Chapter VI (3)

"It is not often that I waste fine paper in writing to people who
do not think me worth answering. I generally reserve my 'ornamental
hand' for those who return two letters for my one. But you are an
exception to all rules,--and when I heard that you were about to
commence _housekeeping_, I could not forbear sending a word of
congratulation and encouragement. I have long thought that your
eminently _practical_ turn of mind, my dear friend, would find
congenial employment in superintending an 'establishment.' What a
house you will keep! nothing out of place, from garret to
cellar--dinner always on the table at the regular hour--everything
like clock-work--and wo to the servant who attempts to steal
anything from your store-room! wo to the butcher who attempts to
impose upon you a bad joint, or the grocer who attempts to cheat
you in the weight of sugar! Such things never will do with you!
When I first heard of your project, I thought it must be Ellen or
May going to play housekeeping with their baby-things, but on a
moment's reflection I was convinced that you knew more about
managing for a family than either of them--certainly more than May,
and I think, upon the whole, more than even Ellen! Let Mr. Osgood
paint you with a bunch of keys in your belt, and do send me a
daguerreotype of yourself the day after you are installed."

She was not indeed fitted for such cares, or for any routine, and ill health and the desire of freedom prevented her again making such an attempt until she finally entered "her own home" to die.

There was a very intimate relation between Mrs. Osgood's personal and her literary characteristics. She has frequently failed of justice, from critics but superficially acquainted with her works, because they have not been able to understand how a mind capable of the sparkling and graceful trifles, illustrating an exhaustless fancy and a natural melody of language, with which she amused society in moments of half capricious gaiety or tenderness, could produce a class of compositions which demand imagination and passion. In considering this subject, it should not be forgotten that these attributes are here to be regarded as in their feminine development.

Mrs. Osgood was, perhaps, as deserving as any one of whom we read in literary history, of the title of improvisatrice. Her beautiful songs, displaying so truly the most delicate lights and shadows of woman's heart, and surprising by their unity, completeness, and rhythmical perfection, were written with almost the fluency of conversation. The secret of this was in the wonderful sympathy between her emotions and faculties, both of exquisite sensibility, and subject to the influences of whatever has power upon the subtler and diviner qualities of human nature. Her facility in invention, in the use of poetical language, and in giving form to every airy dream or breath of passion, was astonishing. It is most true of men, that no one has ever attained to the highest reach of his capacities in any art--and least of all in poetry--without labor--without the application of the "second thought," after the frenzy of the divine afflatus is passed--in giving polish and shapely grace. The imagination is the servant of the reason; the creative faculties present their triumphs to the constructive--and the seal to the attainable is set, by every one, in repose and meditation. But this is scarcely a law of the feminine intelligence, which, when really endowed with genius, is apt to move spontaneously, and at once, with its greatest perfection. Certainly, Mrs. Osgood disclaimed the wrestling of thought with expression. For the most part her poems cost her as little effort or reflection, as the epigram or touching sentiment that summoned laughter or tears to the group about her in the drawing-room.

She was indifferent to fame; she sung simply in conformity to a law of her existence; and perhaps this want of interest was the cause not only of the most striking faults in her compositions, but likewise of the common ignorance of their variety and extent. Accustomed from childhood to the use of the pen--resorting to it through a life continually exposed to the excitements of gaiety and change, or the depressions of affliction and care, she strewed along her way with a prodigality almost unexampled the choicest flowers of feeling: left them unconsidered and unclaimed in the repositories of friendship, or under fanciful names, which she herself had forgotten, in newspapers and magazines,--in which they were sure to be recognised by some one, and so the purpose of their creation fulfilled. It was therefore very difficult to make any such collection of her works as justly to display her powers and their activity; and the more so, that those effusions of hers which were likely to be most characteristic, and of the rarest excellence, were least liable to exposure in printed forms, by the friends, widely scattered in Europe and America, for whom they were written. But notwithstanding these disadvantages, the works of Mrs. Osgood with which we are acquainted, are more voluminous than those of Mrs. Hemans or Mrs. Norton.[8] Besides the "Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England," which appeared during her residence in London, a collection of her poems in one volume was published in New York in 1846; and in 1849, Mr. Hart, of Philadelphia, gave to the public, in a large octavo illustrated by our best artists and equalling or surpassing in its tasteful and costly style any work before issued from the press of this country, the most complete and judiciously edited collection of them that has appeared. This edition, however, contains less than half of her printed pieces which she acknowledged; and among those which are omitted are a tragedy, a comedy, a great number of piquant and ingenious _vers de societe_, and several sacred pieces, which strike us as among the best writings of their kind in our literature, which in this department, we may admit, is more distinguishable for the profusion than for the quality of its fruits.

[8: Besides the books by her which have been referred to, she
published _The Language of Gems_, (London); _The Snow Drop_,
(Providence); _Puss in Boots_, (New York); _Cries of New York_,
(New York); _The Flower Alphabet_, (Boston); _The Rose: Sketches in
Verse_, (Providence); _A Letter About the Lions, addressed to Mabel
in the Country_, (New York). The following list of her prose tales,
sketches, and essays, is probably very incomplete: A Day in New
England; A Crumpled Rose Leaf; Florence Howard; Ida Gray; Florence
Errington; A Match for the Matchmaker; Mary Evelyn; Once More;
Athenais; The Wife; The Little Lost Shoe; The Magic Lute; Feeling
_vs._ Beauty; The Doom; The Flower and Gem; The Coquette; The Soul
Awakened; Glimpses of a Soul, (in three parts); Lizzie Lincoln;
Dora's Reward; Waste Paper; Newport Tableaux; Daguerreotype
Pictures; Carry Carlisle; Valentine's Day; The Lady's Shadow;
Truth; Virginia; The Waltz and the Wager; The Poet's Metamorphosis;
Pride and Penitence; Mabel; Pictures from a Painter's Life;
Georgiana Hazleton; A Sketch; Kate Melbourne; Life in New York;
Leonora L'Estrange; The Magic Mirror; The Blue Belle; and Letters
of Kate Carol, (a series of sketches of men, women and books;)
contributed for the most part to Mr. Labree's _Illustrated
Magazine_.]

