THE SUNFLOWER TO THE SUN.

HYMETTUS' bees are out on filmy wing,
Dim Phosphor slowly fades adown the west,
And Earth awakes. Shine on me, oh my king!
For I with dew am laden and oppressed.

Long through the misty clouds of morning gray
The flowers have watched to hail thee from yon
Sad Asphodel, that pines to meet thy ray, [sea:
And Juno's roses, pale for love of thee.
Perchance thou dalliest with the Morning Hour,
Whose blush is reddening now the eastern wave;
Or to the cloud for ever leav'st thy flower,
Wiled by the glance white-footed Thetis gave.
I was a proud Chaldean monarch's child!*
Euphrates' waters told me I was fair-
And thou, Thessalia's shepherd, on me smiled,
And likened to thine own my amber hair.
Thou art my life-sustainer of my spirit!
Leave me not then in darkness here to pine;
Other hearts love thee, yet do they inherit
A passionate devotedness like mine?
But lo! thou lift'st thy shield o'er yonder tide:
The gray clouds fly before the conquering Sun;
Thou like a monarch up the heavens dost ride-
And, joy! thou beamst on me, celestial one!
On me, thy worshipper, thy poor Parsee,
Whose brow adoring types thy face divine-
God of my burning heart's idolatry,
Take root like me, or give me life like thine!

THE LAST CHANT OF CORINNE. By that mysterious sympathy which chaineth For evermore my spirit unto thine; And by the memory, that alone remaineth, Of that sweet hope that now no more is mine; And by the love my trembling heart betrayeth, That, born of thy soft gaze, within me lies; As the lone desert-bird, the Arab sayeth, Warms her young brood to life with her fond eyes: Hear me, adored one! though the world divide us, Though never more my hand in thine be pressed, Though to commingle thought be here denied us, Till our high hearts shall beat themselves to rest; Forget me not, forget me not! oh, ever

This one, one prayer, my spirit pours to thee; Till every memory from earth shall sever, Remember, oh, beloved! remember me! And when the light within mine eye is shaded, When I, o'erwearied, sleep the sleep profound, And like that nymph of yore who drooped and faded, And pined for love, till she became a sound; My song, perchance, awhile to earth remaining, Shall come in murmured melody to thee: Then let my lyre's deep, passionate complaining, Cry to thy heart, heloved-" Remember me!"

Clytia, daughter of Orchamus, king of Babylon, was beloved by Apollo; but the god deserting her, she pined away with continually gazing on the sun, and was changed to the flower denominated from him, which turns as he moves, to look at his light.

spread;

And think the dewdrops there each blade adorning,
Are angels' tears for mortal frailty shed.

And earth's firstlings, here in beauty springing,
ye,
Erst in your cells by careful Winter nursed-
And to the morning heaven your incense flinging,
As at His smile ye forth in gladness burst-
How do ye cheer with hope my lonely hour,
When on my way I tread despondingly,
With thought that He who careth for the flower,
Will, in his mercy, still remember me!
Breath of our nostrils-Thou! whose love embraces,
Whose light shall never from our souls depart,
Beneath thy touch hath sprung a green oasis
Amid the arid desert of my heart.

Thy sun and rain call forth the bud of promise,

And with fresh leaves in spring-time deck the tree; That where man's hand hath shut out Nature from We, by these glimpses, may remember Thee! [us,

CAMEOS.

HERCULES AND OMPHALE.

RECLINED enervate on the couch of ease,
No more he pants for deeds of high emprise;
For Pleasure holds in soft, voluptuous ties
Enthralled, great Jove-descended Hercules.
The hand that bound the Erymanthian boar,
Hesperia's dragon slew, with bold intent-
That from his quivering side in triumph rent
The skin the Cleonean lion wore,
Holds forth the goblet-while the Lydian queen,
Rob'd like a nymph, her brow enwreath'd with vine,
Lifts high the amphora, brimmed with rosy wine,
And pours the draught the crowned cup within.
And thus the soul, abased to sensual sway,
Its worth forsakes-its might forgoes for aye.

TITYOS CHAINED IN TARTARUS.

