Now shut the gates,—the fields have drunk enough
The time demands a Muse of sterner stuff;
No more one bard, exempt from vulgar throng,
May sing through Roman towns the Ascræan song,
Or court in Learning's elmy bowers relief
From individual shame or general grief:
Silence is music to a soul outworn
With the wild clangor of the warlike horn,
The paltry fife, the brain-benumbing drum.
When, white Astræa! will thy kingdom come,—
The chaster period that our boyhood saw,—
Arts above arms, and without conquest, Law,—
Rights well maintained without the strength of steel
And milder manners for the gentle weal,—
That Freedom's promise may not come to blight,
And Wisdom fail, and Knowledge end in night?
New Haven, August 8.
PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL.
Ingham and his wife have a habit of coming in to spend the evening with us, unless we go there, or unless we both go to Haliburton's, or unless there is something better to do elsewhere.
We talk, or we play besique, or Mrs. Haliburton sings, or we sit on the stoup and hear the crickets sing; but when there is a new Trollope or Thackeray,—alas, there will never be another new Thackeray!—all else has always been set aside till we have read that aloud.
When I began the last sentence of the last Thackeray that ever was written, Ingham jumped out of his seat, and cried,—
"There, I said I remembered this Duval, and you made fun of me. Go on,—and I will tell you all about him, when you have done."
So I read on to the sudden end:—