The Poets and Poetry of America

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A BIRTH-DAY MEDITATION.

ANOTHER year! alas, how swift,
ALINDA, do these years flit by,

Like shadows thrown by clouds that drift
In flakes along a wintry sky.
Another year! another leaf

Is turn'd within life's volume brief,
And yet not one bright page appears
Of mine within that book of years.

There are some moments when I feel

As if it should not yet be so; As if the years that from me steal

Had not a right alike to go, And lose themselves in Time's dark sea, Unbuoy'd up by aught from me; Aught that the future yet might claim To rescue from their wreck a name.

But it was love that taught me rhyme,
And it was thou that taught me love;
And if I in this idle chime

Of words a useless sluggard prove,
It was thine eyes the habit nurs'd,
And in their light I learn'd it first.
It is thine eyes which, day by day,
Consume my time and heart away.

And often bitter thoughts arise

Of what I've lost in loving thee,
And in my breast my spirit dies,
The gloomy cloud around to see,
Of baffled hopes and ruined powers
Of mind, and miserable hours-
Of self-upbraiding, and despair—
Of heart, too strong and fierce to bear.

"Why, what a peasant slave am I,"

To bow my mind and bend my knee
To woman in idolatry,

Who takes no thought of mine or me.
O, GOD! that I could breathe my life
On battle-plain in charging strife-
In one mad impulse pour my soul
Far beyond passion's base control.

Thus do my jarring thoughts revolve
Their gather'd causes of offence,
Until I in my heart resolve

To dash thine angel image thence;
When some bright look, some accent kind,
Comes freshly in my heated mind,
And scares, like newly-flushing day,
These brooding thoughts like owls away.

And then for hours and hours I muse
On things that might, yet will not be,
Till, one by one, my feelings lose
Their passionate intensity,
And steal away in visions soft,
Which on wild wing those feelings waft
Far, far beyond the drear domain
Of Reason and her freezing reign.

And now again from their gay track

I call, as I despondent sit,

Once more these truant fancies back,

Which round my brain so idly flit;
And some I treasure, some I blush
To own-and these I try to crush-
And some, too wild for reason's reign,
I loose in idle rhyme again.

And even thus my moments fly,
And even thus my hours decay,
And even thus my years slip by,

My life itself is wiled away;
But distant still the mounting hope,
The burning wish with men to cope
In aught that minds of iron mould
May do or dare for fame or gold.
Another year! another year,

ALINDA, it shall not be so; Both love and lays forswear I here, As I've forsworn thee long ago. That name, which thou wouldst never share, Proudly shall Fame emblazon where On pumps and corners posters stick it, The highest on the JACKSON ticket.

WHAT IS SOLITUDE?

NOT in the shadowy wood,

Not in the crag-hung glen, Not where the echoes brood

In caves untrod by men;
Not by the bleak sea-shore,

Where loitering surges break,
Not on the mountain hoar,
Not by the breezeless lake,
Not on the desert plain,

Where man hath never stood,
Whether on isle or main-

Not there is solitude!

Birds are in woodland bowers,
Voices in lonely dells,
Streams to the listening hours
Talk in earth's secret cells;
Over the gray-ribb'd sand

Breathe ocean's frothing lips,
Over the still lake's strand

The flower toward it dips; Pluming the mountain's crest, Life tosses in its pines; Coursing the desert's breast,

Life in the steed's mane shines. Leave-if thou wouldst be lonely

Leave Nature for the crowd; Scek there for one-one onlyWith kindred mind endow'd! There-as with Nature erst Closely thou wouldst commune→→ The deep soul-music, nursed In either heart, attune! Heart-wearied, thou wilt own.

Vainly that phantom woo'd, That thou at last hast known What is true solitude!

JAMES NACK.

[Born, about 1807.]

THERE are few more interesting characters in our literary annals than JAMES NACK. He is a native of New York, and when between nine and ten years of age, by a fall, while descending a flight of stairs with a little playmate in his arms, received such injury in his head as deprived him irrecoverably of the sense of hearing, and, gradually, in consequence, of the faculty of speech. He was placed in the Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, where he acquired knowledge in all departments with singular exactness and rapidity. He was subsequently for many years an assistant in the office of the Clerk of the City and County, and in 1838 was married.

