Lo! the small stars, above the silver wave,
Come wandering up the sky, and kindly lave
The thin clouds with their light, like floating sparks
Of diamonds in the air; or spirit barks,
With unseen riders, wheeling in the sky.
Lo! a soft mist of light is rising high,
Like silver shining through a tint of red,
And soon the queened moon her love will shed,
Like pearl-mist, on the earth and on the sea,
Where thou shalt cross to view our mystery.
Lo! we have torches here for thee, and urns,
Where incense with a floating odour burns,
And altars piled with various fruits and flowers,
And ears of corn, gather'd at early hours,
And odours fresh from India, with a heap
Of many-colour'd poppies :-Lo! we keep
Our silent watch for thee, sitting before
Thy ready altars, till to our lone shore
Thy chariot wheels
Shall come, while ocean to the burden reels,
And utters to the sky a stifled roar.
THOU art, in truth, a fair and kingly star,
Planet! whose silver crest now gleams afar
Upon the edge of yonder eastern hill,
That, night-like, seems a third of heaven to fill.
Thou art most worthy of a poet's lore,
His worship-as a thing to bend before;
And yet thou smilest as if I might sing,
Weak as I am-my lyre unused to ring
Among the thousand harps which fill the world.
The sun's last fire upon the sky has curl'd,
And on the clouds, and now thou hast arisen,
And in the east thine eye of love doth glisten-
Thou, whom the ancients took to be a king,
And that of gods; and, as thou wert a spring
Of inspiration, I would soar and drink,
While yet thou art upon the mountain's brink.
Who bid men say that thou, O silver peer,
Wast to the moon a servitor, anear
To sit, and watch her eye for messages,
Like to the other fair and silver bees
That swarm around her when she sits her throne?
What of the moon? She bringeth storm alone,
At new, and full, and every other time; [rhyme,
She turns men's brains, and so she makes them
And rave, and sigh away their weary life;
And shall she be of young adorers rife,
And thou have none? Nay, one will sing to thee,
And turn his eye to thee, and bend the knee.
Lo on the marge of the dim western plain,
The star of love doth even yet remain-
She of the ocean-foam-and watch thy look,
As one might gaze upon an antique book,
When he doth sit and read, at deep, dead night,
Stealing from Time his hours. Ah, sweet delay!
And now she sinks to follow fleeting day,
Contented with thy glance of answering love:
And where she worships can I thoughtless prove?
Now as thou risest higher into sight,
Marking the water with a line of light,
On wave and ripple quietly aslant,
Thy influences steal upon the heart,
With a sweet force and unresisted art,
Like the still growth of some unceasing plant.
The mother, watching by her sleeping child,
Blesses thee, when thy light, so still and mild,
Falls through the casement on her babe's pale face.
And tinges it with a benignant grace,
Like the white shadow of an angel's wing.
The sick man, who has lain for many a day,
And wasted like a lightless flower away,
He blesses thee, O JovE! when thou dost shine
Upon his face, with influence divine,
Soothing his thin, blue eyelids into sleep.
The child its constant murmuring will keep,
Within the nurse's arms, till thou dost glad
His eyes, and then he sleeps. The thin, and sad,
And patient student closes up his books
A space or so, to gain from thy kind looks
Refreshment. Men, in dungeons pent,
Climb to the window, and, with head upbent,
Gaze they at thee. The timid deer awake,
And, 'neath thine eye, their nightly rambles make,
Whistling their joy to thee. The speckled trout
From underneath his rock comes shooting out,
And turns his eye to thee, and loves thy light,
And sleeps within it. The gray water plant
Looks up to thee beseechingly aslant,
And thou dost feed it there, beneath the wave.
Even the tortoise crawls from out his cave,
And feeds wherever, on the dewy grass,
Thy light hath linger'd. Thou canst even pass
To water-depths, and make the coral-fly
Work happier, when flatter'd by thine eye.