Mrs. Osgood's definition of poetry, that it is the rhythmical creation of beauty, is as old as Sydney; and though on some grounds objectionable, it is, perhaps, on the whole, as just as any that the critics have given us. An intelligent examination, in the light of this principle, of what she accomplished, will, it is believed, show that she was, in the general, of the first rank of female poets; while in her special domain, of the Poetry of the Affections, she had scarcely a rival among women or men. As Pinckney said,

Affections were as thoughts to her, the measure of her hours--
Her feelings had the fragrancy and freshness of young flowers.

Of love, she sung with tenderness and delicacy, a wonderful richness of fancy, and rhythms that echo all the cadences of feeling. From the arch mockery of the triumphant and careless conqueror, to the most passionate prayer of the despairing, every variety and height and depth of hope and fear and bliss and pain is sounded, in words that move us to a solitary lute or a full orchestra of a thousand voices; and with an _abandon_, as suggestive of genuineness as that which sometimes made the elder Kean seem "every inch a king." It is not to be supposed that all these caprices are illustrations of the experiences of the artist, in the case of the poet any more than in that of the actor: by an effort of the will, they pass with the liberties of genius into their selected realms, assume their guises, and discourse their language. If ever there were

--Depths of tenderness which showed when woke,
That _woman_ there as well as angel spoke,

they are not to be looked for in the printed specimens of woman's genius. Mrs. Osgood guarded herself against such criticism, by a statement in her preface, that many of her songs and other verses were written to appear in prose sketches and stories, and were expressions of feeling suitable to the persons and incidents with which they were at first connected.

In this last edition, to which only reference will be made in these paragraphs, her works are arranged under the divisions of _Miscellaneous Poems_--embracing, with such as do not readily admit another classification, her most ambitious and sustained compositions; _Sacred Poems_--among which, "The Daughter of Herodias," the longest, is remarkable for melodious versification and distinct painting: _Tales and Ballads_--all distinguished for a happy play of fancy, and two or three for the fruits of such creative energy as belongs to the first order of poetical intelligences; _Floral Fancies_--which display a gaiety and grace, an ingenuity of allegory, and elegant refinement of language, that illustrate her fairy-like delicacy of mind and purity of feeling; and _Songs_--of which we shall offer some particular observations in their appropriate order. Scattered through the book we have a few poems for children, so perfect in their way as to induce regret that she gave so little attention to a kind of writing in which few are really successful, and in which she is scarcely equalled.

The volume opens with a brief voluntary, which is followed by a beautiful and touching address to The Spirit of Poetry, displaying the perfection of her powers, and her consciousness that they had been too much neglected while ministering more than all things else to her happiness. If ever from her heart she poured a passionate song, it was this, and these concluding lines of it admit us to the sacredest experiences of her life:

Leave me not yet! Leave me not cold and lonely,
Thou star of promise o'er my clouded path!
Leave not the life that borrows from thee only
All of delight and beauty that it hath!
Thou that, when others knew not how to love me,
Nor cared to fathom half my yearning soul,
Didst wreathe thy flowers of light around, above me,
To woo and win me from my grief's control:
By all my dreams, the passionate and holy,
When thou hast sung love's lullaby to me,
By all the childlike worship, fond and lowly,
Which I have lavish'd upon thine and thee:
By all the lays my simple lute was learning
To echo from thy voice, stay with me still!
Once flown--alas! for thee there's no returning!
The charm will die o'er valley, wood and hill.
Tell me not Time, whose wing my brow has shaded,
Has wither'd Spring's sweet bloom within my heart;
Ah, no! the rose of love is yet unfaded,
Though hope and joy, its sister flowers, depart.

Well do I know that I have wrong'd thine altar,
With the light offerings of an idler's mind,
And thus, with shame, my pleading prayer I falter,
Leave me not, spirit! deaf, and dumb, and blind!
Deaf to the mystic harmony of nature,
Blind to the beauty of her stars and flowers;
Leave me not, heavenly yet human teacher,
Lonely and lost in this cold world of ours;
Heaven knows I need thy music and thy beauty
Still to beguile me on my dreary way,
To lighten to my soul the cares of duty,
And bless with radiant dreams the darken'd day;
To charm my wild heart in the worldly revel,
Lest I, too, join the aimless, false and vain.
Let me not lower to the soulless level
Of those whom now I pity and disdain!
Leave me not yet!--Leave me not cold and pining,
Thou bird of Paradise, whose plumes of light,
Where'er they rested, left a glory shining--
Fly not to heaven, or let me share thy flight!

After this comes one of her most poetical compositions, "Ermengarde's Awakening," in which, with even more than her usual felicity of diction, she has invested with mortal passion a group from the Pantheon. It is too long to be quoted here, but as an example of her manner upon a similar subject, and in the same rhythm, we copy the poem of "Eurydice:"

With heart that thrill'd to every earnest line,
I had been reading o'er that antique story,
Wherein the youth, half human, half divine,
Of all love-lore the Eidolon and glory,
Child of the Sun, with music's pleading spell,
In Pluto's palace swept, for love, his golden shell!

