THOU ART, O GOD. Thou art, O God, the life and light Are but reflections caught from thee. When Day, with farewell beam, delays Among the opening clouds of Even, And we can almost think we gaze Through golden vistas into heavenThose hues that make the sun's decline So soft, so radiant, Lord, are thine. When Night, with wings of starry gloom, O'ershadows all the earth and skies, Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume When youthful Spring around us breathes, THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. 'Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred No rose-bud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes Or give sigh for sigh. I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, Since the lovely are sleeping, Thus kindly I scatter Thy leaves o'er the bed Where thy mates of the garden Lie scentless and dead. So soon may I follow, When friendships decay, And from Love's shining circle The gems drop away. When true hearts lie withered, And fond ones are flown, Oh! who would inhabit This bleak world alone? THE MODERN PUFFING SYSTEM. Is the vast power of Puff on shore, In old times, when the god of song But now how different is the story In vain the critics set to watch him Try at the starting-post to catch him: He's off-the puffers carry it hollow— The critics, if they please, may follow; Ere they've laid down their first positions, He's fairly blown through six editions! In vain doth Edinburgh dispense Her blue-and-yellow pestilence (That plague so awful in my time To young and touchy sons of rhyme); The Quarterly, at three months' date, To catch the Unread One comes too late; And nonsense, littered in a hurry, Here speaks the Comforter, in God's name saying, | Itself the while so bright! For oft we seemed "Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure." Go, ask the infidel what boon he brings us, What charm for aching hearts he can reveal Sweet as that heavenly promise Hope sings us, "Earth has no sorrow that God cannot heal." As on some starless sea-all dark above, To plough up light that ever round us streamed. Of all he loved: thy living Truths are left. TO GREECE WE GIVE OUR SHINING BLADES. The sky is bright-the breeze is fair, To Greece we give our shining blades, The moon is in the heavens above, And the wind is on the foaming sea- To Greece we give our shining blades, Washington Allston. AMERICAN. Allston (1779-1843) was born in Charleston, S. C., was educated at a private school in Newport, R. I., and graduated at Harvard in 1800. His first wife was a sister of Channing. In 1830 he was married to a sister of the poet Dana, and resided in Cambridgeport, Mass., the rest of his life. While in Europe he formed the intimate friendship of Coleridge. Studying art in London and Rome, he attained to the highest eminence as a painter. He published "The Sylph of the Seasons, and other Poems," also "Monaldi," a prose romance. Honored and beloved, he passed a blameless and noble life. SONNET ON COLERIDGE. And thou art gone, most loved, most honored friend! AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN. All hail! thou noble land, Our fathers' native soil! O'er the vast Atlantic waves to our shore; The Genius of our clime, From his pine-embattled steep, Shall hail the great sublime; While the Tritons of the deep With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim. O'er the main our naval line, Though ages long have passed Since our fathers left their home, Their pilot in the blast O'er untravelled seas to roam,Yet lives the blood of England in our veins! And shall we not proclaim That blood of honest fame, Which no tyranny can tame By its chains? While the language, free and bold, In which our Milton told How the vault of heaven rang When Satan, blasted, fell with his host; While the manners, while the arts That mould a nation's soul Still cling around our hearts,— Between let Ocean roll, Our joint communion breaking with the Sun : The voice of blood shall reach, "We are One!" Clement C. Moore. AMERICAN, The son of a bishop, Moore (1779-1863) was a native of the city of New York, and a graduate of Columbia College in 1798. He published a volume of poems, dedicated to his children, in 1844. "I have composed them all," he writes, "as carefully and correctly as I could." Of these productions one at least, founded on an old Dutch tradition, seems to have in it the elements of vitality. Moore bore the title of LL.D. A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, As I drew in my head, and was turning around, A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! and On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; Caleb C. Colton. Colton (1779-1832) was, like Churchill, one of the mauvais sujets of literature and the Church. A native of England, he was educated at Cambridge, took orders, and became vicar of Kew and Petersham. Gambling, extravagance, and eccentric habits forced him to leave England, and he resided some time in the United States and in Paris. At one period in France he was so successful as a gambler that he realized £25,000. He was the author of "Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words " (1820)—an excellent collection of apothegms and moral reflections, which had a great sale. He corresponded for the London Morning Chronicle under the once famed signature of O. P. Q. Notwithstanding his dissolute life, he was the earnest advocate of virtue. He committed suicide at Fontainebleau-it was said, to escape the pain of a surgical operation from which no danger could be apprehended. In his "Lacon" we find these words: "The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, |