Оn, wondrous marvel of the sculptor's art!
What cunning hand hath cull'd thee from the mine,
And carved thee into life, with skill divine!
How claims in thee Humanity a part-
Seems from the gem the form enchained to start,
While thus with fiery eye, and outspread wings,
The ruthless vulture to his victim clings,
With whetted beak deep in the quivering heart.
Oh, thou embodied meaning, master-wrought!
Thus taught the sage, how, sunk in crime and sin,
The soul a prey to conscience, writhes within
Its fleshly bonds enslaved: thus ever, Thought,
The breast's keen torturer, remorseful tears
At life, the hell whose chain the soul in anguish

wears!

A YARN.

""Tis Saturday night, and our watch below-
What heed we, boys, how the breezes blow,
While our cans are brimmed with the sparkling flow:
Come, Jack-uncoil, as we pass the grog,
And spin us a yarn from memory's log."

Jack's brawny chest like the broad sea heaved,
While his loving lip to the beaker cleaved;
And he drew his tarred and well-saved sleeve
Across his mouth, as he drained the can,
And thus to his listening mates began:
"When I sailed a boy, in the schooner Mike,
No bigger, I trow, than a marlinspike—
But I've told ye the tale ere now, belike?"
"Go on!" each voice reëchoéd,

And the tar thrice hemmed, and thus he said:
"A stanch-built craft as the waves e'er bore-
We had loosed our sails for home once more,
Freighted full deep from Labrador,
When a cloud one night rose on our lee,
That the heart of the stoutest quailed to see.
And voices wild with the winds were blent,
As our bark her prow to the waters bent;
And the seamen muttered their discontent-
Muttered and nodded ominously-
But the mate, right carelessly whistled he.
"Our bark may never outride the gale-
"Tis a pitiless night! the pattering hail
Hath coated each spar as 't were in mail;
And our sails are riven before the breeze,
While our cordage and shrouds into icicles freeze!'
Thus spake the skipper beside the mast,
While the arrowy sleet fell thick and fast;
And our bark drove onward before the blast
That goaded the waves, till the angry main
Rose up and strove with the hurricane.

Up spake the mate, and his tone was gay-
'Shall we at this hour to fear give way?
We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray :
Out, shipmates, and grapple home yonder sail,
That flutters in ribands before the gale!'

Loud swelled the tempest, and rose the shriek-
'Save, save! we are sinking!--A leak! a leak!'
And the hale old skipper's tawny cheek
Was cold, as 't were sculptured in marble there,
And white as the foam, or his own white hair.

The wind piped shrilly, the wind piped loud-
It shrieked 'mong the cordage, it howled in the

shroud;

And the sleet fell thick from the cold, dun cloud :
But high over all, in tones of glee,
The voice of the mate rang cheerily-

Now, men, for your wives' and your sweethearts' sakes!

Cheer, messmates, cheer!-quick! man the brakes!
We'll gain on the leak ere the skipper wakes;
And though our peril your hearts appal,
Ere dawns the morrow we 'll laugh at the
squall.'

He railed at the tempest, he laughed at its threats,
He played with his fingers like castanets:
Yet think not that he, in his mirth, forgets
That the plank he is riding this hour at sea,
May launch him the next to eternity!
The white-haired skipper turned away,
And lifted his hands, as it were to pray;
But his look spoke plainly as look could say,
The boastful thought of the Pharisee-
Thank God, I'm not hardened as others be!'

But the morning dawned, and the waves sank low,
And the winds, o'erwearied, forbore to blow;
And our bark lay there in the golden glow—
Flashing she lay in the bright sunshine,
An ice-sheathed hulk on the cold, still brine.

Well, shipmates, my yarn is almost spun-
The cold and the tempest their work had done,
And I was the last, lone, living one,
Clinging, benumbed, to that wave-girt wreck,
While the dead around me bestrewed the deck.

Yea, the dead were round me everywhere!
The skipper gray, in the sunlight there,
Still lifted his paralyzed hands in prayer; [leapt,
And the mate, whose tones through the darkness
In the silent hush of the morning, slept.

Oh, bravely he perished who sought to save
Our storm-tossed bark from the pitiless wave,
And her crew from a yawning and fathomless grave:
Crying, Messmates cheer!' with a bright,glad smile,
And praying, Be merciful, God!' the while.

