ON SEEING AN EAGLE PASS NEAR ME IN AUTUMN TWILIGHT. SAIL on, thou lone, imperial bird, Of quenchless eye and tireless wing; As the night's breezes round thee ring! Thou stoop'st to earth so lowly now? So closely to this shadowy world, Yet lonely is thy shatter'd nest, Thy eyry desolate, though high; And lonely thou, alike at rest, Or soaring in the upper sky. The golden light that bathes thy plumes So come the eagle-hearted down, So come the high and proud to earth, That bore, unveil'd, fame's noontide sun; His high place left, his triumphs done. So, round the residence of power, A cold and joyless lustre shines, And on life's pinnacles will lower Clouds, dark as bathe the eagle's pines. But, O, the mellow light that pours From Gon's pure throne-the light that saves! It warms the spirit as it soars, And sheds deep radiance round our graves. THE TRUE GLORY OF AMERICA. ITALIA'S vales and fountains, I love my soaring mountains And forests more than ye; And though a dreamy greatness rise From out your cloudy years, Like hills on distant stormy skies, Seem dim through Nature's tears, Still, tell me not of years of old, Of ancient heart and clime; Ours is the land and age of gold, And ours the hallow'd time! The jewell'd crown and sceptre Rome! with thy giant sons of power, I would not have my land like thee, Thy marbles-works of wonder! Before the astonish'd gaze; O, ours a holier hope shall be To snatch us from the dust. Shall fix our image here,- A nobler BELVIDERE! Then let them bind with bloomless flowers "The busts and urns of old, A fairer heritage be ours, A sacrifice less cold! Give honour to the great and good, So, when the good and great go down, To crowd those temples of our own, And when the sculptured marble falls, Our forms shall live in holier halls, GEORGE HILL. [Born, 1800.] GEORGE HILL is known to the public, only through his writings. From native diffidence, or some eccentricity of character, he appears to have shunned all contact with society. He was once married; "but how his marriage was brought about," writes one of his friends to me, "is an unravelled mystery; for he never spoke to a dozen ladies in his life." He is a native of Guilford, on Long Island Sound, near New Haven. He was admitted to Yale College in his fifteenth year, and, when he graduated, took the Berkleian prize as the best classic. He was subsequently attached to the navy, as Professor of Mathematics; and visited in this capacity the Mediterranean, its storied islands, and classic shores. After his return, he was appointed librarian to the State Department, at Washington: FROM "THE RUINS OF ATHENS." THE daylight fades o'er old Cyllene's hill, And broad and dun the mountain shadows fall; The stars are up and sparkling, as if still Smiling upon their altars; but the tall, Dark cypress, gently, as a mourner, bendsWet with the drops of evening as with tearsAlike o'er shrine and worshipper, and blends, All dim and lonely, with the wrecks of years, As of a world gone by no coming morning cheers. There sits the queen of temples-gray and lone. She, like the last of an imperial line, Has seen her sister structures, one by one, To Time their gods and worshippers resign; And the stars twinkle through the weeds that twine Their roofless capitals; and, through the night, Heard the hoarse drum and the exploding mine, The clash of arms and hymns of uncouth rite, From their dismantled shrines the guardian powers affright. Go! thou from whose forsaken heart are reft Is it not better with the Eremite, To sit and watch their shadows slowly wave While oft some fragment, sapp'd by dull decay, Or, where the palm, at twilight's holy hour, Vainly the Spring her quickening dews away, And Love as vainly mourns, and mourns, alas! for aye. Or, more remote, on Nature's haunts intrude, The weary spirit that forsaken plods mind; The spectres that no spell has power to bind, The loved, but lost, whose soul's life is in ours, As incense in sepulchral urns, enshrined, The sense of blighted or of wasted powers, The hopes whose promised fruits have perish'd with their flowers. There is a small, low cape-there, where the moon Breaks o'er the shatter'd and now shapeless stone; The waters, as a rude but fitting boon, Weeds and small shells have, like a garland, thrown Upon it, and the wind's and wave's low moan, And sighing grass, and cricket's plaint, are heard To steal upon the stillness, like a tone Remember'd. Here, by human foot unstirr'd, Its seed the thistle sheds, and builds the ocean-bird. Lurks the foul toad, the lizard basks secure Within the sepulchre of him whose name Had scatter'd navies like the whirlwind. Sure, If aught ambition's fiery wing may tame, 'Tis here; the web the spider weaves where Fame Planted her proud but sunken shaft, should be To it a fetter, still it springs the same, Glory's fool-worshipper! here bend thy knee! The tomb thine altar-stone, thine idol Mockery: A small, gray elf, all sprinkled o'er with dust Of crumbling catacomb, and mouldering shred Of banner and embroider'd pall, and rust Of arms, time-worn monuments, that shed A canker'd gleam on dim escutcheons, where The groping antiquary pores to spy A what? a name-perchance ne'er graven there; At whom the urchin, with his mimic eye, Sits peering through a skull, and laughs continually. THE MOUNTAIN-GIRL. THE clouds, that upward curling from Melt into air: gone are the showers, Breathes in the sunshine stirr'd; A thing all lightness, life, and glee; To meet in visions of the night; With glossy ringlet, brow that is At once both dark and bright; To leave its print on thing so fair- She stops, looks up-what does she see? Whose vase, the work of Moorish hands, A lady sprinkles, as it stands Upon a balcony: High, leaning from a window forth, Nor flower, nor lady fair she sees That mountain-girl-but dumb That flower to her is as a tone Of some forgotten song, One of a slumbering thousand, struck She sees beside the mountain-brook, And topping crag, a vine-thatch'd shed, The home of liberty; The rivulet, the olive shade, The grassy plot, the flock; That springs beneath the rock. Sister and mate, they may not from Her