And in the wild, sweet legend, dimly traced,
My own heart's history unfolded seem'd;
Ah! lost one! by thy lover-minstrel graced
With homage pure as ever woman dreamed,
Too fondly worshipp'd, since such fate befell,
Was it not sweet to die--because beloved too well!

The scene is round me! Throned amid the gloom,
As a flower smiles on Etna's fatal breast,
Young Proserpine beside her lord doth bloom;
And near--of Orpheus' soul, oh, idol blest!--
While low for thee he tunes his lyre of light,
I see _thy_ meek, fair form dawn through that lurid night!

I see the glorious boy--his dark locks wreathing
Wildly the wan and spiritual brow;
His sweet, curved lip the soul of music breathing;
His blue Greek eyes, that speak Love's loyal vow;
I see him bend on _thee_ that eloquent glance,
The while those wondrous notes the realm of terror trance.

I see his face with more than mortal beauty
Kindling, as, armed with that sweet lyre alone,
Pledged to a holy and heroic duty,
He stands serene before the awful throne,
And looks on Hades' horrors with clear eye,
Since thou, his own adored Eurydice, art nigh.

Now soft and low a prelude sweet uprings,
As if a prison'd angel--pleading there
For life and love--were fetter'd 'neath the strings,
And poured his passionate soul upon the air!
Anon it clangs with wild, exulting swell,
Till the full paean peals triumphantly through Hell.

And thou, thy pale hands meekly lock'd before thee,
Thy sad eyes drinking _life_ from _his_ dear gaze,
Thy lips apart, thy hair a halo o'er thee
Trailing around thy throat its golden maze;
Thus, with all words in passionate silence dying,
Within thy _soul_ I hear Love's eager voice replying:

"Play on, mine Orpheus! Lo! while these are gazing,
Charm'd into statues by the god-taught strain,
I, I alone--to thy dear face upraising
My tearful glance--the life of life regain!
For every tone that steals into my heart
Doth to its worn weak pulse a mighty power impart.

"Play on, mine Orpheus! while thy music floats
Through the dread realm, divine with truth and grace,
See, dear one! how the chain of linked notes
Has fetter'd every spirit in its place!
Even Death, beside me, still and helpless lies,
And strives in vain to chill my frame with his cold eyes.

"Still, my own Orpheus, sweep the golden lyre!
Ah! dost thou mark how gentle Proserpine,
With clasped hands and eyes whose azure fire
Gleams thro' quick tears, thrilled by thy lay, doth lean
Her graceful head upon her stern lord's breast,
Like an o'erwearied child, whom music lulls to rest!

"Play, my proud minstrel! strike the chords again!
Lo, Victory crowns at last thy heavenly skill!
For Pluto turns relenting to the strain--
He waves his hand--he speaks his awful will!
My glorious Greek, lead on! but ah, _still_ lend
Thy soul to thy sweet lyre, lest yet thou lose thy friend!

"Think not of me! Think rather of the time,
When, moved by thy resistless melody
To the strange magic of a song sublime,
Thy argo grandly glided to the sea;
And in the majesty Minerva gave,
The graceful galley swept, with joy, the sounding wave.

"Or see, in Fancy's dream, thy Thracian trees,
Their proud heads bent submissive to the sound,
Sway'd by a tuneful and enchanted breeze,
March to slow music o'er the astonished ground;
Grove after grove descending from the hills,
While round thee weave their dance, the glad harmonious rills.

"Think not of me! Ha! by thy mighty sire,
My lord, my king, recall the dread behest!
Turn not, ah! turn not back those eyes of fire!
Oh! lost, forever lost! undone! unblest!
I faint, I die!--the serpent's fang once more
Is here!--nay, grieve not thus! Life, but _not Love_, is o'er!"

This is a noble poem, with too many interjections, and occasional redundancies of imagery and epithet, betraying the author's customary haste: but with unquestionable signs of that genuineness which is the best attraction of the literature of sentiment. The longest and more sustained of Mrs. Osgood's compositions is one entitled "Fragments of an Unfinished Story" in which she has exhibited such a skill in blank verse--frequently regarded as the easiest, but really the most difficult of any--as induces regret that she so seldom made use of it. We have here a masterly contrast of character in the equally natural expressions of feeling by the two principal persons, both of whom are women: the haughty Ida, and the impulsive child of passion, Imogen. It displays in eminent perfection, that dramatic faculty which Sheridan Knowles and the late William Cooke Taylor recognised as the most striking in the composition of her genius. She had long meditated, and in her mind had perfectly arranged, a more extended poem than she has left to us, upon Music. It was to be in this measure, except some lyrical interludes, and she was so confident of succeeding in it, that she deemed all she had written of comparatively little worth. "These," she said to me one day, pointing to the proof-leaves of the new edition of her poems, "these are my 'Miscellaneous Verses:' let us get them out of the way, and never think of them again, as the public never will when they have MY POEM!" And her friends who heard the splendid scheme of her imagination, did not doubt that when it should be clothed with the rich tissues of her fancy, it would be all she dreamed of, and vindicate all that they themselves were fond of saying of her powers. It was while her life was fading; and no one else can grasp the shining threads, or weave them into song, such as she heard lips, touched with divinest fire, far along in the ages, repeating with her name. This was not vanity, or a low ambition. She lingered, with subdued and tearful joy, when all the living and the present seemed to fail her, upon the pages of the elect of genius, and was happiest when she thought some words of hers might lift a sad soul from a sea of sorrow.