In 1827 Mr. NACK published "The Legend of the Rocks, and other Poems;" in 1839, "Earl

RIS.

| Rupert, and other Tales and Poems," with an interesting memoir of his life, by General Wi MORE; and in 1852 a third volume of "Poems," with an introduction by his friend General Mos What is most remarkable in these works is their excellent versification. In other respects they deserve a great deal of praise; but that a person deaf and dumb from so early a period of child hood should possess such a mastery of the harmo nies of language is marvellous. The various pro ductions of Mr. NACK illustrate a genial temper, and a refined and richly cultivated taste. The range and completeness of his accomplishments as a linguist is illustrated in spirited and elegant translations from Dutch, German, French, and other literatures.

MIGNONNE.

SHE calls me father!" though my ear
That thrilling name shall never hear,
Yet to my heart affection brings
The sound in sweet imaginings;
I feel its gushing music roll
The stream of rapture on my soul;
And when she starts to welcome me,
And when she totters to my knee,
And when she climbs it, to embrace
My bosom for her hiding-place,
And when she nestling there reclines,
And with her arms my neck entwines,
And when her lips of roses seek
To press their sweetness on my cheek,
And when upon my careful breast
I lull her to her cherub rest,
I whisper o'er the sinless dove-
"I love thee with a father's love!"

To our well-remember'd wild-wood,
Flourishing in nature's childhood,
Where a thousand flowers are springing,
And a thousand birds are singing;
Where the golden sunbeams quiver
On the verdure-bordered river;
Let our youth of feeling out
To the youth of nature shout,
While the waves repeat our voice-
Welcome Spring! rejoice! rejoice!

MARY'S BEE.

AS MARY with her lip of roses
Is tripping o'er the flowery mead,
A foolish little bee supposes

The rosy lip a rose indeed,
And so, astonish'd at his bliss,
He steals the honey of her kiss.
A moment there he wantons; lightly
He sports away on careless wing;
But ah! why swells that wound unsightly?
The rascal! he has left a sting!
She runs to me with weeping eyes,
Sweet images of April skies.
"Be this," said I, "to heedless misses,
A warning they should bear in mind;
Too oft a lover steals their kisses,

Then flies, and leaves a sting behind."
"This may be wisdom to be sure,"
Said MARY, "but I want a cure."
What could I do? To ease the swelling
My lips with hers impassion'd meet-
And trust me, from so sweet a dwelling,
I found the very poison sweet!
Fond boy! unconscious of the smart,
I sucked the poison to my heart!

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

[Born, 1836.]

THE author of "Guy Rivers," "Southern Passages and Pictures," etc., was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the spring of 1806. His mother died during his infancy, and his father soon after emigrated to one of the western territories, leaving him under the guardianship of a grandmother, who superintended his early education. When not more than nine or ten years old, he began to write verses; at fifteen he was a contributor to the poetical department of the gazettes printed near his home; and at eighteen he published his first volume, entitled "Lyrical and other Poems," which was followed in the next two years by "Early Lays," and "The Vision of Cortez and fother Pieces," and in 1830, by «The Tricolor, or

Three Days of Blood in Paris." In each of these four volumes there were poetical ideas, and occasionally well-finished verses; but they are worthy of little regard, except as indications of the early tendency of the author's mind.

When twenty-one years old, Mr. SIMMS was admitted to the bar, and began to practise his profession in his native district; but feeling a deep interest in the political questions which then agitated the country, he soon abandoned the courts, and purchased a daily gazette at Charleston, which he edited for several years, with industry, integrity, and ability. It was, however, unsuccessful, and he lost by it all his property, as well as the prospective earnings of several years. His ardour was not lessened by this failure, and, confident of success, he determined to retrieve his fortune by authorship. He had been married at an early age; his wife, as well as his father, was now dead; and no domestic ties binding him to Charleston, he in the spring of 1832 visited for the first time the northern states. After travelling over the most interesting portions of the country, he paused at the rural village of Hingham, in Massachusetts, and there prepared for the press his principal poetical work, "Atalantis, a Story of the Sea," which was published at New York in the following winter. This is an imaginative story, in the dramatic form; its plot is exceedingly simple, but effectively managed, and it contains much beautiful imagery, and fine description. While a vessel glides over a summer sea, LEON, one of the principal characters, and his sister ISABEL, hear a benevolent spirit of the air warning them of the designs of a sea-god to lure them into peril.

