His felicity in addressing the moral nature of man may be discovered in the following lines:

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'Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again."

This is very different from merely saying that, if we follow the example of the great and good, we shall live a noble life, and that the record of our deeds and struggles will strengthen the breasts of those who come after us, to do and to suffer.

Longfellow's verse occupies a position half way between the poetry of actual life and the poetry of transcendentalism. Like all neutrals, he is liable to attack from the zealots of both parties; but it seems to us that he has hit the exact point, beyond which no poet can at present go, without being neglected or ridiculed. An air of repose, of quiet power, is around his compositions. In The Spanish Student," the affluence of his imagination in images of grace, grandeur, and beauty, is most strikingly manifested.

SECTION IX.

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JOHN G. WHITTIER (says the North American Review) is one of our most characteristic poets. Few excel him in warmth of temperament. There is a rush of passion in his verse, which sweeps every thing along with it. His fancy and imagination can hardly keep pace with their fiery companion. His vehement sensibility will not allow the inventive faculties to complete what they may have commenced. The stormy qualities of his mind, acting at the suggestions of conscience, produce a kind of military morality, which uses all the deadly arms of verbal warfare. His invective is merciless and undistinguishing; he almost screams with rage and indignation. Of late, he has somewhat pruned the rank luxuriance of his style. He has the soul of a great poet, and we should not be surprised if he attained the height of excellence in his art

SECTION X.

ALFRED B. STREET, of Albany, editor of the Northern Light, is well entitled to a place among American poets, as will be apparent from his description of the Gray Forest Eagle.

THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE.

With storm-daring pinion and sun-gazing eye,
The Gray Forest Eagle is king of the sky!
Oh! little he loves the green valley of flowers,

Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours,
For he hears in those haunts only music, and sees
But rippling of waters and waving of trees;
There the red-robin warbles, the honey-bee hums,
The timid quail whistles, the shy partridge drums;
And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along,
There's a shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song;
The sunlight falls stilly on leaf and on moss,

And there's naught but his shadow black gliding across;
But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam
Of the fierce rock-lash'd torrent, he claims as his home;
There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood,
And the many-voiced sounds of the blast-smitten wood;
From the fir's lofty summit, where morn hangs its wreath,
He views the mad waters white writhing beneath :
On a limb of that moss-bearded hemlock far down,
With bright azure mantle and gay mottled crown,
The kingfisher watches, while o'er him his foe,
The fierce hawk, sails circling, each moment more low;
Now poised are those pinions and pointed that beak,
His dread swoop is ready, when hark! with a shriek
His eyeballs red blazing, high bristling his crest,
His snake-like neck arch'd, talons drawn to his breast,
With the rush of the wind-gust, the glancing of light,
The Gray Forest Eagle shoots down in his flight;
One blow of those talons, one plunge of that neck,
The strong hawk hangs lifeless, a blood-dripping wreck :
And as dives the free kingfisher, dart-like on high
With his prey soars the eagle, and melts in the sky.

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The advanced age to which the eagle is supposed to attain is thus beautifully described:

Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away,
But the Gray Forest Eagle minds little his sway:

The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,
Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;

But the eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud'
The green tiny pine shrub points up from the moss,
The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across;
The beechnut down dropping would crush it beneath,

But 'tis warm'd with heaven's sunshine and fann'd by its breath
The seasons fly past it, its head is on high,

Its thick branches challenge, each mood of the sky;
On its rough bark the moss a green mantle creates,
And the deer from his antlers the velvet down grates:
Time withers its roots, it lifts sadly in air

A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagged and bare,
Till it rocks in the soft breeze, and crashes to earth,
Its brown fragments strewing the place of its birth.
The eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight,
He has seen it defying the storm in its might,

Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er,
But the Gray Forest Eagle is still as of yore.
His flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud'
He has seen from his eyrie the forest below,

In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow,
The thickets, deep wolf-lairs, the high crag his throne,
And the shriek of the panther has answer'd his own.
He has seen the wild red man the lord of the shades,
And the smoke of his wigwams curl'd thick in the glades.
He has seen the proud forest melt breath-like away.
And the breast of the earth lying bare to the day:
He sees the green meadow-grass hiding the lair,
And his crag-throne spread naked to sun and to air;
And his shriek is now answer'd, while sweeping along,
By the low of the herd and the husbandman's song;
He has seen the wild red man swept off by his foes,

And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose,
But his flaming eye dims not, his wing is unbow'd,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud'
An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high,
Is the Gray Forest Eagle, that king of the sky!

