Chapter C: Columbia’s Banner (1)

Bright banner of Columbia,
A fragment of the sky,
Torn down with all thy glitt’ring stars--
Angelic blazonry!
Stream onward, like the fiery cloud
That hung o’er Egypt’s sea,
Terror and darkness to the proud,
A light to guide the free.

Bright banner of Columbia!
Thou glory’st not in blood;
Yet, if the foe invade our land,
The foe shall be withstood;
A death-grasp shall his welcome be,
A bloody turf his pillow,
And on the battle-wave he’ll find
A tomb in every billow.

Dark banner of oppression,
Droop o’er thy millions slain!
All stained with floods of human gore,
Thou ne’er shalt wave again;
Save when the wail of misery,
The orphan’s plaintive cry,
And the widow’s moan amid thy folds,
Shall breathe in agony.

But thou, my country’s banner,
Unstained by guilt or crime,
Shalt wave o’er every tyrant-flag,
Until the end of time:
For Peace lies nestling in thy wings,
And each emblazoned star
Sheds down its sweetest influence
To heal the wounds of war.

Then wave thou on for ages,
O’er mountain, lake and sea,
For God has stamped upon thy folds
His word--ETERNITY.
Yet when the earth’s by thee forsaken,
No mortal shall weep o’er thee,
For the dread Archangel’s trump shall be
The requiem of thy glory.

Then, banner of my country,
Shalt thou be upward borne,
To gild again thy native skies,
From which thou once wert torn;
For thy earthly mission’s over,
To the dust oppression’s hurled;
Thou’st struck to none but a deathless power,
’Mid the wrecks of a falling world.

Avena.

STORY AND SENTIMENT, OR, CONVERSATIONS WITH A MAN OF TASTE AND IMAGINATION.

No. 3.

A NIGHT AT THE FARM HOUSE.[1]

[1] This tale is in the hand writing of my friend.

In one of my journeys through the western part of New Hampshire, I chanced to put up for the night at a small farm-house about five miles from the little village of W----, and meeting with a somewhat curious adventure there, I have resolved to record it. My host was a little, fat faced, bustling, bandy-legged fellow, running here and there, studious for my comforts, my humble servant, &.c. &c.; and succeeding with his wife, a long, lank, sidling, vinegar-looking creature, he made out to obtain for me the only spare room in his house. Into this I was ushered with due importance, and having taken a survey of the apartment, its nice new bed, newly dusted candle-stand, oak bottomed chairs, and a high huge wardrobe, which from its antiquated appearance I judged to have been an heir-loom in the family for three centuries at least, I tossed my saddle-bags into one corner, kicked off my heavy boots into the other, and slipping my released feet into a pair of soft squirrel-skin slippers, returned again to the kitchen. There I found my host and his wife cosily seated over a sparkling fire, and from the abrupt breaking off of their conversation and half guilty countenances, I concluded they had been talking over the character of their new comer. I was never difficult to please, especially when I had fallen in with any of the peasantry, so to speak, of dear New England, and admitted to the calm content which reigns around their fire sides--so planting myself upon a settle, perhaps a dye-tub, a thing indispensible to a New England farm-house, I entered into conversation with them.

I found my host a well bred, sensible fellow, somewhat free in the use of provincialisms, and not wanting in love to a good broad-faced joke; somewhat witty withal, and a memory in which he had stored many an odd story, some good and some bad, which stories he told (when solicited) with a tolerably good grace.

I pause here to record my observations on one of the peculiarities in the New England character--I mean its modesty. Foreigners, and residents of other parts of this widely extended territory may talk of Yankee impudence, but for the life of me, in all my wanderings, I could never find the genuine modesty of a native New Englander. They may cheat you--that is, some of them may, some of their outlawed, who with trunk and tin wagon travel into other States to prey on the unwary; but where turn you and find not some, who do and ever will disgrace the soil that nursed them? For New England I claim no entire exemption; perfection is not beneath the sun: but there is more of it here than elsewhere--and in proof of it I adduce, their superior sagacity, their nobler intelligence. Where intelligence is found, will you find least of the weaknesses of human nature.

But to return: having bid Bessy, a short, flaxen-haired, chubby-cheeked damsel, of about fourteen, the very image of her father, bring him a cup of cider; and poking our chairs close into the fire--so close that the wind which came down chimney, would now and then puff out the smoke and curl it up about mine host’s neck and shoulders, making him look for all the world like Vulcan peeping through the clouds of his own smithy--he began as follows.

‘Late last March and on one of the coldest nights in my memory, my wife and me were startled by a loud knock at the door, about nine o’ the clock; and more so by the abrupt entrance of a stranger, who had been as it seems just ceremonious enough to knock, but not sufficiently so to wait until bidden a welcome. Marching directly up to the fire he doffed his cap, and then in a bland, gentle voice, and the language of a gentleman, prayed our pardons for his boldness, and craved our hospitality.

‘Now Biddy here is not the most hospitable in her feelings, but even she was softened by the coldness of the weather, and the soft accents of the stranger. So, bidding him welcome and placing before him such entertainment as we best could, he ate his meal and then sat himself down--right where you are, sir, at this moment--as if for conversation.