It was perhaps the key-note of that unwritten poem, which she sounded in these verses upon its subject, composed while the design most occupied her attention:

The Father spake! In grand reverberations
Through space roll'd on the mighty music-tide,
While to its low, majestic modulations,
The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside.

The Father spake: a dream that had been lying
Hush'd, from eternity, in silence there,
Heard the pure melody, and low replying,
Grew to that music in the wondering air--

Grew to that music--slowly, grandly waking--
Till, bathed in beauty, it became a world!
Led by his voice, its spheric pathway taking,
While glorious clouds their wings around it furl'd.

Nor yet has ceased that sound, his love revealing,
Though, in response, a universe moves by;
Throughout eternity its echo pealing,
World after world awakes in glad reply.

And wheresoever, in his grand creation,
Sweet music breathes--in wave, or bird, or soul--
'Tis but the faint and far reverberation
Of that great tune to which the planets roll.

Mrs. Osgood produced something in almost every form of poetical composition, but the necessary limits of this article permit but few illustrations of the variety or perfectness of her capacities. The examples given here, even if familiar, will possess a new interest now; and no one will read them without a feeling of sadness that she who wrote them died so young, just as the fairest flowers of her genius were unfolding. One of the most exquisite pieces she had written in the last few years, is entitled "Calumny," and we know not where to turn for anything more delicately beautiful than the manner in which the subject is treated.

A whisper woke the air,
A soft, light tone, and low,
Yet barbed with shame and wo.
Ah! might it only perish there,
Nor farther go!

But no! a quick and eager ear
Caught up the little, meaning sound;
Another voice has breathed it clear;
And so it wandered round
From ear to lip, and lip to ear,
Until it reached a gentle heart
That throbbed from all the world apart,
And that--it broke!

It was the only _heart_ it found,
The only heart 't was meant to find,
When first its accents woke.
It reached that gentle heart at last,
And that--it broke!

Low as it seemed to other ears,
It came a thunder-crash to _hers_--
That fragile girl, so fair and gay.
'Tis said a lovely humming bird,
That dreaming in a lily lay,
Was killed but by the gun's _report_
Some idle boy had fired in sport--
So exquisitely frail its frame,
The very _sound_ a death-blow came--
And thus her heart, unused to shame,
Shrined in _its_ lily too,
(For who the maid that knew,
But owned the delicate, flower-like grace
Of her young form and face!)--
Her light and happy heart, that beat
With love and hope so fast and sweet,
When first that cruel word it heard,
It fluttered like a frightened bird--
Then shut its wings and sighed,
And, with a silent shudder, died!

In some countries this would, perhaps, be the most frequently quoted of the author's effusions; but here, the terse and forcible piece under the title of "Laborare est Orare," will be admitted to all collections of poetical specimens; and it deserves such popularity, for a combination as rare as it is successful of common sense with the form and spirit of poetry:

Pause not to dream of the future before us;
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us;
Hark, how Creation's deep musical chorus,
Unintermitting, goes up into heaven!
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing;
Never the little seed stops in its growing;
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing,
Till from its nourishing stem it is riven.

"Labor is worship!"--the robin is singing;
"Labor is worship!"--the wild bee is ringing;
Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing
Speaks to thy soul from out nature's great heart.
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower;
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower;
From the small insect, the rich coral bower;
Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part.

Labor is life! 'Tis the still water faileth;
Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth;
Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth;
Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon.
Labor is glory!--the flying cloud lightens;
Only the waving wing changes and brightens;
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens;
Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune!

Labor is rest--from the sorrows that greet us;
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from world-syrens that lure us to ill.
Work--and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow;
Work--thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow;
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow;
Work with a stout heart and resolute will!

Labor is health! Lo! the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life current leaping!
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides.
Labor is wealth--in the sea the pearl groweth;
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth;
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth;
Temple and statue the marble block hides.

Droop not, tho' shame, sin, and anguish are round thee!
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee;
Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee;
Rest not content in they darkness--a clod!
Work--for some good, be it ever so slowly;
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly;
Labor!--all labor is noble and holy;
Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God.

In fine contrast with this is the description of a "Dancing Girl," written in a longer poem, addressed to her sister soon after her arrival in London, in the autumn of 1834. It is as graceful as the vision it brings so magically before us:

She comes--the spirit of the dance!
And but for those large, eloquent eyes,
Where passion speaks in every glance,
She'd seem a wanderer from the skies.

So light that, gazing breathless there,
Lest the celestial dream should go,
You'd think the music in the air
Waved the fair vision to and fro!

Or that the melody's sweet flow
Within the radiant creature play'd
And those soft wreathing arms of snow
And white sylph feet the music made.

Now gliding slow with dreamy grace,
Her eyes beneath their lashes lost;
Now motionless, with lifted face,
And small hands on her bosom cross'd.

And now with flashing eyes she springs,
Her whole bright figure raised in air,
As if her soul had spread its wings
And poised her one wild instant there!

She spoke not; but, so richly fraught
With language are her glance and smile,
That, when the curtain fell, I thought
She had been talking all the while.

In illustration of what we have said of Mrs. Osgood's delineations of refined sentiment, we refer to the poems from pages one hundred and eleven to one hundred and thirty-one, willing to rest upon them our praises of her genius. It may be accidental, but they seem to have an epic relation, and to constitute one continuous history, finished with uncommon elegance and glowing with a beauty which has its inspiration in a deeper profound than was ever penetrated by messengers of the brain. The third of these glimpses of heart-life--all having the same air of sad reality--exhibits, with a fidelity and a peculiar power which is never attained in such descriptions by men, the struggle of a pure and passionate nature with a hopeless affection:

Had we but met in life's delicious spring,
When young romance made Eden of the world;
When bird-like Hope was ever on the wing,
(In _thy_ dear breast how soon had it been furled!)

