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Hartford, and conducted it for two years, when he resigned it to the poet Whittier, and removed to the West, where he assumed the charge of the "Louisville Journal," which he soon raised to a first-class journal, and which has continued to the present time to maintain its character for solid ability and playful wit united, scarcely second to that of any other journal in the country.

Mr. Prentice has written some very beautiful poetry for his own journal and for other periodicals; but his compositions have never been collected in a volume. The following pieces have been much admired :

:

SABBATH EVENING.

How calmly sinks the parting sun!

Yet twilight lingers still;

And beautiful as dream of heaven

It slumbers on the hill;

Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things,
Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings,

And, rendering back the hues above,
Seems resting in a trance of love.

Round yonder rocks the forest-trees
In shadowy groups recline,

Like saints at evening bow'd in prayer

Around their holy shrine;

And through their leaves the night-winds blow,
So calm and still, their music low

Seems the mysterious voice of prayer,

Soft echoed on the evening air.

And yonder western throng of clouds,
Retiring from the sky,

So calmly move, so softly glow,
They seem to Fancy's eye
Bright creatures of a better sphere,
Come down at noon to worship here,
And, from their sacrifice of love,
Returning to their home above.

The blue isles of the golden sea,
The night-arch floating high,
The flowers that gaze upon the heavens,
The bright streams leaping by,
Are living with religion,-deep
On earth and sea its glories sleep,
And mingle with the starlight rays,
Like the soft light of parted days.

The spirit of the holy eve

Comes through the silent air
To feeling's hidden spring, and wakes
A gush of music there!

And the far depths of ether beam

So passing fair, we almost dream

That we can rise, and wander through

Their open paths of trackless blue.

510

Each soul is fill'd with glorious dreams,
Each pulse is beating wild;

And thought is soaring to the shrine
Of glory undefiled!

And holy aspirations start,

Like blessed angels, from the heart,
And bind-for earth's dark ties are riven-
Our spirits to the gates of heaven.

I THINK OF THEE.

TO A LADY.

I think of thee when morning springs
From sleep, with plumage bathed in dew,
And, like a young bird, lifts her wings
Of gladness on the welkin blue.

And when, at noon, the breath of love
O'er flower and stream is wandering free,
And sent in music from the grove,

I think of thee,-I think of thee.

I think of thee, when, soft and wide,
The evening spreads her robes of light,
And, like a young and timid bride,
Sits blushing in the arms of night.

And when the moon's sweet crescent springs
In light o'er heaven's deep, waveless sea,
And stars are forth, like blessed things,
I think of thee,-I think of thee.

I think of thee;-that eye of flame,

Those tresses, falling bright and free,

That brow, where "Beauty writes her name,"

I think of thee,-I think of thee.

RUFUS DAWES.

RUFUS DAWES was born in Boston, on the 26th of January, 1803. His father, Thomas Dawes, was a member of the State Convention called to ratify the Constitution, and was for many years one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, distinguished for his learning, eloquence, wit,' and spotless inOn leaving it, he entered tegrity. Our poet entered Harvard College in 1820.

1 He was remarkable not only "for his great reach of mind," (to use Daniel Webster's words respecting him,) but for his quickness of repartee. He was very short in stature; and one day, standing in State Street, Boston, with six very tall men, among whom were Harrison Gray Otis and Josiah Quincy, Mr. Otis said, "Just like a "Judge Dawes, how do you feel" (looking down on him at the same time very significantly) "when in the company of such great men as we?" fourpence halfpenny among six cents," was his prompt reply.

the office of General William Sullivan as a law-student, and, after completing his studies, was admitted a member of the Suffolk County bar. The profession, however, was not congenial to his feelings, and he has never pursued its practice. Early in 1828, he published a prospectus of "The Emerald and Baltimore Literary Gazette," of which he was to be the editor, and on the 29th of March of that year appeared the first number. In 1829, he was married to a daughter of ChiefJustice Cranch, of Washington. In 1830, he published The Valley of the Nashaway, and other Poems; and in 1839, Athenia of Damascus; Geraldine; and his miscellaneous poetical writings. In the winter of 1840-41, he delivered a course of literary lectures in New York, before the American Institute. He now resides in Washington, D.C.

SPIRIT OF BEAUTY.

The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light,
And wheels her course in a joyous flight;
I know her track through the balmy air,
By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there;
She leaves the tops of the mountains green,
And gems the valley with crystal sheen.

At morn, I know where she rested at night,
For the roses are gushing with dewy delight;
Then she mounts again, and round her flings
A shower of light from her crimson wings;
Till the spirit is drunk with the music on high,
That silently fills it with ecstasy.

