With lips pressed hard the helms-
man stands,
Grasping the spokes with freezing
hands,

While white the reef lies in his path,
Swept by an ocean full of wrath.

The surf-roar in the blast is lost, The foam-flakes by the wild wind tost High up in air, no warning show, Hid by the driving mass of snow.

With sudden bound and sullen grate, The brave ship rushes to her fate,

And splintered deck and broken mast

Make homage to the roaring blast.

Amid the waves, float riven plank, And rope and sail with moisture dank; And faces gleaming stern and white

Shine dimly in the storm-filled night.

By some bright river far away, Fond hearts are wondering where they stay

Who sleep along the wave-washed shore

And stormy reefs of Labrador.

AN OCTOBER PICTURE.

THE purple grapes hang ready for the kiss

Of red lips sweeter than their wine; And 'mid the turning leaves they soon will miss,

The crimson apples shine. Lazily through the soft and sunlit air The great hawks fly, and give no heed

To the sweet songsters, that toward the fair,

Far lands of summer speed.

Along the hills wild asters bend to greet

The roadside's wealth of golden-rod; And by the fences the bright sumachs meet

The morning light of God.

With all the fragrant freshness won From night's repose, and kiss of dew Which the bright radiance glistens through,

Such is the sweetness of thy lips,
Where love its sacred tribute sips:
Such is the glory of thine eyes,
Rich with the soul's unsaid replies.

The snow that crowns the mountain
height,
[white;
Through countless years of gleaming
The creamy blooms of orchard trees,
Full of the melody of bees;
The cool, fresh sweetness of the sea;
All have a charm possessed by thee:
But each of these has one alone,
Whilst thou canst call them all thine

own.

Though taste, though genius, bless, To some divine excess, Faints the cold work till thou inspire the whole;

What each, what all supply, May court, may charm, our eye; Thou, only thou, canst raise the meeting soul!

Of these let others ask,

To aid some mighty task,

I only seek to find thy temperate vale; Where oft my reed might sound To maids and shepherds round, And all thy sons, O Nature, learn my tale.

'Tis not the enfeebled thrill, or warbled shake,

The heart can strengthen, or the soul awake!

But where the force of energy is found,

When the sense rises on the wings of sound;

When reason, with the charms of music twined,

Through the enraptured ear informs the mind;

Bids generous love or soft compassion glow, And forms a tuneful Paradise below!

ODE TO THE BRAVE.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes blessed!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould.

She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their
clay;

And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

THE PASSIONS.

AN ODE FOR MUSIC.

WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was

young,

While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting:
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were
fired,

Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of
sound:

And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for Madness ruled the hour)

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired;
And, from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more
sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:

And, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound; Through glades and glooms the nin gled measures stole,

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,

Round an holy calm diffusing, Love of Peace, and lonely musing, In hollow murmurs died away.

But O! how altered was its spright

lier tone,

When Cheerfulness, healthiest hue,

a nymph of

green:

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing.

First to the lively pipe his hand But soon he saw the brik awakening addrest; viol,

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best; They would have thought who heard the strain

They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,

Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;

And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay,

Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess! why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ?
As, in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned
an all-commanding

power,

Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard;
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art ?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording sister's page
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more pre-
vail,

Had more of strength, diviner rage,

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing;

Or where the beetle winds
His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,

Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:

Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale,

May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail
Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding-star, arising shows

His paly circlet,—at his warning lamp The fragrant Hours, and elves Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,

lovelier still,

The pensive Pleasures sweet,
Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene;

Or find some ruin, 'midst its dreary dells,

Whose walls more awful nod
By thy religious gleams.

Or, if chill blustering winds, or driving rain

Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,

That, from the mountain's side, Views wilds, and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires;

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all

Thy dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusky veil.