I, too, have cause this mighty loss to mourn,
For he, my monitor, will not return.
Oh, when shall we to his blest state arrive?
When the same graces in our bosoms thrive.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.

Through airy fields he wings his instant flight,
To purer regions of celestial light;

Enlarged he sees unnumber'd systems roll,
Beneath him sees the universal whole;
Planets on planets run their destined round,
And circling wonders fill the vast profound.
Th' ethereal now, now the empyreal skies,
With glowing splendors strike his wondering eyes:
The angels view him with delight unknown,
Press his soft hand, and seat him on his throne;
Then smiling thus: "To this divine abode,
The seat of saints, of seraphs, and of God,
Thrice welcome thou." The raptured babe replies:
"Thanks to my God, who snatch'd me to the skies
Ere vice triumphant had possess'd my heart,
Ere yet the tempter had beguiled my heart,
Ere yet on sin's base actions I was bent,
Ere yet I knew temptation's dire intent;
Ere yet the lash for wicked actions felt,
Ere vanity had led my way to guilt;
Early arrived at my celestial goal,
Full glories rush on my expanding soul."
Joyful he spoke; exulting cherubs round

Clapp'd their glad wings: the heavenly vaults resound.

Say, parents, why this unavailing moan?

Why heave your pensive bosoms with the groan?
Say, would you tear him from the realms above

By thoughtless wishes and mistaken love?
Doth his felicity increase your pain?
Or could you welcome to this world again
The heir of bliss? With a superior air
Methinks he answers with a smile severe;
"Thrones and dominions cannot tempt me there."

*

To yon bright regions let your faith ascend,
Prepare to join your dearest infant friend
In pleasures without measure, without end.

*

In vain for me the flow'rets rise,
And boast their gaudy pride,
While here beneath the northern skies
I mourn for health denied.

Celestial maid of rosy hue,
Oh, let me feel thy reign!
I languish till thy face I view,
Thy vanish'd joys regain.
Susannah mourns, nor can I bear
To see the crystal shower,
Or mark the tender falling tear,
At sad departure's hour;

Nor unregarding can I see

Her soul with grief opprest;
But let no sighs, no groans for me,
Steal from its pensive breast.

In vain the feather'd warblers sing,
In vain the garden blooms,
And on the bosom of the spring
Breathes out her sweet perfumes.

While for Britannia's distant shore
We sweep the liquid plain,
And with astonish'd eyes explore
The wide extended main.

Lo! Health appears, celestial dame,
Complacent and serene,

With Hebe's mantle o'er her frame,
With soul-delighting mien,

To mark the vale where London lies,
With misty vapors crown'd,
Which cloud Aurora's thousand dyes,
And veil her charms around.

Why, Phoebus, moves thy car so slow?
So slow thy rising ray?

Give us the famous town to view,
Thou glorious king of day!

For thee, Britannia, I resign
New England's smiling fields;
To view again her charms divine,
What joy the prospect yields!

But thou, Temptation, hence away,
With all thy fatal train,

Nor once seduce my soul away

By thine enchanting strain.

Thrice happy they whose heavenly shield

Secures their soul from harms,

And fell Temptation on the field

Of all its power disarms.

JOEL BARLOW, 1755-1812.

JOEL BARLOW, the author of The Columbiad, was born in Reading, Fairfield County, Connecticut, in 1755. He entered Dartmouth College in 1774, but soon Left that institution and went to Yale, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1778. He then entered upon the study of law, which he soon exchanged for theology, and received a license as chaplain to the army, in which he remained till the close of the war. While in this situation, he composed, with his friends, Rev. Timothy Dwight and Colonel Humphreys, various patriotic songs and addresses, which exerted no little influence upon the minds of the soldiery. He commenced, also, at this time, The Vision of Columbus, which afterwards forined the basis of his larger work, The Columbiad.

