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This volume contains twelve original poems, and fifty-two selected from American and English poets. Of the original poetry, there is none which falls below mediocrity, and but one which rises above it. That one we quote with pleasure, hoping that the author will write more, and renew our pleasure.

LINES TO A LADY.

BY MR N. P. WILLIS.

The leaf floats by upon the stream,
Unheeded in its silent path;
The vision of the shadowy dream
A similar remembrance hath.

The cloud that steals across the moon

Scarce brightens ere its hues are gone;
The mist that shrouds the lake-as soon
Must vanish, when the night hath flown.
The dove hath cleft the pure blue sky,
No traces of his wing are there;
The light hath dwelt in beauty's eye;

It was but now-and now is-where?
The winds of night have passed the flower-
Hath morning found its gay leaf dim?
The bird hath sung by lady's bower,
To-morrow-will she think of him?

Thus, lady, have I crossed thy path,
Like bird, or pist, or leaf, or cloud-
My name a like remembrance hath;
Deep shall its sleep be-in my shroud.

But still, the clouds may not forget
The moon's serene, but fleeting light-
The bird, the leaf, remember yet,

All that hath made their pathway bright.

And I-though cold neglect be mine,
My name to deep oblivion given,
Will, while on earth, remember thine,

And breathe it to my lyre in Heaven.

We regret that the publishers did not make all their selections from the works of American poets. If they had not found poems equal in beauty to those which they have borrowed; they would at least have spared their fair readers one or two yawns over the vapid verses of Prior and Shenstone, and one blush at the indelicate lines of Waller, which they have printed. Some of the English poems here republished, are very beautiful, but we will not extract, as specimens of this part of the work, any of the selections from those rare

books, the poetical works of John Milton and of Lord Byron. Neither do we think it proper to reprint within the year, some of the beutiful poems of Bryant, which, as the proprietors of The United States Literary Gazette purchased them of the author, might, we think, without any impropriety have been acknowledged to be taken from our columns. We were glad to see here the poem of Washington Allston, first printed, we believe, in Coleridge's Sybelline Leaves, and without the author's name. They are verses which do honour to the man and the poet, to his native country and the country of his ancestors; it is a "strain that will not die." We are happy in the opportunity of adorning our Gazette with such poetry as this; and, though many of our readers have doubtless seen it, we trust, that none will complain of the space which it occupies.

LINES

BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

Though ages long have past,

Since our fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,

O'er untravelled seas to roam,

Yet lives the blood of England in our veins;
And shall we not proclaim

That blood of honest fame
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?

While the language free and bold
Which the bard of Avon sung,
In which our Milton told,

How the vault of Heaven rung,

When Satan, blasted, fell with all his host;
While these, with reverence meet,

Ten thousand echoes greet,

And from rock to rock repeat,
Round our coast;

While the manners, while the arts,

That mould a nation's soul,

Still cling around our hearts,

Between, let ocean roll,

Our joint communion breaking with the sun;

Yet still from either beach

The voice of blood shall reach

More audible than speech,

WE ARE ONE!

Among the extracts from English writers, we were most pleased with "The Mourner," by Miss Roscoe; and the

rather because there is in it nothing about beauty and a rose, budding or full-blown, a comparison which occurs much too frequently in the other selections. The whole is true to

nature, and the best feelings of our nature.

THE MOURNER.

BY MISS ROSCOE, OF LIVERPOOL.

She flung her white arm round him-Thou art all
That this poor heart can cling to; yet I feel
That I am rich in blessings: and the tear
Of this most bitter moment still is mingled
With a strange joy. Reposing on thy heart,
I hear the blasts of fortune sweeping by,
As a babe lists to music-wondering,
But not affrighted. In the darkest hour
Thy smile is brightest: and when I am wretched,
Then am 1 most beloved. In hours like this
The soul's resources rise, and all its strength
Bounds into being. I would rather live
With all my faculties thus wakened round me,
Of hopes, and fears, and joys, and sympathies,
A few short moments, even with every feeling
Smarting from fate's deep lash-than a long age,
However calm and free from turbulence,
Bereft of these most high capacities.
Not vainly have I nursed them; for there is
An impulse even in suffering; and so pure
Rise the eternal hopes, called by the anguish
Of a world-wearied spirit; with such light
They rush before me like a sunny ray,

Piercing the dark shades of my clouded thoughts,
That for such high and holy consolations,

I welcome misery; and I know thy heart

Hath the same blessed anchor. In heaven-ward hopes,

We drank the cup of youthful happiness;

And now, when sorrow shades our early promise,

In heaven-ward trust, we comfort one another.

