And when they asked him for his oath,
He touched his glittering blade,
And pointed to his bonnet blue,
That bore the white cockade:
Like a leal old Scottish cavalier,

All of the olden time!

At length the news ran through the land,-
The PRINCE had come again!

That night the fiery cross was sped
O'er mountain and through glen;
And our old Baron rose in might,
Like a lion from his den,
And rode away across the hills
To Charlie and his men,

With the valiant Scottish cavaliers,
All of the olden time!

He was the first that bent the knee
When the Standard waved abroad;
He was the first that charged the foe
On Preston's bloody sod;

And ever in the van of fight,
The foremost still he trod,
Until on bleak Culloden's heath
He gave his soul to God,

Like a good old Scottish cavalier,
All of the olden time!

Oh! never shall we know again

A heart so stout and true

The olden times have passed away,
And weary are the new:

The fair White Rose has faded

From the garden where it grew,

And no fond tears, save those of heaven,

The glorious bed bedew

Of the last old Scottish cavalier,

All of the olden time!

Christopher Pearse Cranch.

AMERICAN.

Crauch was born in Alexandria, Va., in 1813, and was graduated at Columbia College, Washington, in 1832, He began the study of divinity; but forsook it for landscape-painting. A small volume of poetry from his pen appeared in 1844; and in 1875, "The Bird and the Bell, with other Poems." In 1847 he visited Europe, and lived abroad, mostly in Paris, for over ten years. He is the author of two works for the young, and of a superior metrical translation of Virgil.

SONNET.

Upon God's throne there is a seat for me:
My coming forth from him hath left a space
Which none but I can fill. One sacred place
Is vacant till I come. Father! from thee,
When I descended here to run my race,
A void was left in thy paternal heart,
Not to be filled while we are kept apart.
Yea, though a thousand worlds demand thy care,
Though heaven's vast host thy constant blessings

own,

Thy quick love flies to meet my feeble prayer,
As if amid thy worlds I lived alone

In endless space; but thou and I were there,
And thou embraced me with a love as wild
As the young mother bears toward her first-born

child.

GNOSIS.'

Thought is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;

Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
Heart to heart was never known,

Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete.

Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near,

1 Greek, Tvois-knowing.

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FROM AN "ODE."

ON THE BIRTHDAY OF MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.1

Where now, where,

O spirit pure, where walk those shining feet?
Whither, in groves beyond the treacherous seas,
Beyond our sense of time, divinely, dimly fair,
Brighter than gardens of Hesperides,—
Whither dost thou move on, complete
And beauteous, ringed around
In mystery profound,

By gracious companies who share

That strange supernal air?

Or art thou sleeping dreamless, knowing naught Of good or ill, of life or death?

Or art thou but a breeze of Heaven's breath,
A portion of all life, inwrought

In the eternal essence ?-All in vain,
Tangled in misty webs of time,
Out on the undiscovered clime
Our clouded eyes we strain;
We cannot pierce the veil.

As the proud eagles fail
Upon their upward track,
And flutter gasping back

From the thin empyrean, so, with wing
Baffled and humbled, we but guess

1 For an account of this lady, see page 676.

Henry Theodore Tuckerman.

AMERICAN.

Tuckerman (1813-1871) was a native of Boston, the son of a well-known merchant. He was fitted for college, but, on account of feeble health, did not enter. He was a prolific, but never, in the commercial sense, a successful writer. He spent some eleven years of his life in Italy; wrote "The Italian Sketch-book," "Thoughts on the Poets," "Artist Life," "The Optimist," etc., besides contributing to the leading magazines. In poetry, he preferred the school of Pope, Cowper, and Burns to the modern style, so largely influenced by Tennyson, Browning, and their imitators. His principal poem, published in Boston in 1851, and entitled "The Spirit of Poetry," is an elaborate essay in heroic verse of some seven hundred lines. He was a close student of art, as his writings show.

SONNET: FREEDOM.