‘His age, I should think, was about forty five. In person he was strikingly handsome, yet care-worn; his hair was black--his eyes likewise, and a somewhat cynical curl about his small mouth made you hesitate to address him, thinking he was perhaps a person of strong prejudices. His skin was as fair as a girl’s; a fine set of teeth were displayed when he smiled; in short, his appearance was such that I should have taken him, perhaps, for a scholar; for, though his dress was rich it was careless, and there was a sort of method in what he said though the subjects were simple, as I am told is ever found in men of education. At first, he was very taciturn.

“You find it a cold air, sir,” said I, breaking the silence.

“Yes--yes, sir.”

“You’ve ridden far?”

“Yes--yes, sir.”

“You’re come from the south, eh?”

“Yes--yes, sir.”

“You’re not from York, I guess?”

“Yes--yes, sir.”

‘Well, thinks I, you may be a scholar for aught I know, but hang me! if I think there’s much variety in your talk.

‘I took him on another tack.

“You have, at least, sir, come where hearts are warm, and hospitality is proffered cheerfully.”

‘He started at this; a gentle flush tinged his cheek; and he seemed struck with an ingenuous consciousness of his want of courtesy. Turning to me he took my hand in his, and pressing it, replied--

“An honest heart, sir, is its own reward. Small boots it then, that I add _my_ sense of your hospitality to that of your own consciousness. Yet such as I have, I give, and that is but small; for I am one, sir, who cares but for a few, and one who is as little cared for by others. Once I had a heart that--that--yes! that _felt_--in every pulsation _felt_ the beauty that is in morals and in virtue. Nothing lived, but it gave me happiness; nothing died, but it gave me pain--_That time is past_.”

‘There was something so earnest, yet unstudied; so easy, yet solemn, and ‘heart-twinging,’ to use a phrase of Biddy’s, in this, that both she and me began to water about the eyes like two babies.

‘Returning the kind pressure of his hand, I said--

“But you are young, sir--too young to feel that life has no claims upon--”

“Too old--too old, sir,” interrupted he with emphasis, “too old for earth, and too wise to do any good in it. Some of the world, sir, live faster than others. Grief can crowd twenty years into ten, and care make the vigor of manhood, the tottering imbecility of four score. Believe it not--believe it not; they err, sir, who measure life by years. Events, events notch it right--these notch the chronicle of human life.”

“And yet, sir, ’tis man’s right to be always happy.”

“Aye! and ’tis the right of the singing bird to skim the blue ether, and pour its music in concert with the harmony of the stars--but how many things invade that right! The bird that sings sweetly of a morning, may be jammed into the wallet of the clown, by evening--its music hushed, and its mottled plumes dabbled with dirt and gore. Man’s prerogative to be happy! aye--_but ’tis his necessity to be miserable_.”

‘This, sir,’ said my host, ‘may give you some idea of his character. The evening passed off--though not very happily; for there was that about him which took hold of my feelings, and when I shook hands with him for the night there was an ache in my bosom, I could’nt well get rid of.

‘In the morning, he was up betimes--breakfasted--and rose to depart. Before he went however, he took from his bosom a paper; and handing it to me, bade me keep it till his return. ‘It is a short sketch of some of the events of my life,’ rejoined he, as he mounted his horse, ‘and though it benefit you not, it will perform at least one good office--make you remember me.’ He bowed, and rode away.

‘That paper I have now somewhere, and if you wish, sir, I will read it to you.’ My host rose, and going to a huge cat-hole, or cupboard in the corner of the room, he succeeded in finding it--not forgetting by the way, to tumble out sundry articles of house-wife memory, such as balls of yarn, woollen stockings, flannels, and night-caps, and strewing them over the floor. Seated again by the comfortable fire, he now put on a huge pair of brass spectacles, blew his nose thrice, and proceeded to decipher--

THE STRANGER’S MANUSCRIPT.

‘I pass over my boyhood.

‘I had now entered upon my sixteenth spring, and with less unhappiness, perchance, than ordinarily meets us in this world. Sadness I had known, but unkindness I had never felt; nor had a suspicion of how very opposed the heart is to rectitude, found a lodgment in my mind. I was on the point of visiting the metropolis; and I know I felt as boys mostly do on their entering into the great world--elated with the thoughts of what I was to see and meet with, in a scene I had heard so much about. I talked of little else; and when the day came heralded by a morning of unusual loveliness, my happiness almost sickened me. I remember I went out into the fields, and every thing looked gayer and brighter than I had ever seen it. The flowers looked prettier--the dew was brighter--the birds chirped to me as I passed them--and a subtle spirit of life seemed to pervade all things and participate in my happiness. I returned home happy, and strove to while off the hours preceding my departure (for I was not to leave till the afternoon)--but ere that afternoon came, a dingy, dusky atmosphere, spread itself all about the earth, and the very sky looked, as I thought, fiendish--threatening. I shall not soon forget how soon it was communicated to my feelings. My spirits sunk down. A fearful change seemed working itself through my disposition, which amazed and maddened me. I answered those sharply, who interrogated me as to the cause of it. I gave my orders harshly. I ran from room to room, absent and thoughtful. In fine, all my characteristic amiableness had gone from me, and I seemed transformed into something devilish. I was changed as I suppose those spirits will be at the last day, when they turn half hoping to the judgment seat, and, reading their condemnation there, instantly become fiends.