Thou touchest not the roughest heart in vain;
Even the sturdy sailor, and the swain,
Bless thee, whene'er they see thy lustrous eye
Open amid the clouds, stilling the sky.
The lover praises thee, and to thy light
Compares his love, thus tender and thus bright;
And tells his mistress thou dost kindly mock
Her gentle eye. Thou dost the heart unlock
Which Care and Wo have render'd comfortless,
And teachest it thy influence to bless,
And even for a time its grief to brave.
The madman, that beneath the moon doth rave,
Looks to thy orb, and is again himself.
The miser stops from counting out his pelf,
When through the barred windows comes thy lull-
And even he, he thinks thee beautiful.
O! while thy silver arrows pierce the air,
And while beneath thee, the dim forests, where
The wind sleeps, and the snowy mountains tall
Are still as death-O! bring me back again
The bold and happy heart that bless'd me, when
My youth was green; ere home and hope were veil'd
In desolation! Then my cheek was paled,
But not with care. For, late at night, and long,
I toil'd, that I might gain myself among
Old tomes, a knowledge; and in truth I did:
I studied long, and things the wise had hid
In their quaint books, I learn'd; and then I thought
The poet's art was mine; and so I wrought
My boyish feelings into words, and spread
Them out before the world-and I was fed
With praise, and with a name. Alas! to him,
Whose eye and heart must soon or late grow dim, Toiling with poverty, or evils worse, This gift of poetry is but a curse, Unfitting it amid the world to brood, And toil and jostle for a livelihood. The feverish passion of the soul hath been My bane. O JOVE! couldst thou but wean Me back to boyhood for a space, it were Indeed a gift. There was a sudden stir, Thousands of years ago, upon the sea; The waters foam'd, and parted hastily, As though a giant left his azure home, And Delos woke, and did to light up come Within that Grecian sea. LATONA had, Till then, been wandering, listlessly and sad, About the earth, and through the hollow vast Of water, follow'd by the angry haste Of furious JUNO. Many a weary day, Above the shaggy hills where, groaning, lay ENCELADUS and TYPHON, she had roam'd, And over volcanoes, where fire upfoam'd; And sometimes in the forests she had lurk'd, Where the fierce serpent through the herbage work'd, Over gray weeds, and tiger-trampled flowers, And where the lion hid in tangled bowers, And where the panther, with his dappled skin, Made day like night with his deep moaning din: All things were there to fright the gentle soulThe hedgehog, that across the path did roll, Gray eagles, fang'd like cats, old vultures, bald, Wild hawks and restless owls, whose cry appall'd, Black bats and speckled tortoises, that snap, And scorpions, hiding underneath gray stones, With here and there old piles of human bones Of the first men that found out what was war, Brass heads of arrows, rusted scimetar, Old crescent, shield, and edgeless battle-axe, And near them skulls, with wide and gaping cracks, Too old and dry for worms to dwell within; Only the restless spider there did spin, And made his house. And then she down would lay Her restless head, among dry leaves, and faint, And close her eyes till thou wouldst come and paint Her visage with thy light; and then the blood Would stir again about her heart, endued, By thy kind look, with life again, and speed; And then wouldst thou her gentle spirit feed With new-wing'd hopes, and sunny fantasies, And, looking piercingly amid the trees, Drive from her path all those unwelcome sights. Then would she rise, and o'er the flower-blights, And through the tiger-peopled solitudes, And odorous brakes, and panther-guarded woods, Would keep her way until she reach'd the edge Of the blue sea, and then, on some high ledge Of thunder-blacken'd rocks, would sit and look Into thine eye, nor fear lest from some nook Should rise the hideous shapes that JuNo ruled, And persecute her. Once her feet she cool'd Upon a long and narrow beach. The brine Had mark'd, as with an endless serpent-spine, The sanded shore with a long line of shells, Like those the Nereids weave, within the cells Of their queen THETIS-Such they pile around The feet of cross old NEREUS, having found
That this will gain his grace, and such they bring
To the quaint PROTEUS, as an offering,
When they would have him tell their fate, and who
Shall first embrace them with a lover's glow.
