The Poets and Poetry of America

SEBA SMITH.

[Born, 1792.]

was married to ELIZABETH OAKES PRINCE, who has since been one of the most conspicuous literary women of this country. In 1842 they removed to New York, where Mr. SMITH has published “Letters of Major Jack Downing," "Powhattan, a Met

SEBA SMITH was born in Buckfield, Maine, on the fourteenth of September, 1792; graduated at Bowdoin College in 1818; and having studied the law, settled in Portland, where his literary tastes led him to a connection with the press, and he edited successively the "Eastern Argus," and the "Port-rical Romance," "Way Down East, or Portraitures

land Courier." It was during his residence in Portland that he originated the popular and natural character of "Major Downing," which has served more frequently and successfully than any other for the illustration of New England peculiarites, in speech and manners. When about thirty years of age, he

All were sunk in soft repose
Save the watch upon the deck;
Not a boding dream arose

Of the horrors of the wreck,

To the mother, or the child, or the sire;
Till a shriek of wo profound,
Like a death-knell echo'd round-
With a wild and dismal sound,

A shriek of "fire!"

Now the flames are spreading fast-
With resistless rage they fly,
Up the shrouds and up the mast,

And are flickering to the sky;

Now the deck is all a blaze; now the rails-
There's no place to rest their feet;
Fore and aft the torches meet,
And a winged lightning sheet
Are the sails.

No one heard the cry of wo

But the sea-bird that flew by; There was hurrying to and fro,

But no hand to save was nigh;

Still before the burning foe they were driven-
Last farewells were uttered there,
With a wild and phrenzied stare,
And a short and broken prayer
Sent to Heaven.

Some leap over in the flood

To the death that waits them there;

Others quench the flames with blood,
And expire in open air;

164

of Yankee Life," "New Elements of Geometry," &c. One of his earliest attempts in verse was "An Auction Extraordinary," frequently quoted as LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON's. Among his minor poems several are dramatic and picturesque, and noticeable for unusual force of description.

Some, a moment to escape from the grave,
On the bowsprit take a stand;
But their death is near at hand-
Soon they hug the burning brand
On the wave.

From his briny ocean-bed,

When the morning sun awoke,
Lo, that gallant ship had fled!

And a sable cloud of smoke
Was the monumental pyre that remained;
But the sea-gulls round it fly,
With a quick and fearful cry,
And the brands that floated by
Blood had stained.

THE SNOW STORM.

THE cold winds swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And mid the cheerless hours of night

A mother wander'd with her child:
As through the drifting snow she press'd,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.
And colder still the winds did blow,

And darker hours of night came on,
And deeper grew the drifting snow:

Her limbs were chill'd, her strength was gone:
"Oh, God!" she cried, in accents wild,
"If I must perish, save my child!"
She stripp'd her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm,
And round the child she wrapp'd the vest

And smiled to think her babe was warm.
With one cold kiss, one tear she shed,
And sunk upon her snowy bed.
At dawn a traveller passed by,
And saw her 'neath a snowy veil;
The frost of death was in her eye,
Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale;
He moved the robe from off the child-
The babe look'd up and sweetly smiled!

N. L. FROTHINGHAM.

[Born, 1793.]

THE Reverend NATHANIEL LANGDON FROTHINGHAM, D.D., was born in Boston in the summer of 1793, and was graduated at Cambridge in the class of 1811. While a student there he pronounced the poem at the installation of Dr. KIRKLAND as president of the university, but his first printed verses of any considerable extent were the "Poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society" in 1813, which appeared in Mr. ANDREWS NORTON'S "General Repository." The year before this he became an instructor in rhetorie and oratory in the college, an office which he was the first to hold, and in which he was succeeded by his friend J. M. WAINWRIGHT, afterwards bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York. He remained in it till the spring of 1815, when he was ordained as pastor of the First Congregational Church in Boston. In this pastorate he continued until ill-health compelled him to resign it, at the same point of the year, in 1850.