MISCELLANY.

ROBERT OWEN'S NEW VIEWS OF SOCIETY.

Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,

And were the king of it, what would I do?

I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.

Tempest.

THOUGH it is now about fourteen years since Mr Owen first began publicly to support his system of education and govern

ment; its peculiar features would probably have been matter of little interest in this country, but for his late arrival from England, and his public addresses in the Capitol. These have excited considerable attention, and it may not be amiss to take some notice of his theory.

From his various, diffuse, and declamatory productions, we gather the following principles.

1st. Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by the application of proper means, which means are to a great extent at the command, and under the control of those who have influence in the affairs of men.

2d. That the will of man has no power over his opinions; he must, and ever did, and ever will believe what has been, is, or may be impressed on his mind by his predecessors, and the circumstances which surround him. That the character of man is, without a single exception, always formed for him; that it may be, and is, chiefly created by his predecessors; that they give him, or may give him, his ideas and habits, which are the powers that govern and direct his conduct; that man therefore never did, nor is it possible he ever can, form his own character; and that children can be trained to acquire any language, sentiments, belief, or any bodily habits, and manners, not contrary to human

nature.

3d. That the only principle of action, that ought to be recognised, is the happiness of self clearly understood and uniformly practised; which can only be attained by conduct, that must promote the happiness of the community.

These principles he considers undeniable, and proceeds to infer from them, that the character of the present generation of mankind may be much improved, if not wholly altered by placing them in favourable circumstances; and that succeeding generations may be trained so as to possess a perfect character.

In order to bring mankind within the control of these favourable circumstances, Mr Owen proposes to divide them into separate communities, each consisting of from five hundred to two thousand individuals, possessing as many acres of land and occupying a village, arranged in the form of a parallelogram. In these societies there is to be a full community of interest, and an equality, in the first instance as great as possible, and finally full and complete.

It is unnecessary to enter further into the details of this philanthropic imagination. A community of goods is no new scheme. It has been repeatedly tried, but never with success, except

where it has made a part of peculiar religious systems, which Mr Owen altogether disclaims. Our ancestors, both in Virginia and New England, made the experiment, but were soon compelled to relinquish it, and it is obvious to every one who has attended to the history and character of man, that while the latter remains unchanged, arrangements of this sort will ultimately lead to any thing rather than industry and prosperity.

But Mr Owen proposes to change this character entirely, by a course of instruction and government founded upon the prinples which we have quoted above. In regard to these, he seems to have fallen into two important errors. He supposes them to be both original and true, while unfortunately some of them are in one only of these predicaments, and the remainder in neither.

The first, for instance, taken in its widest acceptation, though most undeniably true, is as old as the world, and has afforded argument for moral essays and sermons without number.

The second involves a question, about which so much ink has been poured out and to so little purpose, that it would argue small discretion to engage here in the discussion of it; the question, to wit, of free-will and necessity, which has been bandied from school to school, and from philosopher to philosopher, and "deil ony thing the wisest o' them could make it," as Mackitchinson says, but just to throw it back again. Like many similar questions, however, this was long ago settled by the common sense of mankind, and the learned of modern days seem disposed to accept the solution. A modern lecturer has arrived, in a great book and in due form, to the conclusion which a great moralist of the last century bluntly and satisfactorily announced in the following terms-" We know we 're free, and there's an end of it."

Seriously, it is idle to talk, in the face of all experience, of man's being the mere creature of circumstances, or, in other words, the subject of irresistible necessity in any other sense, than that philosophical and abstract one, which can have no possible bearing on practical systems of reform.

That circumstances have a powerful influence on character, no one ever gravely doubted; but Mr Owen's proposition is, that characters are created by circumstances, over which the individual has no control;—a proposition, which, if correct, would lead to consequences rather unfavourable to the success of his designs. For if circumstances have caused in all the rest of the world those opinions and characters which now exist, and which are exceedingly hostile to his plans of reform, his arguments alone cannot, by his own theory, be expected to effect any sensible altera

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