Not so his memory, for whose sake
My bosom bore thee far and long,
His who a humbler flower could make
Immortal as his song.

There have been loftier themes than his,
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres,
And lays lit up with Poesy's

Purer and holier fires:

Yet read the names that know not death;
Few nobler ones than Burns are there;
And few have won a greener wreath
Than that which binds his hair.

His is that language of the heart

In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek;

And his that music, to whose tone

The common pulse of man keeps time, In cot or castle's mirth or moan,

In cold or sunny clime.

And who hath heard his song, nor knelt
Before its spell with willing knee,
And listen'd, and believed, and felt
The Poet's mastery?

O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm,

O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, O'er Passion's moments, bright and warm, O'er Reason's dark, cold hours;

On fields where brave men "die or do,"
In halls where rings the banquet's mirth,
Where mourners weep, where lovers woo,
From throne to cottage hearth?

What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,

What wild vows falter on the tongue, When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," Or "Auld Lang Syne," is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,

Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise,
And dreams of youth, and truth, and love,
With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay
Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,

All passions in our frames of clay
Come thronging at his call.

Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee,

Wit, pathos, poetry, are there,

And death's sublimity.

And Burns-though brief the race he ran,
Though rough and dark the path he trod-
Lived-died-in form and soul a Man,
The image of his God.

Through care, and pain, and want, and woe,
With wounds that only death could heal,
Tortures-the poor alone can know,
The proud alone can feel;

He kept his honesty and truth,

His independent tongue and pen, And moved, in manhood as in youth, Pride of his fellow-men.

Praise to the bard! his words are driven,

Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven,
The birds of fame have flown.

Praise to the man! a nation stood
Beside his coffin with wet eyes,
Her brave, her beautiful, her good,
As when a loved one dies.

Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined-
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas, of the mind.

Sages, with Wisdom's garland wreathed,
Crown'd kings, and mitred priests of power,
And warriors with their bright swords sheathe 1,
The mightiest of the hour;

And lowlier names, whose humble home

Is lit by Fortune's dimmer star,

Are there-o'er wave and mountain come,
From countries near and far;

Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have press'd
The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand,

Or trod the piled leaves of the West,

My own green forest-land.

All ask the cottage of his birth,

Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung,

And gather feelings not of earth

His fields and streams among.

They linger by the Doon's low trees,
And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr,
And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries!
The Poet's tomb is there.

But what to them the sculptor's art,

His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns!

Wear they not graven on the heart
The name of Robert Burns?

The world is bright before thee;
Its summer flowers are thine;
Its calm, blue sky is o'er thee,
Thy bosom pleasure's shrine:
And thine the sunbeam given
To nature's morning hour,
Pure, warm, as when from heaven
It burst on Eden's bower.

There is a song of sorrow,
The death-dirge of the gay,
That tells, ere dawn of morrow,
These charms may melt away,-
That sun's bright beam be shaded,
That sky be blue no more,
The summer flowers be faded,

And youth's warm promise o'er.

Believe it not; though lonely

Thy evening home may be;
Though beauty's bark can only
Float on a summer sea,
Though Time thy bloom is stealing,
There's still, beyond his art,
The wild-flower wreath of feeling,
The sunbeam of the heart.

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL, 1795-1856.

THIS eminent scholar and classic poet was born at Berlin, Connecticut, September 15, 1795, and graduated at Yale College in 1815, with high honor. After leaving college, he entered the medical school connected with the same, and received the degree of M.D. He did not, however, engage in practice, but devoted himself chiefly to the cultivation of his poetical powers and to the pursuits of science and literature. He first appeared before the public as an author in 1821, when he published a volume containing some minor poems, and the first part of his Prometheus, which was very favorably noticed in the "North American Review." In 1822, he published two volumes of miscellaneous poems and prose writings, and the second part of Prometheus, a poem in the Spenserian measure. In 1824, he was for a short time in the service of the United States, as Professor of Chemistry in the Military Academy at West Point, and subsequently as a surgeon connected with the recruiting-station at Boston. But his tastes lay in a different direction, and he gave himself to the Muses, and to historical, philological, and scientific pursuits. In 1827, he was employed to revise the manuscript

of Dr. Webster's large Dictionary, and not long after this he published a corrected translation of Malte-Brun's Geography. In 1835, he was appointed, in connection with Professor C. U. Shepard, to make a survey of the geological and mineralogical resources of the State of Connecticut. Dr. Percival took charge of the geological part, and his report thereon was published in 1842. In 1843 appeared, at New Haven, his last published volume of miscellaneous poetry, entitled The Dream of Day, and other Poems. In 1854, he was appointed State Geologist of Wisconsin, and his first report on that survey was published in January, 1855. The larger part of this year he spent in the field. While preparing his second report, his health gave way, and, after a gentle decline, he expired on the 2d of May, 1856, at Hazel Green, Wisconsin.

