JOHN PIERPONT.

And girded for thy constant strife with wrong,

Like Nehemiah, fighting while he wrought

The broken walls of Zion, even thy song

Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought.

WHITTIER TO PIERPONT

THE purchased puff-the hurrah of the mob-the presentation of medals-the multitude at one's heels-are not fame. Fame is the spirit of man's genius, which lives in the minds of others, while he lives and after he is dead; for fame is immortal. Popularity is ephemeral, and bears the same relationship to fame that shadow bears to substance. The gross Esau would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. He would mortgage the blessing of his father for personal gratification; while the man of true genius waits hopefully for the homage which will surely be paid to the everlasting forms of truth and beauty he has left on record, as the reflections of his own mind. Like Jacob, he sees a ladder of light reaching to heaven., He thinks little of himself and much of his subject. He aims at perfection and not popularity. He turns his back on the past, and his face towards the future. He is willing to abide the decision of posterity-hence he speaks the truth. Men of true genius are men of progress; they are reformers. Whoever saw a verse of genuine poetry in defence of oppres

sion? What tyrant ever wrote a stanza of pure poetry? Genius never glows in the heart of a tyrant, and Fame will never build her temple over his ashes. John Pierpont, the preacher and poet, is a man on whose shoulders the mantle of true genius has fallen. His pen is never elegantly feeble. He never gives you the glitter of fine words for the gold of pure thought. He does not cringe and creep and bow and lisp like a literary fop; but like a brave, honest, earnest man, as he is, speaks the sentiments that are born in his soul. He is an artist, who thinks the picture of more consequence than the frame. He will not spoil a good thought for the purpose of saying a good thing. He loves Nature more than he fears the Critic, and never commits infanticide on his ideas, at their birth, for fear they should hereafter be murdered by some hypocritical reviewer. The themes selected by him are congenial to his heart. Is there a temple to be dedicated to the service of God? his muse, with harp in hand, stands between the porch and the altar. Is there a monument to be erected over the dust of departed heroes? he there builds a pyramid of verse that will stand when the stones shall have fallen in decay. Is there a crisis in the cause of reform, when the great heart of humanity must speak or break? his words are its throbs, his song its sentiments.

No reform poet in America is so great a favorite among the élite and literati as Mr. Pierpont. Perhaps no man in this country receives as many invitations to read poetry before lyceums and colleges as he. At Harvard and New Haven, and every other place where genius is appreciated, he is

welcome. Notwithstanding this fact, Godey and Graham, and other lords in the kingdom of magazinedom never employ his pen. The best effusions of his classical quill are found in the reform journals, for he does not deem it beneath his dignity to contribute to the columns of the papers that are not fashionable and popular.

Holmes is the poet of taste and fashion, cheerful, gay, and light as Ariel. Should he prick a sinner with his stiletto, he would at once apologize, by declaring he was in fun, and hoped no offence. Longfellow is so nice and elegant, he sometimes does injustice to his noble nature; but he is fond of freedom, and sympathizes with the men of progress. Lowell is a radical, wielding a two-edged sword when he is aroused; he belongs to no school but his own. His muse is a jolly jade, with the thumb on her nose and all fingers of both hands vibrating, when she would pour contempt upon a national sin. Sprague's poetry is as current and more valuable than the bank bills that bear his signature. Whittier is the poet of the slave. Pierpont is emphatically the Temperance Poet.

his

See him standing in that magnificent Music Hall, reading poem before the members of the Mercantile Library Society. He is straight as a palm-tree, fanned by the "airs of Palestine," his snow-white hair looks like a halo of glory about his head, and the rosy glow of health upon his face, shows that his heart can never grow old. Few men of his years (he is upwards of sixty) have been young so long as he; few men of his age are so young as he is now. He always

dresses neatly, and has an air of military compactness, looks well in the street or on the platform. His eyes are blue and brilliant; forehead stamped with the lines of intellectual superiority; temperament sanguine-nervous. In any audience he would be singled out as a leader. As a speaker he is always interesting-often eloquent. There is a rich vein of poetry running through his sermons and speeches, which enhances the value of his efforts. While speaking, he stands erect, and has a habit of shaking his hand, with his forefinger extended, when he is earnestly emphatic on any particular subject under discussion, at the same time moving his head, while his eyes flash as though he was shaking stars out of his forehead. I wish I had space for a more extended specimen of his poetry. The following beautiful and melodious stanzas

are real poetry without a waste word :—

Was it the chime of a tiny bell,

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,

Like the silvery tones of a fairy shell

That winds on the beach, so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,

And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep,

She, dispensing her silvery light,

And he, his notes as silvery quite,

While the boatman listens and ships his oar,

To catch the music that comes from the shore?
Hark! the notes, on my ear that play,

Are set to words :-as they float they say,

"Passing away! passing away!"

But no; it was not a fairy's shell,

Blown on the beach, so mellow and clear;
Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell,

Striking the hour that filled my ear,

As I lay in my dream; yet it was a chime
That told of the flow of the stream of time,
For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,
And a plump little girl, for a pendulum swung
(As you've sometimes seen in a little ring
That hangs in his cage, a canary bird swing);
And she held in her bosom a budding bouquet,
And as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say

"Passing away! passing away!"

Where is the voter in America who has not heard the following extract from a popular poem entitled the BallotBox? I quote from memory:

We have a weapon firmer set,
And better than the bayonet,
A weapon that comes down as still
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod,

Yet executes a freeman's will,

As lightning does the will of God.

Perhaps no temperance poem ever had so wide a circulation as the "Two Incendiaries," recently published in the Life Boat. Here is a verse as pure, sparkling, and refreshing as the rain.

Ye gracious clouds! ye deep, cold walls,
Ye gems, from mossy rocks that drip!
Springs, that from earth's mysterious cells
Gush o'er your granite basin's lip!