And there LATONA Stepp'd along the marge
Of the slow waves, and when one came more large,
And wet her feet, she tingled, as when JovE
Gave her the first, all-burning kiss of love.
Still on she kept, pacing along the sand,
And on the shells, and now and then would stand,
And let her long and golden hair outfloat
Upon the waves-when, lo! the sudden note
Of the fierce, hissing dragon met her ear.
She shudder'd then, and, all-possess'd with fear,
Rush'd wildly through the hollow-sounding vast
Into the deep, deep sea; and then she pass'd
Through many wonders-coral-rafter'd caves,
Deep, far below the noise of upper waves-
Sea-flowers, that floated into golden hair,
Like misty silk-fishes, whose eyes did glare,
And some surpassing lovely-fleshless spine
Of old behemoths-flasks of hoarded wine
Among the timbers of old, shatter'd ships-
Goblets of gold, that had not touch'd the lips
Of men a thousand years. And then she lay
Her down, amid the ever-changing spray,
And wish'd, and begg'd to die; and then it was
That voice of thine the deities that awes,
Lifted to light beneath the Grecian skies
That rich and lustrous Delian paradise,
And placed LATONA there, while yet asleep,
With parted lip, and respiration deep,
And open palm; and when at length she woke,
She found herself beneath a shadowy oak,
Huge and majestic; from its boughs look'd out
All birds, whose timid nature 't is to doubt
And fear mankind. The dove, with patient eyes
Earnestly did his artful nest devise,
And was most busy under sheltering leaves;
The thrush, that loves to sit upon gray eaves
Amid old ivy, she, too, sang and built;
And mock-bird songs rang out like hail-showers
Among the leaves, or on the velvet grass;
The bees did all around their store amass,
Or down depended from a swinging bough,
In tangled swarms. Above her dazzling brow
The lustrous humming-bird was whirling; and,
So near, that she might reach it with her hand,
Lay a gray lizard-such do notice give
When a foul serpent comes, and they do live
By the permission of the roughest hind;
Just at her feet, with mild eyes up-inclined,
A snowy antelope cropp'd off the buds
From hanging limbs; and in the solitudes
No noise disturb'd the birds, except the dim
Voice of a fount, that, from the grassy brim,
Rain'd upon violets its liquid light,
And visible love; also, the murmur slight
Of waves, that softly sang their anthem, and
Trode gently on the soft and noiseless sand,
As gentle children in sick-chambers grieve,
And go on tiptoe. Here, at call of eve,
When thou didst rise above the barred east,
Touching with light LATONA's snowy breast
And gentler eyes, and when the happy earth
Sent up its dews to thee-then she gave birth
Unto APOLLO and the lustrous DIAN;
And when the wings of morn commenced to fan
The darkness from the east, afar there rose,
Within the thick and odour-dropping forests, [est,
Where moss was grayest and dim caves were hoar-
Afar there rose the known and dreadful hiss
Of the pursuing dragon. Agonies
Grew on LATONA's soul; and she had fled,
And tried again the ocean's pervious bed,
Had not APOLLO, young and bright APOLLO,
Restrained from the dim and perilous hollow,
And ask'd what meant the noise. "It is, O child!
The hideous dragon that hath aye defiled
My peace and quiet, sent by heaven's queen
To slay her rival, me." Upon the green
And mossy grass there lay a nervous bow,
And heavy arrows, eagle-wing'd, which thou,
O JOVE! hadst placed within APOLLO's reach.
These grasping, the young god stood in the breach
Of circling trees, with eye that fiercely glanced,
Nostril expanded, lip press'd, foot advanced,
And arrow at the string; when, lo! the coil
Of the fierce snake came on with winding toil,
And vast gyrations, crushing down the branches,
With noise as when a hungry tiger cranches
Huge bones and then APOLLO drew his bow
Full at the eye-nor ended with one blow:
Dart after dart he hurl'd from off the string-
All at the eye-until a lifeless thing
The dragon lay. Thus the young sun-god slew
Old Juno's scaly snake: and then he threw
(So strong was he) the monster in the sea;
And sharks came round and ate voraciously,
Lashing the waters into bloody foam,
By their fierce fights. LATONA, then, might roam
In earth, air, sea, or heaven, void of dread;
For even Juxo badly might have sped
With her bright children, whom thou soon didst set
To rule the sun and moon, as they do yet.
