DEATH AMONG THE TREES.
| Death walketh in the forest. The tall Pines Do woo the lightning-flash,—and thro' their veins The fire-cup darting, leaves their blacken'd trunks A tablet, where Ambition's sons may read Their destiny. The Oak that centuries spar'd, Grows grey at last, and like some time-scath'd man Stretching out palsied arms, doth feebly cope With the destroyer, while its gnarled roots Betray their trust. The towering Elm turns pale, And faintly strews the sere and yellow leaf, While from its dead arms falls the wedded vine. The Sycamore uplifts a beacon-brow, Denuded of its honors,—while the blast That sways the wither'd Willow, rudely asks For its lost grace, and for its tissued leaf Of silvery hue. I knew that blight might check The sapling, ere kind nature's hand could weave Its first spring-coronal, and that the worm Coiling itself amid our garden-plants Did make their unborn buds its sepulchre. And well I knew, how wild and wrecking winds May take the forest-monarchs by the crown, And lay them with the lowliest vassal-herb; And that the axe, with its sharp ministry, Might in one hour, such revolution work, That all earth's boasted power could never hope To reinstate. And I had seen the flame Go crackling up, amid yon verdant boughs, And with a tyrant's insolence dissolve Their interlacing,—and I felt that man For sordid gain, would make the forest's pomp Its heaven-rear'd arch, and living tracery A funeral pyre. But yet I did not deem That pale disease amid those shades would steal As to a sickly maiden's cheek, and waste The plenitude of those majestic ranks, Which in their peerage and nobility, Unrivall'd and unchronicled, had reign'd. And then I said, if in this world of knells, And open graves, there lingereth one, whose dream Is of aught permanent below the skies, Even let him come, and muse among the trees, For they shall be his teachers,—they shall bow To their meek lessons his forgetful ear, And by the whispering of their faded leaves, Soften to his sad heart, the thought of death. |
L. H. S.
Hartford, Con. Sept. 10, 1834.
ORIGINAL LITERARY NOTICES.
AMIR KHAN, AND OTHER POEMS: the remains of Lucretia Maria Davidson, who died at Plattsburg, N. Y. August 27, 1825, aged 16 years and 11 months. With a Biographical Sketch, by Samuel F. B. Morse, A. M. New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill—1829.
We believe that this little volume, although published several years since, has but recently found its way to this side of the Potomac. Our attention has been attracted towards it by some notice of its contents in the Richmond Enquirer, whose principal editor we will do him the justice to say, has always manifested a lively interest in the productions of American genius. Mr. Ritchie is entitled to the more praise for his efforts in behalf of domestic literature, not only on account of his active and absorbing labors as a political writer, but because, also, we are sorry to add, the subject is one in which southern taste and intelligence have, for the most part, evinced but little concern. It is but too common for our leading men, professional as well as others, to affect something like a sneer at every native attempt in the walks of polite literature. Their example, we fear, has imparted a tone to the reading circles generally, and has served to beget that inordinate appetite for every thing foreign which has either obtained a fashionable currency abroad—or occasioned some excitement in that busy, noisy, gossipping class of society, whose merit is so vastly disproportioned to its influence. We have often known the sentimental trash and profane ribaldry of some popular Englishman eagerly sought after, and as eagerly devoured, whilst the pure and genuine productions of native genius have remained neglected on the bookseller's shelf, and quietly surrendered to oblivion. That this does, in some measure, proceed from an unenlightened and uncultivated public taste, we do not doubt; but it is much more the fruit of a slavish and inglorious dependence upon accidental circumstances,—a spiritless, and we might add, a cowardly apprehension of appearing singular—that is, of not chiming in with the shallow, vain and heartless tittle-tattle of the self-styled beau monde and corps elite of society. It is not the fault of the bookseller. The undertaker, who prepares the coffin and shroud, has as little participation in the death of the person for whom they are intended. The bookseller is but the caterer of the public palate; and if that palate is diseased, he is no more answerable for it, than the milliners and mantuamakers who are busily occupied in deforming the fairest part of creation, are censurable for the false taste of their customers.