It scorns the bright scenes, the gay places of earth-
By the mountain and torrent it springs into birth;
There, rock'd by the whirlwind, baptized in the foam,
It's guarded and cherish'd, and there its home'

SECTION XI.

E. W. B. CANNING, of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, has not yet published a volume of poems, but has furnished many valuable contributions to American poetry, in the weekly periodicals of our state, giving

promise of future productions of rare excellence. The following lines form part of a poem published in the New-York Tribune of August 8th, 1844. The subject is

AHAB.-2 Chronicles, xviii.

A day of splendor dawneth on thy towers,
Princely Samaria! From dome to dome
Leaps the bright flush that heraldeth the sun!
Thy walls, whose frowning battlements are stern
From time and war; thy skyey turrets' tops;
Thy palaces, the pride of Israel

And royal Ahab, and thy massy gates,

Whose lofty fronts are wrought with storied brass,
All lift a pompous welcome to the morn.

The sun of Palestine is still below

The unwaked mountains, yet the gorgeous East
Lighteth the curtains of her glory up

With majesty unutterable. See!

The emulous landscape, from the far-seen vale
Of Jordan on to Lebanon, lifts up

Its thousand hills to catch the golden hues
Of heaven-born beauty as they glow beyond!
There is a murmur as of breaking rest
In the proud capital, and straggling forms
Infrequent pace the ramparts-it may be
Of drowsy sentinels alert again,

As the throng stirs below them, or attempts
Th' unopen'd portals.

Hark! a brazen voice
Swells from the valley, like the clarion

That calls to battle. Skirting all the hills,
Speeds the blithe tone, and wakes an answer up
In rock and forest, till the vale hath talk'd
With all its tongues, and in the fastnesses
Of the far dingle, faint and fainter heard,
Dies the last sullen echo. "Tis the trump
That breaks the bivouac of an untold host-
Thy warrior sons, O Israel! Lo! their tents
Whiten the green declivities that gird
The royal city; and the gray of dawn
Blends the vast group into a boundless field
Of snowy canvas. Summoning the brave,
A voice hath pass'd from Dan to Beersheba;
The pride of Palestine hath heard the prince,
The valiant and the mighty, youth and strength,
And veteran age, have burnish'd shield and spear,
And buckled on their armor at the call!

For AHAB warreth-the uncircumcised

Have scoff'd the high-soul'd Hebrew-e'en the bless'd

Jehoshaphat hath sworn to help, and leagued
His people with idolaters to fight

The haughty Syrian.

Morning's eye hath oped, And the sun seeks the zenith. Oh! the sight His splendor looks on in this favor'd land, Whereon, though grievous are its sins, the curse Of the Almighty lingereth to fall!

Oh! who, to see the glory of its hills,

Its streams, its pastures, and its plains, where now
A matchless verdure smiles; its ancient groves;
Its cities wall'd, and towers of strength; its sons,
Countless as flocks that sport in happiness
Mid the green beauty of the fields, could dream
The Gentile's sword should mar its gorgeousness,
And spread its ashes to the winds of heaven!

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Now goes the royal mandate forth-"To arms!" Samaria's length and breadth, wall, streets, and gates, Bustle with warriors. Iron-girded men

In fast-form'd ranks haste downward to the plain.

The palace swarms with officers who wait

The monarch's orders; while through the throng'd ways, Steeds, with the speed of wind, and breath of fire,

Hurl the dun chariot with thunder on.

The shouts of legion'd myriads, and the clang
Of thousand battle trumpets, rend the air;

For the leagued kings are to the hosts gone down.

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Another bright day's sunset bathes the hills
That gird Samaria. Their green and gold
Sleep in their soft, unsullied lustre still,
As though earth knew no grief for evermore.
Ah! that is not the voice of joy that comes
From the wall'd capital. It is the wail

Of lone bereavement; for all Israel mourns.

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See, straggling o'er the mountain's back, the wrecks
Of yestermorn's illustrious hosts of war,
Inglorious, fugitive, ashamed, alone,

And soil'd with battle, dust, defeat, and blood.
'Neath Ephraim's vines the voice of minstrelsy
And mirth is hush'd, and sorrowing maidens lift
The loud lament-"How are the mighty fallen!
Husbands, and sires, and sons, and brothers went
To the leagued slaughter forth with pride and song;
But ah! there dawns no light on their return'
And the eye aches with weeping as it looks
Toward fatal Gilead's fields whereon they lie.
Weep, for the sword of the uncircumcised

Hath thinn'd the chosen people! Trail'd and torn