‘A gentle tap was heard at the door, and my mother glided silently into the room; and seating herself beside me, she laid my head upon her bosom. She parted the dark curls from my forehead, and I felt her lips pressed feverishly upon it, and a tear fell upon my face--one of her tears! I opened my eyes at this and looked her full in the face--O! how she looked--pale--wan--beautiful.

“My son--my son--speak to me”--Staring her full in the face, I drew my hand half unconsciously over my eyes--then, recollection suddenly returning, I knelt wildly at her feet--

“Your blessing--Mother!” I gasped.

“Bless thee--bless thee--my boy!” I started up--screamed--and fled from the room. It seemed as if I was mad at her--mad even in my idolatry; and I verily believe I struck her, for I heard her groan and fall heavily upon the floor.

* * * * *

‘Before I slept I was upon the ocean--and I have a dim recollection that there was a storm--that the green and crested billows hissed angrily as the thunder growled over them--that the ship went forward like a mad horse plowing through whole mountains of water, and shaking off the white surf from her bows in sheets of silver--and I remember that the violence of the tempest seemed to harmonize awfully with the loud passions within me.

* * * * *

‘Years had passed. The bright enthusiasm of youth had gone off with them. The glowing thoughts, passions, sympathies, consuming themselves in their own fire--my whole character had saddened down into the melancholy, homeless wanderer. I was no longer the sunny featured boy that had spent so many pleasant hours on the hill side--by the sandy margin of the lake that washed its base and sent up there with every wind that fanned it, a gentle lullaby--by the rivulet that in early days had caught my laughing features as I bent over it to gather water flowers--no! I was that boy no longer. The peace which had once lived in my heart, had become a worthless and withered flower, scentless as a shadow; the innocency which once gave a zest to every thing had gone from me; the gray hairs of premature age were intermingled with the dark ones of my youth--no! I was that boy no longer. I had traveled--but what was travel to me? I had been in the north and south, in the east and west; I had wandered over the solemn grounds of Corcyra, and amid the classic ruins of Italy; I had stood beneath the sky of Africa and sat me down like Marius amid the relics of her better days, and tried to wake in my heart some of that dormant enthusiasm belonging to young minds; but it was like seeking to resuscitate the dead dust in the earth beneath, or to call life into the mouldering mausoleums and temples around me--no! I was that boy no longer.

‘The time of the grain gathering had gone by, and later Autumn had fully set in; for the trees were more than half stripped of that gorgeous covering peculiar to this season; and no music came out from the forest save the whistle of a single quail, and this too in that pensive cadence which is heard only at the close of the year. I was revisiting the scenes of my childhood--a spot I had not seen for twenty years, and during which period I had been a wanderer where no tidings of the weal or wo of my family reached me. It is not necessary to recount the circumstances which had made me thus long a voluntary exile. It need only be said, I parted from home and all I held dear, in anger--angry with self--angry with man--angry with that pure and exemplary being who had borne me on her heart, and by whom I had been so often taught to kneel and pray even before I could myself frame a benediction--‘with her who taught me that God loved obedient children.’ O! that one offence! Any thing else--had it been any thing else, I had suppressed the groans over my nightly pillow, and borne it like a man while it grieved me. But she, she in whose character unkindness had no part--a blow, a damning blow--God! God! this was unmitigated misery. And yet I had suffered--God knows it, year after year, and seen it preying on my health, and felt it withering up all my finer sensibilities--and yet I would not return. I could not. I felt as if a power was upon me, against which my united energies were nothing. I felt as if it was my destiny, and strange as it may appear, I thought it right. I felt it certain that home was not for me, and though I would wake from an unrefreshing sleep, and recount for hours as a miser his gold every early association, it brought the wish but not the purpose to return. Sickness came--O! what a leveler is sickness of all the petty passions and enmities which creep into the dispositions of men! How it tears up the character, wrings out from the hardened heart the bitter gall of contrition, and forces into amendment! Sickness accomplished in me what reason and conscience could not do, and broke down that indomitable barrier which had so long interposed betwixt me and duty. I rose from my bed, a habitant rather of another world than the denizen of this, and my first thought was home. This cherished for a few weeks grew into a passion, and the fear that the grave had closed over all I loved magnified the wish a thousand fold, while every obstacle which now interposed betwixt me and a return sent a chill through me, like that which we may suppose lies on the heart of the dead. The swiftest speed seemed but delay, and it was only on the last day of my journey and I neared home that my impatience subsided, and my anxiety began to assume another form--something terrible and strange, foreboding and oppressive.

‘The tread of the post horses down the gravelly slope which led directly to the village, roused me from a lethargy I had fallen into, and I sprang to the coach window like a madman. We were opposite the village inn. The same old antiquated elm creaked before the door, and the same old sign board flapped in the blast, and upon the high step stones that led to the main body of the building, sat a human form. A staff lay on the ground beside him--his ragged scrip was at his feet--and his form was doubled up with age. I looked closely--God of Heaven!--_it was my brother_.