Had we but met when both our hearts were beating
With the wild joy, the guileless love of youth--
Thou a proud boy, with frank and ardent greeting,
And I a timid girl, all trust and truth!--

Ere yet my pulse's light, elastic play
Had learn'd the weary weight of grief to know,
Ere from these eyes had passed the morning ray,
And from my cheek the early rose's glow;--

Had we but met in life's delicious spring,
Ere wrong and falsehood taught me doubt and fear,
Ere Hope came back with worn and wounded wing,
To die upon the heart it could not cheer;

Ere I love's precious pearl had vainly lavish'd,
Pledging an idol deaf to my despair;
Ere one by one the buds and blooms were ravish'd
From life's rich garland by the clasp of Care.

Ah! had we _then_ but met!--I dare not listen
To the wild whispers of my fancy now!
My full heart beats--my sad, droop'd lashes glisten--
I hear the music of thy _boyhood's_ vow!

I see thy dark eyes lustrous with love's meaning,
I feel thy dear hand softly clasp mine own--
Thy noble form is fondly o'er me leaning--
It is too much--but ah! the dream has flown.

How had I pour'd this passionate heart's devotion
In voiceless rapture on thy manly breast!
How had I hush'd each sorrowful emotion,
Lull'd by thy love to sweet, untroubled rest.

How had I knelt hour after hour beside thee,
When from thy lips the rare scholastic lore
Fell on the soul that all but deified thee,
While at each pause I, childlike, pray'd for more.

How had I watch'd the shadow of each feeling,
That mov'd thy soul-glance o'er that radiant face,
"Taming my wild heart" to that dear revealing,
And glorifying in thy genius and thy grace!

Then hadst thou loved me with a love abiding,
And I had now been less unworthy thee,
For I was generous, guileless, and confiding,
A frank enthusiast, buoyant, fresh, and free!

But _now_--my loftiest aspirations perish'd,
My holiest hopes a jest for lips profane,
The tenderest yearnings of my soul uncherish'd,
A soul-worn slave in Custom's iron chain:

Check'd by these ties that make my lightest sigh,
My faintest blush, at thought of thee, a crime--
How must I still my heart, and school my eye,
And count in vain the slow dull steps of Time!

Wilt thou come back? Ah! what avails to ask thee
Since honor, faith, forbid thee to return!
Yet to forgetfulness I dare not task thee,
Lest thou too soon that _easy lesson_ learn!

Ah! come not back, love! even through Memory's ear
Thy tone's melodious murmur thrills my heart--
Come not with that fond smile, so frank, so dear;
While yet we may, let us for ever part!

The passages commencing, "Thank God, I glory in thy love;" "Ah, let our love be still a folded flower;" "Believe me, 'tis no pang of jealous pride;" "We part forever: silent be our parting;" are in the same measure, and in perfect keeping, but evince a still deeper emotion and greater pathos and power. We copy the closing cantatas, "To Sleep," and "A Weed"--a prayer and a prophecy--in which the profoundest sorrow is displayed with touching simplicity and unaffected earnestness. First, to Death's gentle sister:

Come to me, angel of the weary hearted;
Since they, my loved ones, breathed upon by thee,
Unto thy realms unreal have departed,
I, too, may rest--even I; ah! haste to me.

I dare not bid thy darker, colder brother
With his more welcome offering, appear,
For these sweet lips, at morn, will murmur, "Mother,"
And who shall soothe them if I be not near?

Bring me no dream, dear Sleep, though visions glowing
With hues of heaven thy wand enchanted shows;
I ask no glorious boon of thy bestowing,
Save that most true, most beautiful--repose.

I have no heart to rove in realms of Faery--
To follow Fancy at her elfin call;
I am too wretched--too soul-worn and weary;
Give me but rest, for rest to me is all.

Paint not the future to my fainting spirit,
Though it were starr'd with glory like the skies;
There is no gift that mortals may inherit
That could rekindle hope in these cold eyes.

And for the Past--the fearful Past--ah! never
Be Memory's downcast gaze unveil'd by thee;
Would thou couldst bring oblivion forever
Of all that is, that has been, and will be!

And more mournful still, the dream of the after days:

When from our northern woods pale summer flying,
Breathes her last fragrant sigh--her low farewell--
While her sad wild flowers' dewy eyes, in dying,
Plead for her stay, in every nook and dell.

A heart that loved too tenderly and truly,
Will break at last; and in some dim, sweet shade,
They'll smooth the sod o'er her you prized unduly,
And leave her to the rest for which she pray'd.

Ah! trustfully, not mournfully, they'll leave her,
Assured that deep repose is welcomed well;
The pure, glad breeze can whisper naught to grieve her;
The brook's low voice no wrongful tale can tell.

They'll hide her where no false one's footsteps, stealing,
Can mar the chasten'd meekness of her sleep;
Only to Love and Grief her grave revealing,
And they will hush their chiding _then_--to weep!

And some, (for though too oft she err'd, too blindly,
She was beloved--how fondly and how well!)--
Some few, with faltering feet, will linger kindly,
And plant dear flowers within that silent dell.

I know whose fragile hand will bring the bloom
Best loved by both--the violet's--to that bower;
And one will bid white lilies bless the gloom;
And one, perchance, will plant the passion flower;

Then do _thou_ come, when all the rest have parted--
Thou, who alone dost know her soul's deep gloom!
And wreathe above the lost, the broken-hearted,
Some idle _weed_, that _knew not how to bloom_.