Freedom! beneath thy banner I was born:
Oh, let me share thy full and perfect life!
Teach me opinion's slavery to scorn,
And to be free from passion's bitter strife;
Free of the world, a self-dependent soul,
Nourished by lofty aims and genial truth,
And made more free by Love's serene control,
The spell of beauty and the hopes of youth:-
The liberty of Nature let me know,

Caught from her mountains, groves, and crystal

streams;

Her starry host, and sunset's purple glow,
That woo the spirit with celestial dreams
On Fancy's wing exultingly to soar

Till Life's harsh fetters clog the heart no more!

Epes Sargent.

AMERICAN.

A native of Gloucester, Mass. (born 1813), Sargent attended the Public Latin School in Boston some five years. In 1827 he went in one of his father's ships to Denmark and Russia, and, a few years later, to Cuba. He entered Harvard College, but did not graduate. He was connected in an editorial capacity with the Advertiser, Atlas, and Transcript of Boston; and for several years with the Mirror, New World, and other New York journals. He published in 1849"Songs of the Sea, and other Poems," now out of print. Before that, he had passed several seasons at Washington as the correspondent of Boston and New York journals. He wrote a Life of Henry Clay, afterward re-edited by Horace Greeley. In 1868 he revisited Europe, and passed some time in England and the South of France. His home has been in the Roxbury district of Boston.

EVENING IN GLOUCESTER HARBOR.

The very pulse of ocean now was still:
From the far-off profound, no throb, no swell!
Motionless on the coastwise ships the sails
Hung limp and white-their very shadows white!
The light-house windows drank the kindling red,
And flashed and gleamed as if the lamps were lit.
And now 'tis sundown. All the light-houses-
Like the wise virgins, ready with their lamps-
Flash greeting to the night! There Eastern Point
Flames out! Lo, little Ten Pound Island follows!
See Baker's Island kindling! Marblehead
Ablaze! Egg Rock, too, off Nahant, on fire!

And Boston Light winking at Minot's Ledge!

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But when the moon shone crescent in the west,
And the faint outline of the part obscured
Thread-like curved visible from horn to horn,-
And Jupiter, supreme among the orbs,
And Mars, with rutilating beam, came forth,
And the great concave opened like a flower,
Unfolding firmaments and galaxies,
Sparkling with separate stars, or snowy white
With undistinguishable suns beyond,--
No cloud to dim the immeasurable arch-
They paused and rested on their oars again,
And looked around,-in adoration looked:
For, gazing on the inconceivable,
They felt God is, though inconceivable.

SUNRISE AT SEA.

When the mild weather came, And set the sea on flame,

How often would I rise before the sun,

And from the mast behold

The gradual splendors of the sky unfold Ere the first line of disk had yet begun, Above the horizon's arc,

To show its flaming gold, Across the purple dark!

One perfect dawn how well I recollect,
When the whole east was flecked
With flashing streaks and shafts of amethyst,
While a light crimson mist

Went up before the mounting luminary,
And all the strips of cloud began to vary
Their hues, and all the zenith seemed to ope
As if to show a cope beyond the cope!

How reverently calm the ocean lay
At the bright birth of that celestial day!
How every little vapor, robed in state,
Would melt and dissipate

Before the augmenting ray,

Till the victorious Orb rose unattended, And every billow was his mirror splendid! May, 1827.

A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE.

A life on the ocean wave,

A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep: Like an eagle caged, I pine

On this dull, unchanging shore: Oh! give me the flashing brine, The spray and the tempest's roar!

Once more on the deck I stand

Of my own swift-gliding craft: Set sail! farewell to the land! The gale follows fair abaft. We shoot through the sparkling foam Like an ocean-bird set free ;— Like the ocean-bird, our home We'll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view,

The clouds have begun to frown; But with a stout vessel and crew,

We'll say, Let the storm come down! And the song of our hearts shall be, While the winds and the waters rave, A home on the rolling sea!

A life on the ocean wave!

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