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THE DOVE'S VISIT.

WHY do thy pinions their motion cease?
Wouldst thou listen to my sighing?

Art thou come with the olive-branch of peace!
Thou dove to my window flying!
Thy breast is white as a snowy wreath,
And thine eye is softly beaming;
Dost thou bear a message thy wing beneath,
For maid of her lover dreaming?

Has thy flight been far thy plumage gleams,
Unsoiled and unworn with using:

Thou art mute, fair dove, but thy soft eye seems
To answer my idle musing.

Oh, thou, thou hast been where I fain would be,
Where my thoughts are ever straying,
Where the balmiest breeze of spring blows free,
With the early blossoms playing!
Thou hast rested on the casement white,
Which the lilac-boughs are shading,
Where I greeted the morning's rosy light,
Or looked on the sunset fading.

Tell me, thou bird with the snowy breast!
Of a spot beloved for ever,

Of the pleasant walks which my steps have pressed,
Where now they may linger never.

With thee would I gladly hasten there,

If wings to my wish were granted,

[care,

To the flowers that bloomed 'neath my mother's

And the trees my father planted.

For dearer the simplest blossom there,
Its sweets to the morning throwing,

Than the choicest flower that perfumes the air,
In a kingly garden growing.

Vainly I strive to restrain the tear,

The grief like a spring-tide swelling,
When my thoughts return to the home so dear
That is now a stranger's dwelling.

And while I turn me away to weep,
A host of memories waken,

Like the circle spreading upon the deep,
Or dropped from the foliage shaken.

Should fate, where affection clings so strong,
A heart from its Eden banish?
Should it suffer a scene to charm so long,
And then like a vision vanish?

I read reproach in that glance of thine,
For words of repining spoken;

When my brow with the olive thou wouldst twine,
I reject the peaceful token.

Oh, how can a heart be still so weak,

Though ever for strength beseeching,
That from each event woald some lesson seek,
And scorn not the humblest teaching!
Waiting, and trustful like thee, sweet dove,
To the watchful care of Heaven-
With unshaken faith in a Father's love-
Be the future wholly given.

I will bid my heart's vain yearnings cease;
I will hush this useless sighing;

Thy visit hath brought to my spirit peace, Thou dove to my window flying!

TWILIGHT.

THE sunset hues are fading fast
From the fair western sky away,
And floating clouds which gathered round
Have vanished with their colors gay.
All, save one streak that lingers there,
Retaining still a rosy hue,
Bright at the verge, but pale above,
Soft blending with celestial blue.
So lovely were those brilliant clouds
Which floated in the evening air,
It well might seem that angel-forms

Such fabrics for their robes would wear.
But, like the dreams that Fancy weaves,
Their beauty quickly passed away;
And where their gorgeous tints were seen,
Soft twilight reigns with shadows gray.
One star, one bright and quiet star,
Kindles its steady light above,
Over the hushed and resting earth

Still watching like the eye of Love. The birds that woke such joyous strains, With folded pinions seek repose; All, save the minstrel sad who sings His plaintive love-lay to the rose. The weary bees have reached the hive, Rejoicing over labor done; And blossoms close their fragrant cups, Which opened to the morning sun. The winds are hushed that music made

The leafy-laden boughs between, And scarce the lightest zephyr's breath Now dallies with the foliage green. This is the hour so loved by all

Whose thoughts are lingering with the past,
When scenes and forms to memory dear
Gather around us dim and fast.
Childhood's bright days, youth's short romance,
And manhood's dreams of power and fame,
Again come back to cheat the heart

So changed by time, yet still the same.
The mingling tones of voices gone
Are breathing round us sweet and low,
And eyes are beaming once again,
That smiled upon us long ago.
We
e gaze upon those loving eyes,
Which never coldly turn away;
We clasp the hand and press the lip
Of forms that but in memory stay.
We feel the influence of a spell,
And wake to smiles or melt to tears,
As pass before the dreaming eye
The light and shade of other years.
Oh, pleasant is the dewy morn!
And golden noon is fair to see;
But sweeter far the closing day,
Dearer the twilight hour to me.