dreaming eye depart; And one, the source of gentler fears, More dear than all, for whom she wears The token at her heart. And hence her eye is dim, her cheek Has lost its livelier glow; THE FALL OF THE OAK. A GLORIOUS tree is the old gray oak: He has stood for a thousand years, Has stood and frown'd On the trees around, Like a king among his peers; He has stood like a tower As from plates of mail, From his own limbs shaken, rattle; He has toss'd them about, and shorn the tops The autumn sun looks kindly down, And sprinkles the horn Of the owl at morn, As she hies to the old oak tree. Not a sound is heard But the thump of the thresher's flail, Or the distant cry Of the hound on the fox's trail. The forester he has whistling plunged With his axe, in the deep wood's gloom, That shrouds the hill, Where few and chill The sunbeams struggling come: His brawny arm he has bared, and laid His axe at the root of the tree, The gray old oak, And, with lusty stroke, He wields it merrily: With lusty stroke, And the old gray oak, Through the folds of his gorgeous vest From her perch in his leafy crest. She will come but to find him gone from where Like a cloud that peals as it melts to air, Though the spring in the bloom and the frost in gold On the stormy wave He shall float, and brave The blast and the battle-fire! Shall spread his white wings to the wind, As he thunder'd when On the high and stormy steep. LIBERTY. THERE is a spirit working in the world, The dungeon'd nations now once more respire The keen and stirring air of Liberty. The struggling giant wakes, and feels he's free. By Delphi's fountain-cave, that ancient choir Resume their song; the Greek astonish'd hears, And the old altar of his worship rears. Sound on, fair sisters! sound your boldest lyre,— Peal your old harmonies as from the spheres. Unto strange gods too long we've bent the knee, The trembling mind, too long and patiently. TO A YOUNG MOTHER. WHAT things of thee may yield a semblance meet, They once have bloom'd, a fragrance leave behind; And suns continue to light up the air, When set; and music from the broken shrine Breathes, it is said, around whose altar-stone His flower the votary has ceased to twine : Types of the beauty that, when youth is gone, Beams from the soul whose brightness mocks decline. SPRING. Now Heaven seems one bright, rejoicing eye, Puts forth, as does thy cheek, a lovelier dye, And each new morning some new songster brings. And, hark! the brooks their rocky prisons break, And echo calls on echo to awake, Like nymph to nymph. The air is rife with wings, Rustling through wood or dripping over lake. Herb, bud, and bird return-but not to me With song or beauty, since they bring not thee. NOBILITY. Go, then, to heroes, sages if allied, Go! trace the scroll, but not with eye of pride, Where Truth depicts their glories as they shone, And leaves a blank where should have been your own. Mark the pure beam on yon dark wave impress'd; So shines the star on that degenerate breast-Each twinkling orb,that burns with borrow'd fires,So ye reflect the glory of your sires. JAMES G. BROOKS. [Born, 1801. Died, 1841.] THE late JAMES GORDON BROOKS was born at Red Hook, near the city of New York, on the third day of September, 1801. His father was an officer in the revolutionary army, and, after the achievement of our independence, a member of the national House of Representatives. Our author was educated at Union College, in Schenectady, and was graduated in 1819. In the following year he commenced studying the law with Mr. Justice EMOTT, of Poughkeepsie; but, though he devoted six or seven years to the acquisition of legal knowledge, he never sought admission to the bar. In 1823, he removed to New York, where he was for several years an editor of the Morning Courier, one of the most able and influential journals in this country. Mr. BROOKS began to write for the press in 1817. Two years afterward he adopted the signature of "Florio," by which his contributions to the periodicals were from that time known. In 1828, he was married. His wife, under the signature of "Norna," had been for several years a writer for the literary journals, and, in 1829, a collection of the poetry of both was published, entitled "The Rivals of Este, and other Poems, by James G. and Mary E. Brooks." The poem which gave its title to the volume was by Mrs. BROOKS. The longest of the pieces by her husband was one entitled "Genius," which he had delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, in 1827. He wrote but little poetry after the appearance of this work. In 1830 or 1831, he removed to Winchester, in Virginia, where, for four or five years, he edited a political and literary gazette. He returned to the state of New York, in 1838, and established himself in Albany, where he remained until the 20th day of February, 1841, when he died. The poems of Mr. BROOKS are spirited and smoothly versified, but diffuse and carelessly written. He was imaginative, and composed with remarkable ease and rapidity; but was too indifferent in regard to his reputation ever to rewrite or revise his productions. GREECE-1832. LAND of the brave! where lie inurn'd And blazed upon the battle's fray: Bled at Thermopyla of yore, Land of the Muse! within thy bowers The winning harmony of song. Shall glory gild thy clime no more? Her banner float above thy waves Where proudly it hath swept before? Hath not remembrance then a charm To break the fetters and the chain, To bid thy children nerve the arm, And strike for freedom once again? No! coward souls, the light which shone On Leuctra's war-empurpled day, The light which beam'd on Marathon Hath lost its splendour, ceased to play; And thou art but a shadow now, Where sleeps the spirit, that of old Dash'd down to earth the Persian plume, When the loud chant of triumph told How fatal was the despot's doom?— The bold three hundred-where are they, Who died on battle's gory breast? Tyrants have trampled on the clay Where death hath hush'd them into rest. Yet, Ida, yet upon thy hill A glory shines of ages fled; Which sheds a faint and feeble ray, Greece! yet awake thee from thy trance, |