TO READERS.

A VOICE, a heart, a free, unfettered pen,
My life in its own shape not rudely tasked,
If I could journey o'er my path again,
No entertainment could be better asked,

Not wealth, not fame, nor gentlemen to see,
Rather would I consort with liberty.

That which I must not buy, I do demand,
My way to worship God, my company,
The service of my own decisive hand,

The love that by its life is deeply free,

Flattered by those I live with, — O not so,

If I have dropped the seed, then may it grow.

Yet I would perish rather, and be dead
Within this mortal mind than lose my right
Upon a nobler fruitage to be fed,

And spring where blooms more excellent delight,
To man, shall time remain the sacred thing,
Shall poets for reward demand to sing?

Bring to my lays thy heart, if it be thine,
Read what is written and no meaning see,
Think that I am a barren, useless vine,

There is no bond agreed 'twixt thee and me,

That thou shouldest read the meaning clearly writ, Yet thou and I may both be part of it.

O Reader, if my heart could say,
How in my blood thy nature runs,
Which manifesteth no decay,

The torch that lights a thousand suns,
How thou and I, are freely lent,
A little of such element.

If I could say, what landscape says,
And human pictures say far more,
If I could twine our sunny days,
With the rich colors, on the floor
Of daily love, how thou and I,
Might be refreshed with charity.

For pleasant is the softening smile
Of winter sunset o'er the snow,
And blessed is this spheral isle

That through the cold, vast void must go,
The current of the stream is sweet,
Where many waters closely meet.

C.

THE DEATH OF SHELLEY.

FAIR was the morn, a little bark bent
Like a gull o'er the waters blue,

And the mariners sang in their merriment,
For Shelley the faithful and true,

Shelley was bound on his voyage o'er the sea,
And wherever he sailed the heart beat free.

And a dark cloud flew, and the white waves hurled
The crests in their wrath, at the angry wind,
The little bark with its sails unfurled,
While the dreadful tempest gathered behind,-
With the book of Plato pressed to his heart,
Came to the beach Shelley's mortal part,

Then a pyre they kindled by ocean side,
Poets were they who Shelley did burn,
The beautiful flame to Heaven applied,
The ashes were pressed in the marble urn,
In Rome shall those ashes long remain,
And from Shelley's verse spring golden grain.

C.

A SONG OF THE SEA.

WHERE the breeze is an emerald green,
The breath of the fathomless deep,
Fresh, pure, living it falls on the scene,
While the little waves tremblingly creep,

So the air of the soul hath this firmness of cheer,
And over it thoughts like wild vessels veer.

"T is a breeze from the shore that uplifts
The surface, and tosses it far,

But the depths are unmoved, and the drifts
Of white foam like the cloud o'er the star,

Hurry on, madly roam, but the light is unmoved,
Like the heart of the bride for the mate she has loved.

I would sail on the sea in my boat,

I would drift with the rolling tide,
In the calm of green harbors I float,
On the black mountainous chasms I ride,
I am never at anchor, I never shall be,
I am sailing the glass of infinity's sea.

Rage on, strongest winds, for the sail
Has ropes to the fast trimly set,
My heart which is oak cannot fail,

And the billows I cheered that I met,

Cold, no, good breeze thou art comfort to me,
There are vessels I hail on the generous sea.

C.

TO THE POETS.

YE who sing the maiden's kiss,
And the silver sage's thought,
Loveliness of inward bliss,
And the graver learning taught,

Tell me, are your skies and streams
Real, or the shape of dreams.

Many rainy days may go,
Many clouds the sun obscure,

And your verses clearer grow,

And your lovely songs more pure,
Mortals are we, but ye are

Burning keenly like a star.

C.

FOUBIERISM.

In the last week of December, 1843, and first week of January, 1844, a Convention was held in Boston, which may be considered as the first publication of Fourierism in this region.

The works of Fourier do not seem to have reached us, and this want of text has been ill supplied by various conjectures respecting them; some of which are more remarkable for the morbid imagination they display than for their sagacity. For ourselves we confess to some remembrances of vague horror, connected with this name, as if it were some enormous parasitic plant sucking the life principles of society, while it spread apparently an equal shade, inviting man to repose under its beautiful but poisondropping branches. We still have a certain question about

Fourierism, considered as a catholicon for evil, but our absurd horrors were dissipated, and a feeling of genuine respect for the friends of the movement ensured, as we heard the exposition of the doctrine of Association, by Mr. Channing, and others. That name already consecrated to humanity, seemed to us to have worthily fallen, with the mantle of the philanthropic spirit, upon this eloquent expounder of socialism; in whose voice and countenance, as well as in his pleadings for humanity, the spirit of his great kinsman still seemed to speak.

We cannot sufficiently lament that there was no reporter of the speech in which Mr. Channing set forth the argument derived from the analogy of nature, against the doctrine of community of goods to the exclusion of individual property. It was the general scope of the argument, to show that Life was forever tending to individuality of expression, and could not be refused the material order also, as a field for the scope of this tendency, and that individual property was the expression of this universal law; the lowest expression certainly, but still an expression. It would not be fair to give a garbled report of his masterly and delicate sketch of the ultimate result of denying this principle. He divided the truth on this subject to right and left, with the sword of pure spirit. Let it be sufficient to say, that only the ecstasy of self-love could understand it as casting personal reflections; and that it could not be expected to find an understanding heart with the ecstasy of destructiveness, which has seized many modern reformers.

But in the absence of reports of this and other speeches, we will give a sketch of Fourierism, as we gathered it from the debates of the Convention, and conversation with its friends; and then take the liberty of stating some qualifications, and limitations, which seem to have escaped the attention of its enthusiastic disciples. The general view upon which Fourier proceeds is this: that there is in the Divine Mind a certain social order, to which man is destined, and which is discoverable by man, according to his truth in thought to the two poles of Christian perfection, Love of God and Love of Man.

He assumes the fact, which will hardly be disputed, that the present social organizations are not this divine order;