21: Some maiden thoughts most kind and wise L-Were dimly burning in her eyes.
When I beheld her-form and face
So lithe, so fair-the spirit race,
Of whom the better poets dream'd,
Came to my thought, and I half deem'd
My earth-born mistress, pure and good,
Was some such lady of the wood,
As she who work'd at spell, and snare,
With Huon of the dusky hair,
And fled, in likeness of a doe,
Before the fleet youth Angelo.
But these infirm imaginings
Flew quite away on instant wings.
I call'd her name. A swift surprise
Came whitely to her face, but soon
It fled before some daintier dyes,
And, laughing like a brook in June,
With sweet accost she welcomed me,
And I sat there with Emily.
The gods were very good to bless
My life with so much happiness.
The maiden on that lowly seat-
I sitting at her little feet!
Two happier lovers never met,
In dear and talk-charm'd privacy.
It was a golden day to me,
And its great bliss is with me yet,
Warming like wine my inmost heart-
For memories of happy hours
Are like the cordials press'd from flowers,
And madden sweetly. I impart
Naught of the love-talk I remember,
For May's young pleasures are best hid
From the cold prudence of December,
Which clips and chills all vernal wings;
And Love's own sanctities forbid,
Now as of old, such gossipings
In Hall, of what befalls in Bower,
But other matters of the hour,
Of which it breaks no faith to tell,
My homely rhyme shall chronicle.
As silently we sat alone-
Our love-talk spent-two mated birds
Began to prate in loving tone;
Quoth Emily, "They sure have words!
Didst hear them say My sweet, My dear' ?""
And as they chirp'd we laugh'd to he
Soon after this a southern wind
Came sobbing like a hunted hind
Into the quiet of the glen:
The maiden mused awhile, and then
Worded her thought right playfully.
The winds," she said, "of land and sea,
My friend, are surely living things
That come and go on unseen wings.
The teeming air and prodigal,
Which droops its azure over all,
Is full of immortalities
That look on us with unseen eyes.
This sudden wind that hath come here,
With its hard sobs of pain or fear,
It may be, is a spirit kind,
That loves the bruised flowers to bind,
Whose task it is to shake the dew
From the sad violet's eye of blue,
Or chase the honey-making thieves
From off the rose, and shut its leaves
Against the cold of April eves.
Perhaps its dainty, pink-tipt hands
Have plied such tasks in far off lands
And now, perchance, some grim foe follows
The little wight to these green hollows."
Such gentle words had Emily
For the south wind in the tulip tree.
A runnel, hidden by the trees,
Gave out some natural melodies.
She said, "The brook, among the stones,
Is solemn in its undertones;
How like a hymn! the singing creature
Is worshipping the God of nature."
But I replied, "My dear-not so;
Thy solemn eyes, thy brow of snow,
And, more than these, thy maiden merit
Have won Undine, that gentle spirit,
To sing her songs of love to thee."
Swift answer'd merry Emily-
"Undine is but a girl, you know,
And would not pine for love of me;
She has been peering from the brook,
And glimpsed at you." She said and shook
With a rare fit of silvery laughter.
I was more circumspect thereafter,
And dealt in homelier talk. A man
May call a white-brow'd girl « Dian,”
But likes not to be turn'd upon,
And nick-named "Young Endymion."
My Emily loved very well,
At times, those ancient lays which tell
Rude natural tales; she had no lore
Of trouvere, or of troubadour,
Nor knew what difference there might be
Between the tongues of oc and oui;
But hearing old tales, loved them all
If truth but made them natural.
In our good talks, we oft went o'er
The little horde of my quaint lore,
Cull'd out of old melodious fable.
She little cared for Arthur's table,
For tales of doughty Launcelot,
Or Tristram, or of him who smote
The giant, Angoulafre hight,
And moan'd for love by day and night.
