TO SENECA LAKE. On thy fair bosom, silver lake! The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, And round his breast the ripples break, As down he bears before the gale. On thy fair bosom, waveless stream! The dipping paddle echoes far, And flashes in the moonlight gleam, And bright reflects the polar star. The waves along thy pebbly shore, As blows the north wind, heave their foam, And curl around the dashing oar, As late the boatman hies him home. How sweet, at set of sun, to view Thy golden mirror spreading wide, And see the mist of mantling blue Float round the distant mountain's side. At midnight hour, as shines the moon, On thy fair bosom, silver lake! Oh, I could ever sweep the oar, When early birds at morning wake, And evening tells us toil is o'er. THE CORAL GROVE. Deep in the wave is a coral grove, For the winds and waves are absent there, There, with a light and easy motion, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea; The purple mullet and gold-fish rove, SONNET. ACROSTIC TRIBUTE (1825) TO A BOSTON LADY, WIDELY Earth holds no fairer, lovelier one than thou, If ever beauty stole the heart away, Enchantress, it would fly to meet thy smile; MAY. I feel a newer life in every gale; And with their welcome breathings fill the sail, Of hours that glide unfelt away The spirit of the gentle south wind calls And where his whispering voice in music falls, The bright ones of the valley break The waving verdure rolls along the plain, And the wide forest weaves, To welcome back its playful mates again, And from its darkening shadow floats Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May; The tresses of the woods With the light dallying of the west wind play, And the full-brimming floods, As gladly to their goal they run, Hail the returning sun. HOAR-FROST: A SONNET. What dream of beauty ever equalled this! All loveliness, all graces that allure; A VISION. "Whence dost thou come to me, Sweetest of visions, Filling my slumbers with holiest joy ?" "Kindly I bring to thee Feelings of childhood, That in thy dreams thou be happy awhile." "Why dost thou steal from me Ever as slumber Flies, and reality chills me again?" "Life thou must struggle through: Strive, and in slumber Sweetly again I will steal to thy soul." William Howitt. Howitt (1795-1879), husband of Mary Howitt, was a native of Heanor, in Derbyshire, England. Of Quaker descent, he was educated at a public seminary of Friends. He was a great student of languages, and wrote verses almost from boyhood. He and his wife, after the year 1837, made literature their chief means of support. He was the author of "The Rural Life of England," "Visits to Remarkable Places," and other successful prose works, including translations. He also published a "History of the Supernatural." He went, with his two sons, to Australia in 1852, and gave the results of his experiences in several volumes. With his wife and family he resided at times in Germany and Italy. His poetry is scattered mostly through "Annuals" and magazines; in 1871 he published "The Mad War Planet, and other Poems." About the year 1850 he became an active Spiritualist, and wrote copiously in defence of the modern phenomena, which he reconciled with a broad Christianity. He died in Rome, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He had a brother, Richard, who also wrote poetry. THE WIND IN A FROLIC. The Wind one morning sprang up from sleep, I'll make a commotion in every place!" So it swept with a bustle right through a great town, Creaking the signs, and scattering down Then away to the field it went blustering and humming, And the cattle all wondered whatever was coming; Then it rushed, like a monster, on cottage and farm, Striking their dwellers with sudden alarm, So they ran out like bees when threatened with harm. There were dames with their kerchiefs tied over their caps, To see if their poultry were free from mishaps; The turkeys they gobbled, the geese screamed aloud, And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd; There was rearing of ladders, and logs laying on, Where the thatch from the roof threatened soon to be gone. But the wind had swept on, and met in a lane With a school-boy, who panted and struggled in vain: For it tossed him, and twirled him, then passed, and he stood With his hat in a pool, and his shoe in the mud. John Gardiner Caulkins Brainard. AMERICAN. Brainard (1795-1828) was a native of New London, Conn., son of a judge of the Supreme Court. He was educated at Yale College, and in 1822 went to Hartford to take editorial charge of the Connecticut Mirror. Samuel G. Goodrich, author of the "Peter Parley Tales," was his intimate friend, and persuaded him to publish his first volume of poems. This appeared in New York, in 1826, from the press of Bliss & White. A second edition, with a memoir by J. G. Whittier, appeared in 1832; and this was followed by a third, in 1842, from the press of Hopkins, Hartford. "At the age of eight-and-twenty," says Goodrich, "Brainard was admonished that his end was near. With a submissive spirit, in pious, gentle, cheerful faith, he resigned himself to his doom. In person he was short; his general appearance that of a clumsy boy. At one moment he looked stupid, and then inspired. He was true in friendship, chivalrous in all that belongs to personal honor." An instance of his ready wit is given in a retort he addressed to a critic, who had objected to the use of the word "brine," as a word which "had no more business in sentimental poetry than a pig in a parlor;" to which the poet replied that his critic, "living inland, must have got his ideas of the salt-water from his father's pork-barrel." THE SEA-BIRD'S SONG. On the deep is the mariner's danger, Who watches their course who so mildly Who hovers on high o'er the lover, And her who has clung to his neck? Whose wing is the wing that can cover With its shadow the foundering wreck? 