GEORGE W. CUTTER.

[Born, 18-.]

GEORGE W. CUTTER.

THE SONG OF LIGHTNING.

AWAY, away through the sightless air-
Stretch forth your iron thread;
For I would not dim my sandals fair
With the dust ye tamely tread;
Ay, rear it up on its million piers-

Let it reach the world around,

And the journey ye make in a hundred years

I'll clear at a single bound!

Though I cannot toil like the groaning slave
Ye have fetter'd with iron skill,

To ferry you over the boundless wave,
Or grind in the noisy mill;

Let him sing his giant strength and speed:
Why, a single shaft of mine
Would give that monster a flight, indeed,
To the depths of the ocean brine.

No, no! I'm the spirit of light and love:
To my unseen hand 't is given
To pencil the ambient clouds above,
And polish the stars of heaven.
I scatter the golden rays of fire

On the horizon far below,

And deck the skies where storms expire
With my red and dazzling glow.

The deepest recesses of earth are mine-
I traverse its silent core;
Around me the starry diamonds shine,
And the sparkling fields of ore;
And oft I leap from my throne on high
To the depths of the ocean's caves,
Where the fadeless forests of coral lie,
Far under the world of waves.

My being is like a lovely thought

That dwells in a sinless breast;

A tone of music that ne'er was caught-
A word that was ne'er expressed.

I burn in the bright and burnish'd halls,

Where the fountains of sunlight playWhere the curtain of gold and opal fulls

O'er the scenes of the dying day. With a glance I cleave the sky in twain, I light it with a glare,

When fall the boding drops of rain

Through the darkly-curtain'd air;
The rock-built towers, the turrets gray,
The piles of a thousand years,
Have not the strength of potters' clay

Before my glittering spears.

From the Alps' or the highest Andes' crag,
From the peaks of eternal snow,
The dazzling folds of my fiery flag

Gleam o'er the world below;

The earthquake heralds my coming power,
The avalanche bounds away,
And howling storms at midnight hour
Proclaim my kingly sway.

Ye tremble when my legions come-
When my quivering sword leaps out
O'er the hills that echo my thunder-drum,
And rend with my joyous shout:

the seas,

Ye quail on the land or upon
Ye stand in your fear aghast,
To see me burn the stalwart trees,
Or shiver the stately mast.
The hieroglyphs on the Persian wall,
The letters of high command,
Where the prophet read the tyrant's fall,
Were traced with my burning hand;
And oft in fire have I wrote since then,
What angry Heaven decreed-
But the sealed eyes of sinful men

Were all too blind to read.
At last the hour of light is here,

And kings no more shall blind,
Nor the bigots crush with craven fear

The forward march of mind;
The words of Truth, and Freedom's rays,
Are from my pinions hurl'd,
And soon the sun of better days

Shall rise upon the world.

But away, away, through the sightless air—
Stretch forth your iron thread;
For I would not soil my sandals fair

With the dust ye tamely tread.
Ay, rear it upon its million piers-

Let it circle the world around,

And the journey ye make in a hundred years
I'll clear at a single bound!

ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WORTIL
Now let the solemn minute gun

Arouse the morning ray,
And only with the setting sun

In echoes die away......
The muffled drum, the wailing fife,

Ah! let them murmur low,
O'er him who was their breath of life,

The solemn notes of wo!......

At Chippewa and Lundy's Lane,
On Polaklaba's field,
Around him fell the crimson rain,

The battle-thunder peal'd;
But proudly did the soldier gaze
Upon his daring form,
When charging o'er the cannon's blaze
Amid the sulphur storm.
Upon the heights of Monterey

Again his flag unroll'd,

And when the grape-shot rent away
Its latest starry fold,
His plumed cap above his head

He waved upon the air,
And cheer'd the gallant troops he led
To glorious victory there.

But ah! the dreadful seal is broke-
In darkness walks abroad
The pestilence, whose silent stroke
Is like the doom of GoD!
And the hero by its fell decree

In death is sleeping now,
With the laurel wreath of victory
Still green upon his brow!

ROBERT T. CONRAD.

[Born, 1810.]