Dr. FROTHINGHAM has been many years a contributor to the "Christian Examiner," and, less frequently, to some other periodicals. In 1845 he published "Deism or Christianity" in four

TO THE OLD FAMILY CLOCK, SET UP IN A NEW PLACE.

discourses; in 1852 "Sermons, in the order of a Twelvemonth;" and in other years, about fifty sermons and addresses of various kinds. In 1855 ho has gratified his friends, and enriched our literature by printing a collection of his poems, under the title of "Metrical Pieces, Translated and Original."

A singular grace of expression and refinement of sentiment pervade the prose writings of Dr. FROTHINGHAM, and his poetry is also marked by exquisite finish and tasteful elegance. His works are among the best models of composition which contemporary New England scholars will present to posterity. The longest of his poems is a masterly version of "The Phenomena or Appearances of the Stars," from the Greek of ARATUS. His translations from the German have been very highly esteemed by the most competent critics for fidelity to their first authors, and as English poems. He has exhibited what the Germans accomplished in their own language and what they would have done in ours. His independent productions in verse are what might have been expected from a mind in contemplation and action subordinated so instinctively and sedulously to the laws of beauty.

Of homely duties and of plain delights,

Whose love and mirth and sadness sat before thee;-
Their laugh and sigh both over now, their voices

OLD things are come to honor. Well they might, Sunk and forgotten, and their forms but dust.

If old like thee, thou reverend monitor!
So gravely bright, so simply decorated;
Thy gold but faded into softer beauty,
While click and hammer-stroke are just the same
As when my cradle heard them. Thou holdst on,
Unwearied, unremitting, constant ever;
The time that thou dost measure leaves no mark
Of age or sorrow on thy gleaming face.
The pulses of thy heart were never stronger;
And thy voice rings as clear as when it told me
How slowly crept the impatient days of childhood.
More than a hundred years of joys and troubles
Have passed and listened to thee; while thy tongue
Still told in its one round the unvaried tale;-
The same to thee, to them how different,
As fears, regrets, or wishes gave it tone!

My mother's childish wonder gazed as mine did
On the raised figures of thy slender door;-
The men, or dames, Chinese, grotesquely human;
The antler'd stag beneath its small round window;
The birds above, of scarce less size than he;
The doubtful house; the tree unknown to nature.
I see thee not in the old-fashioned room,
That first received thee from the mother land,
But yet thou mind'st me of those ancient times

Thou, for their sake, stand honored there awhile, Honored wherever standing,-ne'er to leave The house that calls me master. When there's none I thus bequeath thee as in trust to those [such, Who shall bear up my name. For each that hears The music of thy bell, strike on the hours; Duties between, and heaven's great hope beyond

them!

TO A DEAD TREE,

WITH A VINE TRAINED OVER IT.

THE dead tree bears; each dried-up bough
With leaves is overgrown,

And wears a living drapery now
Of verdure not his own.

The worthless stock a use has found,
The unsightly branch a grace;
As climbing first, then dropped around,
The green shoots interlace.

So round that Grecian mystic rod
TO HERMES' hand assigned,—
The emblem of a helping god-
First leaves, then serpents, twined.

In thee a holier sign I view

Than in Hebrew rods of power; Whether they to a serpent grew,

Or budded into flower.

This Vine, but for thy mournful prop,
Would ne'er have learned the way
Thy ruined height to overtop,

And mantle thy decay.

O thou, my soul, thus train thy thought

By Sorrow's barren aid!

Deck with the charms that Faith has brought

The blights that Time has made.

On all that is remediless

Still hang thy gentle vails;
And make thy charities a dress,
When other foliage fails.

The sharp, bare points of mortal lot
With kindly growth o'erspread ;—
Some blessing on what pleases not,
Some life on what is dead.

STRENGTH: TO AN INVALID.

"WHEN I am weak, I'm strong,"
The great Apostle cried.