At noon she hies to a cool retreat,

Where bowering elms over waters meet;

She dimples the wave where the green leaves dip,
As it smilingly curls like a maiden's lip

When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain,
From her lover, the hope that she loves again.

At eve she hangs o'er the western sky
Dark clouds for a glorious canopy,
And round the skirts of their deepen'd fold
She paints a border of purple and gold,
Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay
When their god in his glory has pass'd away.

She hovers around us at twilight hour,
When her presence is felt with the deepest power;
She silvers the landscape, and crowds the stream
With shadows that fit like a fairy dream;

Then wheeling her flight through the gladden'd air,
The Spirit of Beauty is everywhere.

SUNRISE, FROM MOUNT WASHINGTON.

The laughing hours have chased away the night,
Plucking the stars out from her diadem:-

And now the blue-eyed Morn, with modest grace,
Looks through her half-drawn curtains in the east,
Blushing in smiles, and glad as infancy.

And see, the foolish Moon, but now so vain
Of borrow'd beauty, how she yields her charms,
And, pale with envy, steals herself away!
The clouds have put their gorgeous livery on,
Attendant on the day: the mountain-tops
Have lit their beacons, and the vales below
Send up a welcoming: no song of birds,
Warbling to charm the air with melody,
Floats on the frosty breeze; yet Nature hath
The very soul of music in her looks!
The sunshine and the shade of poetry.

I stand upon thy lofty pinnacle;

Temple of Nature! and look down with awe
On the wide world beneath me, dimly seen;
Around me crowd the giant sons of earth,
Fix'd on their old foundations, unsubdued;
Firm as when first rebellion bade them rise
Unrifted to the Thunderer: now they seem
A family of mountains, clustering round
Their hoary patriarch, emulously watching
To meet the partial glances of the day.
Far in the glowing east the flickering light,
Mellow'd by distance, with the blue sky blending,
Questions the eye with ever-varying forms.

The sun comes up! away the shadows fling From the broad hills; and, hurrying to the west, Sport in the sunshine till they die away.

The many beauteous mountain-streams leap down,
Out-welling from the clouds, and sparkling light
Dances along with their perennial flow.
And there is beauty in yon river's path,
The glad Connecticut! I know her well,

By the white veil she mantles o'er her charms:
At times she loiters by a ridge of hills,
Sportfully hiding; then again with glee
Out-rushes from her wild-wood lurking-place.
Far as the eye can bound, the ocean-waves,

And hills and rivers, mountains, lakes, and woods,
And all that hold the faculty entranced,
Bathed in a flood of glory, float in air,
And sleep in the deep quietude of joy.

There is an awful stillness in this place,
A Presence that forbids to break the spell,
Till the heart pour its agony in tears.
But I must drink the vision while it lasts;
For even now the curling vapors rise,
Wreathing their cloudy coronals, to grace
These towering summits-bidding me away;
But often shall my heart turn back again,
Thou glorious eminence! and when oppress'd,
And aching with the coldness of the world,
Find a sweet resting-place and home with thee.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, one of the most original writers in our country, was born in Boston in the year 1803, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1821. On leaving college, he devoted his time to theological studies, and was settled as pastor of the Second Unitarian Church in his native city. But, his views respecting some of the Christian ordinances undergoing a change, he gave up the ministry, and retired to the quiet village of Concord, Mass., devoting himself to his favorite studies, the nature of man and his relations to the universe.

The following are Mr. Emerson's chief publications: Man Thinking, an oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1837; Literary Ethics, an oration; and Nature--an Essay, in 1838; The Dial, a magazine of literature, philosophy, and history, which he commenced in 1840 and continued for four years; The Method of Nature, Man the Reformer, three lectures on the times, and the first series of his essays, in 1841; lectures on the New England Reformers, the Young American, and Negro Emancipation in the West Indies, in 1844; a volume of Poems, in 1846, and the lectures, delivered during his visit to England in 1849, which form the volume called Representative Men.

Such are Mr. Emerson's principal writings. As an author he never can be popular, for he is too abstruse and too metaphysical, and has too little of human sympathy to reach the heart; while he is at times so quaint or so obscure that one is no little puzzled to find out his meaning.1

THE COMPENSATIONS OF CALAMITY.

We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, "Up and onward for evermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards.

1 An English critic thus speaks of him:-"Mr. Emerson possesses so many characteristics of genius that his want of universality is the more to be regretted : the leading feature of his mind is intensity; he is deficient in heart-sympathy.' Again, "It is better for a man to tell his story as Mr. Irving, Mr. Hawthorne, or Mr. Longfellow does, than to adopt the style Emersonian, in which thoughts may be buried so deep that common seekers shall be unable to find them."

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