ROBERT T. CONRAD was born in Philadelphia on the tenth of June, 1810. His first American ancestor was DENNIS CONRAD, an enlightened German pastor, who withdrew his flock from the religious intolerance of the father-land and settled with them in the neighborhood of Philadelphia during the residence of WILLIAM PENN in the colony. The family remained in the vicinity, and has furnished a succession of good citizens. The grandfather of our author, Mr. MICHAEL CONRAD, an eminent teacher of mathematics, discharged his class, on the breaking out of the revolution, and with his musket joined the army of WASHINGTON. His father, JOHN CONRAD, was from 1798 for many years the most extensive publisher and bookseller in this country, his main establishment being in Philadelphia, with branches in the principal cities of the South and West. He represented the city in the legislature, filled other offices of trust and His interest in public affairs soon led him to unhonor here, and for several years before his death dertake the leading articles of the "North Ameriwas mayor of the Northern Liberties, next to the can," and the editorial charge of " Graham's Magacity proper the most important of those munici- zine." More recently he has been president of palities which now constitute the consolidated one of the more important western railroad comtown. He possessed a vigorous and finely culti-panies, and on the union of the various municipavated understanding, gentle affections, and in all respects a perfect integrity of character. Mr. CONRAD's poems are in his best sonnet dedicated to his father. His maternal grandfather, JOHN WILKES KITTERA, was a learned lawyer, long at the head of the bar of Lancaster, which county he represented in Congress, and an intimate friend of the elder President ADAMS, who appointed him the federal attorney-general for the state.

to the bench. He was the youngest man, with, perhaps, the exception of Judge WILSON, ever dignified with the ermine in Pennsylvania. In March, 1838, he was elected to a court of higher and more extended jurisdiction, and in 1840, by an executive of conflicting politics, and against the protests of the administration party, on the unanimous recommendation of the bar was appointed to a still more elevated judicial position. It became his duty to try many of the most important cases ever adjudicated in the commonwealth, arising from those mercantile convulsions which a few years ago crushed the most powerful corporations and threw their officers and dependants before the bar of justice. A change occurred in the judicial system of which he had been a minister, and declining a place in the newly constituted court, he resumed the place of a counsellor and advocate.

lities of Philadelphia into one great city, was elected by an extraordinary majority its first chief magistrate. To the duties of this office, involving the establishment of a new and complicated system of administration, he has since devoted himself.

The literary labors of Judge CONRAD have for the most part been but relaxations from more arduous and less congenial pursuits; yet in a career singularly various, and always laborious, he has probably written as much for the press as any man so young. Most of his productions, in prose or verse, have been occasional, and have not di

Mr. CONRAD studied law with his uncle, Mr. THOMAS KITTERA, a distinguished jurist who represented Philadelphia several years in the national legislature, and was admitted to practice inverted him from what he may have conceived to 1830. While a student he wrote his first tragedy, "Conrad of Naples," which was successfully produced in the principal theatres of the country, and has been regarded by his friends as the best of his poems. He withdrew it from the stage, and with characteristic carelessness as to his literary productions, has suffered it to be lost. About the time of his early admission to the bar, being married, he connected himself with the press, and after having shared in the editorial duties of several journals, commenced in 1832 the publication of the Daily Intelligencer," some years afterwards united with the ancient "Philadelphia Gazette," in the management of which he was associated with CONDY RAGUET, the able economist, subsequently well known as our chivalric minis ter, during a stormy crisis, at Rio Janeiro. The arduous labors of the editor's room enfeebled his health, and in 1834 he resumed the practice of his profession, and in the following year was called

be the paramount obligations of practical life. His "Aylmere" was written in intervals of leisure during a period in which he was not absent for a day from the bench. It was intended for Mr. FORREST, and has proved the most successful American drama yet written. After deriving a large amount of money from its popularity on the American stage, Mr. FORREST presented it with equal good fortune in the theatres of Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. DAVENPORT also played in it nearly every night for an entire season in London. At the request of Mr. FORREST the author wrote another tragedy for him; it is entitled "The Heretic," and is founded on the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but though accepted by the actor, and paid for with his usual liberality, it has not been produced on the stage.