‘But my cup was not yet full. We drew up at the inn door, and I heard the guard rudely order the beggar from the spot, and curse him for an idle mendicant. This was too much for my swollen heart to bear, and leaping from the opposite side of the carriage, I took my way forward alone. I came to the small hill which ran along by the side of the village, from the top of which the immediate valley where lay my father’s dwelling appeared in view; and as I paused there for a moment, and memory ran over the thousand senseless objects that lay around me with each of which I could associate a forgotten happiness, I thought death a boon I could have prayed for. At that moment the village school poured forth its groups of noisy and innocent children. This was as it was wont to be--this seemed natural. But looking nearer, I knew them not--they were strangers. Here and there I thought I recognized a face I had once known, but it was transient and soon passed--all was strange. A celebrated ‘Retreat for the Insane’ was in our village, and reaching the summit of the hill I stood by its walls. The door was closed but not fastened; and I know not why, but an indefinable feeling led me to enter there. I know not but it was the unbreathed wish of my heart to witness some spectacle of human suffering--hoping thereby to lessen my own; perhaps I thought I might soon make it my own dwelling, and I wanted to familiarize the objects I should meet with;--but I entered. Seated upon the ground with scarce a mat to cover them, was a lot of wretched beings busied as their several dispositions prompted them. One was blowing bubbles--he said he was maturing a system of astronomy, whereby Galileo should be forgotten and the world profited. Another was heaping up sand, and hoarding it in his bosom--he called it gold. A third it seemed had been a lay preacher, and now and then he howled forth a torrent of truth and error, interlarded with imprecations and blasphemies the most horrid. And there was one there, a tall and handsome youth, with eyes as black as midnight, and his brow drawn down into the scowl of a demon--He said he was ANALYZING A HUMAN HEART. Sudden my ears were saluted with loud and piercing shrieks that made my whole frame shiver, and betwixt each scream I thought I recognized the shrill echo of a lash as applied to the naked skin. Another--and an old man came tottering round an angle of the building; and seeing me, he ran to my feet and cowered down like a whipped hound seeking for protection.

“Curse them for inhuman wretches”--groaned, or rather screamed the old man--“They chain me up like a vile beast--a dog to murder me. They drag me into that black den and shut me there, and say I’m crazed--mad. What is mad? Who?--O! yes,--my children, they broke my heart--one went from me, and the other--Ah! save me--save me”--His keepers came in sight, and in their hands were the scourges they had been using, the sounds of which had rung in my ears so appalling. “O! don’t--don’t--I’ll follow--you won’t whip me, will you master--I’m good--good”--and the old man actually knelt down, and like a beast licked the feet of his tormentors. I fell to the earth senseless.

‘A long and doleful night followed--a blank--a vacancy; so long, it seemed ten thousand eternities; so gloomy, it seemed as if the darkness was consolidated. O! what a night is that, when the helm of reason breaks--the unshackled faculties wander forth--and the maddened powers invoke images of horror, only to madden themselves the more by gazing at them! All that is grand--all that is terrible--all horrible, loathsome, fearful images, that the mind had ever while healthy repulsed, then come back on the heart like vultures that have been scared awhile from their prey, whose fasts have only whetted their ungorged appetites. At one moment, I seemed borne through the Eternal void chained to the lightnings; at another, I was dashing downward towards a tremendous barrier of cavernous rocks, and their serrated pinnacles seemed waiting to embrace me. Now I was tossed on billows of fire, and a tremendous surge would hurl me on a jagged precipice; then with its reflux suck me down through unimaginable depths, and the hot fires scorched me as they shot into my brain. Again I heard peals of laughter, and howlings of formless, shapeless beings that hovered around me; they had snakes and basilisks twisted round their foreheads, and the flames that issued from their forked mouths seemed to burn into my very soul. Then came the sense of a release--the gasping, choking, horrible consciousness, that you are struggling on the confines of two worlds, and not knowing which is to be yours--whether earth or death shall have you. Suddenly a fountain seemed tossing its cool spray over me--the fires that withered up my brain went out--the fiends that howled about me passed away--the subtlest life began to dance through my veins--and I awoke!

My first thoughts were true to their mark, and my first words, “Mother, lives she? The rest--father, brother--God of Heaven! why was I reserved for it?”

‘A form stood by me--a little maid. O! how the innocent words and kind attentions of infancy, soothe the pillow of an irritable sickness! We can’t bear the cold studied kindness of such as we are, we are jealous of them; we fear they will condole with us, curse us with their stinted pity; and that too in the measured phraseology which speaks of the head and not of the heart. But a child, a gentle child--to see its little form gliding about your couch--to feel its little arms about your pillow--to catch its warm breath on your cheek as winds breathed from flowers--and see the kind and touching solicitude of the eye unused to sights of sorrow, yet enduring it like a martyr, and for ourselves too,--these make irritable diseases tolerable--may I not say happy? for the evidence of a pure and devoted affection in a human being, makes a misanthrope (and such I then was) contented with misery. And my disease was of this nature: it was a nervousness induced by excess of suffering, and my faculties had become so exquisite, that the least thing sent a dart through me that seemed tearing flesh and soul asunder.

