From Freedom's altar raised before his eyes
With incense fuming sweet, in others light
A kindred flame in secret, till a train,
Kindled at once, deal death on every side?
Cease then, Columbia, for thy safety cease,
And for thine honor, to proclaim the praise
Of thy fair shores of liberty and joy,

While thrice five hundred thousand wretched slaves,1
In thine own bosom, start at every word

As meant to mock their woes, and shake their chains,
Thinking defiance which they dare not speak.

DOING GOOD, TRUE HAPPINESS.

Wouldst thou from sorrow find a sweet relief?
Or is thy heart oppress'd with woes untold?
Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief?
Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold.
'Tis when the rose is wrapp'd in many a fold
Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there

Its life and beauty; not when, all unroll'd,
Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair,

Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air.
Wake, thou that sleepest in enchanted bowers,

Lest these lost years should haunt thee on the night
When death is waiting for thy number'd hours

To take their swift and everlasting flight;

Wake, ere the earth-born charm unnerve thee quite,
And be thy thoughts to work divine address'd;

Do something-do it soon-with all thy might;
An angel's wing would droop if long at rest,
And God himself, inactive, were no longer blest.
Some high or humble enterprise of good

Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.
Pray Heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind
To this thy purpose-to begin, pursue,

With thoughts all fix'd, and feelings purely kind;
Strength to complete, and with delight review,
And grace to give the praise where all is ever due.
No good of worth sublime will Heaven permit
To light on man as from the passing air;
The lamp of genius, though by nature lit,
If not protected, pruned, and fed with care,
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare;
And learning is a plant that spreads and towers
Slow as Columbia's aloe, proudly rare,

That 'mid gay thousands, with the suns and showers

Of half a century, grows alone before it flowers.

According to the census of 1850, there are in the land 3,204,347 slaves,— about one to every six freemen.

Has immortality of name been given

To them that idly worship hills and groves,
And burn sweet incense to the queen of heaven?
Did Newton learn from fancy, as it roves,

To measure worlds, and follow where each moves?
Did Howard gain renown that shall not cease,

By wanderings wild that nature's pilgrim loves?
Or did Paul gain heaven's glory and its peace
By musing o'er the bright and tranquil isles of Greece?

Beware lest thou, from sloth, that would appear
But lowliness of mind, with joy proclaim

Thy want of worth,-a charge thou couldst not hear
From other lips, without a blush of shame,
Or pride indignant; then be thine the blame,
And make thyself of worth; and thus enlist

The smiles of all the good, the dear to fame;
'Tis infamy to die and not be miss'd,

Or let all soon forget that thou didst e'er exist.

Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know;
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;
The good begun by thee shall onward flow
In many a branching stream, and wider grow;
The seed that, in these few and fleeting hours,
Thy hands, unsparing and unwearied, sow,
Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers,
And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THIS eminent poet and political philosopher, the son of Peter Bryant, M.D., of Cummington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, was born in that town on the 3d of November, 1794. When only ten years of age, Mr. Bryant produced several small poems, which, though bearing, of course, the marks of immaturity, were thought of sufficient merit to be published in a neighboring newspaper,-the "Hampshire Gazette." After going through the usual preparatory studies, he entered the sophomore class of Williams College, in 1810, and for two years pursued his studies with commendable industry,-being distinguished more especially for his fondness of the classics. Anxious, however, to begin the profession which he had chosen,-the law, he procured an honorable dismission at the end of the junior year, and in 1815 was admitted to practice at the bar of Plymouth. But Mr. Bryant did not, during the period of his professional studies, neglect the cultivation of his poetic talents. In 1808, before he entered college, he had published, in Boston, a satirical poem which attracted so much attention that a second edition was demanded the next year. But what gave him his early, enviable rank as a poet was the publication, in the "North American Review,"

in 1817, of the poem Thanatopsis, written four years before, (in 1812.) That a young man, not yet nineteen, should have produced a poem so lofty in conception and so beautiful in execution, so full of chaste language and delicate and striking imagery, and, above all, so pervaded by a noble and cheerful religious philosophy, may well be regarded as one of the most remarkable examples of early maturity in literary history. Nor did this production stand alone: the Inscription for an Entrance into a Wood followed in 1813; and The Waterfowl in 1816. In 1821, he wrote his longest poem, The Ages, which was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College, and soon after published in Boston in connection with his other poems. The appearance of this volume at once placed Mr. Bryant in the very front rank of American poets.