However much distinguished Mr. Percival may be for his classical learning, and for his varied attainments in philology and general science, he will be chiefly known to posterity as one of the most eminent of our poets, for the richness of his fancy, the copiousness and beauty of his language, his life-like descriptions, his sweet and touching pathos, as well as, at times, his spirited and soul-stirring measures.1

ODE.-LIBERTY TO ATHENS."

The flag of freedom floats once more
Around the lofty Parthenon;

It waves, as waved the palm of yore
In days departed long and gone;

As bright a glory, from the skies,

Pours down its light around those towers,

And once again the Greeks arise,

As in their country's noblest hours;
Their swords are girt in virtue's cause,
Minerva's sacred hill is free,-

Oh, may she keep her equal laws,

While man shall live, and time shall be.
The pride of all her shrines went down;
The Goth, the Frank, the Turk, had reft
The laurel from her civic crown;

Her helm by many a sword was cleft:
She lay among her ruins low,—

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose,

"The vein of his poetry is often as rich as any we have ever known. The pieces are not few in number in which the soul of the author, rising as he proceeds, involves itself and the reader in a cloud of delicious enchantment. We are most pleased with his intimate familiarity with classical literature: he has caught from the study of Greek models a certain Attic purity and severity of style conspicuous in some of his best-wrought pieces."-Contributions to Literature, by Samuel Gilman. For a very just view of Dr. Percival's character as a man, read Goodrich's Recollections, vol. ii. pp. 139 and 140: also in the New Englander, May, 1859, an admirable article on Percival's scholarship and character, by Ed. W. Robbins. The Life in Kettell's Specimens was written by Rev. Royal Robbins, of Berlin, Connecticut.

2" In this crowded, classical, and animated picture, the occasional resemblance to Lord Byron ought not to be called an imitation so much as a successful attempt at rivalry." Read articles on his poetry, in the 14th, 16th, and 22d volumes of the "North American Review," and 2d of the " American Quarterly Review."

And, crush'd and bruised by many a blow,
She cower'd beneath her savage foes:
But now again she springs from earth,
Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks;
She rises in a brighter birth,

And sounds redemption to the Greeks.
It is the classic jubilee,—

Their servile years have roll'd away; The clouds that hover'd o'er them flee, They hail the dawn of freedom's day; From heaven the golden light descends, The times of old are on the wing, And glory there her pinion bends,

And beauty wakes a fairer spring; The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves, Are all in triumph's pomp array'd; A light that points their tyrants' graves Plays round each bold Athenian's blade.

The Parthenon, the sacred shrine,

Where wisdom held her pure abode:
The hill of Mars, where light divine
Proclaim'd the true but unknown God;
Where justice held unyielding sway,
And trampled all corruption down,
And onward took her lofty way

To reach at truth's unfading crown:
The rock, where liberty was full,

Where eloquence her torrents roll'd,
And loud, against the despot's rule,
A knell the patriot's fury toll'd:
The stage, whereon the drama spake

In tones that seem'd the words of Heaven,
Which made the wretch in terror shake,
As by avenging furies driven:

The groves and gardens, where the fire
Of wisdom, as a fountain, burn'd,
And every eye, that dared aspire

To truth, has long in worship turn'd:
The halls and porticos, where trod
The moral sage, severe, unstain'd,
And where the intellectual God

In all the light of science reign'd:
The schools, where rose in symmetry
The simple, but majestic pile,
Where marble threw its roughness by,
To glow, to frown, to weep, to smile,
Where colors made the canvas live,

Where music roll'd her flood along,
And all the charms that art can give,

Were blent with beauty, love, and song:
The port, from whose capacious womb
Her navies took their conquering road:
The heralds of an awful doom

To all who would not kiss her rod:-..