She little cared for such as these,
But if I cross'd the Pyrenees,
With the great peers of Charlemagne,
Descending toward the Spanish plain,
Her eye would lighten at the strain;
And it would moisten with a tear
The sad end of that tale to hear-
How all aweary, worn and white,
And urging his failing steed amain,
A courier from the south, one night,
Reach'd the great city of the Seine;
And how at that same time and hour,
The bride of Roland lay in Bower
Wakeful, and quick of ear to win
Some rumour of her Paladin-
And how it came in sudden cries,
That shook the earth and rent the skies;
And how the messenger of fate-
That courier who rode so late-
Was dragg'd on to her palace gate;
And how the lady sat in hall,
Moaning among her damsels all,
At the wild tale of Ronceval.
That story sounds like solemn truth,
And she would hear it with such ruth
As sympathetic hearts will pay
To real griefs of yesterday.
Pity look'd lovely in the maiden;
Her eyes were softer, when so laden
With the bright dew of tears unshed.
But I was somewhat envious
That other bards should move her thus,
And oft within myself had said,
"Yea-I will strive to touch her heart
With some fair songs of mine own art"-
And many days before the day
Whereof I speak, I made assay
At this bold labour. In the wells
Of Froissart's life-like chronicles
I dipp'd for moving truths of old.
A thousand stories, soft and bold,
Of stately dames, and gentlemen,
Which good Lord Berners, with a pen
Pompous in its simplicity,
Yet tipt with charming courtesy,
Had put in English words, I learn'd;
And some of these I deftly turn'd
Into the forms of minstrel verse.
I know the good tales are the worse-
But, sooth to say, it seems to me
My verse has sense and melody-
Even that its measure sometimes flows
With the brave pomp of that old prose.
Beneath our trysting tree, that day,
With dubious face, I read one lay;
Young Emily quite understood
My fears, and gave me guerdon good
In well-timed praise, and cheer'd me on,
Into full flow of heart and tone.
And when, in days of pleasant weather,
Thereafter, we were met gether,
As our strong love oft . us meet,
I always took my cosy seat,
Just at the damsel's little feet,
And read my tales. It was no friend
To me that day that heard their end.
It had become a play of love,
To watch the swift expression rove
Over the bright sky of her face-
To steal those upward looks, and trace
In every change of cheek and eye,
The influence of my poesy.
I made my verse for Emily-
I give it, reader, now to thee.
The tales which I have toil'd to tell
Of Dame in hall and knight in Selle,
Of faithful love, and courage high-
Sweet flower, strong staff of chivalry—
These tales indeed are old of date;
But why should time their force abate?
Shall we look back with vision dull
On the old brave and beautiful,
And, for they lived so long ago, Be careless of their mirth or wo? If sympathy knows but to-dayIf time quite wears its nerve awayIf deeds majestically bold, In words of ancient music told, Are only food for studious minds And touch no hearts-if man but finds An abstract virtue in the faith, That clung to truth, and courted death,If he can lift the dusky pall With dainty hand artistical And smile at woes, because some years Have swept between them and his tears
say, my friend, if this may be,
Then burn old books; antiquity
Is no more than a skeleton
Of painted vein and polish'd bone.
Reader! the minstrel brotherhood,
Earnest to soothe thy listening mood,
Were wont to style thee Gentle, Good,
Noble or Gracious:-they could bow
With loyal knee, yet open brow-
They knew to temper thy decision
With graces of a proud submission.
That wont is changed. Yet I, a man
Of this new land republican,
Where insolence wins upward better
Than courtesy-that old dead letter-
And toil claims pay with utterance sharp,
Follow the good Lords of the Harp,
And dub thee with each courtly phrase,
And ask indulgence for my lays.
LIFE IN THE AUTUMN WOODS.
And fruitful autumn has advanced so far
That there is warmth, not heat, in the broad sun.
And you may look, with naked eye, upon
The ardours of his car;
The stealthy frosts, whom his spent looks embolden,
Are making the green leaves golden.
What a brave splendour
Js in the October air! How rich, and clear,
And bracing, and all-joyous! we must render
Love to the spring-time, with its sproutings tender,
As to a child quite dear;
But autumn is a thing of perfect glory,
A manhood not yet hoary.