The strength that did not to the earth belong
The might of Heaven supplied.
"When I am weak, I'm strong,"
Blind MILTON caught that strain

And flung its victory o'er the ills that throng

Round Age, and Want, and Pain.

"When I am weak, I'm strong,"

Each Christian heart repeats;

She comes again-the peaceful one-though less
Or needed or perceived in summer dress-
Half lost in the bright sun;

Yet then a place she finds,

And all beneath the sultry calm lies hush;—

These words will tune its feeblest breath to song, Till o'er the chafed and darkening ocean rush

And fire its languid beats.

O Holy Strength! whose ground

Is in the heavenly land;

And whose supporting help alone is found

In God's immortal hand!

O blessed! that appears

When fleshly aids are spent;

The squally August winds.

Behold her yet once more,

And O how beautiful! Late in the wane
Of the dishevelled year; when hill and plain
Have yielded all their store;-

When the leaves thin and pale-
And they not many-tremble on the bough;

And girds the mind when most it faints and fears, Or, noisy in their crisp decay, e'en now

With trust and sweet content!

It bids us cast aside

All thoughts of lesser powers ;—

Give up all hopes from changing time and tide,

And all vain will of ours.

We have but to confess

That there's but one retreat;

And meekly lay each need and each distress

Down at the Sovereign feet;-
Then, then it fills the place

Of all we hoped to do;

And sunken Nature triumphs in the Grace

That bears us up and through.

A better glow than health

Flushes the cheek and brow,

Roll to the sharpening gale;

In smoky lustre clad,

Its warm breath flowing in a parting hymn,
The "Indian Summer" upon Winter's rim,
Looks on us sweetly sad.

So with the Year of Life.

An Ordering Goodness helps its youth and age,
Posts quiet sentries midway every stage,

And gives it truce in strife.

The Heavenly Providence,

With varying methods, but a steady hold,
Doth trials still with mercies interfold,

For human soul and sense.

The Father that's above,

Remits, assuages; still abating one

The house is stout with store of nameless wealth;- Of all the stripes due to the ill that's done,

We can do all things now.

No less sufficience seek;

All counsel less is wrong;

[weak;

The whole world's force is poor, and mean, "When I am weak, I'm strong."

and

In his compassionate love.

Help Thou our wayward mind
To own Thee constantly in all our states-
The world of Nature and the world of Fates-
Forbearing, tempering, kind.

HENRY ROWE SCHOOLCRAFT.

[Born, 1793.]

THE family name of this learned and voluminous author, he informs us in his "Personal Memoirs," was CALCRAFT. The change of the initial syllable was induced by the occupation of his father as a teacher, the usage of the neighborhood being tacitly adopted in the household. He was born in Guilderland, near Albany, on the twentyeighth of March, 1793. His chief works are a "Treatise on Vitreology," 1817; "View of the Lead Mines of Missouri," 1819; "Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansas," 1820; Narrative of an Expedition to the Head Waters of the Mississippi," 1821; "Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley," 1822; "An Expedition to Itasca Lake," 1834; "Algic Researches, comprising Inquiries respecting the Mental Characteristics of the North American Indians," 1839; "Oneota, or Characteristics of the Red Race of America," 1844; "Notes on the Iroquois," 1846; "Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes," 1851;

FROM THE WHITE FISH."

