A tender and sad chant, repeated ever, A sweet, impassion'd plaint of love and wrong! 3. Thou, that when others knew not how to love me, To echo from thy voice-stay with me still! The charm will die o'er valley, wood, and hill. Though hope and joy, its sister flowers, depart. 4. Well do I know that I have wrong'd thine altar Blind to the beauty of her stars and flowers; And bless with radiant dreams the darken'd day; Let me not lower to the soulless level Of those whom now I pity and disdain! Leave me not yet!—leave me not cold and pining, Fly not to heaven, or let me share thy flight! FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD, daughter of JOSEPH LOCKE, a Boston merchant, was born in that city about the year 1812. Some of her first poems appeared in a juvenile Miscellany, conducted by Mrs. L. M. Child, rapidly followed by others, which soon gave their signature," Florence," a wide reputation. About 1834 she was married to S. S. OSGOOD, a young painter already distinguished in his profession. They soon after went to London, where Mr. Osgood pursued his art of portrait-painting with success; and his wife's poetical compositions to various periodicals met with equal favor. In 1839 a collection of her poems was published in London, entitled "A Wreath of Wild-Flowers from New England.” About the same period she wrote "The Happy Release, or the Triumphs of Love," a play in three acts. She returned with Mr. OSGOOD to Boston in 1840. They removed to New York soon afterward, where the remainder of her life was principally passed. Her poems, and prose tales and sketches, appeared at brief intervals in the magazines. In 1841 she edited "The Poetry of Flowers and Flowers of Poetry," and in 1847, "The Floral Offering," two illustrated gift-books. Her poems were collected and published in New York in 1846. She possessed an unusual facility in writing verses, with a felicitous style, and was happy in the selection of subjects. Her rare gracefulness and delicacy, and her unaffected and lively manners, won her a large circle of friends. She died on the 12th of May, 1850. IT 178. DIGNITY OF POETRY. T is a remarkable fact that in the earliest periods of civilization, in the robust and fervid youth of great nations, that Poetry, that divine melody of thought and words, is always the first language of the newly awakened intellect. As civilization advances, and the cold abstractions of science take the life-like creations of the imagination, Poetry withdraws more and more from the domain of the understanding. But though a high state of intellectual cultivation more clearly defines the respective boundaries of science and poetry, it is by no means necessarily unfavorable to the latter, as many have supposed. Poetry, more and more hemmed in by reality, finds in reality new and inexhaustible resources. 2. The vulgar and triviäl details' of actual life are apt to blunt our perceptions of its greatness. The bright dreams of youth, and the thoughtful sadness of maturer years; the deep commúnings of the soul with nature and with God; the fond loyalty which cherishes the memories of heroes and great benefactors of mankind; self-sacrificing patriotism which attaches to the idea of country an infinite import, and sacred obligations; rapt devotion, whether it recognize the Divine Presence in the Gothic Cathedral, amid the forest aisles, or on the sounding sea-shōre ;— what are all these things, but the rising undulations of that deepest part of our mysterious nature, in which are the fountains of poëtry and religion? 3. If we imagine a rational creature, upon a level with the highest of our species, to reach the maturity of his powers in another state of being, and then to have all his perceptions and sensibilities suddenly opened upon this world, in any of its brightest or most fearful aspects, what deep thoughts, what childish wonder, love, or awe would fill his whole soul! The poëtical temperament preserves in a greater or less degree this child-like freshness, which custom withers in other men; and by mysterious affinities, it draws to itself the poëtry of life and nature from the alloy of commonplace ingredients. It is unquestionably the greatest triumph of art to ideülize the present; for distance either in time or space renders the materials of poetry more pliant. Through the same mists that conceal from us the vulgar and trivial details', the grander features of the scene loom up into shapes of beauty or terror. 4. Consciously or unconsciously, the poëtical temperament links every thing finite and perishable with the infinite and imperishable, and our little life here with the boundless and everlasting existence that awaits us. Whatever form poëtry may take, and whatever may be the nature of the materials which it draws from the actual world, its essential inspiration is the ineradicable desire of the human soul for a wider, a more beautiful, a more powerful existence than the present. 5. When the poet is destitute of religious faith, the mighty cravings of his soul, and a vivid sense of the frightful discrepancy between the aspirations and the supposed destiny of man, may eat into his heart, tear asunder his whole nature, and fever it into despair, madness, or suicide. A happier creed may overarch life with the rainbow of hope, and pour over nature the light of eternity. In either case, the poet, filled with the ideäl, and with that infinite love and awe which only the ideal can inspire, becomes the unconscious prophet of deeper and mightier truths than the boasted deductions of science. Even in science, no great thing was ever done by a man who had not a spice of poëtry in him. As will appear more fully in the progress of our inqui'ry, those branches of art and literature which strive to embody the aspirations of man in forms of ideal beauty or power, have performed a very important part in human culture. 6. Indeed, the history of Christianity itself, including the life and death of its Divine Founder, the moral heroism of its martyrs and apostles, and the long warfare which it has waged against ignorance, sin, and misery, is a mighty epic, of which God is the author; and the refinements of chivalry, the triumphs of art, and the glories of science are the episodes. Religion has directly or indirectly been the source of that poëtry of action, which has shed a never-dying glory over the great and stirring periods of modern history. It is obvious that we use the term Poetry in its general sense of passionate recognition of all beautiful, glorious, and sublime things, manifested, not only in verse, painting, sculpture, architecture, but any thing which ennobles man, embellishes life, or refines society, provided it can be embodied in sensible forms, or associated with images more or less distinct. Not only the greatest works of art, but the finest traits and noblest triumphs of civilization, are manifestations of that divine and perennial spirit of Poetry, without which life would be a poor, des'picable round of sordid cares and animal gratifications. NOURSE. J. D. NOURSE, Louisville, Ky., author of "Remarks on the Past, and its Legacies to American Society," not only belongs to the ranks of genius, but is entitled to take his place in that higher order of creative minds, in which the capacity of great, sustained, and just thought coexists with the glow of fancy and the fire of passion. The above extract is a fine illustration of the vivid and various sympathy of his mind, which combines the love and power of art with the insight of philosophic judgment, and recognizes the creative energy of imagination and sentiment as permanent and indispensable parts of our being. 179. THE SPIRIT OF POETRY. 1. HE world is full of Poëtry-the air And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is vail'd, That close the universe with crystal in, In harmonies too perfect and too high 2. The year leads round the seasons in a choir Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gay,. 3. 'Tis not the chime and flow of words that more |