“Mother! is she--?” excessive weakness forbade me finish the sentence.

“Your mother lives”--but she placed her finger upon her lips in token of silence. I attempted to answer--she laid her hand upon my mouth with a sweet smile, then turned and left the room.

‘Weeks passed, and still was I the denizen of a sick room; and but slowly regaining my pristine energies. My form had shrunk away--my eyes were sunk--my voice was almost entirely gone; and as I slowly paced my apartment and from the window threw my eyes on the dreariness without, (for the year had gone far into later fall, and the loud winds whistled bitterly through the naked poplars) I felt as if I had but little to do in the world, and would as lief go from it. But yet, one thing held me back, one thirst, one burning desire--the wish to see my mother. She I had not seen, and for reasons I could not unravel, her name was never mentioned. And though I was told she was in the house, I was not suffered to visit her. She was sick, but not dangerous--received my messages of love daily--returned them--this was all.

‘One dark night (I shall not forget that night) I was sitting up in bed, and counting off the weary hours as they limped laggingly by me. A weight had been on my heart all day, and racking fires had seemed scorching my brain; and so acute was the suffering, as if a band of hot iron were riveted closely round my forehead. I sat thinking--thinking of self--of my sorrows--of my strange destiny; and then there came back to me the remembrance of other days, and with them my mother--her care, love, and early tenderness, until my eyes were suffused with tears. Sudden I was startled by a low sigh breathed as it were close in my ears. I thought it delusion, but was soon undeceived--for it was repeated, and that too so audibly I could not mistake. I turned my eyes in the direction from whence it came. Again I caught it, and a strain of music rose soft and sweetly as if an angel sang it, and I saw indistinctly a shadow gliding past me. Then my name was distinctly sounded, and in a voice I knew too well. Terror had chained the powers of utterance, and I only gazed at vacancy with all the horrors of some dark, indefinite foreboding. The same sigh was repeated and the name, and then as a cloud passed over the moon, a figure stood in the apartment clad in the habiliments of the grave. It smiled sweetly upon me--it was my mother! I knew she must have passed from this to a better world, and the truth came over me with a cold sweat while the palsy of my limbs made the very bed tremble. I spread out my arms in agony, and wildly clasped the air. There was another sigh, the repetition of my name--and the figure vanished.

‘I rose and threw my night garments round me, and grasping my own flesh to be sure I dreamed not, I took the light from my table and commenced a search to find--what? my mother’s corse! for such I felt I must find her, if at all--the warning was not for nothing. I traversed room after room--met no one--and came to the wing of the building where I had ever deemed she lodged; and leaving the light at the door, I slowly lifted the latch and entered the apartment. _On a bed in the centre of the chamber, she lay lifeless._ There was no light there, but the moon broke forth at the moment, and I saw she was shrouded for the grave.

‘O! death!--death!--how solemn thou art! How awful, when thou comest on those we love! How thought at such moments crowds on the living! How the words that once issued from the lips that lie there, come up to recollection! How the eye that looks so chill and glassy, gleams again--and the face marble-cold and as expressionless, radiates with love, hope, happiness! There she lay dead, dead--and I not forgiven. She was gone. I had not heard her say, ‘I forgive thee, boy.’ Not a word--not a look--not a blessing--God! God!--what next! O, what next!

‘I crept up to the bier and laid my cold face down to hers, and moaned in all my heart brokenness of sorrow. I kissed her--I shrieked her name--I stamped--I threw myself upon her corse. There was no Promethean heat that could reanimate it--and I _felt_ I was alone.

‘Had I heard her say, ‘I forgive--I bless thee, child’--life were tolerable, and I would have breasted the forceful waves of misery as they came tumbling in upon me, like a man. This was denied me, and in its place is blazed in shapes of fire--That one offence.’

* * * * *

The evening wore away, what with the reading of the manuscript and my many inquiries concerning the stranger, and my host now showing me to my room, where with many expressions of his happiness to wait upon me, &c. &c. he bade me good night, I jumped into bed. In the morning I met him again and tried my hand with him at a good, honest, hearty, New Hampshire breakfast; afterwards I shook hands with his family, mounted my horse, and continued my journey--and such was my ‘Night at the Farm House.’

SONNET.

ADDRESSED TO A LADY SINGING, AND WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF HER MUSIC BOOK.

It hath been said that music is a dream,
A soft creation and a witchery
Made for earth’s happier climes, where peacefully
Men’s thoughts go by as goes a pleasant stream:--
It hath been said too, that the favored
And bright ones who so sing us into bliss,
And witch out from our souls unquietness,
And place a Sabbath softness in its stead--
It hath been said that these not mortal be,
But are of the same nature with the sky--
Ethereal, volatile, as clouds that play
About the sinking sun at shut of day:--
_But sure they lie--for this soft hand in mine_,
_And this soft strain I hear--why, both are thine!_

*

REVIEW.

_The Culprit Fay, and other Poems_; by Joseph Rodman Drake. New York: George Dearborn, Publisher. 1835.

