Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Come here, fond youth, who e'er thou be,
That boasts to love as well as me;
And if thy breast has felt so wide a wound,
Come hither, and thy flame approve;
I'll teach thee what it is to love

And by what marks true passion may be found.

It is to be all bathed in tears,
To live upon a smile for years,
To lie whole ages at a beauty's feet-
To kneel, to languish, and implore,
And still, tho' she disdain, adore:

It is to do all this and think thy sufferings sweet.

It is to gaze upon her eyes

With eager joy and fond surprise, Yet tempered with such chaste and awful fear, As wretches feel, who wait their doom, Nor must one ruder thought presume, [ear. Though but in whispers breathed to meet her

It is to hope, tho' hope were lost,

Tho' Heav'n and Earth thy passion crost, Tho' she were bright as sainted Queens above, And thou the least and meanest swain That folds his flock upon the plain, Yet if thou dost not hope thou dost not love.

It is to quench thy joy in tears,

To nurse strange doubts and groundless fears; If pangs of jealousy thou hast not proved T'ho she were fonder and more true Than any nymphs old poets drew, Oh! never dream that thou hast loved.

If any hopes thy bosom share

But those which love has planted there;
Or any cares but his thy breast enthral,
Thou never yet his power hast known:
Love sits on a despotic throne
And reigns a tyrant if he reigns at all.

If, when the charming maid is gone,
Thou dost not wish to be alone,
Lost in a pleasing trance of tender wo,
To muse and fold thy languid arms,
Nursing thy fancy in her charms,
Thou dost not love, for love is nourished so.

Now if thou art so lost a thing
Here all thy tender sorrows bring, [dure,
We'll prove whose patience longest shall en-
We'll strive whose fancy shall be lost
In dreams of fondest passions most,
For if thou thus dost love, oh, never hope a cure.

A Poetical Epistle to Lord Byron.
An unknown champion has entered the lists
against the noble wanderer, and has treated
him with memorable and merited severity.
We extract the following passage:

Oh, 'tis an easy task, in verse to prate
Of broken hearts, and bosoms desolate!
And 'tis a thriving trade! let Murray tell,
What thou hast written, and for him-how well,
Would that each hungry wretch, dear Britain

owns,

Could vend his misery, and impawn his groans;
Could bring, like thee, his wretchedness for sale,
Made up for use in pilgrimage and tale!
And thus the Mendicant, protrudes to sight
His mangled limb, our pity to excite;
Lives on the real wounds acquir'd in wars,
Or feeds and fattens on factitious scars.
Oh, when thy muse prolific next supplies
Her import vast, of marketable sighs, [spare,
Somewhat, perchance, thy bounty then may
For real sorrows and substantial care:
Somewhat, self-exiled Misanthrope, for those
Who have not found thus vendible their woes.
To ask for country's sake were vain-and why?
Her "shores can neither grieve nor glad thine
eye."

Yet still proceed-still chant thy gloomy lays,
Insult-retract-bespatter, and bepraise;
Pour on the town in one continued tide,
The dark o'erflowings of thy cynic pride;
While every puling Miss the story greets-
Hugs to her breast these lordly, dear conceits.
Her hours-her sorrows-and her tears resigns,
To ruffian hordes, and wand'ring libertines,
E'en the poor heart, unconscious of offence,
Caught by a feeling-ardent and intense-
His finest, noblest sympathies affords
To wandering libertines and ruffian hordes!
Nor shall the muse one generous pang disdain,
For powers perverted, or bestowed in vain-
And blush that he, around whose favoured head
Her brightest halo, genius deigned to shed;
That he-best gifted of the tuneful throng,
With head and mind perversely warp'd to
wrong;

Should lend these powerful talents to impart
The cheerless feelings of a sceptic's heart;
A heart, in which no generous ire is seen-
Cold in its malice--causeless in its spleen:
To trace the moody workings of a mind,
To heaven unjust, at variance with its kind:
Yet though at every line a virtue bleed-
Indulge thy wayward humour-and proceed.
What is this boast of "shrouded thoughts," that
dwell

With ring and dark within their secret cell?
Where the "proud caution" of the struggling

breast?

