The dearest hours that soul has ever known

Have been upon thy brink: would it could wait, And, parted, watch thee still!-to stay and moan With thee, were better than my promised fate.

Ladaüanna! monarch of the North!

Father of streams unsung, be sung by me! Receive a lay that flows resistless forth!

Oh, quench the fervour that consumes, in thee!

I've seen more beauty on thy banks, more bliss,
Than I had deemed were ever seen below;

Dew falls not on a happier land than this;

Fruits spring from desert wilds, and Love sits throned on

snow;

Snows that drive warmth to shelter in the heart;

Snows that conceal, beneath their moonlit heaps,
Plenty's rich embryo; fruits and flowers that start
To meet their full-grown Spring, as strong to earth he leaps.

How many grades of life thou view'st! thy wave
Bears the dark daughter of the woods, as light
She springs to her canoe, and, wildly grave,

Views the Great Spirit mid the fires of night.

A hardy race, sprung from the Gaul, and gay,
Frame their wild songs and sing them to the oar;
And think to chase the forest-fiends away,

Where yet no mass-bell tinkles from the shore.

The pensive nun throws back the veil that hides
Her calm, chaste eyes; straining them long, to mark
When the mist thickens, if perchance there bides
The peril, wildering on, some little bark :

And trims her lamp, and hangs it in her tower;
Not as the priestess did of old (she's driven
To do that deed by no fierce passion's power),
But kindly, calmly, for the love of Heaven.

Who had been lost, what heart from breaking saved,
She knows not, thinks not; guided by her star,
Some being leaps to shore: 'twas all she craved;
She makes the holy sign, and blesses him from far.

The plaided soldier, in his mountain pride
Exulting, as he treads with statelier pace,

Views his white limbs reflected in thy tide,

While wave the sable plumes that shade his manly face.

The song of Ossian mingles with thy gale,
The harp of, Carolan's remembered here;
The bright-haired son of Erin tells his tale,

Dreams of his misty isle, and drops for her a tear.

Thou'st seen the trophies of that deathless day,
Whose name bright glance from every Briton brings,
When half the world was marshalled in array,
And fell the great, self-nurtured "king of kings.”

Youthful Columbia, ply thy useful arts;

Rear the strong nursling that thy mother bore,
Called Liberty. Thy boundless fields, thy marts,
Enough for thee: tempt these brown rocks no more;

Or leave them to that few, who, blind to gold,
And scorning pleasure, brave with higher zest
A doubtful path; mid pain, want, censure, bold
To pant one fevered hour on Genius' breast.

Nature's best loved, thine own, thy virtuous WEST,
Chose for his pencil a Canadian sky:

Bade Death recede, who the fallen victor pressed,
And made perpetuate his latest sigh.*

SULLY, of tender tints transparent, fain

I would thy skill a while; for Memory's showing,
To prove thy hand the purest of thy train,
A native beauty from thy pencil glowing.

Or he who sketched the Cretan: gone her Greek,
She, all unconscious that he's false or flying,
Sleeps, while the light blood revels in her cheek
So rosy warm, we listen for her sighing.†

Could he paint beauty, warmth, light, happiness,
Diffused around like fragrance from a flower-
And melody—all that sense can bless,

Or soul concentrate in one form-his power

I'd ask. But Nature, Nature, when thou wilt,
Thou canst enough to make all art despair;

Guard well the wondrous model thou hast built,

Which these, thy nectared waves, reflect and love to bear.

Nature, all-powerful Nature, thine are ties

That seldom break: though the heart beat so cold, That Love and Fancy's fairest garland dies—

Though false, though light as air-thy bonds may hold.

* In allusion to West's celebrated picture, "The Death of Wolfe.” † Vanderlyn-see his picture of "Ariadne."

The mother loves her child: the brother yet
Thinks of his sister, though for years unseen;
And seldom doth the bridegroom quite forget

Her who hath blest him once, though seas may roll between.

But can a friendship, pure and rapture-wrought,
I'll deem it may,

Endure without such bonds?

And bless the hope it nurtures: beauteous thought,
Howe'er fantastic!—dear illusion-stay!

O stream, O country of my heart, farewell!
Say, shall I e'er return? shall I once more—
Ere close these eyes that looked to love-ah, tell!
Say, shall I tread again thy fertile shore?

Else, how endure my weary lot—the strife
To gain content when far-the burning sighs—
The asking wish—the aching void? O life!
Thou art, and hast been, one long sacrifice!

TH

John Neal.

MUSIC OF THE NIGHT.

HERE are harps that complain to the presence of
Night,

To the presence of Night alone

In a near and unchangeable tone

Like winds, full of sound, that go whispering by,

As if some immortal had stooped from the sky,
And breathed out a blessing—and flown!

Yes! harps that complain to the breezes of Night,
To the breezes of Night alone;

Growing fainter and fainter, as ruddy and bright
The Sun rolls aloft in his drapery of light,

Like a conqueror, shaking his brilliant hair
And flourishing robe, on the edge of the air!
Burning crimson and gold

On the clouds that unfold,

Breaking onward in flame, while an ocean divides
On his right and his left-so the Thunderer rides,
When he cuts a bright path through the heaving tides,
Rolling on, and erect, in a charioting throne!

Yes! strings that lie still in the gushing of Day,

That awake, all alive, to the breezes of Night.
There are hautboys and flutes too, forever at play
When the evening is near, and the sun is away,
Breathing out the still hymn of delight.
These strings by invisible fingers are played―
By spirits, unseen and unknown,

But thick as the stars, all this music is made;
And these flutes, alone,

In one sweet, dreamy tone,

Are ever blown,

Forever and forever.

The livelong night ye hear the sound,
Like distant waters flowing round
In ringing caves, while heaven is sweet
With crowding tunes, like halls
Where fountain-music falls,

And rival minstrels meet.