But still, with a charm which is born of the hours, From Atalantis. HEART ESSENTIAL TO GENIUS. We are not always equal to our fate Nor true to our conditions. Doubt and fear At moments when the soul, no more elate The masters have their weakness. "I would climb," Apt was the answer of the high-soul'd queen :— ISAAC MCLELLAN. ISAAC MCLELLAN is a native of Portland, Maine, and was born on the 21st of May, 1806. In early life, his father, Isaac McLellan, removed to Boston, where for many years he was a prominent merchant, distinguished for his integrity and success in business. The son, after receiving his degree at Bowdoin College, in 1826, returned to Boston, completed a course of legal study, and was admitted to practice in the courts of that city. But the Muses and general literature had more charms for him than clients and briefs, and for many years he contributed, both in prose and poetry, to several magazines and papers published in the city and vicinity, and had the editorial management of two or three of them. About the year 1840, he went abroad, and passed about two years in Europe. On his return, he gave a description of his journeyings, in a series of letters published in the "Boston Daily Courier." Since that period, he has been engaged chiefly in literary pursuits, and now resides in the city of New York. Mr. McLellan's published works are, The Fall of the Indian, in 1830; The Year, and other Poems, in 1832; and Mount Auburn, and other Poems, in 1843. Though the Muse of Mr. McLellan aims at no ambitious flight, yet in the middle region of the descriptive and the lyrical in which she delights chiefly to play, she moves with even and graceful wing, bearing such offerings as the following: NEW ENGLAND'S DEAD.1 New England's dead! New England's dead! On every field of strife made red By bloody victory. Each valley, where the battle pour'd Beheld the brave New England sword Their bones are on the northern hill, By brook and river, lake and rill, The land is holy where they fought, And holy where they fell; For by their blood that land was bought, Then glory to that valiant band, Oh, few and weak their numbers were- But to their God they gave their prayer, The God of battles heard their cry, They left the ploughshare in the mould, The sickle in the unshorn grain, To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe, To perish, or o'ercome their foe. And where are ye, O fearless men? I call:-the hills reply again That ye have pass'd away; That on old Bunker's lonely height, In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground, The grass grows green, the harvest bright, Above each soldier's mound. 1 "Mr. President: I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is; behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history. The world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from New England to Georgia; and there they will remain forever."- Webster's Speech in Reply to Hayne, 1830. The bugle's wild and warlike blast The starry flag, 'neath which they fought, In many a bloody day, From their old graves shall rouse them not; LINES, SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON. The tender Twilight with a crimson cheek Leans on the breast of Eve. The wayward Wind To slumber by the darken'd woods; the herds Have left their pastures, where the sward grows green And slow are winding home. Hark, from afar And happy palaces, and lead a life Of peace in some green paradise like this. The brazen trumpet and the loud war-drum Ne'er startled these green woods:-the raging sword The peaceful summer day hath never closed Of War's rude pomp:-the humble dweller here Hath never left his sickle in the field, To slay his fellow with unholy hand : The maddening voice of battle, the wild groan, And the shrill shriek of mortal agony, Have never broke its Sabbath solitude. |