In this good season of the liberal year;
I love to seek their leafy solitudes,
And give myself to melancholy moods,
With no intruder near,
And find strange lessons, as I sit and ponder,
In every natural wonder.
As Shakspeare's melancholy courtier loved Ar
Love I the browning forest; and I own
I would not oft have mused, as he, but flown
To hunt with Amiens
fed little thought, as up the bold deer bounded, Of the sad creature wounded.
and keen delight is in the proud swift chase! o out what time the lark at heaven's red gate oars joyously singing-quite infuriate
With the high pride of his place;
What time the unrisen sun arrays the morning In its first bright adorning.
Hark! the quick horn
As sweet to hear as any clarion
Piercing with silver call the ear of morn;
And mark the steeds, stout Curtal and Topthorne
And Greysteil and the Don-
Each one of them his fiery mood displaying
With pawing and with neighing.
Urge your swift horse,
After the crying hounds in this fresh hour, Vanquish high hills-stem perilous streams perforce, On the free plain give free wings to your course, And you will know the power
Of the brave chase-and how of griefs the sorest A cure is in the forest.
Thou wast lovelier than the roses
In their prime;
Thy voice excell'd the closes
Of sweetest rhyme;
Thy heart was as a river
Without a main.
Would I had loved thee never,
Florence Vane!
But, fairest, coldest, wonder!
Thy glorious clay
Lieth the green sod under-
And it boots not to remember Thy disdain
To quicken love's pale ember, Florence Vane.
The lilies of the valley
By young graves weep, The daisies love to dally
Where maidens sleep; May their bloom, in beauty vying, Never wane
Where thine earthly part is lying, Florence Vane!
MR. EASTMAN was educated at the University of Vermont, and has been for several years engaged as a journalist, at Burlington, Woodstock, and Montpelier. He now resides in the latter town, where he is editor of "The Vermont Patriot," the leading gazette of the democratic party in the state. In 1848 he published a collection of "Poems," nearly all of which had previously appeared in various literary miscellanies. They are chiefly lyrical, and the author displays in them
THE FARMER SAT IN HIS EASY CHAIR.
THE farmer sat in his easy chair,
Smoking his pipe of clay,
While his hale old wife with busy care
Was clearing the dinner away;
A sweet little girl with fine blue eyes
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies.
The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face;
He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self-same place:
As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye-
"Don't smoke," said the child; "how it makes
you cry!"
The house-dog lay stretch'd out on the floor
Where the shade after noon used to steal;
The busy old wife by the open door
Was turning the spinning-wheel;
And the old brass clock on the manteltree
Had plodded along to almost three:
Still the farmer sat in his easy chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moisten'd brow and the cheek so fair
Of his sweet grandchild were press'd;
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay-
Fast asleep were they both, that summer day.
THE strawberries grow in the mowing, MILL MAY,
And the bob-o'-link sings on the tree;
On the knolls the red clover is growing, MILL MAY,
Then come to the meadow with me!
We'll pick the ripe clusters among the deep grass,
On the knolls in the mowing, MILL MAY,
And the long afternoon together we'll pass,
Where the clover is growing, MILL MAY.
Come! come, ere the season is over, MILL MAY,
To the fields where the strawberries grow,
While the thick-growing stems and the clover, MILL
Shall meet us wherever we go:
[MAY,
We'll pick the ripe clusters among the deep grass
On the knolls in the mowing, MILL Mar,
And the long afternoon together we'll pass,
Where the clover is growing MILL MAT.
The sun, stealing under your bonnet, MILL MAY,
Shall kiss a soft glow to your face,
And your lip the strawberry leave on it, MILL Mar,
A tint that the sea-shell would grace;
Then come the ripe clusters among the deep grass
We'll pick in the mowing, MILL MAY,
And the long afternoon together we'll pass,
Where the clover is growing, MILL MAT.