Or venison let GOLDSMITH SO wittily sing, A very fine haunch is a very fine thing; And BURNS, in his tuneful and exquisite way, The charms of a smoking Scot's haggis display; But 't is often much harder to eat than descant, And a poet may praise what a poet may want. Less question shall be with my muse of my dish, Whilst her power I invoke in the praise of white fish: So fine on a platter, so tempting a fry, So rich in a broil, and so sweet in a pie, That even before it the red trout must fail, And that mighty bonne bouche of the land, beaver tail! Its beauty and flavor no person can doubt, If seen in the water, or tasted without; And all the dispute that an epicure makes, Of this king of lake fishes, this deer of the lakes, Regards not its choiceness, to ponder or sup, But the best mode of dressing and serving it up. Now this is a point where good livers may differ, As tastes become fixed, or opinions are stiffer..... The merchant, the lawyer, the cit, and the beau, The proud and gustative, the poor and the low, The gay habitant, the inquisitive tourist, The chemic physician, the dinner crost juristTo these it is often a casual sweet, As they dine by appointment, or taste as a treat; Not so, or as mental or physical joy, Comes the sight of this fish to the courier de bois; That wild troubadour with his joy-loving crew, Who sings as he paddles his birchen canoe, And thinks all the hardships that fall to his lot, Are richly made up at the platter and pot.

167

"Scenes and Adventures in the Ozark Mountains," 1853; and "Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects, of the Indian Tribes of the United States," in five quarto volumes, published by the government.

ences.

The poetical compositions of Dr. SCHOOLCRAFT are numerous, frequently ingenious, and have all about them a pleasing air of genuineness. Living many years in remote solitudes, he had "no resort to pass away his time" but the cultivation of his natural taste for verse, and he wisely selected his themes from his own fresh and peculiar experiBesides contributions to literary journals, during nearly half a century, he has published, "Transallegania, a Poem," 1820; The Rise of the West, or a Prospect of the Mississippi Valley," 1830; "The Man of Bronze, a Poem on the Indian Character, in Six Books," read before the Algic Society, at Detroit, 1833; "Alhalla, or the Lord of Talladega, a Tale of the Creek War," 1843; and "Helderbergia," in four cantos, 1855.

To him there's a charm neither feeble nor vague
In the mighty repast of the grande Ticameg;*
And oft as he starves amid Canada's snows,
On dry leather lichens and bouton de rose,
He cheers up his spirits to think he shall still
Of poisson blanc bouillon once more have his fill.

....

The muse might appeal to the science of books To picture its ichthyological looks, Show what is its family likeness or odds, Compared with its cousins, the salmons and cods; Tell where it approximates, point where it fails, By counting its fins, or dissecting its scales; Or dwell on its habits, migrations, and changesThe modes of its capture, its cycles and ranges: But let me forbear 't is the fault of a song, A tale, or a book, if too learned or long. Thus ends my discussion. More would you, I pray, Ask MITCHELL, or HARLAN, LESIEUR, or DE KAY.

FROM LIKES AND DISLIKES."

WHATE'ER is false, impertinent or dull,
A fop, a meddler, formalist or fool,
O'erbearing consequence, o'ervaunting sense,
The lounger's visit, and the rake's pretence,
The idle man's excuse, the babbler's prate,
These ask for censure, and all these I hate.

Wit's cast off robes, and learning's worn out things;
I hate the cit, whose tread diurnal brings.
At home, abroad, in place, or out of place,
With fearful longitude of knowing face.

A name given the white fish by the Canadians.

Who crowds the jest — half hitting and half hit
The vapid ribaldry, which is not wit;
Or where misfortune bows a noble heart,
Wounds the seared bosom with satiric dart.
I hate the tattler, whose bad thirst of fame
Seeks rest in publishing his neighbor's shame,
Whose task it is to catch the latent tale,
The rumored doubt, or inuendo stale,
To fan the darling falsehoods as they rise,
To ponder scandal, and to retail lies.

I hate that ever busy, bustling man,
Whose wink or nod direct the village clan,
Intent not on the public joy or good,

Or e'en his own - a point not understood
But, armed with little talent, much pretence,
Ten grains of impudence, and one of sense,
A strange compound of villain, fop, and clown,
Struts on, the busy-body of the town.

I hate the sly, insiduous, smirking "friend,"
Who, ever driving at some secret end,
Bespeaks your interest for a vote or place,
With smiling sweet amenity of face;
A splendor based upon a neighbor's cash;
Rogues escaped halter, prison, stocks, or lash:
All these, howe'er allied to fortune or to fate,
Demand my censure, and all these I hate.