We pass from these painful but exquisitely beautiful displays of sensitive feeling and romantic fancy, to pieces exhibiting Mrs. Osgood's more habitual spirit of arch playfulness and graceful invention, scattered through the volume, and constituting a class of compositions in which she is scarcely approachable. The "Lover's List," is one of her shorter ballads:

"Come sit on this bank so shady,
Sweet Evelyn, sit with me!
And count me your loves, fair lady--
How many may they be?"

The maiden smiled on her lover,
And traced with her dimpled hand,
Of names a dozen and over
Down in the shining sand.

"And now," said Evelyn, rising,
"Sir Knight! your own, if you please;
And if there be no disguising,
The list will outnumber these;

"Then count me them truly, rover!"
And the noble knight obeyed;
And of names a dozen and over
He traced within the shade.

Fair Evelyn pouted proudly;
She sighed "Will he never have done?"
And at last she murmur'd loudly,
"I thought he would write but _one_!"

"Now read," said the gay youth, rising;
"The scroll--it is fair and free;
In truth, there is no disguising
That list is the world to me!"

She read it with joy and wonder,
For the first was her own sweet name;
And again and again written under,
It was still--it was still the same!

It began with--"My Evelyn fairest!"
It ended with--"Evelyn best!"
And epithets fondest and dearest
Were lavished between on the rest.

There were tears in the eyes of the lady
As she swept with her delicate hand,
On the river-bank cool and shady,
The list she had traced in the sand.

There were smiles on the lip of the maiden
As she turned to her knight once more,
And the heart was with joy o'erladen
That was heavy with doubt before!

And for its lively movement and buoyant feeling--equally characteristic of her genius--the following song, upon "Lady Jane," a favorite horse:

Oh! saw ye e'er creature so queenly, so fine,
As this dainty, aerial darling of mine!
With a toss of her mane, that is glossy as jet,
With a dance and a prance, and a frolic curvet,
She is off! she is stepping superbly away!
Her dark, speaking eye full of pride and of play.
Oh! she spurns the dull earth with a graceful disdain,
My fearless, my peerless, my loved Lady Jane!

Her silken ears lifted when danger is nigh,
How kindles the night in her resolute eye!
Now stately she paces, as if to the sound
Of a proud, martial melody playing around,
Now pauses at once, 'mid a light caracole,
To turn her mild glance on me beaming with soul;
Now fleet as a fairy, she speeds o'er the plain,
My darling, my treasure, my own Lady Jane!

Give her rein! let her go! Like a shaft from a bow,
Like a bird on the wing, she is speeding, I trow--
Light of heart, lithe of limb, with a spirit all fire,
Yet sway'd and subdued by my idlest desire--
Though daring, yet docile, and sportive but true,
Her nature's the noblest that ever I knew.
How she flings back her head, in her dainty disdain!
My beauty, my graceful, my gay Lady Jane!

It is among the one hundred and thirteen songs, of which this is one, and which form the last division of her poems, that we have the greatest varieties of rhythm, cadence, and expression; and it is here too that we have, perhaps, the most clear and natural exhibitions of that class of emotions which she conceives with such wonderful truth. The prevailing characteristic of these pieces is a native and delicate raillery, piquant by wit, and poetical by the freshest and gracefullest fancies; but they are frequently marked by much tenderness of sentiment, and by boldness and beauty of imagination. They are in some instances without that singleness of purpose, that unity and completeness, which ought invariably to distinguish this sort of compositions, but upon the whole it must be considered that Mrs. Osgood was remarkably successful in the song. The fulness of our extracts from other parts of the volume will prevent that liberal illustration of her excellence in this which would be as gratifying to the reader as to us; and we shall transcribe but a few specimens, which, by various felicities of language, and a pleasing delicacy of sentiment, will detain the admiration:

Oh! would I were only a spirit of song,
I'd float forever around, above you:
If I were a spirit, it wouldn't be wrong,
It couldn't be wrong, to love you!

I'd hide in the light of a moonbeam bright,
I'd sing Love's lullaby softly o'er you,
I'd bring rare visions of pure delight
From the land of dreams before you.

Oh! if I were only a spirit of song,
I'd float forever around, above you,
For a musical spirit could never do wrong,
And it wouldn't be wrong to love you!

The next, an exquisitely beautiful song, suggests its own music:

She loves him yet!
I know by the blush that rises
Beneath the curls
That shadow her soul-lit cheek;
She loves him yet!
Through all Love's sweet disguises
In timid girls,
A blush will be sure to speak.

But deeper signs
Than the radiant blush of beauty,
The maiden finds,
Whenever his name is heard;
Her young heart thrills,
Forgetting herself--her duty--
Her dark eye fills,
And her pulse with hope is stirr'd.

She loves him yet!--
The flower the false one gave her,
When last he came,
Is still with her wild tears wet.
She'll ne'er forget,
Howe'er his faith may waver,
Through grief and shame,
Believe it--she loves him yet.

His favorite songs
She will sing--she heeds no other;
With all her wrongs
Her life on his love is set.
Oh! doubt no more!
She never can wed another;
Till life be o'er,
She loves--she will love him yet!

