PIKE, ALBERT, an American journalist, lawyer, and poet, born in Boston, December 29, 1809; died in Washington, D. C., April 2, 1891. He studied at Harvard, but did not complete the course; and after teaching for a while at Newburyport, set out in 1831 for the far West. At St. Louis he joined a caravan going to the Mexican territories, and visited the head-waters of the Red and Brazos rivers. He, with four others, separated from the party, and travelled five hundred miles on foot to Fort Smith, in Arkansas. In 1834 he became proprietor and editor of the Arkansas Gazette, published at Little Rock. After two years he was admitted to the bar, gave up journalism, and devoted himself mainly to his profession. He served as a volunteer in the war with Mexico; and after the outbreak of our Civil War, he organized a body of Cherokee Indians, at whose head he was engaged at the battle of Pea Ridge. He rose to a high grade in the Order of Freemasons. He was appointed Indian Commissioner under the Confederate Government after the breaking out of the Civil War, and was a brigadier-general in the Confederate army. Besides several professional works, he has published Hymns to the Gods (1831, reprinted in Blackwood's Magazine in 1839); Prose Sketches and Poems (1834); Nuga, a collection of poems, and two similar collections (1873-82).

BUENA VISTA.

From the Rio Grande's waters to the icy lakes of Maine Let all exult! For we have met the enemy again. Beneath their stern old mountains we have met them in

their pride,

And rolled from Buena Vista back the battle's bloody

tide,

Where the enemy came surging, like Mississippi's flood, And the reaper, Death, was busy with his sickle red with blood.

Santa Anna boasted loudly that, before two hours were

past,

His lancers through Saltillo should pursue us thick and

fast.

On came his solid regiments, line marching after line; Lo! their great standards in the sun like sheets of silver shine!

With thousands upon thousands-yea, with more than four to one

A forest of bright bayonets gleams fiercely in the sun!

Upon them with your squadrons, May! Out leaps the flaming steel;

Before his serried column how the frightened lancers reel!

They flee amain. Now to the left, to stay their tri

umph there,

Or else the day is surely lost in horror and despair;
For their hosts are pouring swiftly on, like a river in

the spring;

Our flank is turned, and on our left their cannon thundering.

Now, brave artillery! bold dragoons! Steady, my men, and calm!

Through rain, cold, hail, and thunder; now nerve each. gallant arm!

What though their shot falls round us here, still thicker than the hail,

We'll stand against them as the rock stands firm against the gale!

Lo! their battery is silenced now; our iron hail still

showers.

They falter, halt, retreat! Hurrah! the glorious day is ours!

Now charge again, Santa Anna! or the day is surely

lost;

For back, like broken waves, along our left your hordes are tossed.

Still louder roar two batteries; his strong reserve

moves on.

More work is there before you, men, ere the good fight

is won!

Now for your wives and children stand! Steady, my braves, once more!

Now for your lives, your honor, fight, as you never fought before!

Ho! Hardin breasts it bravely! McKee and Bissell

there

Stand firm before the storm of balls that fills the astonished air.

The lancers are upon them, too! the foe swarms ten to

one;

Hardin is slain; McKee and Clay the last time see the

sun;

And many another gallant heart, in that last desperate fray,

Grows cold-its last thoughts turning to its loved ones

far away.

Still sullenly the cannon roared, but died away at last; And o'er the dead and dying came the evening shadows

fast;

And then above the mountains rose the cold moon's silver shield,

And patiently and pityingly looked down upon the field; And careless of his wounded, and neglectful of his dead, Despairingly and sullen, in the night, Santa Anna fled.

PINDAR (Greek, Пivdapos), the most celebrated lyric poet of ancient Greece, born at Cynoscephale, near Thebes, in Boeotia, about 520 B.C.; died at Argos about 440 B.C. He was the son of Daiphantus, or, according to some writers, of Pagondas. Little is known of his early history. It is said that he studied poetry and music at Athens, under Lasus, and that he was a pupil of the celebrated Corinna, who advised him to choose themes for his muse from mythology. He afterward composed an ode in which all the legends of Thebes were interwoven, and showed it to Corinna, who cautioned him to "sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack." He became a professional composer of choral odes, and was employed by various states and princes of Greece to write odes for special occasions. He was a great favorite of the Athenians, whose city he praised in an ode, and who presented him with 3,000 drachmæ. The remains of Pindar's works that have come down to us entire are forty-four Epicinia, or triumphal odes, which were written in honor of victories won in the great national public games; and there are fragments consisting of hymns, pæans, choral dithyrambs, processional songs, choral songs for maidens, choral dance-songs, encomia (songs in praise of men), scolia (to be sung by a chorus at a banquet), and dirges.

Horace attributes to Pindar unrivalled skill in several forms of versification. He particularly excelled in energy, picturesque effect, and sublimity. The best translations of Pindar into English are those of H. F. Cary and Abraham Moore. He had a son and two daughters.

FROM THE FIRST PYTHIAN ODE.

Strophe.

Golden lyre that Phoebus shares with the Muses violetcrowned,

Thee, when opes the joyous revel, our frolic feet obey. While thy chords ring out their preludes, and guide the dancers' way,

Thou quenchest the bolted lightning's heat,

And the eagle of Zeus on the sceptre sleeps, and closes his pinion fleet.

Antistrophe.

King of birds! His hooked beak hath a darkling cloud

o'ercast,

Sealing soft his eyes. In slumber his rippling back he heaves.

By thy sweet music fettered fast,

Ruthless Ares's self the rustle of bristling lances leaves, And gladdens awhile his soul with rest.

For the shafts of the Muses and Leto's son can melt an immortal's breast.

Epode.

But, whom Zeus loves not, back in fear all senseless

cower, as in their ear

The sweet, Pierian voices sound, in earth or monstrous oceans round.

So he, heaven's foe, that in Tartarus lies,

The hundred-headed Typho, erst

In famed Cilician cavern nurst