In 1852 Judge CONRAD published in one volume "Aylmere or the Bondman of Kent, and other Poems," and he has prepared for the press a work

ROBERT T. CONRAD.

under the title of "Bible Breathings," some por-
tions of which have appeared in the periodicals. and aspiring character of AYLMERE, softened and
justifies his eminence. The vehement, darirz
"Aylmere" is his principal production, and its harmonized by a fine enthusiasm, is happily co-
merits as a poem are not less remarkable than trasted with the gentle nature of his wife, wh
those it possesses as an acting play. The hero, is delineated with much delicacy, and preses
known in history as JACK CADE, AYLMERE, MEN- frequent occasions for the author to show th
DALL, or MORTIMER, leader of the English pea- conspicuous as are his powers as a rhetoricat,
santry in the insurrection of 1450, is a noble sub- displayed appropriately in the passionate declai
ject for a republican dramatist, and Judge CON- tion of the master in the play's movement, he is
RAD has presented him in the splendid colors of less at home in passages of repose and tender rare
a patriot, sharing the extremest sufferings of the
oppressed masses, knowing their rights, and brav-
ing all dangers for their vindication. The influ-
ence of institutions upon literature is strikingly

illustrated in the different treatment which "Mr.

JOHN AYLMERE, physician," as he is styled in
contemporary records -
cretion, according to the best authorities-receives
a man of talents and dis-
from SHAKSPEARE, who pleases a court by con-
temptuous portrayal of his own peer in social ele-
vation, and from Judge CONRAD, who, in the
audience of the people," delineates a man of the
people as possessed of that respectability which

The other principal poems of Judge COSA, of " Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer," marked alke are "The Sons of the Wilderness," and a series by earnestness, vigor, and pathos; and in his vo

of which some of the most characteristic are here passion, and skill in the details of art, are undou copied. The finest examples of his imagination, these it is extremely difficult to make satisfactory edly to be found in his dramatic poems, but from extracts, so dependent for its effect is every sentence upon the lines to which it is in relation, or the cha racter or situation of the person speaking.

ume are a considerable number of shorter pieces

THE STRICKEN.*

HEAVY! heavy! Oh, my heart Seems a cavern deep and drear, From whose dark recesses start, Flutteringly, like birds of night, Throes of passion, thoughts of fear, Screaming in their flight; Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep,

Thrills thine own breast alone. As streams that Spreading a horror dim-a woe that cannot weep!

glide

Over the desert rock, whose sterile frown
Melts not beneath the soft and crystal tide,
So passes thy sweet strain o'er hearts of stone.
Thine outstretched hands, thy lips unuttered moan,
Thine orbs upturning to the darkened sky,
(Darkened, alas! poor boy, to thee alone!)
Are all unheeded here. They pass thee by :-

Weary! weary! What is life
But a spectre-crowded tomb?
Startled with unearthly strife-
Spirits fierce in conflict met,
In the lightning and the gloom,
The agony and sweat;
Passions wild and powers insane.

Away! Those tears unmarked, fall from thy And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Pro

sightless eye!

Ay, get thee gone, benighted one!

Away!

This is no place for thee. The buzzing mart
Of selfish trade, the glad and garish day,
Are not for strains like thine.

There is no heart

To echo to their soft appeal:-depart!

Go seek the noiseless glen, where shadows reign,

Spreading a kindred gloom; and there, apart

methean pain!
Gloomy-gloomy is the day;
Tortured, tempest-tost the night;
Fevers that no founts allay-
Wild and wildering unrest-
Blessings festering into blight-
A gored and gasping breast!
From their lairs what terrors start,

From the cold world, breathe out thy pensive strain: At that deep earthquake voice-the earthquake

Better to trees and rocks, than heartless man,

complain!

I pity thee! thy life a live-long night;
No friend to greet thee, and no voice to cheer;
No hand to guide thy darkling steps aright,
Or from thy pale face wipe th' unbidden tear.
I pity thee! thus dark and lone and drear!
Yet haply it is well. The world from thee
Hath veiled its wintry frown, its withering sneer,
Th' oppressor's triumph, and the mocker's glee:
Why, then, rejoice, poor boy-rejoice thou can'st

not see!

of the heart!

Hopeless! hopeless! Every path
Is with ruins thick bestrown;
Hurtling bolts have fallen to scathe
All the greenness of my heart
And I now am Misery's own--

We never more shall part!
My spirit's deepest, darkest wave
Writhes with the wrestling storm. Sleep! sleep!
the grave! the grave!

*Turn thou unto me, and have mercy upon me: for 1

am desolate and in misery."-PSALMS.