Over the grave of a highly-gifted and a youthful poet, gathers many a delightful and yet saddened reminiscence. It should ever be regarded as a consecrated spot--crowded with associations of no ordinary character--hallowed by the deepest and the tenderest of feelings. It is _holy_ ground,--better fitted, it may be, than any other to allure us to reflection,--to summon into active exercise each deep emotion of the heart,--to draw out into living forms of beauty each hidden power, each finer sensibility,--and to leave us, better, purer, nobler, for its warnings and instructions. And yet, why should it be so? The grave even of the young, the gifted, and the beautiful, differs not in outward fashion or adornment, from the many which surround it. It is hollowed out from the same earth with them--closes over the same lifeless and decaying bodies--furnishes the same victim for the worm, the same banquet for corruption. The sculptured stone that marks it, is as soon to sink or crumble as another--the grass grows over it no greener--the steps of the idle and the thoughtless fall not round it with a lighter tread--and the flower that blooms upon it, is as soon to fade or wither.

The grave of a youthful poet is indeed a holy spot, but it is so not alone in reference to the moldering body it enshrouds, or to the impressive comment that it reads on death. That grave is sacred, rather as a remembrancer of intellect. That body was the outward vesture of a mind. It was the drapery that imprisoned in its folds a restless and a struggling spirit, burning with the fires of heaven, yet amid the gloom of earth, and was thrown aside when tarnished, as unfitted for its purpose. In the departure of that spirit, who can tell our loss. How brilliant, yet how rapid, has been its career. Meteor-like, it has vanished from our sight, while the hopes that we had cherished have gone down for ever.

The volume, whose title we have placed at the commencement of this article, and whose merits we propose to examine with our readers, is a beautiful memorial of departed genius. The perusal of its pages has naturally led us to indulge in those reflections we have hitherto pursued. The memory of Drake--his early and untimely grave--has tended to associate with his, the same sad fate of others. We have thought of Sands, of Wilcox, and of Brainerd. Of the former, it is true, we know but little--nothing more than a few casual examinations of their works afford us. Of the latter, we know more. We delight to speak of him, not only as a poet--and as such he had few equals--but still farther, as a friend. In the first of these characters he has now been long before the public, and has gained from their decisions a conspicuous distinction--a rank higher we believe than his own expectations, although one of strictest justice and commensurate with merit. To us it is a matter of no slight regret, that a mind so richly-gifted, should have garnered up its beauties, and have been so very sparing of its splendid treasures. Brainerd was distrustful of his own abilities. The hope of approbation, was with him no motive to exertion. He cared not to lay bare the workings of a heart, perhaps too warm and sensitive, or to send abroad those finer feelings which might meet no kindred sympathies, and return to him companionless from contact with the world. It was only in those moments given up to the full flow of friendship--to the interchange of sentiments with more intimate associates--that the noblest of his qualities became developed. As a poet, he reminds us forcibly of Burns. His was the same appreciation of the charms of nature--the same exquisitely tempered sensibility--a like generosity of disposition, and as much of poignant wit and versatility. The tribute paid to the memory of Burns, may with equal justice be applied to Brainerd.

“His is that language of the heart,
In which the answering heart would speak--
Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start,
Or the smile light the cheek.
And his that music to whose tone
The common pulse of man keeps time,
In cot or castle’s mirth or moan,
In cold or sunny clime.”

When an edition of Drake’s poems, containing many pages hitherto unpublished, was announced as nearly ready for the press, we received the information with great pleasure. We expected much, and we are glad to say our expectations have been realized. The first thing which arrested our attention was the dedication, and it struck us at the time as unusually appropriate. It is a happy testimonial of respect, from a daughter to her father’s friend--to one who, perhaps, above all others, best deserved the appellation. To whom should it have been dedicated, if not to Halleck? To the community at large the loss of such a man as Drake may be regarded as a great calamity,--but to the cause of literature it is still more. It is taking from the latter one of its highest ornaments, and leaving a wide vacancy, which time may never fill. Of his general merits, as a writer, there can be but one opinion. The precise rank to which he is entitled we propose not to examine, or to venture on comparisons with critical minuteness. The exact extent of his abilities, or the results to which his genius might have led him, we would leave as questions to be settled by the taste of his admirers, and proceed to mention some of those peculiar features which stand out in his productions. In our view, his poems are distinguished for uncommon ease of diction, and the richness of their imagery. Over the wide realm of imagination our author seems to hold unlimited control, and to gather from it beauties, which he scatters with profusion. In whatever spot his fancy may detain him he is found at home, lingering around each scene with the familiarity of long acquaintance, and a perfect knowledge of each object and allurement. He is ever changing, too, in the visions he presents us. Now, he is hovering over an ideal land, sweeping forward with a wing, which, like that of the untiring Huma, is not folded upon earth. Now, he leads us forth to gaze upon the witcheries of nature,--to view the gorgeous colorings of her varied landscapes,--to break the silence of her forest solitudes,--to tread the mountain height, or to repose beside the streamlet that runs whimpering at its base. Again, he summons up our energies for a still bolder flight--carries us away to the bright fields of upper regions, onward and still onward, till our world is lost in distance, and we walk upon the star-lit plains of heaven. Anon,

“Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,
Or sea-roc rides the blast,”

he plunges with us far within the bosom of the heaving deep, where the wrath of the storm spirit is unheard--down to the coral towers of “snail-plated” warriors, or around the amber beds of ocean sylphs and mermaids.