And this is not less remarkable for a happy adaptation of sentiment to the sound:

Low, my lute--breathe low!--She sleeps!--
Eulalie!
While his watch her lover keeps,
Soft and dewy slumber steeps
Golden tress and fringed lid
With the blue heaven 'neath it hid--
Eulalie!
Low my lute--breathe low!--She sleeps!--
Eulalie!
Let thy music, light and low,
Through her pure dream come and go.
Lute on Love! with silver flow,
All my passion, all my wo,
Speak for me!
Ask her in her balmy rest
Whom her holy heart loves best!
Ask her if she thinks of me!--
Eulalie!
Low, my lute!--breathe low!--She sleeps!--
Eulalie!
Slumber while thy lover keeps
Fondest watch and ward for thee,
Eulalie!

The following evinces a deeper feeling, and has a corresponding force and dignity in its elegance:--

Yes, "lower to the level"
Of those who laud thee now!
Go, join the joyous revel,
And pledge the heartless vow!
Go, dim the soul-born beauty
That lights that lofty brow!
Fill, fill the bowl! let burning wine
Drown in thy soul Love's dream divine!

Yet when the laugh is lightest,
When wildest goes the jest,
When gleams the goblet brightest,
And proudest heaves thy breast,
And thou art madly pledging
Each gay and jovial guest--
A ghost shall glide amid the flowers--
The shade of Love's departed hours!

And thou shalt shrink in sadness
From all the splendor there,
And curse the revel's gladness,
And hate the banquet's glare;
And pine, 'mid Passion's madness
For true love's purer air,
And feel thou'dst give their wildest glee
For one unsullied sigh from me!

Yet deem not this my prayer, love,
Ah! no, if I could keep
Thy alter'd heart from care, love,
And charm its griefs to sleep,
Mine only should despair, love,
I--I alone would weep!
I--I alone would mourn the flowers
That fade in Love's deserted bowers!

Among her poems are many which admit us to the sacredest recesses of the mother's heart: "To a Child Playing with a Watch," "To Little May Vincent," "To Ellen, Learning to Walk," and many others, show the almost wild tenderness with which she loved her two surviving daughters--one thirteen, and the other eleven years of age now;--and a "Prayer in Illness," in which she besought God to "take them first," and suffer her to lie at their feet in death, lest, deprived of her love, they should be subjected to all the sorrow she herself had known in the world, is exquisitely beautiful and touching. Her parents, her brothers, her sisters, her husband, her children, were the deities of her tranquil and spiritual worship, and she turned to them in every vicissitude of feeling, for hope and strength and repose. "Lilly" and "May," were objects of a devotion too sacred for any idols beyond the threshold, and we witness it not as something obtruded upon the outer world, but as a display of beautified and dignified humanity which is among the ministries appointed to be received for the elevation of our natures. With these holy and beautiful songs is intertwined one, which under the title of "Ashes of Roses," breathes the solemnest requiem that ever was sung for a child, and in reading it we feel that in the subject was removed into the Unknown a portion of the mother's heart and life. The poems of Mrs. Osgood are not a laborious balancing of syllables, but a spontaneous gushing of thoughts, fancies and feelings, which fall naturally into harmonious measures; and so perfectly is the sense echoed in the sound, that it seems as if many of her compositions might be intelligibly written in the characters of music. It is a pervading excellence of her works, whether in prose or verse, that they are graceful beyond those of any other author who has written in this country; and the delicacy of her taste was such that it would probably be impossible to find in all of them a fancy, a thought, or a word offensive to that fine instinct in its highest cultivation or subtlest sensibility. It is one of her great merits that she attempted nothing foreign to her own affluent but not various genius.

There is a stilted ambition, common lately to literary women, which is among the fatalest diseases to reputation. She was never betrayed into it; she was always simple and natural, singing in no falsetto key, even when she entered the temples of old mythologies. With an extraordinary susceptibility of impressions, she had not only the finest and quickest discernment of those peculiarities of character which give variety to the surface of society, but of certain kinds and conditions of life she perceived the slightest undulations and the deepest movements. She had no need to travel beyond the legitimate sphere of woman's observation, to seize upon the upturnings and overthrows which serve best for rounding periods in the senate or in courts of criminal justice--trying everything to see if poetry could be made of it. Nor did she ever demand audience for rude or ignoble passion, or admit the moral shade beyond the degree in which it must appear in all pictures of life. She lingered with her keen insight and quick sensibilities among the associations, influences, the fine sense, brave perseverance, earnest affectionateness, and unfailing truth, which, when seen from the romantic point of view, are suggestive of all the poetry which it is within the province of woman to write.

I have not chosen to dwell upon the faults in her works; such labor is more fit for other hands, and other days; and so many who attempt criticism seem to think the whole art lies in the detection of blemishes, that one may sometimes be pardoned for lingering as fondly as I have done, upon an author's finer qualities. It must be confessed, that in her poems there is evinced a too unrestrained partiality for particular forms of expression, and that--it could scarcely be otherwise in a collection so composed--thoughts and fancies are occasionally repeated. In some instances too, her verse is diffuse, but generally, where this objection is made, it will be found that what seems most careless and redundant is only delicate shading: she but turns her diamonds to the various rays; she rings no changes till they are not music; she addresses an eye more sensitive to beauty and a finer ear than belong to her critics. The collection of her works is one of the most charming volumes that woman has contributed to literature; of all that we are acquainted with the most womanly; and destined, for that it addresses with truest sympathy and most natural eloquence the commonest and noblest affections, to be always among the most fondly cherished Books of the Heart.

Reluctantly I bring to a close these paragraphs--a hasty and imperfect tribute, from my feelings and my judgment, to one whom many will remember long as an impersonation of the rarest intellectual and moral endowments, as one of the loveliest characters in literary or social history. Hereafter, unless the office fall to some one worthier, I may attempt from the records of our friendship, and my own and others' recollections, to do such justice to her life and nature, that a larger audience and other times shall feel how much of beauty with her spirit left us.