HER GRAVE IS BY HER MOTHER'S
grave is by her mother's,
Where the strawberries grow wild,
And there they've slept for many a year,
The mother and the child.
She was the frailest of us all,
And, from her mother's breast,
We hoped, and pray'd, and trembled, more
For her, than all the rest.
So frail, alas! she could not bear
The gentle breath of Spring,
That scarce the yellow butterfly
Felt underneath its wing.
How hard we strove to save her, love
Like ours alone can tell;
And only those know what we lost,
Who've loved the lost as well.
Some thirteen summers from her birth,
When th' reaper cuts the grain,
We laid her in the silent earth,
A flower without a stain.
We laid her by her mother,
Where the strawberries grow wild,
And there they sleep together well,
The mother and the child!
JOHN G. SAXE, of Highgate, Franklin county, Vermont, was born in that town on the second lay of June, 1816. His youth was passed in rural occupations, until he was seventeen years of age, when he determined to study one of the liberal professions, and with this view entered the grammar school at St. Albans, and after the usual preliminary course, the college at Middlebury, where he graduated bachelor of arts in the summer of 1839. He subsequently read law, at Lockport in New York and at St. Albans, and was admitted to the bar at the latter place, in September, 1843, since which time he has been practising in te the courts, with more than the average success of young attorneys.
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I remember that when Mr. SAXE was in college he was well known for his manly character, good sense, genial humour, and, for an undergraduate, large acquaintance with literature. He preserves, with fitting increase, his good reputation. • Besides writing with such delightful point and facility," observes a friend of his, "he is one of the best of conversationists, and wastes more wit in a day than would set up a Yankee Punch' or a score of Yankee Doodles.' He is a good general scholar, well read in the best English authors, and besides his comical compositions, has produced many pieces of grace and tenderness that evince a genuine poetical feeling and ability."
O, TERRIBLY proud was Miss MACBRIDE,
The very personification of pride,
As she minced along in fashion's tide,
Adown Broadway-on the proper side—
When the golden sun was setting;
There was pride in the head she carried so high,
Pride in her lip, and pride in her eye,
And a world of pride in the very sigh
That her stately bosom was fretting:
A sigh that a pair of elegant feet,
Sandal'd in satin, should kiss the street-
The very same that the vulgar greet
In common leather not over "neat"-
For such is the common booting;
(And Christian tears may well be shed,
That even among our gentlemen-bred,
The glorious Day of Morocco is dead,
And Day and Martin are raigning instead,
On a much inferior footing!)
Mr. SAXE excels most in fun, burlesque, and satire, fields upon the confines of the domain of poetry, in which we have many of the finest specimens of lyrical expression, and which have furnished, from the times of JUVENAL, a fair proportion of the noblest illustrations of creative energy. His verse is nervous, and generally higbly finished; and in almost all cases it is admirably calculated for the production of the desired effects. One of the happiest exhibitions of his skill in language is in the piece printed in the Knickerbocker Magazine, commencing
Singing through the forests,
Rattling over ridges,
Shooting under arches,
Rumbling over bridges;
Whizzing through the mountains,
Buzzing o'er the vale-
Bless me! this is pleasant,
Riding on a rail!
The whole composition is an echo and reflection of the crowded railroad car.
The longest of his productions is "Progress, a Satire," which has passed through two editions. and been largely quoted for its felicitous characterization of popular foibles. His "New Rape of the Lock," written in 1847, and "Proud Miss MacBride," written in 1848, are in the vein of Hoop, but are full of verbal felicities and humour, and are fruits of original observation of manners.
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Proud abroad, and proud at home,
Proud wherever she chanced to come-
When she was glad, and when she was glum ;
Proud as the head of a Saracen
Over the door of a tippling-shop!-
Proud as a duchess, proud as a fop,
"Proud as a boy with a bran-new top,"
Proud beyond comparison !
It seems a singular thing to say,
But her very senses led her astray
Respecting all humility;
In sooth, her dull, auricular drum
Could find in humble only a "hum,"
And heard no sound of "gentle" come,
In talking about gentility.
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