Thou! who didst then their destiny control,
I here would woo thee, till into my soul
Thy light might sink. O JOVE! I am full sure
None bear unto thy star a love more pure
Than I; thou hast been, everywhere, to me
A source of inspiration. I should be
Sleepless, could I not first behold thine orb
Rise in the west; then doth my heart absorb,
Like other withering flowers, thy light and life;
For that neglect, which cutteth like a knife,
I never have from thee, unless the lake
Of heaven be clouded. Planet! thou wouldst make
Me, as thou didst thine ancient worshippers,
A poet; but, alas! whatever stirs
My tongue and pen, they both are faint and weak:
APOLLO hath not, in some gracious freak,
Given to me the spirit of his lyre,
Or touch'd my heart with his ethereal fire
And glorious essence: thus, whate'er I sing
Is weak and poor, and may but humbly ring
Above the waves of Time's far-booming sea.
All I can give is small; thou wilt not scorn
A heart: I give no golden sheaves of corn;
I burn to thee no rich and odorous gums;
I offer up to thee no hecatombs,
And build no altars: 't is a heart alone; Such as it is, I give it-'t is thy own.
THOU glorious mocker of the world! I hear
Thy many voices ringing through the glooms
Of these green solitudes-and all the clear,
Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear
And floods the heart. Over the sphered tombs
Of vanish'd nations rolls thy music tide.
No light from history's starlike page illumes
The memory of those nations-they have died.
None cares for them but thou, and thou mayst sing,
Perhaps, o'er me-as now thy song doth ring
Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified.
Thou scorner of all cities! Thou dost leave
The world's turmoil and never-ceasing din,
Where one from others no existence weaves,
Where the old sighs, the young turns gray and
grieves,
Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within:
And thou dost flee into the broad, green woods,
And with thy soul of music thou dost win
Their heart to harmony-no jar intrudes
Upon thy sounding melody. O, where,
Amid the sweet musicians of the air,
Is one so dear as thee to these old solitudes?
Ha! what a burst was that! the Eolian strain
Goes floating through the tangled passages
Of the lone woods-and now it comes again-
A multitudinous melody-like a rain
Of glossy music under echoing trees,
Over a ringing lake; it wraps the soul
With a bright harmony of happiness-
Even as a gem is wrapt, when round it roll
Their waves of brilliant flame-till we become,
E'en with the excess of our deep pleasure, dumb,
And pant like some swift runner clinging to the goal.
I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee,
Amid the eloquent grandeur of the shades,
Alone with nature-but it may not be;
I have to struggle with the tumbling sea
Of human life, until existence fades
Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar
Through the thick woods and shadow-checker'd
glades,
While naught of sorrow casts a dimness o'er
The brilliance of thy heart--but I must wear
As now, my garmenting of pain and care-
As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore.
Yet why complain?-What though fond hopes
deferr'd
[gloom!
Have overshadow'd Youth's green paths with
Still, joy's rich music is not all unheard,—
There is a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird,
To welcome me, within my humble home;—
There is an eye with love's devotion bright,
The darkness of existence to illume!
Then why complain?-When death shall cast his
Over the spirit, then my bones shall rest
Beneath these trees-and from thy swelling breast,
O'er them thy song shall pour like a rich flood of light.
O THOU delicious Spring!
Nursed in the lap of thin and subtle showers,
Which fall from clouds that lift their snowy wing
From odorous beds of light-enfolded flowers,
And from enmassed bowers,
That over grassy walks their greenness fling,
Come, gentle Spring!