This requiem she wrote for another, little thinking that her friends would so soon sing it with hearts saddened for her own departure.

The hand that swept the sounding lyre
With more than mortal skill,
The lightning eye, the heart of fire,
The fervent lip are still:
No more in rapture or in wo,
With melody to thrill,
Ah! nevermore!

Oh! bring the flowers she cherish'd so,
With eager child-like care:
For o'er her grave they'll love to grow,
And sigh their sorrow there;
Ah me! no more their balmy glow
May soothe her heart's despair,
No! nevermore!

But angel hands shall bring her balm
For every grief she knew,
And Heaven's soft harps her soul shall calm
With music sweet and true;
And teach to her the holy charm
Of Israfel anew.
For evermore!

Love's silver lyre she played so well,
Lies shattered on her tomb;
But still in air its music-spell
Floats on through light and gloom,
And in the hearts where soft they fell,
Her words of beauty bloom
For evermore!

Recent Deaths.

SAMUEL YOUNG.

The Hon. Samuel Young, long one of the most eminent politicians of the democratic party in the State of New-York, died of apoplexy, at his home at Ballston Spa, on the night of the third of November. Col. Young was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, in 1778. Soon after he completed his legal studies he emigrated to Ballston Spa, in this State. The following facts respecting his subsequent career are condensed from the _Tribune_.

"He was first chosen to the Legislature in 1814, and was reelected next year on a split ticket, which for a time clouded his prospects. In 1824, he was again in the Assembly, was Speaker of the House in that memorable year, and helped remove De Witt Clinton from the office of Canal Commissioner. The Fall Election found him a candidate for Governor on the 'Caucus' interest opposed to the 'People's' demand that the choice of Presidential Electors be relinquished by the Legislature to the Voters of the State. Col. Young professed to be personally a 'Peoples' man, and in favor of Henry Clay for President; the 'Caucus' candidate being Wm. H. Crawford. De Witt Clinton was the opposing candidate for Governor, and was elected by 16,000 majority. Col. Young's political fortunes never recovered from the blow thus inflicted. He had already been chosen a Canal Commissioner by the Legislature, and he continued to hold the office till the Political revolution of 1838-9, when he was superseded by a Whig. He was afterwards twice a State Senator for four years, and for three years Secretary of State. He carried into all the stations he has filled signal ability and unquestioned rectitude. He was a man of strong prejudices, violent temper and implacable resentments, but a Patriot and a determined foe of time-serving, corruption, prodigality, and debt. He was a warm friend of Educational Improvement, and did the cause good service while Secretary of State. For the last three years he has held no office, but lived in that peaceful retirement to which his years and his services fairly entitled him. He leaves behind him many who have attained more exalted positions on a smaller capital of talent and aptitude for public service. We have passed lightly over his vehement denunciations of the Internal Improvement policy during the latter years of his public life. We attribute the earnestness of his hostility to a temper soured by disappointment, and especially to his great defeat in '24, at the hands of the illustrious champion of the Canals. But, though his vision was jaundiced, his purpose was honest. He thought he was struggling to save the State from imminent bankruptcy and ruin."

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Henry T. Robinson, for many years an active maker of political and other caricatures, by which he made a fortune, here and in Washington, and of nude and other indecent prints, by the seizure of a large quantity of which, with other causes, he was impoverished, died at Newark, New-Jersey, on the third of November. He was born on Bethnal Common in England, in 1785, and about 1810 emigrated to this country, where he was one of the first to practise lithography.

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Joseph Hardy died a few weeks ago at Rathmines, aged ninety-three years. When twenty years old he invented a machine for doubling and twisting cotton yarn, for which the Dublin Society awarded him a premium of twenty guineas. Four years after he invented a scribbling machine for carding wool, to be worked by horse or water power, for which the same society awarded him one hundred guineas. He next invented a machine for measuring and sealing linen, and was in consequence appointed by the linen board seals-master for all the linen markets in the county of Derry, but the slightest benefit from this he never derived, as the rebellion of '98 broke out about the time he had all his machines completed, and political opponents having represented by memorials to the board that by giving so much to one man, hundreds who then were employed would be thrown out of work, the board changed the seal from the spinning wheel to the harp and crown, thereby rendering his seals useless, merely giving him 100_l._ by way of remuneration for his loss. About the year 1810 he demonstrated by an apparatus attached to one of the boats of the Grand Canal Company at Portobello the practicability of propelling vessels on the water by paddle wheels; but having placed the paddles on the bow of the boat, the action of the backwater on the boat was so great as to prevent its movement at a higher speed than three miles per hour. This appearing not to answer, without further experiment he broke up the machinery, and allowed others to profit by the ideas he gave on the subject, and to complete on the open sea what he had attempted within the narrow limits of a canal. He also invented a machine for sawing timber; but the result of all his inventions during a long life was very considerable loss of time and property without the slightest recompense from Government, or the country benefited by his talents.

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Major-General Slessor died at Sidmouth, Devonshire, on the 11th October, aged seventy-three. He entered the army in 1794, and served in Ireland during the rebellion, and subsequently against the French force commanded by General Humbert, on which last occasion he was wounded. In 1806 he accompanied his regiment (the 35th) to Sicily, and the next year he served in the second expedition to Egypt, and was wounded in the retreat from Rosetta to Alexandria. He then served with Sir J. Oswald against the Greek Islands, and was employed in the Mediterranean. He also served in the Austrian army, under Count Nugent, and in the Waterloo campaign.

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