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JOHN G. C. BRAINARD was born in Connecticut, in 1796, and was educated for the bar. In the circumstances of his life and death, he reminds one of Henry Kirke White; but as a poet, he was very much White's superior. He died of consumption, in New York, 1828,

1. How many now are dead to me

That live to others yet!

How many are alive to me

Who crumble in their graves, nor see
That sickening, sinking look, which we,
Till dead, can ne'er forget.

2. Beyond the blue seas, far away,
Most wretchedly alone,

One died in prison, far away,

Where stone on stone shut out the day,
And never hope or comfort's ray

In his lone dungeon shone.

3. Dead to the world, alive to me,

Though months and years have pass'd`;
In a lone hour, his sigh to me

Comes like the hum of some wild bee`,
And then his form and face I see,
As when I saw him last.

4. And one, with a bright lip, and cheek,
And eye, is dead to me.

How pale the bloom of his smooth cheek`!
His lip was cold-it would not speak:
His heart was dead-for it did not break,
And his eye, for it did not see`.

5. Then for the living be the tomb ́,
And for the dead, the smile`;
Engrave oblivion on the tomb

Of pulseless life and deadly bloom;
Dim is such glare; but bright the bloom
Around the funeral pile.

XIV. - THE MUSIC OF NATURE.

FROM WILLIS.

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS, an American poet, was born in Portland, in 1807, but soon removed to Boston. He is the author of many popular prose and poetical works. He has for a number of years resided in New York, and has been the editor of several periodicals.

1. THERE is a melancholy music in autumn. The leaves float sadly about with a look of peculiar desolation`, waving capriciously in the wind, and falling with a just audible sound, that is a very sigh for its sadness. And then, when the breeze is fresher, though the early autumn months are mostly still, they are swept on with a cheerful rustle over the naked harvest fields, and about in the eddies of the blast`; and though I have, sometimes, in the glow of exercise, felt my life securer in the triumph of the brave contest, yet, in the chill of the evening, or when any sickness of the mind or body was on me, the moaning of those withered leaves has pressed down my heart like a sorrow`, and the cheerful fire, and the voices of my many sisters, might scarce remove it.

2. Then for the music of winter. I love to listen to the falling of snow. It is an unobtrusive and sweet music. You may temper your heart to the serenest mood, by its low murmur. It is that kind of music, that only obtrudes upon your ear when your thoughts come languidly. You need not hear it, if your mind is not idle. It realizes my dream of another world, where music is intuitive like a thought ́, and comes only when it is remembered.

3. And the frost too has a melodious "ministry." You will hear its crystals shoot in the dead of a clear night, as if the moonbeams were splintering like arrows on the ground`; and you will listen to it the more earnestly, that it is the going on of one of the most cunning and beautiful of nature's deep mysteries. I know nothing so wonderful as the shooting of a crystal. God has hidden its principle as yet from the inquisitive eye of the philosopher, and we must be content to gaze on its exquisite beauty, and listen, in mute wonder, to the noise of its invisible workmanship.

It is too fine a knowledge for us. We shall comprehend it, when we know how the morning stars sang together.

4. You would hardly look for music in the dreariness of early winter. But, before the keener frosts set in, and while the warm winds are yet stealing back occasionally, like regrets of the departed summer, there will come a soft rain or a heavy mist, and when the north wind returns, there will be drops suspended like ear-ring jewels, between the filaments of the cedar tassels, and in the feathery edges of the dark green hemlocks, and, if the clearing up is not followed by the heavy wind', they will be all frozen in their places like well set gems. The next morning, the warm sun comes out`, and by the middle of the warm dazzling forenoon, they are all loosened from the close touch which sustained them, and they will drop at the lightest motion.

5. If you go upon the south side of the wood at that hour, you will hear music. The dry foilage of the summer's shedding is scattered over the ground, and the round, hard drops ring out clearly and distinctly, as they are shaken down with the stirring of the breeze. It is something like the running of deep and rapid water, only more fitful and merrier; but to one who goes out in nature with his heart open, it is a pleasant music, and, in contrast with the stern character of the season, delightful.

6. Winter has many other sounds that give pleasure to the seeker for hidden sweetness'; but they are too rare and accidental to be described distinctly. The brooks have a sullen and muffled murmur under their frozen surface; the ice in the distant river heaves up with the swell of the current ́, and falls again to the bank with a prolonged echo`; and the woodman's ax rings cheerfully out from the bosom of the unrobed forest. These are, at best, however, but melancholy sounds, and, like all that meets the eye in that cheerless season, they but drive in the heart upon itself. I believe it is ordered in God's wisdom. We forget ourselves in the enticement of the sweet summer. Its music and its loveliness win away the senses that link up the affections, and we need a hand to turn us back tenderly, and hide from us the outward idols", in whose worship we are forgetting the high and more spiritual altars.

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HENRY W. LONGFELLOW was born in Portland, in 1807, and entered Bowdoin College at the age of fourteen. He held a professorship of modern languages in the same institution, and in 1836 received the appointment of a professorship of the same kind in Harvard University at Cambridge, where he has since resided. His reputation as a writer is well known. He may be ranked among the first poets of the age.

1. UNDER a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands`,
The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands`;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

2. His hair is crisp, and black, and long`;
His face is like the tan`;

His brow is wet with honest sweat;
He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

3. Week in ́, week out`, from morn ́ till night,
You can hear his bellows blow`;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge
With measur'd beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

4. And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge ́,
And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

5. He goes, on Sunday, to the church,
And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach`,
He hears his daughter's voice,

Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

6. It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

7. Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes`;
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done
Has earn'd a night's repose.

8. Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend",
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus, at the flaming forge of life ́,
Our fortunes must be wrought`,
Thus, on its sounding anvil, shap'd
Each burning deed and thought.

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1. I never was a man of feeble courage. There are few scenes of either human or elemental strife ́, upon which I have not looked with a brow of daring. I have stood in the front of the battle when the swords were gleaming and circling around me like fiery serpents in the air. I have seen these things with a swelling soul, that knew not, that recked not danger.

2. But there is something in the thunder's voice, that makes me tremble like a child. I have tried to overcome this unmanly weakness. I have called pride to my aid; I have sought for moral courage in the lessons of philosophy, but it avails me nothing. At the first low moaning of the distant cloud, my heart shrinks and dies within me.

3. My involuntary dread of thunder had its origin in an incident that occurred when I was a boy of ten years. I had a little cousin, a girl of the same age with myself, who had been the constant companion of my youth. Strange, that, after the lapse of many years, that occurrence should be so familiar to me! I can see the bright young creature ́,

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