Thou lover of young wind, That cometh from the invisible upper sea [bind, Beneath the sky, which clouds, its white foam, And, settling in the trees deliciously,
Makes young leaves dance with glee, Even in the teeth of that old, sober hind, Winter unkind,
Come to us; for thou art
Like the fine love of children, gentle Spring!
Touching the sacred feeling of the heart,
Or like a virgin's pleasant welcoming;
And thou dost ever bring
A tide of gentle but resistless art
Upon the heart.
Red Autumn from the south
Contends with thee; alas! what may he show?
What are his purple-stain'd and rosy mouth,
And browned cheeks, to thy soft feet of snow,
And timid, pleasant glow,
Giving earth-piercing flowers their primal growth,
And greenest youth?
Gay Summer conquers thee;
And yet he has no beauty such as thine;
What is his ever-streaming, fiery sea,
To the pure glory that with thee doth shine?
Thou season most divine,
What may his dull and lifeless minstrelsy
Compare with thee?
Come, sit upon the hills,
And bid the waking streams leap down their side,
And green the vales with their slight-sounding
And when the stars upon the sky shall glide, [rills;
And crescent Dian ride,
I too will breathe of thy delicious thrills,
On grassy hills.
Alas! bright Spring, not long
Shall I enjoy thy pleasant influence;
For thou shalt die the summer heat among,
Sublimed to vapour in his fire intense,
And, gone forever hence,
Exist no more: no more to earth belong,
Except in song.
So I who sing shall die:
Worn unto death, perchance, by care and sorrow; And, fainting thus with an unconscious sigh, Bid unto this poor body a good-morrow,
Which now sometimes I borrow,
And breathe of joyance keener and more high, Ceasing to sigh!
LINES WRITTEN ON THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
THE deep, transparent sky is full
Of many thousand glittering lights-
Unnumber'd stars that calmly rule
The dark dominions of the night.
The mild, bright moon has upward risen,
Out of the gray and boundless plain,
And all around the white snows glisten,
Where frost, and ice, and silence reign,-
While ages roll away, and they unchanged remain.
These mountains, piercing the blue sky
With their eternal cones of ice;
The torrents dashing from on high,
O'er rock and crag and precipice;
Change not, but still remain as ever,
Unwasting, deathless, and sublime,
And will remain while lightnings quiver,
Or stars the hoary summits climb,
Or rolls the thunder-chariot of eternal Time.
It is not so with all-I change,
And waste as with a living death,
Like one that hath become a strange,
Unwelcome guest, and lingereth
Among the memories of the past,
Where he is a forgotten name;
For Time hath greater power to blast
The hopes, the feelings, and the fame,
To make the passions fierce, or their first strength
The wind comes rushing swift by me,
Pouring its coolness on my brow; Such was I once-as proudly free, And yet, alas! how alter'd now! Yet, while I gaze upon yon plain,
These mountains, this eternal sky, The scenes of boyhood come again, And pass before the vacant eye,
Still wearing something of their ancient brilliancy.
Yet why complain?—for what is wrong,
False friends, cold-heartedness, deceit,
And life already made too long,
To one who walks with bleeding feet
Over its paths?--it will but make
Death sweeter when it comes at last-
And though the trampled heart may ache,
Its agony of pain is past,
And calmness gathers there, while life is ebbing fast.
Perhaps, when I have pass'd away,
Like the sad echo of a dream, There may be some one found to say
A word that might like sorrow seem. That I would have--one sadden'd tear, One kindly and regretting thought-Grant me but that!-and even here, Here, in this lone, unpeopled spot, To breathe away this life of pain, I murmur not.
THE paternal ancestors of Mr. BENJAMIN came to New England at an early period from Wales. His father, who was a merchant, resided many years at Demerara, in British Guiana, where he acquired a large fortune. There the subject of this notice was born in the year 1809. When he was about three years old, in consequence of a severe illness he was brought to this country, under the care of a faithful female guardian, and here, except during a few brief periods, he has since resided. The improper medical treatment to which he had been subjected in Demerara prevented his complete restoration under the more skilful physicians of New England, and he has been lame from his childhood; but I believe his general health has been uniformly good for many years.
