ཏོརཿ 1:|:ཀ བྲག BALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. "The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around."-COLERIDGE. O, WHITHER sail you, Sir JOHN FRANKLIN? Cried a whaler in Baffin's Bay. To know if between the land and the pole may find a broad sea-way. I I charge you back, Sir JOHN FRANKLIN, As you would live and thrive; For between the land and the frozen pole No man may sail alive. But lightly laughed the stout Sir JOHN, Half England is wrong, if he is right; O, whither sail you, brave Englishman? Come down, if you would journey there, And change your cloth for fur clothing, But lightly laughed the stout Sir JOHN, I ween, were something new! All through the long, long polar day, The vessels westward sped; And wherever the sail of Sir JOHN was blown, The ice gave way and fled. Gave with way many a hollow groan, And with many a surly roar, But it murmured and threatened on every side; And closed where he sailed before. Ho! see ye not, my merry men, The broad and open sea? Bethink ye what the whaler said, Think of the little Indian's sled! The crew laughed out in glee. Sir JOHN, Sir JOHN, 't is bitter cold, The ice comes looming from the north, Bright summer goes, dark winter comes We cannot rule the year; The ships were staid, the yards were manned, The summer 's gone, the winter's come, Why sail we not, Sir JOHN FRANKLIN ? The summer goes, the winter comes We cannot rule the year: ween, we cannot rule the ways, I Sir JOHN, wherein we'd steer. The cruel ice came floating on, And closed beneath the lee, A sled were better than a ship, The snow came down, storm breeding storm, Till the weary sailor, sick at heart, Sank down beside his spade. Sir JOHN, the night is black and long, The hissing wind is bleak, The hard, green ice is strong as death:- The night is neither bright nor short, The ice is not so strong as hope The heart of man is bold! What hope can scale this icy wall, High o'er the main flag-staff? The summer went, the winter came- The winter went, the summer went, The winter came around: But the hard green ice was strong as death, Hark! heard ye not the noise of guns? 'Tis some uneasy iceberg's roar, As he turns in the frozen main. Sir JOHN, where are the English fields, Be still, be still, my brave sailors! And smell the scent of the opening flowers. Oh! when shall I see my orphan child? My Mary waits for me. Oh! when shall I see my old mother, And pray at her trembling knee? GEORGE H. BOKER. Be still, be still, my brave sailors! Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold, The ice grows more and more; Oh! think you, good Sir JOHN FRANKLIN, "T was cruel to send us here to starve, Without a helping hand. 'T was cruel, Sir JOHN, to send us here, To starve and freeze on this lonely sea: Oh! whether we starve to death alone, We have done what man has never done- ODE TO ENGLAND. OH, days of shame! oh, days of wo! Thy eyes may wander to and fro, Has weighed the guinea, poised the gold, Can grasp the sword and shield no more. But thou must look abroad for swords. These are the gods ye trusted in; Made honor cheap, made station dear, Of principles as high and clear With glittering pelf Ye gilt the coward, knave, and fool, Of gold, weighed nations in your golden scales, And surely this law never fails What else may change, this law stands fast 66 The golden standard is the thing To which the beggar, lord and king, They are your all; ye cannot look Gold, gold is all! Ye cannot fill Your brains with legends vague and th Men pale at what they hear, There's desolation every where, there's not one comfort nigh! The nations stands agaze, In dubious amaze, To see Britannia's threatening form, Rends the delusive cloud, And shows her weak and bowed, A feeble crone that hides for shelter from herillk With muffled heads and tristful faces bowed- In WILLIAM's haughty heart; In sorrowful dismay The warlike EDWARDS and the HENRIES stand, Stung with a shameful smart; hand, Smothers the passion in his ireful soul; tween Father and son, and put them both aside, As a lion from his lair, Asks with his eyes such questions keen To answer or abide. Whose patient valour, blow by blow, "What of our England?" ask Ah! shameful, shameful task! Down the path where falsehood ends. Of Cromwell wrinkle at the tale forlorn, Hear his low growl of scorn! Is this the realm these souls bequeathed to you, Oh! shame not the noble dead, Awake! the spirit yet survives To baffle fate and conquer foes! Men worthy of an English sire; Neither in rank nor gold, Nor aught that's bought and sold, On every hand, Rear up the strong, the feeble lop; Laugh at the star and civic fur, 1855. The blazoned shield and gartered knee— The gewgaws of man's infancy; And if the search be vain, Give it not o'er too suddenly— LIDA. LIDA, lady of the land, Called by men "the blue-eyed wonder," Hath a lily forehead fanned By locks the sunlight glitters under. She hath all that's scattered round, Through a race of winning creatures, All-except the beauty found By JOHNNY GORDON in my features. LIDA, lady of the land, Hath full many goodly houses; Fields and parks, on every hand, Where your foot the roebuck rouses; Valleys deep and mountains swelling, LIDA, lady of the land, Hath treasures, more than she remembers, Heaps of dusty gems that stand Like living coals among the embers: She hath gold whose touch would bring A lordship to a lowly peasant; All