Lea. Didst hear the strain it utter'd, ISABEL?
Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,
From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not?
Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;
For, by the chart which now before me lies,

The Charleston City Gazette, conducted by Mr. SIMMS, was, I believe, the first journal in South Carolina that took ground against the principle of nullification.

Thy own unpractised eye may well discern
The wide extent of the ocean-shoreless all.
The land, for many a league, to the eastward hangs,
And not a point beside it.

Isa. Wherefore, then,

Should come this voice of warning 1

Leon. From the deep:

It hath its demons as the earth and air,
All tributaries to the master-fiend

That sets their springs in motion. This is one,
That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,
So to divert our course, that we may strike
The very rocks he fain would warn us from.
Isa. A subtle sprite: and, now I think of it,
Dost thou remember the old story told
By DIAZ ORTIS, the lame mariner,
Of an adventure in the Indian Seas,
Where he made one with JOHN of Portugal,
Touching a woman of the ocean wave,
That swam beside the barque, and sang strange songs
Of riches in the waters; with a speech
So winning on the senses, that the crew
Grew all infected with the melody;
And, but for a good father of the church,
Who made the sign of the cross, and offer'd up
Befitting prayers, which drove the fiend away,
They had been tempted by her cunning voice
To leap into the ocean.

Leon. I do, I do!

And, at the time, I do remember me,

I made much mirth of the extravagant tale,
As a deceit of the reason: the old man
Being in his second childhood, and at fits
Wild, as you know, on other themes than this.

Isa. I never more shall mock at marvellous things,
Such strange conceits hath after-time found true,
That once were themes for jest. I shall not smile
At the most monstrous legend.

Leon. Nor will I:

To any tale of mighty wonderment
I shall bestow my ear, nor wonder more;
And every fancy that my childhood bred,
In vagrant dreams of frolic, I shall look
To have, without rebuke, my sense approve.
Thus, like a little island in the sea,
Girt in by perilous waters, and unknown
To all adventure, may be yon same cloud,
Specking, with fleecy bosom, the blue sky,
Lit by the rising moon. There we may dream,
And find no censure in an after day-
Throng the assembled fairies, perched on beams,
And riding on their way triumphantly.
There gather the coy spirits. Many a fay,
Roving the silver sands of that same isle,
Floating in azure ether, plumes her wing
Of ever-frolicsome fancy, and pursues-
While myriads, like herself, do watch the chase-
Some truant sylph, through the infinitude
Of their uncircumscribed and rich domain.
There sport they through the night, with mimicry
Of strife and battle; striking their tiny shields
And gathering into combat; meeting fierce,
With lip compress'd and spear aloft, and eye
Glaring with fight and desperate circumstance;
Then sudden-in a moment all their wrath
Mellow'd to friendly terms of courtesy-
Throwing aside the dread array, and link'd
Each in his foe's embrace. Then comes the dance,
The grateful route, the wild and musical pomp,

The long procession o'er fantastic realms

WILLIAM G. SIMMS.

Of cloud and moonbeam, through the enamour'd night,
Making it all one revel. Thus the eye,
Breathed on by fancy, with enlarged scope,
Through the protracted and deep hush of night
May note the fairies, coursing the lazy hours

In various changes, and without fatigue.

A fickle race, who tell their time by flowers,
And live on zephyrs, and have stars for lamps,
And night-dews for ambrosia; perch'd on beams,
Speeding through space, even with the scattering light
On which they feed and frolic.

Isa. A sweet dream:

And yet, since this same tale we laugh'd at once,
The story of old ORTIS, is made sooth-
Perchance not all a dream. I would not doubt.
Leon. And yet there may be, dress'd in subtle guise
Of unsuspected art, some gay deceit

Of human conjuration mix'd with this.
Some cunning seaman having natural skill-
As, from the books, we learn may yet be done-
Hath 'yond our vessel's figure pitch'd his voice,
Leading us wantonly.

Isa. It is not so,

Or does my sense deceive?

A perch beyond our barque.

Look there: the wave
What dost thou see?

Leon. A marvellous shape, that with the billow curls, In gambols of the deep, and yet is not

Its wonted burden; for beneath the waves

I mark a gracious form, though nothing clear
Of visage I discern. Again it speaks.

The ship is wrecked, and ATALANTIS, a fairy, wandering along the beach with an attendant, NEA, discovers the inanimate form of LEON clinging to a spar.

But what is here,
Grasping a shaft, and lifelessly stretch'd out?