'Tis the sea-bird, etc. My eye in the light of the billow, My foot on the iceberg has lighted, STANZAS. The dead leaves strew the forest walk, And Autumn, with her yellow hours, I learned a clear and wild-toned note, A gay bird, with too sweet a throat, There perched, and raised her song for me. The winter comes, and where is she? Away, where summer wings will rove, Where buds are fresh, and every tree Is vocal with the notes of love. Too mild the breath of Southern sky, Too fresh the flower that blushes there, The Northern breeze that rushes by Finds leaves too green, and buds too fair; No forest-tree stands stripped and bare, No stream beneath the ice is dead, No mountain-top, with sleety hair, Bends o'er the snows its reverend head. Go there with all the birds-and seek A happier clime, with livelier flight, Kiss, with the sun, the evening's cheek, And leave me lonely with the night. I'll gaze upon the cold north light, And walk where all its glories shoneSee that it all is fair and bright, Feel that it all is cold and gone. TO THE DAUGHTER OF A FRIEND. I pray thee by thy mother's face, Where thy young head did lie,- THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. In his "Recollections of a Lifetime," S. G. Goodrich (1793-1863) tells us that he was present when Brainard dashed off the following lines in the printing-office while the compositor was waiting for copy. The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks. In his short life, to thy unceasing roar? John Keats. John Keats (1796-1821) was born in London, October 29th, 1796, in the house of his grandfather, who kept a livery-stable at Moorfields. Educated at Enfield, at fifteen years of age John was apprenticed to a surgeon. In 1818 he published "Endymion," a poem of great promise, and showing rare imaginative powers. It was criticised severely by Croker and Gifford in the Quarterly Review; for Keats, having been lauded and befriended by Leigh Hunt, was treated by his Tory critics as belonging to a distasteful school of politics. Keats did not write politics, but he had a friend who did. It is not probable that the Quarterly's abuse hastened the young poet's death, as is generally supposed. He suffered less than Shelley imagined from censure that he knew to be unjust. To him and others Keats modestly admitted the shortcomings of his early work. "I have written," he said, "independently, without judgment; I may write independently, and with judgment, hereafter. The genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man." That Keats was largely influenced in his style by his familiarity with the poems of Leigh Hunt is quite apparent; but he soon surpassed his model. "Endymion seems to have worked its way gradually to recognition as the production of a true poet; and the praises bestowed on it awakened the jealousy of Byron, who wrote: "No more Keats, I entreat! flay him alive; if some of you don't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin." But Byron lived to lament his rough words; and (November, 1821) attributes his indignation to Keats's depreciation of Pope, which, he says, "hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which, malgré all the fantastic fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of great promise. His fragment of 'Hyperion' seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Eschylus." In 1820 appeared Keats's "Lamia," "Isabella," "The Eve of St. Agnes," and other poems. Of a delicate and sensitive constitution, he had seriously impaired his health by the care he had lavished on his dying brother, Tom; and he made a trip to Italy with the hope of recovering strength: but the seeds of consumption were lodged in his constitution. Speaking of his brother's death, he writes: "I have a firm belief in immortality, and so had Tom." "The Eve of St. Agnes" was praised warmly by Jeffrey and other leading critics. It is one of the most charming and perfect of the poet's works, and written, it would seem, under Spenserian influence. At Rome Keats became seriously worse, and died on the 23d of February, 1821. A few days before his death he had expressed to his friend, Mr. Severn, the wish that on his gravestone should be the inscription: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Shelley was moved by Keats's death to produce the fiery elegy of "Adonais," worthy to be classed with the "Lycidas" of Milton, and the "In Memoriam" of Tennyson. Keats's rank is at the head of all the poets who have died young. The affluence of his imagination is such that he often seems to have given himself no time to select and properly dispose of his images. His "Hymn to Pan," in Endymion," was referred to by Wordsworth as "a pretty piece of Paganism". -a just criticism, but one that somewhat nettled Keats. He would have been a more popular, if not a greater, poet, if he had been less in love with the classic mythology. He has had a brood of imitators, American as well as English. Coleridge, in his "Table-Talk," gives an interesting reminiscence, as follows: "A loose, slack, not welldressed youth met Mr. and myself in a lane near Highgate. knew him, and spoke. It was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute or so. After he had left us a little way, he came back, and said, Let me carry away the memory, Coleridge, of having pressed your hand!' There is death in that hand,' I said to, when Keats was gone; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption showed itself distinctly." The fame of Keats has not diminished since his death. The fact that what he wrote was written before his twenty-sixth year will long give to his productions a peculiar interest. THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. I. St. Agnes' Eve,-ah, bitter chill it was! And silent was the flock in woolly fold; II. His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man ; Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat❜ries, He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails. III. Northward he turneth through a little door, And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue Flattered to tears this agéd man and poor : But no-already had his death-bell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung. His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve: Another way he went; and soon among Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, And all night kept awake, for sinner's sake to grieve. IV. That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft; Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, With hair blown back, and wings put crosswise on their breasts. V. At length burst in the argent revelry, The brain, new stuffed, in youth, with triumphs gay VI. They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, Young virgins might have visions of delight, And soft adorings from their loves receive Upon the honeyed middle of the night, If ceremonies due they did aright; As, supperless to bed they must retire, And couch supine their beauties lily-white; Nor look behind nor sideways, but require Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire. VII. Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline: |