True to his trust, to his last chill gasp,
The helm lay clutched in his stiff, cold grasp―
You might scarcely in death undo the clasp:
And his crisp, brown locks were dank and thin,
And the icicles hung from his bearded chin.
My timbers have weathered, since, many a gale;
And when life's tempests this hulk assail,
And the binnacle lamp in my breast burns pale,
Cheer, messmates, cheer!' to my heart I say,
We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray!'"

If when thou utterest low words of greeting,
To feel through every vein the torrent pour;
Then back again the hot tide swift retreating,
Leave me all powerless, silent as before:
If to list breathless to thine accents falling,
Almost to pain, upon my eager ear—
And fondly when alone to be recalling

The words that I would die again to hear:

If 'neath thy glance my heart all strength forsaking,
Pant in my breast as pants the frighted dove;
If to think on thee ever, sleeping-waking-
Oh! if this be to love thee, I do love!

LOVE'S PLEADING.

SPEAK tender words, mine own beloved, to me-
Call me thy lily--thy imperial one,
That, like the Persian, breathes adoringly
Its fragrant worship ever to the sun.

Speak tender words, lest doubt with me prevail :
Call me thy rose-thy queen rose! throned apart,
That all unheedful of the nightingale,

Folds close the dew within her burning heart. For thou'rt the sun that makes my heaven fair, Thy love, the blest dew that sustains me here; And like the plant that hath its root in air,

only live within thy atmosphere.

Look on me with those soul-illumined eyes,
And murmur low in love's entrancing tone-
Methinks the angel-lute of paradise

Had never voice so thrilling as thine own!

Say I am dearer to thee than renown,

My praise more treasured than the world's acclaim: Call me thy laurel-thy victorious crown,

Wreathed in unfading glory round thy name. Breathe low to me each pure, enraptured thought, While thus thy arms my trusting heart entwine: Call me by all fond meanings love hath wrought, But oh, Ianthis, ever call me thine!

THE HEARTH OF HOME.

THE storm around my dwelling sweeps,
And while the boughs it fiercely reaps,
My heart within a vigil keeps,

The warm and cheering hearth beside;
And as I mark the kindling glow
Brightly o'er all its radiance throw,
Back to the years my memories flow,

When Rome sat on her hills in pride;
When every stream, and grove, and tree,
And fountain, had its deity.

The hearth was then, 'mong low and great,
Unto the Larés consecrate :
The youth, arrived to man's estate,

There offered up his golden heart;
Thither, when overwhelmed with dread,
The stranger still for refuge fled—
Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed,
Till he might fearless thence depart:
And there the slave, a slave no more,
Hung reverent up the chain he wore.
Full many a change the hearth hath known;
The Druid fire, the curfew's tone,
The log that bright at yule-tide shone,

The merry sports of Hallow-e'en : Yet stil where'er a home is found, Gather the warm affections round, And there the notes of mirth resoundThe voice of wisdom heard between : And welcomed there with words of grace, The stranger finds a resting place. Oh, wheresoe'er our feet may roam, Still sacred is the hearth of home;

Whether beneath the princely dome,

Or peasant's lowly roof it be,
For home the wanderer ever yearns;
Backward to where its hearth-fire burns,
Like to the wife of old, he turns

Fondly the eyes of memory:

Back where his heart he offered first-
Back where his fair, young hopes he nursed.
My humble hearth though all disdain,
Here may I cast aside the chain
The world hath coldly on me lain-

Here to my Lares offer up

The warm prayer of a grateful heart:
Thou that my household Guardian art,
That dost to me thine aid impart,

And with thy mercy fill'st my cup
Strengthen the hope within my soul,
Till I in faith may reach the goal!

THE LAUNCH.

A SOUND through old Trimountain went,
A voice to great and small,
That told of feast and merriment,
And welcome kind to all:
And there was gathering in the hall,
And gathering on the strand;
And many a heart beat anxiously
That morning, on the sand:
For 'tis the morn when ocean tide,
An hundred tongues record,
Shall wed the daughter of the oak-
The mighty forest lord.

They dressed the bride in streamers gay,
Her beauty to enhance;

And o'er her hung Columbia's stars,

And the tri-fold flag of France;
They decked her prow with rare device,
With wealth of carving good;

And they girt her with a golden zone,
The maiden of the wood.