GEEHALE: AN INDIAN LAMENT.

THE blackbird is singing on Michigan's shore
As sweetly and gayly as ever before;
For he knows to his mate he, at pleasure, can hie,
And the dear little brood she is teaching to fly.
The sun looks as ruddy, and rises as bright,

And reflects o'er the mountains as beamy a light

As it ever reflected, or ever express'd, [the best.
When my skies were the bluest, my dreams were
The fox and the panther, both beasts of the night,
Retire to their dens on the gleaming of light,
And they spring with a free and a sorrowless track,
For they know that their mates are expecting
them back.

Each bird and each beast, it is bless'd in degree:
All nature is cheerful, all happy, but me.

I will go to my tent, and lie down in despair;
I will paint me with black, and will sever my hair;
I will sit on the shore, where the hurricane blows,
And reveal to the god of the tempest my woes;
I will weep for a season, on bitterness fed,
for my kindred are gone to the hills of the dead;
But they died not by hunger, or lingering decay:
The steel of the white man hath swept them away.

This snake-skin, that once I so sacredly wore,
I will toss, with disdain, to the storm-beaten shore:
Its charms I no longer obey or invoke,
Its spirit hath left me, its spell is now broke.

I shall wash from my face every cloud-colored stain,
Red red shall, alone, on my visage remain!
I will dig up my hatchet, and bend my oak bow;
By night and by day I will follow the foe;
Nor lakes shall impede me, nor mountains, nor

snows;

His blood can, alone, give my spirit repose.

They came to my cabin when heaven was black; I heard not their coming, I knew not their track; But I saw, by the light of their blazing fusees, They were people engender'd beyond the big seas: My wife and my children,-O, spare me the tale! For who is there left that is kin to GEEHALE!

THE BIRCHEN CANOE.

In the region of lakes, where the blue waters sleep,
My beautiful fabric was built;
Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,
And its sides with the sunbeams were gilt.
The bright leafy bark of the betula* tree
A flexible sheathing provides;
And the fir's thready roots drew the parts to agree,
And bound down its high swelling sides.
No compass or gavel was used on the bark,
No art but in simplest degree;
But the structure was finished, and trim to remark,
And as light as a sylph's could be.
Its rim was with tender young roots woven round,

Like a pattern of wicker-work rare;
And it prest on the waves with as lightsome a

As a basket suspended in air. [bound
The builder knew well, in his wild merry mood,
And he sung as he sewed the green bark to the
A smile from his sweet-love to win, [wood,

Leen ata nee saugein.†

The heavens in their brightness and glory below,
Were reflected quite plain to the view,
And it moved like a swan, with as graceful a show,
My beautiful birchen canoe.
The trees on the shore, as I glided along,

Seemed rushing a contrary way;
And my voyagers lightened their toil with a song,
That caused every heart to be gay.
And still as I floated by rock and by shell,

My bark raised a murmur aloud,
[fell,
And it danced on the waves as they rose and they
Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.
I thought as I passed o'er the liquid expanse,

With the landscape in smiling array,
How blest I should be, if my life should advance,

Thus tranquil and sweetly away.
The skies were serene, not a cloud was in sight,
Not an angry surge beat on the shore,

I will raise up my voice to the source of the light; And I gazed on the waters, and then on the light,

I will dream on the wings of the bluebird at night;

I will speak to the spirits that whisper in leaves,
And that minister balm to the bosom that grieves;
And will take a new Manito- such as shall seem
To be kind and propitious in every dream.
O, then I shall banish these cankering sighs,
And tears shall no longer gush salt from my eyes;

Till my vision could bear no more.
Oh! long shall I think of those silver-bright lakes,
And the scenes they exposed to my view;
friends and the wishes I formed for their sakes,
And my bright yellow birchen canoe.

Betula papyracæ.

+ You only I love.

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