Where is one bitter feeling unexpressed?
When thou hast bar'd thy heart to every eye,
Proclaim'd its heavings to the faintest sigh,
The meanest reptile that has cross'd thy path.
Was crush'd beneath thy desolating wrath:
While gentler natures, and the softer mind-
Have bowed beneath a torture more refin'd
That polished irony, whose art conceals
Its sting-which but the victim sees and feels.
Oh, to satiety have we not read

Of thy dark sorrows, and thy " widow'd bed?”
And thou hast nade thy sport of others' pain,
On wounded feelings gaz'd with cold disdain;
That unprovoked the random shafts of spleen,
Debas'd the high-and trample'd on the mean-
Nor from envenomed words could thy last stram,
E'en in its burst of tenderness, refrain.
Misguided spirit! yet in mercy spare,
And, if thy heart be human-oh, forbear.
Can mean suspicion, and unmanly wrong,
Support thy fame, or dignity thy song?

ist Stanza; Childe Harold, 3d Canto.

No--and round cradled innocence to prate, Ofthy' drain'd blood,' and 'duty taught by hate!" True taste and feeling must alike deny, Nature disowns the unhallowed lullaby.

TO THE DEPARTED YEAR. The following lines are from the pen of one of our favourite correspondents; and we are quite certain that we shall perform an ac ceptable service to our readers in rescuing them from the almost forgotten columns of a Commercial Advertiser.

Farewell! thy pilgrimage is run,

Thou'rt number'd with the ages past, And thou hast seen thy latest sun In death breathe forth his last:, Down the tremendous steep of time, Hast seen thy offspring ffee:

Into that gulf whence none can climb, Eternity!

I ask not if one circling year

Or more, or less, has rolled away, Since on the raptur'd shepherd's ear, On that eventful day, The music of the angels past, Salvation's tidings brought; Suffice it veteran that thou wast, And thou art not.

Born mid a nation's joyous note,

We saw thee into being spring,

Thou heard'st the sounds of rapture float,
Upon thy rapid wing;

When Glory waved her standard high,
War dared no more destroy--

We hail'd thee welcome from the sky,
Baptis'd in joy.

Then murder dropt his gory steel,

Then rapine quenched his blazing brand, Then ceased the deadly notes to peal Along the ransomed land.

Then industry his toil resumed,

Her canvass Commerce swelled;

The olive o'er our regions bloomed,

The cypress failed.

Snatched from the withering grasp of death,
Where long convulsed Columbia lay;
Borne from War's baleful, Siroc breath,
His destin'd sinking prey;

Thou saw'st her spring to life and light,
Expelled the glooms that brood,

And spread'st o'er all the realms of night,
A golden flood.

Farewell! the king of day may hold
His ceaseless course forever on,
O'er thirsty soils and oceans cold,
Or distant realms unknown;
May flame afar in trophic skies,
Or dart a cheerless ray,
And centuries on centuries

Hold on their way;

Yet still, emblazoned in the scrolls That tell of ages that have been,

In fame's imperishable rolls

Thy record shall be seen;

The page that tells of days that were,
Shall hallow thee for e'er,

Of art and peace and science fair
The harbinger.

Europa to her latest hour

Shall consecrate thy memory,

[blocks in formation]

On revisiting Bristol, in Pennsylvania: after a long absence.

How grateful once was this refreshing breeze,
When trifling cares disturbed my bosom's ease--
If health forsook me-if the world displeased,
My body wasted-or my mind diseased-
On these loved banks I woo'd Hygeia's care,
Nor breath'd in vain their health-inspiring air.

Now, hateful memory's tormenting chains,
Assure me that eternal are my pains-
Nor Zephyrs soft-nor verdant walks can bring,
Relief oblivious for the woes I sing-

Thy current boasts no Lethe to efface
These lineaments affection's self did trace.-

'Twas on thy banks, in sight of thee, sweet stream!

I proved my all of happiness a dream--
Ardent, I loved- unwise my love I spoke,
I reaped contempt-would that my heart had
broke--

My tears still flow unheeded as thy wave,
Nor e'er will cease but in the friendly grave.--
4th Sept. 1817.

FAREWELL!

Farewell we oft have sigh'd!-

Yet, while the heart was beating,
Ev'n mid its grief, a thought would glide
To hours of future meeting.

ow dark is all I see.→→

Ah! never thought I, never,

This heart was doom'd, and doom'd by thee To say,-farewell for ever!

EPIGRAM.

In the following lines a very familiar anecdote receives all the charms of novelty from the felicity of the application. They were found in a blank leaf of Prior's poems.

Mat Prior (to me 'tis exceedingly plain) Deserves to be reckoned the English Fontaine; And Monsieur la Fontaine can never go higher Than praise to obtain as the French Matthew Prior.

Thus when Elizabeth desired,

That Melville should acknowledge fairly, Whether herself he most admired,

Or his own sovereign lady Mary.

