I SAT me down upon a green bank-side,
Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river,

Whose waters seemed unwillingly to glide,

Like parting friends who linger while they sever;

Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready,

Backward they wind their way in many a wistful eddy.

Gray o'er my head the yellow-vested willow
Ruffled its hoary top in the fresh breezes,
Glancing in light, like spray on a green billow,

Or the fine frostwork which young winter freezes,
When first his power in infant pastime trying,
Congeals sad autumn's tears on the dead branches lying.

From rocks around hung the loose ivy dangling,
And in the clefts sumach of liveliest green,
Bright ising-stars the little beach was spangling,
The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen

Shone like a fairy crown, enchased and beaded,

Left on some morn, when light flashed in their eyes unheeded.

The humbird shook his sun-touched wings around,

The bluefinch caroll'd in the still retreat;

The antic squirrel capered on the ground

Where lichens made a carpet for his feet:
Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle
Shot up in glimmering sparks his red fin's tiny twinkle.

There were dark cedars with loose mossy tresses,
White powdered dog-trees, and stiff hollies flaunting

Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses,

Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting

A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden

Shining beneath dropt lids the evening of her wedding.

The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn,
Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em,

The winding of the merry locust's horn,

The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bosom: Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, Oh! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet's dwelling.

And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand
Again in the dull world of earthly blindness?
Pained with the pressure of unfriendly hands,

Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness?
Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude,
To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude?

Yet I will look upon thy face again,

My own romantic Bronx, and it will be
A face more pleasant than the face of men.
Thy waves are old companions, I shall see

A well-remembered form in each old tree,
And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.

SONNET.

Is thy heart weary of unfeeling men,

And chilled with the world's ice? Then come with me,

And I will bring thee to a pleasant glen

Lovely and lonely. There we'll sit, unviewed

By scoffing eye; and let our hearts beat free

With their own mutual throb. For wild and rude

The access is, and none will there intrude,

To poison our free thoughts, and mar our solitude! Such scenes move not their feelings-for they hold No fellowship with nature's loneliness;

The frozen wave reflects not back the gold
And crimson flushes of the sun-set hour;

The rock lies cold in sunshine-not the power
Of heaven's bright orb can clothe its barrenness.

ON LOOKING AT HIS PORTRAIT BY WEIR

COOPER, whose name is with his country's woven,
First in her files, her PIONEER of mind-
A wanderer now in other climes, has proven
His love for the young land he left behind;

And throned her in the senate-hall of nations,
Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought;
Magnificent as his own mind's creations,

And beautiful as its green world of thought:

And faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted
As law authority, it passed nem. con.:
He writes that we are, as ourselves have voted,
The most enlightened people ever known.

That all our week is happy as a Sunday
In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh;
And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy,
There's not a bailiff or an epitaph.

And furthermore-in fifty years, or sooner,
We shall export our poetry and wine;
And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner,
Will sweep the seas from Zembla to the Line.

If he were with me, King of Tuscarora!

Gazing, as I, upon thy portrait now,

In all its medalled, fringed, and beaded glory,
Its eye's dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow—

Its brow, half martial and half diplomatic,

Its eye, upsoaring like an eagle's wings;

Well might he boast that we, the Democratic,
Outrival Europe, even in our Kings!

For thou wast monarch born.

Tradition's pages

Tell not the planting of thy parent tree, But that the forest tribes have bent for ages To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee.

Thy name is princely-if no poet's magic

Could make RED JACKET grace an English rhyme, Though some one with a genius for the tragic Hath introduced it in a pantomime,