except this little ring, JOHNNY GORDON'S humble present. LIDA, lady of the land, Hath a crowd of gallant suitors; To hear the fortune of their proffers; LIDA, lady of the land, Keep your wondrous charms untroubled, May your wide domain expand, May your gems and gold be doubled! Keep your lords on bended knee! Take all earth, and leave us lonely, All-except you take from me Humble JOHNNY GORDON Only! JOHN R. THOMPSON. [Born, 1823.] JOHN R. THOMPSON was born in Richmond, Virginia, on the twenty-third of October, 1823. He was graduated at the University of Virginia, near Charlottesville; studied law in the office of Mr. JAMES A. SEDDON; returned to the University law school, and took the degree of bachelor of laws under Judge HENRY St. GEORGE TUCKER; and in 1845 came to the bar. A strong predilec conducted, in a manner eminently credite rary Messenger" magazine, which he has s his abilities, taste, and temper. Besides his and various contributions to this periodical, he ed several ingenious and highly finished lectures made frequent public addresses at colleges, delaand written occasional papers for the literary you nals of the north and south. He is one of t most accomplished and most useful writers of a tion for literature induced him near the close of the EXTRACT FROM "THE GREEK SLAVE." It is not that the sculptor's patient toil Fettered and friendless in the market-place There does the poor dejected slave display 594 Sweet visions cheer'd the sculptor's lonely hours And glorious images of heavenly mould Came trooping at his call, as blow by blow, The marble yielded to his constant toil, And when he gave his last informing touch And raised the chisel from that radiant brew, And gazed upon the work of his own hands, So cunningly struck out from shapeless stone, His eye dilated with a conscious joy, That patient effort with enduring life Had clothed his beauteous and majestic child. Such are thy triumphs, genius! such rewards As far outweigh all perishable gifts, Ingots of silver and barbaric gold And all the trophies of tiaraed pride. TO MISS AMELIE LOUISE RIVES, ON HER DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE LADY! that bark will be more richly freighted, With Colchian fleece or with Peruvian ores; earth, Whom thou dost love most dearly upon CHARLES G. LELAND. [Born, 1824.] THE author of "Meister KARL's Sketch Book" | was born in Philadelphia on the fifteenth of August, 1824. He is descended, according to the "Genæological Register," from the same family as the English antiquary, JOHN LELAND, who lived in the time of the eighth HENRY, and his first American ancestor was HENRY LELAND, who died in Sherburne, Massachusetts, in 1580. He was graduated at Princeton College, in 1846, and soon after went to Europe, and studied some time at the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, and Paris, devoting special attention to modern languages, æsthetics, history, and philosophy, under GERVINUS, THIERSCH, SCHLOSSER, and other teachers. Mr. LELAND in 1845 became a contributor to the "Knickerbocker" magazine, in which he has since published a great number of articles; and he has written much for other periodicals, chiefly on subjects of foreign literature and art. His "Sketch Book of Me Meister KARL," first given to the public through the pages of the "Knickerbocker," is an extraordinary production, full of natural sentiment, wit, amiable humor, incidents of foreign travel, description, moralizing, original poetry, odd extracts, and curious learning, all combined so as to display effectively the author's information, vivacity, and independence, and to illustrate the life of a student of the most catholic temper and ambition, who thinks it worth his while occasionally to indulge in studies from nature as well as from books, and enjoys a life of action quite as well as one of speculation. His "Poetry and mystery of Dreams" is the only work in English in which are collected the displays of feeling and opinion that the ingenious and learned in various ages have made respecting the activity of the mind during sleep. In its preparation he carefully examined the writings of ARTIMIDORUS, ASTRAMPSYCHIUS, NICEPHORUS of Constantinople, and ACHMET, the Arabian, as well as the authors of modern Europe who have treated systematically or incidentally of oneirology or the related mental phenomena. His last book, "Pictures of Travel," translated from the German of HENRY HEINE, is an admirable rendering of that great wit's "Reisebilder," in which the spirit of the original is given with a point and elegance rarely equalled in English versions of German poetry, while the whole is singularly literal and exact. Mr. LELAND's poems are for the most part in a peculiar view of satirical humor. He has an invincible dislike of the sickly extravagances of small sentimentalists, and the absurd assumptions of small philanthropists. He is not altogether incredulous of progress, but does not look for it from that boastful independence, characterizing the new generation, which rejects the authority and derides the wisdom of the past. He is of that healthy intellectual constitution which promises in every department the best fruits to his industry. And oh! but they all were beautiful, And their words were sweet as the wind harp's tone I had not deemed that a band like this 66 Who sat in the light-bright hall, She sat alone by an empty chair, |