While a boy he was sent to an excellent school in the rural village of Colchester, in Connecticut. At twelve he was removed to New Haven, where he resided three years in his father's family, after which he was sent to a private boarding school near Boston, in which he remained until he entered Harvard College, in 1825. He left this venerable institution before the close of his second academic year, in consequence of a protracted and painful illness, and on his recovery entered Washington College, at Hartford, then under the presidency of the Right Reverend THOMAS C. BROWNELL, now Bishop of Connecticut. He was graduated in 1829, with the highest honours of his class.
In 1830, Mr. BENJAMIN entered the Law School at Cambridge, at that time conducted by Mr. Justice STORY and Professor ASHMUN. He pursued his legal studies with much industry for a considerable period at this seminary, but finished the acquirement of his profession at New Haven, under Chief Justice DAGGETT and Professor HITCHCOCK. He was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1833, and removing soon after to Boston, the residence of his relatives and friends, he was admitted to the courts of Massachusetts, as attorney and counsellor at law and solicitor in chancery.
His disposition to devote his time to literature prevented his entering upon the practice of his profession, and on the death of EDWIN BUCKINGHAM, one of its original editors, I believe he became connected with the "New England Magazine." In 1836 that periodical was joined to the "American Monthly Magazine," published in New York, and edited by CHARLES F. HOFFMAN, and Mr. BENJAMIN was soon after induced to go to reside permanently in that city. By unfortunate investments, and the calamities in which so many were involved in that period, he had lost most of his patrimonial property, and the remainder
of it he now invested in a publishing establishment; but the commercial distress of the time, by which many of the wealthiest houses were overthrown, prevented the realization of his expectations, and the business was abandoned. He purchased, I believe, near the close of the year 1837, the 66 American Monthly Magazine," and for about two years conducted it with much ability; but by giving to some of the later numbers of it a political character, its prosperity was destroyed, and he relinquished it to become associated with Mr. HORACE GREELEY in the editorship of the "New Yorker," a popular weekly periodical, devoted to literature and politics. In 1840, he and the writer of this sketch established in New York "The New World," a literary gazette of the largest class, of which he is now the sole editor. Its popularity and the ability with which it is conducted may be inferred from the fact that twenty thousand copies are sold of each number.
Mr. BENJAMIN'S metrical compositions are very numerous. His longest work is a "Poem on the Meditation of Nature," which, I believe, was delivered on the day of his graduation at Washington College. Its character and style may be inferred from the following invocation:
Let us go forth and hold communion sweet
With the invisible spirit that surrounds
Earth's silent altars-let us go forth to greet
The woven strain of most enchanting sounds
That stir the clear waves of the golden air;
Let us go forth and mutely worship there!
From life's unvarying round, O let us steal
Some fleeting moments we may call our own,
When, unrestrain'd, the heart can deeply feel
The quiet happiness to be alone.
Alone with Nature in some voiceless glen,
Or by some forest brook, or on the height
Of some uprising hill-away from men,
The city's busy tumult and the sight
Of all the sons of pleasure and of pain,
Where the free soul must feel its human chain.
Then, if within our hearts reflected lie
The perfect glories of the earth and sky,
If every feeling they inspire be fraught
With the pure essence of exalted thought,
Well may we deem that round each bosom's throne
Float the white robes of Innocence alone!
Some of his sonnets are equal to any in this collection, and many of his other pieces are distinguished for poetical simplicity of thought and elegance of diction. Most of his poems have been written hastily, and they are not without the usual faults of unstudied verse; but they evidence the posses. sion of a fertile fancy and good taste. His keen perception of the ludicrous is shown in the sonnet entitled "Sport," and in some of his other pieces. His tales, sketches, reviews, and other prose writings, are ingenious and spirited, and if collected would form many volumes.
|