THE BRIDE.

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LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.

(1791-1865.)

MRS. SIGOURNEY has been termed the American Hemans, and her works certainly possess much of the grace of style and purity of senti. ment characteristic of the English poetess. Her first appearance as an authoress was in 1815, when she published a series of "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse." She afterwards issued several volumes of poetry, the most elaborate being the "The Aborigines of America," and "Pocahontas ;" the latter, a poem in the Spenserian stanza, displaying some powerful and pathetic description. Mrs. Sigourney was born at Norwich, in the State of Connecticut, and in 1819 she married Mr. Sigourney, a merchant at Hartford in her native state. A very beautiful illus. trated edition of the works of this popular poetess has been published ir America.

THE BRIDE.

I CAME, but she was gone. In her fair home,
There lay her lute, just as she touched it last,
At summer twilight, when the woodbine cups
Fill'd with pure fragrance. On her favourite seat
Lay the still open work-box, and that book
Which last she read, its pencil'd margin mark'd
By an ill-quoted passage-trac'd, perchance,
With hand unconscious, while her lover spake
That dialect which brings forgetfulness
Of all beside. It was the cherish'd home,
Where from her childhood she had been the star
Of hope and joy. I came and she was gone.
Yet I had seen her from the altar led,

With silvery veil but slightly swept aside,

The fresh, young rose-bud, deepening in her cheek,
And on her brow the sweet and solemn thought
Of one who gives a priceless gift away.

And there was silence 'mid the gather'd throng.
The stranger, and the hard of heart, did draw
Their breath suppressed, to see the mother's lip
Turn ghastly pale, and the majestic sire
Shrink as with smother'd sorrow, when he gave
His darling to an untried guardianship,
And to a far-off clime. Haply his thought
Travers'd the grass-grown prairies, and the shore
Of the cold lakes; or those o'erhanging cliffs,
And pathless mountain-tops, that rose to bar
Her log-rear'd mansion from the anxious eye
Of kindred and of friend. Even triflers felt
How strong and beautiful is woman's love,

Which, taking in its hand its thornless joys,
The tenderest melodies of tuneful years,
Yea! and its own life also-lays them all
Meek and unblenching, on a mortal's breast,
Reserving nought, save that unspoken hope
Which hath its root in God.

Mock not with mirth

A scene like this, ye laughter-loving ones;
The licens'd jester's lip, the dancer's heel-
What do they here? Joy, serious and sublime,
Such as doth nerve the energies of prayer,
Should swell the bosom, when a maiden's hand,
Fill'd with life's dewy flow'rets, girdeth on
That harness which the ministry of death
Alone unlooseth, but whose fearful power
May stamp the sentence of eternity.

FROM POCAHONTAS.

THE VIRGINIAN COLONISTS.

Clime of the West! that to the hunter's bow,
And roving hordes of savage men, wert sold,-
Their cone-roof'd wigwams pierc'd the wintry snow,
Their tassel'd corn crept sparsely through the mould,
Their bark canoes thy glorious waters clave,
The chase their glory, and the wild their grave—
Look up a loftier destiny behold,

For to thy coast the fair-hair'd Saxon steers,

Rich with the spoils of time, the lore of bards and seers.

Behold a sail! another, and another !

Like living things on the broad river's breast ;— What were thy secret thoughts, oh, red-brow'd brother, As toward the shore these white-wing'd wanderers prest? But lo! emerging from her forest zone,

The bow and quiver o'er her shoulder thrown,

With nodding plumes her raven tresses drest,

Of queenly step, and form erect and bold,

Yet mute with wondering awe, the New World meets the Old.

Roll on, majestic flood, in power and pride,

Which like a sea doth swell old ocean's sway;With hasting keel, thy pale-fac'd sponsors glide To keep the pageant of thy christening day. They bless thy wave, they bid thee leave unsung The uncouth baptism of a barbarous tongue,

And take his name,-the Stuart's,-first to bind The Scottish thistle in the lion's mane,

Of all old Albion's kings, most versatile and vain.

THE PIRATE'S ISLAND.

Spring robes the vales. With what a flood of light
She holds her revels in this sunny clime ;-
The flower-sown turf, like bossy velvet bright,
The blossom'd trees exulting in their prime:
The leaping streamlets in their joyous play,
The birds that frolic 'mid the diamond spray,

Or heavenward soar, with melody sublime ;-
What wild enchantment spreads a fairy wing,

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As from their prisoning ships the enfranchis'd strangers spring.
Their tents are pitch'd, their spades have broke the soil,
The strong oak thunders, as it topples down,

Their lily-handed youths essay the toil,

That from the forest rends its ancient crown;

Where are your splendid halls, which ladies tread,
Your lordly boards, with every luxury spread,
Virginian sires,-ye men of old renown?
Though few and faint,-your ever-living chain
Holds in its grasp two worlds, across the surging main.

RICHARD HENRY DANA.
(1787- .)

MR. DANA, a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is author of "The Buccaneer" and other poems, and is well known as a critic and novelist.

FROM THE BUCCANEER.

THE PIRATE'S ISLAND.

THE island lies nine leagues away.

Along its solitary shore,

Of craggy rock and sandy bay,

No sound but ocean's roar,

Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home;
Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam.

But when the light winds lie at rest,

And on the glassy, heaving sea,

The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently;

How beautiful! no ripples break the reach,
And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach.

And inland rests the green, warm dell ;
The brook comes tinkling down its side;
From out the trees the Sabbath-bell
Rings cheerful, far and wide,

Mingling its sound with bleatings of the flocks,
That feed about the vale amongst the rocks.

Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat
In former days within the vale ;
Flapped in the bay the pirate's sheet;
Curses were on the gale;

Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men ;
Pirate and wrecker kept their revels then.

But calm, low voices, words of grace,
Now slowly fall upon the ear;

A quiet look is in each face,
Subdued and holy fear:

Each motion's gentle; all is kindly done,—
Come, listen, how from crime the isle was woll.

FITZGREENE HALLECK.

(1795-1867.)

Like most of the American poets, Mr. Halleck was actively engaged in business, and poetry was consequently only an occasional pursuit. In 1819 he published "Fanny," a satirical poem, in 1827 “Alnwick Castle," and in 1835 "Marco Bozzaris," and other pieces.

FROM MARCO BOZZARIS.1

AT midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,

Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood
On old Platæa's day:

And now they breathed that haunted air,

The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,

As quick, as far as they.

An hour past on the Turk awoke ;
That bright dream was his last.

1 Bozzaris was termed the Epaminondas of modern Greece. attack on the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient saying, as he expired, "To die for liberty is pleasure, not pain."

He fell in a night Platea, in 1823,

FROM MARCO BOZZARIS.

He woke

to hear his sentries shriek:

"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"
He woke to die midst flame and smoke,
And shot and groan, and sabre stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud,
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

"Strike! till the last armed foe expires;
Strike! for your altars and your fires;
Strike! for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!"

They fought, like brave men, long and well,
They piled that ground with Moslem slain,
They conquered, but Bozzaris fell,

Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw

His smile when rang their proud hurrah,

And the red field was won ;

Then saw in death his eyelids close

Calmly as to a night's repose,

Like flowers at set of sun.

Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee-there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime.

She wore no funeral weeds for thee,

Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,

The heartless luxury of the tomb :

But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone;
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings her birthday bells ;
Of thee her babes' first lisping tells;
For thine her evening-prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears:
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys-

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