Nea. One of the creatures of that goodly barque-
Perchance the only one of many men,

That, from their distant homes, went forth in her,
And here have perish'd.

Aal. There is life in him

And his heart swells beneath my hand, with pulse
Fitful and faint, returning now, now gone,
That much I fear it may not come again.
How very young he is-how beautiful!
Made, with a matchless sense of what is true,
In manly grace and chisell'd elegance;
And features, rounded in as nice a mould
As our own, NEA. There, his eye unfolds-
Stand away, girl, and let me look on him!
It cannot be, that such a form as this,

So lovely and compelling, ranks below

The creatures of our kingdom. He is one,

That, 'mongst them all, might well defy compare-
Outshining all that shine!

Nea. He looks as well,

In outward seeming, as our own, methinks-
And yet, he may be but a shaped thing,
Wanting in every show of that high sense
Which makes the standard of true excellence.
Atal. O, I am sure there is no want in him-
The spirit must be true, the sense be high,
The soul as far ascending, strong and bright,
As is the form he wears, and they should be
Pleased to inhabit--'t were a fitting home!
Breathe on him, NEA. Fan him with thy wing,
And so arouse him. I would have him speak,
And satisfy my doubt. Stay, yet a while-
Now, while his senses sleep, I'll place my lip
Upon his own-it is so beautiful!

Such lips should give forth music-such a sweet
Should have been got in heaven-the produce there

Of never-blighted gardens.

Leon. [starts.] Cling to me

Am I not with thee now, my ISADEL?

[Kisses him.

[Swoons again.

Atal. O, gentle sounds-how sweetly did they fall

In broken murmurs, like a melody,
From lips that waiting long on loving hearts,
Had learned to murmur like them. Wake again,
Sweet stranger! If my lips have wrought this spell,
And won thee back to life, though but to sigh,
And sleep again in death, they shail, once more,
Wake and restore thee.

Mr. SIMMS now commenced that career of i tellectual activity of which the results are as volu minous and as various, perhaps, as can be exhibited by any author of his age. His first romance was "Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal," published in New York in 1833. The most important of his subsequent productions in this department, as clas sified in the edition lately issued by Mr. REDFIELD, are, the revolutionary series, "The Partisan," "Mel lichampe," "Katherine Walton," "The Scout," "Woodcraft," "The Foragers," and “Eutaw;" border tales, "Guy Rivers," "Richard Hurdis," "Bor der Beagles,"Charlemont," "Beauchampe," and "Confession;" historical, "The Yemassee," "Vas concellos," "The Lily and the Totem," "Pelayo," and "Count Julian." Besides his more extended romantic fictions, he has produced a great number of shorter stories, some of which may be ranked as the best exhibitions of his powers. He has also given to the public a "History of South Carolina," a " Life of Captain JOHN SMITH, the Founder of Virginia," a Life of NATHANIEL GREENE," a "Life of FRANCIS MARION," a "Life of the Cheva lier BAYARD," "Views and Reviews of American History, Literature, and Art," and other perform ances in biography, description, and speculation.

In poetry, since the appearance of "Atalantis," he has published "Southern Passages and Pic tures," 1839; «Donna Florida, in Five Cantos," 1843; "Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, a collection of Sonnets," 1845; "Areytos, or Songs of the South," 1846; "Lays of the Palmetto, a Tribute to the South Carolina Regiment, in the War with Mexico," 1846; "The Cacique of Accube, and other Poems," 1848; «Norman Maurice," 1850; and a collection of his principal poetical works, under the title of "Poems, Descriptive, Legendary, and Contemplative," in two volumes, 1854.

A more particular account of the novels of Dr. SIMMS, (he has received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Alabama,) is given in "The Prose Writers of America." His poems, like his other productions, are noticeable for warmth of feeling and coloring, and vivid and just displays of the temper and sentiments of the southern people, the characteristics of southern life, and the rivers, forests, savannas, and all else that is peculiar in southern nature. He has sung the physical and moral aspects and the traditions of the south, with the appreciation of a poet, and the feeling of a son. His verse is free and musical, his language copious and well-selected, and his fancy fertile and site. The best of his dramatic pieces is "Norman Maurice," a play of singular originality in design and execution, which strikes me as the best cou

position of its kind on an American subject.

appo

He resides at " Woodlands," a pleasant planta

tion in the vicinity of Charleston.