After the peace in 1783, Barlow went back from the gospel to the law, for which he was much better suited; and settled in Hartford. To add to his income, he established a weekly gazette, called The American Mercury, which gained for him considerable reputation by its able editorial management. About this time, he revised and published the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts; and two years after, in 1787, appeared his first large poem, on which he had been laboring for many years, The Vision of Columbus. To increase the sale of these, he gave up his newspaper and opened a book-store. But his books not doing so well as he expected, the next year he went to England as agent of a fraudulent land-company, of the nature of which he was at first ignorant: he gave up his agency, however, as soon as the character of the company became known to him. He was absent seventeen years, most of which time he spent in France, where he published a number of political pamphlets, and also his best and most celebrated poem, Hasty Pudding. In 1795, Washington appointed him consul at Algiers, with power to negotiate a treaty of peace with the Dey, and to ransom all Americans held in slavery on the coast of Barbary. He accepted the appointment, concluded the treaty favorably, and made similar ones with the Governments of Tripoli and Tunis. He was thus the happy means of freeing large numbers of Americans from Algerine slavery. In 1797, he returned to France, entered into commercial pursuits, and amassed a large fortune. In 1805, he sold all his property in France, returned home, and took up his residence at Georgetown, District of Columbia. In 1808, his Columbiad was published in quarto, in splendid style. The mechanical execution of this work entitles it to admiration; but this is about all that can be said in its praise. It is the history of Columbus in rhyme; and in poetical merit is about equal to Addison's Campaign. In 1811, he was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to France, to obtain indemnification for injuries sustained by American commerce. The next year he was invited to meet Napoleon at Wilna, in Poland, for a personal conference; but the great severity of the climate, fatigue, and exposure, brought on an inflammation of the lungs, and he died in an obscure village near Cracow, in Poland, on the 22d of December, 1812.

1 For much valuable information on this subject, read a Lecture before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, entitled "White Slavery in Algiers," by Charles Sumner

THE HASTY PUDDING.

CANTO I.

Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies;
Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurl'd,
Bear death to kings and freedom to the world,
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose,
A virgin theme, unconscious of the muse,
But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire
The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd,
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field;
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing
Joys that the vineyard and the stillhouse bring;
Or on some distant fair your notes employ,
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal,
The sweets of Hasty Pudding Come, dear bowl,
Glide o'er my palate and inspire my soul.
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song,
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame;
But, rising grateful to the accustom'd ear,
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere.
Assist me first with pious toil to trace,

Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race;
Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore,
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore,)
First gave thee to the world; her works of fame
Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.

Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize,
Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower,
In boiling water stir the yellow flour;

The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste,
Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,

Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,

Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim;

The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,

And the whole mass its true consistence takes.

CANTO II.

To mix the food by vicious rules of art, To kill the stomach and to sink the heart, To make mankind to social virtue sour,

Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour;

For tais the kitchen muse first framed her book,
Commanding sweat to stream from every cook;
Children no more their antic gambols tried,
And friends to physic wonder'd why they died.
Not so the Yankee; his abundant feast
With simples furnish'd and with plainness dress'd,
A numerous offspring gathers round the board,
And cheers alike the servant and the lord,
Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous taste,
And health attends them from the short repast.
While the full pail rewards the milkmaid's toil,
The mother sees the morning caldron boil:
To stir the pudding next demands their care,
To spread the table and the bowls prepare;
To feed the children as their portions cool,

And comb their heads and send them off to school.

Some with molasses line the luscious treat,
And mix, like bards, the useful with the sweet.
A wholesome dish and well deserving praise,
A great resource in those bleak wintry days
When the chill'd earth lies buried deep in snow,
And raging Boreas drives the shivering cow.

Bless'd cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ,
Great source of health, the only source of joy;
How oft thy teats these precious hands have press'd!
How oft thy bounties proved my only feast!
How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain!
And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain!
Ye swains, who know her various worth to prize,
Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies.
Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer,
Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer;
When spring returns she'll well acquit the loan,
And nurse at once your infants and her own.

Milk then with pudding I would always choose; To this in future I confine my muse, Till she in haste some further hints unfold, Well for the young, nor useless to the old. First in your bowl the milk abundant take, Then drop with care along the silver lake Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide; But when their growing mass no more can sink, When the soft island looms above the brink, Then check your hand; you've got the portion due; So taught our sires, and what they taught is true.

TO FREEDOM.

Sun of the moral world! effulgent source
Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,
Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand,
And radiate hence to every distant land;