'A ducat to a beggarly denier' that we saw the same ocean, glowing under the same glorious summer-evening light, as is described in the lines which ensue. We have never compared notes with our author; but it seems impossible that the kindred scene in which we revelled on a memorable occasion at the Telegraph station, by the Narrows, should not have extended to Fire-Island; the locale, we cannot help inferring, of this picture:

Oft hath the man who loveth Nature's ways,
Musing, gone forth alone by Ocean's tide,
And, gazing on that amaranthine plain,
Hath mark'd the rich beams of descending day
Shoot slanting o'er the light and feathery waves,
Until the sea, by burning passion moved,
Through all its depths, turns into liquid gold,
And heaves and thrills beneath those ardent rays,
With love too strong for mortal minds to know,
With love too deep for mortal hearts to feel.
Then, from that glorious main, his soul-lit eye
Hath wander'd strait to heaven, and in one view
The pearl, and flame, and amethyst, and gold,
The shadowy vermeil flush, the purple light,
The amber-tinted streak, and banner'd clouds,
Like incense streaming up from Evening's shrine,
Wafted by gentle gales along the sky,
The beauty, brightness, majesty, and pomp,
The gorgeous splendor of the imperial West,
Burst on his raptured sight! He, happy then,
While Fancy's spirit-form smiles o'er his head,
Deems it the lovely sky that canopies
The land of Paradise.

Here is a wider reach of more varied scenery, yet not less forcible than the more 'thin compositions,' to use the painter's phrase:

First, as they look'd, there rose upon the sight
Long, waving chains of happy-smiling hills,
Uprising gently from the sloping vales,
As if to woo the rustling noontide winds:
Next, wide-expansive, music-making seas,
Across whose placid, soft-suspiring tides
The playful breezes fly, on tireless wings.
Then, 'neath their wond'ring eyes at once display'd,
Behold, in one far-sweeping, lovely view,
The broad green vesture of the quick'ning sod
Trembling with heat, and glowing into life
Under the warm sun's vivifying beams:
The Desert's thirsty plains gemm'd with their green
And cool oases, bright mid barren sands;
Rivers whose pearly tides stretch'd far away
Through fertile lands to Ocean's emerald brink;
And lakes that seem'd, in their transparent depths,
The crystal eyes of Earth. Here mountains, hills,
And winding dales, fair seas, and shining lakes,
And silvery streams, gay-blooming boughs, and flowery turf,
Conspire, in all their loveliest power, to make
The warm, the fresh, the pure, and beauteous form
Of this enamell'd world.'

Lovers of flowers; gentle maidens, scarcely less fragile and fair; and ye of the 'sterner sex,' who are not ashamed to praise heaven and earth; we ask you if the ensuing lines are not 'beautiful exceedingly:'

The red Rose, blushing in its virgin pride,
Hangs lightly on its green and briery stalk,
And kisses from its pale-cheek'd sister's brow,
With trembling lip, the pearly tear away.

Here Violets, that spring by stealth at night,
Of rarer scents and sweeter shapes than those
Pluck'd by the village maiden in the vale,
Ere yet the sun hath touch'd their dewy leaves,
Mingle their balmiest odors and their hues
With the soft-nectar'd sighs
Of wind-flowers, pansies, hyacinths, oxlips,
And sun-striped tulips tall,
Until the freighted airs themselves grow faint,
And on their weary way sink down to sleep
Among the silent wild-flowers watching there.

We have purposely abstained from a detailed review or analysis of the poem under notice; preferring that the reader should derive his impression of the performance from such portions of it, taken almost at random, as we could command space to present; leaving him to seek in the volume itself that gratification of which we are sure our extracts will give him a foretaste. It was our intention to have animadverted upon the use of certain words and compounds which struck us as being infelicitous; but we can only transcribe a few of them, without comment, from our pencilled copy: 'Jehovah's fadeless arms;' 'frost-enmirror'd;' 'sun-bedazzled;' 'ornamentless curves;' 'rich-rubied rays,' etc. 'To conclude:' we consider the present poem a manifest improvement upon 'Ahasuerus,' which was noticed at length in these pages. The author is now 'well in harness,' and moves on without incumbrance. Once more we welcome him to the quiet walks of literature, which he treads so pleasantly; and again we greet him with 'Macte virtute!'

Exercises of the Alumnæ of the Albany Female Academy, on their Second Anniversary, July 20, 1843. Albany: C. Van Benthuysen and Company.