The puzzled knight his answer thus express'd, "In her own country each is handsomest."

THE FUR TRADE. St. Louis, the capital of Missouri Territory is rapidly increasing in wealth and importance. The present population is estimated at 3000-There are in the town upwards of twenty-three commercial establishments, that do business on a pretty large scale; also, two banking institutions, with a capital of nearly one million of dollars. The following remarks are extracted from "The Emigrant," a paper which has recently been established in St. Louis, by Mr. Sergeant Hall.

The importance of this trade is questioned by none; but it has hitherto been conducted in such a manner, and on so small a scale, as to yield but little to the enterprize and hardihood of the individuals concerned. An attempt to form a large company, and invest an ample capital, has, we believe, been formerly made, without success, on account of the smallness of the scale. The subject is now in agitation, but we fear too much time will be consumed in deliberation, and the great, the all-important advantages now within our grasp, will be taken from us. Should this be the case, property in this section of country must depreciate. Other settlements will be formed high up the Missouri, which will take from us one of the principal articles of our trade, and by consequence one of the principal sources of wealth.

war.

We do not hesitate to call this trade, conducted on the extensive scale now contemplated, an all important object, for in addition to the wealth to be accumulated from it, it is the only means of security from a vexatious and everlasting Indian warfare. To be satisfied of this, we need only recur to the events of the late In this direction, it was emphatically a war of traders, and so in the nature of things, it must ever be. Small companies, or many individuals with distinct and clashing interests, and beyond the control of government, embark in the fur trade, wherever they expect to collect most skins. A contest arises, and the Indians are easily persuaded to waylay and murder the traders from whom they receive least advantage. Added to this, the recent occurrences of the Hudson's Bay and N. W. companies should stimulate capitalists to provide for their safety and their interests in time. The king of England and lord Selkirk are largely concerned in the Hudson's Bay company. The latter, finding the N. W. company engaged in a lucrative fur trade, attacked and finally drove them from their posts, by force of arms. The law cannot reach him, and, if it could it would not be put in force. Arrangements are now making by these companies to extend their trade up the Missouri, to the richest hunting grounds: and when our traders resolve, as they will, at some distant day, to embrace the advantages now within their reach, they will have to fight their way into (for they never can fight through) a powerful band of British traders and Indians. The mortification we shall then feel, will not be abated by the recollection that these men are hunting on the lands of the United States.

[blocks in formation]

Our fur trade is at present carried on entirely by individuals or small parties. It extends on Kanses river to the Kanses town, on the La Plate to the Pawnee towns on the Missouri, to the mouth of White river, or perhaps to the first creek west of the mouth.

From this inconsiderable traffic, in the worst part of the country, little profit can be derived. Whereas the grounds in the west, extending up to the White Chapped Mountains, and along Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers, abound in furs. A large company might be formed which would cut off and exclude the British traders from our grounds by force if requisite, prevent them from tampering with the Indians and settle the dispute with Selkirk and the N. W. Company, in a summary way. Our frontier would thus be rendered secure; the savages, formerly employed to murder our citizens, would be attached to our interests, and the wealth now carried into Canada, might be forever secured to this and the neighbouring territories. Funds would not be wanting-If they could not be procured here, they might from the Eastward.

This subject is certainly of vital interest. We shall hereafter call the attention of the citizens to its details.

Remedy for deafness. Put a table spoonful of bay-salt into nearly half a pint of cold spring water; and after it has steeped therein for twenty-four hours (now and then shaking the phial,) cause a small tea spoonful to be poured into the ear most affected, every night, when in bed, for seven or eight nights successively.

T. H.

The pipes of fire engines in France, are made of flax, woven like the wicks of the patent lamps: they swell after the water is introduced, so that none of the fluid can escape; they are more portable and less expensive than leather pipes, and can be woven without seams or joining.

Arrangements are making at New Orleans to bring wholesome water into the city. The Commercial Press says, that the citizens of other states would be surprised to learn, that with the Mississippi river washing the very thresholds of their doors, they are now obliged "to purchase water by the bucket measure."

1.

INDEX TO VOL. IV.

EMBELLISHMENTS.

An engraved frontispiece, representing Haverstock Hill, the
retreat of Sir Richard Steele.

II. Portrait of Governor Mifflin.

III. Dancing figures.

IV. Representation of the capture of Fort George.,
V. Remains of an ancient fortification in Ohio.

VI. Portrait of Granville Sharp.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« ForrigeFortsæt »