In 1822, Mr. Bryant was married to Miss Fairchild, of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, whither he had removed to prosecute his profession. But, though skilful and successful in it, he preferred to devote his life to the more congenial pursuits of literature; and in 1825 he removed to New York, where he edited a monthly periodical, "The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine," in which appeared many forcible and just criticisms, and some of his best poems. In 1826, he became the editor of the "Evening Post,”— —one of the oldest and most influential of the daily gazettes in our country. At once its columns evinced new spirit and vigor, and it became the leading journal of the so-called "Democratic" party, supporting its views in relation to banks, free trade, &c. with signal ability. But in later years, when he thought that that party had abandoned the principles of its founders, and was becoming too much the ally of the slave-power, he divorced himself from it, and devoted his talents and influence to the cause of republican freedom.1

Mr. Bryant has visited Europe five times,-in 1834, 1836, 1849, 1852, and 1857, enriching his journal with his letters descriptive of the scenes, places, countries, and persons visited. In 1850, he published a collection of letters written during his travels, under the title of Letters of a Traveller, of which several editions have appeared. His letters written during his last tour, mostly in Spain, have been lately published, and form the Second Series of Letters of a Traveller. But notwithstanding the ease and charm of his descriptive style, and its terseness and power in discussing political subjects, it is as a poet that Mr. Bryant will ever be most known, most loved, and most honored.2

When the "Evening Post" completed its first half-century, in 1851, Mr. Bryant wrote its history, which appeared in a pamphlet.

2 For criticisms of Mr. Bryant's poetry, read articles in "Democratic Review," vols. vii. and x.; "North American Review," vols. xiii., xxxiv., and Iv.; "Christian Examiner," vols. xxii. and xxxiii.; "American Quarterly Review," vol. xx. In the "Democratic Review" for February, 1845, is a fine article on his poetry, by H. T. Tuckerman. In the "North American Review" for January, 1844, are the following just and well-written remarks:

"His poems are almost perfect of their kind. The fruits of meditation, rather than of passion or imagination, and rarely startling with an unexpected image or sudden outbreak of feeling, they are admirable specimens of what may be called the philosophy of the soul. They address the finer instincts of our nature with a voice so winning and gentle, they search out with such subtle power all in the heart which is true and good, that their influence, though quiet, is resistless.

THANATOPSIS.

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;-
Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice.-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go

To mix forever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

The oak

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon.
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone,-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,-with kings,
The powerful of the earth,-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills

They have consecrated to many minds things which before it was painful to contemplate. Who can say that his feelings aud fears respecting death have not received an insensible change since reading the Thanatopsis? Indeed, we think that Bryant's poems are valuable not only for their intrinsic excellence, but for the vast influence their wide circulation is calculated to exercise on national feelings and manners. It is impossible to read them without being morally benefited: they purify as well as please; they develop or encourage all the elevated and thoughtful tendencies of the mind. In the jar and bustle of our American life, more favorable to quickness and acuteness of mind than to meditation, it is well that we have a poet who can bring the hues and odors of nature into the crowded mart, and, by ennobling thoughts of man and his destiny, induce the most worldly to give their eyes an occasional glance upward, and the most selfish to feel that the love of God and man is better than the love of mammon."

An elegant edition of Mr. Bryant's poems, arranged by himself, and richly illustrated, has just been published by Appleton & Co.

Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods,-rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man.

The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.

Take the wings

Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save its own dashings,-yet-the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep,-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men-

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man-
Shall, one by one, be gather'd to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,

Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

TO A WATERFOWL.

Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,