ANNE C. LYNCH.

MISS ANNE CHARLOTTE LYNCH is a native of Bennington, in Vermont. Her mother is descended from the Fays and Robinsons, conspicuous in the early history of that state, and is a daughter of Colonel Gray, of the Connecticut line in the Revolutionary army. Her father was one of the United Irishmen, and in that celebrated body there were few more heroic and constant. He was but sixteen when he joined in the rebellion of '98, and soon after his arrest, on account of his youth and chivalrous character, he was of fered liberty and a commission in the British army if he would take the oath of allegiance to the government. He refused, and after being four years a state prisoner, was, at the age of twenty, banished for life. With Emmet, McNeven, and others, he came to America, where he married; and while his daughter was a child, he died in Cuba, whither he had gone in search of health.

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and the arts. I have sometimes attended these agreeable parties, and have met at them probably the larger number of the living poets whose works are reviewed in this volume, with many distinguished men of letters, painters, sculptors, singers, and amateurs, among whom our author is held in as much esteem for her amiable social qualities, as respect for her intellectual accomplishments.

The poems of Miss Lynch are marked by depth of feeling and grace of expression. They are the natural and generally unpremeditated effusions of a nature extremely sensitive, but made strong by experience and knowledge, and elevated into a divine repose by the ever active sense of beauty. Though for the most part very complete, they are short, and in many cases may be regarded as improvisations upon the occasions by which they were suggested. We have nothing in them that may be regarded as a fair illustration of her powers.

Miss Lynch was educated at a popular female seminary in Albany, where her class compositions attracted much attention by a The prose writings of Miss Lynch are strength and earnestness unusual in perform-graceful, elegant, and full of fine reflection. ances of this description. She was a loving reader of Childe Harold, and caught the tone of this immortal poem, which is echoed in several of her earlier pieces, that still have sufficient individuality to justify the expectations then formed of her maturer abilities. She soon outgrew imitation, and her occasional contributions to literary journals became more and more the voices of her own life and nature.

After leaving school, Miss Lynch passed some time in Providence; and her knowledge and taste in literature are illustrated in a volume which she published in that city, in 1841, under the title of The Rhode-Island Book-a selection of prose and verse from the writers of that state, including several fine poems of her own. For five or six years she has resided in New York, where her house is known for the weekly assemblies there of persons connected with literature

They evince a genial and hopeful but not joyous spirit—a waiting for the future rather than a satisfaction with the present. She has a large acquaintance with literature, and her criticisms, scattered through many desultory compositions, are discriminating, and illustrated, from a wide observation and a ready fancy, with uniform judgment and taste. The long chapter entitled Leaves from the Diary of a Recluse, in The Gift for MDCCCXLV, is characteristic of her manner, while for a brief period it admits us to the contemplation of her life.

A collection of the Poems of Miss Lynch, with engravings after original designs by her friends Durand, Huntington, Cheney, Darley, Brown, Cushman, Rossiter, Rothermel, and Winner, has just appeared. It is a beautiful book of art, and so demonstrative of her poetical abilities that it will secure her a position she has not before occupied as an author.

THE IDEAL.

"La vie est un sommeil l'amour en est la reve."

A SAD, Sweet dream! It fell upon my soul
When song and thought first woke their echoes
Swaying my spirit to its wild control, [there,
And with the shadow of a fond despair,
Darkening the fountain of my young life's stream.
It haunts me still, and yet I know 'tis but a dream.
Whence art thou, shadowy presence, that canst hide
From my charmed sight the glorious things of
A mirage o'er life's desert dost thou glide? [earth?
Or with those glimmerings of a former birth,
A "trailing cloud of glory," hast thou come [home?
From some bright world afar, our unremembered
I know thou dwell'st not in this dull, cold Real,
I know thy home is in some brighter sphere;
I know I shall not meet thee, my Ideal,

In the dark wanderings that await me here: Why comes thy gentle image then, to me, Wasting my night of life in one long dream of thee? The city's peopled solitude, the glare