THE

THE SLAIN EAGLE.

eye that mark'd thy flight with deadly aim,
Had less of warmth and splendour than thine own;
The form that did thee wrong could never claim
The matchless vigour which thy wing hath shown;
Yet art thou in thy pride of flight o'erthrown;
And the far hills that echoed back thy scream,
As from storm-gathering clouds thou sent'st it
down,

Shall

see no more thy red-eyed glances stream For their far summits round, with strong and terrible gleam.

Lone and majestic monarch of the cloud!

No more I see thee on the tall cliff's brow,
When tempests meet, and from their watery shroud
ers Pour their wild torrents on the plains below,
Lifting thy fearless wing, still free to go,
True in thy aim, undaunted in thy flight,
The As seeking still, yet scorning, every foe-

Shrieking the while in consciousness of might,
To thy own realm of high and undisputed light.

Thy thought was not of danger then-thy pride
Left thee no fear. Thou hadst gone forth in storms,
And thy strong pinions had been bravely tried
Against their rush. Vainly their gathering forms
Had striven against thy wing. Such conflict warms
The nobler spirit; and thy joyful shriek
Gave token that the strife itself had charms
For the born warrior of the mountain peak,
He of the giant brood, sharp fang, and bloody beak.

How didst thou then, in very mirth, spread far
Thy pinions' strength!-with freedom that became
Audacious license, with the winds at war,
Striding the yielding clouds that girt thy frame,
And, with a fearless rush that naught could tame,
Defying earth-defying all that mars

The flight of other wings of humbler name;
For thee, the storm had impulse, but no bars
To stop thy upward flight, thou pilgrim of the stars!

Morning above the hills, and from the ocean,
Ne'er leap'd abroad into the fetterless blue
With such a free and unrestrained motion,
Nor shook from her ethereal wing the dew
That else had clogg'd her flight and dimm'd her
view,

With such calm effort as 't was thine to wear-
Bending with sunward course erect and true,
When winds were piping high and lightnings near,
hy day-guide all withdrawn, through fathomless

fields of air.

Watching, he saw thy rising wing. In vain,
From his superior dwelling, the fierce sun
Shot forth his brazen arrows, to restrain
The audacious pilgrim, who would gaze upon
The secret splendours of his central throne;
Proudly, he saw thee to that presence fly,
And, Eblis-like, unaided and alone,

His dazzling glories seek, his power defy,
Raised to thy god's own face, meanwhile, thy
rebel eye.

And thence he drew a hope, a hope to soar,
Even with a wing like thine. His daring glance
Sought, with as bold a vision, to explore
The secret of his own deliverance-
The secret of his wing-and to advance
To sovereign sway like thine-to rule, to rise
Above his race, and nobly to enhance
Their empire as his own-to make the skies,
The extended earth, far seas, and solemn stars, his
prize.

He triumphs-and he perishes like thee!
Scales the sun's heights, and mounts above the
winds,

Breaks down the gloomy barrier, and is free!
The worm receives his winglet: he unbinds
The captive thought, and in its centre finds
New barriers, and a glory in his gaze;

He mocks, as thou, the sun!-but scaly blinds
Grow o'er his vision, till, beneath the daze,
From his proud height he falls, amid the world's

amaze.

And thou, brave bird! thy wing hath pierced the
cloud,

The storm had not a battlement for thee;
But, with a spirit fetterless and proud,
Thou hast soar'd on, majestically free,
To worlds, perchance, which men shall never see!
Where is thy spirit now? the wing that bore?
Thou hast lost wing and all, save liberty!
Death only could subdue-and that is o'er:
Alas! the very form that slew thee should deplore!

A proud exemplar hath been lost the proud,
And he who struck thee from thy fearless flight-
Thy noble loneliness, that left the crowd,
To seek, uncurb'd, that singleness of height
Which glory aims at with unswerving sight-
Had learn'd a nobler toil. No longer base
With lowliest comrades, he had given his might,
His life that had been cast in vilest place-
To raise his hopes and homes-to teach and lift
his race.

'Tis he should mourn thy fate, for he hath lost
The model of dominion. Not for him
The mighty eminence, the gathering host
That worships, the high glittering pomps that dim,
The bursting homage and the hailing hymn:
He dies he hath no life, that, to a star,
Rises from dust and sheds a holy gleam
To light the struggling nations from afar,
And show, to kindred souls, where fruits of glory

are.

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