11. They have passed from the shadows that haunt us round, When we look at Youth in the backward ground, No more will the sombre pall of Fate III. They are blest in death!-for no bitter care Let Hope be amidst our sorrow; There is peace in the Night of the Early Dead- They will rice like buds from the glebe of spring, DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN. Young mother, he is gone! His dimpled cheek no more will touch thy breast; Float from his lips, to thine all fondly press'd; His was the morning hour, And he had pass'd in beauty from the day, Torn, in its sweetness, from the parent spray; Never on earth again Will his rich accents charm thy listening ear, Breathing at eventide serene and clear; And from thy yearning heart, Whose inmost core was warm with love for him, And those kind eyes with many tears be dim; Yet, mourner, while the day Rolls like the darkness of a funeral by, To stream athwart the grief-discolor'd sky, "Tis from the better land! There, bathed in radiance that around them springs, As with the choiring cherubim he sings, Who said, on earth, to children, "Come to me." Mother, thy child is bless'd; And though his presence may be lost to thee, And miss'd, a sweet load from thy parent knee; GRENVILLE MELLEN, 1799-1841. GRENVILLE MELLEN, the son of the late Chief Justice Prentiss Mellen, LL. D., of Maine, was born in the town of Biddeford, in that State, on the 19th of June, 1799, and graduated at Harvard University in 1818. He entered the profession of the law, but, finding it not suited to his feelings, abandoned it, as others before and since have done, for the more congenial attractions of poetry and general literature. He resided five or six years in Boston, and afterwards in New York. His health had always been rather delicate, and in 1840, in hopes of deriving advantage from a milder climate, he made a voyage to Cuba. But he was not benefited materially by the change, and learning, the next spring, of the death of his father, he returned home, and died in New York on the 5th September, 1841. Mr. Mellen wrote for various magazines and periodicals. In 1827, he published "Our Chronicle of Twenty-Six," a satire; and in 1829, "Glad Tales and Sad Tales," a volume in prose, from his contributions to the periodicals. "The Martyr's Triumph, Buried Valley, and other Poems," appeared in 1834. The first named poem is founded on the history of Saint Alban, the first Christian martyr in England. In the "Buried Valley," he describes the terrible avalanche at the Notch in the White Mountains, in 1826, by which the Willey family was destroyed. Of the merits of Grenville Mellen's poetry, a living critic' thus speaks: "There is in these poems no unusual sublimity to awaken surprise-no extreme pathos to communicate the luxury of grief-no chivalrous narrative to stir the blood to adventure-no high-painted ardor in love to make us enraptured with beauty. Yet we were charmed; for we love purity of sentiment, and we found it; we love amiability of heart, and here we could perceive it in every stanza. The muse of Mellen delights in the beauties, not in the deformities of nature; she is more inclined to celebrate the virtues than denounce the vices of man." THE MARTYR. Not yet, not yet the martyr dies. He sees And dim through tears of blood he sees it dash His dwelling and its idols. Joy to him! The Lord-the Lord hath spoken from the sky! The loftier glories on his eyeballs swim! He hears the trumpet of Eternity! Calling his spirit home-a clarion voice on high! Yet, yet one moment linger! Who are they It is God's bright, immortal company The martyr pilgrim and his band are there! And beckon upwards through the wreathing fires, With radiant heads unveiled, and anthems joyful shout! He sees, he hears! upon his dying gaze, Forth from the throng one bright-haired angel near, 'American Quarterly Review, xxii. 195. "I come-we meet again !"-the martyr cries, And smiles of deathless glory round him play: Then on that flaming cross he bows-and dies! His ashes eddy on the sinking day, While through the roaring oak his spirit wings its way! FROM "THE BRIDAL." Young beauty at the altar! Ye may go Ye summon nothing from the place of dreams, With this chaste, silent picture of the heart! Yielding their bloom and fragrance up in tears. MOUNT WASHINGTON. Mount of the clouds, on whose Olympian height Thine is the rock of other regions; where The world of life, which blooms so far below, Or eddying wildly round thy cliffs are borne; And when the tumult of the air is fled, And quench'd in silence all the tempest flame, There come the dim forms of the mighty dead, Around the steep which bears the hero's name; The stars look down upon them; and the same And lights the cold tear of the glorious brave, Mount of the clouds! when winter round thee throws Thy towers in bright magnificence appear! 'Tis then we view thee with a chilling fear, Till summer robes thee in her tints of blue; When, lo! in soften'd grandeur far, yet clear, Thy battlements stand clothed in Heaven's own hue, To swell as Freedom's home on man's unbounded view! CONSCIENCE. Voice of the viewless spirit! that hast rung Since our first parents in sweet Eden sung Their low lament in tears-thou voice, that art With a perpetual echo, 'tis on thee, That call'd existence out from Chaos' lonely sea! Voice that art heard through every age and clime, That lends no heeding to the sounds of Time, That comest in the clearness of thy power, And o'er the deep-mouth'd thunder goest free, Spirit of God! what sovereignty is thine! Yet monarchs hold no royal rule like thee! |