Of festal halls, moonlight, and music's tone, All breathe the sad refrain-thou are not there! And even with Nature I am still alone: With joy I see her summer bloom depart; I love drear winter's reign-'t is winter in my heart. And if I sigh upon my brow to see

The deep'ning shadow of Time's restless wing, Tis for the youth I might not give to thee, The vanished brightness of my first sweet spring; That I might give thee not the joyous form Unworn by tears and cares, unblighted by the storm. And when the hearts I should be proud to win, Breathe, in those tones that woman holds so dear, Words of impassioned homage unto mine,

Coldly and harsh they fall upon my ear; And as I listen to the fervent vow, My weary heart replies, "Alas! it is not thou." And when the thoughts within my spirit glow, That would outpour themselves in words of fire, If some kind influence bade the music flow, Like that which woke the notes of Memnon's lyre, Thou, sunlight of my life, wak'st not the lay, And song within my heart, unuttered, dies away. Depart, oh shadow ! fatal dream, depart !

Go! I conjure thee leave me this poor life, And I will meet with firm, heroic heart,

Its threat'ning storms and its tumultuous strife, And with the poet-seer will see thee stand

My "house of life" henceforth is desolate :
But the dark aspect my firm heart surveys,
Nor faints nor falters even for thy sake: [break!
'Tis calm and nerved and strong: no, no, it shall not
For I am of that mood that will defy-

That does not cower before the gathering storm; That face to face will meet its destiny,

And undismayed confront its darkest form. Wild energies awaken in this strife,

This conflict of the soul with the grim phantom Life. But ah! if thou hadst loved me-had I been

All to thy dreams that to mine own thou artHad those dark eyes beamed eloquent on mine, Pressed for one moment to that noble heart In the full consciousness of faith unspoken, Life could have given no more-then had my proud heart broken!

The Alpine glacier from its height may mock

The clouds and lightnings of the winter sky, And from the tempest and the thunder's shock Gather new strength to lift its summit high; But kissed by sunbeams of the summer day, It bows its icy crest and weeps itself away. Thou know'st the fable of the Grecian maid Wooed by the veiled immortal from the skies, How in his full perfections, once she prayed,

That he would stand before her longing eyes, And how that brightness, too intense to bless, [cess. Consumed her o'erwrought heart with its divine exTo me there is a meaning in the tale.

I have not prayed to meet thee: I can brook That thou shouldst wear to me that icy veil; I can give back thy cold and careless look: Yet shrined within my heart, still thou shalt seem What there thou ever wert, a beautiful, bright dream!

THE IMAGE BROKEN.

'Twas but a dream, a fond and foolish dream-
The calenture of a delirious brain,
Whose fever-thirst creates the rushing stream.
Now to the actual I awake again;
The vision, to my gaze one moment granted,
Fades in its light away and leaves me disenchanted.
The image that my glowing fancy wrought,
Now to the dust with ruthless hand I cast;
Thus I renounce the worship that I sought,
Of my own idol the iconoclast.

To welcome my approach to thine own spirit-land. The echo of “ Eureka ! I have found !

THE IDEAL FOUND.

I'VE met thee, whom I dared not hope to meet,
Save in th' enchanted land of my day dreams:
Yes, in this common world, this waking state,
Thy living presence on my vision beams-
Life's dream embodied in reality!
And in thine eyes I read indifference to me!
Yes, in those star-like eyes I read my fate,
My horoscope is written in their gaze;

Falls back upon my heart a vain and empty sound.

Oh, disembodied being of my mind,

So wildly loved, so fervently adored!
In whom all high and glorious gifts I shrined,
And my heart's incense on the altar poured-
Now do I know that, clad in mortal guise,
Ne'er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision rise:

That only in the vague, cold realm of Thought
Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain;
And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought
The scattered fragments of Osiris slain,

Now do I know that henceforth I shall find
But fragments of thy soul within earth's clay en-
shrined.

Thou whom I have not seen and shall not see
Till the sad drama of this life be o'er!
Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee:
Thou still art mine-I thine for evermore;
And this belief shall be the funeral pyre
Of all less noble love, of all less high desire.
Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring

Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most-
The glow of summer and the bloom of spring,
And on thine altar lay the holocaust:
And, in my faith exulting, I will see
The sacrifice consume I consecrate to thee.