But exuberance of fancy, though perhaps the most prominent, is not the only quality inherent in these poems. We have before alluded to the beauty of their rhythm. This we regard as almost faultless. There is a fitness in the choice of each word, and a care in its location, which imparts to every sentence a high finish and proportion. Each line seems flowing onward, with a light and rapid motion, as it were to blend in union with a graceful whole. There are no rough corners that can meet us at the turn of each expression. The eye reposes upon nothing but a surface of unbroken symmetry, and the ear drinks in a music grateful as the murmurs of some meadow stream. We may deny it, if we choose, but there is a “charm in numbers,” and the one who holds it lightly is deficient in his judgment. The profoundest argument that man can frame, or the proudest monument of pure mind that he can offer, derives much of its impressive force from the garb in which it is presented. Unadorned it is the naked statue, modelled thus far by the youthful pupil, and that needs a master’s polish to display it in perfection. The materials for this statue, abstract intellect may, indeed must furnish, but it yet demands the touches of a cultivated taste. That education which has taught us how to reason has done well, but a different knowledge should be added ere we reap its full advantage. He who has cast loose from the firm rock of thought, that his bark may toss on summer seas to fancied shores of pleasure, has exposed himself to shipwreck--but as sad may be the fate of him, who, relying solely on the native strength of his entrenchment, has erected there no battery to render it impregnable. It would be a source of satisfaction, did our time allow the privilege, to trace still farther the idea which we have started, and to make its application to a multitude of cases, but we leave it, with reluctance, to complete our undertaking.

As specimens of graceful diction, and an almost boundless play of fancy, there are many of Drake’s pieces which remind us of the brilliant compositions of another poet--one whose harp has breathed forth strains than which there are none sweeter, and whose life has been one revel around sentiment and song. Who of us can say, whether the young poet of America might not have been to her what Moore is now to Ireland--that he would have loved her with less fervor of devotion, or have sounded forth her praises with a feebler lyre. His would have been a soul to dwell upon her charms with rapture, who when pleading for his parent soil exclaims,

“Shame! that while every mountain, stream and plain
Hath theme for truth’s proud voice or fancy’s wand,
No _native_ bard the patriot harp hath ta’en,
But left to minstrels of a foreign strand,
To sing the beauteous scenes of nature’s loveliest land.”

From the numerous pieces which compose the volume, we select the CULPRIT FAY, as best adapted to exhibit the true merits of our author. It is, to say the least, an elegant production--the purest specimen of ideality that we have ever met with, sustaining in each incident a most bewitching interest. Its very title is enough to kindle the imagination, and to send us wandering amid the bowers of elfin land, reviewing the traditions of our boyhood years. We recall to recollection many of those “old world stories,”--tales of brownies and the bogle burns of Scotland,--of the elves and sprites of merry England, or the mystic Wasser Nixen of the German fable. We trust ourselves with pleasure to that guidance which once more will introduce us to this region of enchantment.

The poem opens with an elegant description of the spot our author has selected for his “spell-bound realm.” It lies beside the waters of the lordly Hudson--a river whose whole shore is rich in scenes of beauty, and many of whose deep receding bays and jutting headlands have derived a lasting interest from the pen of Irving. The time is midnight--we stand upon the summit of Cronest, gazing upon a cloudless sky--every thing around us is now lulled to sweet repose--

“The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid,
And naught is heard on the lonely hill,
But the cricket’s chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katy-did.”

Suddenly the voice of the sentry-elf, awakened from his slumbers, (how he came to be asleep our author does not tell us,) breaks in upon the stillness, as he hastens to announce the dawning of the fairy day--and crowds of tiny Fays fly answering to his summons.

“They come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,
And rocked about in the evening breeze;
Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest--
They had driven him out by elfin power,
And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour;
Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,
With glittering ising-stars inlaid;
And some had opened the four-o’-clock,
And stole within its purple shade.
And now they throng the moonlight glade,
Above--below--on every side,
Their little minim forms arrayed
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!”

It is not, however, to the dance or revel that we are invited. No wild gambol is to rivet our attention. We are summoned to the trial of an erring ouphe. Before us stands the throne of judgment, supported on its pillars of the “mottled tortoise shell,” and covered by a curtain of the “tulip’s crimson drapery.” Upon it sits the fairy monarch, surrounded by the nobles of his realm--before him is the culprit Fay. Weighty is the crime alledged against the prisoner. Unmindful of his vestal vow, he has dared to love an earthly maiden. He has

--“left for her his woodland shade;
He has lain upon her lip of dew,
And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
Played with the ringlets of her hair,
And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king’s behest.”

His condemnation follows. The loveliness and purity of her for whom he had thus sinned, go far to mitigate the punishment to which he is obnoxious--a punishment than which none could be severer or more terrible. His sentence is pronounced.

“Thou shalt seek the beach of sand,
Where the water bounds the elfin-land,
Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,
And catch a drop from his silver bow.
The water-sprites will wield their arms,
And dash around, with roar and rave,
And vain are the woodland spirits’ charms,
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might,
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight.”