The gay tones of the artisan
Fell lightly on the ear,

And sound of vigorous hammer stroke
Rang loudly out and clear;

And stout arms swayed the ponderous sledge,
While a shout the hills awoke,

As forth to meet the bridegroom flood
Swept the daughter of the oak.
And bending to the jewelled spray

That rose her step to greet,
She dashed aside the yesty waves
That gathered round her feet;
And down her path right gracefully,
The queenly maiden pressed,
Till the royal ocean clasped her form

To his broad and heaving breast.

God guide thee o'er the trackless deep,
My brother-brave and true;
God speed the good Damascus well,
And shield her daring crew!

THE ODE OF HAROLD THE VALIANT.

I MID the hills was born,
Where the skilled bowmen
Send, with unerring shaft,

Death to the foemen.

But I love to steer my bark

To fear a stranger-
Over the Maelstrom's edge,
Daring the danger;
And where the mariner

Paleth affrighted,
Over the sunken rocks

I dash on delighted.

The far waters know my keel-
No tide restrains me;

But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.

Once to Sicilia's isle
Voyaged I, unfearing :

Conflict was on my prow,
Glory was steering.

Where fled the stranger-ship
Wildly before me,

Down, like the hungry hawk,
My vessel bore me;

We carved on the craven's deck
The red runes of slaughter:
When my bird whets her beak,
Our spears give no quarter!

The far waters know my keel, &c.

Countless, like spears of grain,
Were the warriors of Drontheim,
When like the hurricane

I swept down upon them!
Like chaff beneath the flail

They fell in their numbersTheir king with the golden hair I sent to his slumbers.

I love the combat fierce, &c.

Once o'er the Baltic sea

Swift we were dashing; Bright on our twenty spears Sunlight was flashing; When through the Skagerack

The storm-wind was driven, And from our bending mast

The broad sail was riven: Then, while the angry brine Foamed like a flagon, Brimfull the yesty rhime

Filled our brown dragon; But I, with sinewy hand, Strengthened in slaughter, Forth from the straining ship Bailed the dun water:

I love the combat fierce, &c. Firmly I curb my steed,

As e'er Thracian horseman ; My hand throws the javelin true,

Pride of the Norseman; And the bold skaiter marks, While his lips quiver,

Where o'er the bending ice

I skim the strong river. Forth to my rapid oar

The boat swiftly springethSprings like the mettled steed When the spur stingeth. Valiant I am in fight,

No fear restrains me, &c.

Saith she, the maiden fair,
The Norsemen are cravens?

I in the Southland gave

A feast to the ravens !
Green lay the sward outspread,
The bright sun was o'er us,
When the strong fighting men
Rushed down before us.
Midway to meet the shock

My fleet courser bore me,
And like Thor's hammer crashed

My strong hand before me! Left we their maids in tears,

Their city in embers:

The sound of the Viking's spears The Southland remembers!

I love the combat fierce, &c.

LAY.

A LAY of love! ask yonder sea

For wealth its waves have closed upon

A song from stern Thermopyla—

A battle-shout from Marathon! Look on my brow! Reveals it naught? It hideth deep rememberings, Enduring as the records wrought Within the tombs of Egypt's kings! Take thou the harp-I may not singAwake the Teian lay divine, Till fire from every glowing string

Shall mingle with the flashing wine!

The Theban lyre but to the sun

Gave forth at morn its answering tone: So mine but echoed when the one,

One sunlit glance was o'er it thrown.

The Memnon sounds no more! my lyre

My hands the crowning buds will twine: Pour-till the wreath I o'er it fling

Shall mingle with the rosy wine.

No lay of love! the lava-stream

Hath left its trace on heart and brain! No more no more! the maddening theme Will wake the slumbering fires again! Fling back the shroud on buried yearsHail, to the ever-blooming hours! We'll fill Time's glass with ruby tears, And twine his bald, old brow with flowers! Fill high fill high! I may not singStrike forth the Teian lay divine, Till fire from every glowing string Shall mingle with the flashing wine!