To Love's sweet tones my heart shall never thrill;
Nor, as the tardy years their circles roll,
Shall they the ardor of its pulses chill.
Thus will I live in widowhood of soul,
Until, at last, my lingering exile o'er,

Upon some lovelier star, too blest, we meet once more.
Oh, tell me not that now indeed I dream;

That these aspirings mocked at last will be! Gleams of a higher life to me they seemA sacred pledge of immortality. Tell not the yearning heart it shall not find: [kind! O Love, thou art too strong! O God, thou art too

THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

THERE are countless fields the green earth o'er
Where the verdant turf has been dyed with gore;
Where hostile ranks, in their grim array,
With the battle's smoke have obscured the day;
Where hate was stamped on each rigid face,
As foe met foe in the death embrace;
Where the groans of the wounded and dying rose,
Till the heart of the listener with horror froze,
And the wide expanse of the crimsoned plain
Was piled with its heaps of uncounted slain:
But a fiercer combat, a deadlier strife,
Is that which is waged in the battle of life.
The hero that wars on the tented field,
With his shining sword and his burnished shield,
Goes not alone with his faithful brand;
Friends and comrades around him stand,
The trumpets sound and the war-steeds neigh
To join in the shock of the coming fray—
And he flies to the onset, he charges the foe,
Where the bayonets gleam and the red tides flow;
And he bears his part in the conflict dire
With an arm all nerve and a heart all fire.
What though he fall! at the battle's close,
In the flush of the victory won he goes,
With martial music and waving plume,
From a field of fame to a laurelled tomb.
But the hero who wars in the battle of life,
Must stand alone in the fearful strife;
Alone in his weakness or strength must go,
Hero or craven, to meet the foe:
He may not fly on that fated field—

He must win or lose, he must conquer or yield.
Warrior, who comest to this battle now

With a careless step and a thoughtless brow,
As if the field were already won-
Pause and gird all thine armor on;
Myriads have come to this battle ground
With a valiant arm and a name renowned,
And have fallen vanquished to rise no more,
Ere the sun was set or the day half o'er.
Dost thou bring with thee hither a dauntless will,
An ardent soul that no blast can chill?
Thy shield of Faith hast thou tried and proved —
Canst thou say to the mountain, "Be thou moved?"
In thy hand does the sword of Truth flame bright?
Is thy banner emblazoned, "For God and the right?"
In the might of prayer dost thou strive and plead ?
Never had warrior greater need!
Unseen foes in thy pathway hide;
Thou art encompassed on every side.
There Pleasure waits with her siren train,
Her poison flowers and her hidden chain;
Hope with her Dead-sea fruits is there;
Sin is spreading her gilded snare ;
Flattery counts with her hollow smiles,
Passion with silvery tone beguiles;

Love and Friendship their charmed spells weave:
Trust not too deeply-they may deceive!
Disease with her ruthless hand would smite,
And Care spread o'er thee a withering blight;
Hate and Envy with visage black,

And the serpent Slander, are on thy track.
Guilt and Falsehood, Remorse and Pride,
Doubt and Despair, in thy pathway glide;
Haggard Want in her demon joy
Waits to degrade thee and then destroy;
Palsied Age in the distance lies,

And watches his victim with rayless eyes;
And Death the insatiate is hovering near,
To snatch from thy grasp all thou holdest dear.
No skill may avail and no ambush hide :
In the open field must the champion bide,
And face to face and hand to hand
Alone in his valor confront that band.

In war with these phantoms that gird him round,
No limbs dissevered may strew the ground;
No blood may flow, and no mortal ear
The groans of the wounded heart may hear,
As it struggles and writhes in their dread control,
As the iron enters the riven soul:

But the youthful form grows wasted and weak,
And sunken and wan is the rounded cheek;
The brow is furrowed, but not with years;
The eye is dimmed with its secret tears,
And streaked with white is the raven hair-
These are the tokens of conflict there.