With this explanation of the nature of his penance, we leave the sentenced Fay to enter on his toilsome journey and meet us in its progress at a different quarter.

We have heard often of the circumstances which led to the production of this poem, and of the astonishing rapidity with which it was composed. How this may be we know not. Judging from the beauty of its several parts, and still more from its finish as a whole, it strikes us as the result of long continued labor, polished and perfected with a scrupulous attention. The subject which our author has selected, is one admirably fitted to display his genius. It is one, however, that demands unceasing effort, and requires the constant workings of his brilliant fancy. From the ordinary range of illustration he is certainly excluded, while the path to the attainment of his object is both difficult and devious. He has drawn around himself a magic circle, into which no human form can enter. Nothing earthly is to mingle in the scenes to which he calls us. Each action, in its origin, continuance, and termination, must be fitted to the beings he has chosen for his actors. With this view of his undertaking, we may fear for the result, and watch with much anxiety its full accomplishment. It is not long, however, that we feel this apprehension. We soon discover that our author is prepared for each adventure--that he gains a ready conquest over every opposition, while his flight continues onward with an undiminished ardor.

Here again we are to greet our pilgrim fairy. Long and wearisome have been his wanderings. Hour after hour has he toiled amid the passes of the mountain, and fearful are the perils he has been compelled to meet. He has followed out a dangerous track,

“Through dreary beds of tangled fern,
Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,
Over the grass and through the brake,
Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake,”

till he has reached the spot appointed for the trial of his courage. He has found the treasure that he sought, protected by the warriors of the deep, and been baffled by their forces in the efforts he has made.

It is in this crisis of affairs that we meet with a deliverance as ingenious as it is successful. It is necessary, for our author’s purpose, that his hero, though thus far defeated, should yet gain his object, and with that intention he has brought him to his present situation. The events which we have compressed into the narrow space of a few lines, have been presented in detail up to the period in which the Fay, driven from his purpose, stood despairing on the river’s brink. It is thus the history continues,--

“He cast a saddened look around,
But he felt new joy his bosom swell,
When, glittering on the shadowed ground,
He saw a purple muscle shell;
Thither he ran, and he bent him low,
He heaved at the stern, and he heaved at the bow,
And he pushed her over the yielding sand,
Till he came to the verge of the haunted land.
She was as lovely a pleasure boat
As ever fairy had paddled in,
For she glowed with purple paint without,
And shone with silvery pearl within;
A sculler’s notch in the stem he made,
An oar he shaped of the bootle blade;
Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap,
And launched afar on the calm blue deep.”

Guarded in this manner from the machinations of his enemies, whose power was bounded by the wave, our adventurer holds on his course uninjured, and effects his purpose. His return, surrounded by a crowd of ocean nymphs, is beautifully represented. We refer our readers to the volume for the passage.

Here the scene of this poem changes, and we find our Fay is still destined to another duty--one far more difficult than any he has yet accomplished. The remainder of his sentence now demands attention.

“Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
Thou must re-illume its spark.
Mount thy steed and spur him high
To the heaven’s blue canopy;
And when thou seest a shooting star,
Follow it fast, and follow it far--
The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again.
Thou hast heard our sentence, Fay;
Hence! to the water-side, away!”

To the execution of this last injunction all his powers are now directed, and we find him thus equipped for this most daring enterprise.

“He put his acorn helmet on;
It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down:
The corslet plate that guarded his breast
Was once the wild bee’s golden vest;
His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,
Studs of gold on a ground of green;
And the quivering lance which he brandished bright,
Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.
Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed;
He bared his blade of the bent grass blue;
He drove his spurs of the cockle seed,
And away like a glance of thought he flew,
To skim the heavens and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket-star.”

From the passage above quoted to the close of the poem, is extended a long series of most exquisite description. Each instant of our flight, unfolds to our enraptured vision scenes ever changing, and increasing in their splendor. Already have we hurried by the misty region of the cloud.

“The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
The sphered moon is past,
The earth but seems a tiny blot
On a sheet of azure cast.”

We rest not till we stand beside

--“the flood which rolls its milky hue,
A river of light on the welkin blue,”

surrounded by the brightness of celestial realms.

As specimens of fanciful illustration, we give a description of the palace chosen for the empress sylph of heaven, which our author introduces by way of episode before proceeding to fulfill his purpose.

“Its spiral columns gleaming bright
Were streamers of the northern light;
Its curtain’s light and lovely flush
Was of the morning’s rosy blush,
And the ceiling fair that rose aboon
The while and feathery fleece of noon.”

Again, we have a notice of the queen’s apparel.

“Her mantle was the purple rolled
At twilight in the west afar;
’Twas tied with threads of dawning gold,
And buttoned with a sparkling star.”

In looking back upon the numerous quotations we have made, we fear that we have trespassed, it may be too long, upon the patience of our readers. To analyze the poem fully--and such was our first intention--would conduct farther than our limits will allow. We shall therefore hasten to a close, and from several passages which still remain unnoticed, select one most distinguished for the richness of its coloring. It contains the greater part of the address of the queen sylph to our wandering Fay, when endeavoring to detain him in her presence, she draws a glowing picture of prospective bliss.