MISS SUSAN REBECCA AYER, now Mrs. BARNES, is a daughter of the Hon. Richard H. Ayer, of the city of Manchester, in New Hampshire. Her family has furnished several names distinguished in public affairs and in literature. Mr. John Greene, the banker, of Paris, is her maternal uncle, and the accomplished scholar and writer, Mr. Nathaniel Greene, of Boston, is nearly related to her.

Her associations have therefore been preëminently favorable to the cultivation of her abilities. Her poems are marked by many felicities of expression; and they frequently combine a masculine vigor of style with tenderness and a passionate earnestness of feeling. Mrs. Barnes now resides with her father, in Manchester. Her native place is Hooksett, in the same state.

IMALEE:

AN EASTERN LEGEND

SHRINED in the bosom of the Indian sea,
Where ceaseless Summer smiles perpetually,
A festal glory o'er the tropic thrown,
To other lands and other climes unknown-
By friends untrodden, unprofaned by foes,
The bright isle of the Indian god arose.
There waving mid a wilderness of green,
The palm-tree spread its leaf of glossy sheen;
The tamarind blossom floating on the gale,
Bore breathing odors to the passing sail;
The banyan's broad, interminable shade
A bower of bright, perennial beauty made;
And from the rock's deep cleft, by Nature nurst,
The tropic's floral wealth in splendor burst.
It seemed that Nature, revelling in bloom,
Here claimed exemption from the general doom:
Perpetual verdure o'er the seasons reigned,
Perpetual beauty every sense enchained;
And here the Indian, Nature's untaught child,
The simple savage of a sunny wild,
Deemed that the spirit whom he worshipped dwelt,
And here at eve in adoration knelt
The Indian maiden-sacred to the power
So deeply reverenced, day's departing hour......
The shadows deepen o'er the summer sea,
The breeze is up-the ripple murmurs free;
A single sail in the dim distance holds
Its onward course, though twilight's darkening folds,
Descending, deepening, veil the lessening prow;
And now it nears the sacred isle, and now
A single, solitary form is seen—

A fearless foot hath pressed the yielding green!—
And Imalee, the dark-browed Indian maid,
At this dim hour, unshrinking, undismayed,
With step that borrows firmness from despair-
With eye that tells what woman's soul will dare,
When wars the spirit in its prisoned home,
Till Reason yielding, trembles on her throne-
Hath sought the shrine, unmindful of the hour,
To hold dark commune with an unknown power.

Around, a paradise of bloom is shed;

The cocoa breathes its blossoms o'er her head;
The scarlet bombex clusters at her feet,
And bloom and fragrance unregarded meet;
While heavy with the glittering dews of night,
The leaf is greener and the flower more bright.

The maiden hung her wreath upon the shrine,
An offering to the power she deemed divine,
When soft and low a breathing whisper came
That thrilled through every fibre of her frame;
That spirit-voice all tremulous she hears-
"Within thy wreath a withered rose appears!"
"There is there is-fit emblem of my heart;
Oh, Power benign! thine influence impart
To raise, restore, and renovate for me,
That withered flower, or bid its memory flee!
I flung it from me in an idle hour,

In the first dream of conscious maiden power:
That dream is o'er, and I have lived to wake,
To wish my bursting heart indeed might break!"
Again that voice is stealing on her ear,
That spirit-voice, but not in tones of fear;
It murmurs in a soft, familiar tone,

It thrills her heart, but why, she dares not own:
Her head is raised, her cheek like sunset glows;
Again it breathes, "Wilt thou restore the rose ?"
And mid the waving foliage's deepening green
A well remembered form is dimly seen.

That eve it had been hers unmoved to mark
The shadows deepening round her lonely bark;
A darker shadow brooded o'er her rest,
A deeper desolation veiled her breast;
And she who had in tearless sadness sought
The haunted shade where gods and demons wrought,
And there unmoved her fearful vigil kept,
Now bowed her head, and like an infant wept.
Abroad once more upon the starlit sea,
The sounding surge is musical to thee;
The deepening shadows lose their ghastly gloom,
The distant shades are redolent of bloom;
The sky is cloudless and the air is balm,
The tropic night's peculiar, breathing calm-
Bright Imalee, 'tis thine once more to own,
Abroad upon the wave-BUT NOT alone.