The battle is over: the hero goes,
Scarred and worn, to his last repose

He has won the day, he has conquered Doom,
He has sunk unknown to his nameless tomb;
For the victor's glory no voices plead;
Fame has no echo and earth no meed;
But the guardian angels are hovering near:
They have watched unseen o'er the conflict here,
And they bear him now on their wings away
To a realm of peace, to a cloudless day.
Ended now is the earthly strife,

And his brow is crowned with the crown of life!

THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.

SPEAK low-tread softly through these halls;
Here Genius lives enshrined;
Here reign, in silent majesty,

The monarchs of the mind.
A mighty spirit-host they come,
From every age and clime;
Above the buried wrecks of years,
They breast the tide of Time.
And in their presence-chamber here
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train,

The gifted and the great.

Oh, child of Earth! when round thy path
The storms of life arise,

And when thy brothers pass thee by

With stern, unloving eyes-
Here shall the poets chant for thee

Their sweetest, loftiest lays;
And prophets wait to guide thy steps
In wisdom's pleasant ways.

Come, with these God-anointed kings
Be thou companion here;
And in the mighty realm of mind
Thou shalt go forth a peer!

HAGAR.

UNTRODDEN, drear, and lone,
Stretched many a league away,
Beneath a burning, noonday sun,
The Syrian desert lay.

The scorching rays that beat

Upon that herbless plain,

The dazzling sands, with fiercer heat, Reflected back again.

O'er that dry ocean strayed

No wandering breath of air,

No palm-trees cast their cooling shade,
No water murmured there.

And thither, bowed with shame,
Spurned from her master's side,
The dark-browed child of Egypt came,
Her wo and shame to hide.
Drooping and travel-worn,

The boy upon her hung,

Who from his father's tent that morn
Like a gazelle had sprung.
His ebbing breath failed fast,

Glazed was his flashing eye;
And in that fearful, desert waste,
She laid him down to die.

But when, in wild despair,

She left him to his lot,

A voice that filled that breathless air
Said, "Hagar, fear thou not."
Then o'er the hot sands flowed
A cooling, crystal stream,
And angels left their high abode
And ministered to them.

Oft, when drear wastes surround
My faltering footsteps here,
I've thought I, too, heard that blest sound
Of" Wanderer, do not fear."

And then, to light my path

On through the evil land,

Have the twin angels, Hope and Faith,
Walked with me, hand to hand.

TO THE MEMORY OF CHANNING.

"The prophets, do they live for ever?"- Zech. i. 5.

THOSE Spirits God ordained,

To stand the watchmen on the outer wall,
Upon whose souls the beams of truth first fall;

They who reveal the ideal, the unattained,
And to their age, in stirring tones and high,
Speak out for God, truth, man, and liberty—
Such prophets, do they die?

When dust to dust returns,

And the freed spirit seeks again its God-
To those with whom the blessed ones have trod,

Are they then lost? No! still their spirit burns
And quickens in the race; the life they give,
Humanity receives, and they survive
While hope and virtue live.

The landmarks of their age,

High-priests, kings of the realm of mind, are they, A realm unbounded as posterity;

The hopeful future is their heritage; Their words of truth, of love, and faith sublime, To a dark world of doubt, despair, and crime, Reecho through all time.

Such kindling words are thine,

Thou, o'er whose tomb the requiem soundeth still,
Thou from whose lips the silvery tones yet thrill
In many a bosom, waking life divine;
And since thy Master to the world gave token
That for Love's faith the creed of Fear was broken,
None higher have been spoken.

Thy reverent eye could see,

Though sinful, weak, and wedded to the clod,
The angel-soul still as the child of God,

Heir of his love, born to high destiny:
Not for thy country, creed, or sect, speakest thou,
But him who bears God's image on his brow,
Thy brother, high or low.

Great teachers formed thy youth,
As thou didst stand upon thy native shore,
In the calm sunshine, in the ocean's roar;

Nature and God spoke with thee, and the truth,
That o'er thy spirit then in radiance streamed,
And in thy life so calmly, brightly beamed,
Shall still shine on undimmed.

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